Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Leonard, Associate Professor of STEM Education, University of South Australia

There is increasing talk about microcredentials in higher education. Earlier this week, the federal government announced the first group of courses it is supporting in a microcredential pilot program.

Microcredentials have been around in vocational circles for several years but are starting to be offered more widely by universities. The Universities Accord review panel has noted “microcredentials are likely to be increasingly in demand” as industries encourage lifelong learning.

The government’s pilot involves 28 courses in IT, engineering, science, health and education. But they can also be offered in fields as diverse as law, psychology and architecture.

What are microcredentials?

Microcredentials are small courses in a specific area of study.

They focus on updating or gaining new skills in a short time frame, typically ranging from a few weeks to a semester of study. They are viewed as a way to meet industry and employee needs quickly and address critical skills gaps.

For example, the pilot program includes a microcredential on phonics for teachers to develop their skills in literacy teaching. It also includes a course in disease management outbreaks for GPs and other health-care workers.

The cost varies but can range from a few hundred dollars to more than A$4,000. At the end of a microcredential, you may receive a stand-alone certificate, or the microcredential may provide a credit transfer pathway and count towards a degree.

They have been part of Australia’s industry skills landscape for a while now and have been delivered by TAFEs, industry organisations, and even by employers. However, they are still quite new in universities and many of the professions that universities have traditionally supported.

The benefits of short-term study

Microcredentials can address critical skills gaps. They offer a way to update and progress your career without the long-term commitment and expense of a traditional graduate qualification.

You can also mix and match education and training to form a more bespoke study plan.

So it is no surprise microcredentials are gaining a lot of attention in the higher education sector. Most universities already offer “short courses”, “professional certificates” and “executive education”. These are all microcredentials by another name.

However, all this flexibility can be confusing and it may not be clear whether a microcredential is the right choice for you. Here are four things to consider.

1. What do you want out of further education?

Microcredentials have a different purpose to traditional degrees.

Microcredentials can feel more like vocational education and training – highly targeted to cover precise competencies in a specific setting. This means they are rarely designed to develop broader capabilities and frameworks of professional practice you can normally expect from a degree program.

So in your career and educational planning, it is important to think through what you really need.

In a nutshell, if you need a specific skill, then a microcredential is ideal. However, if you need support bringing together diverse skills, knowledge, and dispositions to extend your professional practice, then a traditional degree may be a better investment.

2. What specific skill is on offer?

If your career plan does call for an improvement of specific skills, there are some important questions you should ask yourself before you enrol in a microcredential course.

The first is simply “does this course offer a skill I actually need?” Unlike the vocational system (such as TAFE), universities’ microcredential catalogue is still relatively small. The skills government and industry are choosing to support at the moment may not be the skills you need in your context or to advance your career.

Read more:
Microcredentials: what are they, and will they really revolutionise education and improve job prospects?

3. Am I suited to this type of study?

In the hustle and bustle of a microcredential course, it is often assumed participants will be well prepared to manage their own learning.

Because they are so short, microcredentials generally focus very strongly on the content itself. How you learn it, is often up to you.

To be successful, you may be required to take greater personal responsibility for all your own learning strategies. This might include recognising what you already know (or don’t know) about the topic, taking a quick look at the readings to get an overview before reading them carefully for more details, and adopting processes to critically question learning materials.

4. How will I use this in my job or profession?

You also need to think about how you will transfer your microcredential learning into your everyday work habits.

A science teacher who learns some physics content, for example, may need to alter their wider assessment strategies to incorporate what they learned. A physiotherapist with a new treatment technique may need to decide how to explain it to the clients they work with.

Traditional degrees are usually designed to help with this translation-to-practice work. Part of the trade-off with microcredentials is they can throw this translation work back to the course participant.

For this reason, microcredentials will work best for people who have established good professional development practices like reflection and peer-review, or for those who can engage in active and ethical experimentation with the new skill in their real-world practice.

Read more:
Teaching and research are the core functions of universities. But in Australia, we don’t value teaching

Choose wisely

Preparing people for professional environments has always been a core purpose of universities, and the adoption of microcredentials will likely expand the ways this can be done.

A microcredential, however, is a different educational proposition to a traditional degree course. So it is important the consumer chooses wisely.

But even though they are different, the two are still compatible. You may even find yourself engaging in both traditional university courses and microcredentials as you evolve and adapt throughout your career.

Simon Leonard works for the University of South Australia. He receives funding from the Australian Government’s National Careers Institute, the South Australian Department for Education, and Trinity College, Gawler.

– ref. Thinking about a microcredential course? 4 things to consider first – https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-a-microcredential-course-4-things-to-consider-first-207619

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrei Lux, Lecturer of Leadership and Director of Academic Studies, Edith Cowan University

You’re in a meeting, with something important to say. Just as you begin, a colleague sighs and shares an eye-roll with their buddy. And not for the first time.

Workplaces aren’t always harmonious. Whether it’s a cafe, factory or parliament, people do and say hurtful things. They may talk down to you, “call you out” in front of others, make jokes at your expense, gossip about you behind your back, or give you the silent treatment.

This type of incivility doesn’t quite rise to the level where you can complain to human resources and expect a satisfying resolution. Organisations typically have policies against racism, sexism, harassment and other overt forms of abuse. But incivility – being less severe and more difficult to prove – tends to fly under the radar.

Most of us will experience incivility at some point at work. More than 50% experience it weekly. According to a 2022 meta-analysis of 105 incivility studies, you’re more likely to cop it if you’re new, female, in a subordinate position, or from an ethnic minority.

Unkind and thoughtless words matter. As linguist Louise Banks says in the 2016 film Arrival: “Language is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”

What people say and how they say it affects us deeply. One cruel remark can ruin your whole day. Left unchecked, incivility makes for a toxic workplace.

Read more:
Is workplace rudeness on the rise?

Why are people rude to each other?

It’s tempting to simply blame bad character. Certainly such behaviour is much more likely from people with dysfunctional personality traits, especially the “dark triad” of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.

Narcissists are self-obsessed and dominate social interactions. Psychopaths lack empathy and don’t understand social norms. Machiavellians are manipulative, self-interested and amoral.

But even “nice” people can be uncivil, with the three most common incivility triggers being because they feel let down by their leaders, are under more pressure than they can handle, or someone else was rude first – to them or others.

Incivility can therefore become a vicious spiral that turns victims and bystanders into perpetrators. That’s how toxic workplaces are born, develop, and perpetuate.

Read more:
What Jeremy Clarkson taught us about incivility in the workplace

Incivility in the workplace

Leadership sets the tone. We’re social creatures and learn what’s expected and acceptable from those we look up to. Our leaders’ behaviour is infectious, and cascades down throughout and across organisations – for better or worse.

Incivility is most harmful when it comes from a supervisor: someone we’re supposed to trust, who’s supposed to look after us.

The power asymmetry means leaders’ inappropriate behaviour is less likely to be challenged. Take, for example, Harvey Weinstein, who for decades abused his position as one of Hollywood’s most successful film producers to sexually exploit women, before finally being held to account.

Read more:
Staying in grace: Why some people are immune from scandal – until they’re not

But managers can be derelict in their duty without being perpetrators. As in the case of sexual harassment, it may be easier to see and hear no evil, perhaps because the perpetrator is favoured as a high performer or a friend. With the capacity for one individual to make life a misery for many colleagues, this leadership failure can lead to a toxic workplace culture.

Authentic leadership ‘in the trenches’

It’s up to leaders to be the first movers against incivility and create positive work cultures with their own behaviour. What leaders will tolerate on their team sets the bar for how everyone else will behave.

With colleagues Stephen Teo and David Pick, I’ve surveyed 230 nurses across Australia about the leadership qualities that help reduce incivility.

Why ask nurses? Because their work is stressful and demanding. The strain of providing critical care for patients creates conditions conducive to conflict, from swearing to physical violence. Workplace incivility is frequent and these stressors increase the likelihood of medical mistakes. So there’s good reason to reduce incivility to improve health-care quality.

Our research shows that authentic leadership promotes workplace cultures with less incivility and better well-being. Such authentic leaders are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, act on their values even under pressure, and work to understand how their leadership affects others.

What can you do?

Incivility isn’t okay. It should never be excused as “just part of the job”.

If this is happening to you, or others in your workplace, avoiding it won’t help you or your colleagues. Putting up with incivility is emotionally taxing, entrenches feelings of resentment and will likely lead to bigger conflicts down the track.

Responding with more incivility of your own isn’t a good idea. Retaliation rarely deters a person who engages in such behaviour and instead effectively endorses it.

One approach recommended by psychologists when dealing with high-conflict personalities is known as the BIFF technique: be brief, informative, friendly and firm.

When some says something mean, you might respond, as calmly as possible, along the lines of: “Your comments are hurtful and damage our working relationship. Please, let’s keep things professional.”

If the behaviour persists, approach your supervisor. Again, stay calm. Explain what’s happening and how it’s affecting you. You don’t have to go at it alone either, consider inviting colleagues who can support you, and your claims.

Will this fix the problem? Possibly not. Your manager might simply shrug their shoulders, or arrange a “mediation” that resolves nothing. But saying and doing nothing will almost certainly leave you unsatisfied.

If your manager is the perpetrator, contact your HR department first (if your organisation has one) or else your union. The union can offer advice on other avenues to seek redress.

Statutory agencies such as Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman, Employment New Zealand and the UK’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service have the power to investigate workplace complaints, and to intervene in disputes through formal conciliation or arbitration. But before embarking on such a process, it’s best to get expert advice. You might get justice, but also still need to find another job.

Incivility is unlikely to stop on its own, however. Your voice matters and can help break the cycle.

Andrei Lux works for Edith Cowan University and is a Director of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management.

– ref. Toxic work cultures start with incivility and mediocre leadership. What can you do about it? – https://theconversation.com/toxic-work-cultures-start-with-incivility-and-mediocre-leadership-what-can-you-do-about-it-204198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer Taxation, Auckland University of Technology

Food prices are rising at the fastest rate in almost four decades, with fruit and vegetables up more than 22% in the past year. As often happens during a cost of living crisis, there have been calls to remove the goods and services tax (GST) from fresh produce.

But is this actually a good idea? And if not, what alternatives might there be to help people currently struggling to afford fruit and vegetables?

Supporters of removing GST argue the move will make healthy food more accessible for struggling families. Removing GST from fresh produce is also meant to help tackle New Zealand’s persistent obesity epidemic – which accounts for 8.2% of total health expenditure (around NZ$135 million) annually.

It is a popular idea. In 2022, 76% of New Zealanders surveyed supported removing GST from food. But as some economists have warned, tinkering with the tax system might not actually deliver the desired results for low-income families. Put simply, those with the income to buy more fruit and vegetables – high-income households – will benefit the most from GST exemptions on fresh produce.

New Zealand currently has one of the most comprehensive and effective goods and services tax systems globally. Any changes would require substantial evidence demonstrating the benefits of change.

Additionally, as many households struggle to cover costs, any additional cash gained from eliminating GST from fresh produce will go towards more pressing expenses like rent and power. If the government wants to fight obesity during a cost-of-living crisis, it needs to develop a more targeted approach.

Looking beyond GST

My research, to be published later this year, looks into the literature on GST and tax expenditure from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom. I examined how different countries use a variety of tax measures to help low-income families buy fruit and vegetables.

I wanted to examine whether dropping GST would help reduce obesity by making nutritious food more accessible. In fact, the literature suggests it does not significantly improve affordability and healthy eating choices for such families.

These households tended to allocate additional income (or tax saved) to other food or non-food items, such as meats, clothing or housing.

My study shows there are more targeted options within New Zealand’s welfare system that can be used to help struggling families afford healthier foods.

Targeted assistance overseas

One option is to issue a GST refund on fresh fruit and vegetables purchased.

But there is no guarantee the extra money will be spent on purchasing healthy food. Similar to removing GST before purchase, the extra money will likely be diverted to other more pressing priorities, particularly in low-income households.

If the primary aim of making fresh fruit and vegetables more affordable is to increase healthy eating, then a cash rebate won’t help. But there are policies in use overseas that New Zealand could use as a starting point to directly help low-income families afford fresh produce.

Read more:
Cheaper food comes with other costs – why cutting GST isn’t the answer

One particularly interesting option is the targeted smart-card system for buying fruit and vegetables. In the US, it’s known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program scheme (SNAP), and in Britain as the Healthy Start scheme.

SNAP provides monthly funds for people to buy food using a benefit card (similar to a debit card) to buy groceries. They can’t use it to buy non-food items or alcohol. Healthy Start is for pregnant women and mothers with children under four to buy healthy food and milk, also delivered via a type of debit card.

What targeted help could look like

In New Zealand, we already have the food or hardship grants available through Work and Income. But these are only given in exceptional circumstances, and are limited to once every six months.

These food grants can also be used to buy anything an individual or family needs, including toiletries and other non-food items.

Introducing a regular and targeted healthy food grant via an electronic smart card would be a more effective way to ensure low-income families are able to access healthy food.

The cards could be protected with biometric data to prevent abuse or transfer. Eligibility criteria and account limits could be revised annually depending on the inflation rate to avoid any erosion of the card’s value.

Other ways to encourage healthy eating

The literature shows that a targeted smart-card system could help reduce New Zealand’s high obesity rate during the current cost of living crisis, if combined with an increase in education to prioritise healthy eating.

Instead of removing GST, the revenue gathered could be used to provide that extra nutritional information and education.

In 2013, the UK government implemented its “Healthy food for healthy outcomes” policy. Healthy food – and knowledge about nutrition – is treated as a vital element of school life and learning.

My research found that the costs of tampering with New Zealand’s current GST system far outweigh the benefits likely to accrue from such a change. A targeted smart-card scheme is arguably a more effective measure to improve affordability and healthy eating habits – and the benefits would outweigh the setup costs.

Ranjana Gupta 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. Cutting GST on fresh produce won’t help those most in need – a targeted approach works better – https://theconversation.com/cutting-gst-on-fresh-produce-wont-help-those-most-in-need-a-targeted-approach-works-better-207598

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

Two women ended up in tears in the Senate this week, as the Higgins imbroglio exploded yet again and in the process claimed a scalp.

But the scalp wasn’t that of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who was targeted by the Liberals.

Instead it was one of the Liberals’ own, David Van, who was banished from the Liberal party room by Peter Dutton, after allegations from crossbencher Lidia Thorpe that the Victorian senator had sexually assaulted her, a claim he strongly denied.

The Liberals knew their pursuit of Gallagher for allegedly misleading parliament over her knowledge of the Brittany Higgins matter would carry some political risk. But they could never have imagined they’d be damaged in such a dramatic fashion, ceding one of their senators to the crossbench.

Federal politics, the tone of which has been better than in the last parliamentary term, once again descended into a toxic mire.

Van’s spectacular fall began with Thorpe (formerly with the Greens) on Wednesday shouting interjections when he was speaking about Labor’s attacks on Liberal women over the Higgins issue, and parliamentary standards. She alleged he’d “harassed” and “sexually assaulted” her, which he immediately rejected.

In a broader set of allegations on Thursday, in which she didn’t specifically name Van, a tearful Thorpe said: “I experienced sexual comments, and was inappropriately propositioned by powerful men. One man followed me and cornered me in a stairwell.

“There are different understandings of what amounts to sexual assault. What I experienced was being followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched. I was afraid to walk out of the office door. I would open the door slightly and check the coast was clear before stepping out,” she said.

“To me it was sexual assault, and the [Morrison] government at the time recognised it as such,” she said, because it immediately moved the person’s office.

Between late Wednesday and Thursday morning, other allegations about Van came to Dutton, with former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker confirming to him that Van had groped her.

Stoker later publicly recounted how “in November 2020 Senator Van inappropriately touched me at an informal social gathering in a parliamentary office. He did so by squeezing my bottom twice. By its nature and by its repetition, it was not accidental. That action was not appropriate. It was unprofessional and uninvited.” Van subsequently apologised.

Even if it hadn’t inadvertently blown itself up, the Coalition was always going to struggle with its attack on Gallagher. The minister, with caucus – in Anthony Albanese’s words – “1000%” behind her, could simply stare down her interrogators, although that meant enduring a good deal of heat.

Read more:
Word from The Hill: Coalition attacks on Katy Gallagher, Voice losing traction, future fund holdout

Gallagher’s 2021 claim, at a Senate estimates hearing, that she had no prior knowledge of Higgins’ allegation she was raped, was wrong, and therefore misled parliament.

Indeed, Gallagher had admitted privately to Liberal then-minister Linda Reynolds on that same night that she had some prior knowledge. This week she refused to be drawn on details of her interactions around receiving this information, leaving the opposition empty-handed. She did say – a crucial point – that she hadn’t passed on the information, obtained from Higgins and her partner David Sharaz, to Albanese or Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong.

Labor has been able to deploy effectively the argument that by revisiting the Higgins issue the Liberals will discourage women coming forward with allegations they have been assaulted. Albanese said: “My concern here is that we know that about 13% of sexual assault victims actually take action, go forward to police. And I’m worried that the focus that is going on at the moment will have a triggering effect and will deter people from coming forward.”

The debate also turned to the ethics of the disclosure of previously private communications, most notably the leaked text messages between Sharaz and Higgins.

This disclosure – involving court material – was widely condemned, and the Liberals struggled to win their argument that however the material became public, they were perfectly justified in dealing with the content. The opposition maintained it was pursuing accountability, but that was blurred by the counter argument about Higgins’ right of privacy.

The latest round of the Higgins issue has also been entangled in what we can call the media wars. The disclosure of the texts and other material has been spearheaded by The Australian, which has given massive coverage to changing the narrative of the Higgins story, in a direction that is less favourable to her. Some other sections of the media were not keen to follow up The Australian’s stories.

While Gallagher’s survival was always guaranteed, the attacks have taken their toll. By Thursday she was teary, lamenting that the work done on having women treated better and encouraging them to come forward when something happened to them had been set back.

She also conceded: “I am sorry Senator Reynolds is clearly upset about what happened to her. I am sorry about that. And I told her that.

“But I am also very sorry for Brittany Higgins, I’m sorry documents about her personal life have been leaked, I’m sorry a confidential draft claim for compensation [for Higgins] found its way onto the front pages of a national newspaper.”

Read more:
View from The Hill: Brittany Higgins story continues its damaging trail, with no end in sight

The Higgins story has a cast of women. Not just the young woman, a former Liberal staffer, who made the rape allegation. Women were on the front line of the political battle around that story: in 2021 then-ministers Reynolds and Michaelia Cash and Labor spear carriers Wong, Gallagher and then-senator Kristina Keneally.

In the media, women broke the story: Sam Maiden (News Corp) and Lisa Wilkinson (Ten). Janet Albrechtsen (The Australian) has led the counter-narrative.

The separate events that took centre stage this week regarding Gallagher and Van all happened some years ago. In the wake of the damning 2021 Jenkins report on behaviour in parliament house, that workplace has seen reforms, with new independent processes for providing support and handling complaints. People report conduct has improved.

Regardless of this, many members of the public, hearing the news reports of this week, will conclude little has changed. And some voters might think politicians should be talking less about their workplace and more about the issues confronting those in the world outside.

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. Grattan on Friday: Liberals come a cropper when they try to dig afresh into the Brittany Higgins story – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-liberals-come-a-cropper-when-they-try-to-dig-afresh-into-the-brittany-higgins-story-207840

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney

More than 20 prominent Australian sport bodies have taken a united stand, publicly declaring their support for a “yes” vote on the Indigenous Voice to parliament.

Why, as custodians of sport, have they chosen to take a public stance on a political issue that transcends the athletic domain? And why are they advocating for a “yes” vote?

Some proponents of the “no” vote contend that sports bodies should have no place in political debate. The role of sport organisations, they argue, ought to be simple: they organise competitions and manage athletes.

However, sports bodies have a charter to be engaged with the community and are committed to numerous groups and causes. Pathways and support for Indigenous people are a core part of sports having a sense of social responsibility – they don’t function in a socio-political bubble.

That said, sport organisations have often been ineffective custodians for Indigenous players’ personal and professional development. Indeed, while First Nations people have long been notable performers in many sports, rarely have they had a voice in the running of their workplaces. What’s more, many Indigenous athletes have suffered racism on the job.

So, while sports bodies are notable advocates of a Voice to parliament, they might want to consider how much of a voice Indigenous athletes have in their own organisations.

Why a ‘yes’ vote?

Sport organisations provide opportunities for Indigenous athletes, whom they value for their talent.

But there’s now more to it than that. Many sport bodies have made commitments to the wellbeing of their Indigenous employees.

Multiple sports feature Reconciliation Action Plans, and Indigenous cultures often feature in the pre-match ceremonies of major sport events, such as the Welcome to Country. There are also dedicated Indigenous rounds in the AFL, NRL and Super Netball.

Given many sport bodies are committed to Indigenous wellbeing and community engagement, it seems logical for sports bodies to publicly support the Voice proposal.

However, whether those sports bodies are sufficiently earnest or live up to the ideals enshrined in the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a more complicated question, as suggested by recent investigations into historical racism in the AFL.

Read more:
The antithesis of healing: the AFL turns away from truth-telling again, ending Hawthorn investigation

Political advocacy

The interplay of sport organisations and social and political causes is hardly new. In Australia, an obvious recent example is the vote for same-sex marriage, which was supported by numerous sports bodies.

These organisations have core values around cultural diversity and policies to promote inclusion, so their support of the “yes” campaign was hardly surprising.

But this didn’t mean universal acceptance: some within sport took a different view, most notably fundamentalist religious followers.

In terms of the Voice campaign, sport organisations appear to have undergone their own due diligence in terms of finalising a position. The AFL, for example, organised educational seminars about the referendum and conducted anonymous polls among staff and players with the aim of aligning its own position with that of its workforce.

Read more:
Taking sides: sport organisations and the same-sex debate

This has been a process of consultation rather than indoctrination. For example, “no” campaign leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine was invited to speak at Collingwood Football Club. He said “They got the ‘yes’ campaign to do a presentation and then they got me to come in and give a presentation – that’s the way to do it”.

That said, it’s difficult to find either a sports body or an athlete publicly advocating “no” to the Voice.

Whereas rugby star Israel Folau used his public profile to galvanise opposition to the same-sex marriage proposal in 2017, there’s no equivalent athlete campaigner opposed to the Voice.

Voices against sport

In the meantime, there’s plenty of angst among “no” campaigners that sports are supporting the “yes” vote. It is, of course, reasonable to ponder whether they would hold that view if the sports advocated a “no” vote.

But, leaving that aside, what are the misgivings about sports bodies taking a public position?

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, well known for donning a green and gold tracksuit for photo opportunities during Wallabies Tests or the Olympics, contends that sports bodies have no place taking a stand on the Voice: voting, he stresses, is a matter for individuals, and leagues cannot speak for them.

For Howard, sport should only be an “escape” from politics, with fans mingling to focus on having a good time and cheering their team.

Current Opposition Leader Peter Dutton takes a similar view, but argues that sports fans are being lectured to by “elites” within leagues like the AFL or the NRL. The inference here is that a coterie of sport executives has conspired to dictate a position in the absence of any consultation.

Sport, from the perspective of these naysayers, should be silent on the Voice.

Yet that perspective overlooks the way sport is run today.

Social responsibility

Whether the same-sex marriage campaign, empowerment of women or climate change, sports increasingly take a view because they have a responsibility.

Sports bodies have mission statements declaring contributions to society, among which is support for groups and communities that, historically, have been on the margins of the nation’s sporting culture.

Read more:
Sit on hands or take a stand: why athletes have always been political players

That said, Indigenous employees within sport have long been rendered peripheral to decision making. Sports bodies have too often not consulted First Nations’ players or administrators when making decisions for the “good of the game”.

Yet, at the same time, they celebrate Indigenous peoples for their substantial contribution to sport.

When sports bodies say they support a Voice to parliament, they might also reflect on what that looks like in their own backyards.

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. Sport bodies say ‘yes’ to the Voice. But they should reflect on their own backyards too – https://theconversation.com/sport-bodies-say-yes-to-the-voice-but-they-should-reflect-on-their-own-backyards-too-206396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tyler Rohr, Lecturer in Southern Ocean Biogeochemical Modelling, IMAS, University of Tasmania

The ocean holds 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere and absorbs almost 30% of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from human activities. This means the ocean is key to understanding the global carbon cycle and thus our future climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses earth system models to project climate change. These projections inform critical political, social and technological decisions. However, if we can’t accurately model the marine carbon cycle then we cannot truly understand how Earth’s climate will respond to different emission scenarios.

In research published today, we show that zooplankton, tiny animals near the base of the ocean food chain, are likely to be the biggest source of uncertainty in how we model the marine carbon cycle. Getting their impact on the cycle right could add an extra 2 billion tonnes to current models’ assumptions about annual carbon uptake by the ocean. That’s more carbon than the entire global transportation sector emits.

À lire aussi :
Oceans are better at storing carbon than trees. In a warmer future, ocean carbon sinks could help stabilise our planet

Marine carbon cycling is a $3 trillion thermostat

Roughly 10 billion tonnes of carbon are being released into the atmosphere each year. But the ocean quickly absorbs about 3 billion tonnes of these emissions, leaving our climate cooler and more hospitable. If we price carbon at the rate the IPCC believes is needed to limit warming to 1.5℃, this adds up to over A$3 trillion worth of emission reductions accomplished naturally by the ocean every year.

However, we know the size of the ocean carbon sink has changed in the past, and even small changes can lead to big changes in the atmosphere’s temperature. Thus, we understand the ocean acts as a thermostat for our climate. But what controls the dial?

Extensive geological evidence suggests microscopic marine life could be in control. Phytoplankton photosynthesise and consume as much CO₂ as all land plants.

When phytoplankton die, they sink and trap much of their carbon deep in the ocean. It can remain there for centuries to millennia, locked away safely out of contact with the atmosphere.

Any changes to the strength of this biological carbon pump will be felt in the atmosphere and will change our climate. Some have even proposed enhancing this biological pump by artificially fertilising the ocean with iron to stimulate phytoplankton. It’s possible this could sequester as much as an extra 20% of our annual CO₂ emissions.

À lire aussi :
Smoke from the Black Summer fires created an algal bloom bigger than Australia in the Southern Ocean

Right for the wrong reasons

Despite its importance for the global climate and food production, there are large gaps in our understanding of how the marine carbon cycle is expected to change. Most earth system models differ in how the cycle’s major components will respond to a changing climate. Models simply can’t agree on what will happen to:

• net primary production – the carbon consumed by phytoplankton resulting in growth of marine plants at the base of the food web

• secondary production – zooplankton growth, which is an indicator for fisheries, since fish eat zooplankton

• export production – the biological pump of carbon transferred to the deep sea.

To diagnose what might be going wrong, we compared the marine carbon cycle in 11 IPCC earth system models. We found the largest source of uncertainty is how fast zooplankton consume their phytoplankton prey, known as grazing pressure.

Models differ hugely in their assumptions about this grazing pressure. Even if zooplankton were exposed to the exact same amount of phytoplankton, the highest assumed grazing rate would be almost 100 times as fast as the slowest rate.

This is because some models effectively assume the ocean is filled entirely with slow-grazing shrimp. Others assume it is teeming exclusively with microscopic, but rapidly grazing ciliates. In reality, neither is true.

À lire aussi :
Tiny plankton drive processes in the ocean that capture twice as much carbon as scientists thought

Models must make up for such large differences in zooplankton grazing by making additional assumptions about how fast phytoplankton grow and how quickly zooplankton die. Together, these differences can be balanced in a way that allows most models to simulate the present-day amount of carbon consumed by phytoplankton and transferred to the deep sea.

However, that is only because we can observe what those values should be. We can then tune models until we ensure they get the right answer.

Yet, even though our best models can admirably recreate the present-day ocean, they do so for different reasons and with dramatically different assumptions about the role of zooplankton. This means these models are built with fundamentally different machinery. When used to test future emissions scenarios, they will project fundamentally different outcomes.

We cannot know which projections are correct unless we know the true role of zooplankton.

À lire aussi :
Climate: modelling micro-algae to better understand the workings of the ocean

Tiny plankton with a big impact

We ran a sensitivity experiment to show how small changes in zooplankton grazing can dramatically alter marine carbon cycling. We considered two sets of experiments, one control and one in which we increased both zooplankton grazing rates and phytoplankton growth rates, such that both were tuned to the exact same total carbon consumption by phytoplankton.

This increase in how fast zooplankton can graze was only a fraction of the difference between assumed grazing rates seen across IPCC models. Despite this, we found even this small increase led to a huge difference in the percentage of carbon consumed by phytoplankton that was eventually exported to depth and transferred up the food chain.

Ocean carbon storage increased by 2 billion tonnes per year. Zooplankton carbon consumption increased by 5 billion tonnes.

From a climate perspective, that is double the maximum theoretical potential of iron fertilisation. From a fisheries perspective, that leads to a 50% increase in the size of the global zooplankton population on which many fish feed. This matters for global food supply as the ocean feeds 10% of the global population.

This work shows we must improve both our understanding and modelling of zooplankton. With limited resources and an immense ocean, we will never have enough observations to build perfect models. However, new technologies for measuring zooplankton are making it easier to make autonomous, high-resolution measurements of many important variables.

We must make a concerted effort to leverage these new technologies to better understand the role of zooplankton in the marine carbon cycle. We will then be able to reduce uncertainties about future climate states, advance our ability to assess marine-based CO₂ removal, and improve global fisheries projections.

Anthony Richardson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP230102359 and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Elizabeth Shadwick receives funding from Australian Government’s Antarctic Science Collaboration Initiative, and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Tyler Rohr ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Oceans absorb 30% of our emissions, driven by a huge carbon pump. Tiny marine animals are key to working out its climate impacts – https://theconversation.com/oceans-absorb-30-of-our-emissions-driven-by-a-huge-carbon-pump-tiny-marine-animals-are-key-to-working-out-its-climate-impacts-207219

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Oliver A.H. Jones, Professor, RMIT University

In the 19th century, many of Australia’s urban creeks and rivers were in poor shape. Melbourne’s major river, the Maribyrnong, was full of waste from abattoirs, tanneries and factories.

I live near Darebin Creek in Melbourne’s north, which was next to a tip and often polluted until cleanup efforts began in the 70s. Now many creatures have returned.

But while many waterways have been cleaned up, others have languished. As late as 2011, Sydney’s notoriously polluted Cooks River was so full of industrial waste and sewage it was dubbed an “open sewer”. Now, it’s starting to improve.

Here’s what the restoration of Darebin Creek shows us about the successes and challenges of bringing life back to our urban waterways.

Rivers or rubbish dumps?

Many of us, like Mole from Wind in the Willows, find ourselves “intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds…” of our waterways.

But we don’t always treat them very well. European settlement had a big effect on creeks and rivers, we’ve often used them as convenient waste dumps. Pump industrial waste, chemicals or sewage into them and watch it float away. Once we might have thought “problem solved”. Now we know differently. Treating rivers as dumps can (unsurprisingly) damage or even wipe out the life in it.

In Victoria, their fate started to improve when the state government passed the Environment Protection Act in 1970 (since superseded by the the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018). Since then, community groups, government agencies, and Melbourne Water have started the repair job.

Read more:
A tale of 2 rivers: is it safer to swim in the Yarra in Victoria, or the Nepean in NSW?

Now, we’re starting to see the benefits. My local waterway, Darebin Creek, is typical of many urban creeks and I love spending time here. Running in the morning, I pass ducks, swans, and moorhens. Kookaburras laugh in the trees, insects buzz in the morning light. It’s beautiful.

In the creek itself live frogs, invertebrates and fish. Endangered species like the growling grass frog and matted flax-lily can now be found.

There are even platypus sightings, which means there’s food there for them like insect larvae and yabbies.

What is now the expansive Darebin Parklands was once was used as a farm, then a quarry, then a tip earmarked for a freeway, and the creek was little more than a stormwater drain. Even today, leachate from the old tip seeps out.

The creek’s transformation – especially in its southern reaches – is due in large part to one determined woman, Sue Course, who was rightly recognised for her work in the 2021 Australia Day honours.

In the 1970s, Sue and her husband Laurie formed a residents’ group and lobbied successfully for the land to be given to the public. The group spent decades removing weeds and rubbish and planting trees.

Many urban waterways in Victoria are now in reasonable health, providing habitat for more than 1,800 species of native plants and 600 species of native animals. But not all. Rivers such as the Ovens and the Murray, and even the Yarra in places, are in poorer condition with low flows and high sediment and salt levels major issues.

Improvements are often connected to community efforts to revegetate, as well as watching for chemicals or other pollutants pumped into the stream. These efforts have to be ongoing. As recently as 2016, eels and other fish died in Darebin Creek due to insecticide being washed into the water.

And the wildlife of the creek has not fully recovered, as the local council points out. The remarkable plains-wanderer once roamed the creekline, but the last sighting was in 1972.

How do we fully restore our city waterways?

Native species reliant on our city waterways still face threats. These include:

• catchment pollution. A catchment is an area of land where water collects when it rains and then flows to a low point (such as a stream). Pollution in a creek or river’s catchment upstream can affect the whole waterway. A recent study on pesticides found the major source was residential use, meaning the chemicals were washed into the wetlands. A similar project used GPS to track plastic bottles down Melbourne’s creeks.They found bottles could travel many kilometres downstream, or get stuck and break down locally.

• organic micropollutants. The way we live means we use a large range of chemicals, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fertilisers, and artificial sweeteners. A detailed study of the Yarra, Sydney and Brisbane River estuaries found traces of these chemicals in the water, including drugs, medication, personal care products, pesticides, and even food additives. Even though they are present in very low concentrations they can still be a worry. A recent study from Monash University showed that concentrations of pharmaceuticals in rivers, though far below the therapeutic dose can still affect fish behaviour.

• stormwater. When rain runs off hard surfaces like roofs, driveways, and roads, it runs into storm drains and creeks, carrying debris, bacteria, soil, oil, grease, pesticides and other pollutants with it. In 2016 it was estimated that 95% of litter on Victorian beaches was transported there from suburban areas through stormwater drains.

• nutrients. Fertiliser runoff from farms and wastewater spills in urban areas can bring too many nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into waterways. Overloads of nutrients can trigger sudden plant and algae growth. These block light and reduce oxygen levels, leading to the death of fish and other aquatic animals. Some algae and cyanoabacteria (that also grow in these conditions) produce toxins that can make us sick too.

• invasive species. Many invasive species have been introduced into Australian waters including the infamous carp and mosquito fish. These prey on or outcompete native species, damage habitat, and carry diseases and parasites. Careful management to reduce their impact will likely be needed for some time.

How can we help bring life back?

If there’s a lesson in the restoration work done so far, it’s that we can’t expect life just to bounce back. Making our waterways healthy again takes effort, ranging from making sure rubbish doesn’t escape into them through to joining your local waterway organisation – or starting one.

Join a local Waterwatch program to monitor river health, or join the national waterbug blitz to learn more about invertebrate life. You can even get involved in efforts to restore riparian vegetation as natural flood dampening measures.

Above all, let’s appreciate our urban creeks and rivers for what they are – and for what they can become, so the next generation will have the same chance to enjoy them as we have.

Read more:
What if urban plans gave natural systems the space to recover from the cities built over them? It can be done

Oliver A.H. Jones works on collaborative projects with, and has received funding from, Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria, Melbourne Water and South East Water.

– ref. Many urban waterways were once waste dumps. Restoration efforts have made great strides – but there’s more to do to bring nature back – https://theconversation.com/many-urban-waterways-were-once-waste-dumps-restoration-efforts-have-made-great-strides-but-theres-more-to-do-to-bring-nature-back-206407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

Amid an ongoing cost-cutting effort, Twitter has now refused to pay the bills to renew its multi-year contract with Google Cloud, Platformer has reported.

We’ve all heard of “the cloud” – but what does it have to do with Twitter? And more to the point, what will the consequences be for Twitter users if Google Cloud pulls the plug on the platform?

What are cloud computing services?

To put it simply, “the cloud” is an assembly of computing resources
that are remotely accessible over the internet. These resources are leased out to internet-connected organisations so they don’t have to buy and maintain their own.

In Twitter’s case, these resources include storage space for very large quantities of data, as well as a suite of programs that perform various operations on these data, as agreed upon in the contract. All of this takes place across a global network of physical servers.

Read more:
Where’s your data? It’s not actually in the cloud, it’s sitting in a data centre

Cloud computing is a convenient and cost-effective business model, which has gained much favour from enterprises large and small.

Currently, a handful of players dominate this market. In the lead is Amazon Web Services (AWS) which holds about 32% of the market. Amazon became the first cloud provider in 2006 and has since established a comfortable lead over its rivals, Microsoft Azure (23%) and Google Cloud (10%).

Reliability and scalability are perhaps the most important requirements a company will have of its cloud service provider. And when it comes to reliability, “redundancy” is key.

Redundancy means that if one data centre goes down, there are multiple others with duplicate data that can seamlessly step into service. And if the quantity of user data is high in one particular data centre, the extra load can be farmed out to another. In this way, peak traffic periods can be managed without loss of performance.

What might happen if Google pulls the plug?

It seems Twitter is at loggerheads with its cloud provider, Google Cloud. The company is reportedly disputing its Google Cloud bill as it seeks to renegotiate its contract with Google.

The issue appears to be rooted in a disagreement over service quality and performance. Twitter doesn’t think it’s getting value for money, and is withholding the latest payment in its US$1 billion contract with Google Cloud.

Under the contract, Google Cloud hosts many of Twitter’s trust and safety services. If the disagreement isn’t resolved by the end of the month, and if Twitter severs ties with Google Cloud, this could seriously threaten its ability to fight spam, remove child sexual abuse material and generally protect accounts.

Google also currently allows Twitter users to sign up with their Google account. And Twitter profiles are highly ranked in Google searches, by virtue of Twitter’s close ties with Google. This favoured status could be in jeopardy if the two companies can’t come to terms.

Apart from Google Cloud, Twitter also has a multi-year cloud computing contract with AWS to offer a host of functions. According to reports, it has also withheld payments from Amazon in the past and owed some US$70 million in bills as of March. Amazon responded by threatening to withhold payments for advertising it runs on the platform.

Why is Twitter refusing to pay?

The dispute can perhaps be understood as yet another attempt by Twitter to radically reduce operating costs. It’s a a trend that began late last year when Elon Musk acquired the company for US$44 billion.

Musk, who just appointed former NBC Universal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO, has implemented a suite of cost-cutting measures since the takeover – among these, the firing of more than half of the company’s 7,500 employees.

Looking at the big picture, we see Musk in the throes of trying to make Twitter a leaner, more efficient business.

Cracking down on malicious misuse

At stake in this dispute are services that help keep Twitter free of malicious, dangerous and offensive content. Twitter’s battle against this content, as well as against spam and bots, has been ongoing. While it’s difficult to predict the outcome of the dispute with Google, it’s likely Twitter will take whatever course of action helps the company save money.

That could mean moving those services to a different provider, or retaining Google Cloud’s services but on more favourable terms. Another possibility (although less likely) is for Twitter to migrate those particular services in-house where it will have more control. But this would also require spending and human resources to manage the data.

In a worst-case scenario, Twitter may collapse or destabilise if certain elements within it go offline. Aside from Twitter trolls, this outcome would be in nobody’s best interest. So it’s more likely Twitter and Google Cloud will find a mutually agreeable way forward.

Read more:
Instead of showing leadership, Twitter pays lip service to the dangers of deep fakes

David Tuffley 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. Twitter is refusing to pay Google for cloud services. Here’s why it matters, and what the fallout could be for users – https://theconversation.com/twitter-is-refusing-to-pay-google-for-cloud-services-heres-why-it-matters-and-what-the-fallout-could-be-for-users-207718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mathew Aitchison, Professor of Architecture and CEO of Building 4.0 CRC, Monash University

Have we reached peak affordable-housing-debate in Australia? Or is it a case of that old mountaineering saying: the fog is thickest just before the summit?

As someone who has been involved in building innovation for the past decade, what strikes me about the current debate is not its height, but its flatness. By this I mean how something as complex as housing can be reduced to one or two issues of the moment. Is the key to ending our housing woes really just “supply”? And will the Albanese government’s new $A10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) solve that problem?

Yes, this flatness is inherent to politics, but if we don’t attempt to unflatten the problem we’ll be stuck in the very public game of housing affordability “Whac-A-Mole” for quite some time. It goes something like this: release more land … ease planning restrictions … end NIMBY-ism … rent freeze … build-to-rent … early access to super … negative gearing … prefab housing … developer greed … skills shortage … gentrification … supply-chain disruption … inclusionary zoning … capital gains tax reform … industrial action … and so on and so forth.

So much froth for so little beer. So how do we build the industry’s productivity and capacity? The answer is the same as it has been in every other sector: the building industry desperately needs to innovate.

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

But what about the new housing fund?

The federal government says its new fund will provide A$500 million a year to build much-needed social housing. The opposition says this will fuel inflation. The Greens are demanding more direct funding of housing (at first $5 billion a year, now reduced to $2.5 billion) and a rent freeze.

Is the new fund inflationary? Yes and no.

Unless the bill is coupled with measures that increase the industry’s productivity and capacity, it will be inflationary. The industry lacks the capacity to build as many dwellings as the market needs, or the extra 30,000 social and affordable homes the government says the fund will deliver in the first five years. Remember, property prices are just off an all-time high, with construction costs up by more than 50% over the past decade.

To meet our housing targets, we need to find new ways of building more with less.

Read more:
Albanese government tackles housing crisis on 3 fronts, but there’s still more to do

Supply is only one piece of the puzzle

The problem with seeing housing provision solely as a matter of “supply” (read “funding”) is that this accounts for only one phase of the process. It takes more than dollars to deliver a building. We must address all the phases: development, design, construction, operation and, after all that, end of life.

If we don’t do that, we won’t solve the root problems. And we risk missing opportunities ripe for innovation.

Let’s consider some innovative ideas for each of the building phases.

Development

New business and ownership models are needed. These include:

• housing-as-a-service (HaaS) – the space between short-term rental and long-term hotels, which suits mobile or itinerant populations and which AirBnB is increasingly exploiting

• co-housing – residents band together to develop housing themselves or with help from an agent, such as Nightingale or others

• build-to-rent – instead of building to sell to residents or investors, housing is retained for the purpose of renting it out, with recent federal tax changes supporting this approach

• rent-to-buy – residents have the right to buy (progressively or outright) their rental housing

• shared equity schemes – a way for buyers to own a more “affordable” fraction of the home and get a foot in the door.

Read more:
Build-to-rent is seen as affordable, but it’s yet to help those most in need

These alternative approaches will change the calculus of property development. Let’s not aim to centralise housing development. Rather, we should crowd-source it to as many organisations as possible.

A final area for innovation in the development phase is planning. We can use digital tools to make the planning system more transparent and efficient.

Design

Make houses more efficient. Australian houses are among the world’s largest even though households are shrinking. As the Swedish saying goes: “The cheapest square metre is the square metre you don’t build!”

Make houses more flexible and diverse. Housing could then accommodate different uses, such as home offices or sublettable units, and various family structures and sizes, including extended families.

Read more:
People want and need more housing choice. It’s about time governments stood up to deliver it

Construction

Develop new building systems and supply chains. We need faster, cheaper and higher-quality ways of building.

In contrast to building on site from the ground up, prefabricated, modular or industrialised house-building happens in factories. These approaches could increase capacity, on top of traditional approaches.

More people, more people, more people: the industry needs a new generation with different skill sets.

Up entering Swedish and German house-building factories, it is clear these are more inclusive workplaces. A key benefit of industrialised building is it promotes greater workforce participation. These are the diverse and high-skill jobs of the future.

Operation

Improve building performance through better development, design and operation of housing. Occupants won’t be left with unaffordable “utility timebombs” with high running costs.

Make houses more durable and easy to maintain. Well-designed and well-built housing can be used for decades past current buildings’ “use-by” dates. Longer-lived buildings will help to plug the holes in the leaky bucket of housing provision.

Read more:
We need a ‘lemon law’ to make all the homes we buy and rent more energy-efficient

End of life

An increased focus on decarbonisation and sustainable use of resources will enable new approaches to reusing and recycling building materials.

Re-using existing and obsolete buildings for new housing – adaptive re-use – is another way to provide more housing.

Where to from here?

Innovations like these could be applied tomorrow to help us do more with less.

A final challenge to government: as we prepare to spend billions on building housing across the country, is it too outlandish to imagine we could invest a mere 1% of those vast sums in innovation programs? Innovation can deliver the increases in building productivity and capacity that Australia so badly needs.

Mathew Aitchison receives funding from the Department of Industry’s CRC Program.

– ref. Building in the same old ways won’t end the housing crisis. We need innovation to boost productivity – https://theconversation.com/building-in-the-same-old-ways-wont-end-the-housing-crisis-we-need-innovation-to-boost-productivity-206862

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

We have millions of hair follicles on our body, including around 100,000 on our scalp.

This might sound like a lot of hair, yet humans are described as “hairless”. We have evolved to be the only mammals with a relatively hairless body, but still with scalp hair.

So how does your hair affect your body temperature when it’s hot or cold?

Compared with other animals, our hair does not have as much influence on keeping us warm or cool as you might think.

Read more:
Health Check: why do some people feel the cold more than others?

Essential to our survival

Our brain function and body’s metabolism depend on an optimal temperature of around 37℃. Thermoregulation maintains this body temperature, even when we are exposed to a hotter or colder external temperature.

For non-human mammals, body hair or fur plays a role in protecting against environmental cold or heat.

For instance, a heavy fur coat helps keep a polar bear warm in the cold. But fur also keeps an animal cool in the heat because it can absorb or reflect radiant heat.

Scientists think this is why humans have kept hair on our heads. Our heads are exposed to the most heat from the sun, and scalp hair keeps our heads cool.

Research published just last week suggests curly hair provides the best heat protection. That’s because curly hair’s thicker layer of insulation reduces the amount of sun that reaches the scalp.

Read more:
How humid is it? 3 things to keep you cool in a hot and sticky summer (and 3 things that won’t)

But hair is not the only factor

When humans moved from living in the jungle to the savannah, they needed to walk and run long distances in the sun. This meant they needed a way to handle the increased body temperature that comes with physical activity in the heat.

Sweating is the best way to lose heat and cool down, but the presence of hair reduces sweating and heat loss from the skin.

So humans evolved to lose body hair to be better adapted to exercising in the heat. Fewer hair follicles in our skin made room for more sweat glands. This made our skin optimal for sweat evaporation – and the heat loss that goes with it – to keep us cool.

Read more:
The art of balding: a brief history of hairless men

So what’s best in the heat?

You might think removing body hair or having a bald head is best for sweating and keeping cool when exercising in the heat. However, it’s not that simple.

Removing head hair would increase the amount of sun that reaches your scalp. This means you would need to sweat more during exercise in the sun to reduce an increase in body temperature, but not by much.

In fact, it’s the least hairy
areas of our body that have the highest sweat rates during exercise. These are our forehead, neck, feet and hands.

So the best way to keep cool in the heat is to keep these areas uncovered (but still use sunscreen). Removing body hair will not have a large impact on your overall sweat rate.

How about when it’s cold?

Our body hair and head hair theoretically have a role in keeping us warm, but the effects are minimal.

When we are cold, the muscles of the hair follicles on the body contract to cause the hairs to stand straight. This is an attempt to trap heat close to the body and we see this as goosebumps. However, because our body hair is so thin, this does not have a big effect in keeping us warm.

Our head hair can prevent some heat loss from the head, but again this is limited.

When it’s cold, heat can still be lost through the skin of the head regardless of your hairstyle.

The scalp also has only a very thin layer of fat compared to the rest of our skin, so our head has less insulation to protect against the cold.

A warm hat or beanie is the only way to prevent too much heat lost from the head.

In a nutshell

Our head and body hair, or lack of it, does have a small role in how you maintain your body temperature.

But overall, your hairstyle does not influence whether you feel warm or cool.

Read more:
I’ve Always Wondered: why did mammals go the fur route, rather than developing feathers?

Theresa Larkin 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. Big hair? Bald? How much difference your hair really makes to keep you cool or warm – https://theconversation.com/big-hair-bald-how-much-difference-your-hair-really-makes-to-keep-you-cool-or-warm-201380

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

The slide in Australia’s labour productivity – real gross domestic product per hour worked – has become a real concern. In the past year, labour productivity has fallen 4.6%.

Unless it resumes growing, either wage growth will need to slide to the Reserve Bank’s inflation target of 2-3% on average over time, or the bank will need to keep pushing up rates until it does.

This is because, as Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe pointed out in a speech last week, over time increases in the consumer price index move in line with increases in unit labour costs (wage increases divided by increases in labour productivity).

This means that if there is no increase in labour productivity – and right now there isn’t – the consumer price index will come to reflect only wage increases, and the bank will try to bring both down to 2-3%, “on average, over time”.

Unit labour costs versus consumer price index

In previous decades labour productivity growth has averaged 2.4% and 2.2%, and most recently 1.1%, allowing wages growth of at least one percentage point above the Reserve Bank’s inflation target without accelerating inflation.

But, for the moment, that no longer seems possible.

Average labour productivity growth the slowest in 60 years

Why productivity growth is sliding

Sliding productivity growth is a worldwide phenomenon. An Australian Productivity Commission report earlier this year found only one advanced economy (Israel) in which average annual productivity growth was higher after 2005 than in the decades before it.

One possible reason for the current decline, suggested by the governor, is that during the COVID pandemic, firms concentrated on surviving rather than seeking out more efficient ways to produce.

This is an optimistic suggestion, as it implies productivity growth will rebound.

Another suggestion would be that technology is luring workers into unproductive, time-consuming tasks instead of work.

Many of us spend a good deal of time each day responding to emails (including those from colleagues who insist on annoying “reply all” thank you notes).

A longer-term factor would be that service industries now dominate employment in Australia. Such industries include retail, hospitality and social assistance: areas where there is less room to lift – or even measure – productivity than there was in the industries that used to dominate, such as manufacturing and agriculture.

And while the fall in unemployment to near a 50-year low is good news, it is likely that some of the long-term unemployed now getting jobs are not as productive, at least initially.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to allow unemployed Australians to work more hours before losing benefits would have a similar effect.

Also, the link between productivity growth and wages may run the other way. Falling real wages makes labour cheaper for firms, which might deter them from investing in the equipment needed to boost labour productivity.

As real wages growth fell to long-term lows over the past decade, the share of national income businesses devoted to investment slumped.

Business investment as a share of GDP

In a landmark report in March, the Productivity Commission said it wanted education quality improved and loan eligibility for tertiary students expanded.

And it wanted better-targeted skilled migration and award wages adjusted more fairly and efficiently.

It said the few remaining tariffs on imported goods should be removed and the government’s safeguards mechanism made the primary means of transitioning to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

It also wanted tax reform, “towards less distortive, more efficient approaches”.

Tax and the Stage 3 cuts in the frame

Views differ on how to reform taxes. We argue reform should be guided by the principle that we should increase taxes on things we want to discourage (such as greenhouse gas emissions and smoking) and lower them on things we want to encourage (such as work and innovation).

Other purely revenue-raising taxes would be ones that did not distort decisions, such as taxes on land (which if anything would cause land to be used more efficiently) and taxes on super-profits of resource companies (which would not dissuade businesses from extraction, because it would remain profitable).

Any cuts in income tax rates should focus on encouraging the marginal workers who are actually likely to be persuaded to work more hours. These are generally low and middle earners, and are often mothers considering returning to work.

On fairness grounds, taxes should be directed towards those who could best pay.

Each of these criteria builds a case for redesigning the so-called Stage 3 tax cuts due to come into effect next year.

Not every Productivity Commission suggestion in the nine-volume report, or other suggestions, will be worth taking on board. But that’s no reason not to discuss them. None will get quick results, but that makes starting all the more urgent.

Read more:
Don’t blame workers for falling productivity – we’re not the ones holding it back

John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist and forecaster at the Reserve Bank and Treasury.

Craig Applegate used to work for the Commonwealth Treasury many years ago and is an inactive member of the Labor party. Craig is also the University of Canberra branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union but our opinions expressed in this article are entirely personal in nature and in no way reflect the views or policies of the NTEU and its membership.

– ref. We know how to boost productivity and lift wages – but it will take time and much tougher tax reform – https://theconversation.com/we-know-how-to-boost-productivity-and-lift-wages-but-it-will-take-time-and-much-tougher-tax-reform-207609

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Gill, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Wollongong

Tree-changers opting for a rural lifestyle can get a bad rap for not managing their properties well. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted thousands more city-based Australians to buy property in the regions. So will this lead to more absentee neighbours who, in the eyes of some, don’t know what they’re doing?

If you buy rural land, you are buying into a community. You’re also expected to take on certain responsibilities, such as managing weeds on the property. This helps both the environment and your neighbours.

Tensions about weeds can be especially high in areas with many tree-changers. Farmers, for example, may think new arrivals don’t care about how weeds affect agriculture, creating an “us and them” mentality. But are these perceptions warranted?

Our new paper examined this question. We found almost everyone, including absentee landowners, were concerned about weeds and spent a lot of time managing them. But their motivations for doing so were different. These insights can help communities deal with the threat of invasive plants.

Tree-changers: friend or foe?

An estimated 22-45% of landowners in Australia are absentee. They might be corporations, Indigenous groups or farmers leasing their land to others. They can also be tree-changers who are generally more interested in rural lifestyles and “getting into nature” than farming the land. This group may visit their properties only on weekends or for holidays.

Of all absentee landowners, tree-changers can readily attract complaints because of the significant changes they bring to the look and culture of rural areas. They often occupy former farmland and may cease farming, engage in conservation work, build new houses or just ride motorbikes all weekend.

Absentee landholders can own vast swathes of land. So the way they manage their properties, including managing weeds, can have big consequences.

Weeds can cause economic and environmental harm. They may lower crop productivity and damage pastures. They can also out-compete native vegetation and disrupt ecosystems.

Weed control methods include herbicides, intensive grazing with goats, or removal by hand or with machinery.

Government agencies say absentee landholders can be hard to contact and lack knowledge about weeds. They can also be time-poor and absent at times when weed spraying or removal is most effective.

But weed control requires all landowners to pull their weight. People can feel their efforts are wasted if neighbours do little.

In places such as the Southern Tablelands in New South Wales, absentee landholders have been blamed for enabling the spread of a noxious weed known as serrated tussock. The species damages pastures and is difficult for stock to digest.

Read more:
A botanical detective story: shedding light on the journey out of Africa for one of Australia’s worst weeds

The evidence is mixed

So what does the research say on the matter? One literature review in the United States found absentee owners, as compared with resident owners, were less likely to actively manage their land and had less scientific knowledge.

But another US study did not identify residential status as a factor in weed management.

In Australia, research tends to note absentee owners as an issue for weed management. One small study, however, found absentee landholders in Central West NSW were engaged, interested in collaboration on weed management, and reasonably knowledgeable.

Another study found length of ownership was a greater influence on land management than residential status.

Our research aimed to better understand whether absentee land ownership in Australia makes a difference to how weeds were managed.

Our results

Our research focused on the Shoalhaven and Bega Valley in southeastern NSW. These regions have experienced an influx of tree-changers in recent decades. They include towns such as Bega, Bowral, Candelo, Berry, Kangaroo Valley and Nowra.

We surveyed 439 landowners about their behaviours and attitudes toward weeds and their management. We then compared the responses of residential owners (88% of respondents) and absentee landowners (12%). We excluded responses from farmers and focused on “lifestylers”, which are themselves a significant group.

Both groups said weeds negatively affected them due to how they looked and the environmental damage they caused. Similar proportions of each group were trying to eradicate or control weeds.

Almost everyone was concerned about weeds. Both groups said weed management was a priority and said being a good neighbour was a primary motivation for taking action.

An overwhelming number of people in both groups managed weeds (and spent one to five hours per week doing so). One of the few significant differences between the groups was that residential landowners prioritised weeds that damaged agriculture, while absentee landowners prioritised weeds that threatened the environment.

This shows how values and interests, rather than indifference, shapes attitudes to weed management.

Read more:
Trees can be weeds too – here’s why that’s a problem

Look beyond where people live

Weed management is determined by our varying social relationships with the land. This must be recognised in both research and policy.

Landowners are diverse and own land for a variety of reasons. Our approach to weed management should take account of these differences. Absenteeism is just one part of the puzzle – and perhaps not as important as we might think.

More research is needed. This should involve in-depth case studies to tease out the issues underpinning community tensions about weed management and identify common ground. Then, we can develop steps towards more effective weed management across fence lines.

Nicholas Gill receives funding from the NSW Government via the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Research Centre and has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Planning and Environment

Laurie Chisholm has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the NCRIS Australian National Data Service.

Anna Lewis 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. Are tree-changers bad at managing their rural properties? A new study wades into the weeds to find the answer – https://theconversation.com/are-tree-changers-bad-at-managing-their-rural-properties-a-new-study-wades-into-the-weeds-to-find-the-answer-206410

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Te Kahuratai Moko-Painting, Co-Director – Centre for Pūtaiao, University of Auckland

We are witnessing a resurgence of Indigenous knowledge and growing acknowledgement of its scientific value worldwide.

In Aotearoa, there’s been some progress, including the introduction of a public holiday to mark Matariki, the beginning of a new year in maramataka – the Māori calendar based on the phases of the Moon, the movement of stars and the timing of ecological changes.

But progress has not been straightforward, with some scientists publicly questioning the scientific value of mātauranga.

At the same time, Māori scientists have drawn on and advanced mātauranga and continue to make space for te reo, tikanga and honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in research.

Our recent publication explores pūtaiao – a way of conducting research grounded in kaupapa Māori.

In education, pūtaiao is often simplified to mean science taught in Māori-medium schools that includes mātauranga, or science taught in te reo more broadly. But science based on kaupapa Māori is generally by Māori, for Māori and with Māori.

Our research extends kaupapa Māori and the important work of pūtaiao in schools into tertiary scientific research. We envision pūtaiao as a way of doing science that is led by Māori and firmly positioned in te ao Māori (including mātauranga, te reo and tikanga).

Read more:
Indigenous knowledge offers solutions, but its use must be based on meaningful collaboration with Indigenous communities

Pūtaiao as decolonising science

Pūtaiao privileges Māori ways of knowing, being and doing. It is a political speaking back for the inclusion of te ao Māori – mātauranga, te reo, tikanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi – in science.

Conducting research this way is not new. Many Māori scientists have drawn on mātauranga and kaupapa Māori in their research for decades. Our conceptualisation of pūtaiao is an affirmation of the work of Māori scientists and a pathway for redefining and transforming scientific research for future generations.

Decolonising science is at the heart of pūtaiao. It challenges and critiques the academy and disciplines of Western science. Decolonising science requires a focus on histories, structures and institutions that act as barriers to mātauranga, te reo and tikanga.

Read more:
Racism, exclusion and tokenism: how Māori and Pacific science graduates are still marginalised at university

We argue that decolonising science is a necessary step before we can Indigenise science.

Like mātauranga, pūtaiao is embedded in place and in the people of those places. It centres, prioritises and affirms Māori identity in the context of scientific research and science identity.

The importance of the researcher in pūtaiao

How we identify as Māori – tangata whenua or rāwaho (people not related to the hapū or whānau), ahi kā (people who keep the home fires burning) or ahi mātaotao (people who may have been disconnected to the land through lack of occupation over generations) – fundamentally changes how we interact with people and place through research.

To practise pūtaiao effectively, researchers are required to understand who they are and how that informs the research questions asked, the research relationships formed, the location of the research and the way research is conducted.

Kaupapa Māori, as articulated by distinguished education scholar Graham Hingangaroa Smith, requires two approaches to decolonisation: structuralist and culturalist.

Read more:
Building bridges between scientific and Indigenous knowledge

Culturalist approaches centre te reo, mātauranga and tikanga. The groundbreaking work led by professor of marine science and aquaculture Kura Paul-Burke, using mātauranga to enhance shellfish restoration, is an excellent example of a culturalist approach to decolonising science.

A structuralist approach means paying attention to and dismantling the structures within science which continue to exclude Māori knowledge and people. It encourages us to think about the colonial roots of science and how science has been used to justify colonial violence and oppression of Māori.

Captain Cook’s “scientific voyage” to Aotearoa is a great example of how colonisation occurred under the guise of science.

Challenging the status quo

Pūtaiao reframes the conversation around the inclusion of mātauranga Māori in science. It considers the relationship between te ao Māori, the researcher and science to imagine how to decolonise, Indigenise and transform science.

We understand science not simply as scientific knowledge but as a knowledge system that spans research, education, academia, scientific practice and publications, as well as the evaluation and funding and access to science, its legitimacy and its relationship to policy and government.

There has been much research on Māori experiences within the science system, including the cultural double shift when Māori scientist are expected to lift their colleagues’ understanding, racism and the difficulties of inclusion. A lone Māori scientist is often tasked with upskilling their colleagues, representing Māori on committees and leading cultural practices in addition to standard loads of supervising, teaching and research.

To challenge the status quo, we explored different ways of creating ecosystems or “flourishing forests” of Māori scientists to advance pūtaiao. This includes creating networks of Māori staff in science by establishing research centres such as Te Pūtahi o Pūtaiao and the Centre of Indigenous Science.

It also means creating research projects that move beyond the siloed disciplines within the science system. In this way, pūtaiao enables Māori to see themselves and be seen within science.

Pūtaiao offers a practical foundation, connecting Māori science leaders to transform science. Whether this happens through new university courses, academic programmes, research centres, institutions or regional and community hubs remains to be seen.

It is certain, however, that pūtaiao, conceptualised as kaupapa Māori science, offers many pathways for Māori scientists to continue to draw on and advance more than mātauranga to decolonise and, ultimately, redefine science into the future.

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. Indigenous knowledge is increasingly valued, but to fully respect it we need to decolonise science – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-knowledge-is-increasingly-valued-but-to-fully-respect-it-we-need-to-decolonise-science-heres-how-205097

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura McKemmish, Lecturer, UNSW Sydney

The search for habitable conditions beyond Earth has just become more interesting with the discovery of biologically available phosphorus from one of Saturn’s moons. Phosphorus is the most elusive of the six crucial elements needed for life.

In research published today in Nature, data from the Cassini spacecraft were used to find phosphorus compounds called phosphates in Saturn’s E ring – one of the fainter outer rings of the planet.

These compounds likely came from the ice volcano (cryovolcano) plumes from the sub-surface liquid water ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

A famous moon

Enceladus seemed like a typical moon of Saturn until the Cassini spacecraft came to take a closer look. Arriving at Saturn in 2005, Cassini has been making discovery after discovery that have catapulted Enceladus to one of the top places to look for life beyond Earth.

In particular, we learned Enceladus has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface, heated by gravitational tidal forcing – the kind of forcing that produces ocean tides on Earth.

This environment is tantalisingly similar to the hydrothermal vents thought by some to be the place where life may have originated on Earth. Such vents certainly host life on Earth today.

Most life on Earth ultimately relies on photosynthesis – generating energy from sunlight. Meanwhile, the ultimate energy source for any life on Enceladus would be the gravity of Saturn producing tides far stronger than the Moon produces on Earth, allowing a liquid water ocean despite the very cold -200℃ ice crust surface.

Easy sampling

The Enceladus plumes have been called a “gimme” for efforts to sample the oceans of alien worlds. One wouldn’t need to land to collect a sample, nor to then launch to return it for analysis.

An obvious approach to sampling an ice volcano is to simply fly through it. However, this is difficult because the speed at which a space probe would encounter the plume would likely kill most organics.

Instead, the easiest approach is to examine the accumulation of ejected material from Enceladus in Saturn’s E ring, which is what the team did in this latest study.

Using this approach, researchers have previously discovered complex organic molecules coming from Enceladus. These findings confirmed that the watery environment on Enceladus supports complex chemistry involving nitrogen and oxygen.

However, until now we didn’t know about the availability of phosphorus on Enceladus; in many environments this element is locked in rocks.

A crucial element

The discovery of phosphates in Saturn’s E ring suggests phosphates could be available within the oceans of Enceladus at a concentration 100 times higher than in Earth’s oceans.

Phosphorus is crucial for life as we know it, partly because it is a key building block of DNA and RNA, molecules essential to all life on Earth. Phosphate is also vital for a number of other metabolic processes in all life.

Many of the essential components necessary for the emergence of life as we know it have thus been discovered on Enceladus. This puts it at or near the top of lists of places to search for life beyond Earth in our Solar System.

Read more:
Humans are still hunting for aliens. Here’s how astronomers are looking for life beyond Earth

Nevertheless, this discovery is only the start of the story. For phosphate to form bonds with carbon – this type of bond is found in the backbone of DNA – we need specialised chemistry that’s very dependent on the environment.

We’ll need further study of the chemistry in and under the crust of Enceladus. But a future detection of organic phosphate compounds would be particularly interesting for the potential for life in the moon’s oceans.

No ‘smoking gun’

This research is reminiscent of the reported detection of phosphine on Venus in September 2020, which was cast into doubt by later evidence.

However, the detection method is quite different. On Venus the presence of phosphine was proposed by observing the atmosphere from Earth. The phosphates in this study were detected using an instrument orbiting Saturn called a mass spectrometer, which measured the mass of individual compounds found in the ice of the E ring.

To verify the analysis, the authors created a water solution on Earth very similar to the predicted Enceladus ocean.

That said, both detection methods carry a risk of misidentification, where a different molecule that’s not phosphine is actually responsible for the result.

It would be great to have a “smoking gun” for life beyond Earth, but realistically it will instead be a trickle of evidence that grows as we discover more about these environments.

The study published today is one more piece of evidence supporting the fact that Enceladus may be a great location in our search for extraterrestrial life.

Acknowledgements: We thank Prof Steve Benner from The Foundation For Applied Molecular Evolution for his insight and contributions to this article.

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. For the first time, astronomers have found life-supporting molecules called phosphates on Enceladus – https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-astronomers-have-found-life-supporting-molecules-called-phosphates-on-enceladus-207714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Bowman, Business Manager, Centre for Brain, Mind and Markets, The University of Melbourne

Financial services workers, medical students and others working in highly competitive environments are using so-called “smart drugs” to enhance cognitive performance.

Do they actually work? Some of these drugs, such as methylphenidate (aka Ritalin) and dextroamphetamine, have been used successfully as part of treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but less is known about their effect on people who do not have ADHD.

Users may report a subjective feeling of cognitive enhancement, but it has been less clear whether this corresponds to objective improvements in performance.

In a new study, we examined the effect of three common “smart drugs” on cognitive performance, and our results suggest the drugs are not so smart after all. Users expended more cognitive effort and showed more frantic activity, but in general the drugs made their output worse.

Complex problems

Our study looked at methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine and modafinil. The main effect of these drugs is to increase the amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. These drugs are known for producing changes in attention, motivation, and wakefulness.

These medications have proved to be a safe and effective part of ADHD treatment. However, previous studies examining the effects of these drugs on specific cognitive tasks in people without ADHD have yielded very mixed results.

Read more:
The rise of cognitive enhancers is a mass social experiment

These earlier studies into the cognitive effects of these kinds of stimulant drugs looked at simple tasks, such as memorising numbers or planning simple spatial moves.

However, modern competitive workplaces require very complex and creative integration of many different kinds of cognitive tasks. As researchers who study how people make decisions and solve complex problems, we wanted to know how these drugs might affect more complicated decisions.

The knapsack problem

For our study, we recruited 40 people aged between 18 and 35 who did not have ADHD, and invited them to take part in four testing sessions over four weeks.

At each session the participant would receive either a placebo, methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine or modafinil. The study was double-blinded, so neither the participant nor the researcher knew which drug was being given during a session.

The sessions were also balanced using a “Latin square” design, which varies the sequence of which drugs were given at which session across the whole group of participants.

After receiving the drug (or placebo), participants were given tasks to perform. The main one was a complex optimisation task called the knapsack problem, which is easy to explain but can be much more difficult to solve.

In the task, participants faced a computer game which asked them to imagine they have a bag or knapsack that can hold a certain amount of weight. Next, the game presented ten or 12 different items, each of which had a weight and a dollar value.

The task was to choose items to put in the bag, with the goal of maximising the value of the bag’s contents without going over the weight limit.

Participants were given up to four minutes to try different combinations of items and then submit their selection.

Participants had to complete eight different instances of this kind of problem, at five different levels of difficulty, each presented twice each.

The knapsack problem is an example of optimising a resource (dollar value) under a constraint (weight limit). Problems like this are found everywhere in the real world, like when you do your weekly grocery shopping.

This kind of problem has also been of great interest to computer scientists attempting to develop efficient algorithms to solve them. However, it is not obvious how humans approach these kinds of complex tasks.

More effort, worse results

Overall, after taking the drugs participants took much longer to complete the problems. They spent significantly more time and tried significantly more combinations of items before submitting their selections.

However, when we looked at how close the value of their selections were to the best possible values, we found they did less well. And on average they found the optimal combination less often.

So drug-influenced participants were expending a lot more effort in terms of time and combinations, but their actual productivity suffered significantly. The extra activity did not improve their final performance.

Read more:
Mind-bending drugs and devices: can they make us smarter?

Additionally, when we looked at individual performance, we found those who did above average in their placebo session were much more likely to get worse when they took the drugs than people who performed more poorly with placebo.

What does this suggest about taking “smart drugs” to enhance performance?

People without ADHD – especially people who are already high-performing – who take these drugs to try to gain an edge in their workplace or studies may experience unintended consequences. Cognition is a complex thing, and there are no shortcuts to improving it.

Elizabeth Bowman 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. ‘Smart drugs’ make you worse at solving complex problems, new study finds – https://theconversation.com/smart-drugs-make-you-worse-at-solving-complex-problems-new-study-finds-207711

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Martin, Senior Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

The Albanese government came to office promising action on housing. Its A$10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is now stuck in the Senate, with the Greens demanding more ambitious funding and reforms. The government is also working on its promised National Housing and Homelessness Plan.

In research published today by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), we make the case for a housing and homelessness strategy to be an ambitious national project. Its central mission should be to ensure everyone has adequate housing.

We outline the goals, scope and institutions the strategy needs to succeed. The housing numbers it should deliver to meet demand – including 950,000 social and affordable rental dwellings by 2041 – dwarf current government targets.

Our report draws on new thinking about the need for “mission-oriented” governments to tackle complex problems, as well as policy-making approaches here and overseas.

Why a strategy?

Strategies help to clarify the purpose of action for everyone. They bring together information and expertise that inform and stimulate public discussion. They help define priorities.

This is important for housing and homelessness problems because they are complex. They cross over different policy areas and levels of government. They have diverse causes and broad effects.

By the same token, solving these problems can produce diverse benefits.

The goal of “adequate housing for everyone” – the first target of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 11 – states the challenge clearly.

To meet that challenge, it is useful to think of governments and stakeholders being engaged in a mission that requires government to lead the deliberate shaping of markets and direction of economic activity. Fixing market failures and filling unprofitable gaps in the market isn’t enough.

It’s also useful to think about the special status of governments in financial systems. The Australian government is the issuer and guarantor of money. It can use this status to finance missions for the public good.

For example, for two years of the COVID-19 emergency, the Reserve Bank of Australia bought bonds issued by federal, state and territory governments totalling $5 billion per week. That’s equivalent to one Housing Australia Future Fund every fortnight.

Fragmented approach causes problems

Because Australia is a federation, the federal government must work with state and territory governments to implement policies. Most intergovernmental activity has involved housing and homelessness conceived of as welfare issues.

Responsibility for housing and homelessness policy is divided. The National Housing and Homelessness Agreement guides policy, but is clearly deficient. Development of other policy levers, such as Commonwealth Rent Assistance, has languished.

The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) finances and supports efforts to increase the supply of housing, particularly affordable housing. The NHFIC is becoming increasingly important as its functions expand. It’s getting a new name, Housing Australia, to match its remit.

The financial regulators, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA), are arguably conducting housing policy of their own.

Housing policy responsibilities at the state and territory level are similarly fragmented.

Lessons from other national strategies

We examined Canada’s National Housing Strategy. Its rights-based approach, statutory basis and accountability agencies are important innovations.

However, the Canadian strategy is narrowly focused on affordable rental housing. Key issues of tax and finance are beyond its scope. Looking to European housing policy leaders, such as Austria and Finland, we can see the value of broader national strategies and dedicated housing agencies.

We can also learn from other national approaches to policy in Australia, such as Closing the Gap and Australia’s Disability Strategy.

The first lesson is that making a strategy is itself a strategic exercise. Reformers need to develop the capacity to take on and influence established institutions, vested interests and entrenched ways of thinking.

A dedicated lead agency may be needed to coordinate strategy development and implementation. Accountability is crucial. By this we mean more than accounting for the spending of public money. It is also about demonstrating commitment to the reform process and the people it serves.

What should the strategy’s goals be?

The strategy should have a clear mission: everyone in Australia has adequate housing.

The strategy should be comprehensive, with a set of secondary missions:

• homelessness is prevented and ended

• social housing meets needs and drives wider housing system improvement

• the system offers more genuine choice – including between ownership and renting

• housing quality is improved

• housing supply is improved

• housing affordability is improved

• the housing system’s contribution to wider economic performance is improved.

And what policy areas are covered?

The diagram below shows the strategy’s scope and stages. It begins with the familiar core policy areas covered by the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (bottom left). As the scope of the strategy expands (up and to the right), the intensity of housing policy leadership varies accordingly.

Social housing and homelessness are core policy areas for the strategy. To meet current and future need, it should aim to add 950,000 social and affordable rental housing dwellings by 2041. That’s about 50,000 new dwellings a year – a lot more than the 8,000 a year over five years that the Albanese government has promised so far.

The most cost-effective way to finance this growth is a mix of NHFIC bonds and capital grants from government. State and territory governments should make plans to regularly reassess need and delivery.

Housing assistance, residential tenancies law and building quality should be new core policy areas. The National Cabinet’s recent decision to develop a tenancy law reform agenda to strengthen tenants’ rights is a welcome step.

Housing-related taxation, housing finance and planning and development regimes should be aligned with Australia’s housing and homelessness missions.

Existing national strategies for First Nations and people with disability need strengthening on housing and homelessness as a matter of priority.

The strategy should be laid down in law. The legislation should enshrine the right to adequate housing, nominate Housing Australia as the lead agency, and establish regulatory and accountability agencies.

The author acknowledges his report co-authors, Associate Professor Julie Lawson, Honorary Professor Vivienne Milligan, Chris Hartley, Professor Hal Pawson and Professor Jago Dodson.

Chris Martin receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and the Australian Research Council (ARC).

– ref. To deliver enough affordable housing and end homelessness, what must a national strategy do? – https://theconversation.com/to-deliver-enough-affordable-housing-and-end-homelessness-what-must-a-national-strategy-do-207120

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dean Aszkielowicz, Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Murdoch University

It could be years before Ben Roberts-Smith and others are stripped of military awards for their service in Afghanistan and face Australian criminal court on war crimes charges, if in fact that ever happens.

Investigations of war crimes are difficult and time-consuming. In the meantime, calls for the Defence Department to continue to address the allegations against Australian Defence Force personnel have grown louder.

In the case of Roberts-Smith, the investigation is now being undertaken by a joint taskforce from the Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police, rather than the AFP on its own. The decision to move the investigation resulted from issues with how evidence that could be used in a criminal case was collected in the Brereton inquiry. Such problems with evidence are difficult for investigation teams and courts that are not specifically designed to deal with war crimes.

Debate has also arisen in Australia over whether commanders as well as direct perpetrators ought to be held responsible for war crimes, and what the leadership failings in Afghanistan were. Such debates are relevant to the issue of individual and unit awards and honours.

Australia’s obligations under the Rome Statute

The public debate – and even expert opinion – has tended to overlook the fact that Australia’s response to the alleged war crimes in Afghanistan is governed primarily by its international obligations. These obligations outweigh any views about war crimes that may be held within the defence community or the general public.

Administrative measures undertaken by Defence cannot substitute for war crimes prosecutions. Australia is a full party to the 1998 Rome Statute, which is the cornerstone of international war crimes law and is reflected in Australia’s own domestic law covering war crimes.

Read more:
Why investigating potential war crimes in Afghanistan just became much harder – and could take years

The Rome Statute requires that Australia fully investigate and punish war crimes committed by its forces, at all ranks. Australia has conducted war crimes trials of enemy combatants in the past, in which it has found direct perpetrators, their local commanders and their senior officers guilty of war crimes and has punished them accordingly.

To fail to comprehensively prosecute alleged war crimes now, because the defendants would be Australian, is a morally and politically untenable position. Comprehensive trials also offer the only path to the public understanding where culpability for war crimes sits along the military chain of command.

Removing medals and citations

The prompt removal of medals and citations, however, would provide Defence with an opportunity to condemn war crimes immediately, rather than waiting until formal trials can be held.

Defence honours and awards in Australia are awarded through an administrative process. Though awards have been revoked in the past for dishonourable conduct, it remains an unusual step. The process of conferring or revoking a high-level award needs the support of the government.

The Australian Defence Force has been criticised for moving too slowly to address public concerns over its record in Afghanistan. However, some attempts have been made.

In the aftermath of the Brereton Report, Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell announced the Special Operations Task Group would be stripped of a Meritorious Unit Citation for conduct in Afghanistan. The announcement caused a media and political uproar, and then Prime Minister Scott Morrison reversed the decision.

It has since emerged that at least three senior officers, including Campbell, have attempted to return their own medals, awarded for distinguished command and leadership in action. In all three cases, the Coalition government denied this request.

Campbell has reportedly asked a group of former commanding officers to return their medals. In Senate Estimates, he stated such a move would represent a step towards accountability for the command failures in the Afghanistan operation.

The Labor government has appeared more willing for medals and awards to be handed back or stripped than its Coalition predecessor was.

The problems that Campbell has encountered in attempting to revoke honours, and in trying to hand his own back, highlight the fact that commendations have both military and political significance – which makes any decision to revoke honours particularly difficult.

Will the minister strip Roberts-Smith of his VC?

Ben Roberts-Smith is the public figurehead of Australia’s war crimes saga, so it is no surprise questions have been raised over whether he ought to keep his Victoria Cross. He was awarded the VC for an earlier action that is not connected with allegations of war crimes against him.

No Australian has ever had a VC revoked.

While a number of VCs were revoked in the United Kingdom, mostly during the 19th century, revocation has since been the subject of high-level debate.

In the defamation case, a civil court found on the balance of probabilities that Roberts-Smith had committed war crimes, but these actions do not technically erode the validity of his VC. At the same time, his earlier bravery did not protect him from allegations of war crimes, and there remains a moral and legal obligation for him to face criminal justice.

Read more:
Australian Defence Force must ensure the findings against Ben Roberts-Smith are not the end of the story

At face value, Roberts-Smith and his VC seem to be a different case – the medal was awarded to one soldier, for one action. To some, however, the medal seems also to mark out the recipient as a hero, or at least as a person of superior character. In this light, calls for the VC to be revoked in the wake of the defamation case are understandable.

As Australians reckon with this new and dark chapter of the country’s military history, the public will continue to ask who is most to blame for alleged war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan, until the question is comprehensively examined in the criminal court.

Dean Aszkielowicz has previously received funding from the Army Research Scheme.

Paul Taucher 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. Stripping medals from soldiers is murky territory, and must not distract from investigating alleged war crimes – https://theconversation.com/stripping-medals-from-soldiers-is-murky-territory-and-must-not-distract-from-investigating-alleged-war-crimes-207615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Pate, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Technology Sydney

Have you ever wondered why your back aches when you’re down with the flu or a cold? Or COVID?

This discomfort, common during many illnesses, is not just a random symptom. It’s a result of complex interactions between your immune system and your brain called the “neuroimmune synapse”.

A fascinating and yet-to-be-understood consequence of this conversation between the immune and brain systems during sickness is that it is particularly noticeable in the lower back. This is thought to be one of the body’s most sensitive regions to neuroimmune threats.

Read more:
Turning down the volume of pain – how to retrain your brain when you get sensitised

Immunology basics

Our immune system is a double-edged sword. Yes, it fights off infections for us – but it also makes us acutely aware of the job it is doing.

When our body detects an infection, our immune system releases molecules including signalling proteins called cytokines. These proteins coordinate our immune system to fight off the infection and talk to our brain and spinal cord to change our behaviour and physiology.

This can result in symptoms like fatigue, loss of appetite, fever and increased sensitivity to pain. Classically, we think of this as a beneficial behavioural change to help us conserve energy to fight off the infection. It’s why we often feel the need to rest and withdraw from our usual activities when we’re sick – and also why we are grumpier than usual.

Invisibly small changes

Part of this self-protective response is a change in how we perceive threats, including sensory stimuli.

When we are sick, touch can become painful and muscles can ache. Many changes in behaviour and sensory systems are believed to have origins at the nanoscale. When molecular changes occur in part of the brain linked to cognition or mood, we think and feel differently. If these neuroimmune synapse changes happen in the sensory processing regions of the brain and spinal cord, we feel more pain.

Such sensory changes, known as allodynia and hyperalgesia, can lead to heightened pain sensitivity, even in areas not directly affected by the infection – such as the lower back.

Immune memories

This immune response happens with a range of bacterial infections and viruses like COVID or the flu. In fact, the sick feeling we sometimes get after a vaccination is the good work our immune system is doing to contribute to a protective immune memory.

Some of that immune-cellular conversation also alerts our brains that we are sick, or makes us think we are.

After some viral infections, the sick feeling persists longer than the virus. We are seeing a long-term response to COVID in some people, termed long COVID.

Women, who generally have a stronger immune response than men, may be more likely to experience pain symptoms. Their heightened immune response (while beneficial in resisting infections) also predisposes women to a higher risk of inflammatory conditions like autoimmune diseases.

Read more:
You can’t get influenza from a flu shot – here’s how it works

When to worry and what to do

If the pain is severe, persistent, or accompanied by other concerning symptoms, seek medical attention. Mild to moderate pain is a common symptom during illness and we often notice this in the lower back. The good news is it usually subsides as the infection clears and the sickness resolves.

While treating the underlying infection is crucial, there are also ways to dial down sickness-induced neuroimmune pain.

Maintaining a diverse microbiome (the collection of microorganisms living in and on your body) by eating well and getting outside can help. Getting quality sleep, staying hydrated and minimising inflammation helps too.

Amazingly, there is research suggesting your grandmother’s traditional chicken broth recipe decreases the immune signals at the neuroimmune synapse.

Scientists are also showing mindfulness meditation, cold water therapy and controlled breathing can drive profound cellular and molecular changes to help activate bodily systems like the autonomic nervous system and alter the immune response. These practices might not only help manage pain but also add an anti-inflammatory component to the immune response, reducing the severity and duration of sickness.

Heat treatment (with a pack or hot water bottle) might provide some relief due to increased circulation. Over-the-counter pain relief maybe also be helpful but seek advice if you are taking other medications.

Read more:
Man flu is real, but women get more autoimmune diseases and allergies

All in the mind?

Is this all mind over matter? A little of yes and a lot of no.

The little of yes comes from research supporting the idea that if you expect your breathing, meditation and cold bath therapy to work, it may well make a difference at the cellular and molecular level.

But by understanding the mechanisms of back pain during illness and by using some simple strategies, there is hope to manage this pain effectively. Always remember to seek medical help if your symptoms are severe or persist longer than expected. Your health and comfort are paramount.

Joshua W Pate is the author of the pain science children’s book series titled Zoe and Zak’s Pain Hacks.

Mark Hutchinson is president of Science and Technology Australia and the research laboratory he leads is supported by the Australian Research Council, USDA, AFOSR, Lateral Pharma, Alyra Biotech, Regeneus, DMTC, and Defence Science Technology Group. He is a scientific advisor to Alyra Biotech and has ministerial appointments on the ARC CEO Advisory Committee and ARC legislative review. He has previously received payments for teaching from the NoiGroup.

– ref. Why does my back get so sore when I’m sick? The connection between immunity and pain – https://theconversation.com/why-does-my-back-get-so-sore-when-im-sick-the-connection-between-immunity-and-pain-207222

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Fitts, ARC DECRA Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Please be advised this article contains details of family violence.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 69 times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be hospitalised with head injuries due to assaults.

But some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women don’t access health care and support services after head injuries from family violence. Our research, published this week, explored some of the reasons why – and how these barriers can be overcome.

We found fear of child removal, poverty, coercive control and low awareness of traumatic brain injury related to family violence can all impact on when and how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women access health care and support services.

Read more:
First Nations women are 69 times more likely to have a head injury after being assaulted. We show how hard it is to get help

What is traumatic brain injury?

Traumatic brain injury is caused by a blow, jolt or bump to the head. Non-fatal strangulation can also lead to brain injury as the brain is deprived of oxygen.

Traumatic brain injuries vary from mild to severe, and can cause a range of behavioural, emotional, physical and psychological symptoms, including:

• poor memory
• dizziness
• headaches
• lack of concentration
• slowness to process information or make decisions
• emotional dysregulation, such as inability to control anger
• anxiety and depression
• lack of insight, where the person with the injury does not realise the effect of their injury.

The experience of brain injury is unique to each person.

The degree of recovery is largely determined by the nature and extent of the injury as well as the level of engagement in rehabilitation. For moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, recovery is most rapid in the first six months after the injury.

Even mild traumatic brain injury can have long-term impacts on wellbeing, parenting capacity, relationships and day-to-day living.

Recovery can be maximised by providing education about the short- and long-term management of symptoms as well as the involvement of family in the rehabilitation and recovery phase.

Listening to First Nations women

To find out why Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women don’t always access services, we completed interviews and focus discussion groups with 28 women and 90 service provider professionals in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Our study focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, as their voices are often silenced when it comes to women’s safety.

Read more:
‘She was the most important person to us’ – R. Rubuntja’s story shows society is still failing First Nations women

Fear of child removal

In results similar to those from family violence studies, women told us they avoided health care or minimised the amount of information they shared with health professionals to reduce the risk of contact with child protection authorities. One woman told us:

We won’t report when there is domestic violence. If there is any words that come from the woman that [her] children were there, children are considered at risk and so they are taken.

Some women told us their children had been removed following reporting and seeking support following family violence.

Risks of further violence

Sometimes women were prevented from accessing health care by manipulation and coercive control. This included partners preventing them accessing a working phone or transport.

One service provider said:

A lot of users of violence I guess employ such a level of control and coercion that sometimes women are prevented from seeking medical treatment, or attempts to seek medical treatment, or disclose violence, including assaults to the head. It might actually make the situation worse.

Women prioritise competing demands

Community-based service providers recognised the strength and resilience of women in continuing their roles caring for children and other family members after experiencing family violence.

Service providers told us their clients were often also managing financial and housing worries. One service provider told us:

When a woman arrives here, the most important thing is rest, food, and finding that space to just sit with what’s happened, and then medical attention. I don’t always hear women prioritising medical attention in the first instance. I think that rest definitely, and even hunger, on a real, basic survival level.

Read more:
Explainer: what is traumatic brain injury?

Awareness of brain injury

Community members and leaders we spoke to had low levels of awareness, knowledge and recognition of the long-term damage violence can have on the brain. One community member said:

We didn’t know about this brain injury.

Another participant said:

I didn’t go to the hospital. I had a bit of [a] headache, didn’t think it was serious enough to [go] and get checked, it [headache] went away. It happened many times. One time I black out, wasn’t aware of the lasting harm that can cause.

So what are the solutions?

There are a range of opportunities to address several of these barriers.

First, service providers (including within child protection systems) need to ensure women receive compassionate care, referrals and links to support services for traumatic brain injury in a meaningful, timely and appropriate way.

There are strong calls to have community-controlled organisations deliver child protection services – with many potential benefits to families and communities.

We also need to resource communities to design, implement and evaluate traumatic brain injury prevention and early intervention solutions.

Community-wide and school-based education were among some of the recommendations from community members to help people recognise the signs of traumatic brain injury and the importance of seeking help.

Other strategies to improve access to services include placing supports such as social workers outside of acute, hospital settings – for example, in GP clinics and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services.

Finally, front-line staff and university students need high-quality training and education about traumatic brain injury and family violence, how it presents in parental behaviour, case management and referral pathways.

Any practical solutions must be implemented through local partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to ensure the measures are community-led, culturally safe and provide an overall benefit, without doing further harm.

Read more:
New research reveals harrowing stories of murdered Indigenous women and the failure of police to act

If this article raises issues for you or someone you know, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or 13YARN (13 92 76). In an emergency, call 000.

Jody Barney is a co-author on the journal paper on which this article is based. The authors thank the project team, advisory group and participants who shared their time and knowledge.

Michelle Fitts receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jennifer Cullen receives funding from the Department of Social Services and the NDIS. She is the CEO of Synapse Australia.

– ref. First Nations women don’t always access health care after head injuries from family violence. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/first-nations-women-dont-always-access-health-care-after-head-injuries-from-family-violence-heres-why-206084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics in the Center for Human Values, Princeton University

I wasn’t aware of climate change until the 1980s — hardly anyone was — and even when we recognised the dire threat that burning fossil fuels posed, it took time for the role of animal production in warming the planet to be understood.

Today, though, the fact that eating plants will reduce your greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most important and influential reasons for cutting down on animal products and, for those willing to go all the way, becoming vegan.

Read more:
Peter Singer’s fresh take on Animal Liberation – a book that changed the world, but not enough

A few years ago, eating locally — eating only food produced within a defined radius of your home — became the thing for environmentally conscious people to do, to such an extent that “locavore” became the Oxford English Dictionary’s “word of the year” for 2007.

If you enjoy getting to know and support your local farmers, of course, eating locally makes sense. But if your aim is, as many local eaters said, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you would do much better by thinking about what you are eating, rather than where it comes from. That’s because transport makes up only a tiny share of the greenhouse gas emissions from the production and distribution of food.

With beef, for example, transport is only 0.5% of total emissions. So if you eat local beef you will still be responsible for 99.5% of the greenhouse gas emissions your food would have caused if you had eaten beef transported a long distance. On the other hand, if you choose peas you will be responsible for only about 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions from producing a similar quantity of local beef.

And although beef is the worst food for emitting greenhouse gases, a broader study of the carbon footprints of food across the European Union showed that meat, dairy and eggs accounted for 83% of emissions, and transport for only 6%.

More generally, plant foods typically have far lower greenhouse gas emissions than any animal foods, whether we are comparing equivalent quantities of calories or of protein. Beef, for example, emits 192 times as much carbon dioxide equivalent per gram of protein as nuts, and while these are at the extremes of the protein foods, eggs, the animal food with the lowest emissions per gram of protein, still has, per gram of protein, more than twice the emissions of tofu.

Animal foods do even more poorly when compared with plant foods in terms of calories produced. Beef emits 520 times as much per calorie as nuts, and eggs, again the best-performing animal product, emit five times as much per calorie as potatoes.

Favourable as these figures are to plant foods, they leave out something that tilts the balance even more strongly against animal foods in the effort to avoid catastrophic climate change: the “carbon opportunity cost” of the vast area of land used for grazing animals and the smaller, but still very large, area used to grow crops that are then fed — wastefully, as we have seen — to confined animals.

Because we use this land for animals we eat, it cannot be used to restore native ecosystems, including forests, which would safely remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. One study has found that a shift to plant-based eating would free up so much land for this purpose that seizing the opportunity would give us a 66% probability of achieving something that most observers believe we have missed our chance of achieving: limiting warming to 1.5℃.

Another study has suggested that a rapid phaseout of animal agriculture would enable us to stabilise greenhouse gases for the next 30 years and offset more than two-thirds of all carbon dioxide emissions this century. According to the authors of this study:

The magnitude and rapidity of these potential effects should place the reduction or elimination of animal agriculture at the forefront of strategies for averting disastrous climate change.

Read more:
‘It can be done. It must be done’: IPCC delivers definitive report on climate change, and where to now

Climate change is undoubtedly the biggest environmental issue facing us today, but it is not the only one. If we look at environmental issues more broadly, we find further reasons for preferring a plant-based diet.

The clearing and burning of the Amazon rainforest means not only the release of carbon from the trees and other vegetation into the atmosphere, but also the likely extinction of many plant and animal species that are still unrecorded.

This destruction is driven largely by the prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat, which makes it more profitable to clear the forest than to preserve it for the indigenous people living there, establish an ecotourism industry, protect the area’s biodiversity, or keep the carbon locked up in the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet for the sake of hamburgers.

Joseph Poore, of the University of Oxford, led a study that consolidated a huge amount of environmental data on 38,700 farms and 1,600 food processors in 119 countries and covered 40 different food products. Poore summarised the upshot of all this research thus:

A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Poore doesn’t see “sustainable” animal agriculture as the solution:

Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.

Those who claim to care about the wellbeing of human beings and the preservation of our climate and our environment should become vegans for those reasons alone.

Doing so would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution, save water and energy, free vast tracts of land for reforestation, and eliminate the most significant incentive for clearing the Amazon and other forests.

This is an edited extract from Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer (Penguin Random House).

Peter Singer 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. ‘We are gambling with the future of our planet for the sake of hamburgers’: Peter Singer on climate change – https://theconversation.com/we-are-gambling-with-the-future-of-our-planet-for-the-sake-of-hamburgers-peter-singer-on-climate-change-207605

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sciffer, PhD candidate, Murdoch University

School choice is enormously important to families. Some spend tens of thousands of dollars per year to send their children to private schools, in the belief this will provide a better education and future.

Figures released in May 2023 noted Australia’s private school enrolments have grown by 35% over the past decade. We also know families seek out areas where there are high-status public schools.

Recent research has argued once you account for socioeconomic factors, private schools don’t outperform public schools. In other words, the school does not really matter, it’s a student’s family background that counts.

My research shows the type of school does matter. And the way Australia’s school system is structured is especially unfair on students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Why school segregation is a problem

Decades of research has shown how family social background is a strong predictor of a child’s educational outcomes. Parents’ education and occupation are associated with student learning differences in Australia and many other countries.

Governments across the world have responded with policies directing resources to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. An example is Australia’s “Gonski” school funding model, which targets additional resources to First Nations, rural and remote, and low socioeconomic students.

But the issue of school segregation is largely ignored by Australian governments.

School segregation occurs when socially disadvantaged students are not evenly spread across schools. Rather, students tend to enrol in different types of schools according to their social backgrounds. This means advantaged children are concentrated in certain schools and disadvantaged students are concentrated in others.

Research has also shown the social background of a student’s peers influences their learning just as much as their own social background. So when disadvantaged students are concentrated into disadvantaged schools, they are doubly disadvantaged.

Australian secondary schools are the ninth most socially segregated among wealthy countries. We also have the fourth-highest proportion of private school attendance in the OECD.

Our research

Last year, my colleagues and I examined the effects of school segregation on students in Australia.

We used NAPLAN results from a nationally representative sample of students in years 5 and 9 to explore the relationship between average school socioeconomic status and an individual students’ academic growth. This involved students from public, private and Catholic schools.

We also examined the effects of parental education and occupation, Indigenous status, language, gender, school sector and the academic achievement of peers on a students’ academic growth.

Read more:
Australian students in rural areas are not ‘behind’ their city peers because of socioeconomic status. There is something else going on

Our findings

We found a school’s socioeconomic status predicts the likelihood a student will achieve minimum literacy and numeracy benchmarks.

This means a disadvantaged student attending a disadvantaged school is unlikely to achieve minimum academic benchmarks. The same type of student attending an advantaged school is twice as likely to reach minimum standards.

Attending a disadvantaged primary school costs half a term of learning per year for every student. This grows to one term of learning per year in secondary schools.

The stronger high school effect is likely due to higher levels of segregation at the secondary level (that is, more students go to private high schools than private primary schools).

This shows going to a private school can benefit a students’ academic performance when it has higher concentrations of socioeconomically advantaged students than nearby public schools.

The outcome is a schooling system that excludes many students from academic excellence. In other words, Australia’s schooling system exacerbates social inequality.

What now?

The federal government is currently reviewing school reform approaches as part of the next National School Reform Agreement, which is due to begin in 2025.

This is an opportunity to begin to address socioeconomic achievement gaps caused by Australia’s schooling system.

This could be achieved by the National Assessment Program (the body that runs NAPLAN testing) reporting the impact of segregation on learning outcomes. The MySchool website could publish how well schools are contributing to the education of disadvantaged children in their communities.

Students disadvantaged by Australia’s schooling system should also be compensated for the public policy failure. Students enrolled in schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students could have their tertiary entrance ranks increased. A similar policy occurs in some US states where students in racially segregated schools are guaranteed places in high status colleges.

But much more substantial reforms are needed to ensure every school is playing its part in educating all young Australians.

This would require schools to be representative of their communities in proportion to their public funding. Secondary private schools receive 80-90% of the government funding public schools receive. They should enrol a similar percentage of the disadvantaged students that nearby public schools enrol.

Government regulation of enrolment and exclusion procedures should also remove discrimination against poverty, religion, disability, gender, and sexuality.

Some of the highest performing education systems in the world are also the most equitable. No education system has achieved excellence for all students by separating them by family backgrounds.

Australia’s schooling system requires substantial structural reforms if it is going to lift the achievement of disadvantaged students.

Read more:
What is the National School Reform Agreement and what does it have to do with school funding?

Michael Sciffer works for the NSW Department of Education. He is a member of the executive of the NSW Teachers Federation. This analysis is based on his academic work as a PhD candidate of Murdoch University and is not associated with his employer.

– ref. The type of school does matter when it comes to a child’s academic performance – https://theconversation.com/the-type-of-school-does-matter-when-it-comes-to-a-childs-academic-performance-199886

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emmanuel Josserand, Professor of management, EMLV, Paris and Adjunct Fellow, University of Technology Sydney, University of Technology Sydney

The Senate inquiry into the PwC scandal has prompted the New South Wales Legislative Council to launch an inquiry into the NSW government’s use of management consulting services.

While the PwC case highlights confidentiality risks and conflicts of interests, the Legislative Council inquiry targets a potential lack of value for money and the negative impact on the capability development of the public service.

As consulting expenditure by government has risen globally, so have questions about the efficiency of such expenditures. DIY consulting – the creation of internal consulting teams within the public service – can contribute to reducing consulting costs while future-proofing public service management.

Debates on the negative impact of consulting for the public service rage in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron faced severe criticism during his presidential campaign regarding the use of consultants by his government.

Read more:
Blacklisting PwC won’t stop outsourcing: here are 3 reasons it has become embedded in the Australian public service

In Australia, the costs from the big four consulting firms (Deloitte, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young) increased by more than 400% in the 2012-22 period, leading to a national controversy.

The federal government pledged to reduce consulting costs dramatically and have begun to do so, with a reduction of around one-third in consulting expenditure in 2023. But now they have picked the low-hanging fruit, what comes next?

Do we actually need external consultants?

Management consulting firms sell themselves by spruiking that they provide specialised advice on complex issues, and temporary resources to accelerate change resulting in increased performance.

When it comes to backing these claims, there is ample anecdote but very little substantiating data.

There is limited evidence of the positive impact of external management consulting on private companies’ performance. However, the evidence is almost non-existent in the public service.

More alarmingly, there is emerging evidence of a negative impact. A study conducted over six years on 125 hospitals in the UK concludes:

If the average annual expenditure on consulting services for a hospital trust is considered (around £1.2 million), then each one would be roughly £10,600 worse off per annum (in addition to the consulting fees paid).

Read more:
Blacklisting PwC won’t stop outsourcing: here are 3 reasons it has become embedded in the Australian public service

Research also shows that decision-makers and consulting firms generally only assess the impact of consulting projects through subjective measures or not at all. In the absence of hard evidence, this is likely to sanction further use with no real scrutiny.

Adding to this anecdotal assessment is the reality that consultants (particularly the big four) are very good at PR, sales and exploiting the pressure on executive performance to create an addiction whereby consulting begets more consulting.

Their networks become embedded with those of senior public servants, also providing a lucrative future career option for those who leave the public service.

While there is a case for some use of external management consulting, this should be restricted to temporary situations or cases in which a very specific expertise can’t be sourced elsewhere.

So, yes, there is a role for consultants in public service, but certainly a much more modest one.

Doing more internally

Public and private organisations including the World Bank, the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Department of Health, Telstra and NAB have dedicated departments or internal consulting teams that, on a daily basis, conduct the type of activities that can be outsourced to consultants.

Such teams deliver internally similar services to those that can be expected from management consultants. These include strategic planning, strategic project management, change management and digitisation initiatives.

The new Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE), focused on evaluating key government programs across the Federal government, is a good (if small) start. While not all services can be managed internally, internal consulting teams could deliver a much broader range of benefits for federal and state governments.

The first obvious benefit, in light of the PwC scandal, is confidentiality. Public servants don’t have the type of conflict of interest that consultants have. They don’t face the same choices between the interests of their different clients, between their own interests and those of their clients, or between their ethics and their financial objectives.

Read more:
PwC scandal shows consultants, like church officials, are best kept out of state affairs

DIY consulting can also significantly reduce costs. Recent research shows that the more management teams are involved in internal consulting, the less the consulting costs. There is thus a potential for substituting expensive outsourced work with less costly internal teams. Over time, such savings should offset establishment costs of internal teams.

DIY consulting can also contribute to future proofing the public service. One of the dangers of relying heavily on management consultants is that it results in a “hollowing out”, a process by which the public service progressively loses skills.

Creating internal consulting teams counters this by providing opportunities to rebuild skills and capabilities. This is especially important at a time where AI and automation will potentially endanger jobs or at the very least change the skills needed across the economy, including the public sector.

The recent outcry against management consultants in the public sphere has not been matched by an outpouring of ideas on how to change the situation.

Governments have become so addicted to consultants that cutting them off cold-turkey is not necessarily a workable solution given the skills and knowledge gaps that have been created. DIY consulting may just be a way for the public sector to weather the withdrawal symptoms and finally wean itself off its consultancy dependence.

Emmanuel Josserand 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. Who needs PwC when consultancy work could be done more efficiently in-house? – https://theconversation.com/who-needs-pwc-when-consultancy-work-could-be-done-more-efficiently-in-house-207330

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

Crossbench senator Lidia Thorpe has accused Victorian Liberal senator David Van of sexually assaulting her – a claim he immediately branded disgusting and untrue.

Government sources on Wednesday night said Thorpe’s claim was serious and should be “referred appropriately”, offering support to her.

Thorpe’s allegation, under parliamentary privilege, came in a week when the opposition is targeting Finance Minister Katy Gallagher for allegedly misleading parliament in 2021 over her prior knowledge of the Brittany Higgins TV interview.

Van, speaking in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, was criticising Labor for attacking Liberal women involved in the Higgins matter, saying parliamentarians should be setting standards, when Thorpe began interjecting, calling out “perpetrator”, and rejecting attempts from the chair to silence her.

“I can’t believe they put you up to make this speech,” she said.

“You can talk”, she said. “You know what you were doing around this time don’t you Van? You got away with a lot.”

She said she was “feeling really uncomfortable when a perpetrator is speaking about violence.”

Asked by Deputy Senate President Andrew McLachlan to withdraw, she said, “I can’t because this person harassed me, sexually assaulted me and the [then] prime minister had to remove him from his office.

“To have him talking about this today is an absolute disgrace on the whole party,” she said.

McLachlan said he would refer the matter to Senate president Sue Lines.

After Thorpe’s outburst, Van immediately retorted, “I utterly reject that disgusting statement outright. It is just a lie and I reject it.”

He added, “I withdraw the word lie. It is just not true.” (“Lie” is unparliamentary language.)

Van repeated his denial in a statement outside parliament, saying: “In the Chamber today Senator Thorpe made unfounded and completely untrue allegations against me that I immediately and unequivocally denied and continue to deny. These outrageous and reprehensible comments were made by Senator Thorpe using parliamentary privilege in the most malicious and despicable way. My lawyers have written to her already making my position clear in the strongest possible terms.”

The Guardian reported a spokesman for former prime minister Scott Morrison saying, “Mr Morrison has no recollection of Lidia Thorpe ever making such an allegation to him personally or of any involvement in Senator Van moving offices.”

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. Lidia Thorpe alleges she was ‘sexually assaulted’ by Liberal senator David Van – a claim he brands ‘disgusting’ – https://theconversation.com/lidia-thorpe-alleges-she-was-sexually-assaulted-by-liberal-senator-david-van-a-claim-he-brands-disgusting-207748

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss the opposition’s attack on Finance Minister Katy Gallagher for allegedly misleading parliament in 2021 about what she knew of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.

They also canvass the recent poll showing support for the Voice has fallen below a majority for the first time, with Indigenous leader Noel Pearson calling for a shift in the presentation of the “yes” side, towards the recognition side of the debate.

As well, they discuss the government’s Housing Australia Future Fund, which has stalled in the Senate – will there be a compromise, or a defeat for the legislation next week?

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. Word from The Hill: Coalition attacks on Katy Gallagher, Voice losing traction, future fund holdout – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-coalition-attacks-on-katy-gallagher-voice-losing-traction-future-fund-holdout-207739

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law and Director of Research, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology Sydney

First Nations cultures and languages are being revitalised around the country. More non-Indigenous Australians are becoming interested in what Indigenous knowledges can teach us today.

The First Inventors is a new documentary series bringing Indigenous knowledges and technologies from communities across the continent to audiences. The series premieres on NITV and Network 10 on Thursday 15 June.

The three of us became involved in The First Inventors in early 2020 (Behrendt as a writer and then director; Ulm as deputy director and McNiven as a chief investigator of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, the principal research partner for the series).

The series follows story lines across the continent and across the skies. It explores how people transformed the continent through management and story. It covers navigation, aeronautics, kinship, memory, trade, communication and much more.

Historically, First Nations peoples in Australia have been falsely represented as simple, uninventive, and isolated. This view has been thoroughly discredited by decades of partnership research between First Nations peoples and non-Indigenous researchers.

There are many ways Indigenous and Western ways of knowing can work together collaboratively and respectfully to better understand Australia’s past and future needs.

Indigenous technologies and knowledges

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have diverse knowledges, languages, social systems, technologies, cultures and histories spanning over more than 65,000 years.

This includes the exploration of practices such as using fire technologies to maintain open grasslands to increase animal stocks in northern Tasmania and digging canals and constructing weirs across lava fields to farm eels in southwest Victoria.

There have also been new archaeological discoveries of pottery made on Jiigurru (Lizard Island) in north Queensland which reveals connections between First Nations peoples and New Guinea Melanesians for at least 2,000-3,000 years.

Such revelations are not new to Torres Strait Islanders who know their ancestors used huge ocean-going canoes to travel hundreds of kilometres to share objects and ideas between the mainlands of Australia and New Guinea long before James Cook arrived.

Read more:
Indigenous technology is often misunderstood. Here’s how it can be part of everyday life

Some First Nations peoples are using traditional fire technologies to protect biodiversity and in carbon abatement programs, and using knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants to develop new health products.

Cultural flexibility, inventiveness, and adaptability saw First Nations people in Australia thrive through periods of major environmental change in the past. This includes an Ice Age that ended with flooding of 2 million square kilometres of the continental shelf. This required people to move hundreds of kilometres inland sometimes over only a few generations and adapt to entirely different environments.

Read more:
This rainforest was once a grassland savanna maintained by Aboriginal people – until colonisation

The First Inventors

Much of the content of The First Inventors focuses on knowledges and sciences in Indigenous knowledge systems, so the content is very strongly cultural. Listening to First Nations voices brings forth great reservoirs of ancestral knowledge and experience.

The series provided a space and platform where Indigenous people reclaimed the storytelling authority for their own stories, histories, and perspectives.

The series was a challenging project, because we had to produce content for two different audiences.

For a First Nations audience, it is a celebration of the resilience and wisdom of our cultures.

For a broader audience, it is a unique glimpse into the technology and science that sits in First Nations knowledge systems.

The themes of the series look toward the future, exploring how Indigenous knowledges are as relevant today as they have been in the past – and how they might help us navigate the future.

This project requires Australians to understand how sophisticated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are. This is crucial as Australia engages in big national conversations about voice, truth, and treaty.

The First Inventors tackles head on the importance of reconciliation and truth-telling. In breaking the shackles of our colonial past to reveal the extraordinary complexity, inventiveness and resilience of First Nations peoples in Australia.

The First Inventors premieres NITV and Network 10 on Thursday 15 June.

Larissa Behrendt receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Ian J. McNiven receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sean Ulm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. How we collaborated in creating The First Inventors to celebrate extraordinary Indigenous peoples’ knowledges and technologies – https://theconversation.com/how-we-collaborated-in-creating-the-first-inventors-to-celebrate-extraordinary-indigenous-peoples-knowledges-and-technologies-206666

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Dawes, Research Fellow in Medico-Legal History, Australian National University

US defence lawyer Alan Dershowitz once said:

I think mistakes are the essence of science and law. It’s impossible to conceive of either scientific progress or legal progress without understanding the important role of being wrong and of mistakes.

The Kathleen Folbigg case shows that scientific development will sometimes retrospectively highlight mistakes.

Last week, Folbigg was pardoned and released, having served 20 years of her 30-year sentence after being convicted of murdering her four infant children in 2003.

New scientific evidence was brought to light that raised reasonable doubt as to her guilt.

But not everyone will be able to get a team of 23 scientists to carry out genetic testing, or get two Nobel Laureates and a clutch of 88 other scientific notables to petition the governor, as Folbigg’s team was able to do. Nor should these extraordinary measures be necessary.

When science evolves, we need better mechanisms for reviewing the legal decisions based on that science. A specialist commission would be well placed to do this.

The Folbigg case

In one fundamental aspect, law and science are very different: our courts have to make a decision based on the evidence available to them at the time, whereas science can keep going, looking for new understandings.

This can make the meeting of law and science a troublesome encounter, as was the case with Folbigg’s conviction in 2003. At the time, autopsies failed to find a reason why her children died.

The cause of death for three of the children was given as “SIDS” – sudden infant death syndrome, meaning the death of a child less than a year old without an apparent cause. One of the children was outside the age range for SIDS because she was 18 months old when she died, but again there was no clear cause of death.

Although doctors still disagree with one another on this point, the prosecution argued that the sibling of a child who died of SIDS was no more likely to die from SIDS themselves. So the chance of four siblings all dying of undetermined causes was vanishingly small.

The jury was invited to infer that Folbigg must have killed her children. The defence was unable to give a definitive alternative explanation for such tragedy within one family.

However, in 2013 – when Folbigg was already ten years into her sentence – science suggested a new possibility. A team of medical researchers studying babies who had repeated heart attacks were looking for possible genetic explanations. They discovered the babies had a mutation in their CALM1 or CALM2 genes, which give instructions for making a protein called “calmodulin”.

Calmodulin plays a role in making heart muscles contract. Some people with a CALM mutation might seem fine, but then suddenly suffer a heart attack and even die.

The relevance to Folbigg’s case would only be clear in 2021, when Folbigg’s blood and that of her four children was tested to look for genetic mutations that might connect the children’s deaths. Folbigg and her two daughters had a mutation in their CALM2 gene.

Folbigg’s two sons also had mutations to another gene, BSN, which in mice can cause lethal epilepsy. It’s not yet known what the effects are in humans. One of Folbigg’s sons had epileptic seizures before his death.

Rapidly developing science

Genetics is a science that’s changing very rapidly.

The Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man project is a register of “Mendelian diseases” – diseases caused by the mutation of a single gene.

From just over 1,000 in 2003 when Folbigg was convicted, there are now nearly 4,000 single genes identified whose various mutations can cause more than 6,250 different diseases.

The CALM2 mutation that Folbigg and her daughters had is buried in that avalanche of discovery.

Read more:
Kathleen Folbigg’s children likely died of natural causes, not murder. Here’s the evidence my team found

Genetics isn’t the only field in which the pace of change is exponential. Our legal system needs to adjust to handle change in science better.

Governors and attorneys-general are the last line of resort when new evidence arises after the appeal process has been exhausted, but they’re not best equipped to consider advances in science and anticipate the implications.

We need a specialist federal commission that can review new scientific developments and their potential for pursuing justice or rectifying miscarriages.

The commission should be active in addressing any mistakes that may be retrospectively highlighted by new understanding.

Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, have an independent criminal convictions review commission and a separate, governmental forensic science regulator that sets standards for forensic evidence.

An independent federal commission, with a broader mandate and range of expertise than either of these types of bodies, and which could anticipate and advise on the impact of new scientific developments, would be a beneficial addition to Australia’s justice system.

The Australian Law Council has recognised the need for a convictions review commission to examine potential miscarriages of justice. This proposal could be expanded to specifically address the problem of change in science: a commission which would not just review and respond but anticipate and advise on the impact of scientific change.

It could aim not just to rectify miscarriages of justice, but also to reduce the likelihood of them happening in the first place.

Laura Dawes 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. Folbigg pardon: science is changing rapidly, and the law needs to change with it – https://theconversation.com/folbigg-pardon-science-is-changing-rapidly-and-the-law-needs-to-change-with-it-207604

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Quilty, Senior Staff Specialist, Alice Springs Hospital. Purple House Medical Advisor. Honorary ANU., Australian National University

Over 3.4 million Australian houses now have rooftop solar, often subsidised by government incentives.

But in remote First Nations communities in the Northern Territory, you don’t see solar on any rooftops. That’s a real problem. This part of Australia is dangerously hot in summer. And many people don’t have enough power to run vital appliances like the fridge and air conditioner.

Solar would be an ideal solution. Tennant Creek has over 300 days per year of sunshine with some of the clearest skies in the world, for instance.

Only recently, co-author and Warumungu elder Frank Jupurrurla took part in the first NT rooftop solar trial, supported by Original Power and installed rooftop solar on his house.

As our new research found, this pilot worked well, supplying a third of the house’s power and ending the problem of power disconnecting. Previously, the power would go out once a month on average. After solar, it never went off.

So why isn’t this widely available? The main problems are red tape, such as getting approval for work on public housing, securing feed in tariffs and metering requirements. As Mr Jupurrurla’s experience demonstrates, they can all be overcome – but not easily.

As Frank Jupurrurla says:

We call the sun Kilyirr […] Right now he’s shining on my panels, he’s giving me power, and he looks after us. So that Kilyirr, he gonna be there forever.

How do remote communities get power at present?

Prepaid electricity is used in many remote First Nations households across Australia, and in almost all town camps. In this model, people “top up” the meter with credit. When credit runs out, the electricity disconnects until more credit is purchased. The electricity here is often produced by diesel generators.

Despite the risk of sudden disconnection, this model is often preferred by many communities as it gives residents fewer surprise bills. The downside is it often leads to an unenviable choice – power or food.

For residents of Tennant Creek’s town camps, it is not uncommon to run out of credit on a hot day. The hotter the day, the higher the chance people will lose power. That’s because hotter weather forces air conditioners and fridges to work harder.

When the power goes off, food inside fridges starts to spoil. Essential medical devices such as oxygen concentrators stop operating. Medications can become inactive or even toxic.

Air conditioners stop working and temperatures rise. On very hot days, the inside of a house gets well over 40℃. Children and adults can’t sleep. Going to school gets harder. Not only are these conditions unsafe, they can drive social disharmony.

As Frank Jupurrurla says:

We struggle every day. Our people, they’re not healthy. Lots of people in this town are on renal [dialysis]. Solar should be talked about in parliament and put on the table.

Did the trial help?

A 6.6 kilowatt solar array was installed on Mr Jupurrurla’s house and switched on in November 2021. The house kept its grid connection and no battery was installed. Household residents received a crash course from the installers, First Nations organisation Original Power, on making the most of the solar for example by running the washing machine during daylight hours.

The result? Solar generates a third of the total power use in any given month. But more importantly, through reducing energy costs, disconnections stopped entirely. This removed a huge source of stress and made the home safer and more enjoyable, according to the family.

As Mr Jupurrurla says: “We used to put a lot of power cards in nearly every day, second day. Now we got money all the time since we’ve got solar.”

Solar is a great solution – but only if it’s made easy

It sounds simple: install a 6.6kW array and see what difference it made. After all, people in the cities can do this routinely.

But it’s harder far from the cities, and harder still when different government departments have to sign off. As Mr Jupurrurla describes:

The barriers was from the day we started. Before that, we’d argue with [Department of] Housing, and they said we have to check inside and check if the house is strong enough. Once we had the panels on, then it took us a while to [turn] it on. It was pretty frustrating. It took Power and Water more than three months just to switch the switch on. It was so hard. I rang the housing minister but nothing happened. So one day I just went out there to the box and switched it on myself

Installing solar here meant overcoming regulatory barriers such as securing feed-in tariffs for excess power produced, ensuring the public housing is high-quality enough to host solar, and the question of ownership of the panels.

The NT housing department required an engineer’s sign off on the roof’s structural integrity, as this can’t be assumed for remote public housing.

As Mr Jupurrurla’s experience demonstrates, these barriers can be overcome – but not easily.

What’s stopping a wider rollout?

Our trial shows solar can work well for remote communities. The timing is good, as the ongoing roll-out of smart prepay meters means most remote First Nations houses in the NT are able to handle solar.

For this to gain momentum, the NT government must find ways to overcome these barriers. The Territory government has responsibilities as both the landlord for housing and as the monopoly energy provider.

A key first step would be to smooth the path with clear paperwork and incentives for prepay households to install solar.

Just as in the cities, encouraging solar will require financial incentives to offset the upfront cost, with culturally appropriate resources available in First Nations languages to explain the process.

Feed-in tariffs have long driven demand for solar for many homeowners. Ensuring remote communities are eligible will be vital.

Australian households are world leaders in taking up solar. But for too long, the ability to generate your own power from the sun has been off limits to many of the people who would benefit the most.

This year is an excellent time to correct this, as the federal government works towards a co-designed First Nations Clean Energy Strategy and the NT government’s plans for better power solutions in remote communities.

As Frank Jupurrurla says:

I’d like to see government fund […] panels on homes. Especially in the Community Living Areas [Town Camps] in places like Alice Springs, Tenant Creek, and Katherine.

Read more:
How climate change is turning remote Indigenous houses into dangerous hot boxes

Simon Quilty is affiliated with a community project, Wilya Janta, that is progressing better housing design with greater Indigenous agency in Tennant Creek.

Brad Riley is a Research Fellow at the ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research working on the ANU Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge.

Some of the data referenced in this article (specifically mapping locations where prepayment is not prohibited) was collected as part of a project funded under grant ARFEB22001 by Energy Consumers Australia Limited (www.energyconsumersaustralia.com.au) as part of its grants process for consumer advocacy projects and research projects for the benefit of consumers of electricity and natural gas. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of Energy Consumers Australia.

Norman Frank Jupurrurla 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. Many First Nations communities swelter without power. Why isn’t there solar on every rooftop? – https://theconversation.com/many-first-nations-communities-swelter-without-power-why-isnt-there-solar-on-every-rooftop-204032

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charlotte Ganderton, Senior Lecturer (Physiotherapy), RMIT University

One in three Australians has a musculoskeletal condition involving joint pain, and the most common cause is arthritis. Around 3.6 million Australians have arthritis and this is projected to rise to 5.4 million by 2030.

For some people with joint pain, cold weather seems to make it worse. But temperature is just one factor impacting perceptions of greater pain during winter. Other factors include those we have some level of influence over, including sleep, behavioural patterns, mood and physical activity. Emerging research suggests greater pain levels in winter may also be related to a person’s perception of the weather, lack of vitamin D and fluctuations in their disease.

Physical activity is one of the best treatments to increase function, strength and mobility – and improve quality of life. It also promotes mental and physical health and reduces the risk of other chronic diseases.

But pain can be a barrier to exercise and activities you’d usually do. So what can you do about it?

Our brain tries to protect us

When it comes to pain, our brain is very protective: it’s like an inbuilt alarm system and can warn us about impending danger or harm that has occurred so we can respond.

But it’s not always a reliable indicator of actual damage or trauma to the skin, muscle or bone, even when it feels like it is. In some instances, this warning system can become unhelpful by setting off “false alarms”.

Leer más:
Turning down the volume of pain – how to retrain your brain when you get sensitised

Joint pain and stiffness can also appear to worsen during colder weather, prompting fears we could make it worse if we undertake or overdo movement. This can result in people avoiding physical activity – even when it would be beneficial – which can worsen the pain.

We tend to exercise less when it’s cold

Seasons affect how much physical activity we get. Summer months bring warmer weather, longer daylight hours and people get outdoors more. Warmer weather also tends to elicit a positive outlook, a lift in mood and burst of physical activity to fulfil New Year’s resolutions.

Cooler months can mean a decline in physical activity and more time being cosy indoors. A reduction in movement and less exposure to light may evoke higher levels of joint pain and can be associated with a reduction in our overall sense of well-being and mood.

This can create a cycle where symptoms worsen over time.

But with the right knowledge and support, people can remain engaged in an active lifestyle especially when it’s aligned to personal values and goals. Health professionals such as physiotherapists and GPs can assess any concerns and provide strategies that are right for you.

How to motivate yourself to stay active in winter

When looking for an approach to help you stay active during the cooler months and beyond, it can be helpful to become aware of the many interconnected factors that impact you. They include:

• biological (your genes, other illnesses you have)
• psychological (how you think, feel and behave)
• social (your relationships and social support).

Starting with the end goal in mind can be beneficial, but this can feel overwhelming. Try creating smaller, achievable steps to help get you there, like climbing a ladder. For example, park a short distance from the shops and increase this incrementally to increase your exercise tolerance.

A little bit each day can often be less tolling on your body than a big effort once a week.

Leer más:
How do I improve my motivation to exercise when I really hate it? 10 science-backed tips

Create goals that are personally meaningful and encourage you to celebrate success along the way (for example, catching up with friends or a healthy snack). Then, as you climb your “ladder”, one rung at a time, you will likely feel more motivated to continue.

If you’re not sure where to start, talk to a friend or health provider to help you determine what is realistic and right for your situation. That way you can work towards your goals in a safe, non-threatening environment and avoid developing fear and avoidance. They can also help you establish goals that align with your aspirations and pain experience.

Charlotte Ganderton receives funding from Arthritis Australia, Physiotherapy Research Foundation, Swinburne University of Technology, National Institute of Circus Arts and La Trobe University. Charlotte Ganderton is a member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association and Sports Medicine Australia.

Inge Gnatt has received funding from Swinburne University’s DVCR Writing Award, and is the recipient of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Matthew King receives funding from the Physiotherapy Research Foundation, Australian Physiotherapy Association, La Trobe University and the Transport Accident Commission. He is affiliated with the Australian Physiotherapy Association, Sports Medicine Australia and the International Hip-related Pain Research Network.

– ref. Sore joints now it’s getting cold? It’s tempting to be less active – but doing more could help you feel better – https://theconversation.com/sore-joints-now-its-getting-cold-its-tempting-to-be-less-active-but-doing-more-could-help-you-feel-better-200911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Collyer, Research Associate, Caring Futures Institute, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University

Getting more people to ride bikes has been flagged as a simple and effective way to improve public health while tackling climate change. However, research has repeatedly found safety concerns deter people from cycling.

Australia’s limited cycling infrastructure often forces cyclists to share the road with motor vehicles. This puts them in a vulnerable position as, unlike motorists, they have little to protect their flesh and bones from the road or the vehicles on it.

To reduce their vulnerability, cyclists wear safety gear such as helmets to protect their heads and high-vis safety vests to make them more visible to other road users. However, our study found cyclists wearing helmets or safety vests are more likely to be perceived as “less human” than those not wearing safety gear. Around 30% of respondents also perceived cyclists to be less than fully human.

This finding is consistent with previous research showing that perceiving cyclists as “less human” (known as dehumanisation) was associated with more aggression towards cyclists. Dehumanisation is the denial of attributes, such as complex emotions, intelligence, rationality and individuality, that differentiate humans from other animals and inanimate objects. To dehumanise is to perceive a person or group as having lesser value and worth, which can lead to their mistreatment.

Read more:
Cycling and walking are short-changed when it comes to transport funding in Australia

What did our study find?

In our study, 563 participants were shown a series of photographs of models holding a bicycle. The models wore different attire in each photo, including: no headwear, a cap, a helmet, and a bright orange safety vest. Participants were asked to select the person in each pair who looked “less human”.

The results showed a clear difference between attire types. People were more likely to select images where the model wore “overt” safety gear as “less human”.

The photos of bicycle riders with helmets were 2.5 times more likely to be selected as “less human” than those with no helmets. Those wearing safety vests were 3.7 times more likely to be selected.

The study participants also provided anecdotes about their experiences cycling on Australian roads. Some reported other road users treated them differently depending on what they wore. Full lycra cycling gear attracted more abuse than casual wear.

Female bicycle riders reported receiving less abuse from motorists than their male counterparts. This observation led some to accentuate their femininity to increase their perceived safety when riding on roads. One said:

As a female I don’t get treated as badly as my male friends (who have had things thrown at them). I actually purposely have my long hair showing to help.

Our finding that riders in safety vests are seen as “less human” than those without adds to the debate on the actual versus perceived benefit of safety vests. Safety vests do not necessarily make a rider safer or more visible. Instead, they reinforce the idea that bicycle riding is a dangerous activity – further deterring its uptake.

Read more:
Minimum space for passing cyclists is now law Australia-wide. It increases safety – but possibly road rage too

So how can we keep riders safe?

With cyclists dehumanised and unwelcome on Australian roads, and also not welcome on footpaths, it seems the best solution is to “keep them separated” as US rock band The Offspring sang back in ’94. Australia needs separate infrastructure for bicycle riding, especially if we want more people to take up this active, carbon-neutral form of transport.

It’s time for Australia to follow the lead of countries like the Netherlands and provide safe facilities for people to ride on. When the Dutch promote cycling culture, they show people dressed for the destination, not the ride. They highlight everyday folks, in everyday clothing, unhindered by special equipment, enjoying a safe and social experience.

Read more:
3 in 4 people want to ride a bike but are put off by lack of safe lanes

A city that has active transport is safer, healthier, quieter and more environmentally friendly. The lesson is clear: we need to prioritise people over cars.

Blaming cyclists for not being “visible enough” is an ill-considered response. Most cyclists would prefer not to travel on the same roads as motor vehicles. But, until we can achieve complete separation, efforts to counteract the dehumanisation of those who ride bicycles are needed.

While investigations are informing campaigns to “humanise” bicycle riders, change can begin at an individual level. We can ask ourselves: what goes through our minds when we see a cyclist when we are driving? Do we think of them as someone like us who is just trying to get to work or home, or do we see them differently? Are we dehumanising them?

Read more:
Ride to work? You’ll need a bike barrier for that

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. Safety vests and helmets make cyclists look ‘less human’ to other road users – https://theconversation.com/safety-vests-and-helmets-make-cyclists-look-less-human-to-other-road-users-207413

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emmanuelle Botté, Research Officer, UNSW Sydney

Marine sponges have started dying in vast numbers in coastal areas around the globe. Just this year, thousands of sponges turned white and died in New Zealand and in the Mediterranean Sea. This has been happening when the water gets too warm, but the underlying cause has remained a mystery. Until now.

We know these sponges play a crucial role in recycling key elements such as carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus. In doing so, they keep nutrient cycles ticking over, to the benefit of all life on Earth.

This happens mainly through their very close association, or “symbiosis”, with diverse and abundant microbes. These microbes live in the sponge tissue as “life partners”. Sponges benefit from these tight relationships, as the microbes produce energy, recycle nutrients and provide beneficial molecules for the host.

In our new research, we found the cause of death is likely to be the sudden loss of a key microbe at high temperatures. This might rapidly poison the sponge, because this specific microbe is usually required to remove ammonia, a toxic metabolic waste product, from the sponge’s tissues. Without this crucial process, the sponge dies.

Read more:
Loss, decay and bleaching: why sponges may be the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for impacts of marine heatwaves

Experimenting with temperature

Marine sponges are animals of many shapes, colours and sizes found in every ocean, where they serve as food and provide shelter to many other organisms.

They spend their lives attached to the seafloor, where they feed by filtering thousands of litres of seawater every day, capturing, and later digesting, microscopic food.

Our study examined the tropical sponge Stylissa flabelliformis, exposed to either today’s average summer temperature (28.5℃) or the average temperature predicted for 2100 (31.5℃).

After eight weeks in the warmer water, the sponges were dying. There was no trace of the microbe that usually removes toxic ammonia in the sponge tissue. The microbial gene carrying the detoxifying function was completely absent from the sponge tissue, too. This confirmed no other microbe was fulfilling this role, and the detoxification of the tissue was simply not possible.

In contrast, the sponges kept at 28.5℃ were healthy. And the microbes in the sponge tissue were the ones we usually find when all is well.

Are we spoiling an evolutionary success story?

Sponges are some of the most ancient animals on the planet. They are found from the tropics to the poles in shallow and deep waters.

The sponge-microbe symbiosis has long been credited for this ecological success story. Depending on the sponge species, thousands of different microbial species reside in the sponge tissue.

In addition to supplying energy to the host, these microbes provide the sponge host with vital molecules the sponge itself cannot produce, such as essential vitamins, or compounds that deter predators. They also act as recyclers, transforming certain chemicals to reduce their toxicity or to make them digestible by the sponge. And they even produce molecules that can potentially benefit humans, such as anti-cancer drugs and antimicrobial agents.

The symbiosis between sponges and their microbial partners has allowed sponges to conquer large portions of the oceans’ seafloor. But human activities might put a serious dent in this epic success story. Last year, a marine heatwave induced tissue damage and bleaching in several sponge species in New Zealand. In the Mediterranean, all the sponges off the coast of Marseille died as a result of temperature extremes during Europe’s last summer.

While the underlying cause of these mass die-offs in warmer waters is not yet known, researchers have suggested the answer might lie in the breakdown of the symbiosis between the host and its microbes. Our research supports this hypothesis. These sponges may actually face a problem similar to bleached corals: increased temperature destroys the symbiosis, potentially causing a chemical imbalance within the sponge, with deadly consequences.

Read more:
Into the ocean twilight zone: how new technology is revealing the secrets of an under-researched undersea world

No strings attached? No way!

Most of the time, a strong symbiosis has an overwhelmingly positive effect on the host, but the risk of having such deep ties is dependency. With S. flabelliformis, it seems the sponge could not survive the loss of the only microbe that detoxifies ammonia and the “breakup” caused by increased temperatures.

Notably, this abundant species on the Great Barrier Reef and the West Indo-Pacific is not the only tropical sponge to experience changes in its microbes when it is unhealthy. This also happens in sponges living in temperate waters.

Sponges and their microbial partners are in trouble

Importantly, the 3℃ temperature rise to which we subjected our sponges does not represent a science-fiction scenario, but today’s extremes, already seen in nature. It is consistent with the marine heatwave that hit the Australian East coast between November 2015 and February 2016.

These extreme events are predicted to become more frequent and more severe as our climate continues to change. And such high temperatures could become averages by 2100 if we do not become carbon neutral globally as soon as possible.

This is worrying news for sponges, for the ecosystems they support and, by extension, for us. Sponges are extremely diverse with about 8,500 species currently described around the globe, host to microbes that could help humanity fight diseases and antibiotic resistance.

It is not intuitive to think highly of unassuming animals and their microbial partners when contemplating big issues such as climate change and the collapse of Earth’s biodiversity. But for the sake of our oceans, and ultimately, ourselves, we need to quickly make this collective effort and protect them accordingly.

Read more:
The Great Southern Reef is in more trouble than the Great Barrier Reef

Emmanuelle Botté receives funding from the University of New South Wales.

Heidi M. Luter receives funding from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

James Bell receives funding from The Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden fund and Victoria University of Wellington

– ref. Bad break-up in warm waters: why marine sponges suffer with rising temperatures – https://theconversation.com/bad-break-up-in-warm-waters-why-marine-sponges-suffer-with-rising-temperatures-205285

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Fisher, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Canberra

Over the past 12 months, the news has been full of serious and negative news such as the war in the Ukraine, the surge in the cost of living, interest rate rises, and the climate crisis.

It’s not surprising, then, that more than two-thirds of Australians say they are actively avoiding news some of the time. What is surprising is that Australians avoid news more than consumers in many other countries.

The findings are contained in the latest Digital News Report: Australia 2023 released by the University of Canberra.

The online survey of 2,025 Australians finds 69% say they avoid the news, occasionally, sometimes or often. This is higher than the global average of 63%, which is slightly declining. It also marks a 12 percentage point increase in news avoidance among Australians since 2017.

Not only do we avoid news more in Australia than other countries, we also avoid different news topics. In the majority of countries surveyed, news avoiders are more likely to steer clear of news about the war in the Ukraine, especially people in European countries. In Australia, we are most likely to eschew news about social justice issues such as race and gender inequality and LGBTQ+ rights.

When it comes to avoiding social justice issues, there are strong differences based on people’s political orientation. Australian news avoiders who identify as right-wing are more than twice as likely to say they evade news about social justice issues (56%) than those who say they are left-wing (22%). This highlights the big challenge facing government and advocacy organisations seeking to promote the “yes” and “no” campaigns for the Voice referendum to a news audience that is polarised around particular issues.

There are also big differences in news topics they avoid between Australian men and women. Women are much more likely to avoid news about sport and politics, whereas men will more readily keep away from stories about social justice issues, climate change and culture.

Because women are more likely to get their news from social media platforms than men, they are also more likely to scroll past the news to avoid it; men are more likely to consciously cut news out at particular times of the day.

Women are turning their backs on news

These differences in avoidance behaviour point to a growing gender division in news consumption in Australia. Women are increasingly losing interest in news and consuming less of it, particularly Gen Z women. Over the past six years, the proportion of Australian women in our annual study who say they are very or highly interested in news has fallen 16 percentage points to 43%, compared to a much smaller drop – only 6 percentage points – among men.

Australian women are also among the lightest news consumers globally. Only 41% of Australian women say they access news more than once a day, compared to 59% of men. There are other indicators that point to the widening gender gap. Thirty-nine per cent of women say they trust the news most of the time, compared to 48% of men. The proportion of women paying for news is also declining.

The gendered decline in news interest and consumption this year can be partly explained by the types of stories that have dominated the news cycle, such as the war and federal politics, which women are less interested in than men.

Overall, the longitudinal decline among women points to be a much bigger issue facing the news industry that needs to be addressed if they want to stem the exodus of the female news audience.

But it’s not all bad news

Our Digital News Report for 2023 also finds:

• The proportion of Australians who pay for online news has increased to 22% (+4pp from 2022).
• More than half of Australians (56%) say they are interested in positive news stories, and 50% say they are interested in news that suggests solutions, report on the latest development, and investigates wrong-doing.
• 60% of Australians surveyed say public service media, such as the ABC and SBS is important to society, and 52% say it is important to their lives.
• More than one third of Australian’s surveyed said they were highly interested in politics (35%), a 3 percentage point increase from 2022.
• Trust in news has risen slightly to 43%, higher than the global average.

Digital News Report: Australia is produced by the News & Media Research Centre (N&MRC) at the University of Canberra and is part of a global annual survey of digital news consumption in 46 countries, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The survey was conducted by YouGov at the end of January/beginning of February 2023. The data are weighted for age, gender, and region. Education and political quotas were applied.
In Australia, this is the ninth annual survey of its kind produced by the N&MRC.

Caroline Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

Sora Park receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Community Media and Australian Council for the Arts.

– ref. Why more than two-thirds of Australians think no news is good news (at least some of the time) – https://theconversation.com/why-more-than-two-thirds-of-australians-think-no-news-is-good-news-at-least-some-of-the-time-207214

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Lee, Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University

Many of the giant marsupials and birds that roamed ancient Australia had vanished by 40,000 years ago. While the duration and drivers of these extinctions remain debated, fossils clearly show the continent lost a host of creatures which would have dwarfed humans, such as short-faced kangaroos, diprotodons, “thunder birds” and giant goannas.

Our study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests these end-Pleistocene extinctions also affected smaller creatures such as lizards. These animals comprise most of biodiversity and biomass.

A bizarre giant among tiny lizards

The most diverse land vertebrates in modern Australia are skinks, which are typically the tiny, nondescript brown lizards that scurry among leaf litter.

There are some larger and more charismatic forms, such as blue-tongues and shinglebacks (also known as sleepy lizards or bobtails). However, even these are dwarfed by our new fossil skink, Tiliqua frangens (or Frangens), which was more than 60cm long and weighed more than 2kg. This 1,000 times heavier than your typical garden skink.

Frangens was bizarre in many ways: it was covered in very thick, spiky armour and had an extremely wide but blunt skull. Frangens was an enlarged and exaggerated version of its closest living relative, the shingleback, which has these traits but to a much lesser degree.

While our large mammalian and avian megafauna are well studied, smaller fossil lizards and snakes are often overlooked. Most of the fossils used to piece together this extinct critter have been sitting in museum collections for decades – some for more than a century.

Read more:
Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars in ancient Australia

A jigsaw puzzle with pieces scattered all over Australia

The first two pieces of this creature, a partial lower jaw and skull-roof bone, were found separately in spoil heaps at Wellington Caves, about 200km west of Sydney in 1995 and 2008. These fragments were scientifically described as different species in 2009 and 2012.

Then in 2016, palaeontologists from Flinders University began finding more fossils of a large skink in Cathedral Cave at Wellington Caves. Frangens immediately stood out not just for its unusual size, but for its spikey body armour, abundant in the dig site yet oddly never reported before.

A study tour of the palaeontology sections of the Australian, South Australian and Melbourne museums brought to light the importance of their collections. Sitting in drawers of unidentified reptiles were near-complete jaws, perfectly preserved braincases, and chunks of fused armour plating from the head of Frangens.

The Queensland Museum had put aside a specimen representing most of a single individual, waiting for someone with the patience and expertise to piece it together.

It became clear the original lower jaw and skull roof, plus all the subsequent material, belonged to a single species.

This wealth of fossils also broadened our understanding of the spatial and temporal range of this highly distinct lizard. Frangens fossils have been recovered from southeastern Queensland through to the northern banks of the Murray River in New South Wales. The fossils range in age from at least 2 million years to 47,000 years old. So Frangens was part of the fauna when the First Peoples arrived.

A lost lizard that functioned more like a tortoise?

Australia has never had small land tortoises. Tortoises are completely absent in modern Australia, while the famously large meiolaniid turtles are extinct.

It is possible that in Australia, the heavily armoured, slow-moving Frangens filled the ecological niche that small tortoises occupy on other continents.

Intriguingly, in none of the fossil sites we have explored, do Frangens and the modern shingleback co-occur. Instead, only after Frangens went extinct did shinglebacks expand northward and increase in size: those ranging from the Murray to southeastern Queensland are among Australia’s largest living skinks (reaching up to 1kg).

Nature abhors a vacuum, so these shinglebacks might be growing big to fill the gap left by Frangens, which in turn previously filled the gap caused by the absence of small tortoises.

Furthermore, Frangens was not alone, but was part of a cohort of giant skinks, none of which survived past the end-Pleistocene extinctions.

These fossils show that the extinctions were not confined to “megafauna” – the largest examples of the largest groups. Rather, even some smaller animals such as skinks once had (relatively) large forms, which perished in the late Pleistocene along with giant marsupials and flightless birds.

Mike Lee receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Flinders University and the Royal Society of South Australia

Diana Fusco received funding from the Maxim Foundation and the Royal Society of South Australia, and was supported by an Australian Research Training Program stipend for this project. The Cathedral Cave project was initially funded by the Australian Research Council.

Kailah Thorn received funding from the Royal Society of South Australia, and was supported by an Australian Research Training Program stipend for this project.

– ref. Meet the biggest and most bizarre skink ever found in Australia. It became extinct 47,000 years ago – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-biggest-and-most-bizarre-skink-ever-found-in-australia-it-became-extinct-47-000-years-ago-206764