Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

Last week, the Queensland government launched the ambitious Destination 2045 tourism plan, which aims to make the state a global leader in tourism. The plan highlights that one in six jobs in tropical north Queensland are supported by tourism.

However, earlier this year the same government tentatively withdrew support from a campaign to add Cape York to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

If the goal is to position Queensland as a leader in tourism, then linking Cape York’s landscapes to the World Heritage brand would certainly help achieve that.

Consultation is key

In June 2024, Steven Miles, Labor’s then-premier in Queensland, and Tanya Plibersek, the federal environment minister, announced they had placed seven of the cape’s national parks on Australia’s tentative World Heritage list.

In January, however, the newly elected Liberal-National government, under Premier David Crisafulli, ordered a review of the decision. The government cited concerns over a lack of sufficient consultation around the nomination.

If a lack of consultation is the main issue, there is an opportunity for the Crissafulli government to thoughtfully reopen negotiations.

Getting this step right could help conserve and encourage tourism to one of Australia’s most diverse landscapes – in line with the Destination 2045 plan.

How to get onto (and kicked off) UNESCO’s list

Cape York covers some 137,000 square kilometres. According to the 2021 census, it has a population of less than 8,000 people, including 3,678 Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Inscription to the World Heritage list doesn’t mean the entire cape would be listed – just specific sites and landscapes within it.

It’s usually the responsibility of a country’s various governments to convince UNESCO, in a nomination bid, a certain place has the necessary “outstanding universal value” and meets at least one of UNESCO’s ten selection criteria.

Sites that are physically altered or damaged after receiving World Heritage status can be de-listed, either by a state party or by UNESCO. This has happened in Oman, Germany, the United Kingdom and Georgia.

We also recently saw the Murujuga Cultural Landscape in Western Australia, with its extraordinary record of rock engravings (petroglyphs), denied World Heritage inscription. This was mainly due to the threat of ongoing damage from industrial emissions from Woodside Energy’s nearby Karratha gas plant.

World Heritage status: a risk or benefit?

A carefully considered World Heritage inscription doesn’t necessarily block industries and tourism from the listed area.

Many of the archaeological sites of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area in New South Wales are located on sheep stations. These stations, established in the late 19th century, have individual property plans that ensure the sites are conserved while remaining viable for agricultural activity.

Another example is the tourism seen at the extraordinary eel trap system of Budj Bim in southwest Victoria. Budj Bim is one of Australia’s most recent additions to the World Heritage list. It is also the first site to be inscribed solely for its cultural value.

The Budj Bim eel traps were engineered some 6,600 years ago, and represent one of the world’s oldest aquaculture systems.

This cultural landscape is now home to a thriving tourism program that attracts thousands of visitors each year. The World Heritage listing ensures there are enough resources for the Gunditjmara Traditional Owners running the site to improve the health of Country through cultural and environmental management.

World Heritage often boosts international tourism, funding opportunities and local branding. The Lake District in the UK is a good example of this, although the site has faced some controversy recently.

While Queensland’s current government has cited concerns over planning restrictions, these types of concerns are typically based on perception rather than proven harm. In Queensland, they were also clearly addressed in government memos and communications.

Tasmania’s forestry sector resisted World Heritage expansion (there were four expansions between 1989–2013), yet tourism in the region remains economically valuable.

It’s unlikely the Cape York nominations would threaten the pastoral or mining industries, since most of the nominated sites are already protected as national parks.

What makes a World Heritage site?

The list of Cape York sites submitted for World Heritage consideration has some strong contenders. Quinkan Country is undoubtedly the most significant site on the list, distinguished by its diversity and richness of Aboriginal paintings and engravings.

But the list isn’t exhaustive. There are several other Aboriginal cultural landscapes in Cape York that also deserve to be considered by UNESCO. These include the giant shell mounds around Weipa, Jiigurru (Lizard Island), and the Flinders Island Group with its extraordinary rock art galleries.

Moving forward

World heritage listings in Cape York have great potential to allow Aboriginal people to care for the landscapes and create tourism infrastructure that centres Aboriginal perspectives.

Appointing Aboriginal rangers in the Flinders Island Group could help deliver a unique and sustainable cultural tourism experience, similar to that provided at the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. Destination 2045 highlights the importance of developing Aboriginal ranger programs in such landscapes to boost cultural tourism and economic growth.

The Crisafulli government now has the opportunity to meaningfully engage with the Traditional Custodians of the Cape York landscapes that have been put forth. We argue that the World Heritage listing outcome could help the cape’s economic development and support its communities.

Michael Westaway receives funding from then Australian Research Council and has undertaken research with Aboriginal communities in the Kaurarag Archipelago, around Mapoon and Weipa including on the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve and in the Flinders Island Group adjacent to Princess Charlotte Bay.

Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). Ania previously sat on the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) World Heritage Nomination Bids review panel. Ania undertakes research with Aboriginal communities including within the Kaurareg Archipelago.

Denis Rose is on the board of the not-for-profit Country Needs People, which advocates for Indigenous Protected Areas and the Indigenous Rangers Program.

Olivia Arnold has undertaken research with Aboriginal communities in the Flinders Island Group adjacent to Princess Charlotte Bay, Kaurarag Archipelago and Jiigurru (Lizard Island group).

Rylee 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. Cape York deserves World Heritage status – and Queensland may need it to become a global leader in tourism – https://theconversation.com/cape-york-deserves-world-heritage-status-and-queensland-may-need-it-to-become-a-global-leader-in-tourism-248660

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melinda Jackson, Associate Professor at Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University

If you’ve been on social media lately – perhaps scrolling in the middle of the night, when you know you shouldn’t but you just can’t sleep – you might have seen those videos promoting a get-to-sleep technique called “cognitive shuffling”.

The idea, proponents say, is to engage your mind with random ideas and images via a special formula:

1. pick a random word (such as “cake”)
2. focus on the first letter of the word (in this case, C) and list a bunch of words starting with that letter: cat, carrot, calendar and so on
3. visualise each word as you go along
4. when you feel ready, move onto the next letter (A) and repeat the process
5. continue with each letter of the original word (so, in this case, K and then E) until you feel ready to switch to a new word or until you drift off to sleep.

It’s popular on Instagram and TikTok, but does “cognitive shuffling” have any basis in science?

Where did this idea come from?

The cognitive shuffling technique was made famous by Canada-based researcher Luc P. Beaudoin more than a decade ago, when he published a paper about how what he called “serial diverse imagining” could help with sleep.

One of Beaudoin’s hypothetical examples involved a woman thinking of the word “blanket”, then thinking bicycle (and imagining a bicycle), buying (imagining buying shoes), banana (visualising a banana tree) and so on.

Soon, Beaudoin writes, she moves onto the letter L, thinking about her friend Larry, the word “like” (imagining her son hugging his dog). She soon transitions to the letter A, thinking of the word “Amsterdam”:

and she might very vaguely imagine the large hand of a sailor gesturing for another order of fries in an Amsterdam pub while a rancid accordion plays in the background.

Sleep soon ensues. The goal, according to Beaudoin, is to think briefly about:

a neutral or pleasant target and frequently [switch] to unrelated targets (normally every 5-15 seconds).

Don’t try to relate one word with another or find a link between the words; resist the mind’s natural tendency toward sense-making.

While the research into this technique is still in its infancy, the idea is grounded in science. That’s because we know from other research good sleepers tend to have different kinds of thoughts in bed to bad sleepers.

People with insomnia are more focused on worries, problems, or noises in the environment, and are often preoccupied with not sleeping.

Good sleepers, on the other hand, typically have dream-like, hallucinatory, less ordered thoughts before nodding off.

Sorting the pro-somnolent wheat from the insomnolent chaff

Cognitive shuffling attempts to mimic the thinking patterns of good sleepers by simulating the dream-like and random thought patterns they generally have before drifting off to sleep.

In particular, Beaudoin’s research describes two types of sleep-related thoughts: insomnolent (or anti-sleep) and pro-somnolent (sleep-promoting) thoughts.

Insomnolent thoughts include things such as worrying, planning, rehearsing, and ruminating on perceived problems or failings.

Pro-somnolent thoughts on the other hand involve thoughts that can help you fall asleep, such as dream-like imagery or having a calm, relaxed state of mind.

Cognitive shuffling aims to distract from or interfere with insomnolent thought. It offers a calm, neutral path for your racing mind, and can reduce the stress associated with not sleeping.

Cognitive shuffling also helps tell your brain you are ready for sleep.

In fact, the process of “shuffling” between different thoughts is similar to the way your brain naturally drifts off to sleep. During the transition to sleep, brain activity slows. Your brain starts to generate disconnected images and fleeting scenes, known as hypnagogic hallucinations, without a conscious effort to make sense of them.

By mimicking these scattered, disconnected, and random thought patterns, cognitive shuffling may help you transition from wakefulness to sleep.

And the preliminary research into this is promising. Beaudoin and his team have found serial diverse imagining helps to lower arousal before sleep, improve sleep quality and reduce the effort involved in falling asleep.

However, with only a small number of research studies, more work is needed here.

It didn’t work. Now what?

As with every new strategy, however, practise makes perfect. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t see an improvement straight away; these things take time.

Stay consistent and be kind to yourself.

And what works for some won’t work for others. Different people benefit from different types of strategies depending on how they relate to and experience stress or stressful thoughts.

Other strategies to help create the right conditions for sleep include:

• keeping a consistent pre-bedtime routine, so your brain can wind down
• watching your thoughts, without judgement, as you lie in bed
• writing down worries or to-do lists earlier in the day so you don’t think about them at bedtime.

If, despite all your best efforts, night time thoughts continue to impact your sleep or overall wellbeing, consider seeking professional help from your doctor or a trained sleep specialist.

Melinda Jackson has received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Aged Care Research & Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA) and Dementia Australia. She a board member of the Australasian Sleep Association.

Eleni Kavaliotis has previously received funding from an Australian government Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship. She is a member of the Australasian Sleep Association’s Insomnia and Sleep Health Council.

– ref. What is ‘cognitive shuffling’ and does it really help you get to sleep? Two sleep scientists explain – https://theconversation.com/what-is-cognitive-shuffling-and-does-it-really-help-you-get-to-sleep-two-sleep-scientists-explain-256444

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sora Park, Professor of Communication, News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra

As consumption of traditional news continues to fall, audiences are turning to social media personalities and influencers for their information. These figures are increasingly shaping public debates.

But Australian news audiences are sceptical. More Australians believe social media influencers are a major misinformation threat than other sources, according to new research.

The Digital News Report: Australia 2025, released today, also reveals general news avoidance remains high, with 69% of people saying they try not to engage with it. This is particularly the case among women, young people and those in regional areas.

So if people don’t want to engage with traditional news, but are suspicious of influencers, how can we ensure they get reliable information when they need it? There are some solutions.

Suspicious of influencers

The Digital News Report: Australia is part of a global annual survey of digital news consumption in 48 countries, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

The survey was conducted by YouGov in January and February 2025. The data are weighted for age, gender and region. Education and political quotas were also applied.

For the 11th iteration of this study in Australia, we surveyed 2,006 online Australian adults. We asked people about sources and platforms they believe to be major misinformation threats.

More than half of participants said online influencers/personalities are the major risk (57%), followed by activists (51%), foreign governments (49%), Australian political actors (48%), and the news media (43%).

This is in stark contrast to the United States, where national politicians are seen as posing the biggest threat of misleading information (57%) and is ten percentage points higher than the global average of 42 countries in the survey (47%).

Navigating truth online

The report also finds Australians continue to be the most concerned about what is real or fake online, with 74% saying they are worried about it.

This is especially true on social media, where Australians see Facebook (59%) and TikTok (57%) as the two platforms that are the biggest threat of spreading misinformation.

Given the proportion of people using social media as their main source of news has increased (26%, up eight percentage points since 2016) and TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform for news (14%, up 13 percentage points since 2020), concern about misinformation will likely remain an issue in Australia.

This problem is not necessarily with the platform itself, but who audiences pay attention to when they are on it.

On TikTok, Australians are more likely to turn to information shared by influencers, particularly younger audiences.

Less or more intervention?

Deciding what is true or fake online is a complex issue. This was highlighted during the political debate over the federal government’s controversial Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, which was eventually withdrawn late last year.

Much hinged on questions around who gets to decide what the truth is, and who might be responsible for tackling it. Is it the job of digital platforms to remove harmful and misleading content? Or do audiences need more media literacy education? Or both?

As debate over how to reduce harm while balancing free speech continues, we asked people about the removal of harmful and offensive social media content.

One third (33%) say social media and video networks like TikTok and YouTube are not removing enough harmful or offensive content.

Fewer people (21%) think platforms are removing too much.

This indicates Australians want more action from social media companies.

Boosting media literacy

The data also tell us improving news literacy across the community may be key to tackling the problem.

We asked people what they do when they come across suspicious information. Thirty-nine percent said they fact-check using trusted news sources, official websites and search engines.

But there were important differences in fact-checking behaviours between those who had received some kind of news literacy education and those who had not.

People who had received training about how the news works were much more likely to use a reputable news source or go to an official website to verify information.

However, few people have had such education, with only 24% of those surveyed saying they had received some.

The data show not only are people with news literacy education more likely to fact-check, they also avoid news less, have higher interest in it, are more likely to trust the news, and more inclined to pay for it.

This suggests increasing news literacy can help users navigate the complex online environment, and could also have both civic and economic benefits.

While there is no single solution to reducing misinformation online, this year’s data points to two key areas for further action: increasing access to media literacy training for all Australians, and compelling digital platforms to remove more misleading and harmful content.

Sora Park receives funding from the Australian Research Council, SBS, Creative Australia and Boundless Earth.

Ashleigh Haw has received funding from the Australian National University’s Herbert and Valmae Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry, and The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).

Caroline Fisher has received funding from Australian Research Council, Google News Initiative, the Australian Communication and Media Authority, former Dept of Communication and Infrastructure, and Judith Neilsen Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

Kieran McGuinness has received funding from Google News Initiative and the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

– ref. New research shows Australians see influencers as major sources of misinformation – https://theconversation.com/new-research-shows-australians-see-influencers-as-major-sources-of-misinformation-257803

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jairo Gutierrez, Professor, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Auckland University of Technology

There’s a certain feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I’m waiting for an important call to come through. You know the type – maybe a call from your boss, a potential new employer or news of a loved one who’s due to give birth.

In these situations, I usually stare at my phone, willing it to ring. I make sure – over and again – it’s not on silent or “do not disturb” mode. When the screen is out of my sight, I imagine I can hear the familiar ringtone.

Then it pops up – the missed call notification. But the phone never rang. What happened?

How do mobile calls work?

When making a mobile call using 4G or 5G networks, the caller dials a number and their network operator (Telstra or OneNZ, for example) routes the request to the recipient’s device.

For this to work, both phones must be registered with an IP Multimedia Subsystem – or IMS – which automatically happens when you turn on your phone. IMS is the system that allows the combination of voice calls, messages and video communications.

Both phones must also be connected to a 4G or 5G cell phone tower. The caller’s network sends an invite to the recipient’s device, which will then start to ring.

This process is usually very fast. But as generations of cellular networks have evolved (remember 3G?), becoming faster and with greater capacity, they have also become more complex, with new potential points of failure.

From phone failures to ‘dead zones’

Mobile phones use Voice over LTE (VoLTE) for 4G networks or Voice over New Radio (VoNR) for 5G. These are technologies that enable voice calls over those two types of networks and they use the above mentioned IMS.

In some countries such as New Zealand, if either of these aren’t enabled or supported on your device (some phones have VoLTE disabled by default), it may attempt to fall back to the 3G network, which was switched off in Australia in 2024 and is currently being phased out in New Zealand.

If this fallback fails or is delayed, the recipient’s phone may not ring or may go straight to voicemail.

Another possibility is that your phone may have failed to register with the IMS network. If this happens – due to something like a software glitch, SIM issue, or network problem – a phone won’t receive the call signal and won’t ring.

Then there are handover issues. Each cell phone tower covers a particular area, and if you are moving, your call will be handed over to the tower that provides the best coverage. Sometimes your phone uses 5G for data but 4G for voice; if the handover between 5G and 4G is slow or fails, the call might not ring. If 5G is used for both data and voice, VoNR is used, which is still not widely supported and may fail.

Mobile apps introduce other potential problems. For example, on Android, aggressive battery-saving features can restrict background processes, including the phone app, preventing it from responding to incoming calls. Third-party apps such as call blockers, antivirus tools, or even messaging apps can also interfere with call notifications.

Finally, if your phone is in an area with poor reception, it may not receive the call signal in time to ring. These so-called “dead zones” are more common than telcos would like to admit. I live at the end of a long driveway in a well-covered suburb of Auckland in New Zealand. But, depending on where I am in the house, I still experience dead zones and often the WiFi-enabled phone apps will more reliably cause the phone to ring.

What can I do to fix it?

If your phone frequently doesn’t ring on 4G or 5G there are a few things you can do:

• make sure VolTE/VoNR is enabled in your network settings
• restart your phone and toggle airplane mode to refresh network registration
• check battery optimisation settings and exclude the phone app you are using
• contact your carrier to confirm VoLTE/VoNR support and provisioning.

But ultimately, sometimes a call will just fail – and there’s very little an everyday person can do about it. Which yes, is annoying. But it also means you have a failsafe, expert-approved excuse for missing a call from your boss.

Jairo Gutierrez 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. Why does my phone sometimes not ring when people call? A communications expert explains – https://theconversation.com/why-does-my-phone-sometimes-not-ring-when-people-call-a-communications-expert-explains-258400

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wei Yang, Senior Scientist in Environmental Economics, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

As extreme weather intensifies globally, governments are seeking nature-based solutions that deliver both climate and economic benefits.

The restoration of wetlands is an often overlooked opportunity. As our recent study shows, wetlands have long been treated as environmental “add-ons” but are in fact rising economic assets, delivering more value as they mature.

Restored coastal wetlands, particularly mangroves and saltmarshes, offer growing returns in the form of carbon sequestration, biodiversity protection and storm buffering. These benefits build up gradually, sometimes exponentially, over time.

But planning frameworks treat restorations as static costs, rather than compounding investments.

Using international data and economic modelling, we developed a framework to capture how wetland benefits evolve over decades. While we draw on global datasets, this approach can be applied in New Zealand to understand the value of local restoration projects.

Timing matters for wetland investment

Traditional cost-benefit analyses treat wetland restoration as a one-off expense with fixed returns. Our research shows this misses the bigger, long-term picture.

For example, coastal mangroves initially store a modest amount of carbon while seedlings develop. But as root systems establish and capture sediment, there is a critical threshold when carbon sequestration accelerates dramatically. Mature restored mangroves can store three times more carbon annually than during early years.

Saltmarshes follow a similar pattern. They develop from basic habitat into complex networks that buffer storm surges, filter nutrients and support productive fisheries.

For New Zealand, where many wetlands were historically drained or degraded, the implication is clear. Early investment in restoration is critical and will deliver increasing returns over time.

Our study highlights mangroves and saltmarshes as priority systems, but also points to peatlands and freshwater marshes as promising candidates.

Risk from resource management reform

As part of a major reform of the Resource Management Act, the government is reviewing the environmental rules governing the work of local and regional councils, including policies on freshwater.

The law review and freshwater policy consultations present both opportunities and challenges for wetland valuation.

The amendment to the Resource Management Act regarding freshwater proposes:

quick, targeted changes which will reduce the regulatory burden on key sectors, including farming, mining and other primary industries.

While this may reduce the regulatory burden, it highlight the need for robust valuation tools that can weigh long-term benefits against immediate development returns.

The current consultation outlines specific changes, including clarifying the definition of a wetland. The amended definition would exclude wetlands “unintentionally created” through activities such as irrigation, while constructed wetlands would have a new set of objectives and consent pathways.

Councils would also no longer need to map wetlands by 2030, while restrictions on non-intensive grazing of beef cattle and deer in wetlands would be removed.

These definition changes could exclude wetlands that accumulate significant climate and biodiversity benefits over time, regardless of their origin. As our research suggests, the ecological and economic value of wetlands often increases substantially as systems mature.

The valuation gap

Despite growing international recognition of “blue carbon” initiatives (which store carbon in coastal and marine ecosystems), New Zealand lacks frameworks to capture the dynamic value of wetlands.

Earlier research shows coastal ecosystems contribute about US$190 billion annually to global blue carbon wealth, with wetlands storing about half of all carbon buried in ocean sediments despite occupying less than 2% of the ocean.

New Zealand has no wetland-specific financial instruments to attract private investment and wetlands are not integrated into the Emissions Trading Scheme, the government’s main tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This creates a fundamental mismatch. Policy frameworks treat restoration as static costs while science reveals appreciating assets.

Our modelling framework offers a pathway to bridge this gap. By tracking how different wetland types accumulate benefits over time, decision makers can better understand long-term returns on restoration investment.

Australia is already developing wetland carbon markets. International blue carbon financial initiatives are emerging and recognising that today’s restoration investment delivers tomorrow’s climate benefits.

For New Zealand, this could mean:

• integrating wetland valuation into environmental assessments, moving beyond upfront costs to consider decades of accumulating benefits across different wetland types

• aligning finance with restoration timelines and developing funding mechanisms that capture growing value rather than treating restoration as sunk costs

• building regional datasets and generating location-specific data on how New Zealand’s diverse wetlands develop benefits over time, reducing investment uncertainty.

With sea-level rise accelerating and extreme weather becoming more frequent, wetlands represent critical infrastructure for climate adaptation. Unlike built infrastructure (stop banks, for example) that depreciates, wetlands appreciate, becoming more valuable as they mature.

The current policy consultation period offers an opportunity to embed this thinking into New Zealand’s environmental frameworks. Rather than viewing wetlands as regulatory constraints, dynamic valuation could reveal them as appreciating assets that increase resilience for coastal communities.

Restoring coastal wetlands is not just about repairing nature. It’s about investing in a living, compounding asset that ameliorates climate impacts and protects our coasts and communities.

Wei Yang was funded by a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour grant.

– ref. Wetland restoration is seen as sunk cost – but new research shows why it should be considered an investment – https://theconversation.com/wetland-restoration-is-seen-as-sunk-cost-but-new-research-shows-why-it-should-be-considered-an-investment-258281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Colin Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Political Communications, Nottingham Trent University

Jaws turns 50 on June 20. Last year, Quentin Tarantino called Stephen Spielberg’s film “possibly the greatest movie ever made”. Though he was quick to add that it isn’t the best film in terms of script, cinematography or acting, he was convinced that its overall quality as a movie remains unmatched.

I’m not so sure if Jaws is the best movie ever made – but it’s certainly the movie that I like to watch the most. It is as fascinating and multilayered as it is entertaining and depressing. As a researcher of political propaganda, I believe that Jaws had political purpose.

I have watched Jaws well over 50 times and still, with every viewing, I spot a new detail. Just last week I noticed that when police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) leaves his office after the first shark attack, he opens a gate in a white picket fence.

The white picket fence is often used to symbolise the American dream and Brody’s actions are likely intended to symbolise the disruption to the dream’s pursuit of capitalism as he seeks to close the beaches and potentially ruin the town’s tourism season.

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The film was released in June 1975. Just in time for summer holidays spent splashing in the waves (or not!). However, despite its continued acclaim, it didn’t win any of the big Academy Awards in 1976. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest dominated that year. Composer John Williams did, however, win the Oscar for best original score, which I assume you are now humming in your head.

Read more:
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest: 50 years on Jack Nicholson’s greatest performance is as fresh as ever

The film is based on the book by Peter Benchley, published a year earlier in 1974. The book’s plot is somewhat different to the film. For example, Matt Hooper – the shark specialist played by Richard Dreyfuss in the film – is eaten by the shark, possibly as an act of retribution for his sins on land. He survives in the film.

Benchley was US president Lyndon Johnson’s (1963-1969) communications advisor before he became an author and so knew Washington’s priorities well. The film was then commissioned before the book had time to become a commercial success, which is somewhat unusual.

The shark – powerful, mysterious, dark eyed, stalking the American people and killing without emotion – represents the threat posed by communism. The defeat of this “menace” will require the reunification of American society following its disastrous and fractious involvement in the Vietnam war and political scandals like Watergate.

Hence, the white public sector worker (Brody), the scientist (Hooper) and the military veteran (Quint), put their differences aside to band together on a rickety and ill-equipped boat – the Orca – which was possibly meant to symbolise the wobbling US of its time.

So while Jaws is a parable of societal repair, it is also a story of exclusively white unification amid external threats. The civil rights movement and Vietnam are inextricably linked through the service of young black men to the cause, and yet black characters are conspicuous by their absence from the book and the film. The only black presence in the book is an anonymous gardener who rapes wealthy white women.

Human will to dominate the natural world

In the book, the horror focuses upon human, rather than animal, behaviour. This comes in the form of political corruption, mafia influence, adultery, snobbery, racial prejudice, community disconnect and dishonest journalism. And it occurs as much on land as it does at sea. There is a large section midway through the book where the shark plays no part in the, at times, highly sexual plot.

Spielberg removed many of the undercurrents and insinuations of the book for his adaptation. The film gives less attention to life in the town of Amity and focuses largely on the shark and the horror of its actions.

The irony is that so many characters feel personally offended by an animal capable of instinct alone, when they as humans – capable of reason and choice – behave so badly towards each other. Indeed, the lack of an eco-centric character to defend the shark in both the book or the film is telling.

The overwhelming horror is instead found in the treatment of the shark and the assertion that it must be killed rather than respected and left alone. Indeed, Jaws represents a parable of the modern human perception of battle against nature. Wherein Brody, Hooper and Quint, despite their differences, are united in their assumption of human superiority and their perspective that the problem ought to be dealt with using violence.

The story of Jaws also speaks to George Orwell’s essay Shooting an Elephant from 1936. It captured the author’s dilemma while working as a police officer in colonial Burma when an elephant disrupted the regular process of capitalism by trampling through a local market.

The philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno referred to the enlightenment as having created a “new barbarity” wherein humans are engaged in a project of destruction. Here then, a shark has had the audacity to behave in an inconvenient way to man’s profiteering from tourism and must be killed.

Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms of the film, which Spielberg has subsequently acknowledged, is its inaccurate representation of shark behaviour and the extent to which the film’s success contributed to the decline of the species.

Ultimately then, Jaws – the book, the film and the reaction of audiences to it – serves as a testimony to the role played by fear within human decision-making. The fear of “others”. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the natural world. Fear of loss of status or reputation.

It’s a testament to the susceptibility of humans to become insular and violent when they are scared, but also to the distorting influence of propagandists in determining what they ought to be afraid of.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Colin Alexander 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. Jaws at 50: a cinematic masterpiece – and an incredible piece of propaganda – https://theconversation.com/jaws-at-50-a-cinematic-masterpiece-and-an-incredible-piece-of-propaganda-253498

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Evans, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

Imagine a lush forest with tree-ferns, their trunks capped by ribbon-like fronds. Conifers tower overhead, bearing triangular leaves almost sharp enough to pierce skin. Flowering plants are both small and rare.

You’re standing in what is now Victoria, Australia, about 127 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Period. Slightly to your south, a massive river – more than a kilometre wide – separates you from Tasmania. This river flows along the valley forming between Australia and Antarctica as the two continents begin to split apart.

During the Early Cretaceous, southeastern Australia was some of the closest land to the South Pole. Here, the night lasted for three months in winter, contrasting with three months of daytime in summer. Despite this extreme day-night cycle, various kinds of dinosaurs still thrived here, as did flies, wasps and dragonflies.

And, as our recently published research in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology reveals, termites also chewed through the decaying wood of fallen trees. This is the first record of termites living in a polar region – and their presence provides key insights into what these ancient forests were like.

Home makers, not homewreckers

Termites might have a public reputation as homewreckers.

But these wood-eating bugs are a key part of many environments, freeing up nutrients contained in dead plants. They are one of the best organisms at breaking down large amounts of wood, and significantly speed up the decay of fallen wood in forests.

The breakdown of wood by termites makes it easier for further consumption by other animals and fungi.

Their role in ancient Victoria’s polar forests would have been just as important, as the natural decay of wood is very slow in cold conditions.

Although the cold winters would have slowed termites too, they may have thrived during long periods of darkness, just as modern termites are more active during the night.

The oldest termite nest in Australia

Our new paper, led by Monash University palaeontology research associate Jonathan Edwards, reports the discovery of an ancient termite nest near the coastal town of Inverloch in southeastern Victoria. Preserved in a 80-centimetre-long piece of fossilised log, the nest tunnels carved out by termites were first spotted by local fossil-hunter extraordinaire Melissa Lowery.

Without its discoverers knowing what it was then, the log was brought into the lab and we began investigating the origins of its structures.

Understanding the nest was challenging at first: the tunnels exposed on the surface were filled with what looked like tiny grains of rice, each around 2 millimetres long. We suspected they were most likely the coprolites (fossilised poo) of the nest-makers. Once we took a look under the microscope we noticed something very interesting: this poo was hexagonal.

How did this shape point to termites as the “poopetrators”?

Modern termites have a gut with three sets of muscle bands. Just before excretion, their waste is squeezed to save as much water as possible, giving an almost perfect hexagonal shape to the pellets.

The size, shape, distribution and quantity of coprolites meant we had just discovered the oldest termite nest in Australia – and perhaps the largest termite wood nest from dinosaur times.

A global distribution

We continued to investigate the nest with more specific methods.

For example, we scanned parts of it with the Australian Synchrotron – a research facility that uses X-rays and infrared radiation to see the structure and composition of materials. This showed us what the unweathered coprolites inside the log looked like.

We also made very thin slices of the nest and looked at these slices with high-powered microscopes. And we analysed the chemistry of the log, which further supported our original theory of the nest’s identity.

The oldest fossilised termites have been found in the northern hemisphere about 150 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic Period.

What is exciting is that our trace fossils show they had reached the southernmost landmasses by 127 million years ago. This presence means they had likely spread all over Earth by this point.

The termites weren’t alone

Surprisingly, these termites also had smaller wood-eating companions.

During our investigation, we also noticed coprolites more than ten times smaller than those made by termites. These pellets likely belonged to wood-eating oribatid mites – minuscule arachnids with fossils dating back almost 400 million years. Many of their tunnels ring those left by the termites, telling us they inhabited this nest after the termites abandoned it.

Termite tunnels may have acted as mite highways, taking them deeper into the log. Moreover, because both groups ate the toughest parts of wood, these two invertebrates might have directly competed at the time. Modern oribatid mites only eat wood affected by fungi.

Regardless, our study documents the first known interaction of wood-nesting termites and oribatid mites in the fossil record.

This nest also provides important support for the idea that Australia’s polar forests weren’t dominated by ice, as modern termites can’t tolerate prolonged freezing.

This is the first record of termites living in a polar region, and their presence suggests relatively mild polar winters — something like 6°C on average. Termites would’ve been key players in these ecosystems, kickstarting wood breakdown and nutrient cycling in an otherwise slow environment.

So maybe next time you spot a termite nest, you’ll see a builder, not a bulldozer.

The authors would like to acknowledge the work of Jonathan Edwards who led the research and helped prepare this article.

Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.

Anthony J. Martin 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. Ancient termite poo reveals 120 million-year-old secrets of Australia’s polar forests – https://theconversation.com/ancient-termite-poo-reveals-120-million-year-old-secrets-of-australias-polar-forests-258399

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Delyse Hutchinson, Associate Professor, Clinical Psychologist, and NHMRC Leadership Fellow, SEED Centre for Lifespan Research, School of Psychology, Deakin University

In Australia, an estimated one in ten men experience mental health issues such as anxiety and depression before and after their child is born (the perinatal period).

Alongside emotional ups and downs and exhaustion, new dads may also be facing greater practical demands, such as caring for the baby, supporting their partner, and providing financially.

It’s not surprising, then, that becoming a dad may be linked to increased psychological distress. But it’s concerning because many men don’t access help. There’s also growing evidence a father’s mental state may affect his developing child in the short and long term.

Our new review brings together the international evidence about the relationship between fathers’ mental health and children’s development for the first time.

We found consistent associations between dads’ psychological distress before and after birth and poorer outcomes in children’s social, emotional, cognitive, language and physical development, from birth until the early teens.

The good news? There are effective ways to intervene early.

Barriers to getting help

There are complex reasons why new fathers might not access help for mental distress.

Notably, a 2024 review of Australian and international research found fathers are not routinely asked in health-care settings about their wellbeing at any point before the birth of a child, or after – when support is often most needed.

Men may also feel they need to be strong and push past tough emotions to “get on” with looking after the family.

They may be reluctant to acknowledge their own difficulties, and instead avoid the issue, through strategies such as working excessively, or using alcohol or other drugs.

Working hours can also make accessing services difficult.

As a result, men may have trouble recognising mental distress and it may go undetected by the people around them and in the wider health-care system.

We don’t know the true impact

Research on early risk factors for poorer child development is around 17 times more likely to focus on mothers’ health and lifestyle, compared to fathers.

This focus is understandable, given up to one in five women experience perinatal anxiety or depression in the transition to motherhood.

Strong evidence links mothers’ mental distress to poorer child outcomes. For example, mothers experiencing perinatal anxiety or depression may withdraw and find it difficult to interact with their child. This may be linked to delays in children’s developing social and emotional skills.

Yet similar research on fathers has been lacking.

This imbalance affects health policy and clinical practice, leaving many fathers feeling excluded from family health care. The impact on their children has also been poorly understood.

What we looked at

Our new research aimed to understand how men’s mental health before and after birth is related to their child’s development, from birth through adolescence.

We looked at the findings from 84 longitudinal studies which track people over long periods of time, including from Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.

The review included any study that measured an association between perinatal depression, anxiety or stress in fathers (biological or adoptive) and child development. These included social and emotional skills, thinking and problem-solving, language, physical development and motor skills.

Our study had three main findings

First, mental distress in fathers during pregnancy and after birth was consistently linked to poorer development in their children.

Specifically, this included lower ratings on social, emotional, cognitive, and language skills, such as the capacity to interact with others, understand feelings, process information and communicate. It also affected physical health outcomes, such as body weight, sleep and eating patterns.

Second, associations were evident from early development (infancy) through to the early teens (13 years). This suggests that, without support, a father’s perinatal mental distress may be related to child development well beyond infancy.

Third, fathers’ mental distress after birth was more strongly related to how children developed than their mental distress during pregnancy.

This is not surprising, because it’s when fathers begin to interact with infants and may more directly influence their development.

So, what should change?

Our findings underscore that getting in early to support dads – both before and soon after the arrival of a new child – is crucial.

Routine screening for signs of mental distress is effective in identifying mothers who might benefit from help. This could be extended to all parents, through family planning, antenatal and postpartum clinics, and GP check-ups.

Research shows 80% of men see a GP or allied health practitioner in the year before having a baby. Asking about other aspects of wellbeing – such as sleep quality – can be an effective and non-stigmatising way to ease into conversations about mental health.

This can help connect men with support services earlier, to improve their health and their children’s.

What should men look out for?

Studies suggest men may often express their distress through relationship strain, rather than sadness. They may also report self-harm, suicidal ideation and feeling isolated.

Common signs a new dad might be struggling with mental health include:

• fatigue
• sleep problems
• difficulty concentrating
• racing heart
• sweating
• muscle tension
• changes in appetite
• feeling worried or out of control
• irritability
• anger
• increased use of alcohol or other drugs.

Is there support?

Options for men who want more support include counselling, peer group support and online apps that use mindfulness and cognitive behaviour therapy to help manage moods.

For fathers needing more immediate support, crisis support services offer 24/7 live counselling via chat, telephone or video:

• PANDA
• MensLine
• For When
• 13YARN.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency in Australia, call triple 0.

Delyse Hutchinson receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Jacqui Macdonald receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Medical Research Future Fund and the Australian Research Council. She convenes the Australian Fatherhood Research Consortium and she is on the Movember Global Men’s Health Advisory Committee.

Samantha Teague receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Genevieve Le Bas and Stephanie Aarsman 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. When new dads struggle, their kids’ health can suffer. Tackling mental distress early can help – https://theconversation.com/when-new-dads-struggle-their-kids-health-can-suffer-tackling-mental-distress-early-can-help-253024

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Douglas Hilton, Chief Executive, CSIRO

Boronias, known for their showy flowers and strong scent, are a quintessential part of the Australian bush. They led Traditional Owners to the best water sources and inspired Australian children’s author and illustrator May Gibbs to pen one of her earliest books, Boronia Babies.

But a weird group of boronias has puzzled botanists for decades. They have closed flowers that thwart most insect visitors. Those that do gain entry may encounter alternating sterile and fertile anthers (the male part that produces pollen) and sometimes, an enlarged stigma (the female part that receives pollen).

Since the early 1960s, scientists speculated this group of boronias relied on an “unusual agent for effective pollination”. Moths were occasionally mentioned in the botanical literature as potential pollinators, but the full story remained elusive – until now.

As my colleagues and I detail in our new research, moths are indeed the mystery pollinators of this strange group of flowers. This knowledge is crucial to ensuring their long-term survival.

Sweeping plants, far and wide

My interest in the boronia pollinators began 15 years ago. I was studying a family of moths in my spare time, with a group of friends.

These moths, called Heliozelidae, are tiny. Their wings are just a few millimetres long, smaller than a grain of rice.

They fly during the day and are seldom attracted to lights, so they are poorly represented in museum collections. The best way to find them is to sweep plants with a butterfly net then look inside it.

After sweeping plants all over Australia, we discovered this country is a hotspot for Heliozelidae. Hundreds – if not thousands – of these species are new to science and yet to be described. In comparison, only 90 species of Heliozelidae have been described from the rest of the world.

We consistently found one group of 15 moth species on the boronias with the weird flowers in the biodiversity hotspot of Western Australia’s South West. Each moth species was found only on a specific boronia species.

When we took a closer look, we found each of the 15 Heliozelidae has an intricate structure at the tip of its abdomen that collects pollen. There’s nothing else quite like this in the 150,000 known species of moths and butterflies. At last, the mystery of the boronia pollinators was solved.

The process of pollinating boronias

In spring, female moths lay many eggs inside flowers. While moving about inside the flower, she collects pollen in the little structure on her abdomen. She enters and exits multiple flowers, pollinating as she goes.

When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars eat some of the flowers’ developing seeds. When they are fully grown, they leave the flower and burrow into the soil to pupate in a cocoon. When they emerge in spring as moths, the flowers are blooming again and the life cycle repeats.

For some species, such as brown boronia, the moths may be the only visitor the flowers ever receive. This suggests the moth and the plant have a reciprocal relationship, depending on each other for reproduction and ultimately, survival.

This is unusual in nature. The poster-child for this type of relationship is the figs and fig wasps.

What’s in a name?

When a scientist discovers and officially describes a new species in the academic literature, they have to name it. Scientific names have two parts. The first part is the genus or group of closely related species and the second identifies the individual species.

We built a family tree which included the new pollinating moths using their DNA sequences. We showed the pollinators belong to the genus Prophylactis meaning “to guard before”, which previously contained four non-pollinating species. This gives us the first part of the name.

For the second part, we used the name of the plant each moth pollinates and added the suffix -allax, meaning “alternately” or “in exchange”. This shows their close relationship to the plant.

So, the moth that pollinates Boronia megastigma is called Prophylactis megastigmallax. The moth that pollinates the endangered Boronia clavata is Prophylactis clavatallax – and so on.

Much to learn

The pollinating moths are more closely related to each other than to other species in the Prophylactis genus. This suggests they inherited their pollen-collecting structure from a long-gone common ancestor.

As with all good science, this research leads to new questions. For example, we are now studying which moth-plant pairs fully depend on each other.

Other Australian plant species may also have intimate relationships with moths.
Current field work is exploring which of Australia’s 486 plant species in the citrus-family (Rutaceae) are linked to moths and how often moths have evolved to pollinate them.

Bush secrets brought to life

Our research shows just how much of Australia’s biodiversity is yet to be understood and protected.

As climate change and land-clearing drive biodiversity loss at an unprecedented rate, this is a challenge we must tackle with renewed urgency. Otherwise our children and grandchildren may only experience the full glory of Gibb’s characters on a page, and not in the natural world.

Douglas Hilton works for CSIRO. The work highlighted in this article received funding from The Hermon Slade Foundation, which supports high quality biological research by scientists in Australian universities and research institutes. The research was made possible through a group of generous collaborators and co-authors including Andy Young, Liz Milla, Mengjie Jin, Stephen Wilcox, Qike Wang, Verena Wimmer, Jinny Chang, Henning Kallies, Andie Hall, Marina Watowich, Carly Busch, Jordan Wilcox, Aileen Swarbrick, Marlene Walter, Don Sands, Davina Paterson, David Lees, Marco Duretto, Adnan Moussalli, Mike Halsey and Axel Kallies.

– ref. A weird group of boronias puzzled botanists for decades. Now we’ve solved the pollination mystery – https://theconversation.com/a-weird-group-of-boronias-puzzled-botanists-for-decades-now-weve-solved-the-pollination-mystery-258393

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Lu, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney

About one quarter of Australian school students are learning English as an additional language or dialect.

This means their first language or dialect is something other than English and they need extra support to develop proficiency in what we call standard Australian English.

This group of students includes immigrants and refugees from non-English speaking countries, children of migrant heritage where English is not spoken at home and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

But the level and duration of support they receive varies across schools. This is an issue because these students risk underachieving or being labelled as having learning difficulties without adequate help.

Until now, little was known about how long these students take to learn English.

Our new research published today by the Australian Education Research Organisation, found it can take many years for students to develop the English language skills they need. This suggests students need ongoing and targeted support to learn English as an additional language.

Our study

We looked at more than 110,000 primary and high school students in New South Wales public schools over a nine-year period.

The students were learning English as an additional language from 2014 to 2022. Our research used two methods.

First, we analysed how long it took these students to achieve the same scores in their NAPLAN reading and writing tests as their English-speaking peers with the same background characteristics. That is, students were matched for characteristics such as gender, student socio-educational advantage and school location.

Second, we analysed how long it took students learning English as an additional language to reach certain phases of language proficiency. There is a national learning progression resource for schools supporting students learning English as an additional language. It has four phases: beginning, emerging, developing and consolidating.

It can take many years to learn English

Combining both methods, we found students need considerable time to learn English as an additional language.

For students who were assessed as “beginning” when they started school, it takes an average of six years to reach the final “consolidating” phase.

This means those students starting in kindergarten (the first year of school in NSW) are likely to need English language support throughout primary school.

For “beginning” students who start in later years, they may need continued English language support in high school.

Students who started school at the “emerging” and “developing” phases take, on average, four and three years, respectively to have English skills on par with their peers.

Learning English takes longer as you go along

We also found as students learned English, each phase in their progression took longer to achieve than the one before:

• the average time from beginning to emerging was one year and one month

• from emerging to developing was one year and eight months

• from developing to consolidating was two years and seven months.

What can impact learning?

But learning English is complex and can be impacted by many factors.

We found students with socio-educational disadvantage progressed 22% slower than advantaged students, students with refugee experiences progressed 14% slower than those without. Male students took 6% longer than their female peers.

We also found students starting school in kindergarten progressed about 9% slower, compared to starting school in Australia in later primary year levels.

But we found students who started school already at the final, “consolidating” phase of English outperformed monolingual peers in NAPLAN. This suggests these students, who are arguably bilingual, were at an educational advantage.

Targeted support is needed

Our findings have a number of implications.

Firstly, they help us understand the nature and length of support needed for students learning English students in schools.

Secondly, they highlight the importance of ongoing, targeted support for students.

This also suggests we need to make effective professional support available for teachers working with students who are learning English as an additional language.

The academic advantage of bilingual students also points to a need to encourage and support students using and developing their first and other languages, alongside English.

Lucy Lu is the Senior Manager, Analytics and Strategic Projects in the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO). AERO is jointly funded by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

Jennifer Hammond has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Education. All projects funded from these sources were completed more than six years ago.

– ref. Some students learning English can take at least 6 years to catch up to their peers. How can we support them better? – https://theconversation.com/some-students-learning-english-can-take-at-least-6-years-to-catch-up-to-their-peers-how-can-we-support-them-better-258819

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Wilkins, Aboriginal Cultural Educator, Trainer and Facilitator, Indigenous Knowledge

Travel back 20,000 years into the last Ice Age, to a time when the upper reaches of the Blue Mountains were treeless and the ridgelines and mountain peaks laden in snow and ice.

At an elevation of 1,073 metres, you will find Dargan Shelter, an ancient rock shelter resembling a large amphitheatre. Looking around, you could easily assume this cold and barren high country was too difficult for people to spend time in.

But our new research, published today in Nature Human Behaviour, indicates Dargan Shelter was occupied as early as the last Ice Age and repeatedly visited during this cold period.

Our excavation results provide the earliest known evidence of high-altitude occupation in Australia, establishing the Blue Mountains as Australia’s most archaeologically significant periglacial landscape – that is, an area which goes through seasonal freezing and thawing.

Cultural perspectives

This is a highly significant landscape concentrated with tangible and intangible cultural values for Aboriginal people.

For millennia, Aboriginal people have passed down the knowledge and stories of Country.

Knowing our Ancestors have lived here, in this Country, for thousands of years was on our minds as the team headed down into the site where we would sit alongside our Ancestors of yesterday.

We chose this site because of its location on a known Aboriginal travelling route, high elevation and its potential to hold deep deposits.

Archaeologically, a deep and undisturbed deposit is one of the most important things to look for. The sediment buildup over time preserves cultural material, and allows us to reconstruct past activities by associating cultural objects within distinct layers or bands of time.

When we enter the site, we pay respects to the Country and Ancestors before us. As part of the opening of the site for the archaeological works, a lyrebird song and dance were performed and, magically, a handful of lyrebirds began approaching the cave and singing out as if they were communicating between the current and old worlds through song.

We do not know who exactly the Aboriginal people who moved through the Blue Mountains in the deep past were, nor where they came from. But Dargan Shelter was probably an important stopover point for people to attend gatherings and ceremonies that could have included people from the western interior, the Cumberland coastal plains, and Country to the north and south.

Finds from the Dargan Shelter excavation

New evidence provides definitive proof of repeated occupation in this once frozen high-altitude landscape. It is now believed to be the oldest occupied site in Australia at high elevation.

We unearthed 693 stone artefacts, including 117 flakes from stratigraphic layers older than 16,000 years, and documented a small amount of faded rock art, including a child-sized hand stencil and two forearm stencils.

Charcoal from hearths (campfires) underwent radiocarbon dating, indicating Dargan Shelter had been continuously occupied since 22,000 to 19,000 years ago.

Among the findings, most of the stone tools were locally sourced and made. But, very interestingly some stones from the Jenolan Caves area, approximately 50 kilometres to the south-west, and the Hunter Valley region, 150 km to the north, were also found. This indicates people were travelling into this mountainous region from both the north and south.

We found a sandstone grinding slab, dated to 13,000 years ago, consistent with shaping bone or wooden artefacts such as needles, awls, bone points and nose points. A basalt anvil with impact marks consistent with cracking hard woody nuts and seed shells was dated to 8,800 years ago.

Greater Blue Mountains and world heritage

The Blue Mountains was listed as a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage area in 2000 for its outstanding biodiversity values.

Although the cultural heritage is remarkably intact and connected with an environmental system and natural features, the parallel nomination for cultural values listing failed due to a paucity of archaeological and cultural heritage information.

Our new research should be considered in a nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage area to also encompass cultural heritage alongside biodiversity.

The Blue Mountains landscape shrouds a silent yet rich tapestry of Aboriginal heritage.

Our people have walked, lived and thrived in the Blue Mountains for thousands of years. The mountains are a tangible connection to our Ancestors who used them as a meeting place for sharing, storytelling and survival. They are a part of our cultural identity.

We need to respect and protect our heritage for the benefit of all Australians.

Our results align Australia for the first time with ice age data from the world’s other inhabited continents, including sites in other places not traditionally thought of as cold climates, such as Mexico and Spain.

We now have a truly global story of people entering and living in high-altitude landscapes during the last ice age.

The continuation of research projects like this one, and the invaluable evidence it provides across the region, will allow Aboriginal people with connections to the Blue Mountains to begin to stitch back together much of the history and many of the stories that until now have had gaps.

The more we discover and piece together the movements, ceremonies and stories, the stronger we are as a community.

Amy Mosig Way receives funding from the Australian Museum Foundation and is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney.

Erin Wilkins, Leanne Watson, and Wayne Brennan 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. Ice Age shelter high up in the Blue Mountains reveals Aboriginal heritage from 20,000 years ago – https://theconversation.com/ice-age-shelter-high-up-in-the-blue-mountains-reveals-aboriginal-heritage-from-20-000-years-ago-247358

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaitlin Cook, DECRA Fellow, Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications, Australian National University

Late last week, Israel targeted three of Iran’s key nuclear facilities – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, killing several Iranian nuclear scientists. The facilities are heavily fortified and largely underground, and there are conflicting reports of how much damage has been done.

Natanz and Fordow are Iran’s uranium enrichment sites, and Isfahan provides the raw materials, so any damage to these sites would limit Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.

But what exactly is uranium enrichment and why does it raise concerns?

To understand what it means to “enrich” uranium, you need to know a little about uranium isotopes and about splitting the atom in a nuclear fission reaction.

What is an isotope?

All matter is made of atoms, which in turn are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. The number of protons is what gives atoms their chemical properties, setting apart the various chemical elements.

Atoms have equal numbers of protons and electrons. Uranium has 92 protons, for example, while carbon has six. However, the same element can have different numbers of neutrons, forming versions of the element called isotopes.

This hardly matters for chemical reactions, but their nuclear reactions can be wildly different.

The difference between uranium-238 and uranium-235

When we dig uranium out of the ground, 99.27% of it is uranium-238, which has 92 protons and 146 neutrons. Only 0.72% of it is uranium-235 with 92 protons and 143 neutrons (the remaining 0.01% are other isotopes).

For nuclear power reactors or weapons, we need to change the isotope proportions. That’s because of the two main uranium isotopes, only uranium-235 can support a fission chain reaction: one neutron causes an atom to fission, which produces energy and some more neutrons, causing more fission, and so on.

This chain reaction releases a tremendous amount of energy. In a nuclear weapon, the goal is to have this chain reaction occur in a fraction of a second, producing a nuclear explosion.

In a civilian nuclear power plant, the chain reaction is controlled. Nuclear power plants currently produce 9% of the world’s power. Another vital civilian use of nuclear reactions is for producing isotopes used in nuclear medicine for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.

What is uranium enrichment, then?

To “enrich” uranium means taking the naturally found element and increasing the proportion of uranium-235 while removing uranium-238.

There are a few ways to do this (including new inventions from Australia), but commercially, enrichment is currently done with a centrifuge. This is also the case in Iran’s facilities.

Centrifuges exploit the fact that uranium-238 is about 1% heavier than uranium-235. They take uranium (in gas form) and use rotors to spin it at 50,000 to 70,000 rotations per minute, with the outer walls of the centrifuges moving at 400 to 500 metres per second.

This works much like a salad spinner that throws water to the sides while the salad leaves stay in the centre. The heavier uranium-238 moves to the edges of the centrifuge, leaving the uranium-235 in the middle.

This is only so effective, so the spinning process is done over and over again, building up the percentage of the uranium-235.

Most civilian nuclear reactors use “low enriched uranium” that’s been enriched to between 3% and 5%. This means that 3–5% of the total uranium in the sample is now uranium-235. That’s enough to sustain a chain reaction and make electricity.

What level of enrichment do nuclear weapons need?

To get an explosive chain reaction, uranium-235 needs to be concentrated significantly more than the levels we use in nuclear reactors for making power or medicines.

Technically, a nuclear weapon can be made with as little as 20% uranium-235 (known as “highly enriched uranium”), but the more the uranium is enriched, the smaller and lighter the weapon can be. Countries with nuclear weapons tend to use about 90% enriched, “weapons-grade” uranium.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has enriched large quantities of uranium to 60%. It’s actually easier to go from an enrichment of 60% to 90% than it is to get to that initial 60%. That’s because there’s less and less uranium-238 to get rid of.

This is why Iran is considered to be at extreme risk of producing nuclear weapons, and why centrifuge technology for enrichment is kept secret.

Ultimately, the exact same centrifuge technology that produces fuel for civilian reactors can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Inspectors from the IAEA monitor nuclear facilities worldwide to ensure countries are abiding by the rules set out in the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty. While Iran maintains it’s only enriching uranium for “peaceful purposes”, late last week the IAEA board ruled Iran was in breach of its obligations under the treaty.

Kaitlin Cook receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. What is uranium enrichment and how is it used for nuclear bombs? A scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/what-is-uranium-enrichment-and-how-is-it-used-for-nuclear-bombs-a-scientist-explains-259031

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Dwyer, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania

Late last week, Israel began a wave of attacks on Iran under the banner of Operation Rising Lion, with the stated goal of crippling the Islamic republic’s nuclear program and long-range strike capabilities. At the outset, Israel claimed Iran would soon be able to build nine nuclear weapons, a situation Israel regarded as completely unacceptable.

Following Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, and targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and key members of the Iranian armed forces, Iran retaliated with a large barrage of ballistic missiles and drones against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The first wave consisted of some 200 ballistic missiles and 200 drones.

The conflict continues to escalate, with population centres increasingly being targeted. Israel’s missile defence systems (including the vaunted Iron Dome) have so far staved off most of Iran’s attacks, but the future is uncertain.

Ballistic missiles and how to stop them

Iran possesses a large arsenal of ballistic missiles and long-range drones, alongside other long-range weapons such as cruise missiles. Ballistic missiles travel on a largely fixed path steered by gravity, while cruise missiles can adjust their course as they fly.

Iran is approximately 1,000km from Israel, so the current strikes mostly involve what are classified as medium-range ballistic missiles, alongside long-range drones. It is not clear exactly what type of missile Iran has used in its latest strikes, but the country has several including the Fattah-1 and Emad.

It is very difficult to defend against ballistic missiles. There is not much time between launch and impact, and they come down at very high speed. The longer the missile’s range, the faster and higher it flies.

An incoming missile presents a small, fast-moving target – and defenders may have little time to react.

Israel’s missile defence and the Iron Dome

Israel possesses arguably one of the most effective, battle-tested air defence systems in service today. The system is often described in the media as the “Iron Dome”, but this is not quite correct.

Israel’s defences have several layers, each designed to address threats coming from different ranges.

Iron Dome is just one of these layers: a short range, anti-artillery defence system, designed to intercept short-range artillery shells and rockets.

In essence, Iron Dome consists of a network of radar emitters, command and control facilities, and the interceptors (special surface-to-air missiles). The radar quickly detects incoming threats, the command and control elements decide which are most pressing, and the interceptors are sent to destroy the incoming shells or rockets.

Ballistic defence systems

The other layers of Israel’s defence system include David’s Sling, and the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors. These are specifically designed to engage longer-range ballistic missiles, both within the atmosphere and at very high altitudes above it (known as exoatmospheric interception).

Spectacular footage has been captured of what are likely exoatmospheric interceptions taking place during this latest conflict, demonstrating Israel’s capacity to engage longer-range missiles.

The US military has comparable missile defence systems. The US Army has the Patriot PAC-3 (comparable to David’s Sling) and THAAD (comparable to Arrow 2), while the US Navy has the Aegis and the SM-3 (comparable to Arrow 3) and the SM-6 (comparable again to Arrow 2).

The US deployed Aegis-equipped warships to support Israel’s defence against missile attacks in 2024, and appears to be preparing to do the same now.

Iran possesses some air defence systems such as the Russian S300 which has some (very limited) ballistic missile defence capabilities, but only against shorter range (and thus slower) ballistic missiles. Further, Israel has been focusing on degrading Iran’s air defences, so it is not clear how many are still operational.

Iran has been focusing on developing technology such as maneuverable warheads, which are harder to defend against. However, it is not clear whether these are yet operational and in Iranian service.

Can missile defences last forever?

Missile defences are finite. The defender is always limited by the number of interceptors it possesses.

The attacker is also limited by the number of missiles it possesses. However, the defender must often assign multiple interceptors to each attacking missile, in case the first misses or otherwise fails.

The attacker will plan for some losses to interceptors (or mechanical failures) and send what it determines to be enough missiles for at least some to penetrate the defences.

When it comes to ballistic missiles, the advantage lies with the attacker. Ballistic missiles can carry large explosive payloads (or even nuclear warheads), so even a handful of missiles “leaking” past defensive systems can still wreak significant damage.

What now?

Israel’s missile defences are unlikely to stop working completely. However, as attacks deplete its stocks of interceptors, the system may become less effective.

As the conflict continues, it may become a race to see who runs out of weapons first. Will it be Iran’s stocks of ballistic missiles and drones, or the interceptors and anti-air munitions of Israel, the US and any other supporters?

It is impossible to say who would prevail in such a race of stockpile attrition. Some reports suggest Iran has fired approximately 1,000 ballistic missiles of an estimated 3,000. However, this still leaves it with an enormous stockpile to use, and it is unclear how fast Iran can make new missiles to replenish its resources.

But we should hope it doesn’t come to that. Beyond the tit-for-tat exchange of missiles, the latest conflict between Israel and Iran risks escalating. If it is not resolved soon, and if the US is drawn into the conflict more directly, we may see broader conflict in the Middle East.

James Dwyer 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. How does Israel’s famous air defence work? It’s not just the ‘Iron Dome’ – https://theconversation.com/how-does-israels-famous-air-defence-work-its-not-just-the-iron-dome-259029

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University

In the late 1960s, the prevailing opinion among Israeli Shin Bet intelligence officers was that the key to defeating the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was to assassinate its then-leader Yasser Arafat.

The elimination of Arafat, the Shin Bet commander Yehuda Arbel wrote in his diary, was “a precondition to finding a solution to the Palestinian problem.”

For other, even more radical Israelis – such as the ultra-nationalist assassin Yigal Amir – the answer lay elsewhere. They sought the assassination of Israeli leaders such as Yitzak Rabin who wanted peace with the Palestinians.

Despite Rabin’s long personal history as a famed and often ruthless military commander in the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli Wars, Amir stalked and shot Rabin dead in 1995. He believed Rabin had betrayed Israel by signing the Oslo Accords peace deal with Arafat.

It’s been 20 years since Arafat died as possibly the victim of polonium poisoning, and 30 years after the shooting of Rabin. Peace between Israelis and the Palestinians has never been further away.

What Amnesty International and a United Nations Special Committee have called genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza have spilled over into Israeli attacks on the prominent leaders of its enemies in Lebanon and, most recently, Iran.

Since its attacks on Iran began on Friday, Israel has killed numerous military and intelligence leaders, including Iran’s intelligence chief, Mohammad Kazemi; the chief of the armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri; and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. At least nine Iranian nuclear scientists have also been killed.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said:

We got their chief intelligence officer and his deputy in Tehran.

Iran, predictably, has responded with deadly missile attacks on Israel.

Far from having solved the issue of Middle East peace, assassinations continue to pour oil on the flames.

A long history of extra-judicial killings

Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First argues assassinations have long sat at the heart of Israeli politics.

In the past 75 years, there have been more than 2,700 assassination operations undertaken by Israel. These have, in Bergman’s words, attempted to “stop history” and bypass “statesmanship and political discourse”.

This normalisation of assassinations has been codified in the Israeli expression of “mowing the grass”. This is, as historian Nadim Rouhana has shown, a metaphor for a politics of constant assassination. Enemy “leadership and military facilities must regularly be hit in order to keep them weak.”

The point is not to solve the underlying political questions at issue. Instead, this approach aims to sow fear, dissent and confusion among enemies.

Thousands of assassination operations have not, however, proved sufficient to resolve the long-running conflict between Israel, its neighbours and the Palestinians. The tactic itself is surely overdue for retirement.

Targeted assassinations elsewhere

Israel has been far from alone in this strategy of assassination and killing.

Former US President Barack Obama oversaw the extra-judicial killing of Osama Bin Laden, for instance.

After what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch denounced as a flawed trial, former US President George W. Bush welcomed the hanging of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy”.

Current US President Donald Trump oversaw the assassination of Iran’s leader of clandestine military operations, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020.

More recently, however, Trump appears to have baulked at granting Netanyahu permission to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

And it’s worth noting the US Department of Justice last year brought charges against an Iranian man who said he’d been tasked with killing Trump.

Elsewhere, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s common for senior political and media opponents to be shot in the streets. Frequently they also “fall” out of high windows, are killed in plane crashes or succumb to mystery “illnesses”.

A poor record

Extra-judicial killings, however, have a poor record as a mechanism for solving political problems.

Cutting off the hydra’s head has generally led to its often immediate replacement by another equally or more ideologically committed person, as has already happened in Iran. Perhaps they too await the next round of “mowing the grass”.

But as the latest Israeli strikes in Iran and elsewhere show, solving the underlying issue is rarely the point.

In situations where finding a lasting negotiated settlement would mean painful concessions or strategic risks, assassinations prove simply too tempting. They circumvent the difficulties and complexities of diplomacy while avoiding the need to concede power or territory.

As many have concluded, however, assassinations have never killed resistance. They have never killed the ideas and experiences that give birth to resistance in the first place.

Nor have they offered lasting security to those who have ordered the lethal strike.

Enduring security requires that, at some point, someone grasp the nettle and look to the underlying issues.

The alternative is the continuation of the brutal pattern of strike and counter-strike for generations to come.

Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Iran war: from the Middle East to America, history shows you cannot assassinate your way to peace – https://theconversation.com/iran-war-from-the-middle-east-to-america-history-shows-you-cannot-assassinate-your-way-to-peace-259038

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Last week, the Australian government announced a new National Immunisation Strategy for 2025–30. This strategy sets out the government’s priorities for improving vaccine uptake for children, adolescents and adults over the next five years.

It comes at an important moment. Childhood vaccination coverage has been declining consistently since 2020.

So what are the key goals of this new strategy, and will it be able to reverse the drop in vaccination rates among Australian children?

Declining vaccination coverage since the pandemic

While overall vaccination coverage remains high by global standards – at 92% for one-year-olds – this is down from a high of nearly 95% in 2020. The reasons for the drop include access challenges and concerns among some parents about vaccine safety and effectiveness.

Many children are missing out on timely vaccines that prevent diseases such as whooping cough and meningitis. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who also have lower vaccination coverage rates at one and two years old, bear a disproportionate burden of these diseases.

And it’s not just children missing out. Among adolescents, HPV coverage at age 15 has dropped by 5% in girls (down to 81%) and 7% in boys (down to 78%) since 2020.

Influenza vaccination coverage has declined year on year since 2022 and remains at very low levels. Coverage in 2024 was 62% for people aged 65 and older, and under 30% for the rest of the population.

Across six key priority areas, the new immunisation strategy seeks to reduce vaccine hesitancy and improve access to vaccinations, particularly in priority groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. A few key points stood out to us.

1. Emphasis on trust and community engagement

We need to strengthen trust in vaccines and the people and systems that deliver them because low levels of trust are associated with vaccine scepticism and refusal. Even though Australians’ trust in childhood vaccines is generally high, there have been some bumps in recent years.

The pandemic left some people with lingering questions and misperceptions about vaccines, supercharged by misinformation and increasing political polarisation of vaccination.

The strategy rightly emphasises the need to engage with communities and build trust in vaccination and the health system.

However, relationships with communities can’t be stood up at a moment’s notice – they take time and effort to sustain. State and federal governments invested in these relationships with diverse communities during the COVID vaccine rollout, but many of these initiatives have since been dissolved due to lack of sustained funding and commitment.

Recently, there have been positive indications some governments are reinvesting in these efforts. Hopefully this strategy will encourage more to do the same.

2. Addressing equity and access

Too often government leaders and media headlines blame individual laziness or hesitancy for our uptake problems, failing to acknowledge the very real problems with service convenience and access that are also present.

The strategy makes clear that the government and immunisation service providers should make vaccination accessible and equitable. As a part of this commitment, it highlights the importance of ensuring all health-care professionals who are able to deliver vaccines are being utilised to their full potential.

Pharmacists are specifically mentioned, but there is no reference to the largest group of immunisation providers: nurses. They should be better recognised and we need reform to enable nurses to vaccinate more independently.

3. Recognising the importance of data

When vaccination rates are low, it’s essential to know why. This comes from both talking with communities and collecting robust data.

We are part of the National Vaccination Insights project, which carries out yearly monitoring using surveys and interviews with the public to better understand the drivers of vaccine uptake.

The strategy proposes a live dashboard of vaccine uptake data, which would be valuable, but we also encourage the addition of social and behavioural data. The dashboard should also report rates of vaccination in pregnancy. This information is newly available, thanks to the recent addition of a field to record pregnancy status in the Australian Immunisation Register.

4. Commitment to consider vaccine injury compensation

Maintaining trust in vaccination means being able to acknowledge when vaccines can very occasionally cause harm. People tend to be more confident in vaccines when you tell them what to expect, what the common minor side effects are, as well as the rare serious ones.

When those rare serious side effects become a reality for a handful of people, they may have to take time off work, incur medical expenses, and very occasionally, manage long-term complications. So it’s essential these people are financially compensated by government.

We had such a compensation scheme during the pandemic for COVID vaccines, but this ended in September 2024. We welcome the government’s plan to explore whether establishing a compensation scheme is feasible for all vaccines on the national program.

A comprehensive no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme is overdue and, with thoughtful and consultative planning, would make our already robust vaccination system more trustworthy.

Where to from here?

The new national immunisation strategy is comprehensive and informed by evidence. But its impact will ultimately come down to its funding and implementation, which are not described in this document. Finalising these key plans and putting them into action must happen soon to arrest declining vaccination coverage and keep people well protected from serious diseases.

Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the NHMRC, MRFF, Australian government, Victorian government, and UNICEF. She is a member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI).

Julie Leask receives funding from NHMRC, WHO, US CDC, NSW Ministry of Health. She received funding from Sanofi for travel to an overseas meeting in 2024.

– ref. The Australian government has launched a new strategy to boost vaccination rates. Will it work? – https://theconversation.com/the-australian-government-has-launched-a-new-strategy-to-boost-vaccination-rates-will-it-work-258808

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Lothian, Senior Lecturer in Maritime Law and Academic Barrister, University of Wollongong

The high seas are set to gain a greater level of protection when a long-sought after treaty finally enters into force.

For almost 20 years, nations have debated the need for the High Seas Treaty, intended to protect marine life in the high seas and the international seabed. These marine areas together account for nearly two-thirds of the world’s ocean and harbour a rich array of unique species and ecosystems. The treaty is formally known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement.

Many hoped last week’s United Nations Oceans Conference would result in enough nations ratifying the treaty to bring it into force. As of today, 50 states of the 60 required have done so, while another 19 have promised to do so by the year’s end. A greater level of protection for our high seas is well and truly in sight.

By United Nations standards, this is a cracking pace. The treaty-making process itself can take years, particularly as states need to incorporate the treaty into their domestic laws. This speaks to the urgency of the moment. Researchers and authorities have warned that the world’s oceans are now in deep trouble, threatened by climate change effects, overfishing, plastic pollution and other human-caused issues.

Once the treaty enters into force, nations can begin to propose high seas marine protected areas, which could limit fishing and other activities. The question then will be how to police these marine protected areas.

How did we get here?

In June 2023, the High Seas Treaty was adopted by consensus at the UN Headquarters in New York. It was a long time coming.

For decades, nations argued and negotiated over what this treaty might look like. How could the marine genetic resources of this global commons be shared fairly and equitably? How could protected areas be designated and managed? What was eventually thrashed out was a comprehensive international legal framework able to better protect and safeguard the rich and diverse web of life inhabiting the deep sea.

Getting to this point was a real achievement.

But for this treaty to enter into force, 60 countries have to ratify it. This means their governments must consent to be legally bound by the terms of the treaty.

While Australia has pledged to ratify the treaty, it is still working through the ratification and domestic legal process. On a positive note, Environment Minister Murray Watt has indicated this will happen before the end of the year.

What will the treaty actually do?

At present, the high seas are regulated by a patchwork of global, regional and sectoral frameworks, instruments and bodies. However, none of these have a core mandate of protecting the biodiversity of the oceans.

In 1982, the Law of the Sea Convention was adopted, giving every coastal nation rights over the waters extending to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from their coastline.

Once you are past this, you’re in the high seas – the swathes of ocean not controlled by any one nation.

If and when it comes into effect, the High Seas Treaty would give the world a way to set up large marine protected areas in the high seas. It would also apply to the international seabed – the seabed, subsoils and ocean floor lying beyond the continental shelf of a coastal state.

Any new protected areas would likely have restrictions on activities such as fishing and shipping. But this will need to be done in consultation with relevant international bodies such as the International Maritime Organisation and regional fisheries management organisations.

The treaty would go a long way to reaching key conservation goals set under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Pact, which calls for protection of at least 30% of the world’s marine and coastal habitats by 2030.

The treaty also sets up a mechanism for the sharing of benefits from marine genetic resources, financial and otherwise. Bacteria living in deep-sea ecosystems have attracted much scientific and commercial attention for potential use in medical research or pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries. Genetic resources from sea sponges have given rise to antiviral drugs targeting COVID and HIV as well as anti-cancer drugs.

These resources were a major sticking point during the long negotiations.

Many coastal countries lack the ability to participate in high seas research. As a result, they can miss out on these and other benefits. The High Seas Treaty recognises this and sets up a strong framework for capacity-building, technology transfer and technical assistance for developing nations.

When will the oceans get a reprieve?

Once the 60th nation ratifies the High Seas Treaty, it will enter into force 120 days later. This date could be as soon as May 1 next year, if the threshold is reached on January 1.

Once this happens, this will be the date upon which the treaty gains legal force, meaning nations will have to comply with its obligations.

That doesn’t mean huge new marine parks will come into being. There’s still much work to do to hash out the mechanics of how the treaty would actually work, how it would be overseen and how it would work with the International Seabed Authority which oversees deep-sea mining and the Antarctic Treaty System, among others. Negotiators face more work ahead to solve these outstanding issues before the real work can begin.

That’s not to diminish this achievement. The progress on this treaty has been very hard won. Once it’s in effect, it will make a concrete difference.

Sarah Lothian 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 historic High Seas Treaty is almost reality. Here’s what it would mean for ocean conservation – https://theconversation.com/the-historic-high-seas-treaty-is-almost-reality-heres-what-it-would-mean-for-ocean-conservation-258710

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Zeuschner, Lecturer in Social Work, Federation University Australia

Thousands of men who use violence are referred every year to men’s behaviour change programs. Sometimes this attendance is ordered by a court, other times it is voluntary. The hope is this will result in program attendance (although that is not always guaranteed), promote perpetrator accountability and, ultimately, increase the safety of women and children.

Unfortunately, program attendance is low and while researchers have tried again and again to answer the question of whether these programs work, it is still not clear.

Referrals have continued anyway, so my colleagues and I decided to ask a new question. We invited nine Victorian women to talk in-depth about their experience of their partner being referred to a men’s behaviour change program.

We wanted to know: what was that like for these women? What meaning did they make of it?

This new study, published recently in the journal Violence Against Women, found the referral period can ignite for women an emotional firestorm characterised by hope, blame, being judged and, eventually, a sense of indignation.

How did women initially react?

Initially after their partner or ex-partner was referred to a men’s behaviour change program, the women were desperate to know if the type of family life they hoped for was something they would ever experience with their partner.

As Fiona* recalled:

I thought if it can help – this was when he sort of had me bluffed – if it’s going to work, go for it because the explosions were too big. And if he could control himself and think of what he says, pull his head in, if it can work then we can be a family. I was hoping.

The women were initially generally intensely hopeful, even though they hadn’t seen any evidence before to suggest their partners would change.

Janet said:

When we were together and I used to say, “We need to go and get help; we need to go and talk to someone”, he would say, “No.” He would yell in my face and tell me to “eff off” and “mind my own business” and that he didn’t have a problem; I was the problem.

This hopefulness motivated many women to stay in relationships with their partner or to support his access to their children.

The attention men’s behaviour change programs have received over the years seems to have fuelled a belief the programs could bring meaningful change.

As Rose put it:

the men’s behavioural change program is big-noted so much, like it’s oh you know, “It’s a great way for the men to realise what they’ve done and move on.” And it doesn’t do that.

Did their actual experiences match expectations?

The short answer is no.

The women we spoke to described being blamed by family, friends and workers for their partner or ex now having to attend the program. Meera recalled being told:

You are just ruining your marriage because now you have involved the police, so whatever happens to you that is your consequence because you chose to do that.

Many of the men resisted the suggestion they were “perpetrators” who needed to change. Some men contrasted themselves with others in the men’s behaviour change programs.

As Erin put it:

There’s always someone worse, and that’s how they are justifying themselves.

Other men reportedly gained support for their behaviour from men in the program. Paige said:

He would come home and tell me that the group agreed with him that the kids were at fault. That if the kids wouldn’t do what they did, then he wouldn’t lose his temper and he wouldn’t have to hit ’em […] So it was like they were justifying his actions.

Some women also battled with uncertainty around whether what they had experienced actually was family violence.

If their partner was a “perpetrator” did that make them a “victim survivor”? And if so, what did that mean for them and how they saw themselves?

A sense of indignation

For many of the women, the fact their partner or ex ended up being referred to a men’s behaviour change program helped inspire moments of validation.

It helped them believe with confidence that their partners’ behaviour was actually family violence; that it was unacceptable and unwarranted, and it was he who needed to change.

As the women came to terms with the reality of their partners’ behaviour and his resistance to change, the women began responding with indignation. Jane recalled that:

I said: “You’ve hurt a lot of people” and I said: “You’re not taking ownership.”

What’s next?

In the end, encouraging women to simply respond with indignation is not the answer. This would just continue the age-old practice of placing sole responsibility on women for the violence they face.

One action we can all take is supporting victim-survivors to identify that what they’re experiencing may actually constitute family violence, and question whether they believe those behaviours to be acceptable.

This new study also stresses the need for family violence and domestic violence services in the community to consider the implications a men’s behaviour change program referral has for everyone.

We must question who is intended to benefit when a man is referred to these programs, whether or not it actually eventuates into program attendance.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Lauren Zeuschner has received funding from an Australian government Research Training Program Fee-Offset Scholarship through Federation University Australia, and a Central Highlands Children and Youth Area partnership industry funded stipend through Child and Family Services Ballarat, which runs men’s behaviour change programs.

– ref. ‘They were justifying his actions’: what women say about men’s behaviour change programs – https://theconversation.com/they-were-justifying-his-actions-what-women-say-about-mens-behaviour-change-programs-259012

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myra Williamson, Senior Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology

Seabed mining could become one of the defining environmental battles of 2025. Around the world, governments are weighing up whether to allow mining of the ocean floor for metal ores and minerals. New Zealand is among them.

The stakes are high. Deep-sea mining is highly controversial, with evidence showing mining activity can cause lasting damage to fragile marine ecosystems. One area off the east coast of the United States, mined as an experiment 50 years ago, still bears scars and shows little sign of recovery.

With the world facing competing pressures – climate action and conservation versus demand for resources – New Zealand must now decide whether to fast-track mining, regulate it tightly, or pause it entirely.

Who controls international seabed mining?

A major flashpoint is governance in international waters. Under international law, seabed mining beyond national jurisdiction is managed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

But the US has never ratified UNCLOS. In April this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to bypass the ISA and allow companies to begin mining in international waters.

The ISA has pushed back, warning unilateral action breaches international law. However, the declaration from the recently concluded UN Ocean Conference in France does not urge countries to adopt a precautionary approach, nor does it ban deep seabed mining.

The declaration does “reiterate the need to increase scientific knowledge on deep sea ecosystems” and recognises the role of the ISA in setting “robust rules, regulations and procedures for exploitation of resources” in international waters.

So, while the international community supports multilateralism and international law, deep-sea mining in the near future remains a real possibility.

Fast-track approvals

In the Pacific, some countries have already made up their minds about which way they will go. Nauru recently updated its agreement with Canadian-based The Metals Company to begin mining in the nearby Clarion Clipperton Zone. The deal favours the US’s go-it-alone approach over the ISA model.

By contrast, in 2022, New Zealand’s Labour government backed the ISA’s moratorium and committed to a holistic ocean management strategy. Whether that position still holds is unclear, given the current government’s policies.

The list of applications under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 – described by Regional Development Minister Shane Jones as “arguably the most permissive regime” in Australasia – includes two controversial seabed mining proposals in Bream Bay and off the Taranaki coast:

• Trans-Tasman Resources’ proposal to extract up to 50 million tonnes of Taranaki seabed material annually to recover heavy mineral sands that contain iron ore as well as rare metal elements titanium and vanadium.

• McCallum Brothers Ltd’s Bream Bay proposal to dredge up to 150,000 cubic metres of sand yearly for three years, and up to 250,000 cubic metres after that.

Legal landscape changing

Māori and environmental groups have opposed the fast-track policy, and the Treaty of Waitangi has so far been a powerful safeguard in seabed mining cases.

Provisions referencing Treaty principles appear in key laws, including the Crown Minerals Act and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act.

In 2021, the Supreme Court cited these obligations when it rejected a 2016 marine discharge application by Trans-Tasman Resources to mine the seabed in the Taranaki Bight. The court ruled Treaty clauses must be interpreted in a “broad and generous” way, recognising tikanga Māori and customary marine rights.

But that legal landscape could soon change. The Regulatory Standards Bill, now before parliament, would give priority to property rights over environmental or Indigenous protections in the formulation of new laws and regulations.

The bill also allows for the review of existing legislation. In theory, if the Regulatory Standards Bill becomes law, it could result in the removal of Treaty principles clauses from legislation.

This in turn could deny courts the tools they’ve previously used to uphold environmental and Treaty-based protections to block seabed mining applications. That would make it easier to approve fast-tracked projects such as the Bream Bay and Taranaki projects.

Setting a precedent

Meanwhile, Hawai’i has gone in a different direction. In 2024, the US state passed a law banning seabed mining in state waters – joining California (2022), Washington (2021) and Oregon (1991).

Under the Hawai’i Seabed Mining Prevention Act, mining is banned except in rare cases such as beach restoration. The law cites the public’s right to a clean and healthy environment.

As global conflict brews over seabed governance, New Zealand’s eventual position could set a precedent.

Choosing to prohibit seabed mining in New Zealand waters, as Hawai’i has done, would send a strong message that environmental stewardship and Indigenous rights matter more than short-term resource extraction interests.

If New Zealand does decide to go ahead with seabed mining, however, it could trigger a cascade of mining efforts across New Zealand and the Pacific. A crucial decision is fast approaching.

Myra Williamson 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. Seabed mining is becoming an environmental flashpoint – NZ will have to pick a side soon – https://theconversation.com/seabed-mining-is-becoming-an-environmental-flashpoint-nz-will-have-to-pick-a-side-soon-258908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Edwell, Associate Professor in Ancient History, Macquarie University

Protesters across the United States have brandished placards declaring “no kings!” in recent days, keen to send a message one-man rule is not acceptable.

The defeat of the forces of King George III in the United States’ revolutionary war of 1775–83 saw the end of royal rule in the US. Touting itself as the world’s leading democracy, kings have not been welcome in America for 250 years. But for many, Donald Trump is increasingly behaving as one and now is the time to stop him.

Having studied ancient Roman politics for years, America’s rejection of kingship reminds me vividly of the strong aversion to it in the Roman republic.

Early Romans too, sought a society with “no kings!” – up until, that is, the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar, when everything changed.

The seven kings of Rome

Seven kings ruled Rome, one after the other, after the city was founded in 753 BCE. The first was Romulus who, according to some legends, gave the city its name.

When the last of the kings of Rome was driven from the city in 509 BCE, his key opponent, Lucius Junius Brutus, vowed:

I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and his wicked wife and all his children, with sword, with fire, with whatever violence I may; and I will suffer neither him nor anyone else to be king in Rome!

Tarquinius Superbus (meaning “the proud”) had ruled Rome for 25 years. He began his reign by executing uncooperative Senators.

When Tarquinius’ son raped a noblewoman named Lucretia, the Roman population rebelled against the king’s long-running tyranny. The hubris of the king and his family was finally too much. They were driven from Rome and never allowed to return.

A new system of government was ushered in: the republic.

The rise of the Roman republic

In the new system, power was shared among elected officials – including two consuls, who were elected annually.

The consuls were the most powerful officials in the republic and were given power to wage war.

The Senate, which represented the wealthiest sections of society (initially the patrician class), held power in some key areas, including foreign policy.

Less affluent citizens elected tribunes of the plebs who had various powers, including the right to veto laws.

In the republican system, the term king (rex in Latin) quickly became anathema.

“No kings” would effectively remain the watchword through the Roman republic’s entire history. “Rex” was a word the Romans hated. It was short-hand for “tyranny”.

The rise and fall of Julius Caesar

Over time, powerful figures emerged who threatened the republic’s tight power-sharing rules.

Figures such as the general Pompey (106–48 BCE) broke all the rules and behaved in suspiciously kingly ways. With military success and vast wealth, he was a populist who broke the mould. Pompey even staged a three-day military parade, known as a triumph, to coincide with his birthday in 61 BCE.

But the ultimate populist was Julius Caesar.

Born to a noble family claiming lineage from the goddess Venus, Caesar became fabulously wealthy.

He also scored major military victories, including subduing the Gauls (across modern France and Belgium) from 58–50 BCE.

In the 40s BCE, Caesar began taking offices over extended time frames – much longer periods than the rules technically allowed.

Early in 44 BCE he gave himself the formal title “dictator for life” (Dictator Perpetuo), having been appointed dictator two years earlier. The dictatorship was only meant to be held in times of emergency for a period of six months.

When Caesar was preparing a war against Parthia (in modern day Iran), some tried to hail him as king.

Soon after, an angry group of 23 senators stabbed him to death in a vain attempt to save the republic. They were led by Marcus Junius Brutus, a descendant of the Brutus who killed the last Roman king, Tarquinius Superbus.

However, the Roman republic was beyond saving despite Caesar’s death. His great nephew Octavian eventually emerged as leader and became known as Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE). With Augustus, an age of emperors was born.

Emperors were kings in all but name. The strong aversion to kingship in Rome ensured their complete avoidance of the term rex.

‘No kings!’

American protesters waving placards shouting “no kings!” are expressing clear concerns that their beloved democracy is under threat.

Donald Trump has already declared eight national emergencies and issued 161 executive orders in his second term.

When asked if he needs to uphold the Constitution, Trump declares “I don’t know.” He has joked about running for a third term as president, in breach of the longstanding limit of two terms.

Like Caesar, is Donald Trump becoming a king in all but name? Is he setting a precedent for his successors to behave increasingly like emperors?

The American aversion to “king” likely ensures the term will never return. But when protesters and others shout “no kings!”, they know the very meaning of the term “president” is changing before their eyes.

Peter Edwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘No kings!’: like the LA protesters, the early Romans hated kings, too – https://theconversation.com/no-kings-like-the-la-protesters-the-early-romans-hated-kings-too-259011