Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yoni Nazarathy, Associate Professor of Data Science, The University of Queensland

One of the biggest challenges in managing the coronavirus pandemic has been a lack of real-time information about the virus’s spread.

While the goal of well-intentioned governments is clear — to mitigate spread with minimal economic and social impact — it is very difficult to decide on the best policy to achieve this.

In Australia, public health authorities have been consistent in encouraging testing for the virus. The major driver behind this has been the desire to find positive cases and track their contacts.

A by-product is information about how the virus is spreading in the general population, which can be used to inform decisions about measures such as mask-wearing and restrictions on movement.

However, at best, the information provided by testing individuals is partial, biased and delayed. This makes it hard to make real-time decisions about when to impose restrictions, which are arguably the most important tool in the fight against the pandemic.

To help out, we devised the Safe Blues framework. This is a joint project between researchers from The University of Queensland, The University of Auckland, The University of Melbourne, Cornell University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Macquarie University and Delft University of Technology.

In this framework, virus-like tokens are spread between mobile devices via Bluetooth, similarly to how a biological virus spreads between people.

If adopted, a tool like Safe Blues could help public health authorities better control outbreaks by providing data on the general level of contact between people. Our paper published today in the Cell Press journal Patterns summarises the idea.

Read more: How to flatten the curve of coronavirus, a mathematician explains

What about COVIDSafe?

Last year the Australian government released the COVIDSafe contact-tracing app. It was backed by an extensive government-funded media campaign and initially adopted by millions of users.

COVIDSafe works by using Bluetooth signals to record digital “handshakes” between the smartphone of a user and nearby contacts who also have the app. It stores this information in a form that can be retrospectively accessed if the device’s owner tests positive. Their contacts can then be traced and tested.

While the idea has merit, there have only been a handful of instances where the app was able to pick up confirmed cases more effectively than human contact tracers. So is the marriage between Bluetooth and public health useless?

We don’t think so.

Spreading a Bluetooth-powered virtual virus

Social distancing works on all viruses, not just SARs-CoV-2 (the virus of the COVID-19 pandemic). For example, major COVID-19 lockdowns not only curbed the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but also mitigated the spread of the common cold.

With this in mind, let’s return to the lack of information problem and consider a thought experiment: what if we could create a virtual virus that spreads exactly the same as COVID-19? Although this one would be harmless and traceable in real time.

By studying how this virtual virus evolves, we would be gleaning important insight into how SARs-CoV-2 evolves. This could empower decision makers to devise the best strategies to enforce restrictions and prevent the virus from spreading further.

To implement the framework, the mobile devices of a random subset of the population would be purposefully infected with the safe digital virus, which we call Safe Blues.

Then, based on the measurements of how this “infection” spreads, public health authorities could get a better picture of how the real coronavirus spreads.

Statistically, the number of cases and patterns presented on the Safe Blue app would follow similar trends to the real virus.

Of course, the actual individuals infected with SARs-CoV-2 and those infected with Safe Blues would not be the same. In fact, simulations have shown only a small fraction of the population would need to participate with a Safe Blues app for it to deliver reliable predictions.

It’s important to note Bluetooth signals don’t propagate like viruses. But if we generated hundreds of variants of Bluetooth-based virtual tokens, this ensemble could capture many of the social movement patterns that drive infection — and thus could be correlated with the real virus.

Where to now with Safe Blues?

Safe Blues’s machine learning methods have been developed and evaluated using mathematical simulation models. Initial results show that an ensemble of Safe Blues token strands can yield powerful estimates of actual epidemic behaviour.

The Safe Blues team is now working towards a system pilot at The University of Auckland. Using an experimental Safe Blues Android app, the aim is to generate and study how the virtual virus spreads in a campus setting.

The insights provided by the app could also be coupled with data from waste water measurements and from existing social networks such as Google, Apple or Facebook.

We believe virtual virus spread techniques such as Safe Blues could greatly contribute to our real-time understanding of this pandemic, as well as future epidemics.

– ref. We’ve designed a safe ‘virtual’ epidemic. Spreading it is going to help us learn about COVID – https://theconversation.com/weve-designed-a-safe-virtual-epidemic-spreading-it-is-going-to-help-us-learn-about-covid-156853

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carsten Rudolph, Associate professor, Monash University

On March 2, 2021, Microsoft published information about four critical vulnerabilities in its widely used Exchange email server software that are being actively exploited. It also released security updates for all versions of Exchange back to 2010.

Microsoft has told cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs it was notified of the vulnerabilities in “early January”. The Australian Cyber Security Centre has also issued a notice on the vulnerabilities.

The situation has been widely reported in the general media as well as specialist cybersecurity sites, but often inaccurately. But the situation also highlights a contradiction in government cybersecurity policy.

When governments find flaws in widely used software, they may not publish the details in order to build up their own offensive cybersecurity capabilities, i.e. the ability to target computers and networks for spying, manipulation and disruption. Operations like this often rely on exploiting vulnerabilities in commercial software — thus leaving their own citizens vulnerable to attack as a consequence.

What happened?

Microsoft has issued patches to fix the vulnerabilities and provided advice on how to respond if systems have already been affected.

These vulnerabilities can be really damaging for anybody running their own Exchange mail server. Attackers can run any code on the server and fully compromise a business’s email, allowing them to impersonate anybody in the business. They could also read all email stored on the server and potentially compromise more systems within the businesses’ network.

Who was affected?

It’s important to clear up exactly who the vulnerabilities affected: anybody running their own instance of Exchange, and the risk was higher if web access was turned on.

An ABC/Reuters report said:

All of those affected appear to run Web versions of email client Outlook and host them on their own machines, instead of relying on cloud providers.

But using a cloud-hosted version of Exchange wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem, as the vulnerabilities still exist. What’s more, larger enterprises will most probably still choose or be required by regulation to also run a local Exchange server that can be exploited in the same way.

Read more: 5 ways the COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed cybersecurity

Another open issue with moving mail servers to the cloud is that it also gives the provider access to all unencrypted emails by default. End-to-end encryption would increase security, but this is not currently standard practice.

Questions for Microsoft

As vulnerabilities existed in versions of the software released as long ago as 2010, we can assume more skilled attackers have already used them. This raises a fundamental question about the quality of the software, which Microsoft has been developing since 1996. Why did Microsoft not spot these vulnerabilities earlier?

Another question: if Microsoft knew about the vulnerabilities in early January, why did it take two months to alert its customers?

Questions for cybersecurity policy

We also need to consider the bigger picture of how we deal with vulnerabilities in software that builds the backbone of our computer and network infrastructure. Obviously, these vulnerabilities would have been a great offensive cybersecurity tool for any number of actors.

There is a basic conflict between building offensive cybersecurity capabilities and protecting our own businesses and citizens.

Imagine you are tasked with building offensive cybersecurity capabilities. You discover these vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange. Would you alert the vendor, Microsoft in this case, to make sure they are fixed as soon as possible, or would you keep them secret to not to lose your great new cyber weapon? Secretly having access to an organisation’s email could be very valuable for law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

Read more: The SolarWinds hack was all but inevitable – why national cyber defense is a ‘wicked’ problem and what can be done about it

Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy 2020 does not address the contradiction between establishing offensive cybersecurity capabilities and protecting Australians from cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

The establishment of offensive cybersecurity capabilities is explicitly mentioned in the strategy. In contrast, the detection of vulnerabilities with the goal of mitigation is not a clear goal.

Nor is openness about existing vulnerabilities — which would empower Australian citizens to react to them — part of the strategy. Australia has the expertise across the public sector, private sector and civil society to have this important dialogue on how to best protect Australian citizens and businesses.

– ref. Security flaws in Microsoft email software raise questions over Australia’s cybersecurity approach – https://theconversation.com/security-flaws-in-microsoft-email-software-raise-questions-over-australias-cybersecurity-approach-156864

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin University

Review: Slow Burn, Together, choreographed by Emma Fishwick. Emma Fishwick and Performing Lines for Perth Festival.

It goes against the very core of Slow Burn, Together to respond to it so quickly in print. In the program, choreographer Emma Fishwick quotes art historian Ernst Gombrich: “the reading of a picture needs a very long time.”

Slow Burn, Together encourages a dream-like reflection on our relationship with time, especially history and progress, how it shapes us, how we work with it and against it.

Moving through the cavernous stage of Perth’s Her Majesty’s Theatre — on foot, on wheels, on their knees, on a swing — an ensemble of 15 women create an ever-changing series of pictures. Evoking pathways to the past or into an unknown future, the dancers shift between movement and stillness, horizontal and vertical, witnessing and being witnessed.

Against the backdrop of a giant golden sail, with the bare bones of the theatre on display, everything is exposed.

An amorphous sense of time

Slow Burn, Together performs a delicate magic act that manipulates time, slowing down the tempo of the audience.

I am reminded of the words of American theatre director Anne Bogart, who describes this sensation as those moments in the theatre when “the laws of space and time” alter radically and the audience enter “the poetic realm”.

In this realm, time seems “to stop and expand at the same time”.

This sense occurs here in the meditative quality of performers and audience breathing together.

The all-female cast is made up of many different types of women: senior dancers, some of whom have taught, mentored and worked with Fishwick; younger dancers who are new to her practice. Seeing these bodies — old, young, different shapes, sizes and ethnicities — take up space with an aura of persistent stillness, the female gaze replaces the usual male one.

Gradually, an array of objects are introduced into the picture: high heel shoes, random books, coconuts. A gramophone, in conjunction with Tristen Parr’s sound design, draws attention to the ways music cuts across time to meet us in this moment.

Balanced with extended moments of silence, the performers also work in glorious tandem with Chris Donnelly’s evocative lighting design, through which we alternatively glimpse and gape at the kaleidoscopic images.

Women through women’s eyes

The representation of women through art’s male gaze is directly referenced in projected paintings from Baroque and pre-Raphaelite masters.

These images are reconstructed in a number of artfully-composed tableaus where the dancers’ bodies seem to transform from flesh to form before our eyes. Exposing the effort and construct behind these seemingly perfect images, they also deconstruct these paintings in moments of gentle, wry humour.

There are two central duets by Ella-Rose Trew and Francesca Fenton. The second is an exercise in endurance, a sort of aerobics-class-meets-contemporary-dance that moves them from an exquisite, unified precision to an exhausted, deliberately looser partnership.

This gradual loss of finesse exposes us to the effort it takes to appear effortless.

The duration of these duets creates time and space for us to reflect upon our act of witnessing. There is rarely just one focal point; our eyes gaze at the different moments occurring simultaneously around the stage.

Coming back to the duets in our own time, at our own pace, we bring our dreamy associations with us. These multiple worlds evoke a stream of consciousness response: beauty and aging; past and present; our familial and creative ancestors and descendants. Images of the French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), who once graced this same stage, and Maggi Phillips (1944-2015), the doyen of Australian dance and scholarship, especially in Western Australia, fluttered before my eyes.

Strength in unity

In this week of International Women’s Day, this year where the Australian of the Year is speaking out about sexual assault, this month when we have highly-publicised utterings of what happens to women’s bodies and minds as a result of sexual assault, I was also reminded of the increasing profile and articulation of women’s rage.

These silent women of Slow Burn, Together — across generations, watching each other, watching out for one another — seemed to speak to this moment in Australian history.

The piece culminates in a gorgeous coming together of the ensemble. There is something very satisfying about watching a group of people move in unison after so much asynchronicity.

What’s the collective noun for an ensemble of women dressed in black, performing a delicate choreography with their feet, while their hands remain hooked behind their backs? I suggest a haunting.

There’s an eerie strength in this vignette of unity. Then, just as quickly Bogart’s poetic realm disassembles and we are returned to her “bricks and mortar” of the theatre.

Slow Burn, Together is at His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, until Sunday March 14.

– ref. ‘Articulation of women’s rage’: Slow Burn, Together and its haunting of women dancers – https://theconversation.com/articulation-of-womens-rage-slow-burn-together-and-its-haunting-of-women-dancers-154270

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

The Morrison government’s plan to halve the cost of up to 800,000 air tickets for interstate travellers is a rescue package of sorts for Australia’s tourism industry.

But the highly selective list of destinations – 13 were initially announced, though more may be added – suggests a bit of political pork has been included in the menu.

Under the scheme – the centrepiece of a A$1.2 billion “Tourism Aviation Network Support Program” – the government will subsidise tickets for interstate travel to these chosen destinations between April and July.

The government hopes this encouragement to travel interstate will help keep tourism-related businesses afloat while international borders remain closed. The government’s assumption is international travel will start to resume after October. But that will depend on the progress of the national vaccination program.

Targeted support for the tourism sector is certainly warranted to fill the gap left by the JobKeeper program (which will wind down at the end of month). But this package can be fairly criticised for being arbitrary and skewed by a cynical eye on marginal seats.

Read more: Morrison government to subsidise holidaymakers in $1.2 billion tourism and aviation package

In principle, a reasonable idea

The general idea of subidising air tickets to encourage more domestic tourism isn’t necessarily bad.

While closing the border has cut off the flow of international tourists, it also means there are as many Australians not taking overseas holidays. Getting them to spend money on a domestic holiday instead would substantially alleviate the tourism sector’s woes.

But the recession has naturally led most of us to tighten our belts, while state border closures have made us cautious about booking interstate holidays. By providing a short window in which flights will be cheap as chips, this package gives Australians an extra push to take a holiday this winter.

But its targeting is questionable

To get a sense of how well targeted the package is, however, we can look at Australian Bureau of Statistics data to get a sense of how local tourism industries have affected.

While the bureau doesn’t count employees in the tourism sector directly, the accommodation and food services industry provides a useful proxy.

The following graph shows changes in the total number of hours worked in the accommodation and food services industry from November 2019 to November 2020 in each subsidised destination compared with the rest of its state. (The three Tasmanian destinations have been rolled into one.)

I’ve used hours worked by region instead of the unemployment rate so as to eliminate the effects of the JobKeeper program, which has kept many workers on payrolls even if they haven’t been getting many shifts.

Fall in hours worked in the accommodation and food services industry

The majority of the chosen destinations have had large falls in hours worked. Hardest hit was Broome in far-north Western Australia, where the total number of hours worked has fallen by more than half – a likely consequence of the Western Australian government closing the border with other states.

Not all make sense

Not all the chosen locations, however, appear to make as much sense. An example is Cairns in far-north Queensland.

As the tourist gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, it might have been expected to have been among the hardest hit by the loss of international tourists. But the statistics show hours worked in the local accommodation and food sector actually increased over 2020. This suggests domestic visitors have more than filled the void left by international visitors.

The same is true, to a lesser degree, for Queensland’s Gold Coast and northern Tasmania (Launceston, Devonport and Burnie). These areas have had decreases in the number of hours worked, but the falls are actually much smaller than the rest of the state has experienced.

So it seems to make little sense to include them in the support package while excluding destinations such as capital cities, whose tourism-related sectors have been among the biggest losers from travel bans.

Marginal interests

So what has been the government’s rationale for what made the list and what hasn’t? Well, far-north Queensland and northern Tasmania are home to marginal seats.

Cairns falls within the electorate of Leichhardt, a “bellwether seat” for most of the past 50 years, having been won by the party of government at 18 of the 19 elections since 1972. Visits to the area may also benefit businesses in neighbouring Kennedy, held by independent Bob Katter.

Devonport and Burnie fall within the electorate of Braddon, held by the Liberal Party since 2019 but which has swapped hands five times in the past 20 years. So too has neighbouring Bass (containing Launceston), which Liberal incumbent Bridget Archer won by just 563 votes at the last federal election. It seems likely that the government has let politics creep into the design of this economic lifeline.

Australia’s tourism sector will continue to need support while travel is restricted, but it would be better for all of us if political pork was kept off the menu.

– ref. Marginal advantage: a whiff of pork in the government’s great tourist ticket lottery – https://theconversation.com/marginal-advantage-a-whiff-of-pork-in-the-governments-great-tourist-ticket-lottery-157039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews was injured on Tuesday after slipping and falling on wet stairs at a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula.

Reports indicate he broke some ribs and fractured his T7 vertebra, and is now receiving treatment at the Alfred Hospital’s trauma centre in Melbourne.

Let’s take a look at what an injury to the T7 vertebra actually means.

The spine

Injuries to the spine can be particularly debilitating because the spine acts as the central pillar on which we stand.

It also protects some of the vital structures in our bodies such as the nerves, blood vessels and spinal cord. These nerves transport impulses from our brains to the muscles, and feed information back to the brain from our limbs. So certain spinal injuries can potentially be very dangerous if they interfere with these functions.

Though we might not think of the spine as readily as we do heart disease or other conditions as reasons for illness, it represents a considerable burden of disease for the Australian health system.

About four million Australians, or one in six, suffer from back problems. Many of these are related to the bones that make up the spine.

Each of the individual bones in this region are called “vertebra”. Your vertebral column (or spine) is composed of five main areas: the cervical spine (neck), the thoracic spine (where your ribs attach), the lumbar spine, and finally the sacrum and coccyx.

There are seven cervical vertebrae (C1-C7), 12 thoracic vertebrae (T1-T12), and five lumbar vertebrae (L1-L5). The area Andrews has injured, the thoracic spine, forms a semi-rigid cage due to its attachment to the ribs. These attachments mean this region of the spine is much stiffer and less flexible than the other areas.

The fracture seen in Andrews’ case appears to involve the seventh thoracic vertebra (T7), which is roughly halfway down the back. As this bone also has a pair of ribs attached, it is not a surprise his reported injuries also include broken ribs.

Vertebral fractures and the road to recovery

Fractures (breaks) of the bones in our spine become more likely as we age, and are more common in women over 60, whose bones may be weaker as a result of osteoporosis.

In younger patients, spinal fractures are much more likely to be the result of an accident. This is often a car accident, or a high-energy fall such as falling down the stairs. In this group, males are significantly more likely to be injured.

Read more: Victorian emergency departments during COVID-19: overall presentations down but assault, DIY injuries up

In general, a patient with a fractured T7 would experience pain when moving, and have difficulty standing for long periods. Patients with associated rib fractures may sometimes even have pain with breathing (particularly when taking big breaths).

If there’s no associated spinal cord injury or damage to the nerves in the area, a full recovery is likely, but this can take weeks or months. This process often involves rehabilitation with physiotherapists and other health-care providers.

We’re not familiar with the details of Andrews’ case. But his medical team has likely performed a series of scans and assessments to ascertain the full extent of any damage, and to decide on the most appropriate course of treatment.

Falls are common

On average, nearly 220,000 Australians are hospitalised each year due to falls (that’s more than 600 people a day).

Falls serious enough to take you to hospital are becoming more common in Australia. National data suggest hospital presentations due to falls are increasing by nearly 2% each year. In some specific groups, such as males over 65, the increase in the rate of falls is even higher (3%).

Read more: Needless treatments: spinal fusion surgery for lower back pain is costly and there’s little evidence it’ll work

In 2016-17, 41% of hospital admissions for injuries were a result of falls. Falls from, or on, stairs account for 7% of these.

Andrews has clearly suffered a serious injury, which can be very painful. We wish him a speedy recovery.

– ref. What’s a T7 vertebra and what happens when you injure it? 2 experts explain – https://theconversation.com/whats-a-t7-vertebra-and-what-happens-when-you-injure-it-2-experts-explain-156947

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW

A coalition of more than 20 disability organisations released a statement yesterday setting out significant concerns over the federal government’s plans to introduce independent assessments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The government says this new approach is aimed at making the NDIS fairer. But many people with disability think it is about cost-cutting. They also say an independent assessment is a “nightmare” process that doesn’t produce an accurate picture of people’s lives.

If the government is trying to make the NDIS fairer, there are better ways.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: how does the scheme work and am I eligible for funding?

What are independent assessments?

To meet criteria for NDIS funding, you need to demonstrate you have a permanent and significant disability.

At the moment, applicants submit evidence from experts such as medical professionals and specialists. But this can be expensive, and the government argues this has led to inconsistencies in how individuals are funded.

For instance, NDIS minister Stuart Robert recently shared Tasmanian data showing a 53% difference in the average value of NDIS plans between more and less wealthy towns. So he argues independent assessments would make the process “simpler, fairer and more consistent for participants, and their families and carers”.

Some current NDIS participants have volunteered to have independent assessments as part of a pilot process. However, from the middle of this year, all people over seven years old who meet the initial access requirements will be referred for an independent assessment.

Those currently in the scheme will progressively be required to undergo the same assessment before they receive their next plan, with new legislation to facilitate this process.

Read more: Change Agents: Rhonda Galbally and Bruce Bonyhady on the birth of the NDIS

One of several organisations privately contracted to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) will conduct these independent assessments. They will send an allied health professional, who is unknown to the person with disability, to assess the level of support they need.

The assessment will be done using standardised tools (such as a questionnaire the health worker completes). The outcome determines whether the person is eligible for NDIS funding and how much they should receive.

What’s the problem?

The assessment process takes a maximum of three hours. In that time, the assessor needs to get to know an individual, understand how their disability impacts them, and gauge the types of support they have around them.

This isn’t long enough to get to know the complex details of an individual’s life. And people with disabilities that fluctuate (such as multiple sclerosis or mental illness, for example) may happen to be assessed on one of their better or worse days, skewing the picture.

The suite of assessment tools is focused on clinical issues, with different ones used for different age groups. For instance, they can measure medical conditions, mobility, or what people need assistance with. But they were not designed to decide appropriate funding. This is an untested application and no other disability system in the world uses this approach.

There are concerns this process will measure people simply on their medical diagnoses.

There are also concerns the process is not culturally safe for minority groups, such as those with a culturally or linguistically diverse background, LGBTIQA people with disability, and First Nations applicants. Disability advocates say these groups require assessors with specialised expertise.

Pilots so far show assessments are being undertaken by inexperienced health professionals who do not have much knowledge or experience of disability. Questions are asked without context, so the process doesn’t always give good insight into people’s lives and priorities.

Some of those who have been through the process describe it as “dehumanising”. They say the short assessments can’t capture all the context around an individual’s life, and the focus on deficit and what individuals can’t do can be traumatic.

The independent assessment decision cannot be appealed, and people with disability won’t get a copy of the full assessment unless they apply to see it. If the process determines you are not eligible for the NDIS or that your plan should be substantially less than it currently is, there is no avenue to challenge this.

There have been concerns that NDIS costs might blow out and it is certainly true the original modelling behind the scheme underestimated demand.

However, many in the disability community are concerned this “tick-a-box” exercise is ultimately about cost-cutting through smaller plans and tighter eligibility criteria.

Read more: Explainer: how much does the NDIS cost and where does this money come from?

Lack of consultation and transparency

The NDIA says functional assessments were always central to implementing the NDIS.

The Productivity Commission originally recommended them in 2011. And in 2019, the independent Tune review suggested independent functional assessments could help solve some issues it identified with the NDIS.

Read more: The NDIS is changing. Here’s what you need to know – and what problems remain

However, disability advocates say independent assessments, as currently proposed, are significantly different to those outlined in the Tune review. They say:

• the assessments haven’t been designed together with people with disability, which you’d expect with major changes of this nature

• any consultation was rushed (which contravenes the NDIS Act) and participants’ concerns ignored

• there’s no leeway for individual people’s circumstances to ensure equity, consistent with the NDIS Act

• there are no protections, such as a participant’s right to challenge assessment results.

Many in the disability community have also asked why the NDIA has not shared the results of any modelling or testing of the tools and the outcomes of the pilots.

What could we do instead?

Disability advocacy organisations are calling for an immediate halt to the planned rollout of compulsory assessments.

They are not against the idea of assessment processes that make the scheme fairer but believe this is the wrong solution.

Undertaking an independent evaluation of the proposed changes and one that is carefully designed in consultation with people with disability and their families would be a good start.

Read more: Here’s what needs to happen to get the NDIS back on track

– ref. ‘Dehumanising’ and ‘a nightmare’: why disability groups want NDIS independent assessments scrapped – https://theconversation.com/dehumanising-and-a-nightmare-why-disability-groups-want-ndis-independent-assessments-scrapped-156941

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

Michelle Grattan discusses the week in politics with University of Canberra Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher.

This week the pair discuss the government’s most recent round of subsidy packages – for apprentices and the tourism industry, as well as the success of the vaccine rollout so far, the post JobKeeper economy, and the ongoing scrutiny of attorney-general Christian Porter.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on a post-JobKeeper economy, the vaccine rollout and half-price plane tickets – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-a-post-jobkeeper-economy-the-vaccine-rollout-and-half-price-plane-tickets-156974

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Loughman, Senior Research Fellow, Deakin University

If you walk down the supermarket aisle, you may be tempted with foods marketed as being good for your gut. Then there are the multiple health blogs about improving, supporting or maintaining your “gut health”.

But what does “gut health” mean? Is it the absence of disease? Is it no bloating? Or is it something else entirely? And how strong is the evidence “gut health” products actually make a difference?

As we explain in our article just published in the journal Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, even researchers have not quite nailed a definition. Here’s what we know so far.

Read more: What is kombucha and how do the health claims stack up?

What does the science say?

We know the gut is important for our overall health and well-being. And when we say “gut”, we usually mean the large intestine, the region of the gastrointestinal tract where most of our gut microbiome lives.

Our gut microbiome is our gut’s resident microbes. And evidence is emerging this affects everything from how our body processes sugar in our diet, to our risk of cancer, depression and dementia.

But there’s no clear agreement on what “gut health” actually means. Researchers don’t use the term in the medical literature very much. When they do, they seem to refer to no:

• unwanted gastrointestinal symptoms (such as pain or diarrhoea)

• disease (such as Crohn’s disease or colon cancer), or

• negative gut features (such as inflammation, a deficiency of certain molecules or an imbalance in the microbiome), which are almost impossible to precisely diagnose.

Nowhere do researchers or gastroenterologists (doctors who specialise in the gut) mention any aesthetic perks, such as a smooth, flat belly or glowing skin, despite what magazine articles might suggest.

Read more: Do men really take longer to poo?

So, what’s the problem?

There are two main problems with products or lists of foods that claim to be good for “gut health”.

First, such claims are not backed by strong scientific evidence. Second, these claims are simplistic.

While a healthy diet is undoubtedly an essential contributor to good health, including of the gastrointestinal system, it’s dietary patterns and overall habits, not individual foods, that shift the dial.

Read more: These 5 foods are claimed to improve our health. But the amount we’d need to consume to benefit is… a lot

Let’s take fibre as an example

Fibre is one dietary component heralded as a gut health hero. Indeed, there is compelling evidence showing health benefits of a high-fibre diet, for the gastrointestinal tract, and also more broadly (for instance, a reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes).

Yet most people in Western countries do not eat enough dietary fibre.

However, the little-told story is foods contain multiple types of dietary fibre, each with different effects on gut function (and its microbiome).

We don’t know if all types of fibre are essential or beneficial. At least in animals, too much of certain fibres might affect the large intestine, causing inflammatory disease.

So yes, eat high-fibre foods (including wholegrain cereals, fruit, vegetables, legumes and nuts). But do so as part of a varied diet, not by overloading on just one or two foods or commercial products claiming to improve your “gut health”.

We are all individuals

The optimal diet for your gut as well as your overall health is likely to be highly individual. What is best for one person may not be so for the next.

Large human studies show the gut microbiome may be the major driver of this individuality, responsible for some of the variability in how different people metabolise food.

However, as we have written about before, it isn’t yet possible to define the perfect microbiome, or how to get one. What is clear is that any one product is unlikely to achieve this anyway.

Read more: Should I test my gut microbes to improve my health?

So where does this leave us?

If we accept the concept of “gut health” has many nuances, what next?

There is good evidence the health of the gastrointestinal tract and its microbiome are important for overall health, and certainly the absence of pain and disease boosts our well-being.

But rather than focusing on one food, the evidence for what’s best for our gut tells us we’d be better off looking at improving our overall diet. National healthy eating guidelines universally include advice to eat a variety of foods, including those high in fibre, and to avoid excessive alcohol.

General principles of a healthy lifestyle apply too: avoid substance abuse (including smoking, off-label prescription drugs and illicit drugs), exercise regularly, take care of your mental well-being and manage your stress.

All these combined are likely to be more helpful for gut health than the latest superfood or boxed cereal.

Read more: Essays on health: microbes aren’t the enemy, they’re a big part of who we are

– ref. Boosting your ‘gut health’ sounds great. But this wellness trend is vague and often misunderstood – https://theconversation.com/boosting-your-gut-health-sounds-great-but-this-wellness-trend-is-vague-and-often-misunderstood-155472

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Foley, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief Scientist

It’s early days in my tenure as Australia’s Chief Scientist but I have already been struck by how central science is to the national policy agenda. I knew this as an observer, but since I took up the post it has become clear how many initiatives are looking to science to lead the way.

As we begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia is looking to boost its manufacturing capacity in areas such as medical manufacturing and low-emissions technologies including clean hydrogen.

This is good news for Australia’s science and research community. It is an enormous opportunity. It is also a considerable challenge and responsibility.

After the pandemic

One of the first events with which I was involved as Chief Scientist was a US-Australia Dialogue on Medical Innovation in Response to COVID-19. This was an opportunity to share experiences across the United States and Australia, and the conversation touched on some of the topics that will be a focus of my term.

Contributing to Australia’s pandemic response is high on my agenda. This includes not only short-term activities such as the vaccine rollout, but also learning the lessons of the past 12 months.

Australia’s interests will be well served by a greater capability in pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing. I was interested to hear the insights from two significant companies in this sphere, ResMed and CSL. Both have played important roles in the pandemic both locally and globally: ResMed in the manufacture of ventilators, and CSL in the development of therapies and vaccines.

Read more: 3 medical innovations fueled by COVID-19 that will outlast the pandemic

The federal government is focused on building Australian capability in medical manufacturing, and I strongly support this work.

The pandemic accelerated global vaccine development, especially in the new field of mRNA vaccines. The technology has potential for other vaccines, including for influenza, and for new treatments for diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. The Medical Products National Manufacturing Priority road map has identified this area as a growth opportunity.

Beyond medicine

The government’s focus on manufacturing also includes new low-emissions technologies, such as clean hydrogen, and Australian capability in a variety of other sectors. These include resources technology and critical minerals processing, food security, recycling and clean energy, defence and space. I am also deputy chair of Industry Innovation and Science Australia, a board advising the government in this effort.

Read more: The science is clear: we have to start creating our low-carbon future today

The government is also strongly focused on encouraging more commercialisation of research and ensuring Australia gets the benefit of the research and innovation that it incubates.

Much of my time in recent weeks has been spent consulting across government, industry and the science and research communities as I bed down a concrete work agenda. It is already clear that research translation — the ability to get the most value from the excellent research being done in our universities and other institutions — will be a key focus. I will have more to say on that when I speak at the National Press Club next week.

From research to commercialisation

I worked at the CSIRO for many years as a researcher in superconducting materials, and was later the organisation’s Chief Scientist. My experience spans the continuum from pure research to commercialisation.

For me, science is where the work starts, but not the whole answer. Science is creative, hard, exciting, sometimes demoralising and immensely fulfilling and fun.

Science can provide the nation with options for the path forward. But we also need engineering, a good business model, user interface and design. Not to mention the social licence to accept, support and pay for the solution.

Read more: Australia can do a better job of commercialising research – here’s how

My job is to ensure the government has access to the best evidence available as it tackles the challenges we face and drives new opportunities for Australian innovation and industry.

I look forward to working with science and research community, industry and business community, government and institutions to make that happen.

Cathy Foley is Australia’s Chief Scientist. She addresses the National Press Club on Wednesday March 17.

– ref. Chief Scientist: science will drive a post-pandemic manufacturing boom – https://theconversation.com/chief-scientist-science-will-drive-a-post-pandemic-manufacturing-boom-156935

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shane Satterley, PhD Candidate, Griffith University

Most Muslim Australians do not subscribe to extremist Islamist beliefs. However, according to a recent nationwide survey, significant minorities did indicate support for some key ideological features of Islamism.

According to the survey, which was completed by 1,034 Muslim Australian citizens in late 2019, 23% of respondents agreed that establishing a caliphate (a form of Islamic government) is a religious obligation.

Nearly one in five respondents (19%) said they defined jihad as an “offensive” concept rather than something that is done only in self defence, while 10% agreed that countries with sharia law are more just and fair than Australia.

The findings are part of recent research I conducted with colleagues at Griffith University. The study is one of the most comprehensive attempts to measure Islamist extremism within a population, and is the largest of its kind to deeply examine Islamist extremism in Australia.

We developed the anonymous survey in consultation with Muslim Australians, including religious scholars, community leaders and representatives of various Muslim organisations. It was distributed online with support from Muslim community organisations, groups and individuals, who shared the link with their networks.

Who holds extremist views and why

To better understand our findings, it helps to start with an explanation of Islamism.

Not all Islamists are violent extremists. Some will use the ballot box and institutions of the state to advocate for an Islamic system of government based on sharia. Why non-violent Islamists are still considered concerning is due to how they intend to govern once in power, dispelling notions of a liberal democracy.

Importantly, we must emphasise that a large majority of our fellow Muslim Australians do not agree with an extremist Islamist interpretation of the religion and strongly condemn the use of violence.

For instance, nearly 90% said Islam never allows violence against civilians, while 60% said they believe countries with sharia laws are not more just and fair than Australia and 51.3% would not want to live in countries where sharia laws are in force.

Previous research has contended that factors such as social marginalisation, alienation and isolation are breeding grounds for radicalisation.

Our survey found some evidence of this, but only in relation to the family unit.

Those who broadly supported Islamist views were more likely to feel strongly connected to the local mosque and Muslim community compared to the other respondents. The responses did not indicate social marginalisation or isolation from Australian society — quite the opposite.

However, those who agreed with more extreme views around martyrdom and attacking civilian targets were much more likely to have experienced a loss of connection to family. These respondents, though, still maintained a connection to other areas of society, particularly the local mosque.

Read more: Islamic State lays claim to Muslim theological tradition and turns it on its head

When it came to gender, the male participants in our survey were far more likely to agree with Islamist views.

For example, 31.5% of the men we surveyed agreed that a caliphate is a religious obligation.

This number is quite striking, as it explains how a group like Islamic State (IS) was able to use this notion to mobilise tens of thousands of recruits around the globe, including many from Australia in 2014 and 2015.

It also shows continued support for this idea of a caliphate, even though IS has largely been defeated in its Middle East stronghold and lost control of its self-declared caliphate.

While there was sizeable support for the idea of a caliphate in our survey, this didn’t necessarily extend to more extremist views. Just 8% of all respondents expressed support for an Islamic political order and sharia law being implemented by force.

And when we asked whether Islam regards civilians as legitimate targets for armed conflict, only 5% of all respondents indicated it was generally or sometimes permissible.

To better understand where those with extremist views got their ideas, we also asked participants what they considered to be the most influential sources of Islamic knowledge from a lengthy list.

Those with Islamist beliefs were more likely to indicate the Quran and social media than others in the survey. And they were much more likely to indicate imams, the mosque, the hadith and scholarly books as very influential sources of Islamic knowledge.

Read more: Explainer: what is ‘sharia law’? And does it fit with Western law?

Using this data to counter radicalisation

How do these new findings compare with international research on Islamism?

Sociological research on Islamism is rare. However in 2010, a study was conducted in Denmark that found similar proportions of Muslims expressing broad support towards Islamist ideas (18%) and the most extremist views (5.6%).

We have presented our survey data to Australian law enforcement and Muslim community organisations to help inform policies and programs related to countering violent extremism (CVE).

Read more: How the Australian government is failing on countering violent extremism

For example, our survey found the higher the educational achievement of participants, the less likely they were to agree with Islamist views.

Also, those who studied STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were significantly more likely to agree with Islamist ideas compared to those in the humanities fields.

Importantly, our survey also highlights just how important the family unit is to the radicalisation process. We found a drastic drop in connection to family and friends among those who said the use of violence against civilians was permissible.

As such, both education and connection with family must be critical areas of focus and engagement for our CVE policies moving forward.

– ref. New survey sheds light on the depth of extremist beliefs among Muslim Australians – https://theconversation.com/new-survey-sheds-light-on-the-depth-of-extremist-beliefs-among-muslim-australians-155471

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Briggs, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Yallourn power station — Australia’s oldest, dirtiest coal plant — will close four years ahead of schedule in 2028. Announcing the move this week, operator Energy Australia said it will build a giant energy storage battery on the site to make room for more renewables. This is a powerful statement about where our energy system is heading.

Yallourn has operated for 47 years burning brown coal. It supplies one-fifth of Victoria’s energy and employs 500 permanent workers and hundreds more contractors. It’s also responsible for 13% of Victoria’s emissions.

In response to the announcement, federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor said:

Our thoughts are with the workers, their families and local business owners who rely on the power station for their livelihoods.

So what, exactly, is the the federal government doing to help the 10,000 domestic coal workers set to lose their jobs when Yallourn and other coal power stations shut down? At the moment, the federal government isn’t offering anything more than platitudes.

Over the next 15 years, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) projects most of Australia’s 20-odd coal plants will also close. Australia urgently needs investment and policy solutions to manage this inevitable transition. Without it, workers and electricity consumers will be left dangerously exposed.

The inevitable demise of coal

Solar and wind energy are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation. As the former chief executive of AEMO, Audrey Zibelman, stated last year:

It is inevitable […] we are at a position where the existing coal fleet is coming to the end of its technical life and is going to retire.

Renewable energy has grown to 25-30% of the market, placing enormous pressure on coal-fired generators and lowering their market share. In fact, a recent study estimates that by 2025, as many as five Australian coal power stations could be unprofitable.

At the last federal election, the Morrison government claimed 50% renewable energy by 2030 would be ruinous for our economy.

Now, several expert energy analysts estimate that renewable projects already in the pipeline could see 50% renewables occur as early as 2025.

Read more: Vital Signs: timing of Yallourn’s closure shows it’s high time for a carbon price

Australia has no plan

Australia is not well-prepared for the closure of coal power stations. It has no national climate and energy policy. And unlike nations such as Germany and Spain, there is no timetable for closures or agreements in place to manage the exit of coal power stations.

Under the National Electricity Rules, generators are required to give three years’ notice for a closure. But the penalties for failing to do so are not a significant deterrent relative to the incentive to stay in the market for as long as possible.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald report quoted an energy market source who said coal plant owners are playing a “game of chicken”. They are holding on and hoping another plant closes, which would tighten supply, raise electricity prices and improve the financial viability of remaining generators.

The closure of Yallourn is too far away to change the equation for other coal power stations at risk.

Without effective regulation or policy, regional coal communities are mostly left relying on the owners’ goodwill, or fear of reputational damage, to do the right thing.

Already, we’ve seen the damage planned and unplanned coal plant closures can have on workers and consumers.

After the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley closed in 2016 with just a few months’ notice, data presented to the Victorian parliament in 2019 showed just one in three workers had found full-time work and one in four were unemployed.

What’s more, electricity prices spiked once Hazelwood’s supply was pulled from the market – demonstrating the risks to electricity supplies and consumers when coal exits don’t happen in an orderly manner.

Regional coal communities need time to adjust to the energy transition. If a string of Australian coal stations close at short notice, the social and economic impacts could be devastating.

In the case of Yallourn, the Victorian government negotiated an agreement, including seven years’ notice of the closure and support for the workforce, such as re-training.

Read more: How Australia can phase out coal power while maintaining energy security

Some coal plant operators are also taking the lead. In 2017, AGL gave five years’ notice that the Liddell coal plant in the New South Wales Hunter Valley would close in 2022 (the shutdown has since been pushed back to 2023). The company is now investing in transition measures for the site and workforce.

Heavy-handed intervention by the federal government has made attracting investment harder for Liddell and could do the same for Yallourn.

Renewable energy already creates more jobs (just under 30,000) than the domestic coal sector. Most of these jobs are currently in construction, but by the mid-2030s as many as half could be in ongoing operation and maintenance as the fleet of renewable projects grows.

This number will increase further. But while renewables projects will create some new jobs in coal regions, most will be in other regional areas and the capital cities.

Read more: 45,000 renewables jobs are Australia’s for the taking – but how many will go to coal workers?

So what needs to happen?

It seems almost everyone recognises the reality of coal power’s inevitable demise — except the federal government.

AEMO projects a grid dominated by renewable energy by 2035. Almost all of Australia’s banks and insurers have committed to exit thermal coal between 2030 and 2035.

The NSW, Queensland and Victorian governments are establishing Renewable Energy Zones to fast-track the growth of renewable energy before coal plants retire. And there are initiatives to grow regional jobs such as the NSW Renewable Sector Board, the Latrobe Valley Authority) and collaborations such as the Hunter Jobs Alliance).

These are all important and meaningful initiatives. But without a national policy or a process for coal exits, they’re operating in a vacuum without timeframes.

Australia should start looking to overseas experiences, where governments are establishing transition authorities and injecting funds to diversify regional economies and retrain workers. The European Union, for example, has set up a €17.5 billion (A$27 billion) Just Transition Fund. And national agreements between the government, industry, unions and communities to phase out coal have been negotiated in Germany and Spain.

There’s little prospect of this happening any time soon in the current Australian political climate, but a range of models have been advocated here. This includes auctions to stagger closures, or coal owners nominating a closure window and depositing money in a fund as insurance towards that commitment.

Whatever the model, a policy solution for the demise of coal is urgently needed across levels of governments, energy planners and local communities. Otherwise, it’s likely to be a bumpy ride for coal workers and the electricity system.

Read more: How to transition from coal: 4 lessons for Australia from around the world

– ref. The death of coal-fired power is inevitable — yet the government still has no plan to help its workforce – https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-coal-fired-power-is-inevitable-yet-the-government-still-has-no-plan-to-help-its-workforce-156863

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Hockings, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland

It’s one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. While the human and economic toll have been enormous, new findings show the fallout from the virus also seriously damaged nature.

Conservation is often funded by tourism dollars – particularly in developing nations. In many cases, the dramatic tourism downturn brought on by the pandemic meant funds for conservation were cut. Anti-poaching operations and endangered species programs were among those affected.

This dwindling of conservation efforts during COVID is sadly ironic. The destruction of nature is directly linked to zoonotic diseases, and avoiding habitat loss is a cost-effective way to prevent pandemics.

The research papers reveal the inextricable links between the health of humans and the health of the planet. Together, they make one thing abundantly clear: we must learn the hard lessons of COVID-19 to ensure the calamity is not repeated.

A disaster for conservation

The findings are contained in a special issue of PARKS, the peer-reviewed journal of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, co-edited with Brent Mitchell and Adrian Phillips.

Researchers found between January and May 2020, 45% of global tourism destinations totally or partially closed their borders to tourists. This caused the loss of 174 million direct tourism jobs around the world, and cost the sector US$4.7 trillion.

Over-dependence on tourism to fund conservation is fraught with peril. For example in Namibia, initial estimates suggested communal wildlife conservancies could lose US$10 million in direct tourism revenues. This threatened funding for 700 game guards and 300 conservancy management employees.

It also threatened the viability of 61 joint venture tourism lodges employing 1,400 community members. This forced families to rely more heavily on natural resource extraction to survive.

Read more: Coronavirus is a wake-up call: our war with the environment is leading to pandemics

Emergency funds were raised to cover critical shortfalls. However in April 2020, rhinos were poached in a communal conservancy in Namibia – the first such event in two years. Researchers believe this may have been linked to the pandemic fallout.

More than 70% of African countries reported reduced monitoring of the illegal wildlife trade as a result of the pandemic. More than half reported impacts on the protection of endangered species, conservation education and outreach, regular field patrols and anti-poaching operations.

Rangers have also been hard hit. A global survey of nearly 1,000 rangers found more than one in four had their salaries reduced or delayed due to COVID-related budget cuts. A third of all rangers in Central and South America, Africa and Caribbean countries reported being laid off. Some 90% said vital work with local communities had reduced or ceased.

In more bad news, governments of at least 22 countries used the pandemic as a reason to weaken environmental protections for protected and conserved areas, or cut their budgets.

Many of the changes allowed large-scale infrastructure (such as roads, airports, pipelines, hydropower plants and housing) and extractive activities (such as coal, oil and gas development and industrial fishing). Brazil, India and, until recently, the United States have emerged as hotspots of COVID-era rollbacks.

Read more: UN report says up to 850,000 animal viruses could be caught by humans, unless we protect nature

Humans and animals pushed closer

SARS-COV-2 is very similar to other viruses in bats, and may have been passed to humans via another animal species. The pandemic shows the potentially devastating outcomes when animals and humans are forced into closer contact in shrinking habitats – for example, as a result of forest destruction.

As one paper found, during the last century an average of two new viruses spilled from animals to humans each year. These include Ebola and SARS.

Clearly, investment is needed to preserve the world’s protected and conserved areas, ensuring they act as a buffer against new pandemics. One study puts the required spending at US$67 billion each year – and notes only about one-third of this is currently being spent.

While it’s undoubtedly a large sum, the International Monetary Fund estimated late last year the pandemic would cause US$28 trillion in lost economic output in 2020.

Like many zoonotic epidemics, it appears COVID-19 was caused by the trade in wildlife and wild meat consumption. But diseases caused by uncontrolled land-use change – often for agriculture and livestock production – are just as dangerous.

The greatest risk, according to one group of researchers, is in forested tropical regions where land use is changing and a rich variety of mammal species are present.

Read more: Most laws ignore ‘human-wildlife conflict’. This makes us vulnerable to pandemics

2021: a crucial year

As the special issue’s co-editors argue, if COVID-19 is not enough to make humanity wake up to the “suicidal consequences” of misguided development, then how will future calamities be avoided?

The cost of effectively maintaining protected and conserved natural areas is a small fraction of the cost of dealing with the pandemic and getting economies moving again. Imagine, for a moment, if the effort put into the development of vaccines were applied in the same measure to addressing the root causes of zoonotic pandemics.

In 2021, a series of international meetings will be held to decide how to stabilise our climate, save biodiversity, secure human health and revive the global economy. Through these events should run a golden thread: learn the lessons of COVID-19 by protecting nature and restoring damaged ecosystems.

– ref. COVID-19 wasn’t just a disaster for humanity – new research shows nature suffered greatly too – https://theconversation.com/covid-19-wasnt-just-a-disaster-for-humanity-new-research-shows-nature-suffered-greatly-too-156838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

If you ever doubted the price of renewable energy was falling so rapidly it would eventually replace fossil fuels, the expedited closure of the Yallourn coal-fired power plant should change that.

Energy Australia announced this week it would close the 47-year-old power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley in 2028 – four years earlier than expected – given the low price and high uptake of renewable energy.

This is good news for the environment. Yallourn is the nation’s most carbon-intensive generator. It accounts for 13% of Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions and almost 5% of Australia’s total emissions.

But it also provides 22% of Victoria’s electricity and directly employs 500 people in a region already struggling with the transition away from fossil fuels. (Hundreds more jobs were lost when another Latrobe Valley coal-fired power station, Hazelwood, closed in 2017.)

Some of the impact may be mitigated by Energy Australia’s plan to build a 350 megawatt battery – 3.5 times the capacity of South Australia’s big battery in Hornsdale, larger than any now existing – near the company’s Jeeralang gas-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley.

Policy hodgepodge

The crucial question in all of this is whether Australia’s coal-fired power stations are being retired too slowly – or potentially even too quickly.

It’s hard to know without a price on carbon to create a level playing field for renewable energy and fossil fuels.

We need a carbon price that reflects the “social cost of carbon”. The best evidence is this is about US$51 per metric ton.

What we have instead is a hodgepodge of clumsy government interventions on both sides of the ledger.

Yes, there are subsidies for renewable generation such as wind and solar.

But there is perhaps as much as A$12 billion a year in implicit subsidies for fossil fuels. These subsidies stem from things such as the fuel tax credit scheme, aviation fuel excise concession, accelerated depreciation through effective life caps on power plants, fringe benefits tax concessions, uplift provisions in the petroleum resources rent tax, and more.

Huge uncertainty

All of this creates huge uncertainty about if and when Australia’s remaining 16 coal-fired power plants will close. When will their workers need transition assistance to begin? Are we sending the right price signals for those considering investing in different forms of power generation? Are we going to have enough reliability in the system to avoid blackouts or brownouts?

These issues about transition of companies, workers and indeed whole communities from fossil fuels to green energy are not limited to power generation plants. Far from it. All sectors of the economy will be affected, though some more than others.

For instance, as electric vehicles replace petrol or diesel-powered vehicles, what will happen to petrol stations? Electric charging stations don’t need the same real estate. How many will be decommissioned, how many will remain as convenience stores? What’s the time line?

Read more: Bad news. Closing coal-fired power stations costs jobs. We need to prepare

A mess at best, a disaster at worst

The key point is that the weird combination of government policies subsidising both green energy and fossil fuels has no clear connection to the relative price of these energy alternatives. These policies thus provide no clear signal to influence consumer and business decisions. It is impossible to make sensible predictions about how our energy mix will evolve, and hence how to respond to that evolution.

Worse still, government policy is subject to change at any time – even without a change of government. This adds a big slather of political uncertainty on top of the existing economic uncertainty.

The Yallourn closure should be a wake-up call to both sides of politics that a transition to green energy run by government fiat is going to be a very messy affair at best, and a complete disaster at worst.

In fact, the Hazelwood closure in 2017 should have been that wake-up call. Let’s hope politicians at least get the message this time.

Read more: How Australia can phase out coal power while maintaining energy security

Putting a price on carbon has become the ultimate political issue. Labor is scared to death of losing another election by supporting such a price – even though (with the possible exception of Joel Fitzgibbon) it knows it’s the right policy.

Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party is so wedded to using “technology versus taxes” as a political wedge it can’t even see the right policy any more. The parliamentary National Party, meanwhile, can’t appreciate what many of their constituents do know – that a carbon price would provide enormous economic opportunities in rural and regional Australia.

Our energy transition is in disarray. It will only get worse without a price on carbon and an end to subsidies for all forms of energy. Failure to do so will merely sow the seeds for more transition problems in the years to come.

– ref. Vital Signs: timing of Yallourn’s closure shows it’s high time for a carbon price – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-timing-of-yallourns-closure-shows-its-high-time-for-a-carbon-price-156936

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Monash Intercultural Lab and National Convenor of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network, Monash University

In 399 CE, Faxian — a monk in China’s Jin Dynasty — went on a pilgrimage to the Indian subcontinent to collect Buddhist scriptures. Returning after 13 years, he spent the rest of his life translating those texts, profoundly altering Chinese worldviews and changing the face of Asian and world history.

After Faxian, hundreds of Chinese monks made similar journeys, leading not only to the spread of Buddhism along the Nirvana Route, but also opening up roads to medicine men, merchants and missionaries.

Along with the two other great translation movements — Graeco-Arabic in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods (2nd-4th and 8th-10th century) and Indo-Persian (13th-19th centuries) — these events were major attempts to translate knowledge across linguistic boundaries in world history.

Transcending barriers of language and space, acts of translation touched and transformed every aspect of life: from arts and crafts, to beliefs and customs, to society and politics.

Going by the latest casualty in the heated — but necessary — debates around representation in our creative and cultural arenas, none of this would be possible today.

Last month, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, the youngest writer ever to win the International Booker Prize for The Discomfort of Evening (with translator Michele Hutchison), was chosen to translate 22-year-old American poet laureate Amanda Gorman’s forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, for Dutch publisher Meulenhoff.

Gorman selected Rijneveld herself. But amid backlash that a white prose writer was chosen to translate the work of an unapologetically Black, spoken word poet, Rijneveld resigned saying,

I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff’s choice to ask me […] I had happily devoted myself to translating Amanda’s work, seeing it as the greatest task to keep her strength, tone and style. However, I realise that I am in a position to think and feel that way, where many are not.

This week, meanwhile, the poem’s Catalan translator Victor Obiols told AFP he had been removed from the job by Barcelona publisher Univers.

They did not question my abilities, but they were looking for a different profile, which had to be a woman, young, activist and preferably black.

We live in a world rife with controversies around cultural appropriation and identity politics. The power differentials created by the twin forces of colonialism and capitalism are being interrogated in every realm today.

It was only a matter of time before these burning issues ignited the art of translation.

Usually invisible and taken-for-granted, acts of translation take place around us all the time. But in the field of literary translation, questions of authorial voice and speaking position matter.

Marginalised creative practitioners and their growing audiences assume importance in a global publishing regime controlled by a dominant minority wielding majority power over issues of representation.

So it is fitting that some have drawn attention to the myriad spoken word artists eminently qualified to undertake translation in the Netherlands. And Dutch agents, publishers, editors, translators and reviewers could certainly broaden their horizons and embrace diversity.

Nevertheless, if humans only translated the familiar, how would we ever have an inkling of the astonishing world out there that is not familiar?

The task of literary translation entails grappling with profound difference, in terms of language, imagination, context, traditions, worldviews.

None of this would enter our quotidian consciousness but for the translators who step into uncharted waters because they have fallen in love with another tongue, another world.

Translation is resistance

Translators ferry across the meaning, materiality, metaphysics and all the magic that may be unknown in the mediums and conventions of their own tongue. The pull of the strange, the foreign, and the alien are necessary for acts of translation.

It is this essential element of unknowingness that animates the translator’s curiosity and challenges her intellectual mettle and ethical responsibility. Even when translators hail from — or belong to — the same culture as the original author, the art relies on the oppositional traction of difference.

Through opposition and abrasion, a creative translation allows for new meaning and nuance to emerge.

Noaki Sakai, a Japanese historian and translator at Cornell University, writes about the historical complexity of this process. The practices of translation, he says, are “always complicit with the building, transforming and disrupting of power differences.”

Translation is domination

Translation has, however, been a tool for domination in colonisation. La Malinche, for instance, acted as an intermediary and interpreter for the conquistador, Hernán Cortés, in the 16th century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.

Patyegarang was Australia’s first teacher of Aboriginal language, to early colonist, William Dawes, and crucial for the survival of the Gamaraigal language in Eora country. At 15, and as an initiated woman, she was Dawes’ intellectual equal, learning English from him and negotiating a relationship of mutual translation while holding on to her own cultural legacy.

In each of these cases, European imperialists learnt how to survive the lands they were conquering through the processes of translation. Moreover, they used the same languages to fabricate the story of their own superior Western civilisation, at the cost of Indigenous cultures.

As translation theorist Tejaswini Niranjana explains, translation:

shapes, and takes shape within, the asymmetrical relations of power that operate under colonialism.

Translation is not a neutral activity. It functions in a complex set of socio-political relations, where parties have vested interests in the production, dissemination and reception of stories and texts.

Academics Sabine Fenton and Paul Moon have written about the deliberate mis-translation of the Treaty of Waitangi, a strategic example of colonial omissions and selections that achieved “the cession of Maori sovereignty to the Crown.”

One egregious interpolation was the replacement of the word mana (sovereignty) with kawanatanga (government), which misled and induced many Maori chiefs to sign the treaty.

Read more: Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi

In situations of conflict and war — and the displacements that result from them — translation again becomes a weapon privileging the powerful, as seen in the impenetrable bureaucratic paperwork, in the dominant language, governing asylum and refugee seeker decisions.

In this charged context, the case of Gorman and Rijneveld becomes a lightning rod for addressing historical disempowerment and injustices.

Translation is diplomatic

In the absence of a level playing field for writers to have their voices heard in the global publishing market, there does need to be historical awareness and post-colonial sensitivity.

To Rijneveld’s credit, this sensitivity has been demonstrated. After stepping down as Gorman’s translator, they composed a poem:

never lost that resistance, that primal jostling with sorrow and joy,

or given in to pulpit preaching, to the Word that says what is

right or wrong, never been too lazy to stand up, to face

up to all the bullies and fight pigeonholing with your fists

raised, against those riots of not-knowing inside your head

Still, while representation is the moral imperative of the 21st century, it is my modest proposal that in the realm of literary translation, the pull of the unknown and the unfamiliar is one of the most important truisms: Rijneveld’s “riots of not-knowing.”

Already the world is losing a language every fortnight; 7000 languages are expected to be extinct by the end of this century. Yet it has often been argued that linguistic diversity is an indicator of genetic diversity, the latter being critical to the survival of the species.

If humans only translate what is known within their own four walls, or what is familiar to them within the boundaries of their own imaginations, something essential is lost both to translation — and to the profligate tongues that proliferate our humanity.

Translation is activism

We do not live in a post-racial world. We do not live in a borderless world — as brought to the fore powerfully by the COVID-19 pandemic. For translators in transnational times, it is of the essence that we break down ethno-linguistic borders, accepting the challenge of the confronting.

In my own work, I have collaborated on translations of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander, and tribal & Dalit Indian poets. This has necessarily involved the hard work of understanding historical incommensurabilities.

Yes, structural inequalities mount by the day in the face of capitalism, which is a faithful handmaiden to the ongoing machinations of colonialism. Translators do not live in a vacuum. We are not immune to the forces of structural racism.

But why is it that Rijneveld had to renounce the commission as an individual? Why does this recent story become about individual actions, rather than the entrenched patterns of operation of publishing houses like Meulenhoff?

To achieve equity, transformation must be structural — it cannot fall on the shoulders of one translator alone, making them a fall guy for the business of books as usual.

The directors and CEOs of dominant global (read: Western) publishing companies are predominantly white. Which begs the familiar question: what if editorial boards reflected the multiplicity of society across the axes of class, gender, race, sexuality and ability?

Imagine the scenario if even one of Australia’s mainstream publishing houses was led by a non-white head and/or board?

Read more: Diversity, the Stella Count and the whiteness of Australian publishing

It is precisely the duty of heads of publishing houses, literary and review magazines and cultural institutions, to invite a teeming world of translators to take charge of what needs to be done.

Still, a translator must attend to the demands of integrity and imagination as much as the demands of history and society. She must throw herself into the challenging task of being in another time and place, of rubbing against the grain of her own aims and assumptions.

Only in imagining such a Babelian world of difference can a truly radical set of possibilities become alive.

This is not to argue that translators who come from similar backgrounds will not be able to engage in the task of translation in ways that wrestle with the creative resistance entailed in such a task. But the field must remain open to whoever is called to the task.

Literary translation is often a matter of happy accidents and passionate engagements. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (2007) became a runaway success in the United Kingdom and United States in 2016, when Deborah Smith, who had been learning Korean for only six years, embarked on the task.

There have been critiques of her translation, but representation is not the issue. Part of the beauty of translation is that texts can be critiqued, and translated again and again.

Translation lore is enriched continually by examples of re-translations, such as the ten translations into English of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina alone, or the two of Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book.

The act and the art of translation requires the permission to transcend borders, the permission to make mistakes, and the permission to be repeated, by anyone who feels the tempestuous tug, and the clarion call, of the unfamiliar.

To rein in such liberty through categories and compartments that imprison our creativity is a disservice to the human imagination.

So let a thousand translations bloom: that would be a start and not an end to translation as we know it now.

– ref. Friday essay: is this the end of translation? – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-is-this-the-end-of-translation-156375

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Chugh, Senior Lecturer – Information Systems and Analysis, CQUniversity Australia

If Apple and other tech companies have their way, it will only become harder to have our phones and other devices repaired by third-party businesses.

Smartphones and many other tech devices are increasingly being designed in ways that make it challenging to repair or replace individual components.

This might involve soldering the processor and flash memory to the motherboard, gluing components together unnecessarily, or using non-standard pentalobe screws which make replacements problematic.

Many submissions to an Australian “right to repair” inquiry have called on tech manufacturers to provide a fair and competitive market for repairs, and produce products that are easily repairable.

The right to repair refers to consumers’ ability to have their products repaired at a competitive price. This includes being able to choose a repairer, rather than being forced by default to use the device manufacturer’s services.

But it seems Apple doesn’t want its customers to fix their iPhones or Macbooks themselves. The company has lobbied against the right to repair in the United States and has been accused of deliberately slowing down iPhones with older batteries.

Opposition against the right to repair from tech companies is to be expected. Cornering consumers into using their service centres increases their revenue and extends their market domination.

Read more: Apple, Google and Fortnite’s stoush is a classic case of how far big tech will go to retain power

In its defence, Apple has said third-party repairers could use lower quality parts and also make devices vulnerable to hackers.

It also defended its battery warning indication as a “safety” feature, wherein it started to alert users if their phone’s replacement battery hadn’t come from a certified Apple repairer.

In the US, Apple’s independent repair provider program grants certain providers access to the parts and resources needed to fix its devices. Independent repair shops in 32 countries can now apply, but the scheme has yet to extend outside the US.

Impact on users

With the iPhone 12 — the latest iPhone offering — Apple has made it even harder for third-party repairers to fix the device, thereby increasing users’ reliance on its own services.

Apple has hiked its repair charges for iPhone 12 by more than 40%, compared with the iPhone 11. It is charging more than A$359 to fix an iPhone 12 screen outside of warranty and A$109 to replace the battery.

Historically, third-party repairers have been a cheaper option. But using a third-party repairer for an iPhone 12 could render some phone features, such as the camera, almost inoperable.

According to reports, fixing the iPhone 12’s camera requires Apple’s proprietary system configuration app, available only to the company’s own authorised technicians.

It’s not just Apple, either. Samsung’s flagship phones are also quite tricky for third-party repairers to fix.

Impact on environment

When certain parts for repairs aren’t available, manufacturers will produce new phones instead, consuming more energy and resources. In fact, manufacturing one smartphone consumes as much energy as using it for ten years.

As smartphones become harder to repair, electronic waste will grow. Apple and Samsung both cited environmental benefits when they announced they would no longer ship chargers with their phones.

Yet, they’ve turned a blind eye to the environmental damage that would arise from completely cornering the repair market.

Read more: Apple’s iPhone 12 comes without a charger: a smart waste-reduction move, or clever cash grab?

The average Australian home has 6.7 devices, including televisions, personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. With diminishing opportunities for repair, the environmental burden from disposing of these devices will increase.

What is being done?

Phone giants make it tough for third-party repairers to do their job in a variety of ways. This includes constantly changing designs, adding hurdles to the repair process, and restricting access to parts, diagnostic software and repair documentation.

Meanwhile, consumers are left with broken phones and huge repair bills — and repairers are left with less business.

The fight to remove barriers to repair is gaining momentum outside Australia, too, in countries including Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Legislative reforms have been introduced in the European Union and Massachusetts.

France has introduced a Repairability Index requiring electrical and electronic equipment companies to inform consumers about their products’ repairability on a scale of one to ten.

This takes into account the ease of repairability, availability and price of spare parts and availability of technical repair documents.

The path moving forward

Until the push for right to repair legislative reform gathers pace globally, consumers will have little choice but to pay up to big companies to access their authorised repair services.

If they don’t, they may risk losing their warranty, ending up with a non-functional device and even infringing upon the manufacturers’ software copyrights.

Ideally, phone companies (and others) would assist users with the repair process by providing replacement parts, repair documentation and diagnostic tools to third-party repairers.

This would also help Apple and Samsung reduce their carbon footprint and achieve their environmental goals.

Although the way things are going, it’s unlikely tech companies will be able to escape their self-inflicted repair obligations. In the past, Apple CEO Jeff Williams has said:

we believe the safest and most reliable repair is one handled by a trained technician using genuine parts that have been properly engineered and rigorously tested.

But with only so much workforce available even to Apple, sharing the load with smaller repairers will help.

And for consumers’ benefit, the right to repair legislation must be taken seriously, with consistent repairability scores developed across the globe.

– ref. Screwed over: how Apple and others are making it impossible to get a cheap and easy phone repair – https://theconversation.com/screwed-over-how-apple-and-others-are-making-it-impossible-to-get-a-cheap-and-easy-phone-repair-156871

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ameena Leah Payne, eLearning Advisor, Swinburne University of Technology

“I completed high school 20 years ago and wanted a ‘little break’ before furthering my study. That ‘little break’ was extended as my family grew. Life happened, and I never quite found the right time to keep my promise to myself to go to uni – until now!”

“This is my first teaching period in uni. I’m 36 years old. I live with my wife and two very active kids. When I’m not being a chef, cleaner and taxi driver (you know the list), I’m working as a learning support officer at our local school. I haven’t written an academic essay in over 15 years!”

These are common introductions of my mature-age students. They often share their family backgrounds, nervousness, excitement and responsibilities they have to juggle as they begin their uni journey. In sharing, they “feel a sense of solidarity seeing others post about their concerns”, as one student put it.

Students in general say a critical issue in the shift to online higher education has been a lack of adequate support, interaction and engagement with academic staff and peers.

More than 430,000 students are aged 25 years and older. That’s 39.1% of the total domestic higher education enrolment, and mature-age students account for 22% of first-year undergraduates.

Mature-age, online students are identified as the most vulnerable to not completing their degree. That happens to about 43% of them compared to 30% of those aged 20 to 24 and 21% for students who enrol straight out of school.

Given the inconsistent completion outcomes for mature-age students compared to younger and on-campus students, a different approach is needed. This means universities must take account of the particular needs and circumstances of mature-age students.

“I think a lot of us can relate to the idea of struggling to keep on top of everything.”

Who are these students?

“Mature age” refers to adults who enter their course based on work experience or who have not studied recently. They are more likely to have responsibility for others and be in the paid workforce.

Growing numbers of students are entering fully online higher education. And students 25 years and older are more strongly represented in online studies than face-to-face studies.

A 2019 study of mature-age learners highlighted the following challenges of studying online:

• uncertainty in abilities leading to a “narrative of disadvantage” and a feeling of stepping into a space where they feel they do not belong

• first-year, mature-age students consider withdrawing from their studies at higher rates

• enrolment in university may be rooted in previous negative educational experiences – traditionally, the status quo in higher education has not served students at the margins.

Online teaching compounds existing weaknesses

In the shift to online, many education providers are making the same mistakes by continuing with impersonal teaching methods. Students aged 25 and over rate engagement as the least satisfactory aspect of their online courses.

Active engagement tends to drop off as the teaching period progresses. (The proxy measures of “engagement” are active presence and involved participation.)

Further, education has commonly had an emphasis on subordination. Cue the “domineering teacher” portrayed by antagonist Terence Fletcher in the 2014 film Whiplash. One-way information transmission and an expectation of passive knowledge acquisition have overshadowed relationships between teaching staff and students.

The challenge, then, is to start off in a way that develops a culture of trust, collegiality, openness and contribution.

‘It resonates!’ Recognising experiences and skills

Mature-age students are starting online higher education with a variety of aptitudes, knowledge, opinions and values. These backgrounds affect how students engage with and construe information. The online experience should encourage connection, active participation and critical thinking.

The language of education is shifting to incorporate students as “stakeholders”, “co-constructors” and “active participants”. Such terms have a powerful effect.

In 1930, psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey advocated for empowering learners by honouring their lived experiences and capabilities. Reforms of the 1960s and ‘70s began shifting education toward autonomy, allowing for reflection, independence and flexibility. More recent geopolitical movements, driven by social media, are, once again, prompting an upturn in education that emphasises discussion, openness and independent thought.

It’s essential that these themes be re-created in today’s digital learning environments.

“You made me feel like I am not alone in this. I was anxious and afraid that I won’t be able to keep up.”

Emerging from the 2019 study of mature-age students were several key recommendations:

1. understand and value the circumstances and experiences of this cohort

2. communication and personal contact are vital

3. embed timely, proactive support.

In such environments, educators must be given the time to get to know their students’ situations and experiences. They can then reach out to support them. In essence, Dewey argued for educators to meet learners where they are, wherever that may be.

“I have felt I was always able to contact you and receive helpful advice. It means a lot – especially for newcomers like me!”

These suggestions are in line with the findings and recommendations of the recent Macklin Review of post-secondary education and training in Victoria. Times of growth and uncertainty call for greater adaptability, empathy and innovation. This will feed into student retention, progression and ultimately an undergraduate qualification.

To government and institutions: online education, and of mature-age students in particular, must be approached differently. Education can only act as the great social equaliser if the growing cohort of mature-age students are engaged and supported to reach their academic goals.

To current and emerging mature-age learners: well done to you! You are seen and being heard.

– ref. ‘A lot of us can relate to struggling to keep on top of everything.’ This is what mature-age students need from online higher education – https://theconversation.com/a-lot-of-us-can-relate-to-struggling-to-keep-on-top-of-everything-this-is-what-mature-age-students-need-from-online-higher-education-155201

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

Best to avoid the media just now if you’re squeamish about seeing needles. Political and other notables are rushing to bare arms for the jab, encouraging confidence in the COVID vaccines.

Commendable example-setting of course. But just now the issue isn’t so much persuading people to take the vaccine as getting it rolled out fast enough.

The government originally set a target of 4 million people reached by the end of March (which slipped to early April). So far, the tally is a little over 100,000 shots administered.

No wonder this week Scott Morrison, acting health minister in the absence of a hospitalised Greg Hunt, was emphasising the program was sure, steady, safe and well planned, rather than speedy.

Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy, appearing with the PM, preferred to talk about the “major target” of offering every adult a vaccine by the end of October.

On Thursday, when he fronted the Senate’s COVID committee, Murphy said supply problems had hampered the initial rollout, and could not give a time for reaching the 4 million target. He admitted “a small proportion of people” might not have had their second AstraZeneca shot by the end of October (although he insisted they’d be protected by their first shot).

Getting over the initial hurdles and hastening the rollout is one of three challenges Morrison faces right now. The others are managing the economy after JobKeeper’s imminent end, and dealing with his ministerial crises – the trickiest of the three, in political terms.

Australia is lucky that, with virtually no current community transmission of COVID-19, this slow start to the vaccination program does not present a health threat.

But it does mean the removal of remaining restrictions is likely to be held back, and the tardiness leaves Morrison open to opposition criticism for over-promising and under-delivering.

Morrison has always bracketed health and economics in dealing with COVID, and his eyes are now glued to the economy as JobKeeper, the lifeline for so many businesses and workers, finishes in late March.

On the latest figures, at the end of January about 370,000 businesses and 1 million workers were still on JobKeeper.

The post-JobKeeper period will be a reckoning point for many enterprises.

The government has acknowledged some businesses will fail. In economic terms, this is a necessary; in human terms, it will be devastating for many people.

This week Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe predicted that “the unemployment rate [currently 6.4%] will continue to trend lower, although this trend could be temporarily interrupted when JobKeeper comes to an end later this month”.

In its measures for the post-JobKeeper period, the government has two objectives: to maintain the pace of the recovery, which has been encouragingly strong (3.1% growth in the December quarter), and to help sectors with special problems.

This week it announced assistance of some $4.2 billion: half for the employment of apprentices and trainees, and the rest for the aviation and tourism industries (including 800,000 subsidised air tickets targeting holiday areas).

The loan scheme for small and medium-sized businesses is also being extended and expanded for enterprises coming off JobKeeper in the March quarter.

Aspects of the aviation and tourism package have been met with some scepticism, and critics argue JobKeeper should be staying for longer.

But the government can be satisfied the recovery so far is V-shaped, which last year many economists thought improbable.

It is a very different story on the political front, which is chaotic.

Morrison faces a hellish fortnight with the return of parliament on Monday.

That day, more than 85,000 women are expected to demonstrate in 38 locations around the country, including outside Parliament House.

The protests have been sparked by Morrison’s handling of the two separate allegations of rape that have consumed federal politics for weeks.

The demonstrators’ broader themes are that gendered violence must end; that women must be heard and believed; and that they must be safe – in their workplaces, homes and daily lives.

Neither Attorney-General Christian Porter nor Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will be there to see the Canberra women. He’s on mental health leave; she’s on medical leave. But the government is certain to be pummelled with questions in parliament about them both.

Morrison has yet to reveal the results of the inquiry by his departmental secretary, Phil Gaetjens, into who of his staff knew what when about Brittany Higgins’ allegation she was raped in Reynolds’ office in 2019. And Reynolds’ “lying cow” comment will no doubt get a run.

Porter remains Morrison’s most serious political problem, going to what standards should be demanded for the occupant of the position of the country’s first law officer.

There continues a chorus of calls, including from within the legal profession, for an independent inquiry to settle the question of Porter’s suitability for his position, given NSW police have closed their investigation of the allegation he raped a 16 year-old girl in 1988, which he strenuously denies.

But Morrison this week was firmly dug in behind Porter, despite his being highly damaged political goods.

Government sources insist Morrison, and other colleagues, want Porter back in his job – they are afraid of the precedent set if he leaves the ministry. This ignores the fact that, on any commonsense view, this is surely a one-off ministerial situation.

On the other hand, Morrison’s preference would probably be for Reynolds to step down, citing her health – but that decision remains in her hands.

The PM is assuming these ministerial crises will blow over soon enough.

He may accept that many people (especially women) will have strong views on the issues – the “toxic” parliamentary culture, the suitability of Porter for office, how the government handles issues affecting women. But he’d calculate these aren’t substantial vote-changers.

That may be right. On the other hand, it might be dangerous complacency.

Although Morrison has a big lead as preferred PM, the poll numbers are tight, and the government has no electoral fat for the contest that’s little more than a year away at most.

Also, for as long as the ministerial crises are front and centre, the Coalition can’t get its messages out properly.

By early May, Morrison needs to have the vaccine rollout marching at a good clip, the economic recovery coping with the end of JobKeeper, and Porter and Reynolds no longer damaging distractions.

That would give him a good run into the budget.

Not much to ask, really.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Morrison grapples with slow vaccine rollout, end of JobKeeper and ministerial crises – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-morrison-grapples-with-slow-vaccine-rollout-end-of-jobkeeper-and-ministerial-crises-156975

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eleanor Gordon, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University

Resources critical to peacebuilding and to countries vulnerable to conflict have been significantly reduced as a result of COVID-19.

In conflict zones from Ukraine to Syria, hundreds of thousands of people are “suffering in silence”. These conflicts risk becoming “forgotten crises”, and are intensifying as states and non-state armed groups utilise the pandemic and a distracted international community for their own strategic advantage.

The figures are alarming. For instance, foreign direct investment “collapsed” in 2020, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), falling by 42% to an estimated US$859 billion (compared with US$1.5 trillion in 2019). Many humanitarian organisations have also recorded a dramatic drop in donations from private individuals and fundraising activities, or expect private donations will decline as the global recession hits.

Profound cuts to foreign aid are anticipated as countries continue to invest heavily in COVID-19-related activities while facing severe economic recession.

Already, several governments, including the UK, have announced major cuts to aid budgets in light of COVID-19. A decline in public support for foreign aid, typical in times of financial crisis, is also likely to encourage cuts. This in turn is likely to have a negative effect on peacebuilding, which is already underfunded.

Evidence suggests that committed foreign aid being redirected from peacebuilding programs into efforts to deal with COVID-19 is likely to have even more of an impact on the ground than a decrease in foreign aid. The UK, US, France andAustralia, for instance, have announced a reorientation of their aid commitments to medical infrastructure.

A further reduction in funding and troops for UN peacekeeping missions is also likely. This is in turn predicted to reduce the capacity of peace operations by 30-50% over the next year or two.

Read more: Buying a coronavirus vaccine for everyone on Earth, storing and shipping it, and giving it safely will all be hard and expensive

Declining funds hit aid organisations hard

A global survey of organisations engaged in peacebuilding was conducted to assess the impact of these cuts on the ground. In the survey, 62% said they or their organisation had experienced a reduction in funding for peacebuilding work. In addition, 71% said COVID-19 had, or was likely to have had, a negative impact on the financial security of their organisation. Other global surveys have had similar results.

Reduced funds will also inevitably affect employment and job security for these organisations. The survey found 74% felt their work was more precarious, while 56% knew of someone in the sector who had lost a job as a result of the pandemic.

On top of this, 75% said the focus of their work has changed. They referred to “strong signals” given by donors to “pivot” activities towards COVID-19-related issues, even if other needs were perceived to be more pressing.

Impact on conflict zones

The reduction in resources comes when they are most needed. This is because COVID-19 and its effects (economic shocks, unemployment, extreme poverty and vaccine inequalities) worsen conflict situations. These negative impacts are likely to intensify as the pandemic persists.

Following a short decline after the pandemic was declared in March 2020, conflicts in several countries increased again. This notably often takes the form of violence against civilians by state forces and militias.

Escalating insecurity has already been witnessed in several conflict zones – Syria, Colombia, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Philippines and Myanmar – as states and non-state armed groups exploit the pandemic to their own strategic advantage.

Many of the ceasefires declared in response to the United Nations secretary-general’s call for a global ceasefire in March 2020 have fallen apart.

Read more: UK government’s foreign aid cuts put girls’ education at risk

From pivoting to preparedness

COVID-19 has exposed weaknesses in global governance, especially in terms of preparedness and threat mitigation. To address these weaknesses, countries need to invest in preparedness, be aware of the complex interconnectedness of security threats, and avoid knee-jerk reactions to singular risks that divert attention and resources away from longer-term threats.

There is also a need to communicate more effectively to the public about how aid budgets are spent. This includes stressing how aid programs benefit donor as well as recipient countries, given public opinion can be a key factor in determining whether aid budgets are reduced.

The increased risk of armed conflict, as a result of the diversion of resources and attention towards COVID-19, has global repercussions. So, too, does the difficulty in controlling COVID-19 within conflict zones and beyond their often-porous borders, until a widely accessible vaccine becomes available to the most disadvantaged people.

– ref. As the world’s attention and money are absorbed by the COVID pandemic, peacebuilding suffers – https://theconversation.com/as-the-worlds-attention-and-money-are-absorbed-by-the-covid-pandemic-peacebuilding-suffers-156577

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shivanthan Shanthikumar, Respiratory Medicine Fellow, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

It’s time to leave the playground but your 12-month-old daughter doesn’t want to. She gets angry, cries out loudly, breathing all the way out and then holds her breath. She turns blue around the mouth and faints.

This is understandably very scary for any parent. But the good news is these episodes, called breath-holding spells, are common, not dangerous, resolve as children get older, and don’t cause any long-term damage.

What are breath-holding spells?

Breath-holding spells affect up to one in every 22 children under six years. There are two types.

“Cyanotic” or blue spells are the type we describe above, and are usually triggered by anger or frustration.

“Pallid” or pale spells are typically triggered by pain or fear, and are less common. At the start children open their mouths, but there may not be a cry. They then hold their breath, turn pale and may faint.

In both cases the spells last less than 60 seconds. At the end of an episode when the child regains consciousness, children may return to normal, be slightly drowsy or upset.

Breath-holding spells typically start when the child is aged between six and 18 months. The spells can occur multiple times a day or very infrequently. Some 90% of children grow out of the episodes by the time they turn six.

Read more: Fight, flight or … faint? Why some people pass out when they see blood or feel pain

What causes breath-holding spells?

We don’t know exactly why some children have breath-holding spells, but we think multiple factors could play a role.

Small studies have shown children who experience cyanotic breath-holding spells have differently functioning autonomic nervous systems (the part of the nervous system which controls things like heart rate and breathing rate). They have higher resting-heart rate and blood pressure, and pupils that have an exaggerated response to light in certain conditions (these things are not dangerous for children). But it’s unclear precisely how these differences may be linked to breath-holding spells.

For children who have pallid breath-holding spells, research suggests the vagus nerve — which helps control body functions when we’re at rest — is overactive, and causes the heart to slow down.

Studies have also shown breath-holding spells are more common in children with iron deficiency, though we’re not sure why this is.

If this happens to your child, should you be worried?

Although breath-holding spells can be very scary — particularly the first time — they are not cause for concern.

Parents often have two questions. First, are they a sign there’s something wrong with my child? And second, will they cause long-term damage to my child’s brain and development? The answer to both these questions is no.

As they’re such a common problem, we know generally they’re not a sign of an underlying illness, and they don’t have long-term effects (likely because the spells are not associated with significant oxygen deprivation to the brain).

Iron deficiency anaemia, which can be associated with breath-holding spells, is very easily treated. Your child’s GP can test for this and prescribe iron supplements if needed.

Read more: ‘No, I don’t wanna… wahhhh!’ A parent’s guide to managing tantrums

What should an adult do during and after a breath-holding spell?

You should:

• stay calm and remember the spell will be over in less than 60 seconds

• remove any objects around your child which may cause injury if they faint

• if your child faints, lay them on their side.

You should not:

• try to stimulate your child to breathe by shaking them (this won’t help and may cause injury)

• put anything in the child’s mouth, including your fingers.

After a spell is over, you should:

• try to treat the child as normal; don’t punish them or reward them or make a fuss

• perform first aid to any injuries that might have occurred during fainting.

You can find good information on how to handle breath-holding spells online through resources including the Raising Children’s Network and the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Is there anything you can do to prevent breath-holding spells?

Aside from treating any iron deficiency anaemia, there are no medications for breath-holding spells. Parents can only try to prevent the spells by preventing the events that trigger them.

Ways to do this include distracting your child if they’re upset and giving them plenty of warning if their activity is going to change, such as a five-minute countdown before leaving the playground.

Of course, it won’t always be possible to stop a child from becoming frustrated or angry.

When should you see a doctor?

It’s generally a good idea to see a GP after your child’s first spell, just so they can go through what happened with you and ensure it was a breath-holding spell.

If the spells are occurring very frequently, then seeing your GP and getting tested for iron deficiency anaemia is a good idea. Other reasons to see a doctor include if the spells start at less than six months of age, or if your child displays signs of a seizure (such as shaking in their arms and legs).

Read more: Why iron is such an important part of your diet

– ref. What are breath-holding spells, the common phenomenon that causes children to faint? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-breath-holding-spells-the-common-phenomenon-that-causes-children-to-faint-131677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frederic Kiernan, Research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Review: Max Richter’s Sleep, directed by Natalie Johns.

Music does things. For German-born, English-raised composer Max Richter, music is a “vehicle for travelling through the world, for getting through life”. So he says in the film Max Richter’s Sleep, written and directed by Natalie Johns, which hits Australian screens today.

The film focuses on a composition by Richter which spans more than 200 movements and lasts over eight hours. During performances of this work, audience members (probably not the right term in this case) spend almost the whole concert resting or asleep in hundreds of cots and camping beds lined up where you would normally find seats.

Richter, a prodigious contemporary composer, has made music for solo albums, ballets, concert hall performances, theatre and film and television series (including The Crown, The Leftovers and Peaky Blinders). His Sleep performance-events were conceived with his collaborator and partner Yulia Mahr, a BAFTA-winning filmmaker. The film focuses primarily on an open-air concert in downtown Los Angeles, although it weaves in performance footage from other locations around the world including Berlin, the Sydney Opera House and Paris.

Audience members arrive at the concert in the evening, before being lulled into a dream-state by Richter (on the piano) and his band of musicians. They wake the next morning to find them still softly playing. The technical achievement of the composer, performers and organisers is undeniable. But as a musicologist with strong sociological leanings, my own interest lies in Richter’s treatment of audience expectations and listening behaviours, as well as his interesting perspective on the kinds of things music can do.

Read more: Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia is a film honouring the love of the live performance

Listen up and settle down

People listen to music in different ways for different reasons. We might use music to keep pace during a gym workout or while jogging. This is partly because our bodily rhythms (heart rate and breathing) can synchronise with externally heard rhythms — something psychologists call rhythmic entrainment.

We often use music to regulate our emotions and moods, to mark occasions such as weddings and birthdays, and to celebrate sporting victories from club to Olympic level, where the music acts not as decoration but as a kind of social glue.

Music listening habits also change over time. In the 18th century, opera-goers were notoriously lively, more likely facing each other than the stage, but since the 19th century these audiences have become rather more reverent. Classical music audiences still typically display “serious” listening behaviours, although companies such as Play On are upending these conventions. By inviting audiences to sleep through an entire concert, Richter and Mahr are doing the same, with interesting results.

Richter describes the composition as an “eight-hour lullaby”. It is a soothing musical remedy for the increasingly hectic pace of modern life, in which sleep is often considered an inconvenience or even a weakness.

Music is widely used nowadays as a therapeutic tool. In fact the practice of “prescribing” music for soothing, energising or mood-regulating purposes dates back at least as far as ancient Greece. Pythagoras, for example, is said to have sung and played the lyre for his disciples to induce a calm mood prior to sleep, and to shake off numbness and tiredness upon waking.

Read more: Having trouble sleeping? Here’s the science on 3 traditional bedtime remedies

Perchance to dream

For centuries, sleep was regarded as a suspension of activity — a passive state of unconsciousness. However during the 18th and 19th centuries new theories of the origin of sleep emerged, linking sleep to the build up of toxins during the day, blood flow and the paralysis of nerve cells. Many of these ideas are still being explored in current sleep science, which now highlights the active nature and generative power of sleep, as well as the potential benefits of music listening for sleep quality. Musical activities, like other creative activites, can have a positive impact on our wellbeing, as research at the University of Melbourne is showing.

Richter observes in the film that the hectic pace of modern life suits corporations more so than humans. His Sleep opus offers a “quiet protest”, a moment to withdraw and reflect, treating the sleeping mind as a valuable complement to our waking life. The film mirrors what I imagine attendance at a live performance of the work to be like.

Read more: The Portal review: can meditation change the world?

As viewers, we, along with audience members in the film, settle into our own journey. Long passages of deeply resonant music exert their visceral emotional pull, in slow rhythms and very low frequencies outside the usual range of acoustic instruments.

As the piece unfolds through the night, the musicians alternately take breaks, perhaps to eat or use the bathroom. Richter moves from the piano around the venue, to see “what the piece is doing”, before returning to the stage to continue playing.

Darkness shades much of the film visually, and commentary is provided by various audience members who are never quite introduced, as if in a dream. There are scholarly musings too, on the science of sleep and the relationship between music and mathematics.

Richter and Mahr also recount the origins of the piece and the risks, gambles and unknowns they faced as artists. As audience members rouse themselves at the conclusion of the film, their reflections reveal they were not really audience members at all, but participants in a musical study of sleep. This explored music’s capacity to soothe deeply, and, in being soothed, allowed participants to become vulnerable and open to connection with one another.

Can the film successfully replicate the live experience? Of course not. Do I now wish I could attend (and sleep through) a live performance of this piece? Absolutely.

Max Richter’s Sleep is in cinemas from today.

– ref. Max Richter’s Sleep, a filmed antidote to modern life with music to dream by – https://theconversation.com/max-richters-sleep-a-filmed-antidote-to-modern-life-with-music-to-dream-by-156491

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

Christian Porter has unequivocally denied the historic rape allegations levelled against him, and says he is determined to stay in his job as attorney-general.

Both Scott Morrison and Porter are adamant the “rule of law” in this country places the attorney-general beyond prosecution, now that the NSW police have closed the case.

Porter is the country’s first law officer and many argue that requires a stiffer test of suitability.

This week UNSW professor of law Fleur Johns joins the podcast, to discuss the legal role of the attorney-general, how allegations of this kind can affect the performance of his duties, and the validity of the “rule of law” argument.

The role of the office of the attorney-general is both one of “actual powers” and “a repository of great symbolic power,” Johns says.

This symbolic power is compromised by “serious allegations that go to the ability of a person to exercise power over another person in a way that is responsible.”

“Allegations that are made of a serious abuse of power having been conducted could erode…public trust, especially when those allegations have not had an opportunity to be tested, as is the case here.”

Johns “wholeheartedly” rejects the view an independent inquiry into the rape allegations would compromise the rule of law.

“It’s absolutely par for the course that the rule of law is delivered through a range of different procedural mechanisms.”

“The testing of these allegations…with the appropriate protections to ensure the rule of law, would actually be a way of ensuring that that ideal of the rule of law is defended and promoted.

”[It would show] that we do experience a sense of being governed by laws and legal processes and legal institutions, rather than by particular men and women who happen to be in power at any one time.“

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Fleur Johns on the rule of law – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-fleur-johns-on-the-rule-of-law-156944

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, The University of Melbourne

The vast arsenal of fiscal, monetary and legal measures used by Australian governments to offset the COVID-induced economic crisis have worked well. They did not prevent a recession (popularly defined as two quarters of negative GDP growth) but things could have been much worse.

What is particularly interesting is that the expected consequences have not shown up in the official statistics for financial distress – insolvent companies entering administration and individuals declaring bankruptcy.

Indeed, a misleading impression of 2020 being one of “economic good times” could be gained from the statistics.

The big question is whether these statistics show government relief measures have averted economic pain or simply deferred it. As measures are wound down and withdrawn, will the private sector be willing and able to pick up the resulting slack?

Companies entering administration

There are, of course, “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. The figures hide what is likely to be actually happening in terms of financial distress.

Impacts on businesses and individuals have been quite varied. Some large corporations have come through in good shape, much better than might have been imagined. But the tourism, hospitality, entertainment and higher education sectors have taken significant hits and face an uncertain and drawn-out recovery.

The following graphic, using data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, shows the number of companies entering external administration (quarterly from 2010 to 2020).

Notable is the decline in business collapses in 2020 – the opposite of what one would expect in a time of economic stress.

A number of policy actions contributed to this.

The most obvious contributors to keeping failing businesses alive were JobKeeper payments as well as changes increasing “safe-harbour protections” to reduce the risk of prosecution for trading while insolvent. These changes also reduced the ability of creditors to speedily force a debtor company into insolvency.

Read more: Government will reform insolvency system to improve distressed small businesses’ survival chances

In many cases it is quite possible these simply put off that day to some time in 2021.

Individuals declaring bankruptcy

At the personal level, which includes owners of small unincorporated businesses, a similar pattern can be seen.

The next graph uses data from the Australian Financial Security Authority. It shows the number of individuals entering into insolvency (bankruptcy, debt agreements etc) on a quarterly basis. The latest data is for the September quarter of 2020. The number had fallen to about half of what it had been prior to 2020.

Notably, the number of personal insolvencies began falling in early 2018. There is no obvious single explanation for this trend, though good economic conditions and low interest rates are probably part of the story.

The further decline in 2020 (in contrast to expectations of an increase) is most likely due to legislative changes introduced in March 2020 and extended in September 2020. These include increasing the size of debt owed before a creditor can initiate action from A$5,000 to A$20,000, and allowing debtors six months (rather than 21 days) to respond to creditor demands. Mortgage repayment deferrals by banks also would have helped.

A difficult balancing act

What to make of these unexpected declines in official indicators of financial distress when economic conditions have surely increased the reality?

The more optimistic interpretation is that various government support measures have prevented both business and individuals sliding into insolvency.

The less optimistic interpretation is the measures have simply deferred the final outcome – with the statistics soon to show a bounce in business failures and personal insolvencies.

Read more: We’re facing an insolvency tsunami. With luck, these changes will avert the worst of it

There is no point keeping “zombie” businesses alive, nor in dissuading heavily indebted individuals from taking action under insolvency arrangements that can give them a fresh start.

But finding the right balance of continuing support for recoverable cases while terminating it for others (and limiting the hardship caused by failure) is a difficult and challenging task for our economic masters.

– ref. Hard bump ahead? Drop in insolvencies and bankruptcies is a ticking time bomb – https://theconversation.com/hard-bump-ahead-drop-in-insolvencies-and-bankruptcies-is-a-ticking-time-bomb-155744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Long, Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University

The giant prehistoric Carcharocles megalodon (or Otodus megalodon for some researchers) was the largest predatory shark to ever swim in Earth’s seas. Scientific evidence points to megalodon having lived between 16 million and 2.6 million years ago, going extinct at the end of the Pliocene Epoch when the world’s oceans were much colder than today’s.

Over the years, several research papers have estimated meg’s size. Its teeth are shaped like large, flat triangles with serrated edges — much like the teeth of living white sharks. White sharks, along with mako sharks and the porbeagle shark all belong in the family Lamnidae and are referred to as “lamnids”.

The close similarities between meg teeth and those of living lamnid sharks are strong evidence meg was indeed an ancient kind of lamnid shark. This premise is important, as it forms the basis of how we estimate the size of this ancient giant.

Two museum exhibits recently opened public displays featuring spectacular models of megalodon: one at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, and the other at the Western Australian Museum Boola Bardip in Perth.

These models, while both outstanding, don’t depict entirely the same shark. So how was each one made? And what scientific approaches were used?

Read more: Giant monster Megalodon sharks lurking in our oceans: be serious!

Making the meghead

The Smithsonian’s megalodon model is a full-body reconstruction measuring 15 metres. The other, at the Museum Boola Bardip, is a beautifully crafted model of meg’s head. This was built under the direction of one of us (Mikael) and opened to the public in November.

The shape of the “meghead” is similar to a white shark’s head, but has a shorter and much rounder snout. Its colouration features “counter-shading” with a dark back and lighter belly — also similar to white sharks, but less contrasted. The greater this colour contrast, the easier it becomes for underwater predators to go unnoticed by prey.

The meghead’s jaw size was based on multiple teeth from a single ancient shark. These specimens allowed us to scale the body size to correspond with tooth size, as well as to match the widest front tooth of another megalodon found in Cape Range, Western Australia.

The rest of the meghead was then 3D modelled to fit the jaws. The end result was a head that corresponded to a creature roughly 14m in length. This would be the largest meg shark ever found in Western Australia, but not the largest overall.

Magnificent displays make for great selfies

The Smithsonian meg model was overseen by Hans Dieter-Sues, a US paleontologist who drew the shark’s outline based on a general lamnid shark body plan. This was then finessed by University of Maryland shark fossil expert Bretton Kent.

After reviewing a small scale model, the full-size model was constructed based on a complete set of meg teeth assembled by Gordon Hubble, another megalodon expert. Measuring a whopping 15m, the final model had to be assembled as modules, as it wouldn’t have made it through the museum’s doors or corridors in one piece.

This model is now suspended by cables from the Smithsonian’s walls and ceiling, positioned strategically so visitors may take selfies from a nearby balcony.

Calculating maximum size

The meghead model in Perth was based on several specific tooth specimens found locally and from overseas, painting a picture of a 14m-long predator.

However, to calculate the species’s maximum size, we first estimated the maximum jaw size possible for Meg and then scaled this up, using the same jaw size-to-body length ratio of living white sharks.

The maximum jaw size of meg can be calculated by scaling up the few known “associated dentitions” (multiple tooth specimens that were found together and came from a single shark) with the widest meg tooth ever found.

Once we did this, the size estimate we reached was between 19–20m. And this is much larger than most other recent estimates.

The megashark lineage

Scientists have discovered meg’s teeth to be part of a species continuum known as the megatooth shark lineage. This is based on the discovery of many thousands of fossilised teeth that seem to merge into new shapes over time, pointing to the evolution of new species.

The start of this lineage began in the Danian stage about 63 million years ago, when the first sharks of the genus Otodus appeared. This is why megalodon, belonging to this lineage, is now officially classified as Otodus megalodon. That said, the shark has been placed in various genera, including Carcharocles and Procarcharodon, and continues to be the subject of debate.

With an estimated body length of about 4m, the first Otodus sharks in the megatooth lineage would have been smaller than several other sharks living at the time. So how could they have evolved to become the colossus that is meg?

DePaul University professor Kenshu Shimada has suggested meg’s huge size may have had something to do with a strange trait of lamnid sharks, which is that their young eat each other in the womb.

This behaviour, called “intrauterine cannibalism”, provides a ready source of nutrition for growing fetuses and may have driven increased growth in megalodon. That said, it would have also forced mothers to feed more actively, due to increased nutrition demand from the rapidly growing young.

This wouldn’t have helped meg’s survival when global temperatures cooled down about three million years ago. The cold spell would have killed off much of meg’s food sources, eventually triggering its extinction.

In recent years, coastal limestone outcrops in Western Australia have yielded several new exciting megalodon teeth. We hope these will tell us more about the story of meg and its variations which swam through the seas of ancient Australia.

Read more: Giant ancient sharks had enormous babies that ate their siblings in the womb

– ref. Making a megalodon: the evolving science behind estimating the size of the largest ever killer shark – https://theconversation.com/making-a-megalodon-the-evolving-science-behind-estimating-the-size-of-the-largest-ever-killer-shark-155475

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia

Myanmar’s military appears to be testing out a range of vicious tactics in the hope something will stem the protest movements that have embroiled the country since the coup in early February.

The military crossed a grim threshold last Wednesday when security forces fired live rounds at protesters across the country, resulting in what the UN said were at least 30 deaths and hundreds of critical injuries.

Then, on Saturday, security forces beat and took away Khin Maung Latt, a Muslim ward chairman for the former ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The next morning, the family recovered his tortured and mutilated body from the hospital.

That night, the father of MP Sithu Maung, who is one of only two Muslim politicians elected to represent the NLD last year, was beaten and dragged away by security forces. He has not been heard from since.

And this week, another NLD official, Zaw Myatt Linn, died in custody less than a day after being arrested.

These brutal attacks appear designed not only to terrorise the NLD, protesters and others taking part in the civil disobedience campaign, but the Muslim community, in particular.

Myanmar’s Muslim minorities have a history of persecution by the military and other nationalist groups. Brutalising Muslims now may be an attempt to bolster support within the few remaining parts of society that still back the military.

A history of self-delusion and miscalculations

There have now been more than 60 protesters killed and almost 2,000 arrested, but nothing has stopped the popular rage against the coup makers and their ill-considered plans.

Any grudging respect the military may have retained for its role in guiding the political transition over the past decade has now well and truly evaporated.

The military has a reputation for self-delusion, and it certainly miscalculated the public mood prior to launching the coup that ousted the NLD from power just weeks after it won an overwhelming majority in national elections.

The military’s commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, may have convinced himself that Thailand could be a model for how to transition from the coup to semi-democratic elections. If so, he is likely to be severely disappointed.

Thailand’s military seized power in 2014, and five years later, the coup leader, Prayuth Chan-ocha, won a compromised election to retain his position as prime minister.

Read more: Taking care of business: the coup in Myanmar is partly about protecting the economic interests of the military elite

But Thai society is much more divided between liberal and nationalist monarchist movements, giving the military there a sizeable support base. In Myanmar, the military doesn’t enjoy the same popular backing, which was why its proxy party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2020 election.

A further escalation of violence against unarmed protesters in Myanmar is likely to undermine support from the military’s few international allies, including China. It seems there are no good options left for the military to resolve this entirely self-inflicted crisis.

A fragmented but effective opposition movement

The bruising standoff between the military and opposition is now a war of attrition. No one knows for sure who will last the longest.

The opposition movement is comprised of many interlocking parts, of which the protests are not the only — or even the most important.

The civil disobedience movement, mostly made up of striking or uncooperative workers, is paralysing major parts of the economy. Large numbers of civil servants remain at their desks, but are not doing any work, bringing government activity to a halt.

The country’s largest trade unions launched an indefinite, nationwide strike this week, as well.

The loose, anarchic structure of the opposition movement — with few leaders and highly decentralised modes of organisation, funding and operations — means the military cannot easily decapitate the movement.

The military tried to silence the most symbolic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, by placing her under arrest, but it hasn’t affected the opposition’s ability to organise or tap into public anger against the military.

Sources inside the country suggest the civil disobedience movement has been energised by Myanmar’s UN ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, who defied the military and declared its rule illegitimate. His courage has proved a lightning rod for the millions of angry protesters looking for inspiration and moral clarity.

These protesters now seem committed to the confrontation. The best approach may be to foment division within the military and police in the hopes of undermining Min Aung Hlaing’s authority.

Security forces haven’t rebelled in great numbers in the past, even when ordered to crack down on the Buddhist monks leading the Saffron Revolution in 2007. But after a decade of political and economic liberties, Myanmar has changed profoundly. Some in the military and police have changed along with it and might not be amenable if a major crackdown is ordered against their own citizens.

If so, there are likely to be increased defections of security forces to the opposition.

Read more: Myanmar’s coup might discourage international aid, but donors should adapt, not leave

What can the world do?

This conflict will be resolved one way or the other by the duelling groups within Myanmar. The outside world has few levers left to pull.

The UN Security Council, for one, remains largely deadlocked on the issue, with China and Russia unwilling to deliver strong statements or endorse any serious action against the military.

Read more: Myanmar coup: how China could help resolve the crisis

The US and other Western nations have implemented sanctions on members of the military and military-linked companies, but many of these were already in place in response to the violence against the Rohingya in recent years.

Australia has also suspended its cooperation with the military and directed all aid funds through non-state actors. This is a welcome measure.

If real external pressure is to be applied on the Myanmar generals, it may have to come from the ASEAN countries — specifically Singapore, one of the biggest investors in Myanmar.

Singapore’s political and commercial leaders are now facing pressure to take a stronger stand. Soon after the coup, a prominent Singaporean businessman divested from a Myanmar tobacco company, which is majority-owned by a military conglomerate.

Kirin, a giant Japanese brewer, pulled out of its joint venture with the same conglomerate.

If other companies can similarly suspend their deals with the military, it will certainly help to strangle the key sources of revenue keeping Myanmar’s top brass in power.

The bravery of the protesters on the streets needs to be matched by a clear international message that Myanmar’s coup-makers cannot expect a financial lifeline to maintain their homicidal rule.

– ref. As killings, beatings and disappearances escalate, what’s the end game in Myanmar? – https://theconversation.com/as-killings-beatings-and-disappearances-escalate-whats-the-end-game-in-myanmar-156752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Professor of International Health, Burnet Institute

One year ago today, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first caused by a coronavirus.

As we enter year two of the pandemic, let’s remind ourselves of some sobering statistics. So far, there have been more than 117.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world; more than 2.6 million people have died. A total of 221 countries and territories have been affected. Some 12 of the 14 countries and territories reporting no cases are small Pacific or Atlantic islands.

Whether the race to end the pandemic will be a sprint or a marathon remains to be seen, as does the extent of the gap between rich and poor contestants. However, as vaccines roll out across the world, it seems we are collectively just out of the starting blocks.

Here are the challenges we face over the next 12 months if we are to ever begin to reduce COVID-19 to a sporadic or endemic disease.

Vaccines are like walking on the Moon

Developing safe and effective vaccines in such a short time frame was a mission as ambitious, and with as many potential pitfalls, as walking on the Moon.

Miraculously, 12 months since a pandemic was declared, eight vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have been approved by at least one country. A ninth, Novavax, is very promising. So far, more than 312 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose.

While most high-income countries will have vaccinated their populations by early 2022, 85 poor countries will have to wait until 2023.

Read more: 3 ways to vaccinate the world and make sure everyone benefits, rich and poor

This implies the world won’t be back to normal travel, trade and supply chains until 2024 unless rich countries take actions — such as waiving vaccine patents, diversifying production of vaccines and supporting vaccine delivery — to help poor countries catch up.

The vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19. However, we need to continue to study the vaccines after being rolled out (conducting so-called post-implementation studies) in 2021 and beyond. This is to determine how long protection lasts, whether we need booster doses, how well vaccines work in children and the impact of vaccines on viral transmission.

What should make us feel optimistic is that in countries that rolled out the vaccines early, such as the UK and Israel, there are signs the rate of new infections is in decline.

Read more: Coronavirus might become endemic – here’s how

What are the potential barriers to overcome?

One of the most salutary lessons we have learnt in the pandemic’s first year is how dangerous it is to let COVID-19 transmission go unchecked. The result is the emergence of more transmissible variants that escape our immune responses, high rates of excess mortality and a stalled economy.

Until we achieve high levels of population immunity via vaccination, in 2021 we must maintain individual and societal measures, such as masks, physical distancing, and hand hygiene; improve indoor ventilation; and strengthen outbreak responses — testing, contact tracing and isolation.

However, there are already signs of complacency and much misinformation to counter, especially for vaccine uptake. So we must continue to address both these barriers.

The outcomes of even momentary complacency are evident as global numbers of new cases once again increase after a steady two month decline. This recent uptick reflects surges in many European countries, such as Italy, and Latin American countries like Brazil and Cuba. New infections in Papua New Guinea have also risen alarmingly in the past few weeks.

Some fundamental questions also remain unanswered. We don’t know how long either natural or vaccine-induced immunity will last. However, encouraging news from the US reveals 92-98% of COVID-19 survivors had adequate immune protection six to eight months after infection. In 2021, we will continue to learn more about how long natural and vaccine-induced immunity lasts.

Read more: New research suggests immunity to COVID is better than we first thought

New variants may be the greatest threat

The longer the coronavirus circulates widely, the higher the risk of more variants of concern emerging. We are aware of B.1.1.7 (the variant first detected in the UK), B.1.351 (South Africa), and P.1 (Brazil).

But other variants have been identified. These include B.1.427, which is now the dominant, more infectious, strain in California and one identified recently in New York, named B.1.526.

Variants may transmit more readily than the original Wuhan strain of the virus and may lead to more cases. Some variants may also be resistant to vaccines, as has already been demonstrated with the B.1.351 strain. We will continue to learn more about the impact of variants on disease and vaccines in 2021 and beyond.

Read more: What’s the difference between mutations, variants and strains? A guide to COVID terminology

A year from now

Given so many unknowns, how the world will be in March 2022 would be an educated guess. However, what is increasingly clear is there will be no “mission accomplished” moment. We are at a crossroads with two end games.

In the most likely scenario, rich countries will return to their new normal. Businesses and schools will reopen and internal travel will resume. Travel corridors will be established between countries with low transmission and high vaccine coverage. This might be between Singapore and Taiwan, between Australia and Vietnam, and maybe between all four, and more countries.

Read more: Even with a vaccine, we need to adjust our mindset to playing the COVID-19 long game

In low- and middle-income countries, there may be a reduction in severe cases, freeing them to rehabilitate health services that have suffered in the past 12 months. These include maternal, newborn, and child health services, including reproductive health; tuberculosis, HIV and malaria programs; and nutrition. However, reviving these services will need rich countries to commit generous and sustained aid.

The second scenario, which sadly is unlikely to occur, is unprecedented global cooperation with a focus on science and solidarity to halt transmission everywhere.

This is a fragile moment in modern world history. But, in record time, we have developed effective tools to eventually control this pandemic. The path to a post-COVID-19 future can perhaps now be characterised as a hurdle race but one that presents severe handicaps to the world’s poorest nations. As an international community, we have the capacity to make it a level playing field.

– ref. After a year of pain, here’s how the COVID-19 pandemic could play out in 2021 and beyond – https://theconversation.com/after-a-year-of-pain-heres-how-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-play-out-in-2021-and-beyond-156380

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie University

Michael, aged 14, asks:

If the faster part of human evolution is over, and squids and octopuses continue to evolve, could there be an apocalypse where the cephalopods take over the world?

If they continue to get smarter, octopuses would be much more suited as conquerors of Earth because they could live nearly anywhere. They have abilities similar to what we would call superpowers: they can fit into any hole that fits their beak, they can camouflage, they can regenerate their lost limbs and more. If and when they eradicate humans, they would be better suited to space travel. In orbit, they could manoeuvre much more easily and fit in smaller spaces.

So if they simply started evolving a smarter brain, what stops all this from happening? Why has this not happened already? Why have so few creatures evolved an intelligent brain?

As Michael points out, octopuses are famous for their alien-like abilities, from regrowing damaged arms to changing their skin colour and texture. They use this colour-shifting power to camouflage and, interestingly, as a strange visual language to talk to other octopuses.

A little known fact is they actually belong to a category of animals (phylum) called Mollusca, which is largely made up of snails. Yep, octopuses are like souped-up snails who lost their shells and grew a rather large brain. The coolest thing about them is their intelligence, which evolved completely independently from our own.

They use tools to solve problems (like us) and they can open child-proof containers (not always like us). And just last week, research found a cuttlefish (another cephalopod, cousins of octopuses) passed an intelligence test designed for toddlers that showed they have advanced self control.

Humans no doubt have a lot more to learn about what these mysterious creatures are capable of. But what we do know can start to answer Michael’s excellent question: could octopuses one day rule the world?

(Before we go further we should state the plural of octopus is “octopuses” — not necessarily “octopi” — given the word has Greek rather than Latin routes.)

Big-brained but short-lived

Let’s first consider their nervous system. Like us, octopus have large brains compared to their body size – easily the biggest of all invertebrates (animals without a backbone) and of comparable size to many vertebrates, such as frogs.

It is, however, hard to compare brain size between marine animals and land animals, because the laws of physics differ in water and air. Animals are weightless in water but on land body shape and size is limited by gravity.

An octopus brain is made up of about 500 million brain cells (neurons). This is seven times more than a mouse and about the same as a marmoset monkey. Humans, on the other hand, have 86 billion brain cells.

Testing octopus intelligence can be a problem, because the animals frequently outsmart scientists. For example, scientists can struggle to get an octopus to solve a maze, because they often climb out and crawl over the top to reach their food reward. And that’s assuming they haven’t already escaped from their aquarium home and are crawling around the lab.

Unlike us though, octopuses don’t live for very long. The giant Pacific octopus might live up to five years, but most live for just a year and some as little as six months. They hatch from eggs fully formed and ready to go. The never see their parents and have to learn everything on their own.

So yes, octopuses have big brains and are crazy-smart. But could they take over the world if they kept evolving?

Why they evolve so slowly

Compared to other species, octopuses actually evolve really, really slowly. There are about 300 different species of octopus, which have been around for at least 300 million years. In that time, they haven’t changed much.

Modern humans, by comparison, have only existed for 200,000 years and in that time, have taken over the planet (and badly damaged it in the process).

Evolution occurs when the DNA code is gradually changed in small steps over vast amounts of time. But octopus have a unique method of actively editing their RNA molecules instead. RNA are messages sent from DNA, which tells genes what to do and when.

The ability to edit RNA means they can adapt quickly to new problems, bypassing the need for long-term changes to occur in the DNA — the standard evolutionary process most living things follow. Scientists think this rule-breaking approach may be a reason why octopuses evolve so slowly, and why they are one of the brainiest beasties in the ocean.

Read more: Octopuses can defy their genetic instructions – and it’s slowed down their evolution

But lets face it. Despite all their tricks, octopuses are still working from a snail blueprint, and there’s only so much you can do with that toolbox. They are also highly constrained by their very short life-span.

So, the first item on an evil octopus to-do list for taking over the world is to live well beyond your first birthday. Second on the list might be to develop “cumulative culture” by learning from others like humans do. We already know an octopus can learn by watching other octopuses, but as yet we don’t have evidence of culture.

Very few creatures display intelligence comparable to humans and understanding why is a long-standing scientific question. The most likely explanation is that brain tissue is extremely expensive to maintain, in terms of energy required to keep brain cells firing. So there need to be big benefits to justify the expense.

Scientists think one benefit of having a big brain is so humans can keep track of complex social relationships (octopuses, on the other hand, are soliltary) and develop culture. Nature tends to provide animals with just enough smarts to get by, and nothing more.

They might do OK in space

Its hard to imagine an octopus ever evolving to take over the land. Octopus have no hard parts other than their beak. So while they can move on land, with no bones to hold them up against gravity, they really struggle.

They also have gills which need water to pass over them to breathe. Strangely, they can also “breathe” using their skin. When resting, about 40% of their oxygen comes from the water passing over their skin rather than their gills. Trouble is that only works while the skin is wet.

Read more: Clever cuttlefish show advanced self-control, like chimps and crows

But because they live in water and octopuses are neutrally buoyant (they neither float nor sink), gravity is largely irrelevant. This means they would do rather well in space where there’s no gravity — assuming they could take water with them.

In short, octopuses are very intelligent animals and one of the smartest creatures in the ocean. But their short life span and vulnerabilities on land are serious handicaps when it comes to taking over the world.

The Conversation, for one, welcomes any new cephalopod overlords

– ref. Curious Kids: could octopuses evolve until they take over the world and travel to space? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-could-octopuses-evolve-until-they-take-over-the-world-and-travel-to-space-156493

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Banks, Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney

Animals, including humans, depend on accurate information to navigate the world. But we can easily succumb to deliberate misinformation or “fake news”, fooling us into making a poor choice.

The concept of fake news came to the fore during the term of former US president Donald Trump. It became so prevalent, it was named the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the decade

In a new paper out today we show how a form of fake news can be deployed to help save vulnerable wildlife. We protected endangered shorebirds by spreading misinformation — in the form of bird smells — to deceive predators. This helped reduce the number of birds lost, without using lethal force.

To be honest, when we began working on the idea ten years ago it seemed a little crazy. But after seeing how fake news messes with the minds of both humans and animals, it now makes a lot of sense.

The problem with predators

Introduced or “alien” predators are species such as rats, cats and foxes, which have been introduced to new environments and kill local wildlife. If local species have not evolved with such predators — and so learned to evade them or ward them off — the damage can be devastating.

Alien predators have far more impact than native ones and are a major driver of extinctions. In Australia alone, cats threaten the survival of more than 120 listed species, while foxes threaten 95 species. In the South Pacific the threat is even greater.

But killing predators is a blunt and often ineffective tool. Too often, control techniques such as baiting, trapping and shooting can’t reduce predator numbers enough to protect vulnerable prey.

In other circumstances, lethal control may not be possible or socially acceptable. This might occur when the problem predator is a native species (such as foxes in the United Kingdom) or where alien predators such as feral pigs are also a food resource for local people.

That’s why it’s important to examine alternative ways to protect vulnerable species.

Read more: Australia’s threatened birds declined by 59% over the past 30 years

New Zealand’s precious shorebirds

In New Zealand, 59 bird species have become extinct since humans arrived and many more close to being lost. Introduced predators contribute substantially to this problem.

Predators such as hedgehogs, cats and ferrets were introduced to New Zealand in the 1800s. They are especially common in our study area, the braided riverbed landscapes of the Mackenzie Basin on New Zealand’s South Island. There, they eat eggs and kill endangered shorebirds such as banded dotterel, plovers, wrybill and the South Island pied oystercatcher.

The birds evolved with avian predators, and have learnt to hide from them by building camouflaged nests among pebbles on the river shores.

But this tactic does not work against introduced predators. Odours emanating from the shorebirds’ feathers and eggs attract these scent-hunting mammals, which easily find the nests.

Tricked you!

Our research set out to undermine the predators’ tactics. We worked closely with Grant Norbury and others from Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in New Zealand.

We distributed fake news — in the form of nest-like odours — that suggested to predators the shorebirds had begun to nest, even though they were yet to arrive.

First, we distilled odours extracted from the feathers and preen glands of three bird species — chickens, quails and gulls. In this case, any bird species could be used to produce the scent. (Watch a video of the process here). The result smelled a lot like a chicken coup or aviary — unmistakable to the human nose.

Five weeks before the shorebirds arrived for their breeding season in 2016, we mixed the odours with Vaseline and smeared the concoction on hundreds of rocks over two 1,000-hectare study sites. We did this every three days, for three months.

The predators were initially attracted to the odours. But within days, after realising the scent would not lead to food, they lost interest and stopped visiting the site.

The shorebirds then arrived at Mackenzie Basin at their normal breeding time, and began building nests and laying eggs. At control sites where our “fake news” had not been deployed, the predators ate eggs and birds at the usual rate. But at sites where we put out unrewarding bird odours, the results were dramatic.

The number of nests destroyed by predators almost halved. As a result, chick production was 1.7 times higher at treated sites compared to control sites over the 25-35 days of the nesting season.

We wanted to be sure our results were not due to lower predator numbers or different behaviour in some areas. So the next year, we flipped treatments at our sites and got the same result.

Read more: Predators, prey and moonlight singing: how phases of the Moon affect native wildlife

Using fake news for good, not evil

Our modelling predicts this fake news tactic would increase plover populations by about 75% over 25 years. By comparison, an absence of intervention would lead to a population decline of more than 40%.

Our results show the profound conservation potential of fake news tactics. The approach cost no more than a traditional lethal control program and delivered comparable benefits.

We hope the work will encourage others to consider manipulating the behaviour of introduced predators when lethal control options are too difficult or ineffective.

– ref. Scientists used ‘fake news’ to stop predators killing endangered birds — and the result was remarkable – https://theconversation.com/scientists-used-fake-news-to-stop-predators-killing-endangered-birds-and-the-result-was-remarkable-152320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tregear, Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Academic freedom has become a common topic of Australian public debate. Yet the concept is rarely examined or critiqued in detail.

That has not stopped it becoming a totemic issue for many on the political right. They consider Australian universities to be increasingly prone to doctrinaire and censorious attitudes. In particular, they point to issues of identity politics, climate change and other so-called “progressive” causes.

Read more: University free speech bill a sop to Pauline Hanson and other critics, but what difference will it make?

Prominent cases include the 2018 sacking of geophysicist Peter Ridd by James Cook University and protests against Bettina Arndt’s visit to the University of Sydney to give a controversial speech on date rape that same year. The federal Coalition government responded by commissioning the Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Australian Higher Education Providers by former chief justice Robert French.

Open Minds: Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech of Australia, by constitutional law experts Carolyn Evans and Adrienne Stone, is the first book-length examination of the French Review and the idea of academic freedom that lies behind it. The authors are especially well qualified to comment on both the context and specific recommendations of the review.

What is academic freedom?

Among many helpful insights, Evans and Stone point out that academic freedom is not the same thing as freedom of speech. The latter is already at least partially protected by various specific and implied rights to freedom of speech in law.

The exercise of academic freedom, however, as Geoff Sharrock has noted in The Conversation, invokes a particular kind of social relationship. It is both public-facing and aims to be an expression of a public good.

Read more: Feel free to disagree on campus … by learning to do it well

Academic discourse seeks to be both well-reasoned and true. An academic opinion is thus different to an academic merely expressing their personal views.

For instance, climate scientists do not need to “believe” in climate change. Instead they must justify any assertion they make based on rigorous standards of scientific evidence and proof.

Thus, as Evans and Stone note, universities do not provide academic staff with an untrammelled right to say what they like on any issue. Theirs is a more narrowly conceived right based on an underlying obligation to justify their public utterances through the application of disciplinary expertise and values.

The most contentious debates about academic freedom in Australia have not been about such academic concepts, however. Instead they have been more interested in trying to out a perceived underlying left-wing bias. This shows how skewed the understanding of academic freedom has become in Australia.

Read more: How a fake ‘free speech crisis’ could imperil academic freedom

The French Review found no substantial evidence of any organised attempt to limit the capacity of students to encounter alternative political ideas. Evans and Stone note:

If anything, today’s students are less radical and politicised than their predecessors.

What are the real threats?

Glyn Davis’s foreword draws attention to concerns he also expressed in a recent Conversation article. He says threats to academic freedom might arise from direct government intervention, or from the rise in tied grants from big business, or from philanthropic trusts directing teaching and research.

Read more: Special pleading: free speech and Australian universities

What has been much less self-evident, or at least less acknowledged, is the possibility that the very way Australian universities are now constituted and governed may pose an even more fundamental threat.

What, after all does “institutional autonomy” mean when universities are now so closely regulated and controlled by their senior managers and councils, and by the market forces they have unleashed to help fund their operations?

Early on, Evans and Stone assert:

[Universities] are not commercial institutions, nor are they instruments of government. They are special communities dedicated to teaching and research.

But towards the end of their book, they implicitly suggest things might not be so rosy:

Academics should not be required to support the university’s brand or to avoid embarrassing it if doing so comes at the expense of academic freedom. On the contrary, academics should be able to speak out about research, teaching and university governance even when doing so involves harsh and even disrespectful criticism.

Read more: Governing universities: tertiary experience no longer required

It is easy for academics to conclude that essentially unaccountable senior university administrators, not disciplinary professors or other disciplinary experts, have become the ultimate determiners of a particular discipline’s educational and research priorities, and thus of the true limits of academic freedom in its broadest sense.

As Ron Srigley has noted of US campuses:

Ask about virtually any problem in the university today and the solution proposed will inevitably be administrative. Why? Because we think administrators, not professors, guarantee the quality of the product and the achievement of institutional goals. But how is that possible in an academic environment in which knowledge and understanding are the true goals? Without putting too fine a point on it, it’s because they aren’t the true goals any longer.

In such a context, even an everyday event like the Australian National University’s recent announcement of a brand relaunch can start to seem much less benign. The university itself describes it as part of a “journey to foster cohesion, reduce the issue of brand fragmentation and use research to address the cognitive dissonance between how we see ourselves versus how our community and the world sees us”.

Brand managers, like most senior university managers, are generally not practising academics. Thus, they should not be expected to understand, let alone articulate or defend, academic freedom.

Read more: Unis are run like corporations but their leaders are less accountable. Here’s an easy way to fix that

One of the many ways Open Minds may prove to be of lasting value is in helping academics question the propriety of such managerial pronouncements, by framing them properly as issues of academic freedom.

This is why academic freedom is a central concern for Academics for Public Universities. We would argue this issue ultimately requires us to reexamine and revitalise the underlying public character of our universities.

That, too, is something we now need to defend.

– ref. Book review: Open Minds explores how academic freedom and the public university are at risk – https://theconversation.com/book-review-open-minds-explores-how-academic-freedom-and-the-public-university-are-at-risk-156213