Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Tibby, Associate Professor in Environmental Change, University of Adelaide

During droughts, Australia’s inland rivers dry up, leaving waterholes as the only wet places in a parched landscape. Fish, turtles, crayfish and other aquatic animals retreat to these vital refuges.

But our research, published today, reveals these waterholes are in danger of filling up with eroded soil from farms. This is putting a big squeeze on life in the river.

When drought breaks, the water flooding into the river carries soil along with it. In theory, soil deposited in waterholes could be flushed out again by large floods.

Studies in the 1990s suggested as long as floods continued to occur, waterholes would maintain a natural balance of sediment. But these studies focused on the Cooper Creek, in the Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) Basin, where waterholes have a sandy base underlying clay-dominated soil that can be easily washed out again. Many Australian rivers are different. So what happens elsewhere?

Our new research investigated waterhole infilling in the Moonie River, in the northern part of the Murray Darling-Basin. The Moonie catchment has experienced extensive clearing of native vegetation for sheep and cattle grazing. Unlike some neighbouring catchments, the upper and middle portions of the river have minimal water extraction and so their flow patterns are relatively “natural”. It’s a true “dryland river”, flowing only after infrequent rain events. During long periods with no flow, waterholes become the only remaining wet habitats for aquatic animals to survive.

Read more:
Australia’s inland rivers are the pulse of the outback. By 2070, they’ll be unrecognisable

Poking at sediment to understand waterholes

Waterholes in the Moonie River can be more than 5 kilometres long, up to 5 metres deep, and teeming with life. Kingfishers, whistling kites and parrots create a symphony of sound while fish occasionally break the surface of the murky water.

We studied three of the deepest waterholes in the Moonie River, as they are the ones that last longest in droughts. Our initial method was simple. Using metal rods, we probed the soil’s depth at evenly spaced points along the waterholes. Our first survey revealed all three waterholes had accumulated at least a metre of soil, with one site showing more than 2.5 metres of infilling, significantly reducing its depth.

To determine the rate of sediment accumulation, we used radiocarbon dating. This technique is commonly used for dating objects thousands of years old such as the Lake Mungo skeletons. However, nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s introduced new radioactive material including radiocarbon into the atmosphere worldwide. By analysing radiocarbon in the Moonie River sediments, we could estimate their age.

Our sediment dating revealed that, in places, more than two metres of soil had filled the deepest waterholes since the 1950s. Before European occupation, it would have taken thousands of years to deposit this much soil. Our research suggests sediment infilling also sped up over the past few decades.

The accumulated soil reduces the waterholes’ depth, preventing them from holding water for as long as they used to during droughts. Our modelling indicated this reduction has shortened the duration waterholes can hold water by almost a year at some sites, bringing them dangerously close to complete drying during the longest droughts.

Do floods remove soil from waterholes?

However, two significant questions remained: does sediment get removed after a large flood? And if it does, does material from upstream simply get dumped downstream? To answer these questions, we needed some luck and a knowledge of cocktails.

In 2010 and 2011, the Moonie River experienced two very large floods. This gave us the perfect opportunity to find answers. We repeated our waterhole surveys and found even after big floods, there was still a minimum of 1 metre of sediment across most of the bottom of these waterholes, with much deeper sediment in places.

The missing piece of our puzzle was to determine whether the sediments were mixed together, like a margarita, and deposited by a single flood, or if they were layered, resembling a B52 cocktail (another connection to nuclear bomb testing).

To unravel this, we examined how the sediment had changed since before the floods. We observed distinct layers, like those in a B52 cocktail, indicating the sediments had been deposited over a series of flows and floods since the 1950s, rather than solely after individual floods.

Read more:
We helped fill a major climate change knowledge gap, thanks to 130,000-year-old sediment in Sydney lakes

How can we solve this problem?

We need to address the imbalance between eroded soil supply and the river’s capacity to transport sediment downstream.

In the Moonie River, water extraction for human use is minimal, so the problem is unlikely to lie with the river’s flow regime. The main culprit is an increased supply of sediment.

That means the solution lies in better catchment soil management. We need to stop so much soil washing into the Moonie River. This requires further research to find the main sources of soil that fills waterholes. Then determine the most effective ways to prevent erosion and reduce the amount of soil entering the river. This approach also helps preserve precious soils on agricultural land. In some exceptional cases, more extensive engineering solutions may be necessary to restore waterholes.

Given climate change projections for more frequent and longer droughts in the region, taking action to restore and preserve the function of waterholes in dryland rivers like the Moonie becomes increasingly crucial. These actions are essential for safeguarding the diverse aquatic animal life and the people that depend on waterholes for survival during droughts.

Read more:
It’s official: the Murray-Darling Basin Plan hasn’t met its promise to our precious rivers. So where to now?

John Tibby receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Queensland and South Australian Governments. This research was partially funded by the Queensland Government.

Jonathan Marshall works for the Queensland Department of Environment and Science who partially funded this research.

– ref. Soil erosion is filling vital inland river waterholes, putting the squeeze on fish, turtles and crayfish – https://theconversation.com/soil-erosion-is-filling-vital-inland-river-waterholes-putting-the-squeeze-on-fish-turtles-and-crayfish-207155

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University

At the close of the 18th century, the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn wrote one of his masterpieces: an oratorio – a large concert piece for orchestra, choir and solo singers – entitled The Creation, with a libretto based on the biblical story of the creation of the world.

More than 200 years later, our understanding of how the world began has changed spectacularly. As both a scientist and a chorister, I have waited for decades for someone to write a new oratorio that tells the creation story based on science.

But nobody ever did. So – with the help of a poet colleague, a composer and the choir I sing in – I set out to tell the story of the origins of the universe, of life, of species, and of humanity with music and beautiful words and images from cosmology, molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, ecology and anthropology.

Science is beautiful

Rereading my old books by the masters of these fields brought back to me the awe and wonder inspired by the discoveries of the past century.

What could be more awesome than the creation of a universe from nothing? Or the creation of the molecules of life in a warm pond or hydrothermal vent?

What could be more beautiful than the origin of species of increasing complexity, including our own? What could be more important than conserving our planet and understanding ourselves and our place in the Universe?

Read more:
Did life evolve more than once? Researchers are closing in on an answer

So why isn’t the general public in love with science? When I lived in a commune 50 years ago, the very smart sociologists, psychologists and teachers I lived with would deride my passion. Science is hard and boring. Science is downright dangerous. Science is only good for inventing gadgets.

In 1959, the English novelist and chemist C.P. Snow wrung his hands at the existence of “two cultures” that don’t talk to each other. Despite the explosion of scientific advances, I’m not sure we have advanced much in the integration of science into our culture.

My early experiences began a lifelong search for ways to express the beauty and simplicity of science. What could touch us more profoundly than music?

We are what we sing

Humans of all ages and cultures have sung their deepest desires, hopes and fears. There’s even a theory that song evolved before language.

Religion uses music to foster community and bring comfort and certainty to our uncertain lives. For centuries, beliefs have been fostered and reinforced by constant repetition of a credo in one form or another.

As a chorister, I have sung dozens of masses, requiems and oratorios, by Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Berlioz, Faure, Britten and more. I think these classics are the most gorgeous music in the world, and I love singing them.

But the ideas in the librettos were developed centuries ago.

When I first thought of writing an update, the idea seemed preposterous. How could an evolutionary geneticist with little formal musical training ever conceive, let alone write, the libretto for a major new work?

Up until then I had written 462 scientific articles, but only one poem – and that was 65 years earlier.

Nothing is not nothing

I teamed up with my fellow chorister, poet Leigh Hay, with support from Peter Bandy, the conductor of our choir (the Heidelberg Choral Society). Peter persuaded the Australian-born composer Nicholas Buc to write the music.

I had the first line in my head for years: “Nothing is not nothing.” I also had an idea for the finale “Man is the astronomer”, in which soloists ask despairing questions about humanity’s future, answered by the chorus’ reassurance that we humans, uniquely, can understand the universe and our place in it.

To my surprise, the story unfolded in my head, in (rather unkempt) verse, and fell naturally into four sections: the universe, life, species, and humanity.

First the Big Bang and the cacophony of early Earth, and our planet forming into the “pale blue dot no bigger than Neil Armstrong’s thumb”.

Then the coalescence of molecules into self-replicating machines. Dramatising the discovery of the structure of DNA was fun to write: we interrupted excited half-sentences from Watson and Crick with a plaintive aria from Rosalind Franklin.

The steely beauty of DNA, the elegance of coding. The stuttering of mutation was obviously a fugue. For early life, I looked to famous Australian fossils.

Enter Darwin, singing calmly about his “one great law” against a chorus of hysterical hecklers. I had Bach’s St Matthew Passion in mind.

Read more:
Decoding the music masterpieces: Handel’s Messiah oratorio, composed in just 24 days

Then the desperation and frivolity of evolution; black and white moths, dancing lyrebirds, mechanically altruistic ants, speciating rock wallabies. Here I used my knowledge of famous Australian examples, including, alas, extinctions. A funeral march with tolling bell introduces the sixth extinction that is all our own.

When I got to the rise of the third chimpanzee, the “dominant mammal” making a mess of our planet, I started feeling gloomy and had to rescue myself by writing a strong message of hope into the finale.

Approaching the performance

With the words done, Nick Buc’s music written, and a visual backdrop created by animator Drew Berry, we are now well into rehearsals with the 100 voices of the Heidelberg Choral Society, a 60-piece orchestra and four soloists, conducted by Peter Bandy.

The premier of Origins is set for July 18 at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Some 225 years after Haydn’s Creation first dazzled audiences with its religious vision, an oratorio on our origins based in science will have arrived.

Jenny Graves receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Heidelberg Choral Society.

– ref. Nothing is not nothing: how a scientist set out to sing the story of our origins – https://theconversation.com/nothing-is-not-nothing-how-a-scientist-set-out-to-sing-the-story-of-our-origins-207607

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

Australia will provide $110 million in further assistance to Ukraine, bringing its total support to $790 million during the conflict.

The new package includes 70 military vehicles, artillery ammunition and $10 million to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which manages the Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund, to assist with shelter, health services, clean water and sanitation.

Australia will also extend duty-free access for goods imported from Ukraine for another year.

Of the total $790 million Australia has provided, $610 million has been in military assistance.

But Australia still has not returned its ambassador back to Ukraine, despite many other countries having done so.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the extra support “will make a real difference, helping the Ukrainian people who continue to show great courage in the face of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and immoral war”.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia was “one of the largest non-NATO contributors in support of Ukraine, and will continue to support Ukraine to end the war on its own terms”.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said “Russia cannot be allowed to infringe upon another country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, welcomed the latest assistance, pointing to the importance of transportation capability in the war, and expressing his thanks to the prime minister.

Russia loses court bid over embassy lease

Meanwhile, the High Court on Monday dismissed Russia’s attempt to challenge the government’s cancellation of its lease of a site for a proposed new embassy near Parliament House. The lease was quashed on security grounds.

Albanese told the media: “The court has made clear that there is no legal basis for a Russian presence to continue on the site at this time, and we expect the Russian Federation to act in accordance with the court’s ruling”.

Soon after the decision, a Russian diplomat who had been squatting on the site departed.

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

– ref. Australia announces $110 million in new military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/australia-announces-110-million-in-new-military-and-humanitarian-assistance-for-ukraine-208465

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ameeta Jain, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Deakin University

Average housing rents across Australia have increased by about 10% per year to February 2023 for new rentals, and just a bit lower than that for existing rentals.

Combined with rapidly increasing interest rates and wage rises not keeping pace with inflation, this is placing huge strain on the average household purse, prompting calls for improved rental market conditions.

Read more:
To deliver enough affordable housing and end homelessness, what must a national strategy do?

The Greens are refusing to pass the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund bill to provide more community housing unless the federal government supports the introduction of rent controls. But is a rent freeze a simple panacea?

Australia used rent controls effectively during the two world wars. However, they have been used in other countries without much success. Using basic economic principles, there is evidence freezes worsen inequality and actually reduce availability.

Making the market worse, not better

Rentals, in economic terms, are a product. To make a quality product for the market, the producer – the landlord – invests substantial sums of money in construction and maintenance to meet legislated minimum standards for rental properties. They also have to cover land and income tax, insurance and mortgage costs.

The rent from a property is expected to cover these expenses with an average return on investment between 3% and 7%. As soon as there is a rent freeze and the return on investment starts falling – in some cases into the negative – landlords will cut back on what they consider discretionary spending.

Read more:
Building in the same old ways won’t end the housing crisis. We need innovation to boost productivity

This can affect spending on maintenance because all other outlays are fixed.
Houses are then allowed to fall into disrepair, leading to landlords selling up or withdrawing properties from the long-term rental market.

Experience in the United States shows how landlords allow some houses to become uninhabitable so they can fraudulently obtain insurance payouts for damage to the property.

Unscrupulous landlords will also try to bypass the minimum rental property standards by offering their properties at above-market rents, capitalising on the high demand and low stock.

Cashing in on the black market

Promoting rent-bidding above the fixed price will only worsen if there are government-imposed rent freezes. While rent bidding has been banned in some states including New South Wales and Victoria, anecdotally it remains widespread.

Then there is a grey area where real estate agents and landlords appear to adhere to the law by not asking for bids, but willingly accept offers above the advertised price from renters desperate to secure a property.

Given the difficulty in evicting renters, and rent freezes not covering costs, landlords might think a premium payment is justified. On paper, it would appear the rent being paid is reasonable and in accord with a government-imposed freeze.

But it also provides the landlord with untaxed cash. This flows on to the building sector where tradies will happily provide their services for cash, thereby expanding the black market.

Read more:
The National Housing Strategy won’t end homelessness without supportive housing

The reasons for the property supply shortage are longstanding, and many of the causes were worsened by the COVID pandemic. These included material supply delays, increased costs and changes in preferred housing types. Government policies relating to the release of land and drawn-out approval processes for new builds have added to the supply problem.

Other unintended consequences

Battling families are further disadvantaged in the rental market because landlords would prefer to have their properties occupied by professionals with no children. Often, it is easier for owners to charge under-the-table premiums to this cashed-up group prepared to pay to get a particular property.

This increase in social segregation has been reported in Britain, where landlords choose renters from their preferred social and economic cohort. This increases the waiting times for “rent frozen” properties, forcing desperate individuals – usually those already most disadvantaged – to rent illegally through the black market.

This worsens the divide between the wealthy market-insiders and unemployed, migrant, young and other disadvantaged renters. The resulting lack of available rentals worsens worker shortages in some areas and can create pockets of increased violence and crime spawned by uncontrolled hidden black markets.

Read more:
Government’s housing fund legislation delayed by Greens-Coalition alliance

While freezing rents would appear to be a simple method to increase rental housing affordability, the unintended consequences of any such move will have a long-term negative impact on the total availability of rental housing stock, reducing the quality of housing and increasing a black market in rental housing.

Global experience suggests that improving supply, by easing building restrictions and scrapping red tape for new developments, is likely to be a more effective policy tool in Australia. Local councils and state governments need to simplify and expedite the process for approving new developments at the same time as reducing taxes on rental properties, both during construction and later.

Ameeta Jain 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. Rent freezes and rent caps will only worsen, not solve Australia’s rental crisis – https://theconversation.com/rent-freezes-and-rent-caps-will-only-worsen-not-solve-australias-rental-crisis-208099

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Dempsey, Senior lecturer, University of Canterbury

We know putting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere is bad for the climate. But should we be reversing some of the damage by removing greenhouse gases that were emitted decades ago?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seems to think so. Its latest report highlights CO₂ removal as an essential activity if society wants to avoid warming the climate by 2℃ or more.

This is not carbon capture and sequestration, which tries to neutralise the burning of fossil fuels. Nor is it limited to the removals you get by planting – and never harvesting – new forests. Carbon dioxide removal includes all kinds of land- and engineering-based practices that extract the gas from the atmosphere and lock it away permanently.

But it is not an excuse to avoid emissions cuts. Decarbonisation – society’s shift away from fossil fuels – remains essential, and we’re not doing it fast enough.

Atmospheric CO₂ removal – basically, negative emissions – can buy us time to decarbonise by walking back some of the centuries of build-up. And we think New Zealand could be a leader in this effort.

Considering our geothermal and forestry resources, we estimate New Zealand could remove up to three million tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year – the equivalent of taking 600,000 cars off the road.

Read more:
On top of drastic emissions cuts, IPCC finds large-scale CO₂ removal from air will be “essential” to meeting targets

Putting CO₂ into geothermal systems

When CO₂ is pumped from our cars and smokestacks, it immediately disperses at an extremely low concentration across the vast atmosphere. For every 2,400 molecules making up our air, just one is CO₂ (~420 ppm), which makes it hard to filter them back out again.

Trees extract the few CO₂ molecules from air for photosynthesis. The oceans are also good at removing CO₂ but this makes them more acidic, which is not great for coral reefs.

Scientists have been developing their own technologies for atmospheric CO₂ removal. Most are currently expensive to do in practice. But we think New Zealand could be doing CO₂ removal cheaper than anywhere else in the world, taking advantage of our well developed geothermal and forestry industries.

Read more:
How NZ could become a world leader in decarbonisation using forestry and geothermal technology

Over the past 60 years, we’ve perfected how to extract hot water from several kilometres underground, use it to generate electricity and then put the cooled water back down again. What’s more, the geothermal industry has already done the hard (and expensive) part to figure out how to capture CO₂ that comes up with the geothermal water and inject it back underground.

Unfortunately, geothermal systems cool down over time. Unless new wells are drilled, they deliver less electricity with each decade they’re in use. We can make up the decline by burning logs or forestry waste to further heat the geothermal water and generate more power.

This biomass is a good fuel because it is carbon neutral: any CO₂ it emits came from the atmosphere, not underground. And the forestry industry is already there – a supply of logs, transport logistics and know-how – which all helps keep the costs down.

But instead of letting CO₂ from the burned wood go back into the atmosphere, we could dissolve it in the geothermal water before sending it underground. Unlike in fossil-fuel carbon-capture projects, which inject pure CO₂ that might later rise and leak out, the carbonated water is slightly heavier.

It’s an involved process, but at the end you can turn a geothermal system into a carbon sink that also generates renewable electricity.

Decarbonisation on a budget

When tackling an enormous problem like climate change, governments have to weigh up how much they think voters will let them spend to cut emissions. For this, it is helpful to measure decarbonisation costs.

Mostly, emissions reduction is a choice to switch to a newer, cleaner technology.
One study on abatement costs estimates that the switch from a petrol to an electric car equates to paying US$700 for each tonne of CO₂ kept out of the atmosphere.

We have recently calculated the decarbonisation costs for different geothermal technologies. We found switching from natural gas to geothermal electricity costs about US$250 for each tonne of CO₂ not emitted. When you boost geothermal with extra bioenergy and add CO₂ removal, this drops to US$150 a tonne. And if you’ve already paid for the geothermal plant and wells – an advantage we have here in Aotearoa – then it could drop as low as US$55 a tonne.

In terms of buying ourselves out of an emissions liability, geothermal carbon removal is one of the cheapest options out there.

The government may need to pay billions of dollars between now and 2030 to meet targets under the Paris agreement. A homegrown carbon-removal industry could end up as a strategic strength, particularly as social licence for clear-felling forestry continues to be eroded.

Challenges for CO₂ removal

The main barrier right now is cost. Citing its economic uncertainty, a key UN climate panel has come out against engineering-based carbon removals.

But there is cause for optimism here: the recent history of wind energy and solar power shows costs can fall dramatically as technology uptake grows. With our low-cost advantages, New Zealand has an opportunity to accelerate the rest of the world along the CO₂ removal learning curve.

Another concern is that a narrow focus on offsetting emissions could let heavy climate polluters off the hook. This is the tension between gross and net emission reductions. The government is addressing this issue by reviewing the Emission Trading Scheme, but the world will still need billions of tonnes of CO₂ removal to undo historic damage.

Read more:
Does carbon capture and storage hype delay emissions cuts? Here’s what research shows

Others argue land availability and competition with food crops will limit how much biomass can be made available for carbon removal. While true in a narrow sense, New Zealand currently harvests tens of millions of tonnes of timber each year while producing enough food for 40 million people.

The critics are right to point out this is not a miracle technology. If we’re to undo the climate legacy of centuries of carbon-hungry activity, it’s going to take all kinds of carbon removal.

Other research projects are underway, including the use of a rock known as Dunite, which can be spread on farmland to lock up carbon as it weathers, direct capture of CO₂ from the air with the common mineral Olivine, and enhancement of the carbon-storage capacity of marine sediments, especially in Fiordland.

Read more:
Blue carbon: could a solution to the climate challenge be buried in the depths of fiords?

A key unknown right now is whether the public wants this. It’s easy to kick the can down the road, and it’s true that international carbon trade is a curly issue that needs rigorous study. But CO₂ removal is not science fiction decades away from maturity. It’s here now.

David Dempsey receives funding from MBIE for geothermal research.

Rebecca Peer receives funding from MBIE for research on New Zealand’s energy future.

Karan Titus 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. NZ’s geothermal wells offer a cheap way of storing carbon permanently — equivalent to taking 600,000 cars off the road – https://theconversation.com/nzs-geothermal-wells-offer-a-cheap-way-of-storing-carbon-permanently-equivalent-to-taking-600-000-cars-off-the-road-207901

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Horvath, Senior lecturer, La Trobe University

Never during the 23 years of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule has he faced the kind of challenge posed by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s insurrection over the weekend.

The gravity of the crisis was underlined by Putin’s televised address on Saturday. He likened the insurgent’s “criminal adventure” to the catastrophe of 1917, when “intrigues, squabbles and politicking” on the home front triggered a military collapse, revolution and civil war.

In an obvious reference to Prigozhin, Putin claimed that “excessive ambition and personal interests led to treason, to the betrayal of the motherland and the people and the cause” for which Wagner soldiers had fought and died.

From catering food to running a trolling factory

What Putin has ignored is his own role in the transformation of Prigozhin from a convicted criminal and catering entrepreneur into a formidable political force in his own right.

Prigozhin was not merely “Putin’s cook” and a pro-Kremlin oligarch. He was a product of the peculiar kind of authoritarian regime that Putin created during his two decades in power.

In at least three ways, Putin ushered Prigozhin to the centre of Russia’s political stage.

First, Prigozhin was a beneficiary of the Kremlin’s strategy of using loyalist proxies to attack the regime’s domestic opponents and fabricate the illusion of popular support.

The prototype was Nashi (“Ours”), a youth organisation that was created to insulate Russia from the contagion of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004. Funded by obedient oligarchs, “Nashi” organised massive anti-Western demonstrations and violent attacks on anti-Kremlin militants, but proved powerless to deter mass protests against election fraud in 2011–12.

As the Putin regime struggled to contain this unfolding revolution, it turned to Prigozhin. Then best known as a St Petersburg catering magnate, Prigozhin quickly proved his usefulness by infiltrating the protest movement and funding a notorious television documentary that smeared pro-democracy demonstrators as paid hirelings of the West.

This was merely a prelude to Prigozhin’s main contribution to the consolidation of Putin’s power.

Although the regime had regained control of the streets, the opposition continued to dominate online political discussion. To neutralise this threat, Prigozhin created the Internet Research Agency. This trolling factory employed hundreds of staff, working around the clock to create the illusion of a groundswell of support for the regime.

It also became a tool of Russian influence on the international stage. Its intervention in the 2016 US presidential election helped Donald Trump to win and earned Prigozhin a place on the US sanctions list.

The advantage of proxies like Prigozhin was that they offered a shield of plausible deniability to the Kremlin. The drawback: they were harder to control.

One notorious example was the neo-Nazi outfit “Russkii Obraz” (Russian Image). Its leader was simultaneously collaborating with the Kremlin and organising a terrorist campaign against its own opponents, including police and federal judges.

The Wagner Group is born

Putin’s second contribution to Prigozhin’s ascent was the 2014 invasion of Ukraine when Russia annexed Crimea. Like the Kremlin’s domestic control strategies, the “hybrid warfare” that Russia unleashed on Ukraine involved proxies, or non-state actors, working in close collaboration with the Russian armed forces.

Numerous Kremlin-aligned formations participated in this effort to create the illusion of an authentic popular uprising in southeast Ukraine.

The most durable was the Wagner Group, which was created after a meeting in the Defence Ministry in the summer of 2014. Prigozhin requested the use of military facilities to train volunteers to fight in Ukraine and emphasised that “Papa” (Putin) had endorsed the project.

Read more:
Wagner’s rebellion may have been thwarted, but Putin has never looked weaker and more vulnerable

Wagner mercenaries played an important role in the defeat of Ukrainian forces in the battle of Debaltseve in early 2015. They also became an instrument of Russia’s intervention in Syria, where Prigozhin acquired concessions for natural resources in return for security services.

This pattern was repeated in Africa, where Prigozhin worked with Russian diplomats to amass mining and forestry concessions, while propping up some of the continent’s most brutal regimes.

In the process, Wagner mercenaries committed atrocities in the Central African Republic and Mali, which provoked international condemnation.

Read more:
Wagner group mercenaries in Africa: why there hasn’t been any effective opposition to drive them out

Prigozhin’s swift rise in power

Putin’s third gift to Prigozhin was the hollowing out of Russia’s state institutions.

As the Kremlin tightened its stranglehold over the electoral process, Russia’s parliament became accountable to the regime, not the people. Independent political parties were crushed. The media were progressively subjugated by the Kremlin and its allied oligarchs. Civil society was devastated through the passage of new laws against “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations”. Instead of upholding the law, the judiciary and security agencies became tools of repression.

Read more:
Alexei Navalny: Novichok didn’t stop Russian opposition leader – but a prison sentence might

In this scorched, lawless landscape, Prigozhin flourished.

As an oligarch known for his private army and friends in the Kremlin, he operated with impunity. Investigative journalists who tried to shed light on the Wagner Group were harassed and sometimes died in unclear circumstances. His media empire, consolidated in 2019 as the Patriot Media Group, gave him a national platform.

It took Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine to transform Prigozhin from a dangerous regime proxy into a contender for power.

The first months of the war coincided with a draconian crackdown on the last remnants of political opposition, civil society and independent media in Russia. At the same time, the repeated defeats of Russian forces on the battlefield magnified the importance of Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenaries.

The simmering conflict between the Defence Ministry and Prigozhin revealed the erosion of Putin’s capacity to mediate between state institutions and non-state proxies.

In May, when Prigozhin warned of revolution and lambasted the “public, fat, carefree lives” of the children of the elite, he was striking at the foundations of the regime.

A month later, when Prigozhin mounted his armed rebellion and marched virtually unchallenged towards Moscow, he demonstrated that almost no one was prepared to defend the ageing dictator in his hour of need.

Having sown the wind, Putin has now reaped the whirlwind.

Robert Horvath has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Isabella Currie has received a government RTP scholarship.

– ref. The rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin: how a one-time food caterer became Vladimir Putin’s biggest threat – https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-yevgeny-prigozhin-how-a-one-time-food-caterer-became-vladimir-putins-biggest-threat-208450

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University

Michael Zavros’s art is autobiographical to an obsessive – even neurotic – degree.

Not only is much of his work self-referential with images of self, his children, his aspirations and his daydreams, but the whole discourse around his art has been formulated by the artist through his endless interviews, his social media presence and the mythology he has cleverly constructed around himself.

Even the essays in the catalogue accompanying this new exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, are riddled with quotations from the artist. Do we know too much about Zavros and what he thinks he is trying to achieve in his art to be able to see his art?

How would we respond to this exhibition if we happened upon it by chance in a gallery in downtown Thessaloniki and were told it was by some contemporary Greek artist whose name we didn’t know? Would it make sense and how would we negotiate it?

Zavros is identified with an exacting photorealist technique. Much of his earlier work was derived from found imagery of desirable fashion accessories and celebrated brand names that he would render in a painstaking manner as exactly and as lovingly as he could.

This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Zavros’s work in a state gallery and is selected from his work from the past 25 years. Assembled by curator Peter McKay, it contains over 100 pieces, primarily paintings, but also including sculptures, photographs, video pieces and performance art.

Read more:
What should the Australian War Memorial do with its heroic portraits of Ben Roberts-Smith?

Mastery of technique

What are we to make of his oeuvre to date? Zavros exhibits a mastery of an exquisite technique and a refined sensibility. Nothing is left to chance. Every detail is carefully calculated.

Photography plays a key role in his art making. In his earliest pieces, clippings from a fashion magazine were meticulously reproduced as oil paintings as in Man in wool suit (1998).

Aspirational garments, fashion statements and great architectural edifices were carefully studied, appropriated and translated into a photographic form.

Depending on scale, this was sometimes carefully projected onto a painting surface. The huge Acropolis Now (2023) mural in acrylic, measuring about 7.5 metres by almost 20 metres, frames the entrance to his exhibition.

Other designs from photographs may be plotted onto a canvas through the very traditional dot method, or resolved in Photoshop and then transferred before being painted.

As a general observation, the photographic origins of most of his works – despite the attempted and frequently successful attempts at verisimilitude – is generally reflected by a certain prevailing flatness in the paintings.

This applies to some of the most accomplished and acclaimed pieces including Bad Dad (2013), and Phoebe is dead/McQueen (2010).

Conspicuous consumption

Invariably the question arises concerning the ideology or the conceptual underpinnings of Zavros’ imagery.

On a very simple level, one can say much of his imagery touches on highly desirable luxury goods, as items of conspicuous consumption. The artist has reasoned that, as many people aspire to own such items, exquisitely rendered images of them would appeal to the same people.

This, together with the knowledge Zavros belongs to a family of Cypriot Greek and Irish immigrants living on the Gold Coast where such aspirational items would be economically out of reach for them, provides a certain confidence in such a reading.

Artistic success has brought out the narcissist in the artist with such hypnotic images as V12/Narcissus (2009), where the artist has appropriated a pose from the famous Caravaggio painting Narcissus. Now it is the artist reflected in the shiny surface of his brand-new car.

Is Zavros celebrating the existing world order and its elite and the consumption of luxury goods, or is he critiquing it, shining a light on folly and exposing it with irony and creating subversive art?

This seems to be a basic divide between his supporters who acquire his work at ever-increasing prices and his detractors who view him essentially as an artist dedicated to the Ancien Régime who has a vested interest in propping up its existence.

Read more:
Buy art because you love it – not because it might make you rich

Power and prestige

On the evidence presented in this exhibition, there seems to be a development in his thinking from appropriation and celebration to a questioning of earlier assumptions.

It is difficult to view pieces including The poodle (2014) other than as a critique of a society completely out of control and sacrificing function for the sake of cute design.

The large installation piece Drowned Mercedes (2023) has the aspirational car of his dreams made functionless by being filled with water.

As with most of Zavros’s work, there is an autobiographic element. In the garage of the house where he normally parks his car, during the floods the water would have flooded this car. This gleaming symbol of power and prestige is destroyed through the impact of climate change.

Zavros, who is one of Australia’s most successful younger artists – he will turn 50 next year – has reached a certain watershed in his career.

Reflecting on the experience of this major exhibition, he told me he had a “scrapbook full of ideas” and will now have the opportunity to do something about it with large-scale installations and painted bronzes.

Let’s hope this comes to fruition.

Michael Zavros: The Favourite is at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, until October 2.

Sasha Grishin 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. Nothing is left to chance and every detail is carefully calculated: the hyperrealistic (and divisive) paintings of Michael Zavros – https://theconversation.com/nothing-is-left-to-chance-and-every-detail-is-carefully-calculated-the-hyperrealistic-and-divisive-paintings-of-michael-zavros-200160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

In this week’s federal Newspoll, conducted with a longer-than-usual fieldwork period (June 16–24) from a larger-than-usual sample of 2,303 people, the “no” vote to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament took the lead by 47–43%, reversing a “yes” lead of 46–43% three weeks ago. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

This is the first lead for the “no” campaign in a Newspoll. Resolve had the first lead for “no” in any national poll two weeks ago, in a 51–49% result. Essential’s 60–40% lead for the “yes” campaign at the same time may reflect sampling issues. Newspoll and Resolve have far better track records at elections than Essential.

Read more:
Resolve first national poll to have ‘no’ ahead in Voice referendum, but Essential has ‘yes’ far ahead

In the polls from Newspoll and Resolve, support for the Voice has crashed since April. In the April Resolve poll, the “yes” vote was ahead by 58–42%, and in Newspoll it was ahead by 53–39%.

When combined with the early June Newspoll with a total sample size of 3,852 people, the state breakdowns have “yes” ahead only in Victoria by 48–41% and New South Wales by 46–41%.

The “no” campaign led in Queensland by 54–40%, in Western Australia by 52–39%, in South Australia by 46–45% and in Tasmania by 48–43%.

A successful referendum requires a majority in four of the six states and a national majority. This poll suggests “yes” is ahead in just two states.

On June 19, legislation setting up the Voice referendum passed the Senate by 52-19 votes after earlier passing the House of Representatives. The referendum is required between two and six months from this date.

In early May, I wrote that just one of 25 referendums initiated by Labor governments has succeeded, and that those not held with general elections have been defeated more heavily than those held with elections. The crash in Voice support in both the Newspoll and Resolve polls suggest this historical trend may continue.

Read more:
While the Voice has a large poll lead now, history of past referendums indicates it may struggle

Labor’s lead reduced

On voting intentions, Newspoll gave Labor a 54–46% lead over the Coalition, a one-point gain for the Coalition from three weeks ago. Primary votes were 38% Labor (steady), 35% Coalition (up one), 11% Greens (down one), 6% One Nation (steady) and 10% for all others (steady).

This is Labor’s equal-lowest lead in Newspoll since the May 2022 election. Newspoll also gave Labor a 54–46% lead over the Coalition in March, according to The Poll Bludger.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings were 52% satisfied (down three points) and 42% dissatisfied (up five), for a net approval of +10 (down eight points overall). This is his worst net approval in Newspoll since the election. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s net approval was up three points to -11.

Albanese led Dutton as better prime minister by 52–32%, a narrowing from 55–28% three weeks ago. It is Albanese’s smallest lead over Dutton since the election.

Other polls and Fadden byelection candidates

In last week’s Morgan weekly poll, conducted June 12–18 from a sample of 1,363 people, Labor led the Coalition by 57–43%, a one-point gain for Labor since the previous week. Primary votes were 36.5% for Labor, 34% Coalition, 13% Greens and 16.5% for all others.

In additional questions from last fortnight’s Resolve poll, 37% thought COVID cases had increased recently, 23% believed they had remained about the same and 10% said they had decreased. But 74% of voters said they no longer wore masks in public spaces, compared to 25% who did.

The Lowy Institute released its annual poll of Australians’ attitudes to foreign policy questions last week, though the fieldwork was done in March and April. It tracks respondents’ trust in global powers, confidence in world leaders, perceived threats to Australia’s interests, and attitudes toward China and the United States.

Thirteen candidates will contest the July 15 byelection for the Queensland federal seat of Fadden. At the 2022 election, the Liberal National Party won Fadden by a 60.6–39.4% margin against Labor. I expect the party to hold it easily.

Labor has been advantaged slightly by drawing top position on the ballot paper, while the LNP is 12th.

Liberal David Van now a crossbench senator

Dutton expelled Liberal Senator David Van from the party on June 15 over allegations of sexual misbehaviour, which he denies. While Dutton can expel Van from the party, he can’t force Van to leave parliament. If Van resigns from the Senate, his seat reverts to the Liberals.

Van is now a crossbench senator. He is the second this parliamentary term to become a crossbencher after leaving their party following Lidia Thorpe’s defection from the Greens.

Van was elected in 2019, so his term will end in June 2025. Thorpe was elected in 2022, so her term does not end until June 2028.

To pass legislation opposed by the Coalition, Labor needs the Greens and two of eight other crossbenchers, a group that now consists of two members from One Nation, two from the Jacqui Lambie Network, one from the United Australia Party, David Pocock, Thorpe and Van.

Read more:
Lidia Thorpe’s defection from the Greens will make passing legislation harder for Labor

Other parliamentary news

The Greens and Coalition united in the Senate last week to defer consideration of Labor’s housing policy until October. This is the first major defeat for the government in the Senate this term.

If the Senate still won’t pass the bill in October, there is the possibility of a double-dissolution election, where all seats in both chambers of parliament face election. A double dissolution can only occur after the same bill is rejected, unacceptably amended or delayed twice by the Senate at least three months apart. In a normal election, only half the Senate is up for election.

The Poll Bludger reported last Tuesday on the interim report on the 2022 election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

The majority of the committee’s members wanted the public disclosure threshold for donations to political parties reduced from about $15,000 to $1,000, and for truth-in-advertising laws to be introduced. The Coalition’s dissenting report opposed these proposals.

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

– ref. Support for the Voice to Parliament slumps in Newspoll, along with Albanese’s ratings – https://theconversation.com/support-for-the-voice-to-parliament-slumps-in-newspoll-along-with-albaneses-ratings-207920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, PhD Candidate, School of History, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University

On June 26 2013, as she fronted the press gallery in Canberra after her removal as leader of the Labor Party, Julia Gillard was determined not to cry. In her prime ministerial resignation speech, she asked not for pity, but rather for a meaningful national conversation about gender and politics, specifically the politics of her demise.

It doesn’t explain everything; it doesn’t explain nothing. It explains some things. And it is for the nation to think in a sophisticated way about those shades of grey.

Ten years after the fact, that conversation is ongoing. At times, it has been a progressive and sophisticated one. The events of recent weeks, including the puerile debate about Katy Gallagher’s prior knowledge of Brittany Higgins’ sexual assault allegations, and the allegations against Senator David Van, remind us there is still a long way to go.

However, it is worth pausing to reflect on what has happened to Gillard’s reputation over the decade. Why has it thrived? Is it all about gender? And if we have forgotten key aspects of the Gillard years, what does that partial amnesia say about us?

From ‘Juliar’ to feminist icon

For much of her premiership, Gillard was singularly unpopular among Australian voters. Her efforts to put a price on carbon (damned by critics as a broken promise not to introduce a carbon tax) proved electorally damaging, as did her failure to end the deadlock over asylum-seeker policy. Controversies surrounding Labor MP Craig Thompson and Speaker Peter Slipper (selected for the role by Gillard) further undermined her standing.

There was much sexism at play. Her critics incessantly argued this was a woman not to be trusted. Critics of carbon pricing infamously dubbed her “Juliar” on their angry placards. Her body was objectified in the public domain, and the shock jocks of commercial radio questioned the sexuality of her then partner.

One commentator, the irascible Alan Jones, even suggested the prime minister ought to be “put in a chaff bag” and drowned at sea. The shocking thing is not that these things were said, but rather that they were accepted as legitimate contributions to public debate by the community at large.

Stories about Gillard’s alleged corruption as a lawyer in Perth in the early 1990s also proved a distraction from the government’s agenda. Not until 2014 – in the witness box of a royal commission, no less – was Gillard finally able to clear her name.

The misogyny speech

The passage of time can make things seem as if they always were as they are now. But Gillard’s renowned misogyny speech was not an instant sensation in Australia. The context – a censure motion on the disgraced speaker Peter Slipper – was unpropitious, and when Gillard made her speech, the conservative press called her a hypocrite who now played the “gender card” for political expediency.

The speech’s global impact was immediate, but only after Gillard’s removal from power did it capture the hearts and minds of some Australians. New developments – the sexist attacks on US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, the #MeToo movement beginning in 2017, and latterly the backlash against gendered discrimination and abuse in parliament house – gave it further acuity in the following years.

A decade after its muted reception in Canberra, the speech is circulated on TikTok, featured in stage productions, and in 2020 it was even voted Australia’s most “unforgettable” television moment.

Though not always enamoured with the way it dominated her political legacy, Gillard ultimately leaned in to it, as the saying goes. She started a podcast called A Podcast of One’s Own (a clear nod to Virginia Woolf), published two books about women and leadership, and established the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, and latterly the Australian National University.

Star status

As prime minister, Gillard was regularly criticised for her “wooden” media appearances and her cautious approach to public engagement. It is ironic, then, that her transformation from untrustworthy politician to venerable feminist advocate depended on the media and celebrity industries.

It began with a series of ticketed public talks in venues such as the Sydney Opera House with longstanding feminist advocate, author and historian Anne Summers. Gillard’s memoir, My Story, and a high-profile book tour followed in 2014.

In her advocacy work as chair of the Global Partnership for Education she also rubbed shoulders with celebrities such as Rihanna.

The policy legacy

Several of the Rudd-Gillard government’s policy initiatives were unravelled by their successors. The $23-per-tonne carbon price was repealed by Tony Abbott’s government, as was the (clearly deficient) Minerals Resource Rent Tax. The National Broadband Network, the rollout of which began under Gillard, was dramatically reimagined by Malcolm Turnbull as communications minister and then as prime minister.

Some of the less-savoury aspects of Gillard policy legacy have been forgotten for more convenient reasons. Gillard herself has not often discussed her government’s revival of mandatory offshore processing for asylum seekers in Australia. The cutting of the single parents’ benefit, on the very same day as Gillard’s misogyny speech, has earned perhaps not enough discussion. It is her failure to support same-sex marriage as prime minister that now draws the most condemnation from pundits.

But policy legacies have also played a huge part in the revival of Gillard’s public standing. The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings was a hugely important initiative. It earned Gillard significant credit across the political spectrum when its findings proved so damning.

The NDIS, largely overlooked in media coverage in favour of “carbon tax” and “deficit”, has become a sacred element in Australian social and welfare policy. The subsequent policy debate has not hinged on the design of the scheme, but rather how best to fund it.

Read more:
How Julia Gillard forever changed Australian politics – especially for women

Between nostalgia and amnesia

There is a dissonance in the way Australians talk about Gillard today. Her magnanimity is respected, her embrace of a life after politics admired. Above all else, Gillard’s status as Australia’s first woman prime minister and now a global women’s ambassador prevails. As a rule, she does not parade her views on contemporary politics before the public, except at a conceptual level. (Her memoir was perhaps the exception.)

But when commentators refer to the decade of egos, ambitions and failed leaders, they are increasingly likely to elide her name entirely. It is a disservice to the historical record, and to Gillard herself. She was a fierce combatant in parliament, and endured a period of intense conflict within the Labor Party. Her victory over Kevin Rudd in February 2012 – one of their many spills and shadow contests – was larger than any ballot that Rudd, Abbott or Turnbull ever contested.

People have been quick to wipe their hands clean of yesterday’s sexism in order to make Gillard yesterday’s heroine. But they ought to be careful that, in the process, they do not erase her from other political histories.

To segregate her story as one of women’s leadership while neglecting it in wider histories of Australian politics and policy would, in its own way, be an act of sexism.

Read more:
Who were Australia’s best prime ministers? We asked the experts

Joshua Black 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. Between nostalgia and amnesia: the legacy of Julia Gillard as PM, 10 years after her ousting – https://theconversation.com/between-nostalgia-and-amnesia-the-legacy-of-julia-gillard-as-pm-10-years-after-her-ousting-208283

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Program Head, Telethon Kids Institute

The 2023 flu season may be one of Australia’s largest flu seasons on record, and doctors are concerned about the impact on children.

You may have seen headlines warning parents about “kindy flu”. These can be misleading. This year’s flu virus does not “target” children. But during the 2023 flu season, children are particularly vulnerable for one important reason – low vaccination rates.

We are concerned that fewer children have received their annual flu vaccine in 2023, compared to previous years. And it leaves them, and the wider community, at risk of flu and its complications.

Read more:
Explainer: what is the flu?

How bad is it?

In 2023, we are on track for a similar influenza season to 2019 – the largest influenza season on record in Australia. That’s when there were more than 300,000 recorded influenza cases.

At the time of writing, we’ve had 107,941 recorded flu cases so far in 2023, and the flu season still has months to go. Of these, 48,873 cases have been in children under 15 years and 22,365 in those aged five to nine years.

Since the flu season started in late April, children have made up almost 80% of those admitted to hospital across the country at sentinel surveillance sites. Many children’s hospitals are reporting high numbers of children hospitalised with flu.

Sadly, one child has died of influenza, a three year old in Perth.

These large case numbers come after low influenza case numbers seen earlier in the pandemic.

Read more:
Kids are more vulnerable to the flu – here’s what to look out for this winter

Why is this happening?

The 2023 flu strains do not seem to be any more severe than in other years, according to a number of measures.

In hospitals, the number of those admitted directly to intensive care (currently 7%) is similar to previous seasons.

In the community, the number of those with flu-like illnesses needing to take time off regular duties is also similar.

There is also no evidence the current strains circulating are more likely to infect children, or for them to infect others, compared with strains circulating in previous years.

So something else must be going on.

So what’s different in 2023?

The single thing different to pre-pandemic years is the number of younger Australians not getting an influenza vaccine.

In 2020, at this stage of the season, nearly 40% of children aged from six months to under five years were vaccinated, compared with just 20% currently. In those aged five to under 15 years, 25% were vaccinated in 2020 compared with just 12% now.

This makes us worried.

Young children, particularly those under five years, are the group most likely to be hospitalised with flu.

Although children with underlying medical conditions – including chronic disorders of the heart, lungs, nervous and immune system – are most susceptible, more than half of children admitted to hospital each year with flu are otherwise healthy. While rare, flu deaths also occur in previously healthy children.

We are also worried about influenza making children more vulnerable to secondary bacterial infections. These include
invasive group A streptococcus and pneumococccal disease.

Another reason to get vaccinated

Children have large volumes of virus in their nasal secretions and, after infection, shed this for days. They also have poorer hygiene practices, often coughing and spluttering over those closest to them.

So children will quickly infect their parents, grandparents and younger siblings. Some will be at higher risk of getting unwell and being hospitalised, such as the elderly, the very young, First Nations people, and those with underlying medical issues including heart, lung, kidney and immune problems.

Primary school-age children are the group that most frequently transmits flu in the community. In
2023, we expect the largest number of cases in the community to be in five to nine-year-olds.

Read more:
Should I get a flu vaccine this year? Here’s what you need to know

When to seek medical attention

Flu in children commonly causes high temperatures, sore throats, miserable kids and a non-stop runny nose and cough. Most cases can be safely managed at home.

But if you’re worried about your child during the flu season, seek medical advice, particularly if your child:

• has difficulty breathing (breathing rapidly or drawing in chest or neck muscles)

• is vomiting and refusing to drink

• is more sleepy than normal

• has pain that doesn’t get better with simple pain relief medication.

And right now, before they get sick, book in your children for their annual flu vaccine. It prevents more than half of flu infections. And even if infected, vaccinated children are less likely to be hospitalised with it.

Read more:
Thinking about getting your child the flu vaccine? Here’s what you need to know

Asha Bowen receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, and Medical Research Futures Fund of Australia.

Christopher Blyth receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, and Medical Research Futures Fund of Australia. He is a member of the COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments for Australia – Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group and past member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.

– ref. Heard of ‘kindy flu’? There’s no such thing. But kids are at risk this flu season for one simple reason – https://theconversation.com/heard-of-kindy-flu-theres-no-such-thing-but-kids-are-at-risk-this-flu-season-for-one-simple-reason-207825

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University

Floods, bushfires, heatwaves, cyclones. Australia is no stranger to emergencies. But during disasters we’re better prepared to support pet owners than families with babies and toddlers.

Until now, the experiences and needs of families with very young children during emergencies have been largely invisible and overlooked.

Our new research, a collaboration between the Australian Breastfeeding Association and Western Sydney University, highlights the challenges faced by the parents of very young children in disasters, and how we need to support them.

We looked at families affected by Australia’s catastrophic Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20. However, there are lessons for how we prepare for, and manage, any type of future emergency.

Read more:
200 experts dissected the Black Summer bushfires in unprecedented detail. Here are 6 lessons to heed

What we did and what we found

We surveyed and interviewed 256 parents of children from newborn to four years old at the time of the Black Summer bushfires, and 63 emergency responders.

We found caring for a very young child profoundly impacted parents’ bushfire experiences. Preparing to evacuate was more complex and physically difficult. Parents were under-prepared. Many did not have an evacuation plan and found it difficult to gather what they needed when they had to leave.

Read more:
Evacuating with a baby? Here’s what to put in your emergency kit

Evacuation centres weren’t child-friendly

Women commonly evacuated on their own with their partner staying behind to protect property.

These mothers found it difficult to keep their children safe in large evacuation centres due to overcrowding, the presence of strangers and animals, and because there were limited resources for caring for children.

Some emergency responders were aware of the vulnerability of children and their caregivers in large evacuation centres.

They described child protection concerns and physical dangers. They described unsafe practices by unsupported caregivers, such as washing baby bottles in toilet sinks, and unsafe sleep situations. They highlighted a need to proactively support parents.

Parents and emergency responders repeatedly said evacuation centres should have a separate space for families with very young children.

Families who could evacuate to the home of family or friends or to child-friendly venues such as preschools or doctors’ surgeries fared much better. One parent who was evacuated to a preschool told us:

to the children it was like a holiday because they had all the play equipment, they had a huge, big play area out the back.

The kindness of emergency responders, strangers and community members was greatly appreciated. One woman described how a shop employee, after seeing her with her toddler and realising she had evacuated, immediately offered her home saying:

Do you need somewhere to stay? […] I live just walking distance […] here’s my key.

Pregnant women were at risk

Women prioritised their children’s wellbeing over their own and often did not eat or drink properly. This was particularly concerning for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Two of the five pregnant women we interviewed fainted while queuing for food and assistance. One of these women told us:

I was so worried about my kids. I’d given them water, supplied them with food […] that I would just forget […] to eat myself, to drink […] The ambulance people asked me, ‘Have you had anything to drink today?’ […] I couldn’t even answer the question. I was like, ‘I don’t even remember if I have or not’.

Feeding infants could be hard

Parents often found it difficult to access the resources they needed to care for their children.

Those who were formula feeding found it particularly difficult as infant formula, water, detergent and electricity were often not available. One parent told us:

I had absolutely no way to ensure the bottles were cleaned as we only had a bit of water and paper towel to wipe them out with. The bottles did not have any contact with detergent on over six days.

Those distributing infant formula did not always check whether parents had resources such as clean water or a way of heating water. Donations of infant formula were often out-of-date, not in the location needed, or more than required. One mother told us:

People were trying to help. However it was an overwhelming amount of formula.

Women who were breastfeeding were often grateful they had a secure food supply for their baby. One woman said:

I am so lucky I was still breastfeeding […] I could comfort my baby and make her feel sense of normality, I was also able to feed my child without needing to worry about safe food or bottle preparation and supplies.

Some mothers found it difficult to breastfeed in crowded evacuation centres, became dehydrated or interpreted infant fussiness and frequent feeding as meaning there was a problem with their milk.

They needed support to be able to continue breastfeeding that was not always available and some stopped breastfeeding as a result.

Read more:
Babies and toddlers might not know there’s a fire but disasters still take their toll

We need to do better in future emergencies

When asked what they would do differently if they were in another emergency, parents said pack an evacuation kit and leave earlier.

But the onus shouldn’t be just on parents. Australian emergency planning and response needs an overhaul to better protect infants and young children, and their caregivers.

Existing emergency policies, planning, and guidance should be evaluated with a “young child lens” and adjusted to ensure families are properly supported. People who are experts on young children should be involved in this work.

Karleen Gribble is Project Lead on the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project and is an Australian Breastfeeding Association Scientific Advisor, Educator and Counsellor. Karleen is also on the steering committee of the international interagency collaboration the Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies Core Group. She has been involved in the development of international guidance and training on infant and young child feeding in emergencies for over a decade. She is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia. The research described in this article was supported by an Australian Government Protecting Australian Communities-Local Stream Grant.

Michelle Hamrosi is the Community Engagement Officer on the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project. Michelle is also a General Practitioner and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, as well as a Clinical Lecturer for the Australian National University’s
Rural Medical School. Michelle volunteers as an ABA Breastfeeding Counsellor and Group Leader for the Australian Breastfeeding Association Eurobodalla Group. She is also a member of Doctors for the Environment, Climate and Health Alliance and Australian Parents for Climate Action.

Naomi Hull is an RN, IBCLC, and has an MPH. She works for the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) as Senior Manager, Breastfeeding Information and Research. Naomi volunteers as a Breastfeeding Counsellor on the ABA National Breastfeeding Helpline and as the National Coordinator for the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative Australia. Naomi is also a member of the Public Health Association of Australia.

– ref. The Black Summer bushfires put an enormous strain on families with young children. We can’t make the same mistakes again – https://theconversation.com/the-black-summer-bushfires-put-an-enormous-strain-on-families-with-young-children-we-cant-make-the-same-mistakes-again-205026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nik Taylor, Professor in Sociology, University of Canterbury

The current funding crisis in New Zealand universities has not happened in a vacuum. It is a byproduct of the neoliberal “reforms” introduced here in the 1980s and which have affected every aspect of university work.

Nor is this confined to New Zealand. The stress on corporate capitalism, adoption of business practices, and prioritisation of economic goals over all others has transformed higher education in the western world.

We see this time and again when universities cite financial losses and implement staff cuts. This has many consequences, including the exploitation of unpaid labour by casual staff. Submissions to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Job Security suggested underpayment of casual teaching staff in Australian universities is rampant.

The same applies in New Zealand, but the problem is likely worse than we know, with precarious workers unlikely to complain about their working conditions for fear of compromising future employment prospects.

Full-time staff are struggling too. Intensification of workloads, job insecurity amidst seemingly constant restructures, pressures to obtain competitive external funding, research excellence and student outcome targets, and toxic work environments are all threats to staff wellbeing.

To understand how university workers experience these realities of the modern university, our current project aims to capture their voices and stories. And those stories make for a depressing read.

‘Constantly drowning’

To build empathy and understanding between workers with different experiences – precarious and permanent, faculty and professional staff, workers with disability and so on – we shared their anonymised posts on our open online site, Working in the Modern University.

In their stories, we hear about how the intensification of casual workloads leads to forced choices between poor quality teaching or working unpaid hours. We hear how staff feel trapped in a cycle of exhaustion, futility, guilt and hopelessness.

Read more:
Starved of funds and vision, struggling universities put NZ’s entire research strategy at risk

Some describe how precarious life has become, either in or on the edge of poverty, constantly managing insecurity for little financial or personal reward. And we hear of people feeling “battered and broken”, of “constantly drowning”, and of feeling complicit in creating a “caricature of education”.

Reading these stories is hard. They speak of increased desperation, grief for a system that could be so much more, and a loss of hope from staff who also see this reflected in their students.

Without rapid and real change, we fear a future where the university’s role of nurturing critical thinkers is vastly diminished. And where research on and with marginalised people and ideas is replaced by sanitised research linked to economic priorities.

That would mean the closure of one of the few places left where “noisy conversations” about democracy and political alternatives can take place.

The public good

The shift to seeing students as customers or clients – on the pathway to becoming “job-ready graduates” – has also shifted focus away from developing critical thinking skills and towards vocational training, pastoral care and keeping clients happy. One contributor wrote of:

the reinvention of the university as a place to train people for a capitalist workforce instead of developing their intellectual and creative potential more holistically.

This is unfortunate for students, who pay dearly for their education but receive a “less than inspiring educational experience”. As another wrote:

Students expect to study full-time and achieve good grades while working full-time because the neoliberal complex implies this is possible. Meanwhile, student-to-teaching-staff ratios grow amidst bulging workloads and […] student feedback on our performance can make or break us.

Knowledge is affected too. Staff are often on the receiving end of student complaints when topic material is complex or grades don’t match expectations. This deters teaching that challenges, develops critical thinking, or requires student engagement.

Read more:
With campus numbers plummeting due to online learning, do we need two categories of university degree?

Similarly, research priorities have shifted. Universities no longer prioritise academics using their expertise to innovate and investigate for the public good. Instead, they are pressured to pursue externally-funded research, tailored to suit the appetite of a government or prevailing public opinion.

We have also seen a rise of the “subcontract model”, where “lead” researchers no longer create the research products they “sell”, but rely on casual and fixed-term research assistants who are often under-acknowledged.

Read more:
Why we resigned from the ARC College of Experts after minister vetoed research grants

Funding for critical thinking

We need to see a return to the idea of funding education as a public good in and of itself (granted, a radical idea under neoliberalism). Alongside this we need to separate education from current culture wars and recognise the value of arts, humanities and social sciences.

It’s no accident that the focus of frequent cuts by corporate-minded universities is on disciplines that teach critical thinking skills. While this may be partly due to declining student numbers, there’s certainly a case to be made that it reflects government priorities and rhetoric around “instrumentalised” education.

And we need proper funding for research that isn’t tied to government policy or ideology.

Academics are not short of ideas about the future of higher education, from the practical to the idealistic. The proliferation of books, papers and conferences on the subject attests to this. Universities would do well to heed their own experts on this critical issue.

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

– ref. ‘Battered and broken. I must get out’: what staff told us about teaching and working in universities today – https://theconversation.com/battered-and-broken-i-must-get-out-what-staff-told-us-about-teaching-and-working-in-universities-today-208179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen King, Professor, Monash University

Since 2005, annual labour productivity growth (growth in output per hour worked) has been the best part of one percentage point below its long-term average in Australia and other developed countries.

The Productivity Inquiry that I helped conduct for the Productivity Commission found this will lead to much-slower improvements in Australians’ living standards than in the past.

In the search for a culprit, economists including Australia’s Competition Minister Andrew Leigh have pointed to reduced business competition resulting in decreasing dynamism, by which they mean:

• less entry and exit of firms
• less job-switching
• a significant reduction in business investment
• mergers leading to increased business concentration
• an increase in the markups businesses can sustain
• only few highly-productive firms, with the rest increasingly less so

A study that I have just published in Australian Economic Papers, reviews the evidence and finds that while most of these things have happened (and while many are undesirable) they aren’t sufficient to explain what’s happened to productivity.

The findings suggest that even if we did make our economy more competitive and businesses more dynamic (and we probably should) improving productivity growth depends on a much bigger set of policy reforms.

Here’s what we find.

Firm entry and exit has been slowing

In Australia, the rates of firm entry and exit (meaning companies either joining or dropping out of an industry) declined between 2005–06 and 2012–13.

While there’s been an increase in firm entry more recently, it’s been mainly among non-employing business – sole traders and independent contractors – rather than bigger businesses.

In the US (we don’t have an equivalent Australian study) red tape may be strangling dynamism. Investment in new profitable businesses has slowed at the same time as there has been a significant increase in regulation of those businesses.

In Australia, improvements in business survival rates at least partly seem to reflect improved conditions for both survivors and new entrants, rather than barriers that protect unproductive survivors at the expense of more-productive entrants.

Job-switching has slowed

Australian job mobility has declined dramatically over the past 30  years, in part because the population is ageing, and older workers are less likely to switch jobs than younger workers.

Another explanation might be that Australian businesses face a less volatile environment, suggesting job turnover does not have value in its own right.

While job churn tends to fall if barriers to job mobility rise, it also falls when businesses face fewer shocks, making any link between declining job turnover and diminished competition ambiguous.

Business investment has slowed

Non-mining business investment in Australia has stagnated over recent decades, as it has in a number of other advanced economies.

Among the suggested explanations are risk aversion and uncertainty, pessimism about the future and lower productivity growth. The role, played by competition – if any – is far from clear.

Business concentration has climbed

The average concentration of Australian businesses (the extent to which industries are dominated by a few big firms) appears to have been falling until the early 2000s, and climbing since then.

Most of the increased concentration appears to have been in already-concentrated industries, with technological advances and exposure to imports explaining a lot of it.

As an example, concentration has increased in “warehousing and storage”, but the industry has taken advantage of technological advances including parcel tracking and smart warehouses, meaning both concentration and competition have increased as firms have scaled up to install new technologies.

Businesses profit margins have climbed

Markups (profit margins) appear to have climbed by around 57% in Australia between 1980 to 2016, which is less than in the US, Canada and much of the European Union, but greater than in New Zealand and most Asian countries except for South Korea.

But markups at the level of the firm are difficult to measure because they depend on assumptions about the way the firm makes its products. Different assumptions can produce very different estimates.

There are only a few highly-productive firms

Globally and in Australia the most-productive firms seem to be three to four times more productive than the less productive, but, at least in Australia, there is little evidence to suggest the gap is widening.

What evidence there is suggests the gap between the most-productive Australian firms and the most-productive global firms is widening, suggesting all Australian firms are slower to adopt leading technologies than they were.

Put bluntly, Australian businesses as a whole appear to have become slow to adopt world best practice; which is a problem, but not necessarily a problem of highly-productive firms versus the rest.

There are a range of policies that can help to reverse the decline, but it is far from clear that competition plays much of a role.

We’re at risk of chasing the wrong target

The broader reasons for Australia’s declining productivity growth include changing demographics, changing international trade patterns and the changing nature of industries as Australia continues to moves towards a more service-based economy.

Fixing our productivity problem requires a suite of changes that address these and other issues. In March, the Productivity Commission laid out a roadmap.

Of course, we shouldn’t ignore competition. The government’s 2015 Competition Policy Review focused on updating competition and consumer laws.

Many of its recommendations remain on the shelf.

Further, new challenges are emerging. To pick one, Australia currently has three alternative ways to get competition clearances when businesses merge.

Unsurprisingly, they pick the path of least resistance.

The head of the Competition and Consumer Commission Gina Cass-Gottlieb has developed a proposal that would help.

Actually boosting productivity will require measures that cover education, technology, business regulation, taxation, carbon emissions, and more.

Blaming declining dynamism and declining competition for declining productivity is not just a diversion, it risks making us do the wrong things.

Stephen King is a Commissioner at the Australian Productivity Commission and a former Commissioner with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. He was one of the authors of the recent Productivity Commission 5-year Productivity report. The views in this article are his own.

– ref. Yes, Australian businesses have become less dynamic. But there are bigger reasons for our sliding productivity growth – https://theconversation.com/yes-australian-businesses-have-become-less-dynamic-but-there-are-bigger-reasons-for-our-sliding-productivity-growth-207327

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

Simon Crean, a former Labor opposition leader, has died suddenly while in Germany, aged 74.

Crean, who served in parliament from 1990 to 2013, was a minister in the Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard governments.

He was opposition leader between 2001 and 2003, when he was replaced by Mark Latham.

Under his leadership, Labor opposed Australia’s involvement in the Iraq War, although it supported the Australian troops who served in that operation.

In the various Labor governments, Crean held a variety of portfolios. They included primary industries and energy, trade, education, employment and workplace relations, the arts, and regional development and local government.

Before entering parliament, Crean was president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions from 1985 to 1990, and worked closely with the Hawke government.

He was brought up in politics – his father, Frank Crean, was treasurer in the Whitlam government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement on Sunday night: “Simon was a great servant of the Labor Party and of the broader labour movement.”

Albanese said be personally had benefited from Crean’s “advice and wisdom”.

“Simon’s many achievements in portfolios that ranged from trade to employment, from primary industries and energy to the arts, were characterised by a focus on the national interest, engagement with stakeholders, and always acting with principle and determination.

“The common threads running through his long career were his courage and his principled action, qualities that came so powerfully to the fore when he opposed the Iraq war. Yet his opposition to the war was backed by his unwavering respect for the members of the Australian Defence Force, a respect he showed when he went to address the troops ahead of their deployment.

“History has vindicated Simon’s judgement, but at the time his stance was deeply counter to the prevailing political and media climate,” Albanese said.

“After parliament, Simon continued to work for Australia’s interests, most notably as chairman of the European Australian Business Council.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he was “shocked and saddened to hear of Simon Crean’s passing.

“Simon was a gentleman to deal with and a giant of the labour movement. I always admired Simon for his decency and intellect and only just saw him recently in Melbourne,” Dutton said.

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

– ref. Simon Crean, former Labor and ACTU leader, dies aged 74 – https://theconversation.com/simon-crean-former-labor-and-actu-leader-dies-aged-74-208439

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

It is increasingly clear that a rattled Vladimir Putin’s political end is approaching. All that really matters now is whether it comes sooner or later.

Having appeared on national television to warn of a coup attempt by traitors – and an impending civil war – Putin abruptly reversed his position only a couple of hours later. The Kremlin announced that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief protagonist, would go into exile in Belarus and all charges against him had been dropped.

It’s little wonder that Prigozhin, the one-time hot dog vendor who rose through the ranks of Putin’s patronage to head up the infamous Wagner Group, was at the centre of the political maelstrom.

Chafing for weeks at the requirement for Wagner fighters to integrate into the Russian armed forces, Prigozhin became enraged when a Wagner base was attacked by Russia’s military.

His response was nothing short of extraordinary: to drive a convoy into Russia, swearing to confront Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

After seizing the Southern Military District headquarters at Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin announced his intention to continue on to Moscow. Once the convoy reached Voronezh, having covered half the distance to the capital largely unmolested, Putin took to the airwaves to vow that anyone who stabbed Russia in the back would be liquidated.

Amazingly, the Wagner Telegram channel responded by saying Putin was mistaken and there would be a new Russian president soon. Wagner’s convoy rolled north until it was only a couple of hours’ drive from the Kremlin itself.

And then everything suddenly stopped. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, announced a compromise had been brokered by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin would receive safe passage to Minsk, where he would apparently retain control over Wagner’s extensive operations in Africa. Wagner fighters would not be charged with treason and they would be integrated into the Russian military. As for Shoigu and Gerasimov, nobody seemed to know.

Read more:
What the Wagner Group revolt in Russia could mean for the war in Ukraine

Questions abound

Even by Russian standards, this outcome was completely bizarre. And while there is doubtless plenty that did not make it into the official announcement, the upshot can only be that Putin has been badly damaged by the melodrama.

Stopping coup attempts – and this was more a mutiny or an insurrection than a coup – can strengthen authoritarian leaders if they are put down quickly and their leaders publicly and harshly dealt with.

But this hasn’t happened. For one thing, it was Putin who backed down, not Prigozhin. For another – even more damaging – Putin seemed distant from the whole process. It was a leader of a foreign country who intervened and solved the problems, rather than anyone in the Russian leadership.

Other questions abound. How did Prigozhin so easily manage to take over the entire Southern Military District headquarters after announcing he was coming and without anyone putting up a fight?

How was his convoy allowed to get so close to Moscow so quickly, waved through checkpoints? Why did Russia’s puzzlingly absent Air Force not intervene, beyond a few helicopters?

And how did Russia’s intelligence services apparently fail to spot Prigozhin’s move, which he had been openly telegraphing for some time? US intelligence had already picked up Prigozhin’s plan by mid-June.

How much has Putin been damaged?

This must be profoundly disquieting for Putin. It strongly suggests that elements of virtually every one of Russia’s security services was likely complicit in Prigozhin’s move – or at the very least apathetic to it.

Even the most benign interpretation – rank systematic incompetence – indicates Russia lacks the ability to deal with serious insider threats against its capital.

It gets worse for Putin. Prigozhin has set a precedent by openly criticising the president, moving against him and forcing him to blink. That will not go unnoticed by Russia’s elites, whom Putin has bound closely to him through alternating cycles of fear and reward. Once an autocrat is unable to deliver on threats of punishments for malfeasance, the risk in taking action diminishes markedly.

Indeed, it was only after Putin publicly condemned Prigozhin that Russia’s loyal nationalists began to come out with their own public criticisms.

Putin’s messaging will now need to perform new feats of rhetorical gymnastics. It is already hard enough to spin his climb-down from “looming civil war” to “everything is fine”. It will be even harder to explain why Prigozhin – who had been lauded as a hero close to Putin – could claim with impunity that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was based on an untruthful pretext.

What could happen next?

If things are bad for Putin, they are far rosier for Ukraine. In the short term, there is unlikely to be too much difference in the war. Wagner’s forces had already been pulled off the front lines and Ukrainian forces have been confronting a mix of Russian soldiers and mobilised troops for some time.

But with every quashed insurrection comes a search for the guilty – and the inevitability of purges. That’s likely to be a lengthy and comprehensive process involving the Russian military and its intelligence agencies.

Read more:
Putin under pressure: the military melodrama between the Wagner group and Russia’s armed forces

It is well known Prigozhin enjoyed significant support from middle-ranking Russian officers, and these individuals are likely to be the target of the regime’s ire. Paradoxically, they are often the more competent and battle-seasoned soldiers, as well. Morale, already low, will be even more badly damaged.

Ultimately, sooner or later, Russia’s security agencies will also come to the realisation they don’t need to submit to purges anymore and that the main culprit for Russia’s failures, Putin, has been enfeebled by his own actions.

And that’s perhaps the gravest concern for Putin to come out of all of this. Having for years encouraged the Kremlin’s powerful elites to compete for his favour, he’s now given them a powerful reason to unite against him.

Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute and various Australian government departments and agencies.

– ref. Wagner’s rebellion may have been thwarted, but Putin has never looked weaker and more vulnerable – https://theconversation.com/wagners-rebellion-may-have-been-thwarted-but-putin-has-never-looked-weaker-and-more-vulnerable-208436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Wintle, Professor in Conservation Science, School of Ecosystem and Forest Science, The University of Melbourne

The Victorian grassland earless dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla), not seen since 1969, has been found in grasslands west of Melbourne. No need to fear this dragon, though; these lizards are just 15cm long fully grown.

The dragon is Australia’s most imperilled scaled reptile. This is an extraordinary second chance. The rediscovery of a species thought to be extinct inspires hope of finding other lost treasures like the Tassie tiger.

But rediscovery only happens because a species has become so scarce it has eluded even the experts who know best where to look. To save it from extinction, three things must happen quickly:

1. intensive care – create a conservation breeding population, manage its remaining genetic diversity, and breed enough individuals to return to the wild

2. within the species’ range, protect habitats of the size, quality and quantity needed to support self-sustaining populations

3. restore and manage these habitats, reduce threats, reintroduce the dragons and monitor outcomes to ensure the species’ long-term viability.

Read more:
Why we’re not giving up the search for mainland Australia’s ‘first extinct lizard’

Intensive care

This first step is to set up a climate-controlled, disease-free conservation breeding facility, run by the ICU doctors and nurses of conservation. It’s a tragedy that the only option is to take the last few individuals of a species from the wild to secure its future. With that decision made, it is essential they receive the best possible care.

Fortunately, Melbourne has experts who know how to build and run such facilities, reintroduce species to the wild and monitor their recovery. In this way, Zoos Victoria and collaborators have over the past decade averted the extinction of the mountain pygmy possum, lowland Leadbeater’s possum, helmeted honeyeaters, Baw Baw frog, southern corroboree frog and spotted tree frog.

This work involves setting up, maintaining and staffing such a facility, as well as surveys to locate and move individuals into captive breeding. Based on experience with endangered frogs, plus the extra costs of outdoor enclosures, the cost will be around A$2 million over the next five years.

Read more:
Hundreds of Australian lizard species are barely known to science. Many may face extinction

Securing habitat

Merely keeping a species alive in zoos is not conservation. Self-sustaining wild populations must be established to recover a species. This is where complexity, uncertainty and economics really bite.

The dragon has only ever been found in the critically endangered ecosystem known as the basalt plains grasslands. Agriculture and housing development have reduced these grasslands to less than 3% of their pre-European extent. Most of what remains is on private land.

The dragon’s long-term fate depends on managing the site where it was found and any areas nearby where dragons are living. We also need substantial new areas of suitable plains grasslands as conservation reserves where captive-bred animals can be released.

Research tells us we need at least six independent, self-sustaining populations for the dragon to stand a chance of persisting for at least the next 50 years. Even if well-managed, some populations will occasionally be lost to disease, predation, hot fires, or other chance events.

Individuals will have to be released back into those areas once the areas recover and can support the species again. In pre-European times, animals could naturally migrate back into such places. Today, habitats are too fragmented for that to happen.

Unfortunately, basalt plains grasslands continue to be lost to legal and illegal clearing, the use of fertilisers that favour exotic grasses, weed invasion, rock removal, intensive grazing and the loss of regular low-intensity “cool” fires historically used by Traditional Owners.

Read more:
Before the colonists came, we burned small and burned often to avoid big fires. It’s time to relearn cultural burning

To make matters worse, the Victorian government has over the past decade broken its promise to set aside large areas of western plains grasslands as conservation reserves.

Securing new conservation areas will be expensive given the competing demands for this land. However, the government has received offset payments from developers when they (legally) destroy grasslands to build houses. It’s time to use those funds to create the reserves the dragon and other endangered grassland species need to survive.

We estimate securing six high-quality grasslands of at least 100 hectares each will cost at least $30 million.

Read more:
The vast majority of Melburnians want more nature in their city, despite a puzzling north-south divide

Managing threats and restoring habitats

These reserves will need careful and active management. In the absence of frequent cool fires, and in the presence of invasive weeds and animal pests, these areas will lose the plant species that make them special and beautiful. Weeds, cats, foxes, dogs and rabbits all create unsuitable habitat for dragons.

Many of these grasslands are so degraded they need a lot of restoration work, almost starting from bare soil.

Weed control and fire management to maintain six 100-hectare reserves as suitable habitat for dragons will cost around $2.4 million a year. These reserves would of course be home to many more grassland animals and plants, including other endangered species such as the fat-tailed dunnart.

Read more:
EcoCheck: Victoria’s flower-strewn western plains could be swamped by development

We can’t be sure of the exact costs of buying, restoring and managing grasslands. Our estimates assume, for example, the sites contain most grassland plant species. If areas were being restored from bare soil, ten-year restoration and management costs would more than double.

Other uncertainties include land prices, the costs of weed and pest control and fire management, and the possible need to help insect populations establish as a sustainable source of dragon food.

We can afford to save the dragon

The whole program is likely to cost around $56 million over ten years. More than half the cost involves buying highly sought-after properties.

If this sounds like a lot of money, consider that Australians spend over $30 billion a year on pet care. Just the GST on that spending ($3 billion) would cover the annual cost of conserving most of our 1,900 or so endangered species (most don’t have the dragon’s expensive taste in real estate). As a nation, we can afford to save the dragon and most of its endangered friends, as the law requires.

Brendan Wintle has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Victorian, NSW and Queensland governments, the Commonwealth National Environmental Science Program, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the Australian Conservation Foundation. He is a board director of Zoos Victoria and a lead councillor of the Biodiversity Council.

Sarah Bekessy receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Ian Potter Foundation and the European Commission. She is a lead councillor of the Biodiversity Council, a board member of Bush Heritage Australia, a member of WWF’s Eminent Scientists Group and a member of the Advisory Group for Wood for Good.

– ref. Victoria has rediscovered a dragon – how do we secure its future? – https://theconversation.com/victoria-has-rediscovered-a-dragon-how-do-we-secure-its-future-208097

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Fraser, Senior Researcher in Antarctic Remote Sensing, University of Tasmania

There’s more to Antarctic ice than meets the eye. Sea ice is not a uniform crust overlying the salty Southern Ocean.

Our new research is the first to review the many crucial roles of “landfast” sea ice around Antarctica. Landfast ice is frozen seawater that is fastened to the coast. It acts like a belt around the Antarctic coast, regulating the flow of ice shelves and glaciers into the sea. And it’s crucial habitat for Weddell seals and emperor penguins.

Satellites can easily estimate the horizontal extent of sea ice, but determining the type of ice is far more difficult. Our deeper analysis of satellite images reveals landfast sea ice extent declined to a record low of just 123,200 square km in March 2022. That’s well below the normal March range of 168,600-295,200 square km.

Much of the ice lost in 2022 had been present since 2000, when high-quality records began. If this trend persists, the consequences for the climate and for Southern Ocean ecosystems could be catastrophic.

Read more:
Antarctica’s heart of ice has skipped a beat. Time to take our medicine

Getting a grip on landfast ice

Antarctic sea ice drives the circulation of the world’s oceans. The “overturning” circulation begins in Antarctica when very salty, dense brine (created as the ice forms) sinks to the bottom of the ocean. This “bottom water” spreads away from Antarctica to reach the northern hemisphere.

This crucial circulation is projected to slow due to glacial melt, because the input of more buoyant fresh water dilutes the denser brine. This raises the spectre of a further slowing or worse, total shut down of deep ocean currents as in the disaster movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”. We know concentrated regions of sea ice formation tend to occur next to landfast ice, so the changes we are seeing are likely to further reduce this deep ocean circulation.

Read more:
Torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse

Global climate models are not particularly skilful at reproducing the recent history of Antarctic sea ice, giving limited confidence in our ability to predict its future. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones is an overly simplistic representation of the sea ice.

Landfast sea ice is not represented in any global climate model. These models treat all sea ice as if it’s able to drift, whereas in reality up to 15% of ice should be held still by being anchored to land or grounded icebergs.

This is a big problem because, as our study reveals, if we don’t properly simulate it, we are likely to get all kinds of inaccurate flow-on effects, including an incorrect amount of sea ice (and hence dense water) produced by our models?.

Wildlife depends on landfast ice

Landfast ice supports a unique community of algae, krill, small crustaceans called copepods, molluscs and fish. They are adapted to live within and below the ice where conditions are harsh.

These species form a complex food web around ice algae, using the ice as a nursery ground. Life within landfast ice requires wide-ranging survival strategies. Drastic changes could mean cascading effects on the entire food web.

Seals and penguins rely on this environment for resting, hunting and breeding. Emperor penguins have a unique approach to raising a family that requires stable ice, which only landfast ice can provide. Reduced ice extent, increased fragmentation and earlier breakup can lead to population declines of this iconic species.

Deeper knowledge is crucial for climate forecasts

Only a few areas of Antarctic landfast ice are regularly sampled. These areas are found near Antarctic research stations and are generally separated by thousands of kilometres of coast.

Additionally, scientists can often only safely collect sea ice cores from smooth ice thick enough to support people. So sampling is skewed to favour the unbroken crème brûlée-type crust over the shattered meringue of rough landfast ice.

To better understand rough landfast ice and a slew of other poorly understood ice types, we need repeat ice core measurements along with more detailed satellite studies. We also need the capability to model each ice type accurately.

Our research has ensured landfast ice is earmarked for inclusion in the next iteration of our national climate model, which aims to better simulate the interactions between sea ice of all types and the Southern Ocean. Without this ability, we are missing a key ingredient in the recipe of Australia’s climate future.

Read more:
Record low Antarctic sea ice is another alarming sign the ocean’s role as climate regulator is changing

Alexander Fraser receives funding from the Australian Government via the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and the Australian Research Council, as well as from the Antarctic Science Foundation.

Christine Weldrick receives funding from the Australian Government via the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Laura Dalman receives funding from the Australian Government via the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Pat Wongpan receives funding from the Australian Government via the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Matthew Corkill 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. Fractured foundations: how Antarctica’s ‘landfast’ ice is dwindling and why that’s bad news – https://theconversation.com/fractured-foundations-how-antarcticas-landfast-ice-is-dwindling-and-why-thats-bad-news-207814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Uri Gal, Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

Germany’s best-selling newspaper, Bild, is reportedly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to replace certain editorial roles, in an effort to cut costs.

In a leaked internal email sent to staff on June 19, the paper’s publisher, Axel Springer, said it would “unfortunately part with colleagues who have tasks that will be replaced by AI and/or processes in the digital world. The functions of editorial directors, page editors, proofreaders, secretaries, and photo editors will no longer exist as they do today”.

The email follows a February memo in which Axel Springer’s chief executive wrote that the paper would transition to a “purely digital media company”, and that “artificial intelligence has the potential to make independent journalism better than it ever was – or simply replace it”.

Bild has subsequently denied editors will be directly replaced with AI, saying the staff cuts are due to restructuring, and AI will only “support” journalistic work rather than replace it.

Nevertheless, these developments beg the question: how will the main pillars of editorial work – judgement, accuracy, accountability and fairness – fare amid the rising tide of AI?

Entrusting editorial responsibilities to AI, whether now or in the future, carries serious risks, both because of the nature of AI and the importance of the role of newspaper editors.

The importance of editors

Editors hold a position of immense significance in democracies, tasked with selecting, presenting and shaping news stories in a way that informs and engages the public, serving as a crucial link between events and public understanding.

Their role is pivotal in determining what information is prioritised and how it’s framed, thereby guiding public discourse and opinion. Through their curation of news, editors highlight key societal issues, provoke discussion, and encourage civic participation.

They help to ensure government actions are scrutinised and held to account, contributing to the system of checks and balances that’s foundational to a functioning democracy.

What’s more, editors maintain the quality of information delivered to the public by mitigating the propagation of biased viewpoints and limiting the spread of misinformation, which is particularly vital in the current digital age.

AI is highly unreliable

Current AI systems, such as ChatGPT, are incapable of adequately fulfilling editorial roles because they’re highly unreliable when it comes to ensuring the factual accuracy and impartiality of information.

It has been widely reported that ChatGPT can produce believable yet manifestly false information. For instance, a New York lawyer recently unwittingly submitted a brief in court that contained six non-existent judicial decisions which were made up by ChatGPT.

Earlier in June, it was reported that a radio host is suing OpenAI after ChatGPT generated a false legal complaint accusing him of embezzling money.

As a reporter for The Guardian learned earlier this year, ChatGPT can even be used to create entire fake articles later to be passed off as real.

To the extent AI will be used to create, summarise, aggregate or edit text, there’s a risk the output will contain fabricated details.

Inherent biases

AI systems also have inherent biases. Their output is moulded by the data they are trained on, reflecting both the broad spectrum of human knowledge and the inherent biases within the data.

These biases are not immediately evident and can sway public views in subtle yet profound ways.

Read more:
Artificial intelligence can discriminate on the basis of race and gender, and also age

In a study published in March, a researcher administered 15 political orientation tests to ChatGPT and found that, in 14 of them, the tool provided answers reflecting left-leaning political views.

In another study, researchers administered to ChatGPT eight tests reflective of the respective politics of the G7 member states. These tests revealed a bias towards progressive views.

Interestingly, the tool’s progressive inclinations are not consistent and its responses can, at times, reflect more traditional views.

When given the prompt, “I’m writing a book and my main character is a plumber. Suggest ten names for this character”, the tool provides ten male names:

But when given the prompt, “I’m writing a book and my main character is a kindergarten teacher. Suggest ten names for this character”, the tool responds with ten female names:

This inconsistency has also been observed in moral situations. When researchers asked ChatGPT to respond to the trolley problem (would you kill one person to save five?), the tool gave contradictory advice, demonstrating shifting ethical priorities.

Nonetheless, the human participants’ moral judgements increasingly aligned with the recommendations provided by ChatGPT, even when they knew they were being advised by an AI tool.

Lack of accountability

The reason for this inconsistency and the manner in which it manifests are unclear. AI systems like ChatGPT are “black boxes”; their internal workings are difficult to fully understand or predict.

Therein lies a risk in using them in editorial roles. Unlike a human editor, they cannot explain their decisions or reasoning in a meaningful way. This can be a problem in a field where accountability and transparency are important.

While the financial benefits of using AI in editorial roles may seem compelling, news organisations should act with caution. Given the shortcomings of current AI systems, they are unfit to serve as newspaper editors.

Read more:
AI tools are generating convincing misinformation. Engaging with them means being on high alert

However, they may be able to play a valuable role in the editorial process when combined with human oversight. The ability of AI to quickly process vast amounts of data, and automate repetitive tasks, can be leveraged to augment human editors’ capabilities.

For instance, AI can be used for grammar checks or trend analysis, freeing up human editors to focus on nuanced decision-making, ethical considerations, and content quality.

Human editors must provide necessary oversight to mitigate AI’s shortcomings, ensuring the accuracy of information, and maintaining editorial standards. Through this collaborative model, AI can be an assistive tool rather than a replacement, enhancing efficiency while maintaining the essential human touch in journalism.

Uri Gal 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. Replacing news editors with AI is a worry for misinformation, bias and accountability – https://theconversation.com/replacing-news-editors-with-ai-is-a-worry-for-misinformation-bias-and-accountability-208196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Archie Thomas, Chancellor’s Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people.

This week at Parliament House during Barunga Festival, four NT Land Council representatives presented Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the Barunga Declaration.

Signed by the four NT Land Council representatives, the declaration calls on Australians to vote “yes” in the upcoming referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

NT Land Council representatives Dr Samuel Bush-Blanasi (Northern Land Council), Matthew Palmer (Central Land Council), Gibson Farmer Illortaminni (Tiwi Land Council) and Thomas Amagula (Anindilyakwa Land Council) brought the Barunga Declaration to Parliament House.

This is significant because the leaders of the Central and Northern land councils, artist Wenten Rubunjta and activist Galarrwuy Yunupingu presented then prime minister Bob Hawke with the Barunga Statement in 1988. The statement called on Hawke to honour his earlier promises to deliver national land rights legislation and a treaty.

Hawke signed the statement and promised a treaty by 1990.

Treaty ’88 and the Barunga Statement

The Barunga Statement was the outcome of years of careful deliberation and discussion. Its presentation was carefully designed to capture symbols and painted representations significant to both desert and saltwater people. It was delivered from “the Indigenous owners and occupiers of Australia”, requesting the Australian government legislate for national land rights and begin treaty negotiations.

The statement also demanded compensation for land loss, protection of sacred sites, the return of ancestral remains, linguistic and cultural rights, and the rights enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It also called for laws for a national elected Aboriginal body, and recognition of customary law by police and justice systems. It concluded by urging the Australian government to support international law-making upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples.

The Barunga Statement was presented during a time where there were increasing calls for a treaty. The Treaty ’88 campaign declared that Australia was invaded by a foreign power with no treaty. As Wiradjuri activist and writer Kevin Gilbert argued, in Australia, “the thief is the judge”.

In the 1970s, there were two major legal challenges – the Gove land rights judgement and the 1979 Coe case. These cases had reinscribed terra nullius by rejecting Indigenous peoples rights to land that existed outside the norms of European landholding. They ultimately denied Indigenous sovereignty to uphold Australian settler rights to land.

Fast forward to 1988, and Hawke’s government poured billions into the bicentenary celebrations (or a “birthday for white people”, as activist and Palawa man Michael Mansell called it). The opening to Hawke’s “celebration of the nation” was an Australia Day event in Sydney Harbour, featuring a re-enactment of the First Fleet.

This was met by protest “Don’t Celebrate ‘88”, led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from across the continent. The protest began at dawn, and ran into the night.

The demand for a treaty had been gaining momentum since the National Aboriginal Conference called for a Makarrata, a Yolngu word referring to the negotiation of peace after a dispute, in 1979. But in 1983, a Senate committee rejected the idea that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had sovereignty and could enter into a treaty with Australia.

Shortly after, Hawke dismantled the National Aboriginal Conference. A national land rights response was developed, but a poorly conceived draft proposal from Hawke was rejected by Aboriginal Land Councils in 1984.

Read more:
What actually is a treaty? What could it mean for Indigenous people?

‘Treaty by 1990’

Hawke progressed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, a 25-member group charged with the task of raising awareness in the general public of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures and history.

This council achieved significant traction over the next decade, leading to the walk for reconciliation in 2000, which still stands as a moment demonstrating significant national sentiment in support of Indigenous rights.

However, others have highlighted the reconciliation movement’s departure from treaty. Playwright Wesley Enoch and actress Deborah Mailman’s play 7 Stages of Grieving includes a poem emphasising instead the “wreck”, “con” and “silly” in reconciliation.

Hawke’s last official act as Prime Minister was to hang the Barunga Statement in Parliament House. Even though by 1991 little progress had been made towards the statement’s goals. The idea of a treaty had largely been replaced with the notion of “reconciliation”.

In 2006, Yunupingu called for the return of the Barunga Statement to Barunga. Yunupingu said governments had betrayed reconciliation, and he called for the statement to be traditionally buried. This would symbolise the burial of hopes for a treaty, saying

Sovereignty became treaty, treaty became reconciliation and reconciliation turned into nothing.

The Statement remains in Parliament House, despite Yunupingu’s request.

To properly consider the Voice, we need to look to how we got here

Critics of the Voice to Parliament often choose to focus on First Nations peoples’ struggles, the repeated experience of disadvantage – the persistent “gap”.

However, the Voice aims to address a key problem that recreates disadvantage: First Nations’ political power. First Nations peoples have long sought representation to seek particular rights to land, culture and heritage, language, self-determination and self-governance.

As with the Uluru Statement from the Heart and now the Barunga Declaration, the Barunga Statement emerged during a time when Indigenous activists were seeking new mechanisms to secure a lasting political settlement between Indigenous nations and the Australian government.

The referendum for a Voice is the first of a three-part sequence of reforms, outlined in the 2017 Uluru Statement, followed by treaty and truth-telling. Some states and territory governments are already advancing their own treaty processes or agreement-making processes.

The Barunga Statement experience tells us that political relations between Australian and Indigenous people can bring rising hope, optimism and near always disappointment as political will wanes.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Barunga Declaration both demonstrate enduring aspirations for a worthwhile and meaningful political agreement between Indigenous people and government.

Archie Thomas receives funding from Aboriginal Affairs NSW. They are a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).

Heidi Norman and Matthew Walsh 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. Before the Barunga Declaration, there was the Barunga Statement, and Hawke’s promise of Treaty – https://theconversation.com/before-the-barunga-declaration-there-was-the-barunga-statement-and-hawkes-promise-of-treaty-206613

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amirali Popat, Associate Professor and Director of Research, The University of Queensland

3D-printed medicine could be the future of personalised healthcare, with research now suggesting printed tablets have reached a sufficient quality to match the standards set for conventionally manufactured tablets.

Our new study, published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, highlights the promise 3D-printed medicines hold for patients.

If we can scale 3D printing to everyday use, the near limitless potential to have medicines customised to your specific health needs may become a reality sooner than you think.

One size doesn’t fit all

For a long time, medicines have been produced with what you might call a “one-size-fits-all” approach, whereby tablets and capsules come in only a set number of doses. But what if those exact doses don’t work for you?

Taking too much or too little of your medication can be hard to avoid when it only comes in set doses. This can have serious consequences when taking important medications such as antidepressants that trigger side effects when the dose is changed too quickly.

The traditional solution to these scenarios has been to try and break the tablet into halves or quarters to get a dose in-between. But this isn’t possible for every tablet, and even if it is, research shows it often ends up with an inaccurate dose.

3D printing can take away the guesswork and provide flexibility for health professionals to truly personalise medicine suited to you.

Read more:
Health Check: is it OK to chew or crush your medicine?

Layer by layer

You may have seen 3D printers producing toys, medical devices and even food.

The printing of medicines uses the same technology, building a tablet one layer at a time by melting the medication combined with other approved ingredients to help it dissolve in the stomach. Importantly, the tablet can be 3D printed at any required dose by giving instructions to the machine to print it bigger or smaller.

In our proof of concept study we were able to 3D print tablets containing very accurate doses of caffeine, in a way that would be exceedingly difficult with conventional manufacturing methods.

Rather than choosing a dose based on limited commercial options, we selected the dose first and then designed and printed the tablet accordingly.

While not often thought of as a medicine, the choice of caffeine in this research is important because it is the most widely used behavioural drug worldwide. Trying to cut down on caffeine often causes headaches and nausea because of the challenges in lowering the dose correctly. This is one of many scenarios where a one-size-fits-all approach would fall short.

Compared to attempts to split a conventional caffeine tablet into the same doses, the 3D-printed tablets proved to have far more accurate dosage.

Our results demonstrate a straightforward process for producing “the right medicine for the right patient at the right time”. This is one of the guiding principles of personalised medicine.

Read more:
How cancer doctors use personalised medicine to target variations unique to each tumour

A healthcare evolution

Although 3D printing has been around for decades, its use for producing medicines – especially in a hospital or pharmacy environment – is very new.

Australia has rigorous quality control standards for medicines thanks to regulation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, and it is too early to tell how it will regulate 3D printed medicines.

The United States already has one 3D-printed seizure medication, Spritam, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The printing process helps the resulting tablet rapidly disintegrate in the mouth for patients who have trouble swallowing, but does not offer dose customisation.

However, it seems we are on the brink of customised approaches in the clinic, with three new 3D-printed medications receiving FDA investigational new drug approval over 2021-22, and several other clinical trials completed in the last few years.

We envision 3D printers in pharmacies and hospitals for on-site and true personalisation. However, at this stage that doesn’t necessarily mean replacing or even competing with conventional medicines.

The production speed of current 3D printing technologies is much slower than conventional manufacturing. The greatest benefits will likely be for patients with particularly complicated medication regimens, or those taking certain types of medicines like antidepressants. Thus, the people who need it most could have their own tailor-made medicine.

In fact, the possibilities extend further than just choosing the right dose. The practice of pharmaceutical 3D printing could potentially include combining multiple drugs into a single “polypill”, and fully customising features like shape, size, colour, or texture.

We envision an evolution of digital healthcare where 3D printing is combined with technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data, taking our next big step towards truly personalised medicine.

This future will require a collaborative effort between researchers, health professionals, and regulatory bodies to define the place of 3D printing in healthcare, but could see us picking up our personalised medicine from a local pharmacy or hospital with the touch of a button.

Amirali Popat receives funding from The University of Queensland.

Jared Miles receives funding from The University of Queensland.

Liam Krueger 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. We are closer than ever to being able to 3D print medicines. Here’s why that’s important – https://theconversation.com/we-are-closer-than-ever-to-being-able-to-3d-print-medicines-heres-why-thats-important-208026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Meldrum, Lecturer, Speech Pathology, Edith Cowan University

As a speech pathologist, university lecturer and parent of young children, I often get asked a version of the following:

My child isn’t talking yet. Is that a problem? And is it my fault?

There is never a simple “yes” or “no” response, as more information is always needed. But by the end of the conversation, I nearly always end up saying “it’s worth looking into”.

The “wait-and-see” approach for late talkers – those who seem to be lagging behind the spoken communication of their peers – recommended by previous generations has shifted as we learn more about early childhood and how intervention can help.

Who are late talkers?

Late talkers are children who do not speak by the usual time that others are off and chattering. They do not have a diagnosis or “primary cause” such as autism spectrum disorder, an intellectual disability or hearing loss.

Late talking is not an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders so clinical cut-offs vary. The most common definition is that late talkers do not have 50 words and/or do not use two-word combinations by two years of age. Others believe this definition is inadequate.

Research tends to divide this population into two categories, those children who only have issues using words (that is, they understand words) and those who have issues with both expression and comprehension.

Late talking is fairly common, with 13–20% of two-year-olds meeting the criteria. Children are generally assessed for late talking between two and three years via observation by a speech pathologist and parent reports. Parents are asked to provide details of any speech or language disorders in the family, how their child communicates and checklists of the words they understand or speak.

This information is then compared to a large sample of children, to see if they fall within the “normal range” for the number of words they know and use.

Read more:
Talking to babies may contribute to brain development – here’s how to do it

Will my late talker grow out of it?

Around 50% of children will “out-grow” their language difficulties. This explains why the “wait-and-see” recommendation has been popular for many years. But there are several problems with this approach.

Firstly, late talkers may not fully catch up. “Late bloomers” have been found to underperform in language and literacy measures in the later primary school years and beyond. So, while a late talker may improve, they may face ongoing but perhaps more subtle difficulties at a later age, when language skills are critical to academic success and socialisation. Seeking early treatment may mitigate this risk.

Secondly, late talking can have negative impacts for the child during their toddler years. A child who has few words may seem frustrated, withdrawn or aggressive. Such behaviours are more common among late talkers, likely because they lack the words to express feelings or wants. Parents may feel their children’s participation in family life and school or day care is being limited. Treatment may help the child to catch up to their peers and/or find alternate ways to communicate, which can improve participation.

Lastly, but most importantly, the presence of early language difficulties is a significant risk factor for ongoing language difficulties, often diagnosed as developmental language disorder.

This disorder occurs in at least one in five late talkers and can have substantial lifelong impacts on everyday functioning. Academic performance at school, self-esteem, mental health and employment opportunities are all negatively associated with a developmental language disorder diagnosis.

The tricky part is we cannot accurately predict which late talkers will go on to develop typical language skills, and which ones will later be diagnosed with developmental language disorder.

Read more:
What is DLD – the most common disorder you have ‘never heard of’?

What are the risk factors for ongoing language problems?

While is no single predictor that allows us to know for sure which children will face ongoing language problems, potential factors include being born male, a family history of language disorders, socioeconomic status, low birth weight and vocabulary size (both speaking and understanding). Disorders of speech and language cluster in families with genetic inheritance a significant factor.

Reading disorders such as dyslexia are often associated with language difficulties. Other factors often mentioned by parents, such as a history of ear infections or having older siblings (who might “do the talking for them”) do not increase the likelihood of language disorder.

Socioeconomic status and how parents interact with their children are risk factors found in research, but they are difficult to separate from the intergenerational impacts of language disorders. Parents with language problems may interact or communicate differently with their children and pass on an increased likelihood of the same traits. In most cases, not all the children in one family will be late talkers, so the environment may be one part of the puzzle. Parents should feel reassured they haven’t “caused” a language delay by speaking too little to their child.

Read more:
Why being bilingual can open doors for children with developmental disabilities, not close them

Encouraging early talk

Speech pathologists now take an active but cautious view: intervene rather than watch and wait.

Intervention can be very helpful, consisting of training for parents.

Techniques can include:

• recognising and encouraging the other ways a child might be communicating (such as eye gaze, pointing, vocalising)
• following the child’s interest during play
• pausing more to notice and encourage the child’s communication
• reducing frequent questioning (“What’s that?” “Who’s talking?”)
• instead, using more language when interacting, such as describing play (“I’ve got the green playdoh. I might make a snail”).

Importantly, a recent systematic review examined the results from 34 different intervention studies and found that 93% of them reported improvements in expressive vocabulary for late talkers.

So, when I am asked if late talking is a problem, I stress there is no evidence parents are the cause of their children’s difficulties and there is help available. If your child isn’t speaking as much as other children of the same age, it’s worth looking into it.

Suzanne Meldrum is a certified practising member of Speech Pathology Australia.

– ref. Lots of kids are ‘late talkers’. Here’s when to take action – https://theconversation.com/lots-of-kids-are-late-talkers-heres-when-to-take-action-206609

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Fusil, Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of Adelaide

The four day-long search for the missing Titan submersible has come to a tragic end. Reports have confirmed the vessel was subject to a “catastrophic implosion” at some point during its voyage towards the Titanic shipwreck, which would have killed all five passengers instantly.

A debris field comprising “five different major pieces of debris” of various sections of the submersible was found on the sea floor about 500 metres away from the bow of the Titanic by a remotely operated vehicle, officials said.

These findings are in line with previous news that an acoustic signature “consistent with an implosion” was detected by the US Navy on the same day the Titan began its descent.

The navy’s seabed sensors detected the signature in the general area the vessel was diving when it lost communication with its mothership. At the time it was considered “not definitive”.

Read more:
An expert explains what safety features a submersible should have

What is a ‘catastrophic implosion’?

We can assume the implosion actually happened on the first day of the dive – but perhaps not exactly at the same time communication was lost with the mothership. But why did it happen?

Most, if not all, submersibles and submarines operating at depth have a pressure vessel made of a single metallic material with high yield strength. This is typically steel for relatively shallow depths (roughly less than 300m), or titanium for deeper depths.

A titanium or thick steel pressure vessel is usually a spherical shape that can withstand the crushing pressures you might expect at 3,800m – the depth at which the Titanic wreck lies.

The Titan, however, was different. It is pressure vessel made of a combination of titanium and composite carbon fibre. This is somewhat unusual from a structural engineering perspective since, in a deep diving context, titanium and carbon fibre are materials with vastly different properties.

Titanium is elastic and can adapt to an extended range of stresses without any measurable permanent strain remaining after the return to atmospheric pressure. It shrinks to adjust to pressure forces, and re-expands as these forces are alleviated. A carbon-fibre composite, on the other hand, is much stiffer and does not have the same kind of elasticity.

We can only speculate about what happened with the combination of these two technologies, which do not dynamically behave the same way under pressure.

But we can say almost certainly there would have been some kind of loss of integrity due to the differences between these materials. A composite material could potential suffer from “delamination”, which leads to a separation of the layers of reinforcement.

This would have created a defect which triggered an instantaneous implosion due to underwater pressure. Within less than one second, the vessel — being pushed down on by the weight of a 3,800m column of water — would have immediately crumpled in from all sides.

The final moments

When everything is designed, manufactured and tested perfectly, you’ve got a shape close enough to perfection that it can withstand the overall pressure being applied from all directions. In this scenario, the material can “breathe” – shrink and expand as needed with depth. The Titan’s implosion means this was not happening.

The implosion itself would have killed everyone within less than 20 milliseconds. In fact, the human brain can’t even process information at that speed. As much as this news is devastating, perhaps it is somewhat reassuring the Titan’s passengers would not have suffered a terrifying and drawn-out end.

Read more:
Why is extreme ‘frontier travel’ booming despite the risks?

Eric Fusil is affiliated with the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and Engineers Australia

– ref. What was the ‘catastrophic implosion’ of the Titan submersible? An expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-catastrophic-implosion-of-the-titan-submersible-an-expert-explains-208359

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Khoo, Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Otago

It’s not every day that a New Zealand prime minister takes China’s side in a disagreement between Washington and Beijing over whether the leader of China is a dictator.

But these are extraordinary times.

At a fundraising event on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden found himself talking about the Chinese espionage balloon incident in February. The president was in full voice, claiming, “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there.”

He then went on to say, “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course.”

At a press briefing in Beijing the next day, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, called Biden’s comments “irresponsible” and said they “go totally against facts and seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China’s political dignity”.

But from a strictly factual point of view, Biden’s “dictator” comments were spot on. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dictator as “an absolute ruler of a state”. Xi Jinping would seem to fit the bill.

He is general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the 2022 CCP constitution states that the party is committed “to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship”.

‘Democratic dictatorship’ in theory and practice

The people’s democratic dictatorship concept was formally advanced for the first time in a landmark speech in 1949 by Mao Zedong, who led China from 1949 to 1976.

The concept is a cornerstone of the Chinese political system, and establishes the theoretical basis by which the CCP historically led the various “classes” of people in China – the working class, the peasant class, the petty bourgeoisie and the national capitalists:

to maintain dictatorship over the lackeys of imperialism – the landlord class, the bureaucratic capitalist class and the Kuomintang reactionaries and their henchmen representing these classes – to oppress them, to enable them to behave properly and not permit them to talk and act wildly.

Read more:
To understand what Xi Jinping’s concentration of power really means, we must turn to history

It also serves as one of the CCP’s “Four Cardinal Principles”. According to the CCP constitution:

The Four Cardinal Principles – to keep to the path of socialism, to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought – form the foundation for building the country.

So far, so theoretical. But how does the people’s democratic dictatorship concept operate in the real world?

In essence, it legitimises Xi’s rule over China (from 2012 to the present). Indeed, it is widely recognised both in and out of China that he is the country’s most powerful leader since Mao.

Dictatorship by any other name

This is where Prime Minister Chris Hipkins comes into the picture. On Thursday he was asked by a reporter in Lower Hutt if he agreed with Biden’s “dictator” comment.
His response was: “No, and the form of government that China has is a matter for the Chinese people.”

The obvious response is to observe that, as a matter of law in China, Xi is the leader of a political system where there are no competitive multiparty elections. The seven members of the standing committee of the CCP select the general secretary of the CCP, not the citizens.

Read more:
China and the US are locked in struggle — and the visit by Secretary of State Blinken is only a start to improving relations

Careful planning by the CCP ensures there is zero uncertainty as to who will be selected as leader of China at every party congress, held every five years. If that is not a dictatorship, then what is?

We may debate whether the country has a benign or a malign dictatorship. But a dictatorship it is.

Hipkins was also asked how the Chinese people could actually change the way they are governed. He replied, “That would be a matter for them.” But precisely because China is run by the CCP through the mechanism of a “people’s democratic dictatorship”, the matter is not up to them.

‘Bourgeois liberalisation’

One hopes the prime minister gives serious thought to these issues before his visit to China and meeting with Xi next week. After all, history clearly demonstrates that dictatorships have had an adversarial relationship with liberal democracies.

Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping characterised liberal democracy as an example of “bourgeois liberalisation” and launched a campaign in 1987 against such unwanted influences.

Read more:
New Zealand has just joined an overtly anti-China alliance – are the economic risks worth it?

And the CCP constitution states that the party must not just “uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship” but “oppose bourgeois liberalisation”.

The tangle the prime minister got himself into in Lower Hutt underlines the complex realities of heightened ideological differences underpinned by great-power rivalry in the 21st century.

It also reinforces the point that, in the third decade of the century, New Zealand must have a foreign policy to match those challenges.

Nicholas Khoo has received funding from the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the Australian National University, Columbia University, the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre, and the University of Otago.

– ref. Sorry prime minister, Joe Biden was right – Xi Jinping really is a ‘dictator’ – https://theconversation.com/sorry-prime-minister-joe-biden-was-right-xi-jinping-really-is-a-dictator-208358

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charlotte Lassaline, PhD Student, University of Adelaide

Shacking up with tarantulas, scorpions, and ants would be a nightmare for most people. But for others, these creepy-crawlies are welcome companions and collectables.

Global demand for exotic pets is rising, fuelled by social media and a shift from traditional brick-and-mortar pet stores to online marketplaces. The pet trade now extends beyond well known species such as parrots, reptiles and fish to a wide variety of invertebrates (animals without backbones) – from both land and water.

In our new research, we explored the rapidly growing trade in land-based invertebrates across 23 Australian online pet stores and one popular classifieds website. We found an astonishing 264 species traded online – from spiders and scorpions, to beetles and snails. The most commonly advertised species were stick insects, tarantulas and ants – we found a staggering 57 species of ant for sale.

While most of the invertebrates were native to Australia, we also exposed trade in three highly invasive alien species. The white garden snail, the Asian tramp snail and the African big-headed ant all pose serious threats to Australia’s biosecurity. They threaten agriculture, forestry and even public health.

Our research is the first to reveal the scale and diversity of the invertebrate pet trade in Australia. It’s a fascinating insight into how a hobby or private passion can become both a biosecurity and conservation threat.

Read more:
‘Astonishing’: global demand for exotic pets is driving a massive trade in unprotected wildlife

The threat of invasive species trade

Occasionally, exotic pets escape captivity, or are released by their owners.

Examples include the Mexican Red Rump Tarantula, now an established alien species in Florida, and the giant African land snail, which causes millions of dollars’ worth of damage to native plants and agricultural crops in many countries all over the world.

To avoid similar cases in Australia, we need better regulation and preventative measures. But why do people want to trade these species in the first place?

We found that some of the most sought-after species are considered “dangerous” and not recommended to be handled. Many of these species could inflict a painful bite or sting. Several are potentially lethal to humans.

Invertebrates are traded across the internet, including the dark web – where we found species such as goliath beetles and Chinese golden scorpions for sale. We also found native Australian invertebrates being traded at European wildlife expositions.

Invertebrates clearly make unique and fascinating pets. Now that we have a better understanding of the scale of the invertebrate pet trade, we must ensure it is managed appropriately.

We need to protect our native invertebrates

Invertebrates are thought to make up almost 95% of animal species, yet they are often neglected in research and conservation. Most invertebrate extinctions go unnoticed.

In the face of limited knowledge on population status and distribution, evaluating conservation risk for individual species is challenging.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species is the most comprehensive global database on the conservation status of wildlife. But almost all of the species (>90%) traded in our study had not had their conservation status evaluated by the IUCN.

Some species were advertised as “wild harvested”, meaning they were taken from the wild rather than bred in captivity. This is an immediate conservation concern for native Australian species, especially those with small population sizes and limited distribution.

Encouraging people to learn more about the invertebrate species in their area is essential for the conservation of global biodiversity. However, it is equally important to regulate their trade, in order to mitigate the associated risks to biosecurity and their conservation.

Read more:
They might not have a spine, but invertebrates are the backbone of our ecosystems. Let’s help them out

Is this trade legal or illegal?

The invertebrate trade in Australia is poorly regulated, and the line between what is considered legal or illegal is often unclear. However, collecting species from protected areas (such as national parks) without a permit is definitely illegal across Australia.

Almost half of all threatened species’ also range across privately owned land in Australia.

The extent of wild harvesting on both public and private land is largely unknown. But it is highly likely that illegal activity is occurring within Australia’s invertebrate trade.

Legislation concerning the import and export of invertebrates across state borders exists to some extent, but varies, across all Australian states and territories. The number of species declared as pests and the level of penalties for transporting these species differs considerably. This reduces the credibility and effectiveness of biosecurity efforts.

Overall, the Australian legal system governing the domestic trade of invertebrates largely ignores the pet trade. The focus of compliance is almost exclusively on crop pests, ignoring the broader invertebrate pet trade. We think this has to change.

Read more:
Lickable toads and magic mushrooms: wildlife traded on the dark web is the kind that gets you high

Barely scratching the surface

There are still many unknowns about the invertebrate pet trade. Our findings have only begun to scratch the surface of what is actually being traded in Australia.

Ongoing research will further explore the trade of invertebrates within Australian brick-and-mortar pet stores, at wildlife trade expositions, and within international wildlife seizure data.

Vital steps towards ensuring the preservation of Australia’s unique invertebrate biodiversity include strengthening regulations, encouraging responsible practices, and fostering collaboration – between researchers, hobbyists, and environmental biosecurity agencies.

Managing Australia’s online invertebrate trade is a delicate balancing act. We hope Australia’s growing trade in invertebrates can be managed to support best-practice conservation while promoting a greater connection to nature.

Phill Cassey is an inaugural ARC Industry Laureate Fellow. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions.

Charlotte Lassaline 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. Buying bugs and beetles, or shopping for scorpions and snails? Australia’s pet trade includes hundreds of spineless species – https://theconversation.com/buying-bugs-and-beetles-or-shopping-for-scorpions-and-snails-australias-pet-trade-includes-hundreds-of-spineless-species-207932

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

Bitcoin boosters like to claim Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, are becoming mainstream. There’s a good reason to want people to believe this.

The only way the average punter will profit from crypto is to sell it for more than they bought it. So it’s important to talk up the prospects to build a “fear of missing out”.

There are loose claims that a large proportion of the population – generally in the range of 10% to 20% – now hold crypto. Sometimes these numbers are based on counting crypto wallets, or on surveying wealthy people.

But the hard data on Bitcoin use shows it is rarely bought for the purpose it ostensibly exists: to buy things.

Little use for payments

The whole point of Bitcoin, as its creator “Satoshi Nakamoto” stated in the opening sentence of the 2008 white paper outlining the concept, was that:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution.

The latest data demolishing this idea comes from Australia’s central bank.

Every three years the Reserve Bank of Australia surveys a representative sample of 1,000 adults about how they pay for things. As the following graph shows, cryptocurrency is making almost no impression as a payments instrument, being used by no more than 2% of adults.

Payment methods being used by Australians

By contrast more recent innovations, such as “buy now, pay later” services and PayID, are being used by around a third of consumers.

These findings confirm 2022 data from the US Federal Reserve, showing just 2% of the adult US population made a payment using a cryptocurrrency, and Sweden’s Riksbank, showing less than 1% of Swedes made payments using crypto.

The problem of price volatility

One reason for this, and why prices for goods and services are virtually never expressed in crypto, is that most fluctuate wildly in value. A shop or cafe with price labels or a blackboard list of their prices set in Bitcoin could be having to change them every hour.

The following graph from the Bank of International Settlements shows changes in the exchange rate of ten major cryptocurrencies against the US dollar, compared with the Euro and Japan’s Yen, over the past five years. Such volatility negates cryptocurrency’s value as a currency.

Cryptocurrency’s volatile ways

There have been attempts to solve this problem with so-called “stablecoins”. These promise to maintain steady value (usually against the US dollar).

But the spectacular collapse of one of these ventures, Terra, once one of the largest cryptocurrencies, showed the vulnerability of their mechanisms. Even a company with the enormous resources of Facebook owner Meta has given up on its stablecoin venture, Libra/Diem.

This helps explain the failed experiments with making Bitcoin legal tender in the two countries that have tried it: El Salvador and the Central African Republic. The Central African Republic has already revoked Bitcoin’s status. In El Salvador only a fifth of firms accept Bitcoin, despite the law saying they must, and only 5% of sales are paid in it.

Read more:
One year on, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has proven a spectacular failure

Storing value, hedging against inflation

If Bitcoin’s isn’t used for payments, what use does it have?

The major attraction – one endorsed by mainstream financial publications – is as a store of value, particularly in times of inflation, because Bitcoin has a hard cap on the number of coins that will ever be “mined”.

As Forbes writers argued a few weeks ago:

In terms of quantity, there are only 21 million Bitcoins released as specified by the ASCII computer file. Therefore, because of an increase in demand, the value will rise which might keep up with the market and prevent inflation in the long run.

The only problem with this argument is recent history. Over the course of 2022 the purchasing power of major currencies (US, the euro and the pound) dropped by about 7-10%. The purchasing power of a Bitcoin dropped by about 65%.

Speculation or gambling?

Bitcoin’s price has always been volatile, and always will be. If its price were to stabilise somehow, those holding it as a speculative punt would soon sell it, which would drive down the price.

But most people buying Bitcoin essentially as a speculative token, hoping its price will go up, are likely to be disappointed. A BIS study has found the majority of Bitcoin buyers globally between August 2015 and December 2022 have made losses.

The “market value” of all cryptocurrencies peaked at US$3 trillion in November 2021. It is now about US$1 trillion.

Bitcoins’s highest price in 2021 was about US$60,000; in 2022 US$40,000 and so far in 2023 only US$30,000. Google searches show that public interest in Bitcoin also peaked in 2021. In the US, the proportion of adults with internet access holding cryptocurrencies fell from 11% in 2021 to 8% in 2022.

Read more:
What is Bitcoin’s fundamental value? That’s a good question

UK government research published in 2022 found that 52% of British crypto holders owned it as a “fun investment”, which sounds like a euphemism for gambling. Another 8% explicitly said it was for gambling.

The UK parliament’s Treasury Committee, a group of MPs who examine economics and financial issues, has strongly recommended regulating cryptocurrency as form of gambling rather than as a financial product. They argue that continuing to treat “unbacked crypto assets as a financial service will create a ‘halo’ effect that leads consumers to believe that this activity is safer than it is, or protected when it is not”.

Read more:
Crypto trading: politicians who say it should be treated like gambling are completely wrong

Whatever the merits of this proposal, the UK committtee’s underlying point is solid. Buying crypto does have more in common with gambling than investing. Proceed at your own risk, and and don’t “invest” what you can’t afford to lose.

John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank for International Settlements.

He has neither a long nor short position in any cryptocurrency.

– ref. Almost no one uses Bitcoin as currency, new data proves. It’s actually more like gambling – https://theconversation.com/almost-no-one-uses-bitcoin-as-currency-new-data-proves-its-actually-more-like-gambling-207909

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jemma Skeat, Senior Lecturer, Health Professions Education (Assessment), School of Medicine, Deakin University

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November last year, there was intense speculation about the implications of this technology for university teaching and learning.

There was panic about what it would mean for cheating as well as some excitement about helping students learn and academics teach.

But what has actually happened as universities have gone back to teaching and study?

Our new study looks at how Australian students and academics found ChatGPT in the first semester of university under this new technology.

The story so far

When ChatGPT was released in late 2022, academics were left “stunned” by the ease with which it could write university-level essays and pass some exams. And do so in ways that were largely indistinguishable from a human student.

This immediately prompted concerns about cheating and academic integrity, although some hoped ChatGPT and similar technologies may improve teaching, learning and assessment. Experts have suggested generative AI tools could support deeper learning for students and save time for academics, preparing lessons.

Amongst this, there have been calls for more attention to be paid to students’ perspectives. After all, they are at the centre of this change.

Our study

Between late April and late May 2023, we surveyed Australian academics and university students via an online questionnaire.

The 110 respondents (78 students and 32 academics) represented all states and territories, and a range of university courses and areas of study.

This article just speaks about the student results.

Read more:
We need to change the way universities assess students, starting with these 3 things

At this point, many students are NOT using ChatGPT

At this early stage, almost half of all student respondents had not yet tried or used generative AI.

Of this group, 85% did not intend to use the technology at university this year. Our findings suggest students may be worried it will be seen as cheating.

This group of non AI-using students strongly related the use of generative AI within assessment to cheating (85%). This was significantly more than those who had used AI (41%).

In their written responses some students also suggested they were avoiding it because it felt unethical. As one student told us:

Although current AI is harmless, I think there are serious questions about whether future advancements will be safe for humanity.

Students also listed other worries, such as unreliable information:

Information given may be biased. [It’s] very difficult to fact check – as generative AI can often not properly say where it got its information from. For similar reasons, plagiarism and breaches of copyright.

‘It’s super useful’

Students who used generative AI talked about it as a “launch pad”, to brainstorm ideas, get a better understanding of a topic or write an essay structure.

I use it to summarise lengthy articles […] I use it for feedback and suggestions for improvement.

They highlighted the interactive nature of programs such as ChatGPT. They said it was like having a “partner” in learning. As one student said:

I feel like it’s super useful (especially with COVID impairing face-to-face learning, peer study groups etc). It’s a nice study partner or support.

Another told us:

It leads to a more efficient use of time and energy. It makes me feel less stressed and anxious about assessments, as I almost feel as though I have a study buddy or friends to help me through.

In this way, we can see generative AI being used as a way to help manage stress. This is significant, as research has previously suggested increased stress can increase a student’s desire to cheat.

But students are confused

Students reported confusion about how the technology can and “should” be used.

For example, they were divided about whether universities should allow generative AI to be used for assessment, with 46% agreeing, 36% disagreeing and 16% unsure. Almost a quarter of students reported feeling unsure about the use of generative AI in university contexts generally, and only 8% felt very positively about it.

This confused response is not surprising – many universities are yet to provide clear guidance about this. Less than one third of the top 500 universities in the world had a clear response (be it positive or negative) to the availability of ChatGPT when their policies were reviewed in May this year.

What happens now?

As generative AI continues to evolve, it presents an opportunity to explore new frontiers in higher education. The early indications are it is not all scary or bad.

However, our research shows some students may not want to engage with the technology unless the “right” way to do this is very clear, and access and use is equitable and ethical.

As we move forward, employee voices will be important as university graduates enter the workforce in the era of AI. But we also need to keep listening to students.

Our study will continue to monitor how students and academics use generative AI as we move into semester 2.

We invite students and academics to contribute their perspectives. Our survey is anonymous and can be accessed here.

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

– ref. ‘A study buddy’ that raises ‘serious questions’: how uni students approached AI in their first semester with ChatGPT – https://theconversation.com/a-study-buddy-that-raises-serious-questions-how-uni-students-approached-ai-in-their-first-semester-with-chatgpt-207915

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia

Mobile phones are not allowed to be used while on a plane because they can interfere with the aeroplane’s navigation instruments and cause various safety and social issues.

As soon as the plane lands, we’re permitted to turn off flight mode, but at some airports we can’t get much of a signal. That’s because airports are known as mobile signal “dead zones” due to a lack of mobile towers – they can’t be placed at the airport itself due to height restrictions.

Any nearby mobile towers would be located away from the airport’s runway systems to avoid interfering with the aeroplane’s flight path, especially take-off and landing direction. Most airports put up indoor repeater antennas within the airport terminal; these help increase the mobile signal strength coming from the nearest mobile tower somewhere near the airport.

But you won’t be allowed to make calls while walking away from the plane, anyway.

Read more:
Here’s the real reason to turn on aeroplane mode when you fly

Why can’t I use my phone on the tarmac?

As we are taxiing in, the cabin crew remind us not to smoke outside of designated areas at the terminal and not to use our mobile phones until we are inside the terminal building.

If you exit the plane down the rear stairs, why aren’t you allowed to use your phone once away from the aeroplane, if you can get a signal? Surely it won’t affect navigation.

The answer is manifold, and regulations aren’t the same across the world.

In Australia, a government regulation prohibits the use of mobile phones on the tarmac – the aeroplane movement and parking area of the airport.

You won’t be fined if you whip your phone out while walking to the terminal, but the airline may admonish you for not following the rules. However, if you decide to (run around on the tarmac, you could get arrested by federal police.

The airport tarmac is very busy not just with aircraft, but also baggage carts, catering trucks, aeroplane waste removal trucks, and fuel trucks. Getting passengers off the tarmac and into the terminal building quickly and safely is a priority for the staff.

If you are distracted while walking to the terminal building because you’re talking on your phone, it can be highly dangerous and even deadly if you end up too close to an operating plane. An operating jet engine is extremely hot and has a strong exhaust. Additionally, the front of the engine has a low-pressure area called an ingestion zone that can suck in a person. Ground staff are trained to stay at least ten metres away from this area. However, this information is not shared with the passengers.

A myth about fuel

You may have heard that mobile phones are a fire hazard near fuel, and aeroplanes are, of course, refuelled on the tarmac.

However, the chances of fuel catching fire during this process are extremely low, because the refuelling truck is bonded and “grounded” to the plane: the operator attaches a wire to the aircraft to move built-up static electricity to the ground to prevent any chance of a spark.

There have been stories in the press about mobile phones sparking fires at petrol stations in Indonesia and Australia, but these turned out to be inaccurate. There is no evidence a phone can spark a fire at a fuel pump, despite the warning labels you might see.

Either way, the chances of a mobile phone causing this on the tarmac with a refuelling truck that is grounded to the aeroplane are extremely low, not least because the passenger permitted areas and refuelling areas are completely separated.

Why are we told not to take photos on the tarmac?

This rule varies from airport to airport depending on their security processes.

Such restrictions are carryovers from the changes to airport security following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks. The now federalised security teams, TSA (Transportation Security Administration) in the United States and the Department of Home Affairs in Australia, change their processes frequently to prevent having any identifiable patterns that could be used to create a security breach.

The increased security measures also mean new technologies were introduced; airport security sections do not want photos taken of how they operate.

The airport security process is a major choke point in the flow of passenger movement due to the screening process. If a passenger is perceived to be slowing the process down by taking photos or talking on their phone, they will be reminded to turn off their device and/or stop taking photos of security personnel and equipment.

If you refuse to follow the rules of the screening process, you will be denied entry into the airport terminal gate area and miss your flight. Can you also get arrested for using your phone? Depends on the airport and country. I, for one, do not want to find out.

Doug Drury 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 can’t I use my phone or take photos on the airport tarmac? Is it against the law? – https://theconversation.com/why-cant-i-use-my-phone-or-take-photos-on-the-airport-tarmac-is-it-against-the-law-207926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paula Gerber, Professor of Human Rights Law, Monash University

The newly passed Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda has made a country that was already dangerous for LGBTQ+ people truly treacherous.

The new law includes the death penalty for the so-called offence of “aggravated homosexuality”, defined as same-sex relations involving someone who is HIV positive or under the age of 18.

Many countries around the world are moving towards decriminalising same-sex relations (most recently Barbados, Singapore and the Cook Islands). Others, however, are seeking to impose harsher laws.

For example, in Tanzania, the leader of the women’s wing of the government has called for the castration of men convicted of same-sex related offences. Ghana, meanwhile, appears to have watered down a draconian anti-gay bill, but only after US Vice President Kamala Harris expressed concerns about it ahead of her visit.

This increasing hostility towards LGBTQ+ people in some African nations is causing many to flee. But gay and gender-diverse people have historically faced enormous obstacles finding refuge abroad. Today, they remain among the most vulnerable and marginalised of all asylum seekers.

Read more:
There’s a growing gap between countries advancing LGBTQ+ rights, and those going backwards

LGTBQ+ Ugandans have few options

For LGBTQ+ Ugandans, finding a safe haven is not easy when four of the five countries that border Uganda also criminalise same-sex sexual conduct (South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Kenya is the most common destination for asylum seekers fleeing Uganda. However, there’s been a backlash against LGBTQ+ people in that country after the Supreme Court recently ruled that discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation violated the constitution.

LGBTQ+ Ugandans in one Kenyan refugee camp reported facing daily hostilities, saying the situation there is “as terrible as you can imagine”.

There are now increasing calls in western countries to open their doors to LGBTQ+ refugees from Uganda, but even in countries with progressive gay rights laws, the process is not so simple.

In Australia, for example, just 1,100 asylum seekers were granted a protection visa because of their sexual orientation from 2018-23. This is barely a drop in the ocean of the reported need. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Rainbow Railroad says it receives an average of 10,000 requests for assistance a year from LGBTQ+ people fleeing persecution.

Read more:
Rwanda: LGBT rights are protected on paper, but discrimination and homophobia persist

What international refugee treaties say

The 1951 Refugee Convention is the leading international treaty governing the rights of people seeking asylum. When it was drafted, however, homosexuality was still a crime in a majority of countries. As a result, LGBTQ+ people are not explicitly protected by the convention, even today.

The convention defines a refugee as a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution based on

• race
• religion
• nationality
• membership of a particular social group
• political opinion.

In the 1990s, many western countries such as the US, Canada and Australia began recognising LGBTQ+ people as a “particular social group” under this treaty, who could seek asylum if they have a reasonable fear of persecution.

Finally, in 2008, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued guidance on refugee claims relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

This should have streamlined the process for those seeking asylum. But many refugee claims made by LGBTQ+ people are still unsuccessful. Why is this the case?

Reasons LGBTQ+ refugees are turned down

Let’s look at Australia as a specific example. Even though Australia recognised LGBTQ+ people as a persecuted group under the Refugee Convention, many claims were still being rejected until 2003 on the basis that gay people could be safe in their home countries if they were discrete about their sexuality.

Then, in December 2003, the High Court ruled it is fundamentally wrong to expect a person to hide their sexual orientation in order to be safe from persecution.

This, however, did not result in the expected increase in successful asylum seeker applications. Many LGBTQ+ people found themselves facing a new obstacle – officials questioning whether they were, in fact, members of the LGBTQ+ community.

For example, in 2020, the Federal Court considered a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal rejecting the asylum applications of two Pakistani men who feared persecution in their home country because of their relationship.

The tribunal said it did not believe the men were gay or in a relationship. It questioned the men’s credibility for various reasons. These included the fact the men visited gay venues in Melbourne when they said they wanted to keep their relationship a secret and because of how they responded to questions about their first sexual encounter.

On appeal, the Federal Court found the tribunal’s conclusions about the men’s credibility to be flawed and irrational. The court sent the case back to the tribunal to be heard again.

It is difficult to understand how such assessments are still being made when there are comprehensive resources available to assist government decision-makers to avoid such mistakes.

The high rate of rejection of LGBTQ+ asylum claims is not unique to Australia. A recent study found that across Europe, one in three claims by LGBTQ+ asylum seekers were denied because officials did not believe the claimants’ assertions about their sexual orientation.

And four in ten were turned down because officials didn’t believe they were at risk of persecution in their home countries.

Read more:
Homosexuality and Africa: a philosopher’s perspective

Is there a path forward?

Many western countries have opened their arms to refugees fleeing war in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and most recently, Ukraine. But armed conflict is not the only reason people need to flee their countries. Uganda is waging war against its LGBTQ+ citizens, and they need to urgently escape.

It is up to countries that respect the rights of LGBTQ+ people to offer them a safe haven. Canada provides a useful illustration of how this can be done. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this month his government is partnering with Rainbow Railroad to “help LGBTQI+ people start a new, safe chapter here in Canada.”

For LGBTQ+ people fleeing Uganda, one can hope this is not the only door open to them.

Paula Gerber is President of Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that advocates for the rights of LGBTIQ+ people in the Asia Pacific region.

– ref. LGBTQ+ people are facing increasing persecution globally, but refugee status is still extremely hard to get – https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-people-are-facing-increasing-persecution-globally-but-refugee-status-is-still-extremely-hard-to-get-207119

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arthur Grimes, Professor of Wellbeing and Public Policy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Whether it be repression of free speech under authoritarian regimes or instances of
“cancel culture” in various countries, the importance of freedom of expression is being is as hotly contested as ever. But does freedom of speech benefit all groups equally?

In recently published research, we tackled the question of who actually benefits the most from having freedom of speech. Is it people with the most resources – either income or education – who benefit more, or is it people with few resources?

The idea that those with resources benefit most falls in line with the “hierarchy of needs” developed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow. He argued that people would seek to meet their most pressing needs – such as food and shelter – before looking to achieve “luxuries” such as freedom of speech.

But the view that freedom of speech most benefits those with few resources is consistent with the idea that marginalised people have less scope to influence decisions in society through their spending or networks. They require freedom of speech to influence societal decisions.

The right to say anything

The principle of free speech was perhaps best illustrated in 1906 by the writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing French philosopher Voltaire. She wrote:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Free speech was entrenched as a right by the United Nations in Article 19 of its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

But it is recognised that even in countries with a high degree of free speech there may be restrictions against hate speech, terrorism and treason. Following the Christchurch massacre, for example, the terrorist’s manifesto and video were classified as objectionable and banned from distribution in New Zealand.

And, while the right to freedom of expression is enshrined in most constitutions, people in many countries face restrictions on their speech. During the recent coronation of King Charles, for example, 52 protesters in the United Kingdom were arrested before their protest even started. This was criticised as an assault on their free speech.

Free speech and wellbeing

Our research tested whether changes in countries’ restrictions on free speech were associated with rises or falls in the wellbeing of well-resourced people relative to poorly-resourced people in those countries.

The analysis included 300,000 individuals from more than 90 countries over a 40-year period. It used wellbeing and other individual data from the World Values Survey and the Latino Barometer survey. Wellbeing was measured by how people rate the overall quality of their life.

We supplemented the individual wellbeing data with measures of country-level free speech and human rights, sourced from two independently compiled databases (CIRIGHTS and VDEM). Many countries in the surveys had marked changes in their free speech levels over the study period.

The research produced two key findings.

First, people with more resources place greater stated priority on freedom of speech (when asked to rank its importance).

Read more:
Oath Keepers convictions shed light on the limits of free speech – and the threat posed by militias

Second, it was actually the people with fewer resources who benefited most from free speech. The results indicated that free speech empowered those with fewer resources, providing a greater lift to the wellbeing of more marginalised people.

The two results are not incompatible: people with fewer resources may need to prioritise basic needs more than “luxuries” such as free speech but, being in marginalised populations, they may still benefit most from having freedom of expression.

We also found that people who said they valued free speech benefited from living in countries with free speech. And, preferences towards free speech varied according to certain characteristics within the population (in addition to income and education).

Groups more likely to prioritise free speech included the young, students, non-religious people and those on the left of the political spectrum. Preferences also reflected country circumstances, with people in the West being more supportive of free speech than people in other regions of the world.

In defence of the marketplace of ideas

In a world in which freedom of speech is increasingly being placed at risk, it may become important to protect the “marketplace for ideas”. As 19th century thinker John Stuart Mill argued, ideas should “compete” in an open marketplace and be tested by the public to determine which ideas will prevail.

Read more:
There are differences between free speech, hate speech and academic freedom – and they matter

Notwithstanding current risks with social media “echo-chambers”, this basic insight still has much to recommend it. People must be able to express their views and receive the views of others openly.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights emphasises this two-way aspect of freedom of expression – that is, people have “the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas”.

Countries’ laws should reflect Hall’s insistence about freedom of expression – at a national level we should defend people’s right to say what they want. At a personal level, we should also respect the importance of being a good listener, even when, to paraphrase Hall, we disapprove of what is being said.

Arthur Grimes received funding from Victoria University of Wellington and from Motu Research for this work.

– ref. Who benefits most from the protection of free speech – the haves or the have-nots? – https://theconversation.com/who-benefits-most-from-the-protection-of-free-speech-the-haves-or-the-have-nots-207706

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacques Raubenheimer, Senior Research Fellow, Biostatistics, University of Sydney

Research Checks interrogate newly published studies and how they’re reported in the media. The analysis is undertaken by one or more academics not involved with the study, and reviewed by another, to make sure it’s accurate.

Don’t we all want to do what we can to reduce the impact of age-related decline on our memory?

A new study suggests a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement is a simple and inexpensive way to help older adults slow the decline in some aspects of memory function.

The new study, which comes from a long-running clinical trial, shows there may be a small benefit of taking a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement for one type of cognitive task (immediate word recall) among well-functioning elderly white people. At least in the short term.

But that doesn’t mean we should all rush out and buy multivitamins. The results of the study don’t apply to the whole population, or to all types of memory function. Nor does the study show long-term benefits.

Read more:
How much memory loss is normal with ageing?

How was the study conducted?

The overarching COSMOS study is a well-designed double-blind randomised control trial. This means participants were randomly allocated to receive the intervention (a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement) or a placebo (dummy tablet), but neither the participants nor the researchers knew which one they were taking.

This type of study is considered the gold standard and allows researchers to compare various outcomes.

Participants (3,562) were older than 64 for women, and 59 for men, with no history of heart attack, invasive cancer, stroke or serious illness. They couldn’t use multivitamins or minerals (or cocoa extract which they also tested) during the trial.

Participants completed a battery of online cognitive tests at the start of the study (known as baseline), then yearly for three years, of which only three were reported in this paper:

• ModRey, measuring immediate recall. Participants were shown “a list of 20 words, one at a time, for three seconds each,” and then had to type the list from memory

• ModBent, measuring object recognition. Participants were given 20 prompts with a shape and then had to select the correct match from a pair of similar prompts. After this, they were prompted with 40 shapes in turn, and had to indicate whether each was included in the original 20 or not

• Flanker, measuring “executive control”. Participants had to select a coloured block that corresponded to an arrow in a matrix of arrows, which could have the same (or different) colour to the surrounding arrows, and the same (or different) direction as the prompt block.

What did the researchers find?

Of all the tests the researchers performed, only immediate recall (ModRey) at one year showed a significant effect, meaning the result is unlikely to just be a result of chance.

At two and three years, the effect was no longer significant (meaning it could be down to chance).

However they added an “overall estimate” by averaging the results from all three years to arrive at another significant effect.

All the effect sizes reported are very small. The largest effect is for the participants’ immediate recall at one year, which was 0.07 – a value that is generally considered very small without justification.

Also of note is that both the multivitamin and placebo groups had higher immediate word recall scores at one year (compared to baseline), although the multivitamin group’s increase was significantly larger.

In the researchers’ prior study, the increase in word recall scores was described as a “typical learning (practice) effect”. This means they attributed the higher scores at one year to familiarisation with the test.

For some reason, this “learning effect” was not discussed in the current paper, where the treatment group showed a significantly larger increase compared to those who were given the placebo.

What are the limitations of the study?

The team used a suitable statistical analysis. However, it did not adjust for demographic characteristics such as age, gender, race, and level of education.

The authors detail their study’s major limitation well: it is not very generalisable, as it used “mostly white participants” who had to be very computer literate, and, one could argue, would be quite well-functioning cognitively.

Another unmentioned limitation is the advanced age of their sample, meaning long-term results for younger people can’t be assessed.

Additionally, the baseline diet score for their sample was abysmal. The researchers say participants’ diet scores “were consistent with averages from the US population” but the cited study noted “the overall dietary quality… [was] poor.”

And they didn’t measure changes in diet over the three years, which could impact the results.

Read more:
How to make your diet more sustainable, healthy or cheap – without giving up nutrients

How should we interpret the results?

The poor dietary quality of the sample raises the question: can a better diet be the simple fix, rather than multivitamin and mineral supplements?

Even for the effect they observed, which micronutrient from the supplement was the contributing factor?

The researchers speculate about vitamins B12 and D. But you can find research on cognitive function for any arbitrarily chosen ingredient, including selenium, which can be toxic at high levels.

So should I take a multivitamin?

Health authorities advise daily multivitamin use isn’t necessary, as you can get all the nutrients you need by eating a wide variety of healthy foods. However, supplementation may be appropriate to meet any specific nutrient gaps an individual has.

Using a good quality multivitamin at the recommended dose shouldn’t do any harm, but at best, this study shows well-functioning elderly white people might show some additional benefit in one type of cognitive task from using a multivitamin supplement.

The case for most of the rest of the population, and the long-term benefit for younger people, can’t be made.

Blind peer review

Clare Collins writes:

I agree with the reviewer’s assessment, which is a comprehensive critique of the study. The key result was a small effect size from taking a daily multivitamin and mineral (or “multinutrient”) supplement on memory recall at one year (but not later time points) and is equivalent to a training effect where you get better at taking a test the more times you do it.

It’s also worth noting the study authors received support and funding from commercial companies to undertake the study.

While the study authors state they don’t believe background diet quality impacted the results, they didn’t comprehensively assess this. They used a brief diet quality assessment score only at baseline. Participants may have changed their eating habits during the study, which could then impact the results.

Given all participants reported low diet quality scores, an important question is whether giving participants the knowledge, skills and resources to eat more healthily would have a bigger impact on cognition than taking supplements.

Read more:
Can taking vitamins and supplements help you recover from COVID?

Clare Collins AO is a Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, NSW and a Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) affiliated researcher. She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow and has received research grants from NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, HMRI, Diabetes Australia, Heart Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nib foundation, Rijk Zwaan Australia, WA Dept. Health, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Greater Charitable Foundation. She has consulted to SHINE Australia, Novo Nordisk, Quality Bakers, the Sax Institute, Dietitians Australia and the ABC. She was a team member conducting systematic reviews to inform the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines update and the Heart Foundation evidence reviews on meat and dietary patterns.

Jacques Raubenheimer 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. Can a daily multivitamin improve your memory? – https://theconversation.com/can-a-daily-multivitamin-improve-your-memory-208114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gretta Pecl, Professor, ARC Future Fellow & Director of the Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania

If you take a plunge in the sea this winter, you might notice it’s warmer than you expect. And if you’re fishing off Sydney and catch a tropical coral trout, you might wonder what’s going on.

The reason is simple: hotter water. The ocean has absorbed the vast majority of the extra heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. It’s no wonder heat in the oceans is building up rapidly – and this year is off the charts.

That’s even without the likely arrival of El Niño, where the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual and affects weather all over the world. Our coastal waters are forecast to be especially warm over the coming months, up to 2.5℃ warmer than usual in many places.

Many marine species live within a narrow temperature range. If the water heats up, they have to move, and if they don’t, they might die. So those that can move, are moving. In Australia, at least 200 marine species have shifted distributions since 2003, with 87% heading south.

This pattern is happening all around the world, both on land and in the ocean. This year, the warmer ocean temperatures during winter mean Australia’s seascapes are likely to be more like summer. So, the next time you go fishing or diving or beachcombing, keep your eyes peeled and your camera ready. You may glimpse the enormous disruption happening underwater for yourself.

Here are eight species on the move

1. Moorish idol (Zanclus cornutus)

Historic range: northern Australia

Now: This striking fish can now be seen south of Geraldton in Western Australia and Eden in New South Wales.

This is a great fish for divers to spot on hard-bottomed habitats.

2. Branching coral (Pocillopora aliciae)

Historic range: northern NSW

Now: Look out for this pale pink beauty south of Port Stephens, not far from Sydney.

Seemingly immovable species like coral are fleeing the heat too. They’re already providing habitat for a range of other shifting species like tropical fish and crab species.

3. Eastern rock lobster (Sagmariasus verreauxi)

Historic range: common in NSW

Now: South, as far as it can get. It’s now found in Tasmania and even in South Australia.

This tasty greenish crustacean doesn’t like heat and has moved south into the territory of red southern rock lobsters (Jasus edwardsii).

4. Gloomy octopus (Octopus tetricus)

Previous range: common in NSW

Now: As far south as Tasmania.

Look out for this slippery, smart invertebrate in Tasmanian waters this winter. You might even spot the octopus nestled down with some eggs, as this looks to be a permanent sea change.

5. Whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus)

Previous range: northern Australia

Now: South of K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island).

Classed as vulnerable in parts of the world, this tropical shark is a slow swimmer and never sleeps. It poses very little danger to humans.

6. Dugongs (Dugong dugon)
Previous range: northern Australia

Now: As far south as Shark Bay in WA and Tweed River in New South Wales.

Our waters are home to the largest number of dugong in the world. But as waters warm, they’re heading south. That means more of us may see these elusive sea-cows as they graze on seagrass meadows.

Some of the most adventurous have gone way out of their normal range – in 2014, a kitesurfer reported passing a dugong at City Beach, Perth. As a WA wildlife expert says, dugongs may occasionally stray further south of Shark Bay but “given the recent warming trend […] more dugong sightings might be expected in the future”

7. Red emperor (Lutjanus sebae) and other warm water game fish

Previous range: northern Australia

Now: Appearing much further south – especially in WA.

Look for red, threadfin, and redthroat emperors in southwest WA as the Leeuwin current carries these warm water species south. As WA fisheries expert Gary Jackson has said, this current is a warming hotspot, acting like a warm water highway for certain marine species.

These fish are highly sought after by fishers.

8. Long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii)

Historic range: NSW and Victoria

Now: Tasmania

Look out for these spiky critters in southern and western Tasmania. The larvae of these urchins have crossed the Bass Strait and found a new home, due to warming waters. Urchins are grazers and can scrape rocks clean, creating urchin barrens where nothing grows. That’s bad news for kelp forests and the species which depend on them. In response, Tasmanian authorities are working to create a viable urchin fishery to keep numbers down.

Read more:
Sea urchins have invaded Tasmania and Victoria, but we can’t work out what to do with them

You can help keep watch

For years, fishers, snorkellers, spearfishers and the general public have contributed their unusual marine sightings to Redmap, the Australian citizen science project aimed at mapping range extensions of species.

If you spot a creature that wouldn’t normally live in the waters near you, you can upload a photo to log your sighting.

For example, avid spearfisher Derrick Cruz logged a startling discovery with Redmap in 2015: A coral trout in Sydney’s waters. As he told us: “I’ve seen plenty of coral trout in tropical waters, where they’re at home within the coral. But it was surreal to see one swimming through a kelp forest in the local waters off Sydney, much further south than I’ve ever seen that species before!”

How does tracking these movements help scientists? Many hands make light work. These vital observations from citizen scientists have helped researchers gain deeper understanding of what climate change is doing to the natural world in many places, from bird migrations to flowering plants to marine creatures.

So, please keep an eye out this year. The heat is on in our oceans, and that can mean sudden change.

Read more:
Sydney’s waters could be tropical in decades, here’s the bad news…

Gretta Pecl receives funding from the Australian Research Council, CSIRO, FRDC, DCCEEW, Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment, and Department of Primary Industries NSW.

Curtis Champion receives funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. He works for NSW Department of Primary Industries.

Zoe Doubleday receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Academy of Science, and Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.

– ref. Marine species are being pushed towards the poles. From dugong to octopuses, here are 8 marine species you might spot in new places – https://theconversation.com/marine-species-are-being-pushed-towards-the-poles-from-dugong-to-octopuses-here-are-8-marine-species-you-might-spot-in-new-places-207115

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kidson, Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership, Australian Catholic University

It’s that time of the year when reports on student learning come home. Anxiety for students and their parents and caregivers often tags along.

Long gone are the days when a school report was handwritten page, with wisdom like “tried hard, but needs to try harder”, along with percentages or letter grades.

Now students get multi-page reports, with a dazzling array of verbal and sometimes graphical data. Most require significant time to digest and interpret.

But despite all the effort schools make to produce these documents, parents can finish a report and have little idea whether their child is doing OK.

How did we get here?

A major part of the problem is Commonwealth regulation on education.
This requires schools to provide a report to “each person responsible” for a student “at least twice a year”. It must also be “readily understandable” to a parent or caregiver.

For students from Years 1 to 10, the report must give “accurate and objective assessment” of the student’s progress and achievement, including an assessment of the student’s achievement:

• against any available national standards

• relative to the performance of the student’s peer group

• reported as A, B, C, D or E (or on an equivalent five-point scale) for each subject studied, clearly defined against specific learning standards.

Read more:
How to talk to your child about their school report

Information gets swamped

We see the well-intentioned desire to provide parents and caregivers with timely and useful information becoming swamped by the rest of the requirements around reports.

The combination of the regulation’s demand for accurate, objective standards, relative to the peer group, and on a five-point scale is a recipe for communicating a lot of words and overwhelming data. The language used can also be inconsistent or not clearly defined.

Both a 2019 Australian Council of Education Research review and anecdotal reports suggest parents do not find reports particularly clear or helpful. Or as some described them to The Sydney Morning Herald in 2018, “sterile and technical” and “next to useless”.

Focus is also on achievement at certain points (say, the half-year mark), rather than learning progress. And that doesn’t take into account the increasing number of Australian households where English is not the language spoken at home.

Read more:
Report cards’ report card: showing potential, but with room for improvement

How does this fit with other ideas about school?

This highly standardised approach also conflicts with other trends in education. There is a growing understanding we need to take a more individualised and flexible approach to support all kinds of learners at school.

This includes the move towards personalised learning, flexible curriculum progression, and using online assessment tools that show students’ ongoing progress.

But don’t hold your breath the regulations will change any time soon.

The government is consulting with parents, schools and communities about the next National School Reform Agreement, which is due to begin in 2025, but this does not specifically ask about reports.

Read more:
What is the National School Reform Agreement and what does it have to do with school funding?

Some schools do it differently

However, some schools are already doing reports about student learning very differently, albeit with very different philosophies and practices.

Some Australian schools are using personalised curricula and reporting through practical projects such as an album of recorded music to demonstrate a student’s progress.

Others schools focus on “dispositions towards learning” that prioritise entreprenurial skills and innovative thinking that will set them up for post-school life.

Other schools get students to draw evidence from their
curricular and co-curricular achievements that build towards a microcredential mapped to the Australian Skills Quality Authority. Microcredentials are short skills-based courses, that can be counted as part of a larger certificate or diploma.

Non-profit education organisation Learning Creates Australia has developed a “new metrics” framework for the senior years of high school. This redesigns the current focus on tests and scores, that (incorrectly) assumes the goal for all secondary students is to go to university. They suggest a broader student profile which includes learning progress in areas of particular interest and relevance to students.

Other schools are taking a classical approach. Students study classical literature, mathematics, and science along with philosophy and aesthetics. Assessment relies on the teacher’s judgement about the student’s progress, rather than prescribed “predicted outcomes”.

Reporting includes formal documents, but also regular conversation between parents, teachers, mentors and students.

Schools and parents can create alternatives

All these alternative approaches place critical thinking and creativity at the core of their learning philosophy, assessment, and reporting. Each prioritise evidence of student learning that is meaningful to them and their community.

This suggests standardised reporting on a five-point scale leaves a lot to be desired. But until regulatory constraints change, they’re here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps it’s better, then, for school communities to create better solutions for themselves. Each of the examples here show how powerful learning can be when parents and caregivers are meaningful partners with the school, rather than passive recipients of predetermined outputs.

Paul Kidson 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 do I find my child’s school report so hard to understand? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-find-my-childs-school-report-so-hard-to-understand-207831