Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney

Japan has a very clear vision of what the Asia-Pacific’s clean energy future looks like – decarbonisation, but done slowly and with a longer role for coal, oil and gas.

It was on full display this week as energy ministers from nine South-East Asian nations, Japan and Australia gathered in Jakarta to hash out a shared vision for Asia’s energy future, under Japan’s Asian Zero Emissions Community (AZEC) initiative launched last year.

But there’s a clear problem here. Japan’s vision clashes directly with Australia’s efforts to become a green export superpower. And worse, Japanese investment is a key reason why Australia has emerged as an unlikely gas export giant.

Energy security is front of mind for Japanese policymakers worried about keeping the lights on across their import-dependent archipelago. While Tokyo does have green energy plans, its short-term push is all about prolonging the life of fossil fuels – coupled with carbon capture.

Labor came to power promising to act faster on climate change. By decade’s end, Australia should be largely run on renewables, and Canberra wants to make clean exports a reality.

But Japan is making that harder by financing gas exploitation in Australia. This could lock our fast-growing and energy-hungry region into much longer reliance on dirty fossil fuels and questionable carbon capture plans.

There’s a real danger Australia’s green export plans could be washed away by a tide of new fossil fuels.

So what are Japan’s zero emission plans?

In 2022, the Japanese Prime Minister Kishido Fumio began promoting a triple breakthrough – efforts combining decarbonisation, economic growth and energy security. Fumio launched the Asian Zero Emissions Community to encourage the idea.

While these goals sound reasonable, the devil is in the detail. The world’s fourth-largest economy, Japan has long been dependent on imported coal, oil and gas – and more so after the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced nuclear plant shutdowns. Even as the world belatedly scrambles to tackle climate change, Japanese policymakers are still focused on keeping fossil fuels flowing. Many AZEC projects aim to use fossil fuels for electricity.

The government’s energy policies explicitly aim to secure long-term supplies of fossil fuels and encourage Japanese firms to be involved. Japan is now the world’s second-largest public financier of international fossil fuel projects, spending more than A$7 billion every year.

How does this align with net zero? Japan claims new fossil fuel plants can slash emissions by burning ammonia in coal plants, blending hydrogen with fossil gas in gas plants and ramping up carbon capture and storage.

Each of these technologies is expensive and largely unproven. They cannot cut emissions at anywhere near the scale or speed needed. And every million spent on propping up fossil fuels is a million not spent on renewables and storage.

Japanese funding makes Australian gas flow

Japan sees Australia as a friendly nation with huge fossil fuel resources and longstanding trade links.

Any changes to coal and gas extraction have been met with Japanese lobbying. When Queensland hiked coal royalties in 2022, Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, pushed back hard. The move, he warned, could have “widespread effects on Japanese investment beyond the coal industry”.

When the federal government strengthened the Safeguard Mechanism, our main industrial emissions policy, costs increased for some gas projects. In response, Yamagami dialed up his rhetoric, warning the neon lights of Tokyo would go out without Australian energy exports.

Japan isn’t burning it all at home. It on-sells more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other Asian nations than it imports from Australia.
Without Japan’s funding on favourable terms, our LNG producers would not be able to compete with lower-cost producers such as Qatar.

Given a global gas glut is now forecast to arrive by 2026, Australia should be looking to dial down LNG. But Japan won’t let that happen.

Just this year, Japan loaned $2.5 billion to help Woodside develop Western Australia’s massive Scarborough gas field.

Independent and green – or dependent and dirty?

Domestically, Australia is greening. Coal is retiring as renewables and storage rush in. Last year, 40% of the power in our main grid came from clean energy and more than 80% of Australia’s total power needs should be provided by renewables by 2030. But internationally, we’re now the second-largest exporter of carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

With major reserves of critical minerals (essential for renewables and batteries) and world class renewable resources, Australia is ideally placed to export green commodities to the region.

The Albanese government is promoting Australia as a “renewable energy superpower” and will invest public money through the Future Made in Australia plan to give local green industries a chance of global success.

But Japan has a different vision. Funding flows from Tokyo have already distorted Australia’s energy market and boosted demand for gas in the region. Worse, it has made it harder for Australian leaders to create future-focused industries. New gas projects pull investment, workers and supply-chain capacity away from clean energy industries.

It’s not that Japan is anti-renewable. It’s just slow to move. Tokyo has ambitious plans to become the world’s top producer of energy from offshore wind.

Recent modelling shows Japan could achieve 90% clean energy by 2035, gaining far greater energy independence and slashing reliance on expensive fossil fuels. If Japan took this route, we would likely see its Australian investments shift from gas to green exports.

But right now, Japan’s focus is on keeping fossil fuels flowing.

Australia has to help shape Asia’s energy transition. If we don’t, we risk our future being made in Tokyo.

Wesley Morgan is a research fellow with the Griffith Asia Institute and a fellow with the Climate Council of Australia.

– ref. Which future? Japan’s net zero vision for the region boosts gas and threatens green exports in Australia – https://theconversation.com/which-future-japans-net-zero-vision-for-the-region-boosts-gas-and-threatens-green-exports-in-australia-236486

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University

Strong men and women have been admired in many cultures for thousands of years, with stone lifting and carrying especially revered.

Immensely strong humans have had a long history in the circus, with the legendary performances of Paul Anderson, Louis Cyr, Minerva and Katie Sandwina still discussed and debated today.

The current sport of strongman developed out of the 1977 TV show called World’s Strongest Man, which pitted some of the largest and strongest male athletes from weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding, American football and athletics against each other to determine who was actually the strongest.

Some of the most iconic events in this sport include truck pulling (where athletes pull a truck as quickly as possible over a course of 20 to 30 metres) and atlas stones (where athletes attempt to lift concrete stones often the size of Swiss balls off the ground and place them on raised platforms around chest high).

Recently, Sandra Bradley became the first woman to lift the 154kg Fullsterkur stone at Dritvik, Iceland.

Some people might look at strongman or strongwoman training and think it is more of a spectacle than a sport. However, strongman and strongwoman is now a more diverse and inclusive sport, including athletes with disabilities and women trying to build strength after having a baby.

Competitions now exist at all levels from novice to elite, with a range of bodyweight categories for teenage, masters, female and individuals with a disability.

It’s not just strong men, now

Weight training has traditionally been considered a male-dominated sport, but in recent years, this has changed. As a strongwoman competitor, I, Zyoa, have seen this growth firsthand.

Back in 2015, it was rare to find more than three women at the strongman gym, whereas today, women sometimes outnumber the men.

The benefits of weight training for women include improved strength and reduced likelihood of chronic illnesses such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Beyond the health benefits though, strength training in women has been shown to improve body satisfaction and body image.

One study of women aged 35-55 found regular strength training improved appreciation and acceptance of one’s body, as participants focused on strength and power goals rather than bodyweight and size.

A more recent study found female powerlifters had improved body image, reduced self-objectification and enhanced mental wellbeing.

The results of this study can certainly be applied to those who do strongwoman training because, like the participants of the study, strongwoman athletes engage in a similar type of training that focuses on maximising strength.

How is it different from ‘normal’ strength training?

Strongman typically involves some modified gym lifts such as deadlifts, squats and overhead presses.

However, what sets apart strongman from sports such as weightlifting and powerlifting is incorporating awkward implements that better replicate “real world” strength.

These events include historical strength feats such as stone lifting as well as “dynamic events” such as vehicle pulls, tyre flips, farmer’s walks and yoke walks, where the athlete who completes a course in the shortest time is the winner.

Not everyone trains to reach the top levels of a sport – few people will ever get close to performing a 500kg deadlift, like the legendary Eddie Hall did in 2016. However, strongman training might be substantially more effective than standard resistance training when it comes to things like the manual tasks in your job or around the home.

For example, do you find carrying groceries or a suitcase to be challenging? If so, practising the farmer’s walk (which can be simply done using dumbbells) would make this household task much less of a chore.

Similarly, lifting and/or carrying stones, kegs or sandbags would make any task in which you have to pick up heavy objects from the ground and carry it a set distance a “walk in the park”.

What are the benefits and risks?

Many male and female athletes of varying ages, sexes and abilities are now performing some versions of strongman lifts in their training, with organisations such as the United States’ National Academy of Sports Medicine now advocating the evidence-based use of some of these exercises such as heavy sleds.

In Australia, junior female rugby players perform tire flips and pushes and one of Australia’s best athletes, Tia-Clair Toomey (a six-time world CrossFit champion) regularly performs strongman lifts such as a yoke walk and sled drag.

Research is starting to reinforce why many strength and conditioning coaches use strongman lifts in their athletes’ training programs.

A 2015 training study involving 30 sub-elite rugby players indicated traditional resistance and strongman training produced similar improvements in muscle mass, strength, sprinting and jumping performance after seven weeks of training.

A more recent study from 2023 involving junior Australian football players indicated heavy sled sprints significantly improved sprint performance and various lower body strength and power measures.

A caveat to these benefits is that it’s important to learn proper technique from knowledgeable coaches and initially use loads that are easily within your capabilities, slowly progressing over time.

How would a first-timer get started?

As always, before starting any new exercise program, it is important to see a doctor to get the all clear.

The next step is to find a strongman gym, which will have equipment like atlas stones, yokes and farmer’s handles for you to get a sense of the implements.

Many of these gyms have introduction classes which may be a great place for a newbie to start.

If a gym nearby is not possible, there are many online coaches that specialise in strongman/woman training. There are many Facebook groups that are a good place to start to find a coach, too.

A coach can also help you by providing a personalised training plan that can help you build up strength slowly, teach you proper technique and help you progress safely.

Zoya Huschtscha receives funding from California Almonds.

Justin Keogh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Strongman used to be seen as a super-human novelty sport. Now more women and novices are turning to it – https://theconversation.com/strongman-used-to-be-seen-as-a-super-human-novelty-sport-now-more-women-and-novices-are-turning-to-it-233219

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Czeslaw Tubilewicz, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Adelaide

When Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ team vetted Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, his Midwestern roots and background as a teacher, coach and veteran distinguished him from the typical “coastal elite”. However, it’s unclear whether her team considered Walz’s ties to China to be an asset or a potential liability.

Walz first travelled to China in 1989-1990 to teach in the southern city of Foshan. In subsequent years, he organised study tours to China. By 2016, Walz had visited China some 30 times, including a honeymoon trip after marrying a fellow teacher on June 4, 1994, the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He also earned a nickname in his time there: 田华 or “fields of China”.

Republicans and the conservative media have viewed Walz’s China ties with suspicion. Senator Tom Cotton demanded an explanation for Walz’s relationship with China. And Senator Marco Rubio proclaimed, “Walz is an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders”.

Other conservatives labelled Walz a Manchurian candidate and called him “Totalitarian Tim”. The National Review asserted that Walz had engaged with “senior Chinese leaders” as governor. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has even launched a probe into Walz over his China ties.

Democrats and the mainstream media, meanwhile, have sought to describe Walz’s China connections with more nuance. They have highlighted his concern for human rights in China and his meetings with the Dalai Lama and Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong.

The New York Times said Walz’s “relationship with China defies easy stereotypes”. Foreign Policy described him as a “measured critic” of the Chinese Communist Party.

But how does China view Harris’ selection as a running mate, and what could he mean for the trajectory of US-China relations?

Chinese media sees positives

Harris’ selection of Walz did not spark controversy in China. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning avoided commenting on his selection, calling for win-win cooperation with the United States.

The tightly censored media, meanwhile, downplayed Walz’s support for Tibet and a democratic Hong Kong and his criticism of the Communist Party’s human rights record. Instead, the media focused largely on three themes.

Surprisingly, Walz’s teaching in China, while duly noted in numerous reports, received the least amount of attention. An ultra-nationalist outlet, Guancha.cn, contacted his former Chinese colleague from Foshan, who described Walz as “very nice” and “well-liked”. The Beijing News highlighted Walz’s “rich life experience”, including his teaching, frequent visits and honeymoon in China, but didn’t mention his wedding date of June 4.

The Chinese press devoted more attention to explaining why Harris chose Walz as her running mate.

One outlet noted he was a “real redneck” (乡下人), referencing his ability to challenge Republican Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy. The Beijing News underscored his political accomplishments, including championing progressive policies in Minnesota. The Paper, a state-owned online publication known for its liberal coverage of current affairs, focused on Walz’s appeal to independent voters and moderate Republicans.

Finally, while Chinese media analysts largely avoided discussing Walz’s stance on China, a few implied that he might advance Beijing’s agenda.

The China Daily mentioned his support for non-adversarial relations with China, praising his capacity to make “more rational and informed decisions on US-China relations”. In the same article, it noted that Vance called “China the biggest threat to the US”.

The Paper contended that Walz’s criticism of China could reflect Democratic Party “prejudices”, rather than his personal views. It concluded:

It is difficult to judge which of Congressman Walz and Governor Walz is expressing his true self in his attitude towards China, or we cannot deny the possibility that the two are not contradictory to some extent.

However, it is probably certain that Walz and his wife’s experience in China should be generally positive.

Not everyone is convinced

The China-US Focus, a publication of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, took a similar view. According to US politicians, conservative think tanks, and media reports, the organisation is a part of the Communist Party’s “United Front” influence operations to help shape foreign perceptions of the party and suppress criticisms of China.

China-US Focus examined Walz’s congressional record, his promotion of Minnesota’s relations with China and his opposition to the US-China trade war and the proposed ban of TikTok. It argued:

Walz’s unique China experience is an asset that […] will directly affect Harris’ China policy. From the Chinese perspective, Walz is a person China is willing to proactively engage with.

China-US Focus also attacked Republicans for spreading “conspiratorial” rumours and mainstream media for covering them.

Chinese “netizens”, as the country’s internet users are known, have shared the media’s broadly positive portrayal of Walz. They have praised his progressive politics and contrasted him with “Uncle Trump”, who one person referred to as a “high school bully”.

Still, not all seemed convinced about Walz’s capacity to influence US-China relations. One person commented that living in China does not automatically make someone pro-China, suggesting US politicians are generally untrustworthy. And sceptics questioned the authenticity of Walz’s friendship with China, posting his photo with Wong as evidence.

So, while some Chinese netizens remain doubtful that Walz will change Washington’s China strategy, the emerging perspective in China portrays him as the least controversial – if not the preferred – candidate in the upcoming US presidential election. Contrary to some analysts, Beijing appears to be counting on “fields of China” (田华) to lead the White House towards a more China-friendly policy.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Republicans believe Tim Walz has been ‘groomed’ by China. But how does China view him? – https://theconversation.com/republicans-believe-tim-walz-has-been-groomed-by-china-but-how-does-china-view-him-236867

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

International authorities are issuing warnings about “sloth fever”. Despite the name, it’s not contracted via contact with sloths. Rather, you should avoid contact with mosquitoes and biting midges.

So how can Australians protect themselves from sloth fever when travelling to South and Central America? And how does “sloth fever” compare with other mosquito-borne diseases, such as Zika?

What is ‘sloth fever’?

Sloth fever is caused by Oropouche virus and is formally known as Oropouche virus disease or Oropouche fever.

The virus is an orthobunyavirus. So it’s from a different family of viruses to the flaviviruses (which includes dengue, Japanese encephalitis and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses) and alphaviruses (chikungunya, Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses).

Oropouche virus was first identified in 1955. It takes its name from a village in Trinidad and Tobago, where the person who it was first isolated from lived.

Symptoms include fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, joint pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash. This makes it difficult to distinguish it from other viral infections. Around 60% of people infected with the virus become ill.

There is no specific treatment and most people recover in less than one month.

However, serious symptoms, including encephalitis and meningitis (inflammation of the brain and membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord) have occasionally been reported.

What’s happening with this latest outbreak?

In July, the Pan American Health Organization issued a warning after two women from northeastern Brazil died following infection with Oropouche virus, the first fatalities linked to this virus.

There has also been one fetal death, one miscarriage and four cases of newborns with microcephaly, a condition characterised by an abnormally small head, where infection during pregnancy occurred. The situation is reminiscent of the Zika outbreak in 2015–16.

Oropouche had historically been a significant concern in the Americas. However, the illness had slipped in importance following successive outbreaks of chikungunya and Zika from 2013 to 2016, and more recently, dengue.

How is Oropouche virus spread?

Oropouche virus has not been well studied compared to other insect-borne pathogens. We still don’t fully understand how the virus spreads.

The virus is primarily transmitted by blood-feeding insects, particularly biting midges (especially Culicoides paraensis) and mosquitoes (potentially a number of Aedes, Coquillettidia, and Culex species).

We think the virus circulates in forested areas with non-human primates, sloths and birds as the main suspected hosts. During urban outbreaks, humans are carrying the virus and blood-feeding insects then go on to infect other people.

The involvement of biting midges (blood sucking insects mistakenly known as “sandflies” in Australia) makes the transmission cycle of Oropouche virus a little different to those only spread by mosquitoes. The types of insects spreading the virus may also differ between forested and urban areas.

Why is Oropouche virus on the rise?

The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued a warning about rising cases of Oropouche in the Americas. Cases are rising outside areas where it was previously found, such as the Amazon basin, which has authorities concerned.

More than 8,000 cases of disease have been reported from countries including Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Cuba.

Cases of travellers acquiring infection in Cuba and Brazil have been reported on return to Europe and North America, respectively.

While a changing climate, deforestation and increased movement of people may partly explain the increase and geographic spread of the virus, something more may be at play.

Oropouche virus appears to have a greater potential for genomic reassortment. This means the evolution of the virus may happen faster than other viruses, potentially leading to more significant disease or increased transmissibility.

Other types of orthobunyaviruses have been shown to undergo genetic changes to result in more severe disease.

Should Australia be concerned?

Without more definitive information about the role of local biting midges and mosquitoes in Oropouche virus spread, it is difficult to assess how great the risk is to Australia.

The risk of an infected traveller bringing the virus to Australia is low. Very few cases of Zika were reported in travellers from South or Central America returning to Australia. Dengue is rarely reported from those travellers either.

The biting midges most important to the spread of the virus in the Americas are not present in Australia.

While the risks are low, authorities need to be aware of potentially infected travellers returning from South and Central America and to have appropriate testing protocols to identify infection.

Australia has its own local orthobunyaviruses and while these are known to infect people, the health risks are considered low.

What can travellers do to protect themselves?

There are no vaccines or specific treatments available for Oropouche virus.

If you’re travelling to countries in South and Central America, take steps to avoid mosquito and biting midge bites.

Mosquito repellents containing diethytoluamide (DEET), picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus have been shown to be effective in reducing mosquito bites, and are expected to work against biting midge bites too.

Wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants and covered shoes will further reduce the risk.

Sleeping and resting under insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets will help, but much finer mesh nets are required as biting midges are much smaller than mosquitoes.

Although no specific warnings have been issued by Australian authorities, the CDC and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control have warned that pregnant travellers should discuss travel plans and potential risks with their health-care professional.

Read more:
Mozzie repellent clothing might stop some bites but you’ll still need a cream or spray

Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management.

Andrew van den Hurk has received funding from local, state and federal agencies to study the ecology of mosquito-borne pathogens, and their surveillance and control. He is an employee of the Department of Health, Queensland Government.

– ref. What is ‘sloth fever’? And how can I avoid it when travelling to South America? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-sloth-fever-and-how-can-i-avoid-it-when-travelling-to-south-america-236883

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Professeure agrégée en design de l’environnement, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Every summer, Canada’s major cities come alive, with the addition of pedestrianized streets, al-fresco dining, parklets and other temporary installations. The ever-growing conversion of roadways into car-free public spaces allows citizens and tourists alike to enjoy a greater portion of the streets, turning cities into a convivial, festive, and dynamic destination.

Summer also coincides with the release of Time Out’s list of the world’s coolest streets. Canadian cities are regularly featured on this list in recent years, with, for example:

• No. 1 in 2022: Montréal’s Wellington Street

• No. 5 in 2024: Vancouver’s Commercial Drive

• No. 14 in 2022: Toronto’s Ossington Avenue

• No. 27 in 2024: Montréal’s St-Hubert Plaza

What makes a street “cool?” Who is this type of ranking for and what impact can it have locally? As design professor at UQAM’s School of Design and a doctoral student at INRS-UQAM’s joint urban studies program, we looked into these issues.

Prize lists that make you dream

Headquartered in London, Time Out is a global media and hospitality company specialized in urban tourism, which operates on multiple digital and physical platforms. After over fifty years of operation, it prides itself on being “the only international brand dedicated to urban living” and vows to “inspire travel and allow people to discover the best that the city has to offer.”

Apart from cool streets, the company publishes all kinds of other lists. These include an annual compilation of the world’s top cities and of the trendiest neighborhoods, the best TV shows of all time, the best summer songs, best pasta shapes, best hangover cures, and more. A variety of travel, leisure or business magazines feature these lists in their own publications.

“Coolness” according to Time Out

Time Out relies upon a global network of journalists, specialized in the arts, gastronomy, travel and entertainment, located in 333 cities and 59 countries, to identify the 30 streets that make the list, after consulting tens of thousands of city dwellers.

Several criteria determine their degree of “coolness”, including, among other things, the local offer in terms of gastronomy, entertainment and nightlife, as well as the street’s authentic character. The cool street is a friendly place, where everyone feels welcome and wants to hang out. A mix of local residents and discerning city dwellers patronize its various bars, cafes and independent businesses. In recent years, new criteria such as outdoor terraces, pedestrianization and initiatives linked to sustainable development have also been taken into account. Although scattered across the world, these streets share the same DNA. They are generally located in cities that appear on the Time Out ‘top cities’ list.

These are also often cities where the company built one of its famous gourmet markets. There are eight Time Out Markets around the world, in Lisbon, New York, Boston, Montréal, Chicago, Dubai, Cape Town and Porto, with several more to come. This may explain the company’s interest in promoting tourism to these destinations.

The streets that appear on the list generally feature establishments that themselves appear on coveted lists: starred restaurants, clandestine bars, exclusive boutiques, renowned micro-breweries, artisan bakers, etc. They are located on the fringes of the usual tourist circuits, in areas which have yet to be conquered by gentrification and large commercial chains.

Typically, these destinations are first discovered by a local elite of artists, connoisseurs and members of the bohemian bourgeoisie, in search of “authentic” experiences, sheltered from crowds and mass consumerism, where they rub shoulders with neighborhood regulars. They are followed by influencers, on the lookout for unexplored territories, off the beaten track, who will attest to their cosmopolitanism, their audacity, discernment, and their own trendiness.

Local streets and international consumerism

They are, to a large extent, the main targets of these rankings. At a time when the greatest vectors of influence are social networks, where success, achievement and recognition are measured in the number of “likes” or subscribers, this type of compilation is intended for destination influencers.

Thus, cool streets are vehicles for the personal branding of influencers who leave in their wake the desire to consume novelty and exclusivity. In our society of spectacle and appearance, where one’s image is paramount, influencers are in constant search of distinction, seeking to position themselves as avant-garde, pioneers and trend-setters. Motivated by FOMO (fear of missing out), their subscribers emulate them in order to feed their insatiable need for celebrity capital.

Tourism agencies favor such granular content marketing strategies to secure a positive return on investment, rather than expensive targeted campaigns. Media companies like Time Out capitalize on the vast sphere of influence of these opinion makers and benefit from their wide distribution network to amplify their impact and confirm their status as city specialists.

An accelerator of inequalities

However, the enthusiasm generated for these destinations is as fragile as it is ephemeral. “Coolness” is a perishable commodity. Once a street appears on the list, this well-kept secret runs the risk of losing its exclusive character to become predictable or outdated. The resulting increase in popularity and massive arrival of hordes of tourists will undoutedly push local elites, in their neverending quest for novelty, to use their keen flair to find other territories to colonize.

These growing incursions into neighborhoods formerly sheltered from mass consumerism risk disturbing their fragile ecosystem. Ultimately, it is the local population who may suffer the most from being featured on such lists. The rising popularity of these destinations can cause prices and rents to soar, thus accelerating the sector’s gentrification and commercialization. Small independent businesses may not survive such rent hikes, having to move out and be replaced by large chains. The phenomenon is already clearly visible on Wellington Street, two years after boasting first place on the cool-street list.

With our summers becoming increasingly sweltering, another type of “cool” street should be of interest. Born out of the initiative of Libby Gallagher, an Australian doctor of landscape architecture, the Cool Streets Pilot Project aims to adapt city streets around the world to face climate change through a participatory citizen approach focused on reducing heat islands. Many other initiatives seek to transform streets into innovative convivial spaces, which do not rely on consumption. It is this kind of “cool” street, whose positive impact is not only more lasting but also beneficial for local residents, which should be celebrated.

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

– ref. What makes a street ‘cool?’ These Canadian cities have the world’s coolest streets – https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-street-cool-these-canadian-cities-have-the-worlds-coolest-streets-234354

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Miller, PhD Candidate in Politics, University of Otago

Tim Walz speaks Mandarin. But don’t expect to hear Kamala Harris’ running mate deploying his Chinese language skills on the US election campaign trail.

While languages are inextricably interlinked with identity, they are also becoming a political hot potato. In February, Donald Trump warned supporters that migrants “have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of. It’s a very horrible thing”.

And J.D. Vance, now Trump’s own vice-presidential pick, last year proposed an “English Language Unity Act” to make English the official language of the United States.

Despite the potential electoral advantages of campaigning in multiple languages, the risks of alienating sections of the voting public mean candidates are wary of going too far.

Monolingual politics

English-speaking countries are now home to enormous linguistic diversity, driven by decades of immigration. Around one in five Americans speak a language other than English at home. This proportion has more than doubled since 1980, according to US census data.

The percentages are similar in Australia and New Zealand, while in Canada, 23% of people have a mother tongue other than the official languages of English and French. In the United Kingdom, the share of non-English native speakers is smaller – roughly 10% – but the upward trend is the same.

Despite these demographic shifts, however, election campaigns remain largely monolingual affairs. For example, there is little obvious sign of non-English messages in campaign leaflets uploaded to the Open Elections crowdsourcing website for the recent British election.

Exceptions largely prove the rule. For instance, in July, Republican Senator Ted Cruz launched a US$4.4 million Spanish-language campaign targeted at Hispanic voters – but only in Texas.

In New Zealand, the Labour Party translated its 2023 campaign slogan “In it for you” into the Māori language: “Māu, Mā Tātou”. But in practice the Māori version was used only sparingly, such as in the annual Māori language week that fell during the campaign period.

Majority rules

The reluctance to engage in multilingual campaigning might seem surprising. After all, modern political parties frequently resemble businesses, competing for votes in the election marketplace.

In theory, they would have much to gain by speaking to voters – their customers – in their preferred tongues. As former German Chancellor Willy Brandt reportedly said: “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”

The reluctance of parties to mount multilingual campaigns is probably driven by one major factor: they believe it would cost them votes overall. Indeed, research suggests multilingual campaigning runs the risk of turning off majority language voters.

For instance, a 2022 Canadian study found over 90% of French speakers in Quebec were annoyed by English-only campaign signs. A 2018 US study came to similar conclusions, with monolingual English speakers becoming more hostile to candidates who ran campaign ads in Spanish.

Still, such attitudes are not necessarily set in stone. After all, legislatures themselves have undergone rapid shifts as parties reflect more diverse societies in their candidate selection.

Some 14% of MPs in the British House of Commons now come from ethnic minorities, up from just 2% in 2005. And in Washington, 25% of members of Congress now identify as non-white, double the share of 20 years ago.

The picture is similar in Australia, while ethnic minorities – including Māori – now make up over 40% of New Zealand’s parliament.

AI translation

Of course, change is not always easy. As things stand, few major parties in the Anglosphere even make their main websites available in a language other than English. And Pew Research Centre data released in June showed just 68% of all US voters were comfortable with people speaking a language other than English in public.

But the risks must be set against the potential rewards. Many of the key swing states in the 2024 US campaign are becoming more and more diverse. Around 30% of people in Arizona and Nevada, and 10% in Georgia, are Hispanic. Battleground state Michigan is home to 13% of all Arabic speakers in the US, with 190,000 living in the Detroit metro area alone.

It is true that multilingualism can be complex and costly. AI solutions and algorithm-driven micro-targeting could be partial solutions – if used wisely.

Lessons might be drawn from India’s recent election campaign, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used AI to rapidly translate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign messages from Hindi into the country’s many other languages.

Ultimately, the chief potential benefit of genuine, two-way multilingual communication lies in its ability to help political parties understand and address the needs of more diverse populations.

Today, multilingual campaigning in English-speaking countries remains rare. But in a tight campaign, it could provide a crucial edge.

Geoffrey Miller is affiliated with the Democracy Project, hosted by Victoria University of Wellington.

Miriam Neigert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. US voters speak many languages, but non-English campaigning remains risky for Harris and Trump – https://theconversation.com/us-voters-speak-many-languages-but-non-english-campaigning-remains-risky-for-harris-and-trump-237202

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Smith, Lecturer in Colonial History, Charles Darwin University

First Nations people please be advised this article speaks of racially discriminating moments in history, including the distress and death of First Nations people.

Earlier this month on the Bungul ceremonial ground at Gulkula in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy apologised to First Nations people for “past harms and injustices caused by members of the Northern Territory police.” The aftermath has been much discussed.

Irrespective of your view on the commissioner’s apology, police are but one cog in the wheel of “government men” about whom Aboriginal people in the NT have rightly long been suspicious.

Other cogs over the course of history were overland telegraph officers, welfare officers, “protectors” (some of whom were police), doctors (some of whom were protectors) and magistrates. In fact, many Aboriginal people in the NT are rightfully distrustful of almost any organ of government. This is because settler colonialists engulfed their lands and forced them onto the most arid and least fertile areas, among other reasons.

It’s against this ongoing backdrop that Territorians head to the polls this weekend. With such a traumatic past casting a long shadow, the little that political parties are offering Indigenous communities this time around hardly moves the dial.

Territory of convenience

This deep-seated distrust has been fostered over centuries, as I’ve charted in my research on colonial history, including in my book on massacres in Australia’s north. I also worked with a team, led by the late Professor Lyndall Ryan, to map colonial massacres across the country.

This history still shapes government dynamics in the territory, so understanding it is key.

In addition to those mentioned above, “government men” also included pastoralists and publicans. They mounted their own punitive reprisals for cattle killing and pilfering. Government men killed Indigenous men attempting to liberate abducted Indigenous women, many of whom had been subjected to sexual slavery.

Civilians acted as government-appointed magistrates in the most far-flung parts of the country. They dispensed frontier justice without knowledge, training or a shred of human decency. This was often in collusion with the accused (usually a fellow white person) and their counsel.

This attracted very little attention, either at the time or since. Australia didn’t care.

As colonialism morphed into federalism, finger-pointing about who was responsible for funding the Northern Territory began.

South Australia discovered maintaining infrastructure was expensive and hastily punted the Northern Territory to the federal government in 1911 (though former Deputy Premier Vickie Chapman rued that decision in her 2022 valedictory speech).

Political imperatives – mostly on the east coast – meant it was electoral suicide for the Commonwealth to fork out infrastructure spending for about 5% of the population, more than 25% of which is Aboriginal, occupying about 30% of the continent.

As historian Lyndon Megarrity wrote, there were two exceptions to this: the strategic importance of northern Australia to defence and its apparently boundless resource potential. Otherwise, Megarrity wrote, northern Australia has always been subject to the politics of neglect.

No listening, no respect

Settler colonial policies were accompanied by a relentless succession of government men visiting communities and barking orders or promising the impossible.

In the Top End, such men became likened to white cockatoos because of their propensity to fly in, flap around, screech a lot and fly out: no courtesy, no listening, no respect.

Electoral cycles ground on. Federal and, after 1978, territory governments changed. Conditions on the ground did not. At least not in any substantial way.

The settler colonial phenomenon of government men was no better exemplified than in 2007 when soldiers swarmed into remote communities without notice under “the intervention”.

Suspending its own Racial Discrimination Act, the Howard government compulsorily acquired town leases, managed the incomes of all welfare recipients, revoked Aboriginal land permits and dramatically increased the presence of police.

Despite this, then-Prime Minister John Howard still maintains the intervention was justified.

Notwithstanding a recent surge for the Voice referendum, Aboriginal voter engagement in regional and remote areas plummeted. People struggle to see the relevance of any government to their own communities. Many see no possibility of change and therefore no point in the electoral process.

That remains the case for the forthcoming election. It will be decided by middle class people in the northern suburbs of Darwin, few of whom have any idea of conditions outside their urban comfort zones.

Elsewhere across the territory, everything is at stake: communications, culture, health, housing, education, environment, food security, income, law, justice, suicide, transport and safety. The gap isn’t closing. In fact, the NT is the worst performer under the Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap targets.

Little on the table

Back at Garma, the federal government was reasonably well represented. The Northern Territory government was not.

One representative of the Legislative Assembly was present: the local independent Member for Mulka and highly respected senior Yolngu man, Yingiya Guyula.

So well respected is he that Labor (currently in power) failed to field a candidate against him, although that may be more closely related to the comfortable margin by which he holds the seat.

Garma fell after the writ had been issued and thus during the caretaker period, so perhaps local politicians were preoccupied with their own electorates.

Alternatively, Labor may have been chastened by an unresolved Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigation into alleged electioneering travel by former Chief Minister Michael Gunner during the same period in 2020. The party allegedly spent thousands of dollars for charter flights to remote communities in close electorates on the same day remote polling was taking place.

The NT Electoral Commission’s Remote Engagement Team was present at Garma. It worked from its bough shed shopfront to engage and enrol people.

The incumbent Labor government and Country Liberal opposition claim to have the solutions, capacity and leadership to tackle the key issues, pitching their credentials at campaign launches in urban Darwin and Palmerston on the eve of early polling.

Neither party has had much to say about policies for the one in four Indigenous people.

But in reality, neither has the capacity to fix much because of the Commonwealth’s historic and growing infrastructure deficit. This compounds and reinforces structural inequity.

Unless the federal government wants to step up, the politics of neglect continues, regardless of who wins on Saturday.

Robyn Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. NT election: promises for Indigenous people buckle under history’s weight – https://theconversation.com/nt-election-promises-for-indigenous-people-buckle-under-historys-weight-236409

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ulrik Egede, Professor of Physics, Monash University

In experiments at the Brookhaven National Lab in the US, an international team of physicists has detected the heaviest “anti-nuclei” ever seen. The tiny, short-lived objects are composed of exotic antimatter particles.

The measurements of how often these entities are produced and their properties confirms our current understanding of the nature of antimatter, and will help the search for another mysterious kind of particles – dark matter – in deep space.

The results are published today in Nature.

A missing mirror world

The idea of antimatter is less than a century old. In 1928, British physicist Paul Dirac developed a very accurate theory for the behaviour of electrons that made a disturbing prediction: the existence of electrons with negative energy, which would have made the stable universe we live in impossible.

Luckily scientists found an alternative explanation for these “negative energy” states: antielectrons, or twins of the electron with the opposite electric charge. Antielectrons were duly discovered in experiments in 1932, and since then scientists have found that all fundamental particles have their own antimatter equivalents.

However, this raises another question. Antielectrons, antiprotons and antineutrons should be able to combine to make whole antiatoms, and indeed antiplanets and antigalaxies. What’s more, our theories of the Big Bang suggest equal amounts of matter and antimatter must have been created at the beginning of the universe.

But everywhere we look, we see matter – and only insignificant amounts of antimatter. Where did the antimatter go? That is a question that has vexed scientists for nearly a century.

Fragments of smashed atoms

Today’s results come from the STAR experiment, located at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Lab in the US.

The experiment works by smashing the cores of heavy elements such as uranium into one another at extremely high speed. These collisions create tiny, intense fireballs which briefly replicate the conditions of the universe in the first few milliseconds after the Big Bang.

Each collision produces hundreds of new particles, and the STAR experiment can detect them all. Most of those particles are short-lived, unstable entities called pions, but ever so occasionally something more interesting turns up.

In the STAR detector, particles zoom through a large container full of gas inside a magnetic field – and leave visible trails in their wake. By measuring the “thickness” of the trails and how much they bend in the magnetic field, scientists can work out what kind of particle produced it.

Matter and antimatter have an opposite charge, so their paths will bend in opposite directions in the magnetic field.

‘Antihyperhydrogen’

In nature, the nuclei of atoms are made of protons and neutrons. However, we can also make something called a “hypernucleus”, in which one of the neutrons is replaced by a hyperon – a slightly heavier version of the neutron.

What they detected at the STAR experiment was a hypernucleus made of antimatter, or an antihypernucleus. In fact, it was the heaviest and most exotic antimatter nucleus ever seen.

To be specific, it consists of one antiproton, two antineutrons and an antihyperon, and has the name of antihyperhydrogen-4. Among the billions of pions produced, the STAR researchers identified just 16 antihyperhydrogen-4 nuclei.

Results confirm predictions

The new paper compares these new and heaviest antinuclei as well as a host of other lighter antinuclei to their counterparts in normal matter. The hypernuclei are all unstable and decay after about a tenth of a nanosecond.

Comparing the hypernuclei with their corresponding antihypernuclei, we see that they have identical lifetimes and masses – which is exactly what we would expect from Dirac’s theory.

Existing theories also do a good job of predicting how lighter antihypernuclei are produced more often, and heavier ones more rarely.

A shadow world as well?

Antimatter also has fascinating links to another exotic substance, dark matter. From observations, we know dark matter permeates the universe and is five times more prevalent than normal matter – but we have never been able to detect it directly.

Some theories of dark matter predict that if two dark matter particles collide, they will annihilate each other and produce a burst of matter and antimatter particles. This would then produce antihydrogen and antihelium – and an experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer aboard the International Space Station is looking out for it.

If we did observe antihelium in space, how would we know if it had been produced by dark matter or normal matter? Well, measurements like this new one from STAR let us calibrate our theoretical models for how much antimatter is produced in collisions of normal matter. This latest paper provides a wealth of data for that type of calibration.

Basic questions remain

We have learned a lot about antimatter over the past century. However, we are still no closer to answering the question of why we see so little of it in the universe.

The STAR experiment is far from alone in the quest to understand the nature of antimatter and where it all went. Work at experiments such as LHCb and Alice at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland will enhance our understanding by looking for signs of differences in behaviour between matter and antimatter.

Perhaps by 2032, when the centenary of the initial discovery of antimatter rolls around, we will have made some strides in understanding the place of this curious mirror matter in the universe – and even know how it is connected the enigma of dark matter.

Ulrik Egede does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Heaviest antimatter observation yet will fine-tune numbers for dark matter search – https://theconversation.com/heaviest-antimatter-observation-yet-will-fine-tune-numbers-for-dark-matter-search-237127

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Haswell, Professor of Practice (Environmental Wellbeing), Indigenous Strategy and Services, Honorary Professor (Geosciences) at University of Sydney & Professor of Health, Safety and Environment, Queensland University of Technology, University of Sydney

A Senate inquiry has failed to reach agreement on whether the federal government should spend A$1.5 billion on a major industrial hub in Darwin – spending critics say amounts to a huge fossil fuel subsidy.

The project, known as the Middle Arm Industrial Precinct, involves developing a manufacturing and minerals hub on a peninsula at Darwin Harbour. The project would span about 1,500 hectares and include, among other infrastructure, the third liquified natural gas (LNG) export hub on the peninsula.

Traditional owners say the hub would damage Sea Country and cultural heritage. Other submissions to the inquiry raised concerns about threats to human health and wildlife, and the implications of expanding the gas industry in the midst of a climate crisis.

Despite the compelling evidence presented to the inquiry, committee members – who came from across the political spectrum – could not produce a unanimous set of recommendations. Labor must now decide whether to fund the Middle Arm precinct despite the weight of public concern.

I research environmental health, climate change, sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. I firmly believe this project should not proceed if it involves fossil fuels. It opens the door to serious environmental damage and suffering for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike.

What’s this all about?

The precinct requires clearing land and dredging the harbour to enable shipping. It also involves a new offloading facility, as well as roads, factories, jetties and pipelines. It would add a third LNG plant to those already at Middle Arm.

The site may also include a petrochemical manufacturing plant and a terminal to import carbon dioxide.

The NT government enthusiastically supports the development, which it describes as “sustainable”. It says the site would largely be powered by renewables and would support the hydrogen and carbon-capture industries.

In 2022, the Albanese government allocated $1.5 billion funding to the project. Announcing the spending, federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project would provide “a pathway to a decarbonised economy by helping emerging clean energy industries”.

The inquiry

A Senate inquiry into the spending began in September last year and attracted more than 200 written submissions.

In a report tabled in the Senate on Wednesday night, the inquiry committee said it had “not been able to reach agreement on a unanimous set of recommendations”.

Instead, the report presented a variety of views from crossbenchers, the Greens, the government and the opposition.

Government senators said the infrastructure at Middle Arm would support a range of activities, including green industries, and would help diversify the NT economy. The Coalition said it supports the precinct and claimed the inquiry failed to consider the economic benefits of the plan.

Greens senators said the precinct, as currently proposed, “will significantly expand the fossil fuel and fracking industries at a time when Australia’s economy requires rapid and dedicated efforts to decarbonise”.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe said the wishes of the Larrakia people should be respected and the project should be scrapped, adding the spending should be allocated to projects that “promote the health of Country and its people”.

Fellow independent David Pocock said the plan “poses unacceptable risks to human health, the climate, biodiversity and cultural heritage”.

The views expressed by the Greens and independent senators reflect serious concerns raised about the project throughout the inquiry, which I outline below.

Read more:
Opening 10 new oil and gas sites is a win for fossil fuel companies – but a staggering loss for the rest of Australia

‘Eroding the spiritual essence of the land’

As part of the inquiry, Larrakia woman Mary Williams told a hearing in Darwin:

The Middle Arm precinct is not merely a piece of land; it’s our cultural heritage and traditional identity. Our ancestors have lived, hunted and performed sacred ceremonies on this land for countless generations, leaving behind a tapestry of history and wisdom.

The proposed development threatens to desecrate this sacred landscape, endangering culturally significant sites, disrupting ecological balance and eroding the spiritual essence of the land.

Similar feelings were expressed by the Directors of Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, representing Traditional Owners across the Beetaloo Basin.

Air pollution risks

Health risks associated with hazardous emissions occur at every step of gas production, processing and pipeline transport.

The Middle Arm precinct would be located just three kilometres from the fast-growing city of Palmerston and ten kilometres from central Darwin. These locations already experience poor air quality due to savanna burning.

Of the two gas plants already operating at the site, one is run by energy company Inpex. Since 2019, Inpex has reported annual emissions of the cancer-causing substance benzene. The annual emissions have exceeded – up to 22 times – the 500 tonnes the company predicted.

Inpex has also consistently released huge amounts of highly toxic substances including hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.

Inpex also told the inquiry of long outages in devices at the site used to control pollution. In some cases, the controls were offline for weeks or months.

Alarmingly, a paper tabled by Pocock revealed a greatly increased risk of leukaemia among residents near petrochemical facilities, as well as other health concerns.

As Darwin paediatrician Louise Woodward wrote to the inquiry:

Our hospitals are struggling to cope with the burden of disease now. The Middle Arm development is likely to increase acute and chronic disease for a population which already has some of the worst health outcomes in the country.

Serious environmental threats

Scientists have warned the Middle Arm project threatens populations of endangered species and migratory shorebirds.

A submission by the Australian Marine Sciences Association warned dredging the harbour may mean heavy metals enter the marine food chain. In some cases, these metals can reach levels in fish and seafood that threaten human health.

Experts have also warned about the climate impact of the plan. Climate Analytics said Tamboran’s plans to extract gas from the Beetaloo Basin and produce it at Middle Arm would generate between 0.8 and 3.2 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent gases over the 25 years of the project, if the gas exported and burnt overseas was taken into account.

The precinct may also include a facility to import and store CO₂ and later bury it underground. Such technologies are speculative and plagued with problems, including in Australia.

No time to gamble

The ball is now in the federal government’s court. While the Senate committee did not reach a unanimous decision on the $1.5 billion spending, evidence presented to the inquiry raises deep questions about the plan.

Australian taxpayers should not be funding a project that gambles with human health and that of the environment.

The Middle Arm industrial hub should not proceed with fossil fuel industries. True leadership on this issue is needed urgently – for the sake of current and future generations.

In the past, Melissa Haswell has received research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, FACSIA, Red Cross, Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council Priority Driven Research, Queensland Health and Queensland Department of Environment and Science.

Melissa Haswell is a member of the Public Health Association Australia, Climate and Health Alliance, Sydney Environment Institute and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. She has attended some meetings of a community independent movement in the electorate of Dickson.

– ref. Inquiry raises deep concerns over Labor’s $1.5 billion cash splash for new NT gas hub – https://theconversation.com/inquiry-raises-deep-concerns-over-labors-1-5-billion-cash-splash-for-new-nt-gas-hub-236950

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Minister for the National Disability Scheme, Bill Shorten, has reached a deal with the states and territories to break a logjam over disability reform.

This paves the way for the government and opposition on Thursday to pass the legislation for tightening the NDIS, aimed at containing its costs and putting it on a sustainable long-term basis.

Shorten has had extensive negotiations to win Coalition support for the legislation.

In a statement on Wednesday, Shorten and the chair of the Council for the Australian Federation (CAF), South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, said the federal and state governments had agreed to a number of proposed amendments to the NDIS bill now before the Senate. These would strengthen how states and territories worked with the Commonwealth on NDIS reforms after the legislation was in place.

They included faster timeframes for approving NDIS rules, a new dispute resolution approach to escalate issues to first ministers, and a move from unanimous to majority first ministers’ support for any significant rules.

“These changes fully respond to the concerns originally raised by CAF on the legislation,” Shorten and Malinauskas said.

They said the changes would also protect the NDIS’s sustainability in the short to medium term and support the plan to reduce the cost growth to 8% by mid-2026.

“Critically, today’s agreement secures the support of states and territories for the government’s legislation and reform agenda and will help ensure the scheme is here for future generations of Australians.”

Malinauskas and Tasmanian Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff met Shorten in Moonee Ponds in his electorate earlier this month to discuss the states’ concerns.

Under the federal government’s NDIS reform plan, more responsibility for dealing with disability services will be put on to the states.

Shorten told a Wednesday news conference: “I just say to people with disability and participants, the message is that the states and the federal government are getting their act together and that people with disability and participants are not a political football”.

Asked about the amount of waste in the scheme, Shorten said this was hard to estimate.

“What I can estimate is that we can restrain the growth of the scheme to about 8%, and people will actually get better outcomes, better quality, better accountability.

“If I knew where all the waste was, we would stop it. But I’m confident that […] there’s $1-to-$2 billion at least, which we can shave off, which doesn’t affect people’s packages, which doesn’t affect quality, which doesn’t affect people’s access to the scheme.

“I know there’s overcharging going on. I know there are some providers who are putting in false invoices, and if we can clean up that, that will help contribute to it. ”

He said the fact the latest figure released last week showed expenses for the year to June 30 came in $600 million below what had been anticipated in the budget showed that already things were improving.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Deal on disability with states clears way for NDIS reform bill to pass – https://theconversation.com/deal-on-disability-with-states-clears-way-for-ndis-reform-bill-to-pass-237129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The extensive fallout from the rape of then Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office continues to reverberate through both the legal and political systems, long after that fateful night in Parliament House in 2019.

Higgins alleged she was raped by a colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, in the suite of then-minister Linda Reynolds. A civil case found on the balance of probabilities the rape happened, although Lehrmann denied it.

As Reynolds’ defamation case against Higgins dragged on this week in the Western Australian Supreme Court, the Albanese government on Wednesday introduced legislation for a new watchdog on behaviour in parliamentary workplaces. These include not just parliament house in Canberra but electorate offices around the country.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission will oversee “behaviour codes” for parliamentarians and their staff, which cover fostering respectful and inclusive workplaces and prohibit bullying, harassment, sexual harassment and assault, and discrimination. Draft codes were agreed last year by each house, but they will need to be finally adopted.

The primary function of the commission, that will have a chair and other commissioners, will be to investigate allegations of code breaches.

Complaints to the commission could be made in several ways (depending on the circumstances) – including via a parliamentarian, a presiding officer, or a party leader. The commission won’t investigate anonymous claims.

Crucially, it won’t be able to investigate allegations of bad behaviour that engage parliamentary privilege. It would only investigate allegations of conduct that don’t form part of proceedings in parliament.

If the commission finds misconduct by a parliamentarian, and the breach is serious, it will be referred to the privileges committee of the relevant chamber. The privileges committee would have to decide whether to recommend that the relevant house issue a sanction. These could include fines, discharge from a parliamentary committee, even suspension from the parliament, or any other sanctions the committee determined.

Where a parliamentarian was involved, a panel of three commissioners would make the decision on whether he or she had engaged in misconduct.

For more minor breaches, the panel could impose a reprimand and/or require the MP to undertake training.

The commission is one of a number of initiatives to flow from the inquiry by the then Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins in the wake of the Higgins allegation. Jenkins in her 2021 Set the Standard report found more than three-quarters of those working in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces “have experienced, witnessed or heard about bullying, sexual harassment and/or actual or attempted sexual assault” in those workplaces.

The watchdog would itself be watched by a parliamentary joint committee.

The opposition has been part of the process of developing the commission and so is expected to support the legislation, although it probably doesn’t think it is necessary. After revelations in 2023 of Senator David Van’s bad behaviour towards women, Peter Dutton quickly booted him from the Liberal Party room.

The most important role of the commission may be as a general deterrent, rather than in the actual investigations it conducts.

The “teals” will support the legislation – but they think it addresses only part of the problem.

For the half dozen teals, who took Liberal seats in 2022, better behaviour in politics, especially towards women, has been a major issue, and on Wednesday four of them – Kylea Tink, Sophie Scamps, Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall – held a joint news conference to press their concerns.

Their focus was particularly on bad behaviour inside the chambers, which they have not just observed but personally experienced.

Scamps, who says she pre-warns visiting school children not to follow the example of what they are about to see in the house, pointed the finger at the party leaders.

“Not only do we need a ‘Stop it at the Start’ campaign, we need a ‘stop it at the top’ campaign. It’s the leaders that need to be role modelling the correct behaviour, and it starts with respect,” she said.

Steggall condemned the “heckling, bullying, shouting, intimidation, to stop members representing their community, to express the views and concerns of their communities in our democratic process in the chamber”.

The member for Warringah referred back to last week, when she condemned Dutton over Palestinian refugees amid a barrage of shouting from the opposition ranks. An angry Steggall called Dutton a “racist” (after she later repeated this outside the chamber, he threatened legal action).

“The mob mentality is committed by its leadership. And so my call is to Peter Dutton. He is the first to turn around in those situations and yell at and heckle, and the MPs under him, the Coalition MPs, take their cues from his leadership”, Steggall told the news conference. She also accused Anthony Albanese of condoning Labor MPs heckling crossbenchers they didn’t agree with.

Allegra Spender said she had never seen the behaviour she’d witnessed in the chamber in “any other workplace in my life”.

The teals are right in condemning how politicians behave, especially in the parliament but also in their wider public discourse. It’s hard to assess whether this has become worse – it probably has varied over time. But the coarsening of the public debate generally in the social media age probably encourages MPs into more routinely verbally-abusive behaviour.

Many members of the public are shocked when they see question time from the visitors’ gallery. The extraordinary thing is the MPs know the public hate this, but they apparently don’t care. Especially, but not only, those in opposition behave in a way that would appal them if it were their children doing it.

In that 60-90 minutes at question time in the house, they are fuelled by inhibition-killing adrenaline. They are not embarrassed when called out, or indeed thrown out, by Milton Dick, who has proved to be a fair-minded speaker but has an often near-impossible job.

The culprits won’t listen to lectures from the teals (they’ll just tell them to toughen up) but they should realise one of the reason teals won votes is that communities were sending messages that included a wish to see politics done in a different, less feral manner.

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s leaders’ debate between Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler and opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro, ahead of Saturday’s NT election, highlighted the grey area between “respectful” and “disrespectful” debate:

Lawler challenged her opponent: “Lia are you tough enough to push back on your big donors? I think that you are a lightweight and I don’t think you’re tough enough.” Finocchiaro made the sarcastic retort: “Thank you, Eva, [you’re] a real treat”.

In politics, a mild exchange. In a “normal” workplace? Probably not so much.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: New watchdog won’t stop bad behaviour in parliament – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-new-watchdog-wont-stop-bad-behaviour-in-parliament-237210

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University

Last week, the office of the San Francisco City Attorney issued a landmark lawsuit. It’s accusing 16 “nudify” websites of violating United States laws in relation to non-consensual intimate images and child abuse material.

“Nudify” sites and apps are easy to use. They let anyone upload a photo of a real person to generate a fake but photorealistic image of what they might look like undressed. Within seconds, someone’s photo becomes an explicit image.

In the first half of 2024, the 16 websites named in the lawsuit have been visited more than 200 million times. One of the sites says: “imagine wasting time taking her out on dates, when you can just use [redacted site] to get her nudes”.

These sites are also advertised on social media. Since the start of this year, there has been a 2,400% increase in advertising of nudify apps or sites on social media.

What can victims do?

Even if the images look fake, deepfake abuse can cause significant harms. It can damage a person’s reputation and career prospects. It can have detrimental mental and physical health effects, including social isolation, self-harm and a loss of trust in others.

Many victims don’t even know their images have been created or shared. If they do, they might successfully report the content to mainstream platforms, but struggle to get it removed from private personal devices or from “rogue” websites that have few protections in place.

Victims can make a report to a digital platform if fake, non-consensual intimate images of them are shared without their consent.

If they’re in Australia, or if the perpetrator is based in Australia, the victim can report to the eSafety Commissioner, who can work on their behalf to have the content taken down.

What can digital platforms do?

Digital platforms have policies prohibiting the non-consensual sharing of sexualised deepfakes. But the policies are not always consistently enforced.

Although most nudify apps have been removed from app stores, some are still around. Some “only” let users create near-nude images – say, in a bikini or underwear.

Tech companies can do a lot to stop the spread. Social media, video-sharing platforms and porn sites can ban or remove nudify ads. They can block keywords, such as “undress” or “nudify”, as well as issue warnings to people using these search terms.

More broadly, technology companies can use tools to detect fake images. Companies behind the development of AI image-generator tools need to incorporate “guardrails” to prevent the creation of harmful or illegal content.

Watermarking and labelling of synthetic and AI-generated content are important – but not very effective once images have been shared. Digital hashing can also prevent the future sharing of non-consensual content.

Some platforms already use such tools to address deepfake abuse. They’re part of the solution, but we shouldn’t rely on them to fix the problem.

Search engines play a role, too. They can reduce the visibility of nudify and non-consensual deepfake sites. Last month, Google announced several measures on deepfake abuse. When someone reports non-consensual explicit deepfakes, Google can prevent the content appearing in search results and remove duplicate images.

Governments can also introduce laws and regulatory frameworks to address deepfake abuse. This can include blocking access to nudify and deepfake sites, although VPNs can bypass blocked sites.

What does the law say?

In Australia, there are criminal laws on the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, or making threats to share intimate images against adults.

There are also federal offences for accessing, transmitting, soliciting or possessing child abuse material. This includes fictional or fake images, including drawings, cartoons or images generated using AI.

Under Australian state and territory laws, an “intimate image” of an adult is defined broadly to include digitally altered or manipulated images. Currently, it’s only a crime to share or make threats to share non-consensual, synthetic, intimate images. An exception is Victoria, where there’s a separate criminal offence for producing intimate images, including digitally created ones.

In June, a bill was introduced to amend federal laws to create a standalone offence for the non-consensual sharing of private sexual material. The maximum prison sentence would be six years. The bill expressly mentions it’s irrelevant whether the photos, videos or audio depicting the person are in “unaltered form” or have been “created or altered using technology”.

The bill also includes two aggravated offences, including a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment if the person who shared such images also created or altered them.

Laws are helpful, but can’t fully solve the problem. Law enforcement often have limited resources for investigation. Working across jurisdictions, particularly in other countries, can also be difficult. For victim-survivors, pursuing the criminal justice path can take a further emotional toll.

Another option are civil remedies under the federal Online Safety Act. Administered by the eSafety Commissioner, civil penalties include formal warnings and hefty fines for users and tech companies that share or threaten to share non-consensual images.

We must improve our digital literacy

It’s getting increasingly difficult to tell real and fake images apart. Even when images look “fake” or are labelled as such, people can still be led to believe they are real.

Investing in digital literacy is therefore crucial. Digital literacy means fostering critical thinking skills so people can assess and challenge misinformation.

Other measures include raising awareness on the harms of deepfake abuse and better education on respectful relationships and sexuality. Another one to tackle is porn literacy to improve critical thinking on the subject that isn’t just focused on “unrealistic expectations”.

Perpetrators who engage in deepfake abuse, tech developers who enable the tools, and tech companies that allow its spread must all be held accountable. But detecting, preventing and responding to this abuse will ultimately involve creative solutions across the board.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit the eSafety Commissioner’s website for helpful online safety resources. If in immediate danger, call 000.

Nicola Henry receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Google, and the Victorian Attorney General’s Office. She is also a member of the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group.

– ref. AI ‘nudify’ sites are being sued for victimising people. How can we battle deepfake abuse? – https://theconversation.com/ai-nudify-sites-are-being-sued-for-victimising-people-how-can-we-battle-deepfake-abuse-237043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yeptain Leung, Postdoctoral Research and Lecturer of Speech Pathology, School of Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Cold, flu, COVID and RSV have been circulating across Australia this winter. Many of us have caught and recovered from one of these common upper respiratory tract infections.

But for some people their impact is ongoing. Even if your throat isn’t sore anymore, your voice may still be hoarse or croaky.

So what happens to the voice when we get a virus? And what happens after?

Here’s what you should know if your voice is still hoarse for days – or even weeks – after your other symptoms have resolved.

Why does my voice get croaky during a cold?

A healthy voice is normally clear and strong. It’s powered by the lungs, which push air past the vocal cords to make them vibrate. These vibrations are amplified in the throat and mouth, creating the voice we hear.

The vocal cords are two elastic muscles situated in your throat, around the level of your laryngeal prominence, or Adam’s apple. (Although everyone has one, it tends to be more pronounced in males.) The vocal cords are small and delicate – around the size of your fingernail. Any small change in their structure will affect how the voice sounds.

When the vocal cords become inflamed – known as laryngitis – your voice will sound different. Laryngitis is a common part of upper respiratory tract infections, but can also be caused through misuse.

Catching a virus triggers the body’s defence mechanisms. White blood cells are recruited to kill the virus and heal the tissues in the vocal cords. They become inflamed, but also stiffer. It’s harder for them to vibrate, so the voice comes out hoarse and croaky.

In some instances, you may find it hard to speak in a loud voice or have a reduced pitch range, meaning you can’t go as high or loud as normal. You may even “lose” your voice altogether.

Coughing can also make things worse. It is the body’s way of trying to clear the airways of irritation, including your own mucus dripping onto your throat (post-nasal drip). But coughing slams the vocal cords together with force.

Chronic coughing can lead to persistent inflammation and even thicken the vocal cords. This thickening is the body trying to protect itself, similar to developing a callus when a pair of new shoes rubs.

Thickening on your vocal cords can lead to physical changes in the vocal cords – such as developing a growth or “nodule” – and further deterioration of your voice quality.

How can you care for your voice during infection?

People who use their voices a lot professionally – such as teachers, call centre workers and singers – are often desperate to resume their vocal activities. They are more at risk of forcing their voice before it’s ready.

The good news is most viral infections resolve themselves. Your voice is usually restored within five to ten days of recovering from a cold.

Occasionally, your pharmacist or doctor may prescribe cough suppressants to limit additional damage to the vocal cords (among other reasons) or mucolytics, which break down mucus. But the most effective treatments for viral upper respiratory tract infections are hydration and rest.

Drink plenty of water, avoid alcohol and exposure to cigarette smoke. Inhaling steam by making yourself a cup of hot water will also help clear blocked noses and hydrate your vocal cords.

Rest your voice by talking as little as possible. If you do need to talk, don’t whisper – this strains the muscles.

Instead, consider using “confidential voice”. This is a soft voice – not a whisper – that gently vibrates your vocal cords but puts less strain on your voice than normal speech. Think of the voice you use when communicating with someone close by.

During the first five to ten days of your infection, it is important not to push through. Exerting the voice by talking a lot or loudly will only exacerbate the situation. Once you’ve recovered from your cold, you can speak as you would normally.

What should you do if your voice is still hoarse after recovery?

If your voice hasn’t returned to normal after two to three weeks, you should seek medical attention from your doctor, who may refer you to an ear nose and throat specialist.

If you’ve developed a nodule, the specialist would likely refer you to a speech pathologist who will show you how to take care of your voice. Many nodules can be treated with voice therapy and don’t require surgery.

You may have also developed a habit of straining your voice box, if you forced yourself to speak or sing while they were inflamed. This can be a reason why some people continue to have a hoarse voice even when they’ve recovered from the cold.

In those cases, a speech pathologist may play a valuable role. They may teach you to exercises that make voicing more efficient. For example, lip trills (blowing raspberries) are a fun and easy way you can learn to relax the voice. This can help break the habit of straining your voice you may have developed during infection.

Yeptain Leung does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. I’ve recovered from a cold but I still have a hoarse voice. What should I do? – https://theconversation.com/ive-recovered-from-a-cold-but-i-still-have-a-hoarse-voice-what-should-i-do-236398

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Perkiss, Associate professor in accounting, University of Wollongong

When businesses work together – for whatever reason – they run the risk of breaching the competition laws enforced by our national watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

These laws aim to prevent anti-competitive practices that can hurt Australian consumers, like cartel behaviour and misuse of market power.

But businesses can also team up for all the right reasons, such as making their operations and supply chains more sustainable. Done right, this benefits society as a whole and should be encouraged.

Last month, to help businesses navigate this tricky terrain, the ACCC published a draft guide on sustainability collaborations. A finalised version is expected later this year.

This aims to empower businesses thinking about working together on projects with environmental goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving water systems and reducing their waste.

But with a sole focus on the environment, it seems to have worryingly overlooked the social elements of sustainability – people, equity and communities. Here’s why that’s a problem.

Read more:
What is sustainability accounting? What does ESG mean? We have answers

A step in the right direction

The ACCC’s draft guide aims to help businesses understand whether a project is likely to breach competition law, and how they can get an exemption if a risk of breach exists.

On announcing it, acting chair Mick Keogh highlighted the need for such legal protections:

Our intention in developing this guide is to make it clear competition law should not be seen as an immovable obstacle for collaboration on sustainability that can have a public benefit.

So where might businesses currently run into trouble?

Imagine two competing businesses with shared environmental concerns agreeing to only source environmentally friendly products from a specific supplier.

This could simply reflect the fact this particular supplier was the only one engaging in environmental best practices. However, such a collaboration could arguably amount to cartel behaviour if it restricted the amount or type of goods these businesses came to offer.

Under the new ACCC guidelines, these competing businesses could seek an exemption by demonstrating their collaboration reflected a positive environmental effort.

Sustainability is about more than just the environment

Such legal protections for businesses hoping to work together on environmental goals are an important step forward. But in its efforts, the ACCC seems to have overlooked an important aspect of sustainability – its social dimension.

Key social goals for business collaborations could include respecting human rights or fighting modern slavery.

But modifying our earlier example slightly, two competing businesses could agree to only purchase goods from certain suppliers with certified anti-slavery conditions – or to avoid suppliers known to engage in modern slavery.

This would have clear social benefits, but would not be protected under the approach currently proposed by the ACCC.

Sadly, this oversight reflects a broader trend in sustainability discourse.

Sustainability has a long history. In 1987, it was defined by the United Nations Brundtland Commission as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

It is represented by three pillars: economic, social and environmental, or less formally, profit, people and planet.

But research has found the social pillar is the weakest when it comes to sustainable development.

Much of this comes down to difficulty in measurement, which can see it excluded from metrics and policies. Current accounting systems are better prepared to track and measure environmental and economic data.

We can’t ignore the social pillar

In a submission to consultation on the draft guidelines, NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner James Cockayne argued the oversight would “almost certainly chill – or perhaps freeze – numerous responsible business conduct collaborations that are already under way”.

Getting the social pillar right is also vital to achieving environmental sustainability.

It’s not that Australia hasn’t been making progress on the social elements of sustainability. Legislation introduced in 2018 made it mandatory for certain organisations to report modern slavery risks in their supply chains.

Australia’s National Sustainable Development Strategy and the country’s adherence to International Labour Organization conventions also show our commitment to an integrated approach.

But more work is needed. Expanding the ACCC’s definition of sustainability would be one such step.

Stephanie Perkiss is affiliated with NGO Be Slavery Free through an annual research collaboration on the Chocolate Scorecard. Be Slavery Free made a submission to the ACCC’s consultation process on the draft guidelines, which also advocated expanding them to include social considerations.

– ref. The competition watchdog wants to help businesses work together on sustainability – but it’s forgotten a key part – https://theconversation.com/the-competition-watchdog-wants-to-help-businesses-work-together-on-sustainability-but-its-forgotten-a-key-part-236413

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abraham Kuol, Associate Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

African youth, most notably those of South Sudanese heritage, are over-represented in the criminal justice system in Victoria. In 2024, African youth account for about 50% of young people in custody in Victoria, up from 4% in 2012.

After introducing a 1,000-page Youth Justice Bill into parliament in June, Victoria was set to become the first state in Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 (2024), and then 14 (2027).

However, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has retreated from an earlier commitment to raise the age to 14. Victoria Police are backing the premier’s decision. The government will keep its promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12.

The Youth Justice Bill includes an amendment to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. The bill has passed the Victorian parliament’s upper house. It will be discussed in the lower house later this month before becoming law.

The reforms include a new crime of committing a serious offence while on bail. Police have been given greater power to revoke bail, especially for repeat offenders.

Critics say the decision not to raise the age to 14 is politically motivated. The decision is seen as allowing Labor to portray itself as “tough on crime” leading into the next state election.

Raising the age of criminal responsibility will affect African Australian youth involved in the justice system. While there is outrage about the decision not to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, the absence of evidence-based and culturally responsive services would leave African youth at risk of exploitation by criminal and youth gangs.

Subsequently, this change means there will be a greater need for culturally responsive services and supports to prevent engagement in the criminal justice system.

African youth, the justice system, and challenges.

Australian studies have found that African youth and their families experience high levels of acculturation stress. The post-settlement challenges some African youth experience include underemployment and unemployment, disrupted schooling leading to poor education outcomes, family disconnection and neglect, peer-group delinquency, mental health issues and alcohol and substance abuse.

The decision not to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 has received backlash from youth justice advocates, Indigenous and legal groups. The state government should not have abandoned plans to raise the age to 14, but rather considered a delayed and revised approach.

Any changes in the age of criminal responsibility require alternative evidence-based, culturally responsive, early intervention services, which are yet to be developed. Within these services we need to ensure vulnerable cohorts receive appropriate support.

How will raising the age affect African Australian youth?

Why are culturally responsive programs so important? They look at the culturally specific reasons young people are getting into trouble with the law, and what might be done to prevent it.

Risk factors noted above will not disappear without the provision of culturally responsive programs that address the factors leading to increasing over-representation within Victoria’s youth justice centres.

So, what does such a program look like?

Black Rhinos: an example of primary prevention

We examined how a culturally responsive, sport-based, youth development program assisted African-Australian young people (aged 8-14) and their families to connect with services that support physical and mental health and wellbeing. In the process, they deter young people from youth crime.

The Junior Rhinos program is designed in conjunction with the African community in Melbourne’s south-east, not-for-profit organisation Afri-Aus Care and RMIT University researchers. VicHealth funds the program.

Some African youth lack pro-social role models, experience low parental monitoring and limited parental support with school. We found mentors from a similar background can support young people’s ability to engage in pro-social activities and deter them from crime. These findings are evident in our impact data, and echoed by staff, teachers, mentors and students.

The study highlighted the importance of having mentors for young people at the ages of 8-14 to support their positive social development.

Our study found culturally responsive, early intervention programs that provide wraparound support for African Australian young people are essential for ensuring they can live pro-social lives.

Such programs lead to increased engagement, better school education outcomes, improved physical health and mental wellbeing, and reduced likelihood of anti-social behaviours.

This research was supported by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth). Abraham Kuol receives funding from the Department of Justice and Community Safety in Victoria. Abraham works for Afri-Aus Care Inc. and is affiliated with the Black Rhinos.

Patrick O’Keeffe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Ronnie Egan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Beyond raising the age of criminal responsibility, African youth need more culturally aware support – https://theconversation.com/beyond-raising-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-african-youth-need-more-culturally-aware-support-236951

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chelsea Reynolds, Casual Academic/Clinical Educator and Clinical Psychologist, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University

It’s one of the most pervasive messages about technology and sleep. We’re told bright, blue light from screens prevents us falling asleep easily. We’re told to avoid scrolling on our phones before bedtime or while in bed. We’re sold glasses to help filter out blue light. We put our phones on “night mode” to minimise exposure to blue light.

But what does the science actually tell us about the impact of bright, blue light and sleep? When our group of sleep experts from Sweden, Australia and Israel compared scientific studies that directly tested this, we found the overall impact was close to meaningless. Sleep was disrupted, on average, by less than three minutes.

We showed the message that blue light from screens stops you from falling asleep is essentially a myth, albeit a very convincing one.

Instead, we found a more nuanced picture about technology and sleep.

What we did

We gathered evidence from 73 independent studies with a total of 113,370 participants of all ages examining various factors that connect technology use and sleep.

We did indeed find a link between technology use and sleep, but not necessarily what you’d think.

We found that sometimes technology use can lead to poor sleep and sometimes poor sleep can lead to more technology use. In other words, the relationship between technology and sleep is complex and can go both ways.

How is technology supposed to harm sleep?

Technology is proposed to harm our sleep in a number of ways. But here’s what we found when we looked at the evidence:

• bright screen light – across 11 experimental studies, people who used a bright screen emitting blue light before bedtime fell asleep an average of only 2.7 minutes later. In some studies, people slept better after using a bright screen. When we were invited to write about this evidence further, we showed there is still no meaningful impact of bright screen light on other sleep characteristics including the total amount or quality of sleep

• arousal is a measure of whether people become more alert depending on what they’re doing on their device. Across seven studies, people who engaged in more alerting or “exciting” content (for example, video games) lost an average of only about 3.5 minutes of sleep compared to those who engaged in something less exciting (for example, TV). This tells us the content of technology alone doesn’t affect sleep as much as we think

• we found sleep disruption at night (for example, being awoken by text messages) and sleep displacement (using technology past the time that we could be sleeping) can lead to sleep loss. So while technology use was linked to less sleep in these instances, this was unrelated to being exposed to bright, blue light from screens before bedtime.

Which factors encourage more technology use?

Research we reviewed suggests people tend to use more technology at bedtime for two main reasons:

• to “fill the time” when they’re not yet sleepy. This is common for teenagers, who have a biological shift in their sleep patterns that leads to later sleep times, independent of technology use.

• to calm down negative emotions and thoughts at bedtime, for apparent stress reduction and to provide comfort.

There are also a few things that might make people more vulnerable to using technology late into the night and losing sleep.

We found people who are risk-takers or who lose track of time easily may turn off devices later and sacrifice sleep. Fear of missing out and social pressures can also encourage young people in particular to stay up later on technology.

What helps us use technology sensibly?

Last of all, we looked at protective factors, ones that can help people use technology more sensibly before bed.

The two main things we found that helped were self-control, which helps resist the short-term rewards of clicking and scrolling, and having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes.

Why do we blame blue light?

The blue light theory involves melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. During the day, we are exposed to bright, natural light that contains a high amount of blue light. This bright, blue light activates certain cells at the back of our eyes, which send signals to our brain that it’s time to be alert. But as light decreases at night, our brain starts to produce melatonin, making us feel sleepy.

It’s logical to think that artificial light from devices could interfere with the production of melatonin and so affect our sleep. But studies show it would require light levels of about 1,000-2,000 lux (a measure of the intensity of light) to have a significant impact.

Device screens emit only about 80-100 lux. At the other end of the scale, natural sunlight on a sunny day provides about 100,000 lux.

What’s the take-home message?

We know that bright light does affect sleep and alertness. However our research indicates the light from devices such as smartphones and laptops is nowhere near bright or blue enough to disrupt sleep.

There are many factors that can affect sleep, and bright, blue screen light likely isn’t one of them.

The take-home message is to understand your own sleep needs and how technology affects you. Maybe reading an e-book or scrolling on socials is fine for you, or maybe you’re too often putting the phone down way too late. Listen to your body and when you feel sleepy, turn off your device.

Chelsea Reynolds is affiliated with Flinders University with academic status, is a member of the Australasian Sleep Association, and is a co-founder of the digital CBTi program, Bedtime Window.

– ref. How much does your phone’s blue light really delay your sleep? Relax, it’s just 2.7 minutes – https://theconversation.com/how-much-does-your-phones-blue-light-really-delay-your-sleep-relax-its-just-2-7-minutes-236066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University

Is Palestine a state? This long-standing unresolved question has gained considerable diplomatic, legal and political traction this year as Israel’s war in Gaza has ground on with no end in sight.

This week, Muslim leaders pressed again for Australia to recognise Palestinian statehood. They said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had told them it would be a first-term priority for Labor.

The Greens have also signalled they are likely to move a motion for a vote on Palestinian statehood in parliament.

For Australia, as well as other nations that have yet to recognise Palestine (for example, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany and Canada), the prevailing narrative is that statehood will be achieved at some point in the future, once appropriate agreements are made and criteria are met by the Palestinian people and their representatives.

However, for most parts of the world, Palestine statehood is not a question for the future. It’s already a reality.

Armenia and Slovenia became the most recent states to officially recognise Palestine in June, following Norway, Ireland and Spain the month before.

This brought the global tally of states recognising Palestine to 148 of the 193 United Nations member states. These numbers are steadily growing, edging closer to the 165 UN members that recognise Israel.

Despite the majority view supporting Palestinian statehood, Palestine remains an “observer state” at the UN, without the rights and privileges of full membership.

But is this lack of formal recognition consistent with international law?

Requirements of a state

There is debate among international lawyers about the criteria that must be met for an entity to become a state. However, the most popular test is enshrined in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.

This test requires prospective states to possess four key attributes:

• a defined territory
• a permanent population
• a government
• the ability to enter into relations with other states.

Let’s go through them one by one, starting with the more straightforward criteria, both of which appear to be satisfied.

A permanent population

Prior to the current Gaza conflict, the population of the Palestinian territories was estimated at more than 5 million people.

The ability to enter into relations with other states

The countries that have recognised Palestine are conducting diplomatic relations with its representatives. Palestine has dozens of embassies around the world. It also has missions in states that have yet to formally recognise it.

Palestine is also a participating member in international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

The other two criteria require slightly closer inspection.

Defined territory

There has been a long-running dispute between Israel and Palestine about where their borders should be drawn.

There are many competing claims, including:

• the borders enshrined in the UN Partition Plan of 1947
• the “Green Line” of the Armistice Agreements of 1949 (sometimes referred to as the pre-1967 borders)
• the post-1967 borders, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights following the Six-Day War
• the status quo of the much-diminished Palestinian territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

An agreement on defined territories that would be acceptable to both Israel and the Palestinians has therefore been elusive in negotiations on a possible “two-state solution”.

However, for the purposes of international law, it is not necessary that borders be undisputed before a state can be recognised. A number of states have been recognised (and admitted to the UN) despite ongoing border disputes, most notably following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

A government

The Palestinian Authority (PA) was created in the 1990s as an interim governing body to represent the Palestinian territories. However, its legitimacy has been in question since no elections – either presidential or parliamentary – have been held in the territories since 2006.

Additionally, the governance of the Palestinian territories has been divided since 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority retained authority over the West Bank.

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), meanwhile, purports to represent Palestinians on the global stage. The PLO, in fact, sits in the UN as the representative of the observer state of Palestine.

While these competing claims may add a level of complexity to the issue, the requirement for a state to possess a government has been applied generously in the past. When South Sudan gained independence in July 2011, for example, a UN peacekeeping mission was quickly established to help the fledgling government bring stability and rule of law to the country.

If a similar interpretation was adopted here – particularly supported by evidence the Palestinian Authority is fulfilling the basic functions of a government in the West Bank – then it is likely this criterion could also be partially satisfied.

Of course, the PA does not have control over Gaza. However, the International Court of Justice has deemed the Palestinian territories, including Gaza, to be occupied by Israel because it still exercises effective control over them.

UN membership off the table – for now

A vote on Palestinian statehood has come before both the UN General Assembly and Security Council this year.

While 143 states – including Australia – voted in favour of Palestine gaining full UN membership in the General Assembly, the approval of the Security Council is ultimately required.

The most recent vote in the Security Council was blocked in April by the United States, which has veto power as a permanent council member. Until the US position shifts, full UN membership for Palestine is effectively off the table.

However, few international lawyers would stipulate that UN membership is required for statehood. It is instead a seal of approval from the global community that an entity has passed its entrance exam.

Switzerland only became a UN member in 2002, yet there was never any question that it was a true state before that.

Whether a state of Palestine exists is a question of both law and fact. On the analysis presented here, it appears both have been met.

Donald Rothwell receives funding from Australian Research Council

Sarah Krause does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Palestine has been recognised by more than 140 nations – but not yet Australia. So, what exactly defines a ‘state’? – https://theconversation.com/palestine-has-been-recognised-by-more-than-140-nations-but-not-yet-australia-so-what-exactly-defines-a-state-236584

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Patterson, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong

As you read this, draw your attention to your jaw. Are you aware of any sensations? Are there areas of tension? Does your jaw feel tight or relaxed?

Now imagine releasing any tension. What would that feel like?

Next, bring your awareness back to your breathing and back to this article.

This may seem familiar. You might have scanned areas of your body before, checked where you may be carrying tension and been prompted to see if you can release it.

This is just one example of approaches to build awareness of mind and body – and the connection between the two. Exercises like this involve recognising physical sensations, how your body is feeling, what it is experiencing, and even exploring the physiological connection to the psychological.

As you scan your body, you may notice emotions – perhaps anxiety, stress or sadness – arising in connection to bodily tension.

The idea of this connection is behind what are known as “somatic therapies”.

A focus on the mind-body connection

Somatic therapies (from the Greek word for body – soma) focus on the connection between the mind and body, which makes it different to other psychotherapies.

More traditional mental health approaches, such as cognitive behaviour therapy, raise awareness of the mind and its connection to behaviours. They often use talking to explore the mind, its emotions and thoughts, and prompt people to recognise and address negative thought and behaviour patterns.

Somatic therapies, in contrast, privilege the body. They are therapeutic approaches based on the understanding that physical and psychological connections exist, and that emotions and psychological experiences can manifest and be expressed as bodily sensations.

But somatic therapies go further than understanding that emotions like stress can affect physical health. Instead, people are guided to bring awareness to their body and how emotions are experienced as physical sensations in the body – then explore how this may be released through physical means.

What it looks like

Consider the tension in someone’s jaw identified in an awareness exercise like the one at the start of this article. Somatic therapies can help people safely explore the sensations’ connection to emotion, or a traumatic experience. Then, through exercises like breathwork or body movement activities such as stretching, posture adjustment or even jumping, people release tension.

Somatic or mind-body therapies are used by a variety of health-care and mental-health professionals, most commonly in the treatment of anxiety and trauma experiences and conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

However, these are still alternative therapies with limited research evidence to demonstrate clinical effectiveness. Most evidence in this emerging field is linked to a particular type of somatic therapy known as “somatic experiencing”.

A defined approach

Somatic experiencing was developed by American psychotherapist Peter Levine over several decades. It is described as “bottom-up processing” that directs the client’s attention:

to internal sensations, both visceral (interoception) and musculo-skeletal (proprioception and kinesthesis), rather than primarily cognitive or emotional experiences.

These bodily sensations are seen as the manifestation of post-traumatic stress experiences, which have accumulated in the body at a neurological level as a “body memory”. Levine theorises that this incomplete acute stress response (when someone is stuck in fight, flight or freeze mode) can lead to ongoing dysregulation in the body’s stress and relaxation systems.

But people can learn to recognise and release this stored trauma. According to practitioners the technique can help people release, recover and become more resilient.

Traumatic memories are targeted by gradually developing more and more tolerance for unpleasant sensations and their connection to emotions.

Over a series of sessions, clients are taken through a stepped model to build awareness of body sensations associated with a traumatic event or cumulative stress, learn to tolerate the difficult sensation, and then release it.

A 2020 literature review of somatic experiencing studies indicated early but promising indications it may be effective in reducing traumatic stress and as a treatment for PTSD. The authors concluded more randomised and controlled studies were needed.

Read more:
The Body Keeps the Score: how a bestselling book helps us understand trauma – but inflates the definition of it

But could it work for you?

The effectiveness of psychotherapies are often in part driven by a participant’s connection to and engagement with the theory and practice. What works for some may not work for others. Somatic therapies with their unique focus on mind-body connection may be an alternative therapy people wish to explore.

Early evidence and personal stories show some positive outcomes. However somatic therapy does not yet have conclusive research evidence to back its effectiveness.

As always, consult your health professional and seek trusted information and health advice.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Somatic therapies may build awareness of the mind-body connection to treat trauma. Could they could help you? – https://theconversation.com/somatic-therapies-may-build-awareness-of-the-mind-body-connection-to-treat-trauma-could-they-could-help-you-236345

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

A new law giving Australian workers the “right to disconnect” – to refuse contact from their employers outside their working hours (unless that refusal is unreasonable) – comes into effect this month.

The legislation is a response to growing awareness of the health and safety costs of stress and overwork associated with constant connectivity. A number of other countries, including France and Belgium, have also recognised such a right, or are considering doing so.

But New Zealand is not. Its regulation of working time is comparatively rudimentary compared to more comprehensive regulation in other countries, although the Minimum Wage Act limits working time to 40 hours a week unless the parties agree otherwise.

New Zealand should consider the right to disconnect for workers. But this needs to go beyond limits on when employers can actively contact workers. The government also needs to tackle employers’ ability to use newly developed technology to spy on, track and record everything workers do in their time off.

Constant surveillance is now a core feature of algorithmic management software. This gathers data from work-from-home laptops, biometric scanners, workers’ smartphones, AI searches of social media, worker-driven vehicles, and even internet-of-things-enabled employee badges.

These devices don’t necessarily stop recording when the worker leaves the workplace or stops work for the day.

Harms of 24/7 spying

Workers who are subject to 24/7 surveillance cannot truly disconnect from the workplace. Research has shown the perception of constant surveillance is bad for mental health and wellbeing. Misuse of this information by spying bosses, nosy co-workers, bullies or stalkers unquestionably harms workers.

Moreover, the data gathered from workers’ homes, smartphones, vehicles and biometrics can be commodified and resold to third-party data brokers.

These brokers are largely unregulated and operate well outside New Zealand’s borders or control. This means there are few real limits on who could purchase and use this information.

New Zealand lags in worker protection

New Zealand law does little to protect workers from these privacy invasions and employer demands.

Not only does the law barely limit working time, the protection provided by the Privacy Act against intrusive data collection is more limited than is generally understood. While other countries specifically regulate privacy in the context of employment, New Zealand does not.

Instead, under the generic principles of the law, New Zealand employers may collect personal information where necessary for a “lawful purpose” connected with workers’ functions or activities.

Employers don’t have to make sure employees know and explicitly consent to their data being collected. They just have to take “reasonable steps” to make sure workers know why it’s being collected and who will receive it.

Information can be used for purposes other than that for which it was originally collected, provided the individual consents. Information may also be disclosed to third parties on the same terms.

Global standards for workers

All of this falls behind the emerging global standards for worker privacy protection. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not allow employers to rely on employee “consent” to surveillance practices. This framework recognises the economic power that employers have over workers.

The EU is also looking to ban the processing of certain sorts of personal data for “platform workers” (Uber drivers, for example), including a prohibition on collecting data while the worker is not working.

New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory require active notice of filming and sound recording when workers are working at home, and do not permit passive covert surveillance without a court order. In Portugal the law expressly forbids permanent connection either through images or sounds.

The United States has begun consideration of the Stop Spying Bosses Act, which would prohibit employers from collecting after-hours data. And California has put in place some specific regulation around workers rights regarding their workplace data.

New Zealand’s weak penalties for interference with privacy stand in stark contrast to the penalties levied by the French Data Protection Agency. Amazon France was recently fined €32 million for breaches of the GDPR.

Opportunity is knocking

New Zealand’s government has a range of other employment law reforms on its agenda, including reform of occupational health and safety law, reviewing access to personal grievances, and changing the legal definition of “employee”.

But the right to disconnect does not appear to be a priority.

New Zealand can benefit from watching other countries as they respond to rapidly changing technologies. When the time is right, the government should implement rules giving workers a true right to disconnect and privacy outside the workplace.

Amanda Reilly is affiliated with the New Zealand Privacy Foundation as Co-Convener of the Working group on Privacy and Employment but the views expressed in this article are personal.

Joshua A.T. Fairfield is a member of the Working Group on Privacy and Employment associated with the New Zealand Privacy Foundation. His views expressed here are personal.

– ref. The right to disconnect from work – and employer surveillance – is growing globally. Why is NZ lagging? – https://theconversation.com/the-right-to-disconnect-from-work-and-employer-surveillance-is-growing-globally-why-is-nz-lagging-236307

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University

Pornography has been in the news a lot this year. It was at the centre of discussions for addressing violence against women back in May. Deepfake pornography has also been in the headlines.

Now the New South Wales government has announced the first state-led inquiry into the “impacts of harmful pornography”. The negative framing of the inquiry risks revisiting old arguments, rather than advancing the debate and policies.

Much of this debate has centred around the potential harm to teenagers, but very few people have interviewed teens about it. As part of our research, we asked teens about their experiences of porn and found many have a nuanced understanding of the risks, but also the benefits.

Filling an information vacuum

In our project, we asked 108 parents and teenagers from Australia, Greece, Norway and Ireland what they thought of online sexual content. We spoke to 50 Australian teens (aged 11–17) through interviews and focus groups about their perceptions of pornography.

We found teens hold very mixed views about both porn and sexting. Some of these views were positive.

For example, many young people recognise some benefit to being able to access pornography as a source of knowledge, particularly when sex is not discussed in schools.

Sixteen-year-old Miles said accessing porn can be useful:

A lot of people don’t know a lot [about sex] – but at this point I’d say, it would be good for under 16s [accessing porn] just because of the lack of actual education that you get at school about it.

Teens also sense both educators and parents’ discomfort with discussing sex and porn. Seventeen-year-old Warren said:

Talking to other people about [sex], it’s pretty awkward, but if I’m just watching it, I learn better.

Porn may offer more accessible and explicit representations of sex and bodies that schools cannot. Caris (aged 15) believed porn could be a good resource to learn about “pleasure [and] self-pleasure”. They said porn can assist with “learning what to do”.

Fourteen-year-old Tiffany agreed it could be instructive:

It can help you figure out what you may like, or not like, your […] preferences.

Copying what they see

Clearly, such perspectives are not without risk. Other teens recognised potentially harmful impacts of porn such as a lack of condom use displayed, objectification of women, no consent negotiated on screen, and concerns that others may copy acts they see in porn. Twelve-year-old Levi said:

In those videos they never really go over consent, they just go straight into doing it. I feel like it would harm you in those ways, if you aren’t educated otherwise.

Tiffany said:

A lot of people know that this is unrealistic but there are some that think, ‘oh my gosh, that’s what everyone should be like’, which can be harmful to quite a few people.

In our new study, we recommend that policy-makers and researchers should listen to teens, giving more importance to their firsthand experiences over secondhand statements. Secondhand statements tend to repeat warnings teens hear from others. Their actual experiences may be different from those represented in the media. Examples of experiences include Lauren’s perspective (aged 13):

It can be shocking at first and it shows the bad side and everything, so learning it in class would be better. I know a lot of people would make it uncomfortably cringey but I think it’s way better than just finding it online and just getting a real shock first ‘cause at least you’re prepared […]

How harmful is porn?

While pornography is often noted as harmful, the actual extent of harm caused by pornography is unclear.

Some systematic reviews argue links between pornography and sexual violence are inconsistent and lack causal links.

Even research on the relationship between pornography and acceptance of rape myths have been contradictory.

In our study, teens believed for the most part that the adults in their lives overstated the harms. For instance Nicola, 16, said:

It’s fine as long as it’s ethically made – obviously with the people paid and no sex trafficking.

While funding and resources have been allocated towards age verification to regulate and protect young people, teens believed attention was better directed towards education. Miles, 16, said:

I think the best protective measure for young people will be education. It’s not taught very well, it’s not taught enough. The quantity and quality of it is not there.

This is especially the case when discussions of sex may be avoided in certain households. Levi said:

Not everyone gets taught by their parents for some reason or another. So I feel like [a] certain amount, everyone should have the access to the knowledge […]

Porn literacy over bans

While movements towards teaching consent education are a welcome addition to the sexuality and relationships curriculum, teens clearly require more comprehensive information about sex than is currently offered to them.

For instance, when asked to rate their sexuality education in school in a survey conducted by True Relationships in Queensland, the average rating by school students was 3.5 out of ten.

Clear causal evidence of harm should be established before prohibitive policies are established, particularly given the evidence of possible benefits.

We need porn literacy that compliments media literacy, and which does not simply refer to all porn as “unrealistic” sex. It should help young people reach informed decisions about what they may have sought out, or been shown by their peers.

Ideally, developing porn literacy could be a part of discussions about sex framed in more balanced ways that respond to teens’ lived experiences. This is particularly important when young people appear to crave more explicit representations and knowledge of sex and cannot find such information elsewhere, particularly for minority groups.

Young people should be provided with the tools to decide what is best for them personally. Teens believed education could prove more useful than age-verification measures and restrictions. Opportunities for teens to openly discuss sex and tease out these issues for themselves, in a two-way discussion with people they trust, are crucial. This means support and training for educators and parents are equally important in tackling these issues effectively.

Discussions about porn, which start before adolescence, can help teens critically consider what they see represented in pornography. Teens will be more resilient and able to critique what they consume if they are prepared for what they may see online.

This paper is an outcome of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Adolescents’ perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content (DP 190102435). As such, funding was received from the Australian Research Council. We would like to acknowledge fellow Co-Chief Investigator Associate Professor Debra Dudek and Dr Harrison W. See for their significant contributions. We would also like to recognise Carmen Jacques and Kelly Jaunzems for their work.

Giselle is also part of a not-for-profit Relationships and Sexuality education advocacy group, Bloom-Ed, whose views are not expressed here.

Lelia Green receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). She is a Co-Chief Investigator on the Discovery Project ‘Adolescents’ perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content’ (DP 190102435). As such, funding was received from the Australian Research Council (2019-2023). Lelia also acknowledges significant in-kind support from the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University. All views expressed are her own, in collaboration with co-author Giselle Woodley. Other co-Investigators on this ARC project are Associate Professor Debra Dudek (ECU), Emeritus Professor Brian O’Neill (Technology University, Dublin), Professor Liza Tsaliki (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Professor Elisabeth Staksrud (University of Oslo) and Kjartan Ólafsson (University of Iceland).

– ref. Calls to ban ‘harmful pornography’ are rife. Here’s what teens actually think about porn – https://theconversation.com/calls-to-ban-harmful-pornography-are-rife-heres-what-teens-actually-think-about-porn-236410

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University

We hear a lot about women’s biological clock and how age affects the chance of pregnancy.

New research shows men’s fertility is also affected by age. When dads are over 50, the risk of pregnancy complications increases.

Data from more than 46 million births in the United States between 2011 and 2022 compared fathers in their 30s with fathers in their 50s.

While taking into account the age of the mother and other factors known to affect pregnancy outcomes, the researchers found every ten-year increase in paternal age was linked to more complications.

The researchers found that compared to couples where the father was aged 30–39, for couples where the dad was in his 50s, there was a:

• 16% increased risk of preterm birth
• 14% increased risk of low birth weight
• 13% increase in gestational diabetes.

The older fathers were also twice as likely to have used assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, to conceive than their younger counterparts.

Dads are getting older

In this US study, the mean age of all fathers increased from 30.8 years in 2011 to 32.1 years in 2022.

In that same period, the proportion of men aged 50 years or older fathering a child increased from 1.1% to 1.3%.

We don’t know the proportion of men over 50 years who father children in Australia, but data shows the average age of fathers has increased.

In 1975 the median age of Australian dads was 28.6 years. This jumped to 33.7 years in 2022.

How male age affects getting pregnant

As we know from media reports of celebrity dads, men produce sperm from puberty throughout life and can father children well into old age.

However, there is a noticeable decline in sperm quality from about age 40.

Female partners of older men take longer to achieve pregnancy than those with younger partners.

A study of the effect of male age on time to pregnancy showed women with male partners aged 45 or older were almost five times more likely to take more than a year to conceive compared to those with partners aged 25 or under. More than three quarters (76.8%) of men under the age of 25 years impregnated their female partners within six months, compared with just over half (52.9%) of men over the age of 45.

Pooled data from ten studies showed that partners of older men are also more likely to experience miscarriage. Compared to couples where the male was aged 25 to 29 years, paternal age over 45 years increased the risk of miscarriage by 43%.

Older men are more likely to need IVF

Outcomes of assisted reproductive technology, such as IVF, are also influenced by the age of the male partner.

A review of studies in couples using assisted reproductive technologies found paternal age under 40 years reduced the risk of miscarriage by about 25% compared to couples with men aged over 40.

Having a male under 40 years also almost doubled the chance of a live birth per treatment cycle. With a man over 40, 17.6% of treatment rounds resulted in a live birth, compared to 28.4% when the male was under 40.

How does male age affect the health outcomes of children?

As a result of age-related changes in sperm DNA, the children of older fathers have increased risk of a number of conditions. Autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and leukaemia have been linked to the father’s advanced years.

A review of studies assessing the impact of advanced paternal age reported that children of older fathers have increased rates of psychiatric disease and behavioural impairments.

But while the increased risk of adverse health outcomes linked to older paternal age is real, the magnitude of the effect is modest. It’s important to remember that an increase in a very small risk is still a small risk and most children of older fathers are born healthy and develop well.

Improving your health can improve your fertility

In addition to the effects of older age, some chronic conditions that affect fertility and reproductive outcomes become more common as men get older. They include obesity and diabetes which affect sperm quality by lowering testosterone levels.

While we can’t change our age, some lifestyle factors that increase the risk of pregnancy complications and reduce fertility, can be tackled. They include:

• smoking
• recreational drug taking
• anabolic steroid use
• heavy alcohol consumption.

Get the facts about the male biological clock

Research shows men want children as much as women do. And most men want at least two children.

Yet most men lack knowledge about the limitations of female and male fertility and overestimate the chance of getting pregnant, with and without assisted reproductive technologies.

We need better public education, starting at school, to improve awareness of the impact of male and female age on reproductive outcomes and help people have healthy babies.

For men wanting to improve their chance of conceiving, the government-funded sites Healthy Male and Your Fertility are a good place to start. These offer evidence-based and accessible information about reproductive health, and tips to improve your reproductive health and give your children the best start in life.

Karin Hammarberg works for the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority which manages the Your Fertility program.

– ref. Men have a biological clock too. Here’s what’s more likely when dads are over 50 – https://theconversation.com/men-have-a-biological-clock-too-heres-whats-more-likely-when-dads-are-over-50-236892

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Llewelyn Hughes, Professor of Public Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Since the 1990s, the economic agenda of governments across much of the world has been dominated by the Washington Consensus. This is a series of policy recommendations centred on privatisation of state businesses, deregulation of industries, liberalisation of trade, and opening economies to foreign direct investment.

As a result, industrial policies – where governments actively shaped the structure of economic activities towards a public purpose – fell into disuse in many parts of the world.

Now, after decades in the doldrums, industrial policy is back – with a green twist. The United States, European Union and Australia are spending hugely in a bid to respond to climate change, while trying to make domestic industries more competitive. There’s also a clear geopolitical aspect – Western nations are trying to reduce their reliance on China in the name of economic security.

Australia’s new industrial policy, Future Made in Australia is being debated in parliament. Amongst other things, it will use public funding to help homegrown industries benefit from the global low-carbon energy transition. The plan supports the creation of new industries such as green hydrogen and the expansion of existing ones, such as the manufacture of solar panel components and mining of critical minerals important to the green transition.

Returning to industry policy has not gone unquestioned. The Productivity Commission, an independent federal advisory body, recently argued we should be cautious about this approach to stimulating the economy because it’s hard for governments to identify where Australian companies and industries can compete – and failed public investment could make us less well off.

Green stimulus, as far as the eye can see

Australia did not move first. Green industrial policies are surging around the world. The International Monetary Fund has counted more than 2,500 worldwide as of 2023, largely in developed countries.

Across the Asia Pacific, governments never really gave up using industry policies. In particular, China’s government has supported its industry heavily and over a long period. This is one reason why China’s producers are now so dominant in green tech sectors such as solar photovoltaics.

What is genuinely new is how the US, Germany and other Western nations are embracing green industrial policies. The US Inflation Reduction Act announced by President Joe Biden in 2022 contained around A$560 billion in green stimulus, following the European Union’s 2020 Green Deal.

But can governments pick winners?

The Productivity Commission is worried the government will struggle to use subsidies and tax incentives to successfully support selected industries. Can we really pick winners? What if we fail?

These are important questions to answer. But we should remember we have been picking winners for decades in one sense, even during the era of untrammelled globalisation.

Australia has benefited from decades of international trade and investment in carbon-intensive bulk commodities such as coal and gas. But the picture of our true competitiveness is distorted by the lack of an effective carbon price. Would Australia have exported $65 billion of thermal coal last year if global policies fully accounted for the environmental damage done by burning coal?

Regardless, as our major trading partners go green, demand for these carbon-intensive products will fall. The key question is not if, but how fast?

In the absence of an international price on greenhouse gas emissions, green policies are necessarily going to be a patchwork of subsidies and other kinds of incentives.

So the question is not really whether to get into the industry policy game, but how to do it right.

Read more:
Climate holdout Japan drove Australia’s LNG boom. Could the partnership go green?

What do best practice policies look like?

Picking winners is hard. That doesn’t mean green industrial policies will fail.

We need to look at this as an information problem. Let’s say you want to identify how Australia could best compete and contribute to global value chains for emerging products, such as low-carbon steel or offshore wind turbines. Neither governments nor industry have all the information needed to make the best choices. That means collaboration is key.

The first and best response focuses on enabling governments, industries, and communities to better work together in identifying our strengths, and collaborate on an ongoing basis. It’s also useful to do detailed analysis of industrial processes and capabilities, as we did recently for the solar industry.

Research also indicates we are more likely to succeed in areas related to our existing strengths. But Australia is weakly diversified, meaning we have a lot riding on the success of a few industries such as iron ore, coal and gas.

This suggests there is real benefit to building new capabilities and industries by spending on research and innovation. The amount we spend on public research and development in the energy sector is low by international standards.

Importantly, this approach to industry policy relies on having governments with greater ability to do things rather than outsourcing. Reinvesting in government capacity to act is going to be essential.

But green industrial policy doesn’t mean retreating into protectionism. Throughout the transition to low-carbon energy, we will remain highly interdependent with our trading partners.

In low-carbon steel, for example, our ability to carve out a niche in emerging supply chains will rely in large part on collaborating with trade partners regionally and globally.

Try, fail, iterate, succeed

For many years now, scholars have forecast the retreat of globalisation. The new era of global competition centred on green industrial policies is unlikely to be reversed soon.

The Productivity Commission has contributed to the debate by noting that designing and implementing good policy is hard.

Caution is important. But so is seizing the moment, as governments and industry scramble to benefit from the transition to low carbon economies.

Llewelyn Hughes has received funding from a variety of different government and non-government sources, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Australia Japan Innovation Fund, and the Clean Energy Transition Advisory Committee of the Australia Japan Business Cooperation Committee.

– ref. Yes, it’s difficult for governments to pick green industry winners – but it’s essential Australia tries – https://theconversation.com/yes-its-difficult-for-governments-to-pick-green-industry-winners-but-its-essential-australia-tries-236144

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Schulz, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Adelaide

Since the start of this school year, we have been surveying teachers in South Australia about sexist views among students. This is part of our research into how online worlds are shaping Australian schooling.

In May, we reported the first round of our research. We found South Australian teachers were experiencing a rise in sexist and other anti-social views among students, similar to those reported interstate and overseas.

Teachers in our as yet unpublished study spoke of an alarming increase in misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and sexist language and behaviours, mostly by boys and young men targeting girls and young female teachers. This is prompting some women to leave the profession.

A new theme to emerge from our research is bystander inaction. This is when school leaders, other teachers, or parents downplay what is happening or do nothing or little in response.

Read more:
‘Make me a sandwich’: our survey’s disturbing picture of how some boys treat their teachers

Our study

Between February and May this year, we advertised an anonymous survey on the Teachers of Adelaide Facebook group. This involves teachers from public, private co-ed and single-sex schools.

The survey called for short-answer responses to questions about sexism, racism, homophobia or other anti-social behaviours and language.

We received 160 responses. Almost 80% of the responses were from female teachers, who were mostly from high schools. On top of this, we did ten interviews with teachers who responded, who were willing to talk at further length.

Teachers are not prepared to help

Some female teachers in our study experienced abuse and harassment by students when they were on their own. But it sometimes occurred around other female staff or teachers.

One female teacher who has been in the profession for 14 years told us how a Year 11 boy backed her into a corner of the staff room.

And the other staff members, they didn’t know what to do because he was stronger than all of us.

Other teachers spoke about how they had no training or preparation to deal with this kind of behaviour. One female teacher said:

I don’t think my teaching degree prepared me for any of this […]. It was a bit of a culture shock going into a school.

Another female teacher said teacher education and professional development did not acknowledge “you could possibly be the victim of sexual harassment as a teacher”. She added “that really pisses me off to be honest”.

It’s different for male teachers

A male interviewee described stepping into a senior high school classroom after the female teacher for that class had resigned due to the behaviour of male students.

She was having sexually suggestive things said to her by her students and it was not really dealt with appropriately. And she got to the point where she felt sick even thinking about coming to work […].

But as this male teacher explained, male students did not treat him the same way.

So, I just walk into the room, and they’re like, yeah, that’s the […] authority figure. It’s a man.

Other male teachers said gender-based harassment and abuse was too big an issue for them to tackle as part of their already busy and complex jobs. As one told us:

the scale of the problem is too big, and it’s really tangential as far as our duties go.

School leaders are not helping

Female teachers are telling us some school leaders (which include principals and deputy principals) are not treating these issues seriously.

In one school, a female teacher left after being told by students as young as Year 7 she “looked like a porn star”. A female colleague told us how

she told the principal that she was being sexually harassed, the principal just said, ‘Well, just because you said it’s harassment, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is’.

Other respondents talked about a “hush hush” response from schools when teachers left due to student behaviour.

anything that’s challenging, [the principal is] like, ‘No, we’re not discussing that. I’ll have a discussion in private with you’.

In other industries – where the harassment of women has been ignored or covered up – this has been referred to as “institutional gaslighting”.

Parents are ignoring warnings

When there is a behavioural issue with a student, one of the first steps a teacher can take is to talk to the parents. But teachers in our study said parents often did not believe their sons could behave this way. As one female teacher described it, there is

a lot of eye rolling like, I can’t believe you’re treating this as an issue.

Another female teacher told us:

usually I get the response from the parent, ‘Not my boy. My boy would not do that. My boy would not have those values’.

The same teacher continued:

I’m just wondering how many parents really know their sons and have been prepared to sit down and talk about consent with their children, have been prepared to sit down and talk about respect with their children?

Read more:
We research online ‘misogynist radicalisation’. Here’s what parents of boys should know

What can we do?

Bystander inaction to harassment and abuse of women and girls is not new. Research shows it thrives within cultures and systems where there is poor understanding of gender equity and little recognition we are all responsible for preventing or responding to this behaviour.

In Australia, we have a decades’ long policy vacuum around gender equity in schooling. So our systems are ill-equipped and reluctant to deal with this issue, despite warnings schools are becoming breeding grounds for gender-based violence and teachers are leaving.

We now have mandatory consent education, but as our research indicates, this is not being delivered consistently or effectively across schools.

Education around gender must be part of teaching degrees and a central component of the Australian Curriculum. And all of us in the community – including parents – need to take responsibility for the way men and boys treat women and girls.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Not my boy.’ When teachers are harassed by students, some schools and parents fail to help – https://theconversation.com/not-my-boy-when-teachers-are-harassed-by-students-some-schools-and-parents-fail-to-help-237122

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charlie Huang, Co-leader, Sustainable Global Business Operations and Development Research Group, School of Management, RMIT University

Australia is at the forefront of efforts to turn steelmaking green.

Earlier this year Australian iron ore producers Rio Tinto teamed up with Australian steelmaker BlueScope to develop “near-zero emission-intensity” pathways for making steel from Pilbara iron ore.

Renewable electricity and hydrogen would replace coking coal.

Iron ore miner Fortescue and a company started by two former Fortescue executives are developing plans to make low-emissions iron using competing technologies.

But Australia, the world’s biggest iron ore exporter, won’t have the field to itself.

Africa, a continent with boundless high-quality iron ore, is poised to become one of the world’s biggest producers of low-emissions steel, rivalling China.

Africa is blessed with sun, wind, iron ore of the necessary quality, and (importantly) a domestic demand for steel set to grow ten-fold.

Green steel is difficult

Global green steel production emits 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, about 8% of global energy emissions, or 10% when emissions from the electricity used to make steel are included.

While it is possible to make steel in ways that don’t emit carbon, replacing thermal coal with zero-emissions electricity, and coking coal with electricity and hydrogen, it is expensive and may not be commercial until the 1930s.

Management consultant McKinsey & Company believes green steel is unlikely to be cost-competitive with traditional steel manufacture backed by carbon capture and storage until 2050.

One of the reasons green steel would be expensive to make at scale is that it requires so-called green hydrogen. Although hydrogen can be made from water and zero-emissions electricity using electrolysis, at the moment less than 0.1% of hydrogen is made that way.

Africa has the energy and the right kind of iron

Africa, known as the “sun continent” has on one measure the greatest potential for solar electricity production in the world, nearly 40% of the global total. Importantly, the solar electricity it is able to produce is stable, varying little throughout the year.

Africa is also blessed with enough wind to power its current electricity demands 250 times over. It also has an impressive potential for hydroelectricity, 90% of which is untapped, the largest unexploited capacity in the world.

As well as the potential sources of power needed to make green hydrogen and steel, Africa is blessed with unusually large quantities of high-quality iron ore.

An iron content of 65% is needed for the so-called “direct reduction” process that removes the need for coking coal, and Africa has the world’s largest undeveloped iron ore deposit of that quality – 2.4 billion tonnes – at the Simandou mine operated by Rio Tinto and Singapore’s Winning Consortium in Guinea.

China is helping fund a 600-kilometre railway to get the iron ore to the coast.

Longer term, it will make more sense to turn this iron ore into green iron and steel within Africa where energy is abundant instead of exporting it 20,000 kilometres to China for processing.

The carbon miles saved will themselves reduce emissions.

Africa will become a large market

And Africa itself is likely to become the fastest-growing market for steel.

The steel use per person in Africa in 2023 was only 24 kilograms, which is only about one-tenth of the world average of 219 kilograms.

A move toward the world average as Africa develops would see it become an enormous and growing market for steel, which can be easily supplied with green steel made in Africa for the rest of the world.

Domination far from certain

The vision faces challenges. The world governance indicators prepared by the World Bank give the 54 African countries an average score of -0.7 on a scale that ranges from -2.5 (weak) to +2.5 (strong). Australia’s average score is positive at +1.5. The better the governance, the more likely a nation is to attract investment.

A related challenge is infrastructure, particularly power infrastructure, communications infrastructure and transport infrastructure.

More than 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity. The uptake of information communications technology is low (43% compared to a global average of 66%) as is the density of roads (10 kilometres per 100 square kilometres compared to the global average of 24).

If Africa can overcome these challenges, it has the opportunity to use its population, energy resources and high-quality iron ore to dominate steel production during the second half of this century.

Australia, also blessed with energy resources, but with lesser-quality iron ore and a lower population, might find itself a supporting player.

Charlie Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia won’t have ‘green steel’ to itself. Africa is poised to become a global hub – https://theconversation.com/australia-wont-have-green-steel-to-itself-africa-is-poised-to-become-a-global-hub-233651

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joy McEntee, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Creative Writing and Film, University of Adelaide

This piece contains spoilers.

In Alien: Romulus, Rain Carradine (Caylee Spaeny) and her android “brother” Andy (David Jonsson) are marginalised and exploited by their mining colony. They join a group of young people who stage a raid on an abandoned space station in the hope of stealing equipment so they can planet hop to a better world.

But in the Alien universe, space vessels are never abandoned for no reason. The group soon find themselves falling victim, one by one and in gruesome ways, to science fiction’s most ferocious predator.

That much is to be taken as read the minute you buy your ticket for any of the movies in the Alien franchise. And there is another thing you can take for granted: the Alien franchise has always been about women, and it has always been about mothers.

Each entry has taught us how to think about women and mothers, and about the wave of feminism – or the backlash to feminism – contemporary with its making. Unfortunately, this latest contribution to the series seems to not be interested in feminist politics at all.

Riding the waves of feminism

As the Alien franchise has evolved, so has its relation to waves of feminism, particularly in the way it recruits ideas about reproductive choice.

Alien (1979) is the product of Second Wave feminism. One of the achievements of 1970s feminism was winning women the right to reproductive choice. Alien gives us an androgynous action heroine who resists motherhood in all its forms. Ripley (Signourney Weaver) first encounters the alien via its monstrous “children”, the facehuggers.

One of these eventually hatches into a ferocious, full-grown xenomorph, which Ripley must battle. She survives, but only by the skin of her teeth.

In her foundational work The Monstrous-Feminine, cinema scholar Barbara Creed said Aliens uses the grotesque body of the alien mother to explore those physical and psychological reminders of our debt to our mothers we would rather distance ourselves from.

There are two mothers in Alien: the alien mother, who remains off screen, and “Mother”, the shipboard computer. Computers and androids are never quite to be trusted in Alien films. As it turns out, Mother’s prime directive is to bring back the alien lifetime for the sinister Weyland-Yutani corporation. The crew are expendable. Ripley must fight Mother to escape.

In Aliens (1986), Ripley encounters the alien mother, and becomes the adoptive mother of a human girl, Newt, who she must protect from the alien mother.

This pitting of good mother against bad mother may seem a wholesome development. However, it represented a step backward in terms of the film’s feminist credentials: it aligned Ripley with traditional patriarchal models of motherhood during an era of anti-feminist backlash.

As feminist scholar Tania Modleski said, Aliens registers the simultaneous co-optation and disavowal of feminism during this era of backlash:

the heroine is shown to be capable and strong, but only so that she may […] vanquish an image of the maternal as monstrous and filthy, deserving of destruction.

Then, in Alien: Resurrection (1997), by means of genetic experiments, Ripley becomes the mother of a monstrous alien-human hybrid as medicine and technology encroached on human reproduction in the era of in vitro fertilisation.

As films in the Alien franchise progress, Ripley and the women who succeed her are driven back towards motherhood. Their exercise of reproductive choice is made monstrous, or denied altogether. While the first film had strong feminist credentials, these became weaker with each subsequent film.

The Alien films fit into the genre of “gynaehorror”: a class of filmmaking which exploits physically disgusting and psychologically disturbing images of motherhood to acknowledge women’s power – but that acknowledgement is fearful.

This trajectory reaches its climax in the DIY caesarean of Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) in Prometheus (2012), and ends bitterly in Covenant (2017) when Daniels (Catherine Waterson) becomes an incubator for alien foetuses.

The Alien films are contradictory. On one hand, Ripley and her successors model bracing action heroism that seems exemplary of feminist empowerment; on the other hand, the films are reactionary against the key claims of feminism, particularly concerning reproductive choice.

Alien: Romulus

Directed by Fede Álvarez, Alien: Romulus comes in the wake of Fourth Wave feminism, including calls for greater inclusion of diverse people and the #MeToo movement. But here, feminism is notably absent. Young women’s greater sexual and reproductive agency and assertiveness barely seem to register and the film’s star turn belongs not to a woman, but to a man.

One of the group is a hapless, listless young mother barely out of her teens (Isabella Merced). Her pregnancy is exploited to make her death more harrowing. But not before monstrous pregnancy returns forcibly. She has her human pregnancy hijacked by alien DNA.

Álvarez’s version is less about mothers than about siblings. The drama leans heavily on the relationship between Rain and Andy, with themes of love, betrayal and abandonment. Jonsson gets as much airtime, and a more interesting role, than Spaeny.

As Rain Carradine, Spaeny has her share of Ripley moments, but she would have to toughen up considerably to stand toe-to-toe with Weaver. Ripley’s iconic lines are taken from her by Andy.

So what do we learn about women from this entry in the Alien franchise? That they continue important as alien incubators, as pretexts for gynaehorror, but otherwise they are important chiefly in their relationships with men.

This is a step backwards in terms of Ripley’s legacy. As critic Peter Bradshaw asks, “Did we need another Alien film?”

I suspect not, or at least, not this one.

Joy McEntee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Alien films have always been contradictory in their feminism – but Alien: Romulus avoids the issue entirely – https://theconversation.com/the-alien-films-have-always-been-contradictory-in-their-feminism-but-alien-romulus-avoids-the-issue-entirely-229004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Price, Professor of Astrophysics, Monash University

Giant black holes in the centres of galaxies like our own Milky Way are known to occasionally munch on nearby stars.

This leads to a dramatic and complex process as the star plunging towards the supermassive black hole is spaghettified and torn to shreds. The resulting fireworks are known as a tidal disruption event.

In a new study published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, we have produced the most detailed simulations to date of how this process evolves over the span of a year.

A black hole tearing apart a sun

American astronomer Jack G. Hills and British astronomer Martin Rees first theorised about tidal disruption events in the 1970s and 80s. Rees’s theory predicted that half of the debris from the star would remain bound to the black hole, colliding with itself to form a hot, luminous swirl of matter known as an accretion disc. The disc would be so hot, it should radiate a copious amount of X-rays.

But to everyone’s surprise, most of the more than 100 candidate tidal disruption events discovered to date have been found to glow mainly at visible wavelengths, not X-rays. The observed temperatures in the debris are a mere 10,000 degrees Celsius. That’s like the surface of a moderately warm star, not the millions of degrees expected from hot gas around a supermassive black hole.

Even weirder is the inferred size of the glowing material around the black hole: several times larger than our Solar System and expanding rapidly away from the black hole at a few percent of the speed of light.

Given that even a million-solar-mass black hole is just a bit bigger than our Sun, the huge size of the glowing ball of material inferred from observations was a total surprise.

While astrophysicists have speculated the black hole must be somehow smothered by material during the disruption to explain the lack of X-ray emissions, to date nobody had been able to show how this actually occurs. This is where our simulations come in.

A slurp and a burp

Black holes are messy eaters – not unlike a five-year-old with a bowl of spaghetti. A star starts out as a compact body but gets spaghettified: stretched to a long, thin strand by the extreme tides of the black hole.

As half of the matter from the now-shredded star gets slurped towards the black hole, only 1% of it is actually swallowed. The rest ends up being blown away from the black hole in a sort of cosmic “burp”.

Simulating tidal disruption events with a computer is hard. Newton’s laws of gravity don’t work near a supermassive black hole, so one has to include all the weird and wonderful effects from Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

But hard work is what PhD students are for. Our recent graduate, David Liptai, developed a new do-it-Einstein’s-way simulation method which enabled the team to experiment by throwing unsuspecting stars in the general direction of the nearest black hole. You can even do it yourself.

The resultant simulations, seen in the videos here, are the first to show tidal disruption events all the way from the slurp to the burp.

They follow the spaghettification of the star through to when the debris falls back on the black hole, then a close approach that turns the stream into something like a wriggling garden hose. The simulation lasts for more than a year after the initial plunge.

It took more than a year to run on one of the most powerful supercomputers in Australia. The zoomed-out version goes like this:

What did we discover?

To our great surprise, we found that the 1% of material that does drop to the black hole generates so much heat, it powers an extremely powerful and nearly spherical outflow. (A bit like that time you ate too much curry, and for much the same reason.)

The black hole simply can’t swallow all that much, so what it can’t swallow smothers the central engine and gets steadily flung away.

When observed like they would be by our telescopes, the simulations explain a lot. Turns out previous researchers were right about the smothering. It looks like this:

The new simulations reveal why tidal disruption events really do look like a solar-system-sized star expanding at a few percent of the speed of light, powered by a black hole inside. In fact, one could even call it a “black hole sun”.

Daniel Price is very grateful for funding from the Australian Research Council, otherwise his research would disappear into a black hole.

– ref. Watch a star get destroyed by a supermassive black hole in the first simulation of its kind – https://theconversation.com/watch-a-star-get-destroyed-by-a-supermassive-black-hole-in-the-first-simulation-of-its-kind-237032