Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Romane H Cristescu, Researcher in Koala, Detection Dogs, Conservation Genetics and Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

Dogs have been working with people for centuries. Think hunting dogs, herding dogs, police dogs or search and rescue dogs. But have you heard of conservation dogs?

Conservation dogs fall mainly into two categories: guardian dogs and sniffer dogs (also called scent, detection or detector dogs).

Guardian dogs protect vulnerable species from predators, while sniffer dogs locate targets of interest using their powerful sense of smell.

In the past 15 years, dogs have begun to play a crucial role in conservation around the world. So let’s take a closer look at them, with a focus on their work in Australia.

Read more:
Koala-detecting dogs sniff out flaws in Australia’s threatened species protection

The nose that knows

Guardian dogs were made famous by the 2015 movie Oddball. The film is based on the true story of Maremma dogs, trained to protect little penguins from foxes on Middle Island near Warrnambool in southwest Victoria. The penguin population had dwindled to fewer than ten before the Maremma dogs got involved. The breed was chosen for its long association with guarding sheep in Europe.

But most conservation dogs are sniffer dogs, because there are so many uses for them. They can be trained to find animals or plants, or “indirect” signs animals have left behind such as poo or feathers.

Dogs can detect anything with an odour – and everything has an odour.
Sniffer dogs are trained to detect a target scent and point it out to their human coworker (sometimes referred to as handler or bounder).

Sniffer dogs have been trained for various missions such as:

• finding rare and endangered species

• detecting invasive animals during eradication or containment such as fire ants or snakes

• locating pest plants

• supporting wildlife surveys by detecting scats (poo), urine, vomit, nests, carcasses and even diseases.

They have worked in extreme conditions on land (including on sub-Antarctic islands) and at sea, and can even detect scent located underground. Sniffer dogs have also trained to recognise individual animals such as tigers by scent.

The ultimate scent detection machine

A dog’s nose is estimated to be 100,000 to 100 million times more sensitive than a human nose (depending on the dog breed). A much larger proportion (seven to 40 times larger) of the dog’s brain is dedicated to decoding scent.

That means dogs can detect very low scent concentrations – the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar in five million litres of water (or two Olympic-sized swimming pools). They can also differentiate between very similar odours.

Dogs analyse the air from each of their nostrils independently, detecting tiny variations in scent concentration. This gives them a directional sense of smell that can guide them left or right until they’ve honed in on the origin of the scent.

Thanks to very sophisticated nostrils, dogs can avoid contaminating an odour with their own breath (exhaling air through the nostrils’ sides). They also can analyse odours continuously regardless of whether they are inhaling or exhaling.

Besides being the ultimate scent detection machine, dogs are great ambassadors for conservation – melting hearts all the way to Hollywood.

Finding the right candidate for the job

Some organisations rescue their dogs. They look for the toy-obsessed kind – those dogs that never stop playing.

In many cases these dogs were abandoned for that very reason. They require constant entertainment and become difficult to care for in a normal family setting, where people have to leave for work and devote time to activities other than entertaining their dog.

A sniffer dog gets to be with their handlers almost every day of the week. That work consists of long walks with lots of play.

Trainers use toys and play as a reward, so dogs learn to associate this reward with the target scent.

Learning through association – called classical or pavlovian conditioning – is very easy for dogs. It’s so easy that the scent-learning part of the job is usually the quickest. Training a dog to feel confident and be safe in the natural environment is more challenging. And if the dog had a troubled background before being rescued, rehabilitation is the most time-consuming and difficult component of the training.

What type of dog can become a sniffer dog?

The most important aspect of the association learning process is having the right dog – one with obsessive behaviour. And any breed, sex and age of dog can present this personality type.

Some breeds might tend to have higher proportions of obsessed and toy-focused dogs, but all breeds, including crossbreeds, have been successfully deployed as sniffer dogs.

Some breeds do have better sniffers – the bloodhound is the champion of olfactory performance – but depending on the target scent, most dogs’ noses are still extremely efficient and more than capable of the task.

Robust, agile and high-energy breeds are better suited to working outdoors. Medium-sized breeds are usually better able to crawl under and jump over obstacles, while also light enough to be easily carried by their human coworker as needed.

Read more:
Scientists find burnt, starving koalas weeks after the bushfires

Top jobs for conservation dogs

Meet dogs working in conservation around the world:

• detecting orca poo

• making and keeping World Heritage-listed islands and Antarctica pristine

• wildlife search and rescue

• working as guardians

• containing fire ants

• leading weed eradication on land or water

• monitoring wind farms

• finding vomit (rejected owl pellets, to be precise)

• supporting environmental assessments

• helping Tasmanian devils find mates

• detecting diseases.

These are just a few of the dogs making a difference in our fight to protect biodiversity. But we have barely scratched the surface of their potential!

Romane H Cristescu works for Detection Dogs for Conservation, at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She is receiving external funding through multiple government-funded, foundation association, not-for-profit group, and research council grants. She is a founding member and current executive of the Australasian Conservation Dogs Network.

– ref. Dogs are incredible – if unlikely – allies in conservation – https://theconversation.com/dogs-are-incredible-if-unlikely-allies-in-conservation-204813

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Corey Bloomfield, Senior Lecturer in Education, CQUniversity Australia

These long summer holidays may seem like an extra blessing to families who are dealing with a child who does not like school or who refuses to go.

But even as January stretches out in front of us, parents will no doubt be thinking about the challenge of getting their child back to school again once terms starts.

I do research on young people’s engagement with school and have previously worked as a guidance officer, supporting families dealing with school refusal.

How can families use the holidays to lay the groundwork for a more positive school year ahead?

What is school refusal?

School refusal is not “wagging”. A recent Senate inquiry noted there is no commonly agreed definition but described it as:

the inability of a young person to attend school due to a severe negative emotional reaction to school.

It is often rooted in complex issues that can be include anxiety, depression, neurodiversity and school bullying. Anecdotally, it has been on the rise since COVID.

Start by talking

If you have a child who has been refusing to go or talking about refusing to go, try to be supportive at home by encouraging them to express their concerns and thoughts about school.

Actively listen to the reasons why your child is reluctant to attend school. You can do this by calmly asking

If we could make one thing different at school this coming year, what would it be?

This will help you understand why your child is reluctant and how you can best support them.

Read more:
School attendance rates are dropping. We need to ask students why

Keep a routine going

Schools are built on routine. So, try to maintain some sense of routine during the holidays to make for a smoother transition for your child at the end of January.

You could try and schedule time for outdoor play, screen time, fun games as well as household chores. Maintaining set times for meals and sleep are also essential.

Maintaining positive connections with friends from school can also help. Having a positive social connection with a schoolmate over the break can help to ease worries about heading back to school.

Being able to talk with peers on the first day back about what you did together on the holidays can also be a powerful way to start to build a sense of belonging at school.

Keep in touch with your school

While teachers are on (well-earned) holidays, schools will be contactable before the start of term 1.

If your child has a history of school refusal, maintaining a positive line of communication with the school is important.

See if you can find out their new teacher and talk to school support staff like school counsellors before school returns so you can work together to explore support options.

Don’t be afraid to make that initial contact in the week leading up to the new school year.

Most school staff will appreciate the gesture. They will be keen to work proactively with you and your child rather than trying to react to the challenges that come with school refusal once term has begun.

What else can you do?

If school refusal is an ongoing issue for your child, spending the time now to seek professional help can also be a great idea.

Use this time to do some of your own research and connect with qualified health professionals, therapists or specialists who can provide the necessary support.

A good starting point would be a visit to your GP who may refer you to a child psychologist or paediatrician (although be aware, there may be long waiting lists for some specialists).

Try and build a network of support for your child that intersects the home, school and therapeutic environments. By working together with your child, a successful transition back to school is much more likely.

Why it’s worth trying to make school work

I’m sure any parent with a child who is school refusing has at some time wondered if it’s worth the struggle of getting kids to school.

As someone who has worked in mainstream schools and distance education, along with being a parent during COVID, I can see why school avoidance is a growing phenomenon.

Many of us found our kids learning more and learning faster at home. Without the classroom distractions and added stress of being crammed into an institutional setting, some found learning easier and more enjoyable.

While academic learning may have been easier at home, we need to think about the purpose of education. It is not just about academic learning and qualification.

Socialisation is a key purpose also. Schools are designed to teach our children how to interact positively with other outside of the home as part of their social development.

So it is worth hanging in there, if you can (while of course acknowledging mainstream school does not end up working for all students and there is a growing number of alternatives).

Trying to get on the front foot

These long summer holidays are a good opportunity to get on the front foot in terms of your child’s feeling about school. Try and use this time to seek allies in school staff, mental health professionals and encourage continued friendships for your child.

Remember your friends too. Reach out for help from your support network as you walk with your child into the new school year.

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

– ref. Worried about school refusal? How to use the holidays to help your child – https://theconversation.com/worried-about-school-refusal-how-to-use-the-holidays-to-help-your-child-219487

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan Sullivan, Adjunct Fellow and PhD candidate in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University

It has become an article of faith among many economists that China’s pro-market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s ushered in a sustained reduction in poverty.

This narrative relies on figures from the World Bank, showing that over the past 40 years the number of people in China living in “extreme poverty” (less than US$1.90 per day) fell by almost 800 million. That’s a fair chunk of the world population, which is currently about eight billion.

The World Bank’s calculations suggest China’s rate of extreme poverty has plummeted from one of the highest in the world – 88% – in 1981, to virtually zero today, with the fastest gains in the 1980s and 1990s during the capitalist reforms of Chairman Deng Xiaoping.

It depends how you define purchasing power

The World Bank calculations use purchasing power parity, which is a standard way of comparing general purchasing power over time and between countries. But this approach does not tell us about people’s purchasing power over the specific goods and services that are necessary for survival. Because of this, scholars warn that the World Bank’s method cannot give an accurate picture of real poverty trends.

In a new paper published in New Political Economy we calculate extreme poverty rates for China using data published by the OECD, assessing people’s incomes against the prices of necessary subsistence goods; among them 2,100 calories per day, essential nutrients, three square meters of housing per person, clothing, heating and soap.

In contrast to the World Bank, we find that from 1981 to 1990 – at the end of the socialist period – China’s rate of extreme poverty was one of the lowest in the developing world. It averaged only 5.6%, compared to 51% in India, 36.5% in Indonesia and 29.5% in Brazil.

We find extreme poverty increased dramatically during the market reforms of the 1990s. It reached a peak of 68% as price deregulation pushed up the cost of basic food and housing, cutting the buying power of low-income people.

Extreme poverty then slid during the 2000s, but has yet to fall to the levels calculated by the World Bank.

Under communism, China subsidised necessities

The two approaches produce different answers because purchasing power parity adjusts incomes in accordance with the cost of all purchases including luxury goods rather than in accordance with the cost of basic items needed for survival.

The difference matters a lot when comparing socialist and capitalist systems and assessing transitions between those systems. Socialist policies can keep the cost of meeting basic needs low in a way overall price measures don’t pick up.

This seems to have been the case in China. Until its market reforms, China’s government provided food and shelter at little or no cost. This meant US$1.90 was able to buy more basic necessities in China than in comparable capitalist countries.

As the government removed controls on the prices of basic goods and dismantled its social security system throughout the 1990s, the price of necessities moved beyond the means of many.

Of course, these results may not hold if low-priced essentials were difficult to obtain in practice, something the OECD data we used cannot tell us.

But other social indicators support our finding that extreme poverty was lower in China than in India, Indonesia and Brazil in the 1980s.

China performed better than these countries on several key social indicators, including life expectancy, infant and child mortality, mean years of schooling, and the share of the population with access to electricity.

It’s impossible to measure extreme poverty with absolute certainty. But our results are corroborated by other indicators and seem to suggest extreme poverty worsened during China’s reforms.

Economic growth by itself is not enough

It is important to clarify that our findings refer only to extreme poverty, defined as the inability to purchase essential food, shelter and a few basic necessities.

China’s impressive industrial development has, of course, led to substantial improvements in access to modern appliances, information technology and other goods. But when it comes to access to basic nutrients and housing, a large share of China’s population appears to have suffered during the move to a market economy.

Our findings have important implications. They suggest that although industrial development is an important goal, it can’t be relied upon to cut extreme poverty in and of itself, at least not in the context of capitalist reforms and social policy retrenchment.

Public ownership, price controls, and universal access to social services, of the kind advanced in China before the market reforms, can be at least as effective, especially at low levels of economic development.

Read more:
China’s population is now inexorably shrinking, bringing forward the day the planet’s population turns down

Jason Hickel acknowledges support by the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

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

– ref. China’s capitalist reforms are said to have moved 800 million out of extreme poverty – new data suggests the opposite – https://theconversation.com/chinas-capitalist-reforms-are-said-to-have-moved-800-million-out-of-extreme-poverty-new-data-suggests-the-opposite-216621

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

The 19th century German war strategist and field marshal Helmuth von Moltke famously coined the aphorism “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. His observation might well be applied to the tragedy we are witnessing in Gaza.

Three months after the current conflict began, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence on both sides, with the deaths of more than 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 1,200 Israelis. Some 85% of Gazans have also been displaced and a quarter of the population is facing a famine, according to the United Nations.

The conflict still has a long way to run and may be headed towards stalemate. From a geopolitical perspective, here’s where the main players stand at the start of the new year.

Israel: limited success …

Israel has so far failed to achieve either of its primary war aims: the destruction of Hamas and freedom for the remainder of the 240 Israelis taken hostage on October 7.

Hamas fighters continue to use their tunnel network to ambush Israeli soldiers and are firing rockets at Israel, albeit in much lower volumes: 27 were fired at the start of the new year, compared with 3,000 in the first hours of the conflict on October 7.

There are still around 130 Israelis being held hostage, and only one hostage has been freed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), as opposed to releases arranged through Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Israeli society is divided between those who want to prioritise negotiations to release the hostages and those who want to prioritise the elimination of Hamas.

Israel achieved an important symbolic success with the apparent targeted killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on January 2. Though Israel has not formally claimed responsibility, there is little doubt it was behind the killing.

But the two Gaza–based Hamas leaders Israel most wants to eliminate, political leader Yahya Sinwar and military leader Mohammed Deif, are still at large.

Israel still has US support in the UN Security Council, which has managed to pass only one toothless resolution since the war began. But the Biden administration is publicly pressuring Israel to change its tactics to minimise Palestinian casualties.

Read more:
Israel-Hamas war: a ceasefire is now in sight. Will Israel’s prime minister agree?

…and facing a ‘day after’ conundrum

The Israeli government is also divided on how Gaza should be run when the fighting stops.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he won’t accept Gaza remaining “Hamastan” (Hamas-controlled) or becoming “Fatahstan” (ruled by the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by the secular Fatah party). US President Joe Biden prefers a Gaza government led by a reformed Palestinian Authority, but Netanyahu has rejected this and has not articulated an alternative plan.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant this week outlined what seems to be his own plan for Gaza, involving governance by unspecified Palestinian authorities. His plan did not immediately have Israeli cabinet approval and has been slammed by hard-right ministers.

Two of these, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben–Gvir, have called for a solution that encourages the Palestinian population to emigrate and for Israeli settlers to return to the strip. That would be unacceptable to the Biden administration.

Israel’s massive bombing campaign has also slowly turned international opinion against it, as expressed in the UN General Assembly vote last month in which 153 of the 193 member states called for a ceasefire.

Are Netanyahu’s days now numbered? The current issue of The Economist features a headline that reads “Binyamin Netanyahu is botching the war. Time to sack him”. Whether or not that’s a fair judgement, it’s clear that internal divisions and indecision within his government are hindering Israel’s prosecution of the war.

Hamas – still standing

The militant group has obviously been hurt. Israel claims to have killed or captured between 8,000 and 9,000 of Hamas’ approximately 30,000–strong fighting force – though it has not explained how it calculates militant deaths.

Hamas’ main achievement is that it is still standing. To win, the militant group does not have to defeat Israel – it needs merely to survive the IDF onslaught.

Hamas can claim some positives. Its attack on October 7 has put the Palestinian issue at the top of the Middle East agenda.

Citizens in the Arab states that have signed peace agreements with Israel are clearly angry. And an Israeli-Saudi agreement to normalise relations between the countries, which had been imminent before the conflict, is off the table for now.

Opinion polling also shows support for Hamas has risen from 12% to 44% in the West Bank and from 38% to 42% in Gaza in the past three months. If it were possible to hold fair Palestinian elections now, they could produce results Israel and the US would not like.

United States – weakness in dealing with Israel

Biden embraced Netanyahu immediately after the Hamas attack, but US efforts since then to influence Israel’s war plans have not yielded any results.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed in his effort to persuade Israel to end the war by the start of the new year. His current visit to the region is unlikely to yield any major changes.

Moreover, divisions in the US may hurt Biden in the lead–up to the presidential election in November. Young, college–educated progressives, who tend to vote Democratic, have taken part in demonstrations against Biden’s public support for Israel’s right to defend itself, if not its way of doing so.

These progressives won’t vote for the almost–certain Republican candidate, Donald Trump. But they could stay home on election day, handing the election to Trump.

US support for Ukraine has also become a casualty of the war. Republicans, taking their cue from Trump, are prioritising support for Israel and stopping the flow of migrants across the US-Mexico border. They are losing interest in Ukraine – which clearly benefits Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those benefits will be reinforced if Trump wins the presidency again.

United Nations – irrelevant

The UN has also failed in its mission of maintaining world peace. The only Security Council resolution on the war meant nothing, as Russia was pleased to point out.

The recent UN General Assembly resolution illustrated Israel’s growing isolation, but has done nothing to change the course of the war. UN Secretary–General Antonio Guterres has been powerless to influence either Israel or Hamas.

Iran – watching for opportunities

The Hezbollah militant group will do a lot of huffing and puffing over the killing of al-Arouri in a Hezbollah-controlled part of Beirut. But it takes its orders from Tehran, which still shows no sign of wanting to become directly involved in the war.

That said, Iran appears to have no problem with its proxies – Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – providing token support for Hamas through limited rocket, drone and artillery attacks.

Iran is likely to be reinforced in this approach by the bombings at the tomb of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week, which killed almost 100 Iranians. The bombings have been claimed by the Islamic State, which will likely make Iran more focused on its internal security than on assisting Hamas.

Read more:
Why Yemen’s Houthis are getting involved in the Israel-Hamas war and how it could disrupt global shipping

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

– ref. After 3 months of devastation in the Israel-Hamas war, is anyone ‘winning’? – https://theconversation.com/after-3-months-of-devastation-in-the-israel-hamas-war-is-anyone-winning-220644

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jayne Persian, Associate Professor in History, University of Southern Queensland

In the Canadian parliament earlier this year, an outcry erupted after 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka was presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero of the second world war.

It turned out Hunka had fought against the Allies as a voluntary member of the Nazi German Waffen-SS Galizien division. The incident was deeply embarrassing for Canada; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to publicly apologise.

The incident also highlighted the ignorance of many Canadians when it comes to world history, as well as the makeup of their own post-war immigration schemes.

As I discuss in my new book, Fascists in Exile, Canada isn’t the only country where former Nazis fled after the second world war. And in many of these countries, families continue to grapple with the legacies of this turbulent time in history.

In Australia, for instance, when a Lithuanian immigrant named Bronius “Bob” Šredersas died in 1982, he bequeathed a significant art collection to the city of Wollongong. Last year, however, his secret history was revealed: he was found to be a member of Nazi intelligence in occupied Lithuania during the second world war. He was almost certainly involved in the persecution and murders of Jews.

In response to a report by Professor Konrad Kwiet of the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Wollongong City Council removed a plaque acknowledging the donation and updated its website with the new information about Šredersas’ past.

These may seem to be isolated, rare cases. They are not.

Denial, then investigations

Around one million Central and Eastern European “displaced persons” were resettled by the United Nations after the second world war in countries such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. This group included soldiers who had fought in German military units, as well as civilian collaborators. The Nazi-led Holocaust had relied on their firepower and administrative skills.

Many of these people should have been charged with war crimes. But their resettlement in any country that would take them was a matter of political expediency in the fraught post-war and early Cold War period.

Some 170,000 displaced persons were resettled in Australia between 1947 and 1952. Jewish groups immediately protested that this group included Nazi collaborators. The then immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, dismissed their claims as a “farrago of nonsense”.

The migrants were used as labourers under a two-year indentured labour scheme and transformed into what the government called “New Australians”.

Australia received at least eight extradition requests between 1950 and the mid-1960s for individuals suspected of WWII-era crimes from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. These were all refused with the justification that the judicial systems could not be trusted.

In 1961, the then attorney-general, Garfield Barwick, publicly stated he was “closing the chapter” on allegations of war crimes stemming from the second world war. As a result, there would be no further official discussions about any alleged perpetrators residing in Australia.

Decades later, though, all four of these main resettlement countries begin judicial proceedings against the same alleged war criminals they had ignored for so long.

Read more:
The long, dark history of antisemitism in Australia

Scholars have attributed this change to numerous factors, including the trial of former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in 1961 and the publication of Raul Hilberg’s comprehensive history of the Holocaust, as well as more generally to the cultural shift of the 1960s and generational change.

A wide-ranging Australian investigation, established by the Hawke government, was later carried out between 1987 and 1992. Among the immigrants who were investigated were 238 Lithuanians, 111 Latvians, 84 Ukrainians, 45 Hungarians and 44 Croatians.

Allegations against 27 men were found to be substantiated, but only three were formally charged: Ukrainians Mikolay Berezowsky, Heinrich Wagner and Ivan Polyukhovich. None was convicted.

Family histories unearthed

This was not the end of the story, though.

Many alleged perpetrators of crimes never appeared on any official, or unofficial, list, either before or after the Australian investigation. But stories about individuals have come out in other ways.

My own research, for example, has resulted in the compiling of hundreds of such names by painstakingly piecing together various archival fragments.

For example, a colleague and I were alerted to some suspicious phrasing when the family of Hungarian migrant Ferenc Molnar, now deceased, placed a commemorative biography on the website Immigration Place Australia. This biography noted Molnar’s authorship of “a small book about the Holocaust”. It turned out the “small book” was a strident denial of the Holocaust, titled The Big Lie: Six Million Murdered Jews. Molnar himself had claimed to have visited the Dachau concentration camp during the war.

The SBS television show Every Family Has a Secret has been approached by at least four people who have suspected a deceased family member was a Holocaust perpetrator or collaborator. The show investigated these allegations, using overseas archival researchers. All four suspects were shown to have been allegedly complicit in crimes.

Read more:
‘No woman in the usual sense’: Ilse Koch, the ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’, was a Holocaust war criminal – but was she also an easy target?

Angela Hamilton, for example, suspected her deceased Romanian father, Pál Roszy, had been “helping the Nazis” because he was a violent man and rabid anti-Semite. In fact, he had been convicted in absentia in post-war Romania of killing 31 elderly Jews.

While some families have always either known or suspected the truth, others have been shocked to find a loved one’s name in the files of the 1987-1992 Special Investigations Unit.

My husband’s now-deceased grandfather’s name appears in the files due to an anonymous allegation submitted after a public appeal for information. While the allegation was vague and unlikely, it was not impossible a 19-year-old Ukrainian nationalist could have participated in the wave of anti-Jewish violence that claimed the lives of some 10,000 Jews in western Ukraine in 1941.

Australian families will continue to reckon with stories like these, perhaps for many years to come. And more than 70 years after the first displaced persons arrived from Europe and 30 years after the Australian war crimes investigations, the Australian public is perhaps finally willing to accept that, just as Holocaust survivors resettled in Australia, so did the alleged perpetrators of atrocities.

Dr Jayne Persian receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Australia is still reckoning with a shameful legacy: the resettlement of suspected war criminals after WWII – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-still-reckoning-with-a-shameful-legacy-the-resettlement-of-suspected-war-criminals-after-wwii-217378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Stephens, Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Monash University

Your bags are packed. You’ve sorted entertainment and snacks for your passengers and have squeezed all your holiday luggage in the car. You’re now ready to head off for your road trip – one hour after you meant to leave. There will be more traffic now, but maybe, if you put your foot down you can make up some time.

It might be tempting to speed. People do so for a number of reasons, not just because they’re running late.

Here’s why, what this does to your risk of being injured, and how to plan your road trip to minimise that risk.

Read more:
Why do people tailgate? A psychology expert explains what’s behind this common (and annoying) driving habit

1. You think you’ll get there faster

Perhaps one of the biggest myths about speeding is it saves you a lot of time. In fact drivers overestimate how much time they save by driving faster.

In a study where global positioning systems were fitted to willing participants’ cars, on average drivers saved only two minutes travel time each week by driving faster than the speed limit.

Read more:
Climate explained: does your driving speed make any difference to your car’s emissions?

2. You take risks, not just while driving

Some drivers are more likely to speed than others. Repeat offenders are more likely to be men, younger or previously involved in a crash.

Drivers who tend to act on impulse and seek out varied “thrilling” experiences, or those who are quicker to get angry or aggressive, may also be more likely to speed. This is because these personality traits are linked to risky behaviours generally, and not just behind the wheel.

Read more:
Speeding drivers keep breaking the law even after fines and crashes: new research

3. You and your friends think speeding’s OK

Drivers who usually speed see this as socially acceptable and have friends or family who also speed. These drivers, when compared to those who do not speed, are less likely to consider speeding risky, or to feel they will get caught.

Likewise, drivers who intend to speed hold similar beliefs. They think speeding is socially acceptable, and the chances of being caught or having a crash are low.

Read more:
More Mad Max than max safety: teenagers don’t dream of safe cars

4. You’re reacting to what’s happening today

Another important contributor to speeding is what’s happening at the time, and how drivers feel about it.

Time pressure due to running late or unexpected delays may lead to faster speeds. Speeding may also be part of an aggressive driving style, an aggressive reaction to frustrating driving situations, or something that happened before the driver got in the car.

Read more:
Road rage: why normal people become harmful on the roads

Speeding’s risky (even just a little over the limit)

The relationships between fast speeds and the risk of crashing may seem obvious.

However, even putting your foot down just a little bit jeopardises you and your passengers’ safety, as well as the safety of others on the road.

For instance, for every 5km/h over the speed limit in a 60km/h zone, your risk of being in a crash resulting in injury or death doubles.

Then there are the risks associated with higher-speed crashes, which make fatal and serious injuries more likely. Almost one-third of crashes where someone was killed or injured can be attributed to high speeds. That is when, just before the crash, one vehicle was driving 20km/h or more above the speed limit.

Read more:
How to never get a speeding fine again — and maybe save a child’s life

How to avoid speeding this summer

If you’re planning a road trip this summer, you can:

• plan your route and allow extra time for unexpected delays
• plan breaks if it’s a long drive. This helps reduce tiredness and the potential for frustration
• phone ahead, if possible, to tell someone you will be late
• consider the crash risks, and the high probability of serious injury in crashes associated with speeding
• be aware that speed enforcement usually increases over the holiday period and can be “anywhere, anytime”
• use your car’s driver speed-support systems, such as intelligent speed assist, or other systems that advise or regulate your speed. These help reduce the risk of speeding.

You can also find ways to manage frustration or anger that can lead to speeding:

• rethink the situation by asking yourself how much it really matters if you’re late
• refocus your attention to prioritise your safety or that of your passengers and other road users or economy (sticking to the speed limit uses less fuel)
• change route, or use navigation that tracks your estimated time of arrival
• consider how your behaviours influence other drivers or your passengers
• be aware that how you feel before getting in the car is likely to influence how you drive.

Possibly my favourite strategy is to remember that someone is waiting for you and they want you to arrive safely.

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

– ref. Going on a road trip this summer? 4 reasons why you might end up speeding, according to psychology – https://theconversation.com/going-on-a-road-trip-this-summer-4-reasons-why-you-might-end-up-speeding-according-to-psychology-216352

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mitchell Harley, Scientia Senior Lecturer, UNSW Sydney

When you arrive at your favourite beach these summer holidays, you may notice something different about the coast.

With the triple-dip La Niña now making way for El Niño, our beaches have been through a rollercoaster ride. Some beaches have been completely stripped of sand, while others have grown very wide.

In the past, such changes went mostly unrecorded. However, thanks to a project known as CoastSnap, coastal data is now being collected like never before. Using designated camera cradles installed at beach viewpoints, CoastSnap uses community snapshots taken on smartphones to track beach change.

Almost 50,000 photos have been collected so far. They have revealed a varying picture in recent years: from dramatic beach loss during La Niña storms three years ago, to 60 metres of beach growth in recent months. So with smartphones as commonplace as towels and sunscreen in the beach bag, why not add coastal data collection to your list of holiday activities this summer?

Turning beach snaps into scientific data

Through CoastSnap, we installed a network of stainless-steel camera cradles along coastal trails all around the world. These camera cradles are positioned at a perfect vantage point for tracking changes to the coast – whether it be due to rising sea levels, extreme storms or other factors.

All you need to do is place your camera in the cradle, take a photo and upload it using the QR code at the station. Because the position and angle of the photo is always the same, over time these snaps reveal how the beach is changing.

Read more:
Millions of satellite images reveal how beaches around the Pacific vanish or replenish in El Niño and La Niña years

As well as being a powerful visual record, sophisticated algorithms turn each photo into miniature satellite images that are used to precisely measure shoreline position. This is done using a process known as photogrammetry, in which pixels in the image are rearranged as though they had been taken from space.

This aerial view enables beach change to be easily measured. Also, since the exact time of photo capture is recorded, the effects of tides as they vary throughout the day can be accounted for.

From local to global: a network of community beach monitoring

From its beginnings on the Northern Beaches of Sydney in 2017, new CoastSnap stations have been rolled out all around the world. We now have more than 350 CoastSnap stations in 31 countries and across five continents.

This makes it the largest coordinated network of coastal monitoring worldwide – and all the data is collected by the community.

In Ghana, West Africa, students from local schools are using CoastSnap to better understand how the “golden seaweed” sargassum impacts fishing communities.

Read more:
‘Like 20 tip trucks pouring sand on every metre-wide strip’: how extreme storms can replenish beaches, not just erode them

On Prince Edward Island in Canada, CoastSnap captured the damage done by Hurricane Fiona last year. The same stations are now being used to track the post-hurricane dune recovery.

In Australia, there are currently 125 CoastSnap stations around the country. This enables a big-picture assessment of the coastal consequences of large-scale weather events. For example, during last year’s record rainfall in eastern Australia, extreme erosion was observed at CoastSnap stations from Queensland to southern New South Wales. The images reveal scouring by floodwaters was the main cause of beach erosion in many locations, rather than wave action as is usually the case.

Monitoring the present to plan for the future

Data on coastal change is crucial for managing coastlines into the future. This is particularly important as sea levels continue to rise, storm tracks shift, and beaches come under increasing pressure from overdevelopment.

With several CoastSnap stations already operating for over six years now, this growing record is beginning to observe longer-term changes to the coast. This data is being fed into numerical models that help coastal researchers predict what the coastline will be like in the coming decades – and plan accordingly.

Smart coastal planning will help buffer climate change impacts. This will go some way to ensure future generations can enjoy the coast like we do today.

So as you head out to the beach this summer, look out for your nearest CoastSnap station and help monitor the coastline – it really is a “snap”!

Read more:
Storms or sea-level rise – what really causes beach erosion?

Mitchell Harley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is also the New South Wales Chair of the Australian Coastal Society.

Fred Chaaya works for the University Of New South Wales Water Research Laboratory, which manages the CoastSnap project and network.

– ref. Become a beach scientist this summer and help monitor changing coastlines – https://theconversation.com/become-a-beach-scientist-this-summer-and-help-monitor-changing-coastlines-214307

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Program Director – Health and Physical Education, Maths/Science, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania

Many people believe teaching is an easy job involving short days and long holidays. Anyone working in the profession, however, will tell you this is not the truth.

They will tell you teaching is a rewarding job, but that teachers are stressed and overworked. This has been made worse by a severe teacher shortage in recent years.

In fact, teaching is almost never a 9am to 3pm job; a lot of “invisible” work happens before school drop-off and after pick-up time. And the school holidays, while allowing some much-needed rest for teachers, can also be a busy time for them, as they prepare for the term and year ahead.

Read more:
A Senate inquiry is calling for a new ‘behaviour curriculum’ to try and tackle classroom disruptions

More than just teaching students

Classrooms generally open around 8:30am and most teachers are at school well before this time to prepare for the day. They don’t get much of a rest throughout the school day – even their lunch “break” is often spent supervising children.

The job of a teacher involves much more than just teaching students.

After the school day, teachers can stay later to assist students who require extra help, and there are usually meetings several afternoons a week.

Additional roles are also expected at different times throughout the year. These include things like:

• coaching school sports teams

• running and attending information nights

• working on school camps

• attending school fairs and discos

• conducting parent-teacher interviews

• organising and producing school concerts.

After that, many teachers take student work home with them to mark at night and on weekends, especially around report card season.

These non-teaching roles and responsibilities can all add up to teachers doing over 15 hours of unpaid overtime each week, on top of the 37-40 hours of work their positions require.

Consequently, teachers are often exhausted when the end of a term arrives.

Work over the holidays

While most teachers have students in their classes for around 40 weeks a year, they are not just on holiday the rest of the time. Many teachers are busy beyond business hours and work during the holidays to meet the needs of children, parents, colleagues, leaders and system requirements.

Yes, teachers use this non-teaching time to rest and refresh themselves, but they also spend time doing all the tasks they don’t have time to do during the busy school terms.

This can include:

• planning and preparing for the term ahead

• designing curriculum-aligned learning tasks at the appropriate level for 25-30 different children and developing the required resources (such as activity cards and assignments)

• marking and providing feedback on student work

• administrative tasks such as setting up and decorating classrooms, paperwork and writing student support referrals

• purchasing items for the classroom

• uploading data to various parent communication and reporting platforms

• training and various professional development units

• conducting extra-curricular activities such as summer school, holiday sports camps, and school trips.

These things are not easily done while you are also teaching and managing the behaviour of 25-30 students, so many get pushed to the holidays.

Enjoying things like being able to go to the bathroom whenever they want is also a welcome change!

Resting, recovering and catching up on life

And similar to people in other professions, teachers use their holidays to rest, recover and decompress. They catch up on things like sleep and Netflix and gardening and dentist appointments, and maybe go on a holiday with their family.

It should be acknowledged teachers generally don’t get a choice when they take their leave. They often cannot afford to travel with their families as their holidays are in the most expensive and most crowded times of year.

So while teachers may appear to get more holidays than most other professions, the reality is they are not actually on holiday for all of this time.

It is more a mix of flexible work from home, school-based meetings and preparation for the following teaching term, and some holiday downtime to unwind in between tasks.

Research shows many people deeply appreciate teachers’ dedication to our school communities.

However, there is work to be done to change widespread and incorrect perceptions about their work hours or holidays, which misrepresents and devalues the work they do.

Read more:
‘Thank you for making me feel smart’: will a new campaign to raise the status of teaching work?

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

– ref. What do teachers do in the school holidays? They work, plan, and rest – https://theconversation.com/what-do-teachers-do-in-the-school-holidays-they-work-plan-and-rest-217799

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Hill, Adjunct Lecturer, Centre for Business Analytics, Melbourne Business School

It’s no accident we are seeing record profits from some of our biggest consumer-facing companies, among them Qantas andthe big four banks.

They are among the firms – alongside our grocery duopoly – investing the most in artificial intelligence in the form of data analytics and machine learning.

Their investments include staff – often hundreds of data scientists – plus information technology systems and external consultants.

It isn’t cheap, and ultimately much of it will be paid for by customers.

While some of the initiatives target costs by improving planning and reducing waste and fraud and theft, most target revenue via marketing and personalisation with the aim of getting the best deals to the customers who insist on them and the worst deals to the customers who will buy anyway.

To the extent that these firms are successful in charging different prices to different customers, it’s a fair bet they are keeping up the cost of living.

In simpler times, only a few customers needed to do the hard yakka of comparing the prices displayed in shops or on websites and voting with their feet in order to force sellers to keep published prices in check for everyone.

Now, there’s often no such thing as a single published price.

Booking a holiday now comes with a bewildering set of frequent flyer rules, hotel loyalty programs, credit card points, cashback offers, possibly buy-now pay-later options, and vouchers and coupons sprinkled across social media.

Comparing prices has become next to impossible

Retailers, airlines, phone companies and insurers use sophisticated machine learning algorithms and real-time experiments to continuously tweak the prices and deals they offer individual customers, meaning there is often no such thing as a standard price.

(The fact they refer to what they are doing as offering discounts doesn’t change the reality that what they are doing is charging higher prices to the customers least likely to notice or complain.)

To succeed at this game requires vast amounts of customer data, which they have via loyalty schemes and information about past online purchases but their customers do not. That’s about to change.

AI is starting to turn the tables

For some time now online communities of “points hackers” have been running massive spreadsheets squeezing out the best deals for shoppers and swapping tips.

But for most of us, it hasn’t seemed worth the effort – so much so that for four years the Victorian government offered a $250 Power Saving Bonus to residents who simply put their name and email address into a price-comparison website.

But there’s something that does tedious mind-numbing chores extremely well. It’s artificial intelligence of the kind that only became widely available a year ago with the launch of ChatGPT.

Already, websites are offering AI assistants or “copilots” to pore over our financial records and scour the web, tirelessly haggling with providers’ automated copilots on our behalf.

These new agents, with names like Comparison and Haggle It use information about our long-term spending patterns, preferences and broad financial goals to benefit us rather than the firms who are trying to sell things to us.

ChatGPT already has travel plug-ins from providers that can take vague instructions about your timing, preferred locations and budget and build an itinerary with links for buying.

The next step – not far away – will see it negotiating purchases on our behalf that strike the right balance of points, cashback, miles and vouchers across multiple providers and transactions in a way that will make even the most obsessive points hacker swoon.

There are already ChatGPT plug-ins for e-commerce, restaurants and groceries.

Prepare for haggle-bots, that work for us

Around the world, new and established firms are building Generative AI applications for optimising our household budgets and personal finances across ever-expanding categories.

A recent survey from Credit Karma found 43% of United States residents would be happy for an artificial intelligence bot to manage their personal finances to reduce their money problems.

Comparison shopping is the cornerstone of a well-functioning market economy, helping moderate profits and keeping costs down.

While the last wave of AI was used by big companies to make that task harder, the next wave is about to put that technology in the hands of consumers.

It is set to force our oligopolies to compete in ways they’ve not been used to, putting downward pressure on prices rather than helping keep them high.

Read more:
Hotel booking sites actually make it hard to get cheap deals, but there’s a way around it

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

– ref. Until now, sellers have used AI to get the best deal for themselves – those tables are about to turn – https://theconversation.com/until-now-sellers-have-used-ai-to-get-the-best-deal-for-themselves-those-tables-are-about-to-turn-216620

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lesley Speed, Senior Lecturer in media and screen studies, Federation University Australia

After an exhausting day, housework is often the last thing I feel like doing. But I sometimes relax by playing video games where you tidy and arrange household items in living rooms, kitchens and bathrooms.

In a game, domestic tasks can be exciting. Like the indie success Untitled Goose Game and the blockbuster series The Sims, the games I’m thinking of position the completion of mundane tasks as entertainment and art.

Here are four inventive Australian video games where players perform household tasks that, in real life, are often repetitive or unpleasant. But in games these activities can be entertaining and relaxing.

Read more:
Here’s why The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is big news – even among those who don’t see themselves as ‘gamers’

Moving Out

In Moving Out (and its sequel, Moving Out 2), you’re a removalist with a time limit to move objects like fridges, beds and sofas out of homes. Created by Australian and Swedish studios, Moving Out also involves the team that made the cooking game, Overcooked.

In Moving Out, removal is an athletic activity. Floor plans and yards are like obstacle courses with animals, swimming pools and even ghosts.

Players shift furniture in haunted houses and on space stations. Each new setting brings a sense of the unreal to what, in real life, would be a pretty dull task: moving stuff from A to B.

Video games allow us to do things that are unacceptable in real life. In Moving Out, players save time by breaking windows and throwing objects instead of using stairs. We’re invited to embrace the pleasures of recklessness.

In a world obsessed with buying homes and ever more things to fill them, Moving Out offers property destruction as a cathartic alternative.

Unpacking

In Unpacking – which describes itself as a “zen puzzle game” – you learn about someone’s life from youth to adulthood by sorting their possessions through a series of removals.

Doing banal tasks in a game can take us out of our own lives to explore other people’s lives and unexpected environments.

Unpacking allows us to sort the unseen occupant’s possessions, but their life remains a mystery. The game’s pixel art makes their book covers and journal entries tantalisingly unreadable.

Florence

In Florence, you have limited storage space for objects like kitchen utensils, clothing and books. The lead designer of this game also created the enormously popular puzzle game Monument Valley.

When Florence’s partner moves in, you learn about their differences while finding space to store their possessions.

Like Unpacking, Florence allows us to do familiar, domestic tasks in an unfamiliar setting; the player organises characters’ possessions but has no knowledge of the words the couple exchange in blank speech bubbles.

Games set in homes have been linked to materialistic consumer culture; this is a concern some have raised about The Sims. But not all games link buying with happiness.

Florence (like Unpacking) involves organising people’s used possessions, not new goods.

Rumu

In an earlier Australian game, Rumu, you’re a robot vacuum cleaner who cleans up food and drink spills and tidies clothing while you investigate the disappearance of the house’s owners.

This vacuum cleaner is not only an appliance but part of a futuristic home where the artificial intelligence home assistant has emotional problems.

The house in Rumu is like a maze; full of gadgets and secrets, this setting is designed like a puzzle that players must solve to navigate from one place to another. The home is full of advanced “smart” appliances but is abandoned, dysfunctional and alienating. Again, the surreal is mixed with the everyday.

Why are we drawn to games involving mundane tasks?

These examples are not brand new games, but reflect the growth in popularity of everyday settings in games where you can do banal tasks as entertainment.

Such games invite us to relate differently to everyday settings and work. They can confirm French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre’s view that the everyday can be surreal, extraordinary, surprising and magical. In these games, everyday tasks involve encounters with robots, aliens and the supernatural.

Women spend more time on unpaid work than men. But with women making up almost half of video game players in Australia, these games also cleverly allow us to challenge norms around gender, work and domesticity. For example, players may be able to choose from avatars of various genders and species or control a character with both masculine and feminine traits.

Games link domestic labour to fantasy and adventure, challenging us to imagine everyday life and ordinary places as extraordinary.

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

– ref. Vacuuming, moving house, unpacking are boring in real life – so why is doing them in a video game so fun? – https://theconversation.com/vacuuming-moving-house-unpacking-are-boring-in-real-life-so-why-is-doing-them-in-a-video-game-so-fun-214853

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Randolph Grace, Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury

Future historians may well regard 2023 as a landmark in the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). But whether that future will prove utopian, apocalyptic or somewhere in between is anyone’s guess.

In February, ChatGPT set the record as the fastest app to reach 100 million users. It was followed by similar “large language” AI models from Google, Amazon, Meta and other big tech firms, which collectively look poised to transform education, healthcare and many other knowledge-intensive fields.

However, AI’s potential for harm was underscored in May by an ominous statement signed by leading researchers:

Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.

In November, responding to the growing concern about AI risk, 27 nations (including the UK, US, India, China and the European Union) pledged cooperation at an inaugural AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in England, to ensure the safe development of AI for the benefit of all.

To achieve this, researchers focus on AI alignment – that is, how to make sure AI models are consistent with human values, preferences and goals. But there’s a problem – AI’s so-called “dark secret”: large-scale models are so complex they are like a black box, impossible for anyone to fully understand.

AI’s black box problem

Although the transparency and explainability of AI systems are important research goals, such efforts seem unlikely to keep up with the frenetic pace of innovation.

The black box metaphor explains why people’s beliefs about AI are all over the map. Predictions range from utopia to extinction, and many even believe an artificial general intelligence (AGI) will soon achieve sentience.

Read more:
A year of ChatGPT: 5 ways the AI marvel has changed the world

But this uncertainty compounds the problem. AI alignment should be a two-way street: we must not only ensure AI models are consistent with human intentions, but also that our beliefs about AI are accurate.

This is because we are remarkably adept at creating futures that accord with those beliefs, even if we are unaware of them.

So-called “expectancy effects”, or self-fulfilling prophecies, are well known in psychology. And research has shown that manipulating users’ beliefs influences not just how they interact with AI, but how AI adapts to the user.

In other words, how our beliefs (conscious or unconscious) affect AI can potentially increase the likelihood of any outcome, including catastrophic ones.

Read more:
How AI ‘sees’ the world – what happened when we trained a deep learning model to identify poverty

AI, computation, logic and arithmetic

We need to probe more deeply to understand the basis of AI – like Alice in Wonderland, head down the rabbit hole and see where it takes us.

Firstly, what is AI? It runs on computers, and so is automated computation. From its origin as the “perceptron” – an artificial neuron defined mathematically in 1943 by neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch and logician Walter Pitts – AI has been intertwined with the cognitive sciences, neuroscience and computer science.

This convergence of minds, brains and machines has led to the widely-held belief that, because AI is computation by machine, then natural intelligence (the mind) must be computation by the brain.

But what is computation? In the late 19th century, mathematicians Richard Dedekind and Giuseppe Peano proposed a set of axioms which defined arithmetic in terms of logic, and inspired attempts to ground all mathematics on a secure formal basis.

Although the logician Kurt Gödel later proved this goal was unachievable, his work was the starting point for mathematician (and code-breaker) Alan Turing. His “Turing machine”, an abstract device capable of universal computation, is the foundation of computer science.

Read more:
Forget dystopian scenarios – AI is pervasive today, and the risks are often hidden

Deep structure of perception

So, computation is based on mathematical ideas that trace back to efforts to define arithmetic in logic. But our knowledge of arithmetic exists prior to logic. If we want to understand the basis of AI, we need to go further and ask where arithmetic itself comes from.

My colleagues and I have recently shown that arithmetic is based on the “deep structure” of perception. This structure is like coloured glasses that shape our perception in particular ways, so that our experience of the world is ordered and manageable.

Arithmetic consists of a set of elements (numbers) and operations (addition, multiplication) that combine pairs of elements to give another element. We asked: of all possibilities, why are numbers the elements, and addition and multiplication the operations?

Read more:
Arithmetic has a biological origin – it’s an expression in symbols of the ‘deep structure’ of our perception

We showed by mathematical proof that when the deep structure of perception was assumed to limit the possibilities, arithmetic was the result. In other words, when our mind views the abstract world through the same “coloured glasses” that shape our experience of the physical world, it “sees” numbers and arithmetic.

Because arithmetic is the foundation for mathematics, the implication is that mathematics is a reflection of the mind – an expression in symbols of its fundamental nature and creativity.

Although the deep structure of perception is shared with other animals and so a product of evolution, only humans have invented mathematics. It is our most intimate creation – and by enabling the development of AI, perhaps our most consequential.

A Copernican revolution of the mind

Our account of arithmetic’s origin is consistent with views of the 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant. According to him, our knowledge of the world is structured by “pure intuitions” of space and time that exist prior to sense experience – analogous to the coloured glasses we can never remove.

Kant claimed his philosophy was a “Copernican revolution of the mind”. In the same way ancient astronomers believed the Sun revolved around the Earth because they were unaware of the Earth’s motion, Kant argued, philosophers who believed all knowledge is derived from sense experience (John Locke and David Hume, for example) overlooked how the mind shapes perception.

Read more:
AI is closer than ever to passing the Turing test for ‘intelligence’. What happens when it does?

Although Kant’s views were shaped by the natural sciences of his day, they have proved influential in contemporary psychology.

The recognition that arithmetic is a natural consequence of our perception, and thus biologically based, suggests a similar Kantian shift in our understanding of computation.

Computation is not “outside” or separate from us in an abstract realm of mathematical truth, but inherent in our mind’s nature. The mind is more than computation; the brain is not a computer. Rather, computation – the basis for AI – is, like mathematics, a symbolic expression of the mind’s nature and creativity.

Read more:
‘Computer says no’: more employers are using AI to recruit, increasing the risk of discrimination

Promethean fire

What are the implications for AI? Firstly, AI is not a mind and will never become sentient. The idea we can transcend our biological nature and achieve immortality by uploading our minds to the cloud is only fantasy.

Yet if the principles of mind on which AI is based are shared by all humanity (and likely other living creatures as well), it may be possible to transcend the limitations of our individual minds.

Because computation is universal, we are free to simulate and create any outcome we choose in our increasingly connected virtual and physical worlds. In this way, AI is truly our Promethean fire, a gift to humanity stolen from the gods as in Greek mythology.

As a global civilisation, we are likely at a turning point. AI will not become sentient and decide to kill us all. But we are very capable of “apocalypsing” ourselves with it – expectation can create reality.

Efforts to ensure AI alignment, safety and security are vitally important, but may not be enough if we lack awareness and collective wisdom. Like Alice, we need to wake up from the dream and recognise the reality and power of our minds.

Randolph Grace receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, Marsden Fund

– ref. AI is our ‘Promethean fire’: using it wisely means knowing its true nature – and our own minds – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-our-promethean-fire-using-it-wisely-means-knowing-its-true-nature-and-our-own-minds-219320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University

Nicholas Copernicus was the astronomer who, five centuries ago, explained that Earth revolves around the Sun, rather than vice versa. A true Renaissance man, he also practised as a mathematician, engineer, author, economic theorist and medical doctor.

Upon his death in 1543 in Frombork, Poland, Copernicus was buried in the local cathedral. Over the subsequent centuries, the location of his grave was lost to history.

Who was Copernicus?

Nicholas Copernicus, or Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish, was born in Toruń in 1473. He was the youngest of four children born to a local merchant.

After his father’s death, Copernicus’s uncle assumed responsibility for his education. The young scholar initially studied at the University of Kraków between 1491 and 1494, and later at Italian universities in Bologna, Padua and Ferrara.

After studying medicine, canon law, mathematical astronomy, and astrology, Copernicus returned home in 1503. He then worked for his influential uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, who was the Prince-Bishop of Warmia.

Read more:
Copernicus’ revolution and Galileo’s vision: our changing view of the universe in pictures

Copernicus worked as a physician while continuing his research in mathematics. At that time, both astronomy and music were considered branches of mathematics.

During this period, he formulated two influential economic theories. In 1517, he developed the quantity theory of money, which was later re-articulated by John Locke and David Hume, and popularised by Milton Friedman in the 1960s. In 1519, Copernicus also introduced the concept now known as Gresham’s law, a monetary principle addressing the circulation and valuation of money.

The Copernican model of the universe

The cornerstone of Copernicus’s contributions to science was his revolutionary model of the universe. Contrary to the prevailing Ptolemaic model, which maintained that Earth was the stationary centre of the universe, Copernicus argued that Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun.

Copernicus was further able to compare the sizes of the planetary orbits by expressing them in terms of the distance between the Sun and Earth.

Copernicus feared how his work would be received by the church and fellow scholars. His magnum opus, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (On the Movement of the Celestial Spheres), was only published just before his death in 1543.

The publication of this work set the stage for groundbreaking shifts in our understanding of the universe, paving the way for future astronomers such as Galileo, who was born more than 20 years after Copernicus’s death.

The search for Copernicus

The Frombork Cathedral serves as the final resting place of more than 100 people, most of whom lie in unnamed graves.

There were several unsuccessful attempts to locate Copernicus’s remains, dating as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries. Another failed attempt was made by the French emperor Napoleon after the 1807 Battle of Eylau. Napoleon held Copernicus in high regard as a polymath, mathematician and astronomer.

In 2005, a group of Polish archaeologists took up the search.

They were guided by the theory of historian Jerzy Sikorski, who claimed that Copernicus, serving as the Canon of Frombork Cathedral, would have been buried near the cathedral altar for which he was responsible during his tenure. This was the Altar of Saint Wacław, now known as the Altar of the Holy Cross.

Thirteen skeletons were discovered near this altar, including an incomplete skeleton belonging to a male aged between 60 and 70 years. This particular skeleton was identified as the closest match to that of Copernicus.

Forensic science

The skull of the skeleton served as the basis for a facial reconstruction.

In addition to morphological studies, DNA analysis is often used for the identification of historical or ancient remains. In the case of the presumed remains of Copernicus, a genetic identification was possible due to the well-preserved state of the teeth.

A significant challenge lay in identifying a suitable source of reference material. There were no known remains of any relatives of Copernicus.

An unlikely find

In 2006, however, a new source of DNA reference material came to life. An astronomical reference book used by Copernicus for many years was found to contain hair among its pages.

This book had been taken to Sweden as war booty following the Swedish invasion of Poland in the mid-17th century. It is currently in the possession of the Museum Gustavianum at Uppsala University.

A meticulous examination of the book revealed several hairs, thought likely to belong to the book’s primary user, Copernicus himself. Consequently, these hairs were assessed as potential reference material for genetic comparison with the teeth and bone matter recovered from the tomb.

Read more:
Who owned this Stone Age jewellery? New forensic tools offer an unprecedented answer

The hairs were compared with the DNA from the teeth and bones of the discovered skeleton. Both the mitochondrial DNA from the teeth and the skeletal sample matched those of the hairs, strongly suggesting that the remains were indeed those of Nicholas Copernicus.

The multidisciplinary effort, involving archaeological excavation, morphological studies and advanced DNA analysis, has led to a compelling conclusion.

The remains discovered near the Altar of the Holy Cross in Frombork Cathedral are highly likely to be those of Nicholas Copernicus. This monumental find not only sheds light on the final resting place of one of the most influential figures in the history of science, but also showcases the depth and sophistication of modern scientific methods in corroborating historical data.

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

– ref. The strange story of the grave of Copernicus – https://theconversation.com/the-strange-story-of-the-grave-of-copernicus-213358

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University

Australians could be forgiven for feeling weary of political scandals. The litany of them at the federal level in recent years has been fatiguing: Robodebt, allegations of rape and sexual harassment in Parliament House, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s secret ministries, sports rorts, ministerial affairs and bonk bans, and plenty more.

For reporters and pundits, scandals generate excitement and drama, something more novel than the tedium of day-to-day political processes. But even the most cursory glance at recent scandals – for example, the brouhaha over Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’ expensive taste for RAAF VIP flights – reminds us that very few are unprecedented.

Flying high

Australians live on a big continent, and are acutely sensitive to the price of petrol and airfares. Consequently, the public and press have been quick to anger when politicians are caught misusing or abusing their taxpayer-funded travel entitlements.

Harold Holt learned this the hard way. In 1967, journalists and backbench senators began asking awkward questions about ministers’ use of VIP aircraft for personal purposes at the expense of the taxpayer. The prime minister – who was among the guilty – dodged questions and denied that any evidence existed, misleading parliament (and the public) along the way.

But his new Senate leader, John Gorton, took a different approach, tabling all the hidden documents in the Senate. According to a recent biography of Holt, Gorton told him “public disquiet over any alleged secrecy would be much greater” than the anger at the actual offence itself.

In the end, no ministerial jobs were lost, but the upshot was that when Holt took his fateful swim at Cheviot beach, the popular (but, as it turned out, scandal-prone) Gorton would replace him.

Travel entitlements were a sensitive topic for later Liberal prime ministers, too. In his first term, John Howard faced many ministerial resignations, two of them — Peter McGauran and John Sharp — for false travel entitlement claims, and a third, Administrative Services Minister David Jull, for not following “due process” when his office processed those entitlement claims.

Many will remember the furore about Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, who in 2015 chartered a helicopter from Melbourne to Geelong for a partisan fundraiser and charged taxpayers for the privilege. Faced with calls to apologise and repay the expense, she remained defiant until it was too late, her position no longer tenable. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had originally appointed his “political mother” Bishop to the role, found his position weakened too.

Mining for misdemeanours

It is one thing to abuse the “perks of the job”. It is another thing to be avowedly corrupt. But in truth, the history of corruption in Australia is extensive. In the colonial era, wealthy landholders and squatters sought to influence parliamentarians with monetary bribes.

In 1869, a Victorian parliamentary select committee found that pastoralists and investors, led by the highly influential squatter and speculator Hugh Glass, had engaged in “corrupt practices”. Glass and his peers had kept a fund of money for bribing MPs during debates about land reform.

Corrupt colonial politicians used public funds on projects from which they would personally benefit. In the 1880s, Victoria’s railway minister Tommy Bent established a new line that would run through his own electorate, enhancing the value of his own land. “Everyone knew Bent was a crook,” historian Frank Bongiorno has recently suggested, “and the newspapers called him one”.

There was nothing special about Victoria in terms of corruption. Queensland historians such as Lyndon Megarrity have shown that railway financiers used cash bribes to buy influence over railway legislation in the 19th century. That tradition of political impropriety was faithfully upheld in the 1970s and ‘80s by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, his Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, and a sprawling network of businessmen and developers.

At times, Queensland’s corruption scandals have had national consequences. In 1930, federal treasurer and former Queensland premier Ted Theodore was forced to resign, pending an inquiry into his financial affairs. Notably wealthy and often controversial, Theodore was accused of benefiting from the sale of Mungana Mines (in which he was a “silent partner”) to the Queensland government (of which he was then premier) for an artificially inflated price.

The timing of the scandal was critical. The state government launched its Royal Commission against Theodore just weeks before Labor won office in 1929. The report was handed down shortly before the new government’s first budget. At the height of the Great Depression, the federal treasurer had to stand aside in what the historian Joan Beaumont has recently called a “body blow” for the Scullin government. By the time he had cleared his name and returned to his post, Theodore has lost the chance to shape Australia’s response to the depression.

Pork-barrelling

Corruption is clearly unacceptable, but notoriously difficult to define. Is pork-barrelling – the art of directing public funds and grants to marginal electorates – a form of corruption? Much of it goes unpunished, but occasionally an egregious case arouses the public ire.

There have been, for instance, two “sports rorts” affairs in living memory. Ahead of the 1993 federal election, Sports Minister Ros Kelly oversaw $30 million of funding for sports, recreational and community facilities.

Questions were later asked about the skewed distribution of the funding toward Labor marginal seats. When the auditor-general and a parliamentary committee investigated, the results spelled the end of Kelly’s tenure. Memorably, Kelly was accused of making decisions not through the usual mechanisms, but on a whiteboard in her office.

More recently, sports rorts 2.0 – in which Bridget McKenzie, a senior minister in the Morrison government, resigned over a large grant to a shooting club of which she was an undisclosed member – seemed like history re-enacted on a larger scale. Timed for the 2019 election campaign, the Coalition’s sports and recreation grants were entirely contradictory to the merit-based advice the minister had received.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Bridget McKenzie falls – but for the lesser of her political sins

Grey areas

Pork-barrelling and other misdemeanours are even more complicated when public questions are overlaid with private conduct.

In 2016, NSW Member for Wagga Wagga Daryl Maguire convinced the then treasurer Gladys Berejiklian to grant $5.5 million to a clay target shooting range in his electorate. The grant took place outside the usual channels, and the revelation that Maguire and Berejiklian had been intimately involved provided the final ingredient for a pork-barrelling and conflict of interest scandal.

But sometimes, sex scandals are newsworthy for their own sake, public administration aside. In 1975, Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns and one of his staff, Junie Morosi, found themselves at the centre of a media scandal.

When rumours emerged of an extramarital affair between the two, the media exposed the story in terms that highlighted Morosi’s physical appeal even as it censured the pair.

Cairns was damaged by the publicity around their affair. His friend and colleague Tom Uren later noted in his autobiography that there were many “irregular relationships” among the conservatives that “were not exposed in the press”.

Historically, though, conservatives had been fair game for sexual exposé. Accusations of marital infidelity and nepotism coloured many a conservative politician’s career in colonial times. Graham Berry, a colonial liberal in Victoria, resigned as treasurer in the face of a select committee inquiry into an earlier extramarital affair and possible bribery ensuring from it. As his recent biographer Sean Scalmer put it, the inquiry was “a hammer blow” to this “would-be gentleman”.

Journalists have chosen when to conceal and when to reveal. When Barnaby Joyce’s extramarital affair with staffer Vikki Campion and their pregnancy were revealed in 2018, the media showed that they retain this power. Many waited until they had unimpeachable evidence, and could use Joyce’s rhetoric during the marriage equality plebiscite – in which Joyce had defended “traditional marriage” – as justification.

Read more:
Welcome to the new (old) moralism: how the media’s coverage of the Joyce affair harks back to the 1950s

Why scandals matter

Scandals matter because they illuminate the tensions that shape our political processes. The physical and social distance between electors and their MPs, the entitlements afforded to ministers to do their jobs, and the media’s discretion in deciding who and what becomes scandalous – are core features of our democratic system. They also involve blurred patterns of power and privilege.

A core pillar of responsible government is that ministers are accountable to parliament. When ministers mislead parliament – or in the case of Scott Morrison, do not even reveal to parliament their ministerial appointments – the most important constraint on executive power in Australia is undermined.

There have been many innovations in Australian politics in the hope of minimising corruption and avoiding scandal. In late 2023, for example, Independent MP Monique Ryan introduced a Private Members’ Bill to crack down on lobbying and making ministerial diaries publicly accessible. If passed, it will lift the lid on another grey area in Australian political misadventure.

Joshua Black is affiliated with the Australian Historical Association, and the Whitlam Institute at WSU.

– ref. Storm clouds ahead: scandals that have rocked Australian politics – https://theconversation.com/storm-clouds-ahead-scandals-that-have-rocked-australian-politics-216825

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Mazzucchelli, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Curtin University

As the holidays progress, parents will no doubt be hearing a classic line from their kids: “I’m boooooored”.

We all get bored from time to time and there is nothing particularly wrong with feeling bored. In fact, it is a useful emotion because it is helps us reflect and make changes to what we’re doing or our surroundings.

However, many children are still learning the skill of managing boredom. If you’re wondering how to respond when kids complain they are bored (without just letting them watch more TV), here are some ideas to try.

Boredom helps kids learn

Boredom is mildly unpleasant, but it’s OK for kids to feel bored. In fact, boredom provides the context for children to develop a number of important skills, including:

• the ability to tolerate less-than-ideal experiences

• manage frustration and regulate emotions

• creative thinking

• problem solving, planning, and organisation

• independence and self-sufficiency.

These skills are central to children developing a sense of control over their own happiness and wellbeing.

Read more:
Why are my kids good around other people and then badly behaved with me?

Why do children complain about being bored?

Typically, children’s lives are structured and organised for them. When presented with unstructured time, children can have difficulty thinking of and organising things to do.

If children’s complaints of boredom always result in adults entertaining them, then children may not get an opportunity to learn to entertain themselves or generate their own ideas.

Sometimes, children seem to reject every idea that we suggest. They may have learned that this leads to a long discussion about what to do, or in us (eventually) engaging in an activity with them. In both circumstances, the child does not have to manage their own boredom.

The trick is to help support children generate their own ideas (rather than suggesting ideas to them).

How can parents help kids learn to manage boredom?

There’s a lot parents can do to prepare for boredom and support their child learning to manage their own boredom. Here are some ideas:

Create a ‘menu’ of activities. Talk to your child about what they enjoy doing, their interests and their passions. Develop a menu of activities with your child that they can refer to when they’re bored. Younger children may wish to illustrate theirs.

Try to list activities your child can do without your input – a mix of new things and stuff they’ve enjoyed in the past. Include some quicker activities (such as colouring, building a furniture fort, or having a teddy bear picnic), as well as longer-term projects (such as a big puzzle, reading a novel, working on sporting skills). Put the menu where your child can refer to it.

Get everything ready. Make sure you have the toys, equipment and materials available and accessible for your child to do the stuff on their list. Toys and activities do not have to be expensive to be fun.

Prepare your child. Let your child know the plan for the day and the length of time they’re expected to do the activities on their menu. This will reassure them they’re not going to be on their own “forever”. A series of pictures to illustrate the day’s schedule might help. Before a period of free time, discuss two or three rules (for example, “Play quietly until mum and dad are finished and if you need to speak to us, say, ‘Excuse me’ and wait until we’re free”).

Talk about rewards. At first, you could offer a reward (such as a special activity with you, a favourite snack or some screen time) if your child occupies themselves appropriately for a period of time. Phase out rewards over time by gradually increasing the amount of time your child needs to occupy themselves, and then offer them only every now and then.

Prompt your child to use their list. If your child tells you they’re bored, redirect them to their list. Keep this conversation short and to the point.

If necessary, help your child get started. Some children might need help to get started in an activity. It may be necessary to spend a few minutes setting them up. Try not to do everything yourself, but rather use questions to help them to problem solve. You might ask, “What are you going to make? What will you need to make that? Where do you think you’ll start?”

Encourage your child. When your child gets started on an appropriate activity themselves, offer praise and attention. You might say, “You found something to do all by yourself. I’m impressed!” Stop what you’re doing from time to time to praise them for keeping busy. Do this before they have lost interest, but over time, aim to gradually extend the amount of time before commenting.

Spend time with your child. While it is important for children to learn how to manage boredom, children also need to feel valued and know their parents want to spend time with them. Make time for your child and be available to them when you are together.

Read more:
Educational activities for the summer break to beat boredom and learning loss

Trevor Mazzucchelli is a co-author of Stepping Stones Triple P – Positive Parenting Program and a consultant to Triple P International. The Parenting and Family Support Centre is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by The University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd is a private company licensed by UniQuest Pty Ltd on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. He has no share or ownership of TPI, but has received and may in the future receive royalties and/or consultancy fees from TPI. TPI had no involvement in writing of this article.

– ref. ‘Mum, Dad, I’m bored!’ How to teach children to manage their own boredom these holidays – https://theconversation.com/mum-dad-im-bored-how-to-teach-children-to-manage-their-own-boredom-these-holidays-217680

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ama Samarasinghe, Lecturer, Financial Planning and Tax, RMIT University

As our wallets feel the strain from the cost-of-living crisis, many of us are looking for ways to soften the blow.

While everyone’s circumstances are different, and ideally you should seek help from an accredited financial adviser, there are some tried and true ways to work out where all your money is going and why.

Here are three practical tips to reduce the impact of the cost-of-living increases, and stretch every hard-earned dollar.

1. Hunt for a better loan rate

For many households, the biggest hit comes from the mortgage, so start there.

Even a modest 0.5% reduction can translate into substantial savings. Call your bank today and just ask for rate reduction. If the answer is no, consider shopping around for a different lender.

Your loyalty to your current lender might be costing you more than you realise. Banks often reserve their most attractive rates for new customers, leaving long-time customers paying higher-than-necessary interest.

Even if your bank does agree to a rate reduction, explore the market anyway. There is a range of free rate-comparison websites, or you can directly check individual bank websites.

If you find a lender offering a better rate, you might consider calling the competing bank to ask about switching your mortgage to them.

Or, you might seek assistance from a mortgage broker, who can guide you through the process of securing a better deal (just remember they often take commissions from lenders).

Tread carefully and factor in any exit fees or charges from your current lender. Refinancing isn’t without risk, so a thorough cost-benefit analysis is important before making the switch.

Also consider the value of features such as offset accounts. An offset account, linked to your home loan, allows you to deposit money such as your salary and savings. This money is then “offset” against your home loan balance.

That means you only pay interest on the outstanding amount (the loan minus whatever salary and savings you put in the offset). This can accelerate loan repayment and reduce interest costs.

Keep in mind that offset accounts are typically only available with variable interest rates. Offset accounts work best if you have considerable savings to put into the offset account that outweigh the additional fees and charges attached to offset accounts.

2. Trim your expenses and uncover hidden savings

It’s time to become a budget detective, identifying and cutting down on non-essential costs that might be quietly draining your wallet.

Take a close look at those recurring memberships and subscriptions. How often do you actually use that gym membership or streaming service?

Many banking apps have handy spending tracking features to help you set realistic budget goals for each spending category.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, insurance and financial services are among the top risers in living cost indexes (which measure the price change of goods and services and its effect on living expenses). So search comparison websites for better insurance premiums.

Australia’s insurance market is competitive, and you can often get discounts by bundling your insurances together (for example, having your home and contents insurance with the same company that also provides your car insurance). However, don’t shy away from exploring different insurers for potentially better value.

Don’t overlook energy costs, either. Use comparison websites like Energy Made Easy (or, if you’re in Victoria, the Victorian Energy Compare site) to find more cost-effective energy plans. Stay updated on rebates and concessions via the federal government’s Energy.gov.au site, to ensure you’re maximising your entitlements.

Use less energy, if you can. Small adjustments can make a significant dent in your bills. And for fuel costs, find websites and applications that allow you to lock in the lowest prices in your area.

If you’re renting, ask yourself whether moving to a cheaper suburb or a cheaper home is an option.

Many people use cashback sites like Cashrewards and ShopBack to accrue cashback incentives.

3. Maximise returns and tackle high-interest debts

While rising interest rates might make your mortgage climb, it also means high interest on your savings.

Consider exploring high-yield savings accounts; with current interest rates, you could potentially earn around 5.5% with a bank savings account. Many people set up recurring transfers to help them stick to savings goals, increase deposits and maximise interest earnings.

For those wrestling with high-interest debts such as credit cards or personal loans, prioritise settling outstanding balances to minimise interest payments.
It can be hard to escape the long-term repercussions (such as a poor credit score) of defaulting on high-interest loans.

And approach buy-now, pay-later services with extreme caution. They may seem tempting but the debts can quickly add up.

And if you need more help, contact the government’s free National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007.

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

– ref. The cost-of-living crisis is hitting hard. Here are 3 ways to soften the blow – https://theconversation.com/the-cost-of-living-crisis-is-hitting-hard-here-are-3-ways-to-soften-the-blow-218118

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carole Wilson, Associate Professor in Visual Arts, Federation University Australia

Jillposters was a self-funded radical feminist poster group active in Melbourne from 1983 until 1988. I was a founding member.

I’m in the process of donating archival material and records to the RMIT Design Archive, so I’ve had cause to reflect recently on what impressive achievements we had for such a small and unstructured group.

We had no government funding, no management committee, no governing structure and no workshop. The group lasted just five years. Yet we produced an amazing range of posters and postcards, most of which are held in Australia’s national collection.

Read more:
From Duchamp to AI: the transformation of authorship in art

A medium for political messages

Political posters grew out of 1970s feminism. Women were at the forefront of postermaking in Australia in the early 1980s.

Silkscreen printing, as it was taught at art schools, was and is a laborious, hand-driven process. You have to print with a squeegee through a screen; each colour separately.

It isn’t taught much anymore – we worked with pretty toxic oil-based inks, and to clean up the screen, you just flooded it with turps. Now posters can be whipped up digitally and distributed online.

But our posters were ideal as a medium for conveying political messages and disseminating information. Many poster workshops and groups were born in the 1970s and 80s in various locations; including Megalo Workshop in Canberra, Tin Sheds and Earthworks Poster Collective in Sydney, and Red Letter Press and Another Planet Posters in Melbourne.

Off to a flying start

Jillposters got off to a flying start in February 1983 when a group of friends met at the University of Melbourne student union to discuss forming a political poster group.

We each contributed the grand sum of A$10 to get things started and to open a bank account.

Initially these funds were spent on inks, paper and workshop hire as Melbourne University union had a screenprinting studio available for use by students and friends.

Members, in the spirit of collectivism, chose not to have their own names on their posters but to name everything as Jillposters.

The first poster, a simple black and white version titled ‘A Change is as Good as Holiday’ was produced to coincide with the 1983 federal election, which saw Labor’s Bob Hawke elected. This was a cause for great celebration and hopes for a new era after the conservative Malcolm Fraser government and a period of high unemployment.

We printed posters, and later postcards, in many locations, including the University of Melbourne Student Union printmaking room and Phillip Institute of Technology (now RMIT) printmaking studio, where some Jillposters members were students. Occasionally we printed in sheds and individual artist’s studios.

Our initial plan was to paste up all of our posters around the streets of Melbourne.

Going out late at night with a bucket of sloppy wallpaper paste, large brushes and a roll of posters was all very exciting.

Pasting up was illegal so there was always the risk of arrest. Our aim was to find walls where our political posters wouldn’t be covered up by other groups pasting up band posters.

Occasionally, we’d find a passerby would like our poster so much they’d peel it off the wall still dripping in paste to take home for themselves.

Another early poster, printed just in time for Easter, conveyed the message that Easter was the patriarchal theft of a pre-Christian fertility festival.

This, perhaps not surprisingly, generated a lot of interest and some outrage when pasted up around the streets of Fitzroy. It led to some articles in local suburban newspapers and contact from alternative and left-wing bookshops who were keen to stock our posters for sale.

Shifting gear

We then shifted gear slightly and allocated a smaller portion for street paste up and the larger portion for sales through retail outlets such as galleries and bookshops in Australia and New Zealand.

Poster production soon increased and our designs became more detailed and colourful.

The 1980s really was a different era and most capital cities in Australia had a range of left-wing and women’s bookshops and alternative galleries keen to stock our work.

We were also contacted by mainstream galleries wanting to acquire our posters for their collections.

Both the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of Ballarat bought posters in 1983 and then continued to collect all the posters we produced.

The State Library of Victoria also collected them and, in more recent years, the Ian Potter Museum at the University of Melbourne collected a range of posters.

One of the posters stating “We are marching for all women exploited and raped in war” was exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia’s Know My Name exhibition in 2021-22.

Over time, members of the group moved onto other pursuits and the remaining members shifted their focus to printing postcards, which were also very popular and sold well.

The final posters and postcards were produced in 1988 and then Jillposters officially wound up.

Read more:
Where has Melbourne’s political graffiti gone?

Carole Wilson received government arts funding from federal and state arts bodies when she worked for Another Planet Posters between 1988 and 1990. She was a founding member of Jillposters and then went on to work at Another Planet Posters.

– ref. My life as a ‘Jillposter’: the radical feminist poster group that pasted prints around Melbourne in the ‘80s – https://theconversation.com/my-life-as-a-jillposter-the-radical-feminist-poster-group-that-pasted-prints-around-melbourne-in-the-80s-214959

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Lomb, Honorary Professor, Centre for Astrophysics, University of Southern Queensland

What exciting events will we see in the southern sky in 2024? Meteor showers, Saturn covered by the Moon, close approaches of bright planets to each other, supermoons – and, if we’re lucky, a comet visible to the naked eye.

Even if you live in a city surrounded by light pollution, these are all worth looking out for. Here are some of the highlights.

May – the Eta Aquarid meteors

The first of the two main Southern Hemisphere meteor showers during the year is the Eta Aquariid or Eta Aquarid shower. It’s named after a star in the constellation of Aquarius, the Water Carrier, as the meteors appear to originate from there.

Meteors are small particles hitting Earth’s atmosphere and creating a streak of light as they burn up. A meteor shower occurs when many particles hit, all coming from the same direction.

They are generally due to Earth passing through a stream of dust left behind by a comet. For the Eta Aquariids, the comet is the famous Halley’s Comet, which was first recorded more than 2,000 years ago.

In 2024, there will be a good opportunity to see them in the early mornings of Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 May, as the Moon will not be brightening the sky.

December – the Geminid meteors

The second of the two main meteor showers is the Geminid shower. This originates in the direction of the constellation of Gemini, the Twins.

Unusually, they are associated not with a comet but with a rocky asteroid named Phaeton. In 2024, they are likely to be best seen early on the morning of Saturday 14 December.

The peak time to view is during the short interval between the setting of the Moon and the start of dawn.

March, June and August – the planets

Celestial objects approaching one another in the sky can provide a nice view. On the evening of Friday 22 March, the brightest planet Venus is less than the width of the Moon away from the ringed planet Saturn. Look low down in the east.

For people in the eastern part of Australia, the Moon covers the planet Saturn low in the eastern sky on the night of Thursday 27 June. The event can be seen by eye, but binoculars or a small telescope would help.

It is safe to take images or video. From Sydney, Saturn disappears at the bright edge of the Moon at 10:55pm and reappears at its dark edge at 11:41pm. The times for Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne are similar.

Another close approach is in the early morning of Thursday 15 August, when the red planet Mars is less than a Moon-width from the giant planet Jupiter.

September and October – supermoons

There will be two supermoons during 2024. The Moon has a path that sometimes takes it further from Earth and sometimes closer.

Recently, a time when the full Moon coincides with the Moon at its closest point to Earth has become known as a supermoon. At this time the Moon is slightly larger in the sky than usual.

It’s best to look at moonrise, as an illusion in our brains makes the Moon appear larger when it’s near the horizon. The supermoons in 2024 are on Wednesday 18 September and Thursday 17 October.

October – Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

Comets visible to the naked eye are rare and exciting events. A comet with the impressive name of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), discovered in January 2023, is approaching the Sun and Earth, and may become bright enough to be easily seen. As yet, it is unknown whether this will happen – comets are notoriously fickle.

Read more:
Astronomers just discovered a comet that could be brighter than most stars when we see it next year. Or will it?

At a distance of 71 million kilometres, the comet will be closest to Earth on Sunday 13 October. However, for the next six days a bright Moon will make sighting it unlikely.

By Saturday 19 October, the Moon will have moved out of the way. That evening and the following few evenings will gave us the best chance to see it. Look low in the west.

January and May – constellations

Not only these highlighted events can be seen in the sky. There are star pictures or constellations that still stand out in the sky of bright cities.

Orion, the Hunter, is a favourite Southern Hemisphere summer constellation, high in the northern sky on January evenings. It consists of four bright stars in a rectangle with a line of three stars, representing Orion’s belt, in the middle.

According to Greek legend, Orion was a great hunter who vowed to kill all animals. To stop him carrying out his threat, one of the gods sent a scorpion to kill him. This ancient story with Scorpius, the Scorpion chasing Orion takes place above our heads each night.

Scorpius is another spectacular constellation with a curved line of bright stars, with a red star forming the creature’s heart. In January, people who are up at around 3 am can see Scorpius rising in the east, while its quarry Orion is sinking in the west. Alternatively, if you don’t like early mornings you can see the same scene on May evenings after dusk.

Read more:
The world’s oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about ‘seven sisters’ stars may reach back 100,000 years

The information in this article is from the 2024 Australasian Sky Guide. The guide contains monthly star maps and has much more information to assist with viewing and enjoying the night sky from Australia and New Zealand.

Nick Lomb received author fees from Powerhouse Publishing for writing the 2024 Australasian Sky Guide.

– ref. Meteors, supermoons, a comet and more: your guide to the southern sky in 2024 – https://theconversation.com/meteors-supermoons-a-comet-and-more-your-guide-to-the-southern-sky-in-2024-217927

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Starling, Postdoctoral Researcher in Veterinary Science, University of Sydney

In Australia, dog ownership often goes hand-in-hand with a love for the great outdoors. Whether it’s walking on the beach, going camping, or having a barbecue in the park, we tend to keep our canine companions close as we soak up the sun.

But many of us forget a key fact about our dogs: they are predators. Even the fluffy little 5kg ball that spends most of its time in your lap derives from an apex predator – and its predatory instincts can kick in at any time.

And while many of our dogs don’t have the same hunting skills as their distant ancestors (who had to hunt for a living), wildlife doesn’t know that.

The impacts of domestic dogs on wildlife aren’t well studied, and likely vary depending on the environment. Nonetheless, there’s good evidence domestic dogs, when left unobserved, can have detrimental effects in the places they visit.

With that in mind, here are some things to consider next time you take your pup out for a bushwalk.

How dogs impact ecosystems

There are five main ways domestic dogs can negatively impact the natural environments they visit. These are:

1. direct physical harm through predatory behaviour
2. disturbance through chasing and harassment
3. increased exposure to diseases
4. interbreeding, which can alter the gene pool of wild canid populations
5. increased competition for resources.

The good news is the last three points aren’t particularly relevant in Australia. For one thing, there’s little overlap between diseases common in domestic dogs and Australian wildlife. There’s also little resource overlap, except perhaps in some areas where feral or semi-feral dogs live alongside dingoes.

And regarding potential interbreeding, while it was once thought this could threaten the dingo gene pool, recent research suggests it’s not nearly as common as we thought.

As such, the main harms Aussie dog owners should focus on are physical harms through predatory behaviour and disturbance to ecosystems.

Dogs can kill

We know dogs are capable of injuring and killing wildlife, but it’s difficult to determine how common this is, because many events go unreported. While smaller animals such as lizards, gliders and possums are at higher risk, larger species such as koalas can also fall prey to dogs.

One study that looked at wildlife coming into care at Queensland rehabilitation centres reported dog attacks as the cause in about 9% of cases. These cases often resulted in severe injury or death.

Dog owners should be especially wary of small, localised populations of vulnerable species. A study in Argentina’s Patagonia region details several cases of dogs decimating local penguin populations after gaining access to protected island areas during low tide.

Not to mention, dog attacks on wildlife can bring risk to dogs as well. Kangaroos can defend themselves with their powerful limbs, monitor lizards are equipped with sharp claws and teeth, and many snake species are highly venomous.

Read more:
Do dog ‘talking buttons’ actually work? Does my dog understand me? Here’s what the science says

The impact of harassment

You might think it’s harmless for your dog to chase wildlife if it never manages to catch the animals it chases, but that isn’t true. Wild animals optimise their behaviours to meet their needs for foraging, breeding and resting, and being chased by a dog can disrupt this.

For example, certain threatened bird species will nest on the beach and find foraging opportunities based on the tides. One dog forcing one bird to abandon this important activity may have a small impact. But if it happens repeatedly throughout the day, it can become a much bigger problem. It may even drive animals out of the area.

Research conducted in Sydney has shown the mere presence of a leashed dog is enough to temporarily, yet dramatically, reduce the number of bird species detected.

Keep an eye on your furry pal

Responsible dog ownership involves making sure our dogs have a minimal impact on others, including wildlife. How can we achieve this when our dogs are simply engaging in behaviours that come naturally to them, and may even be rewarding for them?

Training your dog to have general obedience – especially to come when called – is worth sinking considerable time and effort into. This can save both your dog and any wildlife they may be after. For instance, calling a dog away from a snake is one of the most effective ways of managing snake bite risk.

One pilot study in Victoria found positive outcomes from a program that helped owners train their dogs to be more obedient around wildlife.

That said, recall training is an art form, and recalling a dog that likes to run off and chase animals can be a huge challenge.

Another solution is to rely on leashes when passing sensitive areas, or where there’s a risk of wildlife harassment. In Australia, many beaches that allow dogs have signs with information about vulnerable birds in the area and how to protect them from your dog.

This could mean keeping your dog off rock platforms, leashing them when you see birds foraging on the beach, or keeping them out of fenced areas. Some areas are simply too vulnerable for dogs to run amok, so always look for signs and read them carefully.

If you’re hiking, use a long line (a leash that’s more than five metres long) and look for signs of your dog detecting something of interest. Often their ears will come up high and forward, and they will freeze and stare intently.

At this point, it doesn’t matter what they’re excited about: take the opportunity to leash them or shorten their leash, and get their attention before they can take off. Investing in a long leash will allow your dog more freedom without putting wildlife at risk.

If your dog does injure an animal, you should quickly contact a wildlife rescue organisation or take the animal to a veterinary practice or sanctuary. For small animals, even minor injuries from a dog will usually require veterinary attention.

It’s our responsibility to be respectful visitors when we’re out in nature, and to make sure our dogs are too.

Read more:
If humans disappeared, what would happen to our dogs?

Melissa Starling owns Creature Teacher, an animal behaviour and training consulting business.

– ref. Our dogs can terrify (and even kill) wildlife. Here’s how to be a responsible owner this summer – https://theconversation.com/our-dogs-can-terrify-and-even-kill-wildlife-heres-how-to-be-a-responsible-owner-this-summer-214722

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

We know the importance of staying hydrated, especially in hot weather. But even for something as simple as a drink of water, conflicting advice and urban myths abound.

Is cold water really bad for your health? What about hot water from the tap? And what is “raw water”? Let’s dive in and find out.

Myth 1: Cold water is bad for you

Some recent TikToks have suggested cold water causes health problems by somehow “contracting blood vessels” and “restricting digestion”. There is little evidence for this.

While a 2001 study found 51 out of 669 women tested (7.6%) got a headache after drinking cold water, most of them already suffered from migraines and the work hasn’t been repeated since.

Cold drinks were shown to cause discomfort in people with achalasia (a rare swallowing disorder) in 2012 but the study only had 12 participants.

For most people, the temperature you drink your water is down to personal preference and circumstances. Cold water after exercise in summer or hot water to relax in winter won’t make any difference to your overall health.

Read more:
Don’t like drinking plain water? 10 healthy ideas for staying hydrated this summer

Myth 2: You shouldn’t drink hot tap water

This belief has a grain of scientific truth behind it. Hot water is generally a better solvent than cold water, so may dissolve metals and minerals from pipes better. Hot water is also often stored in tanks and may be heated and cooled many times. Bacteria and other disease-causing microorganisms tend to grow better in warm water and can build up over time.

It’s better to fill your cup from the cold tap and get hot water for drinks from the kettle.

Myth 3: Bottled water is better

While bottled water might be safer in certain parts of the world due to pollution of source water, there is no real advantage to drinking bottled water in Australia and similar countries.

According to University of Queensland researchers, bottled water is not safer than tap water. It may even be tap water. Most people can’t tell the difference either. Bottled water usually costs (substantially) more than turning on the tap and is worse for the environment.

What about lead in tap water? This problem hit the headlines after a public health emergency in Flint, Michigan, in the United States. But Flint used lead pipes with a corrosion inhibitor (in this case orthophosphate) to keep lead from dissolving. Then the city switched water sources to one without a corrosion inhibitor. Lead levels rose and a public emergency was declared.

Fortunately, lead pipes haven’t been used in Australia since the 1930s. While lead might be present in some old plumbing products, it is unlikely to cause problems.

Myth 4: Raw water is naturally healthier

Some people bypass bottled and tap water, going straight to the source.

The “raw water” trend emerged a few years ago, encouraging people to drink from rivers, streams and lakes. There is even a website to help you find a local source.

Supporters say our ancestors drank spring water, so we should, too. However, our ancestors also often died from dysentery and cholera and their life expectancy was low.

While it is true even highly treated drinking water can contain low levels of things like microplastics, unless you live somewhere very remote, the risks of drinking untreated water are far higher as it is more likely to contain pollutants from the surrounding area.

Read more:
Travelling around Australia this summer? Here’s how to know if the water is safe to drink

Myth 5: It’s OK to drink directly from hoses

Tempting as it may be, it’s probably best not to drink from the hose when watering the plants. Water might have sat in there, in the warm sun for weeks or more potentially leading to bacterial buildup.

Similarly, while drinking water fountains are generally perfectly safe to use, they can contain a variety of bacteria. It’s useful (though not essential) to run them for a few seconds before you start to drink so as to get fresh water through the system rather than what might have been sat there for a while.

Read more:
Drinking fountains in every town won’t fix all our water issues – but it’s a healthy start

We are fortunate to be able to take safe drinking water for granted. Billions of people around the world are not so lucky.

So whether you like it hot or cold, or somewhere in between, feel free to enjoy a glass of water this summer.

Just don’t drink it from the hose.

Oliver A.H. Jones is Deputy Director of the Water: Emerging Technology and Tools (WETT) Research Centre at RMIT University. He has received funding from Melbourne Water and EPA Victoria for research into water pollution.

– ref. Is cold water bad for you? What about drinking from the hose or tap? The facts behind 5 water myths – https://theconversation.com/is-cold-water-bad-for-you-what-about-drinking-from-the-hose-or-tap-the-facts-behind-5-water-myths-215452

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mia Cobb, Research Fellow, Animal Welfare Science Centre, The University of Melbourne

Cats kept indoors can live a good life when they get access to a variety of positive experiences. Examples include performing natural behaviours, feeling safe at home and using their full sensory capabilities, including their sense of smell.

Plants such as catnip, cat thyme and silver vine are potent smelly stimulants that can affect cat minds and moods.

Ever wondered if these mind-altering substances are safe gifts for our feline friends? And importantly, is it OK to provide these, or is offering catnip to a cat like offering alcohol to a child?

Read more:
Won’t my cat get bored if I keep it inside? Here’s how to ensure it’s happy

Catnip, cat thyme and silver vine, oh my!

Owners who are concerned about their cats feeling bored and frustrated might offer them fresh or dried catnip (Nepeta cataria), silver vine (Actinidia polygama), cat thyme (Teucrium marum) or other plant materials such as valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and Tatarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica). These last couple could offer an alternative if your cat doesn’t respond to catnip.

Toys filled with the leaves or extracts of these plants can cause apparently euphoric behaviour in domestic cats (as well as big cats like leopards and jaguars). Not all cats respond this way to these smells, which is believed to have a genetic basis.

Are these treats safe for cats?

Cats have a highly developed sense of smell. Some plants release chemical compounds to deter insects or to attract predators of insects that might otherwise destroy them. This includes nepetalactone, an ingredient isolated from catnip and silver vine.

Indeed, it has been argued that exposure to nepetalactone leads to an increase in feel-good hormones in cats. It may also act as a natural mosquito repellent (note that it does not repel all mosquitoes and is not effective for flea or tick control).

This may be why sniffing catnip, silver vine and some other plants causes cats to roll on their backs and rub their chins, cheeks and bodies on the plants. Other observed behaviours include: licking, shaking their head while carrying plant material in their mouth, drooling, kicking the plant material with their hind feet, and a “wavelike” motion of the skin over their backs as muscles contract and relax.

These responses generally don’t last long, usually seconds to minutes, before cats relax or resume their normal behaviour.

Rather than becoming addicted to these substances, cats are more likely to become habituated and desensitised, with the plants having less effect over time. When sniffed, these plants appear to have no adverse effects on cats.

Read more:
What actually is catnip and is it safe for my cat?

Is it ethical to alter the minds of our cats?

When considering how to improve the lives of animals we care for, we tend to focus on whether the benefits outweigh the potential harms.

Despite some marketing claims that these plants activates the brain’s opioid system, delivering a “natural high” for cats, there is no evidence these substances actually alter the minds of cats in the same way as alcohol or other drugs alter the minds of humans.

The marketing of these cat treats as “kitty crack” or “meowijuana” and silver vine sticks as “kitty cigarettes” is likely to deter some people from offering their cats this kind of olfactory stimulation.

Unlike offering alcohol to a child, though, the evidence suggests our cats are OK when given access to these treats. These items won’t induce psychosis and won’t lead to addiction or withdrawal symptoms. And we don’t need to worry about our cats operating heavy machinery or making important decisions under the influence of mind-altering substances!

Provided they can walk away at any time, it seems reasonable to let them opt in to a fun time.

In fact, we harness the power of cats’ sense of smell in other ways by using synthetic feline facial pheromones. This can help reduce fear, anxiety and distress in cats. These substances can come in useful in settings such as multi-cat households or when moving house.

Read more:
Is it unethical to give your cat catnip?

How to make sure your cat has the purr-fect time

Offering a range of smells (olfactory stimulation) is just one way to ensure your cat has a varied and interesting life. Here are some tips:

• offer cats choices to interact with treats and toys – don’t force them

• rotate the toys and experiences on offer, so every day offers something fresh

• offer items that cats can scratch – scratching posts and corrugated cardboard are popular items

• if you are concerned your cat has swallowed part of a toy or seems unwell, check in with your vet.

Given the short-lived effects of these plant-based olfactory stimulants on cats, it is important that we optimise their environment, lifestyle and interactions with humans to improve their welfare. We can’t just rely on catnip or silver vine to give our cats a good life indoors – it’s really up to us!

Anne Quain is on the NSW Committee of the Australian Veterinary Association. She is also a committee member of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists Animal Welfare chapter, the European College of Animal Welfare and Behaviour Medicine, and consults to veterinary and animal welfare organisations regarding Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law.

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

– ref. Are catnip and treats like it safe for cats? Here’s how they affect their minds and moods – https://theconversation.com/are-catnip-and-treats-like-it-safe-for-cats-heres-how-they-affect-their-minds-and-moods-214947

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Pino Pasternak, Associate Professor in Early Childhood Education and Community, University of Canberra

Many of us remember vividly being yelled at or feeling threatened by a family member, a teacher, or a boss.

Terrifying experiences often get imprinted in our memory; remembering frightening events is essential to avoid them in future. It is a normal reaction that promotes our survival.

This strong connection between fear and memory may lead us to think fear can be an effective learning tool. Research shows, however, fear can have long-term negative consequences for children and adults alike – and can actually make it harder to learn in meaningful ways.

Here’s what the research says about how and what we learn when we are scared.

Read more:
Stand back and avoid saying ‘be careful!’: how to help your child take risks at the park

How fear affects children’s learning

Fear is designed to protect us from current and future danger.

If children are faced with experiences that trigger fear, they learn to avoid new experiences – as opposed to exploring, engaging, and approaching the unknown with curiosity.

Consistent exposure to fear changes how the brain reacts to the outside world. Fear triggers a stress response in the brain and puts it in a state of alert; we become hyper ready to react swiftly and decisively to incoming threats.

This may be appropriate if, for example, you are confronted by an aggressive strangers. But such high levels of reactivity are not productive in learning environments like school, where we are asked to be open to new experiences and create innovative solutions.

In fact, the areas of the brain activated when we’re scared are different to those we use when thinking carefully how to address a tricky problem. Research has shown the more primitive parts of the brain take over the activity of the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s “control centre”, when we’re in a state of fear.

This means planning, making sound decisions and using our existing knowledge becomes very difficult if we feel threatened or afraid.

Children learn fear from the adults in their lives

Adults play a critical role in the healthy development of fear responses by modelling reactions to unknown situations. They also provide (or fail to provide) safe environments that promote children’s exploration.

Fear can be easily learned from significant adults. Studies have shown both toddlers and school-aged children learn to avoid new experiences if their parents communicate or show signs of fear in reference to them.

Think, for instance, about how a child can learn to fear animals by seeing how their parents react to them. Or, for example, the way constant warnings to “be careful!” may end up making a child too anxious to climb trees or take risks as they use play equipment.

Adult behaviours also affect the degree to which children feel safe to be themselves and explore the world with confidence.

Studies investigating the behaviours of parents have consistently shown harsh parenting (involving physical and verbal aggression) is related to poorer outcomes in children including academic underachievement, higher levels of aggression and anxiety and poor peer relationships.

The opposite is the case for parents who, while providing structure and reasons for boundaries, are warm and encourage autonomy.

Teachers also play a pivotal role in the development of fear responses. Students are more likely to be motivated and function well in classrooms if teachers are “autonomy-supportive”.

This means teachers:

• have a curious and open attitude towards students’ interests

• seek their perspective and offer choices

• invite their thoughts, and

• accept a range of emotions (from frustration, anger and reticence to playfulness, joy and curiosity).

How fear affects learning in adult life

Many people who experience anxiety in adulthood have been exposed in their childhood to environments where they have felt consistently threatened.

These adults may end up avoiding taking on new tasks, considering multiple viewpoints, and responding to questions. These are all skills employers usually value.

Work environments that induce fear can also be counterproductive and stressful.

Research suggests when employees perceive their work environments as unsafe, they are more likely to experience burnout, anxiety and stress. Stressful situations can also interfere with our ability to apply what we know flexibly to new situations.

On the flip side, researchers argue that a trusting relationship between employees and their managers can affect workers’ willingness to show vulnerability and take on tasks that involve uncertainty.

Researchers have also found positive relationships at work can encourage to creativity in the workplace, which makes work more interesting and enjoyable.

So, what do we learn when we are scared?

Yes, we learn from fear. The question is: what do we learn?

In response to threats and hostility, we learn to avoid challenge and comply with external rules (instead of wondering how systems can be improved). We protect our feelings and restrict our thoughts to what is safe.

Is this the kind of learning that allows us to grow and develop?

More than ever, children and adults are required to collaborate in creative ways to address difficult problems.

This means dealing with uncertainty and accepting that sometimes we make mistakes or fail.

That requires safe and nurturing environments – not home, school or work settings that are ruled by fear.

Deborah Pino Pasternak has previously received funding from The Australian Research Council.

– ref. How effective is fear as a teaching tool? How and what do we learn when we are scared? – https://theconversation.com/how-effective-is-fear-as-a-teaching-tool-how-and-what-do-we-learn-when-we-are-scared-213540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Friedlander, PhD Candidate, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne

Arenicola, or lugworms, make some of the most beautiful structures on the beach. Little piles of wet sand are cast in a swirl from their rear end as part of their feeding cycle.

They are but one of an untold number of other participants in the constant evolution of forms at our water’s edge. Co-contributors include the wind, birds, rain, foliage, foot traffic and detritus, all shaping sand and associated debris into mini peaks and troughs, lines, blobs and tracks.

The forming of grains into what we commonly call a sandcastle on the other hand, speaks to a particularly human intentionality. Centred around the activity of building, these edifices rise and fall through a wild negotiation of the intent of a person and the intent of the materials they work with.

This dynamic and fickle nature of the granular shells, quartz, coral, glass and rock is perhaps its greatest appeal. Accrued since childhood, our knowledge of sand’s properties sits deep within our personal sculptural memory.

In collaboration with the beach

Building a sandcastle is a response to the full beach environment as a collaborator. We attune ourselves to the quality of the sand, marvel at the comings and goings of the water and orient our construction for the wind’s abrasive blast.

We are vigilant to dogs’ unintended mark making, and backward running ball catchers who involuntarily progress our work from castle to ruin. Moulds that reproduce their internal structure can be the age-old bucket, or the form can be loosened up using towels, sandals, buckets or a friend’s back … and perhaps said friend can be embedded in the structure if required.

We can include tunnels (that will sadly collapse) and moats and complete our work with a final (for me) infuriating flourish of seaweed and sticks.

No one methodology will explain to the uninitiated how to undertake the making of a sandcastle, and this is how it should be. Adopting an attentive mindset can open the possibilities for this immersive and bodily task.

Read more:
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Attending to sand

Particular qualities of sand can be revealed to those who remain aware. Building a sandcastle on a day after the rain can change the material and the way it presents.

Rain falling from the sky onto fine sand creates a crispy layer over the drier sand below. It is the crunchy feeling underfoot for those daily pioneers to the beach who arrive before these fragile structures are trampled underfoot. Rain creates a crust that would be difficult to produce any other way.

This and other states of sand could be considered on a continuum of material behaviours, from dry to wet, from dispersed to grouped, from fine to coarse, from quartz, through skeleton, to shell, or from a Newtonian to a non-Newtonian fluid.

In construction there is sharp sand, fat sand and sand of specific dimensions. The sand at the beach is the sand of that beach, undifferentiated by industrial ecologies and taken at its face value. Sluggish waterlogged mass, or blow away dust structure, compact sand, beige, black or grey – its specific qualities determining the outcome as much as the plan we bring to the task.

Working against collapse

Making objects with sand at the beach is a most egalitarian form of art making. Critiques of our constructions are generally of the generous kind. Passersby will applaud the magnitude of our creation, share in the joy as water fills our castle’s moats, and laugh shamelessly when the whole structure collapses.

Sand workers on the beach can adopt a critical position relative to the way the sand acts and be mesmerised by its characteristics as these present themselves. We can understand that sand slumps in a particular way, and compact it in anticipation. Or we can simply burrow furiously as it falls off in great slabs. Each reflects the personal attitude of the builder; neither is better than the other.

Seagrass, kelp, stones, glass and the egg sacs of moon snails may all present themselves for inclusion in a sandcastle. Driftwood will break through hard sand, create moats, or delineate space; large shells make excellent tools for moving bulk material, although using the body for scooping and compacting, or shoving and dragging, is perhaps the ideal way to engage the senses in the job. Collapse is the thing you work against.

Digging down and water begins to pool, piling the sand high and your castle begins to emerge.

Read more:
How to get the most out of sand play: 4 tips from a sculptor

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

– ref. When you sit down to build a sandcastle, take a look around you: the beach is already sculpting – https://theconversation.com/when-you-sit-down-to-build-a-sandcastle-take-a-look-around-you-the-beach-is-already-sculpting-215600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Osmond, Associate Professor of Sport History, The University of Queensland

Readers are advised this article contains offensive language about Aboriginal peoples.

Fifty years ago, on New Year’s Day in 1974, Wiradjuri woman Evonne Goolagong delighted spectators at Melbourne’s Kooyong Tennis Club by defeating American Chris Evert to win the women’s singles Australian Open championship.

The overflow crowd of 12,000 people leapt to their feet for a tremendously long and emotional ovation.

The Sydney Morning Herald reminded readers that no Aboriginal person had ever won an Australian tennis title. Of all the other major national dailies, only the Hobart Mercury alluded to race, describing Goolagong with offensive words such as “tawny” and “dark-skinned”.

On the surface, Goolagong’s victory transcended race and racial politics. Yet, she would later reflect that her stellar career, which included seven Grand Slam singles titles – sent a false message that all was okay in Australian racial politics:

See, we’re not holding them [Aboriginal people] back, we give them every opportunity.

Fast forward a couple of decades and Cathy Freeman was similarly touted as a symbol of reconciliation following her triumph at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

From stamps to theatre productions

This appropriation of Goolagong Cawley (her married name) as a national symbol of racial harmony is echoed in a dizzying range of commemorations.

She holds several imperial and Australian honours, including Australian of the Year in 1971, a Member of the Order of the British Empire and a Companion of the Order of Australia.

A giant tennis racket looms over her hometown of Barellan, NSW, in her honour, a bronze bust of her welcomes visitors to Melbourne Park (the current home of the Australian Open), and public artworks dedicated to her abound.

Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai playwright Andrea James brought Goolagong Cawley’s life story to the stage several years ago and Australia Post has honoured her twice with her own stamps.

Sport has not overlooked Goolagong Cawley, either. She has been inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame.

And in this anniversary year, her currency is at an all-time high: her image will appear on the Australian Open 2024 coin, as well as on a range of merchandise, designed by Lyn-Al Young, a Gunnai, Wiradjuri, Gunditjmara and Yorta Yorta artist.

Goolagong Cawley is proud of her many honours – and she should be. But as historian Karen Fox argues, these honours can be used by some to cast her as a potent symbol of Australia’s supposed sporting egalitarianism. This, in turn, can help assuage white guilt over historic injustices against First Nations people, including genocide, dispossession, marginalisation, racism and exclusion.

It’s also important to remember what she had to overcome to reach the pinnacle of achievement and recognition in her sport – and the ongoing issues that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to face.

Read more:
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Contending with racism

Evonne Goolagong was born in 1951, which was a fraught period for First Nations people in this country. On the day she was born (July 31), a quick glance of the national media reflects the widespread racism, discrimination, ignorance and suspicion that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people faced.

There were stories about:

• protests in a NSW town over the decision to give “liquor freedom” to Aboriginal people

• misgivings about the ability of Aboriginal people to accept Christianity

• assertions that Aboriginal people didn’t actually live in North Queensland

• a requirement for half-caste (sic) people in the Northern Territory to carry certificates of exemption

• and an actress’s black-face make-up tips.

Goolagong grew up in the only Aboriginal family in Barellan. In an interview in 2015, she recalled her mother being worried the “welfare man” might steal her children. In a biography in 1993, she also said her father feared that “whatever he tried to accomplish, the white man would take away”.

By 1974, the rights of Indigenous people in Australians were improving. First Nations people had been granted the right to vote in all states and territories, though full equality wasn’t reached until enrolment was compulsory in 1984. The 1965 Freedom Ride had drawn attention to discrimination. The 1967 referendum meant Indigenous people could be counted in the national census. And in 1972, Gough Whitlam’s new Labor government established a royal commission into Aboriginal land rights and created the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

Read more:
The 1967 referendum was the most successful in Australia’s history. But what it can tell us about 2023 is complicated

Yet, terrible racism remained. When Vic Edwards, who would later become Goolagong Cawley’s coach, first spotted her talent in the early 1960s, he noted the “Aboriginal aspect might not sit well in tennis circles”.

He was right. Goolagong Cawley shrugged off most insults, but they were truly shocking. She recalled a white woman calling her the n-word while shaking hands after a match and being denied entry to a Brisbane nightclub because of her skin colour.

Commentators frequently attributed her on-court concentration lapses to going “walkabout” – Fox, the historian, counted 18 uses of the word in Australian newspaper articles about her in 1980. Fox also recounted an anecdote that an unnamed state premier said he hoped she “wouldn’t go walkabout like some old boong” before her 1980 Wimbledon match.

These types of racial sentiments were ever-present throughout her career. As she became more successful, she also faced a repression of her heritage in the media and appropriation by white Australia. In an interview in the early 2000s, she said:

[…] the more successful I became, the whiter I seemed to become.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart) has called for truth-telling across the nation. This 50th anniversary of Goolagong Cawley’s Kooyong win provides one opportunity for this – a recognition of the racial realities behind the burnished brass, bright lights and shining prestige of the various honours bestowed upon her.

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

– ref. 50 years after Evonne Goolagong’s Australian Open win, we should remember her achievements – and the racism she overcame – https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-evonne-goolagongs-australian-open-win-we-should-remember-her-achievements-and-the-racism-she-overcame-217684

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Light, Lecturer in History, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Despite 2023 having been the sixth year a national day of commemoration for the New Zealand Wars was observed, it’s debatable how many New Zealanders really knew much about it.

Historians and Māori leaders are now worried about the mixed impact of the day – known as Te Pūtake o te Riri – amid wider fears it is already slipping from public attention.

The day was conceived as an important step towards greater public awareness of the major 19th-century conflicts between Māori and the settler government. It was first named He Rā Maumahara in 2016, “in honour of those who made sacrifices in wars and conflicts within Aotearoa New Zealand”.

The day was given its new name after consultation with iwi, and October 28 designated as the annual date of observance. Unlike Anzac Day, however, Te Pūtake o te Riri was not made an official holiday – and this may partly explain its struggle for wider recognition.

A question of timing

The day’s name is a compound of “Te Pūtake”, meaning the root or cause, and “te riri”, the anger or conflict. It emphasises Māori experiences, and each year’s commemoration is hosted by different hapū and iwi.

In 2023, for example, it focused on Ngai-te-rangi perspectives of the battle of Pukehinahina – “Gate Pā” – in Tauranga.

Despite an initial groundswell of interest and support, COVID inevitably disrupted observance of the day. But there have also been questions about the choice of October 28 in the first place.

Read more:
From Parihaka to He Puapua: it’s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past

Historian Danny Keenan argues the date – which marks the signing in 1835 of He Whakaputanga, the Declaration of Independence – dilutes the focus on what were first and foremost military conflicts.

Sociologist and Māori educationalist Joanna Kidman also blames a lack of basic understanding by Pākehā New Zealanders of the New Zealand Wars, and the continued emphasis on World War I and other 20th-century conflicts.

Evolution of Anzac Day

The comparison with the first world war invites an intriguing question: what lessons might we learn from the history of our most visible war commemoration, Anzac Day?

In fact, April 25 itself has had its own ups and downs, shaped by New Zealanders’ shifting connection to the British Empire. The rhetoric and practice of a national commemoration, led by the prime minister, didn’t appear until the 1990s.

Indeed, in 1965, the 50th anniversary of Gallipoli, there were real doubts Anzac Day could survive the passing of the last Anzac veterans.

Read more:
New lessons about old wars: keeping the complex story of Anzac Day relevant in the 21st century

Instead, it has survived as a sacred day – helped perhaps by the 1920 Anzac Day Act which made it an official public holiday. (The Act also banned public entertainment and other “profane” activities such as drinking in pubs and horse racing on April 25.)

The day’s remit was expanded in 1949 to commemorate all wars fought by New Zealand soldiers since the Boer War (1899-1902). But there was ongoing debate over whether the RSA and government had the right to make New Zealanders observe any particular “sacred” activity.

The law was liberalised in 1966 to allow people to do what they wanted after morning services ended at 11am. It was recognised that moving from solemnity to relaxation might avoid the risk of people simply rejecting the remembrance entirely.

War memorials and public memory

The growing public ownership of Anzac Day ran parallel to the decline of Armistice Day, which marked the end of the World War I on November 11.

On a par with April 25 until the 1940s, there was a near-immediate collapse in public support when the government moved observance to the nearest Sunday. This
suggests legislative status can be a significant factor in shaping attitudes to remembering the past.

The survival of Anzac Day, unlike November 11, also reflected the physical landscape of commemoration. No New Zealand town was too small to claim a local memorial to the fallen. As the sculptor Brett Graham has noted, war memorials became the dominant sculptural form of public life.

Nowadays, they are among the nation’s most prominent public sites, including the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Pukeahu National War Memorial in Wellington, and Christchurch’s Bridge of Remembrance.

These memorial sites have retained their importance due to the efforts and investment of dedicated groups. Veterans and other social networks, expanded over the years to reflect a more diverse New Zealand, have been vital to the evolution of Anzac ritual.

Read more:
Solidarity and difference — how Anzac Day reflects an ever-changing New Zealand

Gallipoli and national unity

Protests on Anzac Day (against war but also other social issues) also raised new questions about the purpose of the commemoration and its role in public life.

Significantly, the Gallipoli story – the central focus of our Anzac mythology – has been adapted and retold by each generation. Speeches, newspaper accounts, memoirs and official histories initially forged this mythical element, complete with heroes and martyrs, as well as villains (the German-Ottoman forces, later the British Empire itself).

In the 1980s, playwrights, documentary makers and film directors re-visualised the imperial Anzac story as appealing nationalist myths. Māori Television (Whakatā Māori) established a national Anzac Day broadcast in 2005, deepening the shared cultural languages and motifs of April 25.

Since the 1990s, successive governments – especially Helen Clark’s in the early 2000s – invested in Anzac Day as a commemoration of national unity.

A key milestone was the repatriation of the unknown warrior in 2004, observed by 100,000 New Zealanders who lined the streets of Wellington for the funeral procession and burial at Pukeahu. The state-funded Anzac Centenary in 2015 was the largest commemoration in New Zealand history.

Need for a national policy

What would a comparable state investment in New Zealand Wars commemoration look like? Some have suggested Te Pūtake o te Riri will never achieve the necessary public attention until it becomes a statutory holiday.

There are other challenges, too. As Joanna Kidman noted, many New Zealand Wars cemeteries, memorials and battlefields have been neglected or are on private land. Increasing public access to these sites will require a coordinated – and expensive – effort by local councils and central government.

It’s not enough, though, simply to transplant Anzac cultural and political symbols and language onto Te Pūtake o te Riri – an unknown warrior of our colonial conflicts, resting in Pukeahu’s Hall of Memories, for example.

Ngāti Maniapoto historian Kawhia Te Murahi has called for a unique “blending” of Māori and Pākehā tikanga and kawa for the day.

The issues raised all point to the need for a national policy on the commemoration of the New Zealand Wars – guided by iwi, with critical input from scholars – that enhances community relationships.

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New ways of remembering

In 2023, a striking example of the potential for war commemoration to take new directions took place at Te Rau Aroha, the museum at Waitangi dedicated to the contribution of Māori to the nation’s involvement in wars since 1840.

After its service on October 28, the museum hosted whānau descendants of 28th Māori Battalion veterans who had never claimed their medals for serving in World War II.

By choosing Te Pūtake o te Riri for the ceremony, the organisers were able to bridge past and present through themes of service, sacrifice and citizenship. As trusted institutions of public memory, museums are ideally placed to tell the stories of the New Zealand Wars.

Commemoration doesn’t happen by chance – it reflects the work of individuals, networks and institutions dedicated to promoting and framing a society’s defining narratives.

Both local initiative and state investment are important here. Above all, communities want to remember and commemorate the nation’s violent past. Anyone contributing to changes in public commemorative culture needs to understand this, and be guided by history.

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

– ref. How do we commemorate the New Zealand Wars? The history of Anzac Day can be a guide – https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-commemorate-the-new-zealand-wars-the-history-of-anzac-day-can-be-a-guide-219480

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Wilson, Professor of Developmental Psychology, Australian Catholic University

We’re all time-poor, so multi-tasking is seen as a necessity of modern living. We answer work emails while watching TV, make shopping lists in meetings and listen to podcasts when doing the dishes. We attempt to split our attention countless times a day when juggling both mundane and important tasks.

But doing two things at the same time isn’t always as productive or safe as focusing on one thing at a time.

The dilemma with multi-tasking is that when tasks become complex or energy-demanding, like driving a car while talking on the phone, our performance often drops on one or both.

Here’s why – and how our ability to multi-task changes as we age.

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Doing more things, but less effectively

The issue with multi-tasking at a brain level, is that two tasks performed at the same time often compete for common neural pathways – like two intersecting streams of traffic on a road.

In particular, the brain’s planning centres in the frontal cortex (and connections to parieto-cerebellar system, among others) are needed for both motor and cognitive tasks. The more tasks rely on the same sensory system, like vision, the greater the interference.

This is why multi-tasking, such as talking on the phone, while driving can be risky. It takes longer to react to critical events, such as a car braking suddenly, and you have a higher risk of missing critical signals, such as a red light.

The more involved the phone conversation, the higher the accident risk, even when talking “hands-free”.

Generally, the more skilled you are on a primary motor task, the better able you are to juggle another task at the same time. Skilled surgeons, for example, can multitask more effectively than residents, which is reassuring in a busy operating suite.

Highly automated skills and efficient brain processes mean greater flexibility when multi-tasking.

Adults are better at multi-tasking than kids

Both brain capacity and experience endow adults with a greater capacity for multi-tasking compared with children.

You may have noticed that when you start thinking about a problem, you walk more slowly, and sometimes to a standstill if deep in thought. The ability to walk and think at the same time gets better over childhood and adolescence, as do other types of multi-tasking.

When children do these two things at once, their walking speed and smoothness both wane, particularly when also doing a memory task (like recalling a sequence of numbers), verbal fluency task (like naming animals) or a fine-motor task (like buttoning up a shirt). Alternately, outside the lab, the cognitive task might fall by wayside as the motor goal takes precedence.

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Brain maturation has a lot to do with these age differences. A larger prefrontal cortex helps share cognitive resources between tasks, thereby reducing the costs. This means better capacity to maintain performance at or near single-task levels.

The white matter tract that connects our two hemispheres (the corpus callosum) also takes a long time to fully mature, placing limits on how well children can walk around and do manual tasks (like texting on a phone) together.

For a child or adult with motor skill difficulties, or developmental coordination disorder, multi-tastking errors are more common. Simply standing still while solving a visual task (like judging which of two lines is longer) is hard. When walking, it takes much longer to complete a path if it also involves cognitive effort along the way. So you can imagine how difficult walking to school could be.

What about as we approach older age?

Older adults are more prone to multi-tasking errors. When walking, for example, adding another task generally means older adults walk much slower and with less fluid movement than younger adults.

These age differences are even more pronounced when obstacles must be avoided or the path is winding or uneven.

Older adults tend to enlist more of their prefrontal cortex when walking and, especially, when multi-tasking. This creates more interference when the same brain networks are also enlisted to perform a cognitive task.

These age differences in performance of multi-tasking might be more “compensatory” than anything else, allowing older adults more time and safety when negotiating events around them.

Older people can practise and improve

Testing multi-tasking capabilities can tell clinicians about an older patient’s risk of future falls better than an assessment of walking alone, even for healthy people living in the community.

Testing can be as simple as asking someone to walk a path while either mentally subtracting by sevens, carrying a cup and saucer, or balancing a ball on a tray.

Patients can then practise and improve these abilities by, for example, pedalling an exercise bike or walking on a treadmill while composing a poem, making a shopping list, or playing a word game.

The goal is for patients to be able to divide their attention more efficiently across two tasks and to ignore distractions, improving speed and balance.

There are times when we do think better when moving

Let’s not forget that a good walk can help unclutter our mind and promote creative thought. And, some research shows walking can improve our ability to search and respond to visual events in the environment.

But often, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time

We often overlook the emotional and energy costs of multi-tasking when time-pressured. In many areas of life – home, work and school – we think it will save us time and energy. But the reality can be different.

Multi-tasking can sometimes sap our reserves and create stress, raising our cortisol levels, especially when we’re time-pressured. If such performance is sustained over long periods, it can leave you feeling fatigued or just plain empty.

Read more:
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Deep thinking is energy demanding by itself and so caution is sometimes warranted when acting at the same time – such as being immersed in deep thought while crossing a busy road, descending steep stairs, using power tools, or climbing a ladder.

So, pick a good time to ask someone a vexed question – perhaps not while they’re cutting vegetables with a sharp knife. Sometimes, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time.

Peter Wilson has received prior funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), studying the motor and cognitive development of children. He currently receives funding from the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), studying hazard perception in older adult pedestrians.

– ref. Think you’re good at multi-tasking? Here’s how your brain compensates – and how this changes with age – https://theconversation.com/think-youre-good-at-multi-tasking-heres-how-your-brain-compensates-and-how-this-changes-with-age-218343

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

Across the vast Australian continent, feral pigs, feral deer and European rabbits roam in their millions. By different names – wild boar, venison and lapin – these could all be served in a Michelin star restaurant.

Feral and invasive species are becoming popular meals for native wildlife too. For species like the saltwater crocodile and spotted-tailed quoll, the menu is expanding and changing due to the arrival of invasive alien species – one of the greatest threats to biodiversity globally.

The good news is, many invasive alien species make good tucker. Around the world, native wildlife are dining on increasing numbers of exotic prey. In the United States, endangered snail kites — a wetland raptor — crunch through invasive apple snails, red-banded snakes swallow North American bullfrogs in China, dingoes devour feral sambar deer and goats in Australia, Sulawesian toads gobble up introduced yellow crazy ants in Indonesia, and golden eagles and saltwater crocodiles both love eating feral pigs on opposite sides of the Pacific.

Of crocs and pigs

So can we say these invasives are useful in some sense? Exotic prey can help boost numbers of some native predators. Saltwater crocodiles in the Northern Territory are rapidly bouncing back after widespread, severe culling.

Using the bones of crocodiles collected through time, researchers have shown that over roughly half a century, salties have shifted from a diet largely based on fish to a more terrestrial diet, including feral water buffalo and pigs.

This seems like a much-needed good news story for the environment – a natural way to limit feral pigs, one of Australia’s most widespread and damaging invasive species. At present, though, we don’t know for sure that crocs keep pig numbers down.

Pigs and crocodiles live in the fast and slow lanes, respectively. Feral pigs feed and breed, and few things are off the menu. Sows can give birth from around 6 months of age, and produce ten or more piglets in litters once or twice every 12 or so months.

On the other hand, female estuarine crocodiles begin reproducing at around 12 years of age, and do so once a year under the right conditions. Crocodiles cut back on hunting and other activity during cooler months. Together, this means feral pigs can endure relatively high predation rates and still persist in ecosystems in large numbers.

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Of quolls and rabbits

The largest of Australia’s four predatory marsupial quoll species, the spotted-tailed quoll, is known to enjoy rabbit even when there is a diverse and abundant selection of native mammals within the same area.

Unfortunately, quolls are now absent or still declining in many places, due likely to competition or predation with the bigger, heavier predators Europeans introduced: feral cats and foxes. In the bush, male cats can be sizeable – exceeding 6 kilos, roughly double the size of your average spotted-tailed quoll.

As quolls have disappeared, rabbits may have taken advantage of the predatory void and expanded. Fast-breeding rabbits are now arguably Australia’s worst invasive alien species. Their sheer numbers support cat and fox populations.

This begs the question – if cats and foxes could be eradicated or greatly reduced in some areas, could we reintroduce quolls to help manage rabbit populations or prevent their return?

Dangerous dinners

Not all introduced prey make safe meals.

Cane toads have devastated some native species such as northern quolls, which naturally prey on native amphibians but cannot survive toad toxin.

Regrettably, a recent attempt to train quolls not to eat cane toads appears to have failed.

But other species have learnt to safely eat cane toads, including the rakali (Australian water rat), which removes and eats toad hearts and livers with surgical precision. The humble bin chicken (white ibis) has also figured out how to make toads safer by washing them.

European house mice and introduced rats can be easy prey for owls, snakes, and many other native predators. Unfortunately, these easy pickings can become their last suppers – not because the rodents are toxic, but because they may well have eaten rodenticide which makes them easier to hunt. Once a sick, dying rodent is eaten, the predator can in turn be poisoned and die. Scavengers who eat poisoned predators can also die, affecting entire food chains and ecosystems.

Sometimes predators can find themselves prey, depending on their age and size. In Australia, large pythons, goannas and monitor lizards eat foxes and cats, but these same reptiles are preyed upon by cats and foxes when younger and smaller.

Invasive prey aren’t going away

As time goes on, invasive prey species can become regular meals for native predators – and part of the food web.

When we try to remove invasive prey species from ecosystems, we must take a big picture view and proceed with great caution.

When feral cats were killed off on New Zealand’s Little Barrier island, it was done with the best intentions: protect the seabirds nesting there. But with the cats gone, invasive rat populations surged and soon began killing the seabird chicks.

In Australia’s arid regions, we now have experimental evidence to suggest biological controls such as rabbit haemorrhagic disease do keep rabbit numbers down, alongside culling and destroying warrens. With the rabbits suppressed, plants and native herbivores can bounce back. This, in turn, pushes cat and fox populations lower, as these two predators maintain their high numbers in arid regions in part due to an abundance of rabbits.

But this doesn’t work in the wetter, more vegetated south-east. Here, there’s little evidence rabbit control greatly affects fox populations.

So should we celebrate crocs chomping on pigs and rakali eating cane toads? Of course – it’s a sign that some of our native predators can adapt to these introduced species. But it’s not true for all native wildlife. Our quolls are doing far worse with the new arrivals.

And for every native predator finding new tucker, there are far more cats and foxes eating birds, reptiles, frogs, and small marsupials, while pigs, deer, camels, horses, donkeys, and water buffalo run amok. We have already set these creatures loose – we must use all means possible to try and rein them in.

Read more:
Australia’s least wanted – 8 alien species and diseases we must keep out of our island home

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action. Euan is a Councillor within the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society.

– ref. Crocs love feral pigs and quolls have a taste for rabbit – but it doesn’t solve the invasive species problem – https://theconversation.com/crocs-love-feral-pigs-and-quolls-have-a-taste-for-rabbit-but-it-doesnt-solve-the-invasive-species-problem-211904

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brent Coker, Lecturer in Marketing, The University of Melbourne

You buy a new phone case from an online retailer. The phone case arrives safely at your house, the online retailer makes a small profit and everyone is happy.

But the phone case didn’t come from the retailer’s premises. It was sent directly from the manufacturer. The only thing the online retailer did was take your order and organise for the factory to deliver the case to your home.

This is “dropshipping”: where an online seller organises to have purchased products sent to buyers directly from the wholesaler or manufacturer, rather than sending it themselves. Many see dropshipping as, if not their main business, then as a valuable side hustle to help bolster income when the cost-of-living crunch is making it hard to make ends meet.

In other words, the seller doesn’t own a warehouse of products ready for shipping. They’re a middleman. They organise delivery of products to customers without taking physical possession.

Dropshipping may sound like an appealing side hustle to help offset the cost-of-living crunch but there are downsides, too.

So, what do you need to know before you become a dropshipper?

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There are pros and cons

Dropshipping has doubled since 2020, and is expected to double again by 2027.

Websites with e-commerce features are also increasingly affordable, and since the barrier to entry for starting a dropshipping business is low, it has become a popular method for making extra money.

Dropshipping eliminates “inventory costs”, which includes things like:

• buying the products upfront

• paying warehouse rent, and

• paying staff to package and ship.

Since dropshippers don’t need to hold any inventory, they’re able to offer a wider selection of products to sell. Low startup costs also make dropshipping more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional businesses.

So dropshipping has clear advantages over traditional methods of selling online – but it’s not all rosy.

The main problem with dropshipping is loss of control over the delivery and fulfilment process.

If a problem with delivery arises, it can be more difficult to resolve. Is the problem with the manufacturer? The warehouse? The delivery service? Sometimes it can be unclear and take longer to address than the customer would like.

This can threaten the seller’s ability to offer superior customer service.

Here are six things worth knowing before you launch into dropshipping as your side hustle.

1. Supplier reputation matters

Dropshipping isn’t new – brands in the late 1990s were doing it. But with this maturity has arisen opportunities for fraud.

Counterfeits, knock-offs, and general quality issues are worryingly commonplace in the dropshipping world.

Choose a reputable supplier with clear systems and processes to control product quality and eliminate copyright infringement.

2. Choose a local supplier

To remain competitive, delivery speed is key. If your target audience is in Australia, shipping from foreign soils won’t cut it – the delivery times are too long.

Consumers are willing to wait to receive their products on some occasions, but most of the time consumers want it now.

Choose a local, reputable supplier to minimise delivery times.

3. Don’t assume quality

One of the biggest mistakes dropshippers make is not physically inspecting products before listing them for sale.

Dropshipping enables sellers to offer a wider range, since shelf-space isn’t an issue. But that may tempt you to keep adding new products to the catalogue.

The quality of products from dropshipping suppliers varies considerably, and what looks great on screen might look very different in hand.

Selling poor quality products means more customer service requests, and ultimately consumers start to associate your brand with poor quality.

Always get a new product sent for physical inspection before listing them in your sales catalogue.

4. Develop a relationship with your supplier

The best way to resolve potential delivery issues associated with dropshipping is to build a strong relationship with the supplier.

Many suppliers do not offer support services when things go wrong. These suppliers should be treated with caution.

Developing a strong, collaborative relationship with a willing supplier makes service failures easier to deal with.

5. Stand out from the crowd

Doing business online is not easy – all your competitors are just a click or a tap away. Dropshipping is common, and many other websites are selling the same things as you, potentially from the same supplier.

Standing out from the crowd is key. Differentiate yourself from other dropshippers by servicing niche markets and offering superior after-sales support.

6. The customer sets demand

Don’t add more and more products to your catalogue until you’re offering everything under the sun; this sets you up for failure because you end up offering everything to no-one.

Specialisation is key. Find an easily reachable and sizeable audience and stick to what they want, not what you think they want.

Careful attention to sales data will help clarify what it is your customers are telling you they want.

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In 2019 Brent Coker developed the Wear Cape app – a high engagement content production and seeding app designed for agencies specialising in influencer marketing strategies.

– ref. What is dropshipping? 6 things to consider before you start dropshipping as a side hustle – https://theconversation.com/what-is-dropshipping-6-things-to-consider-before-you-start-dropshipping-as-a-side-hustle-215442

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Research Fellow, Gender and Women’s History Research Centre, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University

If you’ve watched many period dramas, you’ve probably seen a mantua before. Originating in France in the 1670s, this women’s garment consisted of lengths of t-shaped fabric that were pleated to create an unstiffened bodice with attached overskirts.

This gown was worn over a pair of stays (corset) and an often contrasting petticoat. The draping and folding of fabric created a front-opening gown.

What many people don’t realise, however, is how fundamentally this item of clothing altered women’s involvement in the fashion industry – and represented a ticket to financial freedom for an industry of female mantua makers.

What was the mantua?

After its invention in the 1670s, the new gown became immediately popular among fashionable Parisian women.

Although strict dress codes at the Versailles court of French King Louis XIV prohibited the wearing of mantuas, women at the English court helped popularise it in England.

By the 1680s, the mantua was widely worn in Western and Central Europe, as well as in European colonies around the world. It soon became the basis for all women’s gowns in the 18th century.

Popular versions of the mantua in 18th century included:

• the loose style called a robe volante

• the iconic robe à la française (sometimes called a sack gown) with its back pleats that draped to the floor, and

• the tighter fitting robe à la anglaise (also known as English or Italian gowns).

Tailors vs mantua makers

As well as changing the look of western fashions, the mantua radically changed women’s involvement in the fashion industry.

Before the 17th century, outer garments were usually made by male tailors. Apprenticeships and membership of guilds – the organisations that controlled most craft trades – were restricted to boys and men.

Women did participate informally in these professions. They sometimes worked alongside tailor family members (and some were fined for doing so) and widows were permitted to carry on the businesses of their deceased husbands.

Women had also historically worked as seamstresses or “silkwomen” making small linen or silk goods like underwear and accessories.

However, this began to change in the late 17th century during what came to be known as the consumer revolution – a period, beginning in the 1600s, that saw a significant jump in the consumption of luxury goods.

Significantly, in 1675, women in Paris and Rouen acquired their own, independent couturière (dressmaking) guilds and began to take over making women’s clothing from male tailors.

In London, guilds with dwindling memberships also began to permit paying female members.

Due to the considerable influence of France on western fashions, women in London began to train under French dressmakers, giving rise to what were known in English as mantua makers.

Dressmaking and financial freedom

From the 18th to 20th centuries, dressmaking and other fashion or textile-related industries were the main source of formal employment for women in Britain, Australia and the United States (alongside teaching and domestic service).

New training opportunities in dressmaking – coupled with historical peculiarities such as London’s feme sole status, which allowed married women to run businesses and have finances independent of their husbands – meant many women began to open their own businesses.

Single women often lived in houses with other mantua makers and their apprentices, working as teams. Married women usually operated in workshops in the family home alongside their husbands, many of whom worked as tailors.

By the mid-18th century, manuals instructing parents on craft apprenticeships for their children noted mantua making was a large trade

reckoned a genteel, as well as profitable Employ [for women], many of them living well and saving Money.

But several male tailoring guilds in Europe attempted to stop women working as mantua makers, claiming they were taking away their business. Additionally, many women who worked in the garment-making industries were poorly paid and often worked in cramped conditions.

Yet, many did rise above. French mantua makers were particularly popular, with women in London paying substantially more for gowns made by French women with access to the latest fashion knowledge in Paris.

Some became confidants of queens. The famous fashion merchant Marie-Jeanne “Rose” Bertin designed many of French queen Marie Antoinette’s gowns (her detractors labelled her the queen’s “minister of fashion”).

These networks gave these women access to vast amounts of clients and social capital. By the 19th century, senior dressmakers and milliners called modistes often ran their own luxury fashion houses in the West End of London.

Mantua making was also a significant business opportunity for women in Australia.

“M. Hayes”, Catherine Mellon and Martha Matthews were all “mantua makers and milliners” who advertised their services in the early years of the Sydney colony.

Legacies of mantua makers

During the early years of the 19th century, mantuas fell out of use as new styles appeared. The term “dressmaker” also came to slowly replace the term “mantua maker”.

However, the gendered segregation of labour remained. During much of the 19th and 20th centuries, men were more likely to be tailors and have their clothing made by tailors. Women were more likely to be dressmakers and have their clothing made by dressmakers. The skills and techniques of each profession remained quite different.

With the advent of modern fast fashion, the skills of both tailors and dressmakers are fast being lost, and with it the knowledge of this revolutionary trade for women.

Sarah Bendall receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council UK and Pasold Research Fund.

– ref. What was the mantua? How a 17th-century gown transformed dressmaking and ushered in financial freedom for women – https://theconversation.com/what-was-the-mantua-how-a-17th-century-gown-transformed-dressmaking-and-ushered-in-financial-freedom-for-women-215153

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University

John Pilger, a giant of journalism born in Australia in 1939, has died at the age of 84, according to a statement released online by his family.

His numerous books and especially his documentaries opened the world’s eyes to the failings, and worse, of governments in many countries – including his birthplace.

He inspired many journalists, and journalism students, with his willingness to critique the damaging effects on ordinary people’s lives of capitalism and Western countries’ foreign policies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom.

But his campaigning approach to journalism also regularly provoked controversy. That was partly because of his trenchant dissent from official stances, and partly because in aiming to reach the broadest possible audience, he tended to oversimplify issues and overstate his views.

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‘I am, by inclination, anti-authoritarian’

The English journalist, Auberon Waugh, who clashed with Pilger on more than one occasion, invented the verb “to pilger” which he defined as “to treat a subject emotionally with generous disregard for inconvenient detail, always in the left-wing cause and always with great indignation”.

Whatever the merits of Waugh’s criticism, they are, in my view, outweighed by the breadth and depth of Pilger’s disclosures in the public interest.

Pilger never hid behind the safety of the “he said, she said” approach to journalism, which New York University professor Jay Rosen has famously called the “view from nowhere”.

Pilger, however, rejected the label of crusader, telling Anthony Hayward for his book, In the Name of Justice: The Television Reporting of John Pilger:

I am, by inclination, anti-authoritarian and forever sceptical of anything the agents of power want to tell us. It is my duty, surely, to tell people when they’re being conned or told lies.

Telling the stories of ordinary people

Pilger was born in Bondi, Sydney. Like many of his generation, he moved to the UK in the early 1960s and worked for The Daily Mirror, Reuters and ITV’s investigative program World in Action.

He reported on conflicts in Bangladesh, Biafra, Cambodia and Vietnam and was named newspaper journalist of the year in Britain in 1967 and 1979.

He made more than 50 documentaries. His best known is Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, which in 1979 revealed that as many as two million of the seven million population of the country had died as a result of genocide or starvation under Pol Pot’s brutal regime.

His documentaries garnered numerous prizes, including the prestigious Richard Dimbleby award for factual reporting, a Peabody award for Cambodia: Year Ten and a Best Documentary Emmy award for Cambodia: The Betrayal.

He also made several documentaries about Australia, including one in 1985, The Secret Country, about historic and continuing mistreatment of First Nations people that thoroughly irritated the then Labor prime minister, Bob Hawke.

When the US government of George W. Bush reacted to al-Qaeda’s murderous 9/11 terrorist attacks by invading first Afghanistan, in late 2001, then Iraq in March 2003, Pilger made Truth and Lies: Breaking the Silence on the War on Terror.

It sharply criticised not only Bush’s actions but those of the most ardent members of the “coalition of the willing”: UK Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, and Australian coalition prime minister, John Howard.

No doubt, if Pilger was still alive he would condemn the absence of the National Security Committee’s papers from the 2003 cabinet papers released today by the National Archives of Australia.

They show Howard’s cabinet signed off on the controversial – in hindsight disastrous – decision to endorse the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq based on “oral reports” from the prime minister, rather than full cabinet submissions.

Pilger wrote or edited 11 books, including Tell Me No Lies, an anthology of outstanding investigative journalism, and perhaps his best regarded book, Heroes, which hewed to what one of his favourite journalists, Martha Gellhorn, called “the view from the ground”.

He did this by telling the stories of ordinary people he had encountered, whether miners in Durham, England, refugees from Vietnam, or American soldiers returning from the Vietnam War – not to parades, but to lives dislocated by the silence and shame surrounding the war’s end.

The world has lost a resolutely dissenting voice

Phillip Knightley, a contemporary of Pilger who was also born in Australia and went to Fleet Street to become a celebrated investigative journalist and author himself, summed up his compatriot’s work in 2000:

He was certainly among the first to draw international attention to the shameful way in which Australia has treated the Aborigines [sic] […] John has a slightly less optimistic view than I have.

In Welcome to Australia [Pilger’s 1999 film], he concentrated on the bad things that were happening but not the good. He would say that’s not part of his brief and it’s covered elsewhere. He’s a polemicist and, if you want to arouse people’s passions and anger, the stronger the polemic, the better.

Pilger made fewer films in the 2000s, focusing much of his energy on supporting Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. Assange continues to suffer in Belmarsh prison in England while appeals against his extradition to the US to answer charges under the 1917 Espionage Act grind interminably on.

Whatever flaws there are in Pilger’s journalism, it feels dispiriting that on the first day of a new year clouded by wars, inaction on climate change and a presidential election in the US where democracy itself is on the ballot, the world has lost another resolutely dissenting voice in the media.

Read more:
‘A time of anxiety’: The depressing new reality for local journalists in conflict zones

Matthew Ricketson is the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s representative on the Australian Press Council.

– ref. The world has lost a dissenting voice: Australian journalist John Pilger has died, age 84 – https://theconversation.com/the-world-has-lost-a-dissenting-voice-australian-journalist-john-pilger-has-died-age-84-220418

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael J. I. Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University

While the unaided eye or binoculars can reveal much of the night sky, a telescope reveals so much more. Seeing Saturn’s rings or the Moon’s craters with your own eyes can be an “oh wow” moment.

However, choosing the right telescope can be tricky. There are telescopes with lenses and telescopes with mirrors. Telescopes that are moved by hand and others that are electronically controlled. Telescopes also come in a range of sizes, with a trade-off between light-gathering power, portability and price.

While there’s much to consider, changes in pricing and technology mean spectacular views of the universe are more accessible than just a decade ago.

Read more:
Want to get into stargazing? A professional astronomer explains where to start

How big should the aperture be?

Aperture is fundamental for telescopes. The bigger the light-collecting lens or mirror, the fainter the objects you can see. Double the aperture from 50mm diameter to 100mm diameter, and the light-collecting area quadruples.

The aperture also limits the level of detail you can see, due to the diffraction (interference) of light.

Again, bigger is better – a larger aperture telescope will produce sharper images than a smaller aperture telescope of comparable design. Earth’s turbulent atmosphere also blurs images, which can limit the detail seen when the aperture is more than 150mm.

Sometimes cheaper telescopes are advertised by magnification, but a small telescope with extreme magnification just makes blurry images bigger without revealing more detail.

Refractor or reflector?

Should you buy a telescope with a refracting lens or a reflecting mirror? It depends what you want to look at, and your budget.

Refracting telescopes

Refracting telescopes can be good for viewing objects on Earth and in the sky. Refracting telescopes with short focal lengths (where light is brought to a focus near the lens) can be quite compact and good for low magnification views, which is great for sweeping across dark country skies.

However, there are catches. While 70mm aperture refracting telescopes can be quite affordable, bigger refractor telescopes are often more expensive than comparable reflecting telescopes.

Refracting telescopes also suffer from chromatic aberration – where different colours aren’t brought to a common focus – and this is particularly noticeable at high magnification when stars get coloured halos. This can be mitigated using complex lens designs, but that adds to the cost.

Reflecting telescopes

Reflecting telescopes use mirrors to focus light. These tend to be larger and don’t suffer from chromatic aberration.

Dobsonian telescopes have a simple Newtonian optical design and wooden mounts, and are a very cost effective (if sometimes bulky) option for larger apertures. Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov telescopes, which use a combination of lenses and mirrors, are more compact (a big plus), but also more complex and expensive.

How do I find things in the sky? Depends on the mount

Want to look at a celestial object? You will need to point your telescope in the right direction, keep it steady, and follow the object as it moves across the sky (due to Earth’s rotation).

To do this, a telescope needs a mount, which is often sold with the telescope but can also be bought separately. Mounts fall into two broad categories.

Equatorial mounts have an axis aligned with Earth’s axis, so a single motor can compensate for Earth’s rotation. These mounts were essential for taking long exposure images with telescopes prior to computers and tend to be relatively heavy.

Alt-azimuth mounts have a vertical and a horizontal axis (how a camera is mounted on a tripod, for example), and tend to be cheaper and lighter than equatorial mounts. With the advent of cheap computing, they can now be used to automatically point at and track celestial objects.

To point a telescope at celestial objects you can move it manually or have electronics assist you, including “goto” mounts with motors that shift the telescope for you.

A completely manual telescope will be cheaper than a telescope with automation, but you will need to navigate the sky yourself.

Electronic assistance for navigating the sky is rapidly evolving and getting cheaper. Many telescopes on the market now use GPS and a smartphone app, which simplifies the process and makes everything more portable.

Do I need a finder scope?

Regardless of how you point your telescope, having a 30–50mm aperture auxiliary “finder” scope can be useful for small telescopes and essential for larger telescopes.

Large telescopes typically view a tiny patch of the sky, which makes finding your way tricky. A finder scope with a wider view and crosshairs simplifies things. Even telescopes with goto electronics often need to be calibrated with bright stars and locating them is easier with a finder scope.

What about the eyepiece?

An essential part of most telescopes is the eyepiece you look through. Sometimes decent telescopes are sold with quite cheap eyepieces, but it can be relatively inexpensive to upgrade to a better one.

A good start is a low-magnification eyepiece for sweeping views, and a high-magnification eyepiece for planets.

Plössl eyepieces are affordable and provide good views. More complex eyepieces that provide better views are also available, and far cheaper than they once were.

If you want to look at the Sun, you must get a specially designed solar filter. Never point a telescope (including the finder scope) at the Sun without filters – it can permanently damage eyes and shatter lenses.

What if I want to take astro photos?

Taking basic astronomical photos has become much easier with smartphones. While you can hold a phone to the telescope eyepiece for a photo of the Moon or a planet, you will get better results with an adapter that holds your phone securely in place.

Of course, better images can be taken with astronomy-specific cameras that can take very short exposures (for planets) or very long exposures (for fainter nebulae and galaxies). For long exposures, automatic tracking of celestial objects is essential, and that adds to a telescope’s price.

Smart telescopes are a relatively recent addition to the market. These goto telescopes have no eyepieces and only capture images electronically. As modern detectors are more sensitive than our eyes, they can capture quite spectacular images with a relatively small portable telescope, even when there’s light pollution.

However, you do lose the experience of seeing the universe directly with your own eyes through the eyepiece.

Try before you buy!

If there’s a local amateur astronomical society, you can sign up or attend a star party. There should be plenty of telescopes, and owners happy to wax lyrical about them.

A specialist shop can also give a direct experience of a telescope: its size and how it works (with limitations during daytime). For example, you may find a telescope is too bulky or technical for your needs.

Online shopping can save money, but may have less customer support than a local shop. You could also snap up a bargain buying second hand, and a seller may allow you to test their telescope on the Moon and planets before buying.

There’s a lot to take on board before buying a telescope. Aperture, size, cost and other factors need to be considered. But there are many good options out there, and with a good choice you can see some wondrous things. And perhaps have an “oh wow” moment.

Michael J. I. Brown receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.

– ref. Want to buy a home telescope? Tips from a professional astronomer to help you choose – https://theconversation.com/want-to-buy-a-home-telescope-tips-from-a-professional-astronomer-to-help-you-choose-218604

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lee, Associate Professor of History, UNSW Sydney

By far the most significant decision the Howard government made in 2003 was to support the invasion of Iraq. Journalists and historians have long maintained there was no submission to full cabinet weighing the pros and cons of the Australian intervention. Cabinet papers from 2003 released today by the National Archives of Australia confirm this.

While the Howard government had many other important issues to manage in that year, the Iraq War consumed most attention and sparked most debate in the wider community.

Entering the war

Cabinet’s National Security Committee had been closely monitoring Iraq and its possible possession of weapons of mass destruction. But in March 2003, Prime Minister John Howard asked the full cabinet to confirm the decision to commit Australia to war.

Despite US urging, the UN Security Council failed to authorise the use of force. It preferred instead to exhaust all opportunities for diplomacy.

On March 18, Howard informed his cabinet colleagues that US President George W. Bush had given Iraqi President Saddam Hussein an ultimatum. Australia was asked to support the United States if Iraq did not fully comply with Bush’s demands.

In the absence of explicit Security Council authorisation, Howard relied for legal justification on a memorandum of advice, signed by two officials at the level of first assistant secretary from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Attorney-General’s Department. Iraq, the memorandum argued, had not complied with earlier Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. Consequently, Australian participation in military intervention would be legal.

Gavan Griffith, Australia’s solicitor-general from 1984-1997, regarded the legal advice as “untenable” and “Alice in Wonderland nonsense”.

The memorandum was nonetheless important for persuading public opinion. Governor-General Peter Hollingworth had earlier asked to see legal advice from the attorney-general, perhaps assuming the decision would be his, acting on advice from the government. Howard advised Hollingworth there was no need to refer to the governor-general any decision to commit Australia to war.

The Howard government instead proceeded with the defence minister using his legal powers under the Defence Act as amended in 1975. This alleviated any need for the attorney-general to provide legal advice to the governor-general, as Sir John Kerr had demanded of the Fraser government in 1977 in regard to appointing the head of the Department of the Special Trade Negotiator, for which Howard was the responsible minister.

The cabinet minute of March 18 2003 smoothed the legal and constitutional difficulties. The attorney-general, it read, agreed with the memorandum submitted by the first assistant secretaries. The governor-general had been consulted but did not need to give his approval, and cabinet had agreed to send Australian troops to war.

Read more:
Iraq 20 years on: death came from the skies on March 19 2003 – and the killing continues to this day

Proceeding without a cabinet submission enabled Howard to dispense with advice to cabinet on four other matters.

One was the circumstantial nature of the intelligence used to justify the invasion.

Another was the sectarian chaos that could have been predicted to follow in Iraq.

A third was the danger of military intervention empowering Iran.

A fourth was the consequences for the Australian-United States alliance. Any decision to rebuff Bush’s request would have been treated coldly by his administration. Howard was determined to take advantage of the Iraq war to strengthen the alliance.

Another middle power and NATO ally, Canada, demonstrated its independence without incurring Washington’s enduring resentment. Prime Minister Jean Chretien insisted Canada would not join in military action without United Nations authorisation. The leader of the Labor opposition, Simon Crean, eventually adopted this position too.

Officials in the Department of Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade did not regard it as their role to offer strategic advice on matters already decided by ministers. This pattern of policy-making indicated the increasing subordination of the public service to ministers since the 1980s. It also reflected the increasingly presidential view Howard had of the office of prime minister.

In 2003, public opinion was opposed to Australian participation in the war. However, the government was aided by the effusive support of News Corporation papers for its position on the war.

Beyond the war

The release includes many other submissions and decisions. Some relate to negotiation of a free trade agreement with the United States.

Ten years after the agreement came into force, however, analysis showed it had diverted trade away from the lowest-cost sources. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was also affected.

Read more:
How the US trade deal undermined Australia’s PBS

Other papers relate to health policy. Howard sought to blunt an effective Labor campaign against the erosion of the rate of bulk-billing under Medicare. Accordingly, Health Minister Kay Patterson introduced a A$900 million package.

“A Fairer Medicare” was highly criticised, including by a Senate inquiry. It described the package as a “decisive step away from the principle of universality that has underpinned Medicare since its inception”.

With the 2004 election looming, Patterson was replaced by Tony Abbott, who later announced a compromise package called Medicare Plus. It achieved more success by including higher reimbursements for doctors and an extended Medicare safety net aimed at addressing out-of-pocket costs.

A decision on the environment is also noteworthy. Howard appointed a committee to devise an affordable long-term plan to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. An emissions trading scheme was recommended.

The plan received the backing of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, as well as that of Treasurer Peter Costello, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and Environment Minister David Kemp. In July, the strategy was taken to cabinet but later, after discussions with industry representatives, Howard dumped it.

Years later, in 2006, under pressure from the “millennium drought”, Howard changed his mind and accepted Treasury’s advice to adopt an emissions trading scheme. Howard’s Labor successors, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, implemented the scheme. In 2013, the Abbott government demolished the scheme with the enthusiastic support of business.

Read more:
The too hard basket: a short history of Australia’s aborted climate policies

Resources boom – and missed opportunities

In October 2003, the leaders of the United States and China both visited Australia. This offered hope Australia could maintain a constructive relationship with its closest ally as well as its major trading partner.

By 2003, Australia was on the cusp of one its greatest resource booms, fuelled by Chinese demand. The boom gave the government space to turn its attention to a range of reforms in areas such as defence, health, communications and education policy.

Three opportunities were missed in 2003.

One was to establish a sovereign wealth fund to invest the temporary windfall gains from the mining boom.

A second was to establish an emissions trading scheme.

A third was to advance progress on constitutional recognition of Indigenous people.
This had to wait until 2007 when Howard at last recommended a referendum to recognise the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australian history.

David Lee is a member of Australians for War Powers Reform.

– ref. Cabinet papers 2003: Howard government sends Australia into the Iraq war – https://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-2003-howard-government-sends-australia-into-the-iraq-war-217812

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Associate Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

This year the Australian government is introducing a series of measures to restrict the availability of vapes, starting today.

The new reforms address loopholes in the current laws that allow easy access to highly addictive, flavoured, cheap, and harmful vaping products that are marketed to kids.

Vaping products will still be available through a prescription for anyone using them to quit smoking. But the Therapeutic Goods Administration will tightly regulate prescription-only vapes.

So what are the new regulations? And why are they needed?

Read more:
What’s in vapes? Toxins, heavy metals, maybe radioactive polonium

What was wrong with the previous regulations?

Before the 2024 rule changes, vaping products imported and sold in Australia were required to be nicotine-free, unless accessed through a pharmacy with a prescription from a qualified health professional.

Individual users were also allowed to import nicotine-vapes from overseas through the Personal Importation Scheme, provided they had a valid prescription.

The vaping industry – including manufacturers, importers and retailers – exploited these loopholes and openly sold products containing nicotine to young people by falsely claiming the products were “nicotine-free”.

But the only way to tell the difference between a nicotine and nicotine-free vape is to test it in a lab – a time consuming and expensive endeavour, given the high volume of products imported.

So enforcing the nicotine/nicotine-free standards essentially proved near impossible against an industry determined to addict a new generation of users.

So what’s changing?

The new laws help tidy up the confusion and make the rules much clearer and easier to enforce.

They also address the ready access to vapes, which is the single biggest challenge to preventing young people from vaping.

The regulatory changes will be rolled out in three phases:

1. Importation ban

The first phase, being implemented from today, includes a ban on the importation of all disposable, single-use vapes. These are the products that are most popular with young people and come in a variety of flavours, including fruit, confectionery, cocktails and tobacco.

Single-use, disposable vapes cannot be refilled, but come in a wide range of sizes, from a few hundred of puffs, to upwards of 10,000 puffs.

Disposable vapes have flooded into Australia and fuelled the explosive rise in vape use among teens and young adults.

The importation of all other vapes, including refillable products, will be banned from March 1 2024, unless importers hold a licence and permit from the Office of Drug Control to lawfully import vapes. These legally imported vapes will only be sold in pharmacies to users with a prescription.

The Personal Importation Scheme allowance for vapes will also end on March 1 2024, meaning all vape users must access vaping products from a pharmacy in Australia.

Read more:
TGA review strengthens case for much tighter vape restrictions at the border

This initial phase, while effectively stopping illegal vapes from coming in to Australia, doesn’t address the high volume of product that is already here. Retailers will be able to continue to sell their existing stock of “nicotine-free” vapes. But as we know, these products often do contain nicotine.

2. Domestic manufacture and sales ban

The next phase of reforms, expected to come into effect in late 2024, will eliminate the retail sale of all types of vaping products, regardless of their claimed nicotine content.

This second phase will include a ban on the manufacture, supply, advertising and commercial possession of vapes that fall outside of the prescription framework.

These changes will require amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, and will likely be introduced in Autumn 2024 for federal Parliament’s consideration, but the exact date is yet to be set.

3. Prescription access

The prescription access to vapes for therapeutic purposes is also being changed to allow access to products that meet a quality standard.

From today, all medical and nurse practitioners will now be able to prescribe therapeutic vapes for quitting smoking or to manage nicotine dependence.

Further changes that strengthen the standards for therapeutic vapes are expected to be made by March 1 2024. For example, prescription vapes will have limits on the amount of nicotine, the types of flavours permitted, and be in standardised medical-style packaging.

What do the changes mean for vape users?

Vapes for therapeutic purposes will continue to be permitted in Australia and more medical professionals will be able to prescribe them. Prior to 2024, only select medical professionals could prescribe vapes (they had to register as an authorised prescriber). This is being widened to ensure the prescription model works as intended.

While vaping products will be available by prescription it’s important to know they remain unapproved medicines that have not been subjected to the same rigorous safety and effectiveness testing as other evidence-based quit smoking aids.

If you’re thinking of quitting smoking (or quitting vaping), get support by talking to your doctor, calling the Quitline (13 7848), or accessing help online.

Read more:
My teen is addicted to vaping. How can I help them quit and manage their withdrawal symptoms?

Becky Freeman is an Expert Advisor to the Cancer Council Tobacco Issues Committee and a member of the Cancer Institute Vaping Communications Advisory Panel. These are unpaid roles. She has received relevant competitive grants that include a focus on e-cigarettes/vaping from the NHMRC, MRFF, NSW Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, VicHealth, and Healthway WA; relevant research contracts from the Cancer Institute NSW and the Cancer Council NSW; relevant personal/consulting fees from the World Health Organization, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Department of Health, BMJ Tobacco Control, the Heart Foundation NSW, the US FDA, the NHMRC e-cigarette working committee, NSW Health, and Cancer Council NSW; and relevant travel expenses from the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference and the Australia Public Health Association preventive health conference.

– ref. From today, new regulations make it harder to access vapes. Here’s what’s changing – https://theconversation.com/from-today-new-regulations-make-it-harder-to-access-vapes-heres-whats-changing-218816

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tiffani J. Howell, Senior Research Fellow, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University

The Australian and American Veterinary Medical Associations recommend keeping cats indoors because they, and wildlife, will be safer.

However, a boring indoor environment may not meet a cat’s need for mental stimulation. So how can we keep cats indoors in a way that will keep them safe and happy?

When considering animal welfare, the Five Domains Model is a good place to start. The five domains are:

1. nutrition – cats need the right type and amounts of food and water
2. physical environment, including temperature, flooring, noise, light
3. health – injury, disease, impairment
4. behavioural interactions with people and other animals, which includes the ability to exercise agency – choosing to engage, or not, in a particular activity at a given moment
5. mental state, including feelings such as hunger, pain, fear and comfort, which is an overall assessment of the animal’s subjective welfare state.

Keeping a cat indoors denies it the choice of being inside or outside. The sense of control an animal has over its life is an important aspect of its welfare, so how can we compensate for this loss of agency?

Several ways to help meet your cat’s needs are available at various price points. Most help meet the cat’s behavioural needs. Some also touch on other needs like environment or nutrition. All will contribute to your cat’s wellbeing.

Read more:
Herding cats: councils’ efforts to protect wildlife from roaming pets are hampered by state laws

Free solutions

If you’re feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis, you can still provide your cat with plenty of enrichment for free, or at very low cost. There are multiple options.

Cat music has some scientific evidence behind it and is available on YouTube. This will help meet their environmental needs.

Puzzle feeders, which you can buy or make yourself. Cats are predators, so they are biologically wired to work for their food. Puzzle feeders can be a good way to help meet this biological need.

These feeders don’t have to be expensive. One homemade example is an egg carton with the cat’s food inside and the lid closed, so the cat must find a way to open the carton to obtain the food.

Start with a simple puzzle, and gradually build to more complex puzzles. Only do puzzle feeding if your cat is a good eater and not underweight, though. This will help meet their nutritional and behavioural needs.

Boxes, which cats love to sit in. This hiding behaviour appears to reduce stress Cats will even sit in boxes that don’t technically exist – such as outlines on a floor. This will help meet their behavioural needs.

Clicker training uses a small noise-making device to indicate that the animal has performed a desired behaviour. While more commonly known for dogs, it can also be used in cats.

Read more:
Why you should train your cat – and how to do it

“Do as I do” training is another option. In this training style, the cat learns to mimic your behaviour, but in a species-appropriate way. For instance, if you stood on your tiptoes and raised your arms, your cat would stand on its hind legs and lift the front paws. This will be good for their behavioural needs.

Playing with a pet cat for at least five minutes at a time has been associated with reduced behaviour problems, so play with them to help meet their needs.

New objects/scents will help meet their environmental needs. Cats enjoy novelty as long as there is also plenty of predictability in their environment. Regularly bringing new things or scents like catnip into your home may be interesting for your cat.

For more ideas about enriching your cat’s life indoors, check out this website.

Moderate outlay

If you’re tightening your belt but still have a little to invest in cat enrichment, there are lots of choices within the $10–$50 range to help meet the cat’s behavioural needs.

Harness walks (perhaps after some patient training) let your cat spend time outdoors in a safe way and get exercise.

Toys that move erratically are preferable to static toys. These can be toys that you move yourself such as a toy mouse that you move around on the floor. The movement may appeal to the cat’s predatory nature.

Puzzle feeders can be made very cheaply (see above), but you can buy one too. It can provide interesting variety for cats, especially after they’ve had some puzzle experience. Again, only do this with cats who are good eaters and are not underweight.

A scratching post should ideally be vertical or inclined, which are generally preferable to horizontal surfaces. Chenille, rope or cardboard appear to be the preferred materials.

Read more:
Why does my cat pee on the rug? Are they trying to tell me something?

Bougie options

If money is no object, you could consider these pricier options. Both help meet their environmental needs.

Cat shelves make use of vertical space so don’t take up a lot of floor space. They provide cats with elevated places to sit, which they like.

Cat enclosures, or “catios”, are enclosed, outdoor spaces where cats can safely spend time outside. They may increase cats’ quality of life.

Remember, every cat is an individual. What works for some cats may not work for yours. Try preference testing – which require the cat to choose between different options or environments – to figure out your own cat’s favourite things.

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

– ref. Won’t my cat get bored if I keep it inside? Here’s how to ensure it’s happy – https://theconversation.com/wont-my-cat-get-bored-if-i-keep-it-inside-heres-how-to-ensure-its-happy-214562

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Gordon, Honorary Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University

Australia has long thought of itself as the lucky country.

Whenever its economy has started to falter, a commodity boom has usually come along to restore prosperity… until in the 1980s, when the rest of the world failed to rescue us, and we embarked on a decade of reform.

I am afraid the world is going to fail to come to our rescue once again, and this time it’ll be harder to get a boost from reform because the easy reforms have already been done.

Here’s how I see our history from the earliest days of colonisation.

Exports kept making Australia rich

For most of those two or so centuries, we have been a commodity exporter, at first specialising in wool and wheat (mainly for the United Kingdom) and later specialising in minerals (initially for Japan).

We had to shift our focus quickly when the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973.

Fortunately for us, Japan had surpassed the United Kingdom as our biggest customer the year before, in 1972, as our exports of minerals built steadily following the Australia-Japan Commerce Agreement signed in 1957.

Taiwan and South Korea later emulated Japan, buying our coal, iron ore and bauxite to modernise their cities as well as for manufacturing.

Demand for these commodities kept building until the late 1970s when it slowed as the East Asian economies matured.

Then came economic reform, and China

Demand stayed subdued throughout the 1980s and 1990s as Australia got on with economic reform, boosting the economy by letting in foreign banks, floating the dollar, cutting tariffs, removing cosy regulations and privatising enterprises in fields as diverse as airlines, airports, banking, telecommunications and energy.

By the early 2000s, China was a member of the World Trade Organisation and began demanding Australian iron ore and later coal and education, and the old pattern of commodity booms repeated itself, except this time bigger.

The usual pattern is growth in demand for Australian resources followed by a boom in foreign investment to develop those resources that pushes up the value of the dollar and boosts Australia’s buying power but makes its other exports less competitive.

When demand for resources falls, as is about to happen as China’s economy matures, Australians need to tighten their belts.

That’s unless Australia can find another big market or unleash another wave of economic reform.

Read more:
China’s population is now inexorably shrinking, bringing forward the day the planet’s population turns down

China is a hard act to follow

China’s size makes the export boom we have just had hard to repeat. India has the population and an infrastructure deficit, but more of its own resources, and a more inward-focused growth strategy.

Indonesia has strong growth prospects, but faces challenges investing in infrastructure at scale in its densely populated chain of islands. And Australia faces competition from other commodity exporters. To keep prices high we need global demand to at least keep pace with potential supply.

Yet the International Monetary Fund is downgrading its global growth forecasts.

Geopolitical tensions, rising populism and protectionist sentiments, high debt levels and rising rates of natural disasters and climate-related disruptions are all downside risks for global growth, and, with this, the demand for commodities.

The one bright spot is the minerals needed for the energy transition, where demand exceeds forecast supply.

But Australia has many competitors in the supply of many of these minerals, and we failed to get a head start on the clean energy approaches to processing that would have given us an early advantage.

We’ll need reforms, but more subtle ones

So what are our options?

The reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments are still with us, but the declining role of government in the production of goods and services and a generally light-handed approach to regulation seems to have failed to prevent a decline in competition and, with it, a decline in economic dynamism.

While some of the government’s own actions might have dampened competition, it is entirely possible that the government’s withdrawal from all sorts of markets might be allowing those markets to become more concentrated.

It might even be that the government needs to change course again and reenter or better regulate some markets in order to force providers to lift their games.

While renationalisations are neither viable nor sensible, the energy transition and the projected growth of the care sector offer opportunities to reconsider the balance between the roles of government and the private sector.

The recently-announced Competition Review chaired by Kerry Schott is a step in the right direction.

The right solutions might be more subtle than those that worked in the 1980s. None of them should be off the table.

Jenny Gordon is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute. She serves on the Asian Development Bank Institute Advisory Council.

– ref. Economically, Australia has been lucky – what matters now is what we do next – https://theconversation.com/economically-australia-has-been-lucky-what-matters-now-is-what-we-do-next-215150

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

There are few things more peaceful and relaxing than a night under the stars. Through the holidays, many people head away from the bright city lights to go camping. They revel in the dark skies, spangled with myriad stars.

As a child, I loved such trips, and they helped cement my passion for the night sky, and for all things space.

One of my great joys as an astronomer is sharing the night sky with people. There is something wondrous about helping people stare at the cosmos through a telescope, getting their first glimpses of the universe’s many wonders. But we can also share and enjoy the night sky just with our own eyes – pointing out the constellations and the planets, or discovering the joys of watching meteor showers.

It is easy to be bitten by the astronomy bug, and a common question I get asked is “how can I get more into stargazing?”. Here are ways to get started in this fascinating and timeless hobby that won’t break the bank.

Learning the night sky

A good place to start if you’re a budding astronomer is to learn your way around the night sky. When I was young, this involved getting hold of a planisphere (a star map, you can make your own here), or a good reference book.

Today, there are countless good apps to help you find your way around the night sky.

A great example of such an app is Stellarium – a planetarium program allowing you to view the night sky from the comfort of your room or to plan an evening’s observing ahead of schedule.

To memorise the night sky, you can try star hopping. Pick out a bright, famous, easy to find constellation, and use it as a guide to help you identify the constellations around it.

Learn one constellation per week, and within a year, you’ll be familiar with most of the constellations visible from your location.

Let’s use Orion as an example. The slider below shows images from Stellarium, with Orion riding high in the sky on a summer’s evening. I’ve added arrows to show how you can use Orion (shown in the centre of the map below) to hop around the summer sky.

To learn the constellations around Orion, your task is relatively straightforward. Head out on a clear, dark summer’s night, and find Orion high to the north. The three stars of Orion’s belt are a fantastic signpost to Orion’s neighbours.

If you follow the line of the belt upwards and to the right, you come to Sirius – the brightest star in the night sky, and the brightest star in Canis Major, the big hunting dog. Carry the line on and curve to the left as you go, and you’ll find Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky.

Now come back to Orion’s belt, and follow its line down and to the left. You’ll come to a V-shaped group of stars, including the bright red Aldebaran. This is the Hyades star cluster (with Aldebaran a foreground interloper), which makes up the head of Taurus, the bull.

Take the line further, and you come to the Pleiades – often known as the Seven Sisters – a beautiful star cluster easily visible to the naked eye.

Back to Orion again. This time, you’re going to draw a line from Rigel (the bright star at the top-left of Orion’s boxy body) through Betelgeuse (the bright red star at the lower-right of the box) and continue it towards the horizon. This takes you to Gemini – the twins.

Just by using Orion as the signpost, you can find your way to a good number of constellations (the cyan line points to Lepus, the hare; the white line to Canis Minor, the little hunting dog).

By star hopping, you’ll slowly but surely learn your way around the night sky until the constellations become familiar friends.

Read more:
Kindred skies: ancient Greeks and Aboriginal Australians saw constellations in common

Virtual observing

Looking at the sky with the naked eye is a wonderful thing, but it’s also great to zoom in and see more detail.

What if you don’t have access to binoculars or a telescope of your own? Thankfully, software like Stellarium can give you a fantastic virtual observing experience.

Imagine you want to see Saturn’s rings – a spectacular sight through even a small telescope. You can easily do this with Stellarium. Find Saturn by using the search bar and click on it to bring up the planet’s info.

Click on the cross-hair symbol to “lock on”, then zoom in. The further you zoom in, the more you’ll see. You can even run the clock forwards or backwards to see the planet’s moons move in their orbits, or the tilt of Saturn’s rings changing from our viewpoint over time.

A virtual observing session is as simple as that – just pan around the sky until you find something you want to see, and zoom in.

A hobby best shared

Now, a virtual observing session is great, but it pales compared to the real thing. I’d recommend using planetarium programs like Stellarium to figure out what you want to see, then heading out to look at it with your own eyes.

Astronomy is a wonderful hobby, and one that is best shared. Most towns and cities have their own astronomy clubs, and they’re usually more than happy to welcome guests who want to gaze at the night sky.

I joined my local astronomy society, the West Yorkshire Astronomical Society in the United Kingdom, when I was just eight years old. I owe them so much. The members were incredibly supportive of a young kid with so many questions, and I genuinely believe I would not be where I am today without their help. As a member, I saw firsthand just how fantastic the amateur astronomy community is.

At the society, we had weekly talks on astronomy, given by the club members and visiting astronomers from local universities. We also had regular night sky viewing nights, using the society’s very own telescope – a behemoth the members had built themselves.

People who are passionate about their hobby love nothing more than sharing it with others. The members of astronomical societies are fantastic guides to the night sky, and they often have incredible equipment they’re more than happy to share with you.

Both astronomy clubs and universities often offer public night sky viewing nights, which are the perfect opportunity to peer at the sky through a telescope, with an experienced guide on hand to find the most impressive sights to share.

So, if you want to learn more about the night sky, reach out to your local astronomy society – it could be the start of something very special.

If you want to find a local astronomy group, check out this list. If you’re a member of a group that isn’t listed, please reach out to get them to update the list using the ‘Contact Us’ link.

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

– ref. Want to get into stargazing? A professional astronomer explains where to start – https://theconversation.com/want-to-get-into-stargazing-a-professional-astronomer-explains-where-to-start-218921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Genauer, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Flinders University

Sadly, 2023 has been a violent one on the global stage. War broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis, including many children on both sides. And the bitter war between Russia and Ukraine continued with no end in sight.

As a result of the focus on these two conflicts, other countries have dropped off the radar for many people. Some of these nations have been dealing with simmering unrest, however, which could erupt in 2024 and seize the global spotlight.

So, where should we be watching in the coming year? Here are five places where I believe civil conflicts or unrest could worsen and potentially lead to violence.

Myanmar

Myanmar descended into chaos in 2021 when a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked widespread civil protests that eventually morphed into an armed resistance.

The country, home to 135 ethnic groups, has rarely known peace. For years before the coup, there was a ongoing, low-grade civil conflict between the military and several minority ethnic groups who have long sought control over natural resources in their regions and independence from the state.

This exploded after the coup as ethnic militia groups joined forces with pro-democracy fighters from the Bamar majority protesting the junta.

Their resistance escalated in late 2023 with a coordinated northern offensive dealing the military its most significant losses in many years.

Insurgents won control of towns and villages on the northeastern border with China, including control over key trade routes. This led to renewed fighting in western Rakhine state, as well as in other areas.

The tenacity of the resistance of these minority groups, paired with the refusal of the military to compromise, suggests the country’s civil war may worsen considerably in 2024 and regain international attention.

Mali

In Mali, a nation in the turbulent Sahel region of Africa, tensions escalated throughout 2023 and now threaten to erupt into full-scale civil war.

Mali has long battled insurgent activity. In 2012, Mali’s government fell in a coup and Tuareg rebels, backed by Islamist militants, seized power in the north.

A United Nations peacekeeping mission was established in 2013 to bring stability to Mali. Then, in 2015, key rebel groups signed a peace agreement with the Mali government.

Read more:
Mali crisis: UN peacekeepers are leaving after 10 years – what’s needed for a smooth transition

After two more coups in 2020 and 2021, military officers consolidated their power and said they would restore the state’s full territorial control over all of Mali. The regime insisted the UN peacekeeping mission withdraw from the country, which it did in June 2023. Subsequently, violence broke out between the military and rebel forces over future use of the UN bases.

In November, the military, reportedly backed by Russia’s Wagner Group, took control of the strategic northern town of Kidal which had been held by Tuareg forces since 2012. This undermines the fragile peace that has held since 2015.

It is unlikely the military will regain complete control over all rebel-held areas in the north. At the same time, insurgents are emboldened. With the 2015 peace agreement now all but dead, we can expect increased volatility in 2024.

Lebanon

In 2019, widespread civil protest broke out in Lebanon against leaders who were perceived not to be addressing the day-to-day needs of the population.

The situation continued to deteriorate, with a reshuffled government, escalating economic crisis and a massive port explosion that exposed corrupt practices.

The International Monetary Fund criticised Lebanon in September for a lack of economic reform. The Lebanese government has also failed to reach agreement on appointing a president, a post that has been vacant for more than a year.

This risks undermining the fragile power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon in which the key political posts of prime minister, speaker and president are allocated to a Sunni-Muslim, Shia-Muslim and Christian Maronite, respectively.

Most recently, the war between Israel and Hamas has threatened to spill over to Lebanon, home to the Hezbollah militant group, which claims to have an army of 100,000 fighters. Importantly, this jeopardises tourism as a key hope for Lebanon’s economic recovery.

These factors may precipitate a more serious economic and political collapse in 2024.

Pakistan

Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, the military has played an interventionist role in politics. Though Pakistani leaders are popularly elected, military officials have at times removed them from power.

In 2022, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan fell out of favour with Pakistan’s militant leaders. He was subsequently ousted from power in a parliament vote and later arrested on charges that his supporters claim are politically motivated.

Violent demonstrations broke out nationwide after his arrest – a display of anger against the military that was once unthinkable.

Pakistan also faces spillover from instability in neighbouring Afghanistan and increased terror attacks. These security challenges have been compounded by a struggling economy and ongoing costs from the devastating 2022 floods.

Pakistan is expected to hold parliamentary elections in February 2024, after which the current military caretaker government is expected to transfer power back to civilian rule. Many are watching the military closely. If this transfer of power does not take place, or there are delays, civil unrest may result.

Read more:
How Imran Khan’s populism has divided Pakistan and put it on a knife’s edge

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka faced a debilitating economic crisis in 2022 that led to critical fuel, food and medical shortages. Civil protests caused then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. He was quickly replaced by current President Ranil Wickremesingh.

Stability returned in 2023 as Sri Lanka began implementing economic reforms as part of a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund. However, widespread dissatisfaction with political elites and the underlying drivers of the country’s economic hardship have not been addressed.

Elections are also due in Sri Lanka by late 2024. While Wickremesingh, the incumbent, is likely to run for a second term, he has low trust with the public. He is viewed as too close to corrupt political elites.

This dissatisfaction could lead to renewed protests – particularly if the economy stumbles again – in a repeat of the situation that led to Rajapaksa’s ousting in 2022.

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

– ref. Will the world see more wars or unrest in 2024? Here are 5 hotspots to watch – https://theconversation.com/will-the-world-see-more-wars-or-unrest-in-2024-here-are-5-hotspots-to-watch-217807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Beckett, Senior Lecturer (Food Science and Human Nutrition), School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

Do you hate salad? It’s OK if you do, there are plenty of foods in the world, and lots of different ways to prepare them.

But given almost all of us don’t eat enough vegetables, even though most of us (81%) know eating more vegetables is a simple way to improve our health, you might want to try.

If this idea makes you miserable, fear not, with time and a little effort you can make friends with salad.

Read more:
Feeling bloated, hungry or bored after salad? These tips might help

Why don’t I like salads?

It’s an unfortunate quirk of evolution that vegetables are so good for us but they aren’t all immediately tasty to all of us. We have evolved to enjoy the sweet or umami (savoury) taste of higher energy foods, because starvation is a more immediate risk than long-term health.

Vegetables aren’t particularly high energy but they are jam-packed with dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals, and health-promoting compounds called bioactives.

Those bioactives are part of the reason vegetables taste bitter. Plant bioactives, also called phytonutrients, are made by plants to protect themselves against environmental stress and predators. The very things that make plant foods bitter, are the things that make them good for us.

Unfortunately, bitter taste evolved to protect us from poisons, and possibly from over-eating one single plant food. So in a way, plant foods can taste like poison.

For some of us, this bitter sensing is particularly acute, and for others it isn’t so bad. This is partly due to our genes. Humans have at least 25 different receptors that detect bitterness, and we each have our own genetic combinations. So some people really, really taste some bitter compounds while others can barely detect them.

This means we don’t all have the same starting point when it comes to interacting with salads and veggies. So be patient with yourself. But the steps toward learning to like salads and veggies are the same regardless of your starting point.

Read more:
We’re told to ‘eat a rainbow’ of fruit and vegetables. Here’s what each colour does in our body

It takes time

We can train our tastes because our genes and our receptors aren’t the end of the story. Repeat exposures to bitter foods can help us adapt over time. Repeat exposures help our brain learn that bitter vegetables aren’t posions.

And as we change what we eat, the enzymes and other proteins in our saliva change too. This changes how different compounds in food are broken down and detected by our taste buds. How exactly this works isn’t clear, but it’s similar to other behavioural cognitive training.

Read more:
Food as medicine: why do we need to eat so many vegetables and what does a serve actually look like?

Add masking ingredients

The good news is we can use lots of great strategies to mask the bitterness of vegetables, and this positively reinforces our taste training.

Salt and fat can reduce the perception of bitterness, so adding seasoning and dressing can help make salads taste better instantly. You are probably thinking, “but don’t we need to reduce our salt and fat intake?” – yes, but you will get more nutritional bang-for-buck by reducing those in discretionary foods like cakes, biscuits, chips and desserts, not by trying to avoid them with your vegetables.

Adding heat with chillies or pepper can also help by acting as a decoy to the bitterness. Adding fruits to salads adds sweetness and juiciness, this can help improve the overall flavour and texture balance, increasing enjoyment.

Pairing foods you are learning to like with foods you already like can also help.

The options for salads are almost endless, if you don’t like the standard garden salad you were raised on, that’s OK, keep experimenting.

Experimenting with texture (for example chopping vegetables smaller or chunkier) can also help in finding your salad loves.

Read more:
Frozen, canned or fermented: when you can’t shop often for fresh vegetables, what are the best alternatives?

Challenge your biases

Challenging your biases can also help the salad situation. A phenomenon called the “unhealthy-tasty intuition” makes us assume tasty foods aren’t good for us, and that healthy foods will taste bad. Shaking that assumption off can help you enjoy your vegetables more.

When researchers labelled vegetables with taste-focused labels, priming subjects for an enjoyable taste, they were more likely to enjoy them compared to when they were told how healthy they were.

The bottom line

Vegetables are good for us, but we need to be patient and kind with ourselves when we start trying to eat more.

Try working with biology and brain, and not against them.

And hold back from judging yourself or other people if they don’t like the salads you do. We are all on a different point of our taste-training journey.

Emma Beckett has received funding for research or consulting from Mars Foods, Nutrition Research Australia, NHMRC, ARC, AMP Foundation, Kellogg, and the University of Newcastle. She also works for FOODiQ Global. She is a member of committees/working groups related to nutrition or the Australian Academy of Science, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Nutrition Society of Australia.

– ref. Hate salad or veggies? Just keep eating them. Here’s how our tastebuds adapt to what we eat – https://theconversation.com/hate-salad-or-veggies-just-keep-eating-them-heres-how-our-tastebuds-adapt-to-what-we-eat-214583

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris McMillan, Professional Teaching Fellow in Sociology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

The recently concluded men’s Cricket World Cup in India reached record audiences. But there was one thing the organisers did not want those viewers to see (other than India’s defeat by Australia in the final): cricket’s own climate crisis.

Along with battling heat and humidity, players were forced to contend with unhealthy air created by pollutants from vehicles, factories and construction, and aggravated by increased temperatures in 20 of the 47 matches.

As Indian captain Rohit Sharma remarked, “It is not ideal and everyone knows that.”

The United Nations describes the threat more forcefully. Secretary-General António Guterres has warned the world is on a “catastrophic path” to a “hellish future”. It is a future that threatens the very viability of cricket.

Cricket and the climate Crisis

As an outdoor summer game in which the natural environment plays a unique role, cricket is perhaps the pitch sport most at risk from a changing climate.

Increased temperatures and heat waves threaten the safety of players and spectators, as well as the preparation and maintenance of playing surfaces.

Equally, cricket is vulnerable to higher risks of drought and flooding. Air pollution, especially in the Indian subcontinent, continues to cloud the game.

Read more:
Time for a reckoning: Cricket Australia, fossil fuel sponsorship and climate change

The threat is compounded by the precarious regions in which cricket is played. Bangladesh and Pakistan – where New Zealand’s Black Caps played their past two overseas Test series – are ranked seventh and eighth respectively for vulnerability on the Climate Risk Index.

At the same time, cricket is not merely a potential victim of the climate crisis, it is a contributor to it.

While it lags behind other sports in calculating its environmental impact, cricket is a resource-heavy game. Preparation of a cricket field requires around 60,000 litres of water a day. An expanding international touring schedule means regular long-haul flights.

One of the few existing studies estimated an Indian Premier League match produced about 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Overall, cricket’s carbon footprint is substantial.

Read more:
Heat risk and young athletes — rising temperatures lead to lawsuits and environmental injustice

Sport and Sustainability

For a game facing a potential existential crisis, cricket’s sustainability efforts have been slow by comparison with other sports.

In line with the Paris Agreement, the International Olympic Committee has committed to a 50% reduction in direct and indirect carbon emissions by 2030, and promised the 2032 Brisbane Olympics will be “climate positive”.

Both FIFA and World Rugby have sustainability plans, as do Formula One and most American sports leagues, including the NBA. Sail GP even has an “Impact League” that measures environmental mitigation efforts.

Read more:
Rising costs of climate change threaten to make skiing a less diverse, even more exclusive sport

While some scepticism might be warranted – FIFA held a World Cup in oil-rich Qatar, and the 2030 men’s tournament will be held across two continents – at least the intent is clear.

By contrast, the International Cricket Council has not published a sustainability strategy. Of its full members, only the England and Wales Cricket Board has such a plan.

Of the more than 200 sporting organisations to sign up to the UN’s Sports for Climate Action Framework – which requires participants to halve emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040 – only six are cricketing entities, and most are in England.

Inaction in New Zealand

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) is as silent on climate as many of its global counterparts. Environmental sustainability does not appear in NZC strategy documents.

At the same time, its 2022-23 annual report laments that less than half of all scheduled recreational fixtures could be played in some areas due to rain and flooding. It also notes the “cyclones, floods and related civil emergencies” that caused these cancellations were “well beyond its control”.

New Zealand’s 2023-24 cricket season could be the hottest yet. Following the devastating floods in Auckland in early 2023, a drought is possible this summer. Heat waves are becoming more persistent and more dangerous.

Cricket is not made for such extremes. At a time when game is struggling to attract participants, climate change is making it harder for recreational cricketers to play.

New Zealand Cricket’s mission statement states:

We think ahead and pay it forward. It’s about doing the right things for the best reasons. Leading the way, and following our own path. We never give up, give in, or say die.

It may be time to apply those admirable sentiments to its response to the climate crisis. The first step would be to sign up to the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework – and get some sustainability runs on the board.

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

– ref. No climate for cricket: how global warming is putting the heat on NZ’s summer game – https://theconversation.com/no-climate-for-cricket-how-global-warming-is-putting-the-heat-on-nzs-summer-game-219319