Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Grzeskowiak, Fellow in Medicines Use and Safety, Flinders University

As many as 90% or more of pregnant people experience some degree of nausea or vomiting, often colloquially referred to as “morning sickness”.

For some, it is relatively mild, coming and going during the first trimester without much fuss. For others, it can be severe, life-changing and traumatic.

But the term “morning sickness” is a misnomer. Findings clearly show nausea and vomiting can occur throughout the day.

A recent and novel study had pregnant women complete a symptom diary for each hour of the day across the first seven weeks of pregnancy. It found while peak symptoms occur in the morning, almost as many women experienced symptoms in the late afternoon or night as did in the morning.

Frequent symptoms of nausea and vomiting can become a significant problem, impacting an individual’s health, wellbeing and ability to perform basic tasks.

Given nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is frequently misunderstood and its effects often underestimated, its incorrect naming contributes to the stigma and lack of effective treatments faced by many women.

The severe impacts of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy

The most severe form of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is called hyperemesis gravidarum and is reported to affect up to 3.6% of pregnant women. Women with hyperemesis gravidarum have severe and persistent symptoms that can make it difficult for them to eat and drink enough. It can lead to weight loss, dehydration, and nutritional deficiencies.

It can also have a big impact on a person’s emotional, mental and physical health. Some people might be too sick to work, look after themselves or others, or complete normal daily activities. The economic and psychosocial effects of this can be profound.

In addition, recent studies report high rates of pregnancy termination, as well as suicidal thoughts, among hyperemesis gravidarum sufferers. This is on top of the range of adverse pregnancy outcomes (such as low birth weight) associated with the condition.

Even when not considered severe enough to constitute hyperemesis gravidarum, nausea and vomiting in pregnancy can still have profound impacts, greatly impacting women’s health, mental wellbeing, work, relationships, quality of life and experience of pregnancy.

The stigma women face

While the significant burden of nausea and vomiting highlights the importance of early and effective treatment, the reality faced by many women paints a different picture. A recent Australian survey found one in four respondents reported being denied medications for treating nausea or hyperemesis.

In part, this could reflect the ongoing hesitancy towards using medications during pregnancy since the thalidomide tragedy in the 1960s. But it also reflects the enduring stigma those experiencing nausea and vomiting in pregnancy face when trying to receive care.

As recently as the early 1900s, the root cause of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy was thought to be psychological. Journal articles referred to “hysteria” as a principal cause of nausea and vomiting, and of individuals manifesting symptoms as a result of being unhappy with their pregnancy or marriage, or seeking attention.

These erroneous beliefs have led to various dismissive and damaging practices resulting in women feeling isolated and unsupported. A 2004 French study reported treating women admitted to hospital for hyperemesis gravidarum by subjecting them to isolation from friends or family to see if they would reveal their “secret desire” for an abortion.

Biologists have argued nausea and vomiting in pregnancy serves a beneficial function to protect mothers and their unborn children from potentially harmful exposures. In part, this is based on evidence those experiencing nausea and vomiting in pregnancy are less likely to have a miscarriage.

While it seems to be accurate that nausea and vomiting in pregnancy has benefits, this argument presents it as a “rite of passage” and something individuals should welcome, while trivialising its associated burden.

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How should nausea and vomiting in pregnancy be defined?

While nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is common, when prolonged it can quickly become a debilitating medical condition. It’s important individuals experiencing nausea and vomiting in pregnancy are listened to and get the treatment they need, rather than being dismissed.

Guidelines often recommend using screening tools which classify individuals as having mild, moderate or severe nausea and vomiting based on responses to three questions about how they have been feeling over the past 24 hours.

While tools like this can be useful to guide or monitor treatment, they can risk causing further harm if used to restrict access to care based on perceived symptom severity. It’s crucial that treatment decisions not be based solely on a number, but rather on a comprehensive evaluation of an individual’s emotional, mental and physical health.

Time to retire the term ‘morning sickness’

A term that incorrectly describes the nature and spectrum of an illness can be expected to further perpetuate stigmas faced by those seeking clinical care. Given it’s well recognised the term is felt by many to downplay the condition, we must ask ourselves why we continue to use the term “morning sickness”.

This description is inaccurate, simplistic, and therefore unhelpful. Referring to the illness by what it is, nausea and vomiting in pregnancy or “NVP”, could reduce stigma and lead to better outcomes for sufferers.

Perhaps more important is recognition that not all nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is experienced equally, and treating it as such risks trivialising the experience of each individual.

Luke Grzeskowiak receives funding from the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, The Hospital Research Foundation and National Health and Medical Research Council.

Hannah Jackson receives an Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend from the University of Technology Sydney.

– ref. Morning sickness doesn’t only occur in the morning. So why do we still call it that? – https://theconversation.com/morning-sickness-doesnt-only-occur-in-the-morning-so-why-do-we-still-call-it-that-219707

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hillier, Professor: Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, University of South Australia

There’s no shortage of apps and technology that claim to shift the brain into a “theta” state – said to help with relaxation, inward focus and sleep.

But what exactly does it mean to change one’s “mental state”? And is that even possible? For now, the evidence remains murky. But our understanding of the brain is growing exponentially as our methods of investigation improve.

Brain-measuring tech is evolving

Currently, no single approach to imaging or measuring brain activity gives us the whole picture. What we “see” in the brain depends on which tool we use to “look”. There are myriad ways to do this, but each one comes with trade-offs.

We learnt a lot about brain activity in the 1980s thanks to the advent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Eventually we invented “functional MRI”, which allows us to link brain activity with certain functions or behaviours in real time by measuring the brain’s use of oxygenated blood during a task.

We can also measure electrical activity using EEG (electroencephalography). This can accurately measure the timing of brain waves as they occur, but isn’t very accurate at identifying which specific areas of the brain they occur in.

Alternatively, we can measure the brain’s response to magnetic stimulation. This is very accurate in terms of area and timing, but only as long as it’s close to the surface.

What are brain states?

All of our simple and complex behaviours, as well as our cognition (thoughts) have a foundation in brain activity, or “neural activity”. Neurons – the brain’s nerve cells – communicate by a sequence of electrical impulses and chemical signals called “neurotransmitters”.

Neurons are very greedy for fuel from the blood and require a lot of support from companion cells. Hence, a lot of measurement of the site, amount and timing of brain activity is done via measuring electrical activity, neurotransmitter levels or blood flow.

We can consider this activity at three levels. The first is a single-cell level, wherein individual neurons communicate. But measurement at this level is difficult (laboratory-based) and provides a limited picture.

As such, we rely more on measurements done on a network level, where a series of neurons or networks are activated. Or, we measure whole-of-brain activity patterns which can incorporate one or more so-called “brain states”.

According to a recent definition, brain states are “recurring activity patterns distributed across the brain that emerge from physiological or cognitive processes”. These states are functionally relevant, which means they are related to behaviour.

Brain states involve the synchronisation of different brain regions, something that’s been most readily observed in animal models, usually rodents. Only now are we starting to see some evidence in human studies.

Various kinds of states

The most commonly-studied brain states in both rodents and humans are states of “arousal” and “resting”. You can picture these as various levels of alertness.

Studies show environmental factors and activity influence our brain states. Activities or environments with high cognitive demands drive “attentional” brain states (so-called task-induced brain states) with increased connectivity. Examples of task-induced brain states include complex behaviours such as reward anticipation, mood, hunger and so on.

In contrast, a brain state such as “mind-wandering” seems to be divorced from one’s environment and tasks. Dropping into daydreaming is, by definition, without connection to the real world.

We can’t currently disentangle multiple “states” that exist in the brain at any given time and place. As mentioned earlier, this is because of the trade-offs that come with recording spatial (brain region) versus temporal (timing) brain activity.

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Brain states vs brain waves

Brain state work can be couched in terms such as alpha, delta and so forth. However, this is actually referring to brain waves which specifically come from measuring brain activity using EEG.

EEG picks up on changing electrical activity in the brain, which can be sorted into different frequencies (based on wavelength). Classically, these frequencies have had specific associations:

• gamma is linked with states or tasks that require more focused concentration
• beta is linked with higher anxiety and more active states, with attention often directed externally
• alpha is linked with being very relaxed, and passive attention (such as listening quietly but not engaging)
• theta is linked with deep relaxation and inward focus
• and delta is linked with deep sleep.

Brain wave patterns are used a lot to monitor sleep stages. When we fall asleep we go from drowsy, light attention that’s easily roused (alpha), to being relaxed and no longer alert (theta), to being deeply asleep (delta).

Can we control our brain states?

The question on many people’s minds is: can we judiciously and intentionally influence our brain states?

For now, it’s likely too simplistic to suggest we can do this, as the actual mechanisms that influence brain states remain hard to detangle. Nonetheless, researchers are investigating everything from the use of drugs, to environmental cues, to practising mindfulness, meditation and sensory manipulation.

Controversially, brain wave patterns are used in something called “neurofeedback” therapy. In these treatments, people are given feedback (such as visual or auditory) based on their brain wave activity and are then tasked with trying to maintain or change it. To stay in a required state they may be encouraged to control their thoughts, relax, or breathe in certain ways.

The applications of this work are predominantly around mental health, including for individuals who have experienced trauma, or who have difficulty self-regulating – which may manifest as poor attention or emotional turbulence.

However, although these techniques have intuitive appeal, they don’t account for the issue of multiple brain states being present at any given time. Overall, clinical studies have been largely inconclusive, and proponents of neurofeedback therapy remain frustrated by a lack of orthodox support.

Other forms of neurofeedback are delivered by MRI-generated data. Participants engaging in mental tasks are given signals based on their neural activity, which they use to try and “up-regulate” (activate) regions of the brain involved in positive emotions. This could, for instance, be useful for helping people with depression.

Another potential method claimed to purportedly change brain states involves different sensory inputs. Binaural beats are perhaps the most popular example, wherein two different wavelengths of sound are played in each ear. But the evidence for such techniques is similarly mixed.

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What are ‘binaural beats’ and do they affect our brain?

Treatments such as neurofeedback therapy are often very costly, and their success likely relies as much on the therapeutic relationship than the actual therapy.

On the bright side, there’s no evidence these treatment do any harm – other than potentially delaying treatments which have been proven to be beneficial.

Susan Hillier receives funding from Medical Research Future Fund/NHMRC.

– ref. Alpha, beta, theta: what are brain states and brain waves? And can we control them? – https://theconversation.com/alpha-beta-theta-what-are-brain-states-and-brain-waves-and-can-we-control-them-219236

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hanne E F Nielsen, Senior lecturer, University of Tasmania

Antarctica is often imagined as the last untouched wilderness. Unfortunately, avian influenza (“bird flu”) is encroaching on the icy continent. The virus has already reached the sub-Antarctic islands between the Antarctic Peninsula and South America. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches the Antarctic continent.

So far avian influenza has been detected in several seabird species on South Georgia Island and the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands. These birds are known to travel to Antarctica. Researchers also suspect avian influenza caused mass deaths of southern elephant seals.

The arrival of avian influenza in Antarctica could have potentially catastrophic consequences for the wildlife, decimating large populations.

Antarctic avian influenza outbreaks may also disrupt tourism and research activities during the busy summer season. So what can we do during this challenging time?

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The bird flu pandemic

We are in the midst of a “panzootic” – a large-scale pandemic of avian influenza, which is occurring across the world and has affected more than 200 species of wild birds.

While this strain of avian influenza (H5N1) is an old foe, the genetics and epidemiology of the virus have shifted. Once mostly found in poultry, it is now infecting large numbers of wild birds. Migrating birds have spread the virus with substantial outbreaks now occurring in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America.

Avian influenza has devastated seabird populations around the world, including a 70% reduction of northern gannets on Bass Rock in the United Kingdom. Many birds are diseased, with signs including loss of coordination, watery eyes, head twisting, breathing distress or lethargy.

Beyond birds, this virus may have killed more than 30,000 South American sea lions and over 2,500 southern elephant seal pups in South America. In South Georgia mass deaths have been observed in elephant seal pups but the virus was not detected in samples sent for laboratory tests.

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Bird flu moving further south

The first detection of avian influenza near Antarctica occurred in early October on Bird Island, South Georgia, in brown skuas (seabirds similar to large gulls).

A case on the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands was confirmed a few weeks later in another seabird species, the southern fulmar.

Genetic analysis revealed the virus entered these regions on two separate occasions.

Skuas and kelp gulls were highlighted as species most likely to spread the virus to the Antarctic continent in a recent risk assessment, as they travel into the region from South America. They are also highly susceptible to avian influenza, with related species in the Northern Hemisphere suffering losses of more than 60%.

What does this mean for Antarctica?

The Antarctic Peninsula, with its ice-free areas, is an important breeding ground for many key Antarctic species.

Critically, those species – and others, including the iconic Emperor penguin – live in dense colonies and are not found elsewhere in the world, making them particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks.

Outbreaks on the Antarctic Peninsula will also be extremely disruptive to the tourism industry. More than 104,000 people visited as tourists in the 2022–23 season. People visit to see wildlife, make a continental landing, and enjoy the scenery.

Once avian influenza is confirmed at a particular location, sites will be closed to tourists. This will lead to a different experience for visitors, with land-based wildlife encounters pivoting to cruise-based activities.

What are we doing?

The Antarctic Wildlife Health Network of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research has developed recommendations for the research and tourism communities.

These recommendations include information around biosecurity, testing and reporting of cases. The network’s database collates information on suspected and confirmed cases of the H5N1 avian influenza strain in the Antarctic region. This is central to rapid data sharing.

During the 2022–23 season, a small number of researchers tested suspected cases and conducted surveys, which excluded the presence of avian influenza.

This year, through the generosity of industry partners, we will dramatically expand this effort. The network will conduct surveys across the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic to monitor the presence and impact of the virus on wildlife.

Safety and biosecurity measures have been boosted across the scientific community and tourism industry to reduce the risk of people spreading the virus. This should ensure essential scientific research and tourism activities can continue safely.

New measures now in place include:

• disinfection of boots and outer clothing
• wearing of N95 masks, protective glasses and gloves when working with wildlife
• restrictions on access to infected sites.

Tourism can play an important role in detecting and monitoring the spread of the virus, alerting authorities to new cases in locations not visited by scientists.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators is on high alert. Extra training for field staff will help them identify wildlife illness quickly.

Antarctica is connected

Many threats to Antarctica – including climate change, pollution, and pathogens – originate elsewhere. Climate change is expected to increase the spread of infectious diseases in wildlife and Antarctica is not immune.

Disease surveillance and information sharing between all those active in the far south are vital to help minimise the impacts of avian influenza and future disease threats.

The avian influenza example highlights the connectivity of our world, and why we need to care for the planet at home in order to protect the far south.

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Hanne E F Nielsen receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Linkage partner organisation Intrepid Travel, the Dutch Research Council, and the Australian Antarctic Division. Hurtigruten Australia provides in-kind support for fieldwork.

Michelle Wille has an honorary appointment with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza.

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

– ref. Avian influenza has killed millions of seabirds around the world: Antarctica could be next – https://theconversation.com/avian-influenza-has-killed-millions-of-seabirds-around-the-world-antarctica-could-be-next-216738

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland

Painful periods are common. More than half of people who menstruate have some pain for up to three days a month, typically throbbing or cramping in the lower abdomen.

Digestive changes – such as vomiting, gas, bloating, diarrhoea and a “bubbling gut” – are also common around the time of menstruation.

There are many treatments for period pain (known medically as dysmenorrhoea). Not all these treatments are well-tolerated or work for everyone.

We’re learning more about food’s role in influencing inflammation in our body. So, could eating or avoiding certain foods help with painful periods? Here’s what we know based on high-quality research.

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Foods that may relieve period pain or cramps

Foods containing omega-3 fatty acids

Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids include chia seeds, walnuts, flaxseeds, salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel, oysters and edamame beans. Omega-3 fatty acids are naturally present in oils including fish, cod liver, algal, krill, flaxseed (linseed), soybean and canola oils.

Omega-3 fatty acids affect how our cells function and the signalling pathways associated with inflammation and pain.

Earlier this year, researchers published a meta-analysis where they combined and analysed all data available on the impact of omega-3 fatty acids on period pain. They found diets high in omega-3 fatty acids (including supplements of 300-1,800 milligrams a day) over two to three months may reduce pain, and pain medication use, in people with painful periods.

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Foods high in vitamin D

Foods high in vitamin D include trout, salmon, tuna and mackerel, as well as fish liver oils. Small amounts are also found in beef liver, egg yolk and cheese. Mushrooms contain varying levels of vitamin D, and you can boost this by exposing them to direct midday sunlight for 15-120 minutes.

The body can make vitamin D when it gets sunlight exposure and you can also get vitamin D from supplements.

Vitamin D may help reduce the factors that cause inflammation in the uterus. This includes levels of hormone-like molecules called prostaglandins.

A 2023 meta-analysis showed women who received weekly doses of vitamin D greater than 50,000 IU (or international units) had relief from period pain, regardless of how long and how often women took the vitamin.

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Foods high in vitamin E

Foods rich in vitamin E include seeds (particularly sunflower seeds), nuts (particularly almonds, hazelnuts and peanuts) and spinach, broccoli, kiwifruit, mango and tomato.

There is some evidence vitamin E supplements reduce period pain. In a well-conducted trial run over the course of four periods, women took vitamin E supplements (90 milligrams, twice a day) for five days, beginning two days before the expected start of the period. This significantly reduced the severity and duration of period pain.

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Foods that may worsen period pain or cramps

Highly processed foods

Highly processed foods include energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods such as takeaways, chips, biscuits, doughnuts, processed meats and soft drinks.

Research findings on the impact of a diet high in processed foods on period pain vary. A 2022 review found sugar consumption had little association with painful periods.

However, some observational studies (which do not involve an intervention) suggest women who eat more processed foods may have more intense period pain. For example, a 2009 study found adolescent females who ate fast or processed foods for two days or more a week reported more period pain compared with those who did not. Therefore, eating less processed food may be something to consider.

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Caffeine

Foods high in caffeine include coffee, energy drinks and some processed energy bars. Caffeine intake is associated with menstrual pain.

Although we don’t know the precise underlying mechanism, researchers think caffeine may narrow blood vessels, which limits blood flow, leading to stronger cramps.

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Alcohol

Drinking alcohol is not a recognised risk factor for painful periods. However, chronic heavy alcohol use reduces levels of magnesium in the blood. Magnesium is an important factor in relaxing muscles and supporting blood flow.

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A healthy, balanced diet is your best best

Having a healthy, balanced diet is one of the best ways we can support our own health and prevent future chronic conditions. This can help reduce inflammation in our bodies, thought to be the main way diet can help people with painful periods.

If you are looking for tailored dietary advice or a menstrual health meal plan, speak with an accredited practising dietitian.

It’s important to stress, however, that diet alone cannot treat all forms of menstrual pain. So if you are concerned about your painful periods, check in with your GP who can discuss your options.

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9 signs you have inflammation in your body. Could an anti-inflammatory diet help?

Lauren Ball works for The University of Queensland and receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Queensland Health and Mater Misericordia. She is a Director of Dietitians Australia, a Director of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network and an Associate Member of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Emily Burch is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and member of Dietitians Australia. She works for Southern Cross University.

Pui Ting Wong is a PhD Candidate at The University Queensland (UQ) Centre for Community Health and Wellbeing, and receives the UQ Tuition Fee Offset and Stipend Scholarship. She is also an Accredited Practising Dietitian and a member of Dietitians Australia.

– ref. Got period pain or cramps? What to eat and avoid, according to science – https://theconversation.com/got-period-pain-or-cramps-what-to-eat-and-avoid-according-to-science-218344

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

As part of its coalition deal with National, the ACT Party is preparing to resurrect its “regulatory responsibility” legislation for the fourth time. This is despite the idea having been consistently rejected since 2007.

As ACT’s coalition partners decide whether to allow its Regulatory Standards Bill to succeed this time, they need to reflect on that historical context.

ACT’s definition of “regulation” goes beyond parliamentary laws to include all forms of regulation at all levels of government. Its bill requires new (and eventually all) such regulation to adhere to principles and processes, also defined by ACT. It would also allow the courts to issue declarations of non-compliance.

The proposal is an extension of the neoliberal rhetoric of “best practice regulation”, including regulatory impact assessments and statements, which has become embedded in government practice since the 1990s. It has been endorsed by both National-led and Labour-led governments.

The 1999-2008 Labour government embraced the notion of “risk-tolerant regulation”. Essentially a market-based approach, it spanned a spectrum from no regulation or self-regulation to co-regulation with government. Hands-on regulation was a last resort.

This minimalist approach assumed businesses would honestly and rigorously monitor themselves, and report on their compliance based on those loosely framed principles. Government agencies, meanwhile, would limit regulation based on risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses.

The risk side has carried a high price over the past 30 years. Light-handed regulation or self-regulation helped deliver the leaky buildings crisis, the Pike River mine tragedy, workplace deaths in forestry and on farms, finance company collapses, unsafe aged care and dangerous adventure tourism, among other failures.

A brief history of ‘meta-regulation’

The origins of ACT’s latest push for regulatory reform lie as far back as the 1980s and 1990s, when the Labour finance minister, Roger Douglas, and his National Party successor, Ruth Richardson, ushered in core pieces of legislation: the Reserve Bank Act 1989, State Sector Act 1988, Public Finance Act 1989 and Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994.

A Regulatory Responsibility Act was the missing piece. In my 2015 book The FIRE Economy, I explained its significance as “meta-regulation”. In effect, it was designed to regulate the way governments regulate. It institutionalised a pro-corporate approach of self-regulation, light-handed regulation, or no regulation at all.

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The neoliberal Business Roundtable think tank (now the New Zealand Initiative) began pushing the idea of an “economic constitution” in the early 1990s. A 2001 report for the Roundtable by former Treasury director Bryce Wilkinson, titled Constraining Government Regulation, contained a draft Regulatory Responsibility Bill.

This required all future laws and regulations to comply with a selective list of libertarian principles. These encompassed aspects of the rule of law, protection of individual liberties and property rights, and restrictions on the imposition of taxes and charges.

It also sought to embed “good law-making processes”, including cost-benefit analyses and prioritising non-regulatory options. Public entities would have to review their relevant laws for compatibility with the principles.

Significantly, it also empowered the courts to review legislation. Individuals could ask the courts to declare that new laws breached these regulatory standards, and after ten years could seek a judicial declaration on pre-existing laws.

The bill that wouldn’t die

ACT adopted the Roundtable’s draft bill, which was drawn from the ballot in the name of party leader Roger Douglas after the 2006 election. (Douglas had by then left the Labour Party to co-found ACT in 1993.)

Labour blocked the bill at the select committee stage. But the committee’s report created a platform in 2009 for new ACT leader Rodney Hide, then in government as minister for regulatory reform, to set up a Regulatory Responsibility Taskforce to advance the bill.

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A renamed Regulatory Standards Bill was introduced in 2011. Constitutional experts attacked its selective principles, and objected that judicial declarations of non-compliance with those principles would potentially involve judges in making political decisions.

The bill was also silent on Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi. The Legislative Advisory Committee opposed it. And the Treasury used the same regulatory impact process ACT’s bill championed to oppose it.

Arguing the bill lacked necessary broad-based support, and that compliance costs would exceed benefits, Treasury favoured the alternative of strengthening the parliamentary review process.

The third attempt to introduce the bill, by ACT leader David Seymour in 2021, fell at the first reading, although National (by then in opposition) supported it.

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Time to draw a line

Considering this history, it is likely the same grounds for opposing ACT’s regulatory responsibility campaign will be rehearsed in select committee once again.

The potentially significant budgetary impacts of a proposed ministry of regulation, reviews and repeals of existing regulation and revisions of the current regulatory toolkit are also uncosted (despite ACT’s insistence on “fiscal responsibility”).

There is some irony, too, in ACT’s election promise to rein in “knee-jerk, populist laws”. The coalition government is implementing its 100-day plan with little pretence of “good regulatory” process, or even select committee hearings.

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Already, the dual Reserve Bank objectives, fair pay agreements, smoke-free and employment laws – which all originally went through the regulatory impact assessment and statement process – have been repealed under urgency.

The government has also refused to release a draft regulatory impact statement for its bill to repeal the Clean Car Discount Act (which has implications for New Zealand’s ability to achieve its climate goals) until after parliament votes.

ACT’s Regulatory Standards Bill may yet meet trenchant and terminal opposition again. But perhaps its introduction will lead to a broader revisiting of the neoliberal model of “meta-regulation”, and how it has served Aotearoa New Zealand over the past 40 years.

Jane Kelsey received a Marsden Fund grant in 2009 to examine embedded neoliberalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, including the neoliberal regulatory regime and the Regulatory Responsibility Bill.

– ref. ACT’s attempt at regulatory reform in NZ has failed 3 times already – what’s different now? – https://theconversation.com/acts-attempt-at-regulatory-reform-in-nz-has-failed-3-times-already-whats-different-now-220140

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Woodman, TR Ashworth Professor in Sociology, The University of Melbourne

Much has been made of the increasing presence of the “bank of mum and dad” in the lives of Australians.

We know financial support from parents to adult children is increasingly used for entering the housing market.

But our new research shows parents are also helping their young adult children in other ways, including with meeting everyday expenses. We’ve gained new insights into who is receiving support from parents and what it’s used for.

So what does this look like in practice, and what does it mean for intergenerational inequality in Australia?

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Parental financial support becoming commonplace

We have surveyed a diverse group of young Australians for almost 18 years, since they were in year 12 in 2006. This has allowed us to follow the trajectory of a cohort of millennials as they have transitioned to adulthood.

One of the areas we ask about is their sources of financial support. This includes their own income, savings and investments, and government support, but also gifts, loans and other transfers from their family.

Our findings show that financial support from family – typically parents – has become important for this generation well into young adulthood.

This support from family was very common for our participants when they were in their late teens. Perhaps more surprisingly, for many this support continued into their 20s and, for a significant minority, into their late 20s and beyond.

So is it only rich parents providing this assistance? Turns out, not really. Our results show young adults from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds get financial help.

Surprisingly, the educational level and occupation status of their parents did not predict whether our participants were receiving support. Parents with higher education and in managerial or professional careers are providing financial help. But so too are parents of more modest means, even if the amount of support they can provide clearly differs.

It’s not just about houses

Our participants are using this support to pay basic expenses.

One in five 32-year-olds in our study report struggling to pay for three or more basic expenses (we ask about food, rent or mortgage repayments, house bills and healthcare costs). These young adults are three times more likely than those not facing this struggle to report receiving financial support from their family.

These gifts and loans are also used to support parenting, and to support those working part-time out of choice or necessity.

Some of our participants working part-time in their late 20s and early 30s are not in such a precarious position. They are receiving parental support while they pursue graduate study in medicine or law, for example.

So while some are using support to meet day-to-day needs, we also see parents helping their children “get ahead”.

Financial support is also used to pursue extended education and manage a period of insecure and poorly paid employment on the way to more secure and well-paid careers in medicine, academia or journalism.

This intergenerational support has social ramifications that go beyond buying property. Our research suggests it also shapes education pathways, employment, parenting, and potentially general wellbeing.

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How well off you are depends on who you are. Comparing the lives of Australia’s Millennials, Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers

An outsized role for the bank of mum and dad

Our results are an example of just how much life has changed in Australia. The growing challenges of cost of living and the effects of a booming housing market over many decades are changing the dynamics of inequality.

Most of the parents’ generation of the young people we have tracked are part of the Baby Boomer cohort. While there is substantial economic inequality within it, overall, this group benefited from the housing and other asset booms over recent decades.

Many parents are using this foundation to help their children well beyond their teenage years. Of course, wealthy parents might find it easier to provide this support but are not the only parents providing it. For less wealthy parents, this might potentially change their plans for their own future and retirement.

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Previous research has highlighted that the bank of mum and dad is becoming crucial for buying a house and that this might exacerbate and entrench inequality for future generations.

Our work suggests it goes beyond housing. Parents are helping combat financial insecurity for their young adult children across the board. Our data shows this widespread insecurity emerged before the current cost-of-living crisis, but current conditions are going to exacerbate it.

So we need to ask whether we want the bank of mum and dad to continue to play an ever-growing role in life chances in Australia. Based on our research, that change is already underway.

Dan Woodman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Julia Cook receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Quentin Maire 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 appointments.

– ref. It’s not just housing: the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is increasingly helping fund the lives of young Australians – https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-housing-the-bank-of-mum-and-dad-is-increasingly-helping-fund-the-lives-of-young-australians-219966

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antonia Finnane, Professor (honorary), The University of Melbourne

Christmas is coming to Taipei and the city is at least partially decked out for the season. In Muzha, on the city’s outskirts, the Catholic church has set up a nativity scene. There is as yet no baby in the manger and the scene looks rather forlorn. That’s somehow appropriate for Taiwan, where there is a dearth of actual babies in cradles.

Over the road from the church are two pet-grooming shops, testimony to the changing composition of Taiwanese households. There are more registered cats and dogs in Taiwan than there are children under ten. As the country heads towards its eighth presidential election, to be held on January 13 2024, it is hitting a new low in births per year.

Taiwan’s fertility rate is one of many things on the minds of the three presidential candidates: front-runner Vice President Lai Ching-te, the candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); close rival Hou Yu-ih, running for the once all-powerful KMT; and Ko Wen-je, candidate for Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the latest of a series of minor parties to make a splash in the country’s lively electoral landscape.

Ko is a populist who offers disaffected youth an alternative to the two large parties. He effectively politicised the fertility rate when he called a press conference on November 7 specifically to discuss responses to the declining birth rate.

Apart from announcing his own ten-point plan, notable for its novel pregnancy bonus, he took the opportunity to wax sarcastic about Hou’s planned third-child bonus and to attack Lai’s record on related policies.

In response, Lai’s team drew attention to Ko’s long history of misogynistic statements such as “unmarried women are like disabled parking spaces” and “[unmarried women] are causing instability and a national security crisis”.

Read more:
With Taiwan’s election just a month away, the China threat looms large

In fact, all candidates take the problem of the falling birth rate seriously. For three years now, deaths have exceeded births in Taiwan. Only immigration is preventing a real decline in population.

The policies the candidates offer vary more in detail than in substance: the particular amounts of money differ, as do the circumstances under which the money is paid. But in the end, their policies all amount to throwing money at the problem.

A long-term problem in Taiwan

The fertility crisis has long been a matter of concern in Taiwan. In a perfect illustration of “be careful of what you wish for”, early population planning targets set by the then-dominant KMT were met and then exceeded in the 1980s. The fertility rate dropped below replacement level in 1983 and has never recovered.

It was identified as an issue of national security in Taiwan’s first national security report, issued in 2006. Since then the issue has been consistently in the news, local and international. It is associated with several negative economic and social indicators: the gradual increase in the burden of the national debt on each individual; the weakening of domestic demand; the reduced supply of labour; the problem of aged care in a super-aged society.

For all these reasons, politicians take the problem seriously. Nonetheless, the fertility rate is a slow burner in Taiwanese politics – it lacks the immediacy of cross-strait relations, widely held to be the main issue in the current political contest.

But there is a meeting point between the two issues. Already many fewer young men are available for military service in Taiwan than there were a decade ago. The air force in particular is low on trained personnel and its fighter pilots are exhausted from the constant need to respond to Chinese jets crossing into Taiwanese air space.

This problem is only to some degree balanced by a parallel problem in China, where the fertility rate (1.45 in 2022) is also in precipitate decline.

On neither side of the Taiwan Strait does anyone have good ideas about how to reverse the fall. Candidates for the election in Taiwan all promise potential parents enhanced financial support while no doubt fully aware of the limited effects of such measures on fertility choices.

In China, President Xi Jinping’s advice to women that they should “play their role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation” seems even less likely to yield results.

So why are so few people having babies?

Young women in Taiwan tend to explain their preference for pets over babies in terms of financial pressures, particularly the cost of housing. Housing is recognised as a serious problem in Taiwan and all contenders for the presidency are promising to help with housing for couples with children.

But in a society where having children is normatively associated with marriage, being married is generally a prerequisite for enjoying even existing benefits. The fertility rate for married couples in Taiwan is reasonably high, two children being standard. The key question appears not to be why don’t women have children? The question is why don’t women get married?

In Taiwan, as in much of East Asia, marriage avoidance has become a marked phenomenon. In 2021, a mere 50% of young Taiwanese between the ages of 25 and 34 were married.

Of the unmarried group, 70% of the men wanted to get married at some future date. A majority of the unmarried women had no such intention. Similarly, many more unmarried men (61.22%) than unmarried women (42.98%) wanted eventually to have children.

Since housing and raising children are costs for men as well as for women, there is presumably something more to the falling birth rate than simply the financial pressure.

Read more:
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Analysing the uniformly low and falling birth rates across East Asia, Yen-hsin Alice Cheng argues the problem is grounded in the Confucian cultural bedrock of the region. Family and society are rigidly patriarchal. Workplace organisation and wider societal structures are unfavourable to women.

Historical sex ratios at birth reflect, to varying degrees, a default preference for sons, Japan offering the only exception. Government initiatives frequently land on infertile ground, a phenomenon most notable in South Korea where only a small minority of women and a tiny percentage of men have taken advantage of extremely generous parental leave schemes aimed at arresting the declining birth rate.

In this East Asian mix, Taiwan has a more progressive society than China and a less rigid patriarchy than South Korea. It has high numbers of women participating in politics. Voter turnout among women is large, and the current president is a woman: the redoubtable Tsai Ing-wen. Women in leadership at local level – the all-important position of mayor – outnumber men. The sex ratio at birth has been skewed in recent history but now seems to have settled into a “within normal” range.

Given the relative advantages women enjoy in Taiwan, especially relative to South Korea, it is worth pondering the possible variables for its particularly low birth rate. In a comparative study of mental health in Ukraine, Poland and Taiwan during the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian war, researchers found post-traumatic stress effects among Taiwan respondents were only slightly lower than in Ukraine, with female gender a significant risk factor. Vicarious experience of the war, predicated on the anticipation of conflict in their own country, appears to have prompted a high degree of anxiety in Taiwan.

This finding raises the question of whether, in addition to other social forces informing their life choices, Taiwanese live with an undercurrent of concern about the future of their country. If so, the crisis of national security constituted by the declining birthrate would seem to be part of a vicious cycle, where a lack of security in geopolitical terms is informing decisions about whether or not to marry and have children.

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

– ref. Why Taiwan’s falling birth rate has become a national security issue – https://theconversation.com/why-taiwans-falling-birth-rate-has-become-a-national-security-issue-219968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Baillie, Professor of Allied Health, University of Sydney

EG.5 or the Eris COVID variant is dominant in parts of Australia. Eris, along with other circulating strains, are descendants of Omicron.

While these strains appear less severe than the original Alpha and Delta variants, the risk of long COVID remains.

So what does the latest data say about the chance of long COVID? What symptoms should you look out for? And what can be done to support people with long COVID?

Read more:
We’re in a new COVID wave. What can we expect this time?

When COVID becomes ‘long COVID’

For most people, long COVID means not getting better after a COVID infection.

The World Health Organization defines long COVID as continuing or new symptoms at least three months from the start of a COVID infection that last at least two months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis.

The most common symptoms include fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness, headaches and abdominal pain. But people with long COVID can experience a wide range of problems including cardiovascular issues, mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, insomnia, muscle and joint pain, and gastrointestinal problems.

How common is long COVID?

Australian data on long COVID remains limited compared to international data, and estimates of its prevalence have varied. A report from Australia’s parliamentary inquiry into long COVID, published in April, suggested 2%-20% of people may develop long COVID following an infection.

A recent Australian study conducted when vaccines were widely available indicates earlier Omicron variants saw 10% of people who caught COVID develop long COVID.

Another recent study, yet to be peer-reviewed, found 18.2% of those infected went on to have long COVID. The wide-ranging estimates are likely to be because of different COVID variants, differences in vaccination, and different long COVID definitions and assessment methods.

The risk is lower in children. One Australian study indicated persistent symptoms in 8% of children who had COVID in 2020, while preliminary research points to a slightly lower risk among children infected in 2021.

But more research is needed, especially as the virus continues to evolve. This can be complicated because typical long COVID symptoms are common to many other health problems. As in other countries, more research is now underway in Australia to determine the accurate prevalence of the condition using a definition and methods that carefully exclude other causes.

Although research on long COVID risk factors with new variants is ongoing, we expect being female, having more severe initial disease and having other health conditions will increase a person’s chance of getting long COVID.

What’s different this time?

Research shows COVID vaccines offer protection against long COVID. As well as vaccinations, immunity from previous COVID infections and antiviral treatments are contributing to less severe COVID and potentially less long COVID than we saw earlier in the pandemic.

But while the Omicron waves may lead to fewer cases of long COVID than the earlier Alpha and Delta variants, because so many Australians are contracting COVID, this will still result in a large number of people with long COVID. And each repeat infection presents a new risk of prolonged symptoms.

Long COVID can affect all aspects of life

Long COVID can impact a person’s life in many ways. Fatigue following exertion, brain fog and other symptoms can reduce capacity to perform tasks such as concentrating at a computer, manual labour, and even normal household tasks.

Many people with long COVID submitted evidence to the recent parliamentary inquiry that they were unsupported, stigmatised, isolated, and not taken seriously by health professionals.

Evidence suggests many symptoms will improve in most people over 12 to 18 months, although recovery time can differ between symptoms. Some, including gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, tend to resolve sooner than others, such as cognitive symptoms.

I think I have long COVID, what can I expect from my doctor?

Long COVID is the kind of challenge Australia’s health system finds most difficult. GPs are stretched and the small number of specialist long COVID clinics are struggling to maintain funding.

Australia has trailed behind the US, the UK and Europe in rolling out care for long COVID, and in collecting data on the condition.

As a result, support for long COVID in Australia is hard to access, expensive and patchy.

However, there is consensus on what constitutes good care. Clinicians seeing patients with possible long COVID should:

• validate the person’s experience of symptoms and the impact their symptoms are having on their functioning, particularly when the cause is not clear

• diagnose and treat any other health conditions that are part of the picture

• support people to minimise the impairment their symptoms cause by pacing of physical and cognitive activities. Importantly, this doesn’t involve pushing through fatigue.

These steps are not a cure but they may improve a person’s ability to function in their day-to-day life, at work and to fulfil their caring responsibilities.

We still need to focus on reducing COVID transmission

The best way to prevent long COVID is to avoid contracting – and spreading – COVID. This means:

• getting vaccinated or boosted, if you’re eligible

• staying home if you feel unwell

• wearing a mask to protect yourself and vulnerable community members

• testing for COVID if you have symptoms and if you test positive, taking antivirals (if eligible) and isolating until your symptoms resolve.

Long COVID is not going away, but we all have a role to play in preventing and responding to it.

Read more:
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Ruby Biezen from the APPRISE Network and the University of Melbourne and Andrew Lloyd from the Kirby Institute at UNSW contributed to this article.

Andrew Baillie is a Conjoint Professor of Allied Health at Sydney Local Health District, a Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and a Fellow of the Clinical College of the APS.

Amelia Gulliver is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Research, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, ANU College of Health & Medicine, and has lived experience of Long COVID.

Lena Sanci is the co-lead of the APPRISE initiative which has received commonwealth funding. She is the Chief GP advisor for the state department of health and the president of the Australasian School Based Health Association.

Lucette Cysique is a Senior Research Fellow based at the Kirby Institute, UNSW, and manages the DoHAC-funded APPRISE Long COVID initiative. Lucette Cysique receives support from the Peter Duncan Neuroscience Unit at the St. Vincent’s Applied Medical Research Centre which contributed to her involvement in the neurological substudy of the St. Vincent’s Hospital COVID-19 ADAPT study.

Philip Britton is Conjoint Associate Professor in Child Health at the University of Sydney. He has received funding from the NHMRC, MRFF and Royal Australasian College of Physicians

– ref. I have COVID. How likely am I to get long COVID? – https://theconversation.com/i-have-covid-how-likely-am-i-to-get-long-covid-218808

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Lau, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, James Cook University

If we want to understand the future, it’s often useful to look at the past. And even more useful if you use octopus DNA to peer into worlds long gone.

About 125,000 years ago, the Earth was in its last warm period between ice ages. Global average temperatures during this interglacial period were about 0.5–1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

This has strong parallels with our time. For a third of 2023, the Earth’s temperature has been 1.5°C warmer than the pre-industrial era, driven by climate change.

For almost 50 years physical scientists have sought the answer to whether or not the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed the last time global temperatures were this high. Rather than relying only on geological sampling, we turned to the DNA of a small Antarctic octopus for clues to the deep past.

The DNA had an answer. Our new research shows yes, it most likely collapsed.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is very susceptible to warming. If it melts, it has enough water to raise global sea levels by 3.3 to 5 metres.

Of octopuses and giant ice sheets

Sediment records and other ice cores show us that the ice sheet retreated at some point during the last ~1 million years in the late Pleistocene, but the exact timing and extent of any collapse remain ambiguous.

To get a more precise answer, we looked to cephalopod genetics.

Every organism’s DNA is a history book, and we now have the technology to read it. We can use DNA to look back in time and pinpoint when different populations of animals were interbreeding.

Turquet’s octopus (Pareledone turqueti) is fairly small, weighing up to 600 grams. They live on the seafloor all around Antarctica, but individuals don’t move far from home. Antarctica is so vast that populations in different regions cannot usually interbreed.

Deep under West Antarctica lies gaps in the rocks. At present, these are filled by the ice sheet, making the Weddell, Amundsen and Ross seas separate from each other.

If the ice melted, seaways would open up and connect these isolated basins. Octopuses could directly migrate into these regions and the evidence of their breeding would be laid down in DNA.

But if the ice sheet didn’t melt, we would only see evidence of breeding between octopus populations along the circumference of the continent.

We compared DNA patterns in Turquet octopus genomes all around Antarctica to see if there were direct and unique connections between octopus populations in the Weddell, Amundsen and Ross seas. We used statistical models to figure out if these connections could be explained by their present day connections around the Antarctic coastline.

Read more:
We can still prevent the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet – if we act fast to keep future warming in check

The story was clear in the DNA: yes, there had been direct connections between these three octopus populations. Their connections could not be statistically explained by interbreeding around the present day Antarctic coastline. These populations could only come into contact through seaways now blocked by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Even more interesting, we first found direct connections between the three populations during the mid-Pliocene, 3 million to 3.6 million years ago when temperatures were 2–3°C hotter and sea levels 25m higher than today. This supports existing geological evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed during that era.

The most recent DNA signatures of direct connections between the octopuses of these three seas was during the last interglacial period around 125,000 years ago. That suggests the ice sheet collapsed when the global average temperature was around 1.5°C hotter than pre-industrial levels.

Our work provides the first empirical evidence the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could begin to collapse if we exceed the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C.

This discovery took effort across disciplines and countries

To use animal DNA as a proxy for changes in the ice sheet, we had to work across disciplines and countries. Bringing together physical scientists and biologists gave rise to new ways to answer long standing questions of vital importance to all of us.

We also turned to museum collections for samples. Some dated back three decades – well before the genetic sequencing and analytical techniques we used were available. This demonstrates the vital importance of careful sample preservation, linked with metadata, with specimens protected for future access.

Interdisciplinary science is hard. It requires time, effort, and an open mind to appreciate new terminologies, scales and approaches. Journal editors and scientists can be reluctant to review such papers, as some aspects of the research will necessarily be outside the area of their expertise. But we hope our results show the value of this approach.

What’s next?

We hope to continue using DNA as a proxy to explore other parts of Antarctica with poorly understood climate histories.

There is a wealth of information on Antarctica’s recent and distant past also hidden in other types of biological data in moss beds and peat profiles, vertebrate animal colonies and living terrestrial and marine invertebrates. To date, very few of these biological archives have been brought into our understanding of Antarctica’s past climates.

As the world heats up at an unprecedented rate, we need to use these types of approaches to understand what else is likely to happen down on the ice.

Read more:
Increasing melting of West Antarctic ice shelves may be unavoidable – new research

Sally Lau receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Jan Strugnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), the Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment through the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) and the Queensland Government through the Queensland Citizen Science Grants.

Nerida Wilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), Interact for Change and the Morris Animal Foundation (Wild Genomes).

– ref. What octopus DNA tells us about Antarctic ice sheet collapse – https://theconversation.com/what-octopus-dna-tells-us-about-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-218810

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Fox, Lecturer, Monash University

Earlier this month, a Senate inquiry recommended Australian students get specific lessons in how to behave.

Following concerns about increasing levels of disruptive behaviour in Australian schools at both primary and high school levels, the inquiry wants to see:

the explicit teaching of behaviour [as a] vital component of the Australian Curriculum.

This would mean behaviour would be part of the curriculum just like English, maths and science. Is this a good idea? What might it involve?

Read more:
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What was recommended?

The Liberal-chaired Senate’s education committee has been looking at school behaviour this year. In December, it released an interim report (a final report is due in February).

It recommended a behaviour curriculum

to help students understand their school’s behavioural expectations and values.

This would be for students from the first year of schooling to Year 10. It would be developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (which develops the existing curriculum and also administers NAPLAN testing).

What could we see in a behaviour curriculum?

The Senate committee explained the intent behind a behaviour curriculum is not to “dictate a list of unwanted behaviours” but

represent the essential habits and routines that are conducive to learning in a school environment.

Learning routines and school values can be the glue holding effective teaching and learning in place.

Learning routines are the processes students engage in across the school day, such as entering and exiting the class, getting started on independent work and participating in whole-class activities and teaching.

A behaviour curriculum could describe the routines necessary to support classroom success. It could also include more detail about the specific skills or steps making up a broader routine. For example, arriving at class before the lesson start time and with the required learning materials is a routine comprised of multiple smaller skills that can be supported and developed.

Values like “respect” or “responsibility” are abstract concepts. Students can potentially have very different ideas and experiences of a value may look or sound like.

A behaviour curriculum could also provide teachers with clear language to define these along with and concrete examples to help teach them within the normal routines of the classroom.

Potential benefits

Teachers told the Senate inquiry about having problems with too much talking and not enough listening in class and students not showing respect to teachers and peers.

Establishing clear and consistent routines in class has been shown to reduce disruption and enhance learning.

So far, Australian teachers do not have a clear breakdown of these routines as well as how to teach, prompt and provide positive feedback to students for engaging in these routines. A curriculum could help with this.

A behaviour curriculum could also help teachers see behavioural skills are teachable skills like academic skills. That means they are something students can be taught and learn, using evidence-based approaches.

A behaviour curriculum could also promote consistency. Teachers and school leaders (including principals) could use a behaviour curriculum to identify key values, routines and underlying skills to be taught across the school. This could reduce the pressure on individual teachers and support shared planning and resourcing.

A behaviour curriculum may also support teachers to identify and address underlying challenges or causes of disruptive behaviour. For example, disruptive behaviour may indicate a task is too hard and a student needs more academic support as and teaching to enhance their communication skills.

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Potential risks

There is a risk a behaviour curriculum will end up presenting a simple solution to a very complex problem.

It could also present an overly narrow view of what student “behavioural success” can look like in class. It is possible descriptions of routines and how to teach them may not match the needs of students with disability, additional learning support needs, or diverse cultural or linguistic backgrounds.

For example, making eye contact with a speaker could negatively effect an autistic student’s ability to engage with the learning.

There is also a risk a behaviour curriculum could end up being used as a list of rules or expectations used to discipline students, rather than guide teachers to teach skills that support learners to succeed.

While students need to comply with rules and expectations in a classroom, research shows positive approaches (such as those that build students’ social and behaviour skills and focus on positive reinforcement) are more effective than disciplinary measures.

We also need more than a behaviour curriculum

A behaviour curriculum must serve students first. It should ultimately help teachers build students’ skills that enable them to succeed with their learning, work effectively with their peers and develop as independent citizens.

But even a well-developed behaviour curriculum will not fix disruptive classrooms on its own.

It needs to be implemented alongside school-wide approaches that support teachers to deliver evidence-based academic and social learning in their classrooms.

This way, the behaviour support will enable students to engage in work they are able to do, in an environment where they feel like they belong.

Russell Fox receives funding from the Victorian Department of Education.

– ref. There’s a call for a new ‘behaviour curriculum’ in Australian schools. Is that a good idea? – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-call-for-a-new-behaviour-curriculum-in-australian-schools-is-that-a-good-idea-219593

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

We’re all familiar with the jolly, white-haired and bearded overweight man who sneaks down chimneys on Christmas Eve delivering presents to children. But where did this come from?

With roots in Christianity, the origins of the world’s most beloved gift-giver transcend time, culture and religion.

St Nicholas

It all starts with St Nicholas, a man who lived in the fourth century. No credible historical sources can prove the facts of his life, but according to tradition, St Nicholas of Myra, later known as St Nicholas of Bari, lived during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great.

According to tradition, he was born in Patara, a city in ancient Lycia in Asia Minor, part of what is now Turkey. Nicholas, who would later become the bishop of Myra, was known for his profound Christian faith and extraordinary compassion.

Although historical record does not provide detailed accounts of his life, tradition tells us he travelled to Palestine and Egypt in his youth, further cultivating his deep spiritual conviction.

Nicholas was orphaned when he was young and was left with a substantial inheritance. He chose to use this wealth to help the needy.

His most famous act of generosity was providing dowries for three impoverished sisters.

His acts of generosity meant when he was recognised as a saint, he was acclaimed the patron and protector of children.

St Nicholas Day

Across Europe, the legacy of St Nicholas’s charity and kindness sparked a variety of traditions, with December 6 becoming his feast day.

In France, particularly in regions such as Alsace and Lorraine, children would leave their shoes out for St Nicholas, hoping to find them filled with chocolates and gifts the next morning.

This tradition was accompanied by parades in which a donkey would pass through town streets, laden with baskets of biscuits and sweets for the children.

In Central Europe, particularly in Alpine regions, St Nicholas Day tradition merged gradually with unique local customs when the non-Christian population adopted Christianity as their religion.

Here, St Nicholas not only rewarded well-behaved children with gifts but was also accompanied by Krampus, a fearsome figure who would “punish” those who had misbehaved.

This tradition underscored the contrasting themes of reward and retribution, integral to the local folklore.

In some regions of Poland, the earlier traditions centred on a figure called Gwiazdor. This “Star Man” dressed in sheepskin and a fur cap, with his face hidden under a mask or smeared with soot, carried a bag of gifts and a rod for naughty children.

The transformation into Santa Claus

The metamorphosis of St Nicholas into Santa Claus was a gradual process influenced by cultural and religious shifts.

In Germany and the Netherlands in the course of the 17th century, the practice of gift-giving in the name of St Nicholas began to take root. The Dutch called him “Sinterklaas”, a term that would eventually evolve into the English colloquial “Santa Claus”. This transformation first occurred in Germany and later spread to other European countries.

The tradition of St Nicholas was brought to North America in the 17th century.

By the 19th century, various iterations of St Nicholas were emerging in English-speaking communities across the world.

One of the first literary mentions of this figure in the American context was in Washington Irving’s 1809 book, Knickerbocker’s History of New York, which portrayed Nicholas flying in a wagon, delivering presents to children.

The red Santa suit and all related apparel, so familiar to us today, seem to be the invention of modern-day marketing in the English-speaking world.

Across Europe, St Nicholas’s outfit draws more on the traditional image of the saint, with clothes more closely resembling a bishop’s religious attire, complete with a mitre, the tall headdress.

The legacy of St Nicholas and Santa Claus

Through centuries of transformation, the core values of St Nicholas – generosity, compassion, and the joy of giving – have remained intact in the figure of Santa Claus. He has gone from being a revered Christian saint to a beloved secular icon.

This evolution reflects the dynamic interplay of religious tradition and popular folklore. English-speaking Santa Claus, with his North Pole workshop, flying reindeer, and elves, may seem a far cry from the historical bishop of Myra. Yet he continues to embody the spirit of giving that characterised St Nicholas.

Today, thanks to global marketing and commercialisation, Santa Claus transcends religious and cultural boundaries.

The story of his origin, rooted in the life of St Nicholas, enriches our understanding of Christmas and connects us to a tradition that spans centuries and continents.

It reminds us that at the heart of these festivities lies a timeless message: the importance of kindness, generosity, and the spirit of giving.

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. What are the origins of Santa Claus? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-origins-of-santa-claus-216361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca McNaught, Research Fellow, University of Sydney

As record-breaking floods in North Queensland ease and water levels recede, the focus now turns to the mop-up and recovery. Residents have been supporting each other through the flood crisis, such as processing donated goods, conducting welfare checks on neighbours and helping each other clean up homes.

Such community resilience in disasters is vital. Successive inquiries have shown we can’t rely solely on emergency services in large disasters. Crews can’t get to every community straight away, or provide support to every household that needs assistance.

Our research shows how communities can be supported to respond in a crisis – during the event, in the immediate aftermath and beyond.

As climate change worsens, extreme weather events are the new norm. Local community building and preparedness is now more important than ever.

Building disaster resilience

Volunteer numbers are declining nationally. However, when disaster strikes, people show a willingness to step forward and help their communities.

We have researched community-led responses to disasters in three locations in New South Wales – the Northern Rivers, Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury regions. We examined how community networks organised themselves during the response and recovery phases of the Black Summer bushfires (2019-20) and major floods (2020-22).

We found people leapt into action and helped one another: relaying early warning messages, distributing food when roads were cut and then cleaning up afterwards. They also provided emotional support when the going got tough. This included listening to and supporting flood-affected people who wanted to tell their story and start processing what had happened. Community members also supported elderly people when their at-home support services were cut off for extended periods.

In separate research in rural communities affected by drought, fire and flood, we found community-led collective action and planning can foster feelings of belonging and social connection. It can also help communities prepare for the broader consequences of climate change.

Leer más:
North Queensland’s record-breaking floods are a frightening portent of what’s to come under climate change

Community resilience in action

Many community-led resilience initiatives have emerged in the Northern Rivers region in the wake of successive disasters. They include Resilient Lismore, Resilient Uki, Wardell CORE, Together Pottsville, South Golden Beach Community Resilience Team, and Main Arm Disaster Recovery.

Examples of the activities flowing from these initiatives include:

• homegrown produce swaps
• community gatherings (such as festivals, barbeques and bushfire awareness talks)
• creating or joining formal local community groups
• creating community resilience plans
• bush regeneration projects
• improving emergency communications
• creating animal welfare plans for disasters.

One community program in Northern NSW was run by community organisation Plan C. The lead author of this article, Rebecca McNaught, is a board member and former consultant to the organisation and co-author Jean Renouf is the founder and chief executive. The program trained and supported more than 270 Northern Rivers residents across six local government areas. Most (80%) of these people were affected by floods in 2022 through loss of property or incomes, and 30% were directly threatened by bushfires in 2019-20.

The program covered the technical aspects of preparing for disasters, such as learning about the roles of fire, police and state emergency services. It also trained participants in disaster risks associated with bushfire, flood, tsunami and landslips.

Disasters can take a toll on mental health. Training people in how to look after themselves and each other in challenging times is important. The program teaches participants about the benefit of sharing stories about individual experiences, and guides participants in how to provide emotional support to someone who has experienced trauma. The program also covers concepts such as active listening, compassionate communication skills and self-care for both the helper and the person receiving support.

Participants are also mentored and connected to a network of community carers and responders who support each other and their communities to both recover from recent floods and fires and build resilience to future disasters.

The connection of community leaders across the Northern Rivers is essential. Through Whatsapp groups, leaders can express solidarity, share skills and resources, and support each other to work through the governance issues involving community organisations.

Leer más:
Why can floods like those in the Northern Rivers come in clusters?

The benefits are clear

Communities are important actors in preparing for and recovering from disaster, and should be supported to do this job well. And more robust research into community resilience programs is needed, to better understand what is working, who benefits and why.

Support for this work must come now, before the next disaster, so communities can pull together to withstand the challenges ahead.

The authors wish to acknowledge Emma Pittaway and Dr Johanna Nalau for their contributions to this article.

Rebecca McNaught is a Research Fellow at the University Centre for Rural Health (University of Sydney) in Lismore. She has received scholarship funding from the Australian Government’s Research Training Program Stipend. She is affiliated with the South Golden Beach, New Brighton and Ocean Shores Community Resilience Team. She has also conducted paid and voluntary work for the Northern Rivers not-for-profit registered charity Plan C.

Amanda Howard has received funding from Resilience NSW and the new NSW Reconstruction Authority, Infrastructure NSW.

Jean S. Renouf is a lecturer at Southern Cross University and the CEO of the Northern Rivers not-for-profit registered charity Plan C, which builds community resilience in the Northern Rivers of NSW. Plan C receives funding from Commonwealth and NSW government grants.

Jo Longman has received funding from the NSW Dept of Planning, Industry and Environment and the NSW Reconstruction Authority.

– ref. When disaster strikes, emergency responders can’t respond to every call. Communities must be helped to help themselves – https://theconversation.com/when-disaster-strikes-emergency-responders-cant-respond-to-every-call-communities-must-be-helped-to-help-themselves-216644

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Kroll, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, University of Adelaide

Australian cities are grappling with ways to increase housing supply and make it more affordable. One suggested solution is “pattern book” development. The idea made headlines when proposed recently by Housing Now, an alliance of businesses and lobby groups in New South Wales.

The problem, they argue, is that housing projects take years to process, due to overly lengthy processes of design, planning and public consultation. The group aims to fast-track development by commissioning “a modern pattern book with a suite of approved designs by recognised architects developed in partnership with local neighbourhoods”.

These ready-made, pre-approved designs for townhouses, terraces and low-rise apartments could then be rolled out at a much faster pace. This, Housing Now claims, would clear the backlog and cut the time it takes to make housing happen. In the past, the alliance argues, “many of the world’s greatest cities were designed using pattern books”.

What then is pattern book development? Could it help ease the housing crisis?

Read more:
The housing and homelessness crisis in NSW explained in 9 charts

What are architectural pattern books?

The term “pattern book” originally referred to books with design templates for textiles, wallpapers, sewing or knitting. For housing, the term is applied to books illustrating a range of architectural designs that could be copied or used as inspiration.

Since the early Renaissance, pattern books allowed architects, builders and clients to share and advertise designs to a wider audience. An example in Victorian Britain was The Builder’s Practical Director (1855), which contains a range of house designs with plans and facades. Architect and surveyor E.L. Tarbuck wrote this book as a reference guide for anyone wanting to build a house.

Were cities designed with pattern books?

Certainly, there are houses resembling designs from pattern books across the Western world, including cities such as London and Dublin.

However, the idea that most houses were simply direct copies of designs from such books is unlikely to be historically correct. Until the mid-20th century at least, pattern books were more often used as inspiration for designers, rather than being merely copied without any deviations.

The growth of many cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries was certainly based on formulaic housing patterns. The rapid urbanisation that came with the Industrial Revolution produced a wide range of terraced, detached and semi-detached houses or apartment blocks with similarities and repetition in their layout and planning.

These repeating patterns were the result of a combination of drivers.

In Britain and Ireland, the leasehold development system played an important role, as small land parcels were laid out in repetitive patterns (often by estate surveyors) and then leased to different builders. These “masterplans” created a kind of template with approved housing types on which builders could base their designs.

The designs were often based on tried and tested precedents, which had evolved slowly over time. For example, the first houses to emerge in Dublin’s early 19th-century suburbs were based on the terraced house, a familiar housing typology since medieval times.

Read more:
Englishman’s castle, slum, or cultural icon? The fall and rise of the terraced house

In London, another driver was that houses were codified into so-called classes or “rates” in the Building Act of 1774. This seems to have further reinforced patterns of similar housing types.

Could pattern books ease the housing crisis?

Housing Now’s proposal of pre-approved design templates and development patterns could indeed help speed up planning approvals for new housing and support planned increases in urban densities. We would still need to consider carefully how this could work in detail, of course.

This housing would need to align with urban design and planning strategies, such as the regional and district plans in NSW. The proposed typologies would also need to suit the context of their specific settings such as established suburbs, former industrial areas or alongside major highways.

Read more:
Planning laws protect people. A poorly regulated rush to boost housing supply will cost us all

A risk is that these pattern book templates will be too monotonous and too prescriptive for people’s needs. Some flexibility in the design and choice would seem sensible.

Pre-approved pattern book templates could set the overall building form and type while still allowing for different designs. Such an approach has historical precedents.

One example is the 19th-century Hobrecht Plan for Berlin, which determined the building heights and their outline.

A more recent example (from 1993-2000) of an area developed within an overall master plan of housing types and forms is Borneo-Sporenburg in Amsterdam. Within their set terrace-house typology and massing, this development achieved fairly high densities while allowing each house to be custom-designed.

A similar approach could be used to plan increases in density of established neighbourhoods through pre-approved, pattern book housing forms.

Proactive and innovative proposals that help speed up planning approvals and construction of housing are very welcome and urgently needed. One question that remains, however, is how to ensure this new housing will be affordable to those in need.

Read more:
How do we get urban density ‘just right’? The Goldilocks quest for the ‘missing middle’

David Kroll’s research on London housing was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Susan Galavan’s research on Dublin housing was funded by the Irish Research Council.

– ref. What is pattern book development and how can it help ease the housing crisis? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-pattern-book-development-and-how-can-it-help-ease-the-housing-crisis-214467

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasim Saman, Emeritus Professor of Sustainable Energy Engineering, University of South Australia

You’re inside on a scorching 40°C day, running your air conditioner on full for extended hours. Normally, you might worry about cost – or even the impact on the grid or the environment. But you’ve got solar on your roof, so you should be producing plenty of power to offset your aircon.

This line of thinking is common. Is it correct? Not quite. While it’s true that solar on your roof usually performs well over summer, there is an issue here for you and the grid.

Your solar performs at its best when the sun is high. But the hottest part of the day is actually in the late afternoon. As heat builds up and up, you often need cooling late into the evening even as output from your solar array starts to drop.

That’s not to say solar isn’t worth it – it will cut your cooling bill substantially. Here’s what this phenomenon means for you – and for the grid.

Hot and hotter

Australia has heated up by 1.47°C since 1910. Globally, this year is breaking all records, with temperatures briefly passing 2°C above the pre-industrial period.

Heatwaves have already started and we’re likely to see many more in Australia this summer. A heatwave is three or more days when daytime and night-time temperatures are unusually high. They’re often worse in cities, where black surfaces such as roads and roofs trap heat, and as air conditioners dump heat out to the outside air. This, in turn, means more demand for electricity to cool houses. Australia’s energy market operator forecasts electricity demand will hit a one in ten-year high this summer.

As electricity prices rise, many of us have responded by going solar. One in three Australian households – 3.6 million homes – now generate electricity domestically. In South Australia the proportion is nearly 50%.

As Australia gets hotter, aircon use will drive more electricity demand in all mainland cities. We estimate the extra demand for cooling will drive up demand in Sydney and Brisbane 20% and 49% respectively by 2050.

Heat – especially sustained heat – is dangerous. During the last northern summer, North America, Europe and China experienced record heatwaves. Deaths linked to this year’s heatwaves reached 62,000 in Europe.

Staying cool is a health issue. We do not want to advise people to turn off their aircon when they need it most – especially for people with health concerns or older people.

Solar and heatwaves

During hot periods, residential demand accounts for 50% or more of the peak demand in many parts of Australia. Before the age of solar, peak power demand in South Australia more than doubled during a heatwave and the peak demand on the grid occurred close to midday.

Now that solar is common, this midday peak has been cancelled out. But we now must cope with a smaller late-evening peak during heat events, as the sun sets but the air is still hot.

When we drill down to individual homes, we can clearly see domestic air conditioning is the major driver behind peak power demand.

Our research in homes shows air conditioning accounts for 72% (Adelaide) and 90% (Brisbane) of household electricity usage during peak times. This is true even of low-energy use houses. When we monitored 60 low energy homes in Adelaide’s Lochiel Park Green Village over a year, we found that while these homes used considerably less electricity overall, aircon was still a major draw.

The longer the heatwave, the higher the peak electricity demand. This is likely due to buildings struggling to shed excess heat overnight and households becoming less tolerant of the conditions. As heatwaves go on, the demand for power overnight gradually increases.

Most Australian homes have lower energy-efficiency ratings than these homes, and will need more electricity for cooling. But the average rooftop solar array in Australia is around 6 kilowatts, while the average for new solar is now almost 10kW. These larger arrays will cope with higher air conditioning demand during the day, but will not tackle the night peak.

Read more:
How to make homes cooler without cranking up the air conditioning

What can you do to cut aircon bills?

Choosing the right size air conditioner for your space with a high energy efficiency (6 star rating) is essential at the outset. If your aircon is more than ten years old, replacing it by a more efficient one will save money.

If you already have aircon, you can reduce its thirst for power. We know well-insulated houses with light-coloured roofs are more resistant to heatwaves, are more thermally comfortable to live in, and need less air conditioning.

If you’re renting, you have limited ability to control these factors. One option to weather heatwaves without huge energy bills is to create a “cool retreat” – cooling one room rather than the whole house.

You can also cut energy bills and emissions by:

• turning the air conditioner on earlier in the day while the sun is shining
• setting it to a slightly higher temperature
• using external blinds or shutters to reduce direct sun heat from windows
• reducing other electricity use in late afternoon and evenings.

Looking to the future

At grid scale, the ever-growing number of residential arrays and grid-scale solar farms with batteries will help reduce the risk of blackouts this summer.

Home batteries can store excess electricity from solar for use in the evening peak. Thermal batteries are an emerging technology which store heat or cold for later use. When vehicle-to-grid technology gets cheaper and more widely used, you will be able to use your electric car as a much larger home battery and use your own stored solar when the sun is not shining, rather than paying top dollar for grid power.

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank many colleagues, particularly Stephen Berry and David Whaley for contributing to the research behind this article.

Read more:
How to maximise savings from your home solar system and slash your power bills

Wasim Saman has received multiple federal and state research grants from the Australian Research Council, government departments, the CRC for Low Carbon Living and several industry partners for research into low carbon housing. He is a director of Isothermix Pty Ltd.

– ref. If you’ve got solar, can you run aircon without worrying about cost? Not quite – https://theconversation.com/if-youve-got-solar-can-you-run-aircon-without-worrying-about-cost-not-quite-217910

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yasmine Probst, Associate Professor, School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences, University of Wollongong

Does it seem like most vegetables you serve your children end up left on the plate, or worse, strewn across the floor? But mention dessert, and your fruit skewers are polished off in an instant.

Or maybe the carrot and cucumber sticks keep coming home in your child’s lunchbox untouched, yet the orange slices are nowhere to be seen.

If you’re facing these struggles with your child, you’re not alone. Many children prefer fruit to vegetables.

So if your child eats lots of fruit but minimal or no vegetables, is that OK? And how can you get them to eat more veggies?

Children have an innate preference for fruit

The Australian Dietary Guidelines’ recommended daily intakes for vegetables and fruit depend on a child’s age.

Consumption among Australian children falls well below recommendations. Around 62.6% of children aged over two meet the recommended daily fruit intake, but only 9% meet the recommended vegetable intake.

This is not surprising given children have a natural preference for fruit. At least in part, this is due to its sweetness and texture, whether crispy, crunchy or juicy. The texture of fruit has been linked to a positive sensory experience among children.

Vegetables, on the other hand, are more of an acquired taste, and certain types, such as cruciferous vegetables, can be perceived by children as bitter.

Read more:
How to get children to eat a rainbow of fruit and vegetables

The reason children often prefer fruit over vegetables could also be related to the parents’ preferences. Some research has even suggested we develop food preferences before birth based on what our mother consumes during pregnancy.

Balance is key

So, a preference for fruit is common. But is it OK if your child eats lots of fruit but little to no vegetables? This is a question we, as dietitians, get asked regularly.

You might be thinking, at least my child is eating fruit. They could be eating no veggies and no fruit. This is true. But while it’s great your child loves fruit, vegetables are just as important as part of a balanced eating pattern.

Vegetables provide us with energy, essential vitamins and minerals, as well as water and fibre, which help keep our bowels regular. They also support a strong immune system.

If your child is only eating fruit, they are missing some essential nutrients. But the same is true if they are eating only veggies.

Fruit likewise provides the body with a variety of essential vitamins and minerals, as well as phytochemicals, which can help reduce inflammation.

Evidence shows healthy consumption of fruit and vegetables protects against chronic diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.

Consumed together, fruit and vegetables in a variety of colours provide different nutrients we need, some of which we can’t get from other foods. We should encourage kids to eat a “rainbow” of fruit and vegetables each day to support their growth and development.

Read more:
Eat your vegetables – studies show plant-based diets are good for immunity

What if my child eats too much fruit?

If your child is eating slightly more fruit than what’s recommended each day, it’s not usually a problem.

Fruit contains natural sugar which is good for you. But too much of a good thing, even if it’s natural, can create problems. Fruit also contains virtually no fat and very little to no protein, both essential for a growing child.

When overindulging in fruit starts to displace other food groups such as vegetables, dairy products and meat, that’s when things can get tricky.

6 tips to get your kids to love vegetables

1. Get them involved

Take your child with you when you go shopping. Let them choose new vegetables. See if you can find vegetables even you haven’t tried, so you’re both having a new experience. Then ask them to help you with preparing or cooking the vegetables using a recipe you have chosen together. This will expose your child to veggies in a positive way and encourage them to eat more.

2. Sensory learning

Try to expose your child to vegetables rather than hiding them. Kids are more likely to eat veggies when they see, smell and feel them. This is called sensory learning.

3. Have fun with food

Use colourful vegetables of different sizes and textures. Make them fun by creating scenes or faces on your child’s plate. Add edible flowers or mint for decoration. You can even serve this with a side of veggie-based dip such as hummus or guacamole for some bonus healthy fats.

4. Teach them to grow their own

Teach your child how to grow their own vegetables. Evidence shows kids are more inclined to try the food they have helped and watched grow. You don’t need to have a big backyard to do this. A windowsill with a pot plant is a perfect start.

5. Lead by example

Your child learns from you, and your eating habits will influence theirs. Ensure they see you eating and enjoying veggies, whether in meals or as snacks.

6. Practise persistence

If your child refuses a particular vegetable once, don’t give up. It can take many attempts to encourage children to try a new food.

Yasmine Probst receives funding from Multiple Sclerosis Australia and has previously received funding from various industry groups that are not affiliated with the topic of this article. She is affiliated with the National Health and Medical Research Council, Multiple Sclerosis Plus and Multiple Sclerosis Limited.

Olivia Wills receives funding from Multiple Sclerosis Australia.

Shoroog Allogmanny receives funding from the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the form of a PhD scholarship. She is affiliated with Clinical Nutrition Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Taibah University, Madinah 42353, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

– ref. Is it OK if my child eats lots of fruit but no vegetables? – https://theconversation.com/is-it-ok-if-my-child-eats-lots-of-fruit-but-no-vegetables-217282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brander, Professor, UNSW Beach Safety Research Group, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney

This summer, millions of people will flock to Australia’s beaches – and tragically, not all will survive. Last summer, 54 people drowned along the Australian coast. This included 28 people in New South Wales – the highest number in the state’s recorded history.

About 80% of the drownings occurred at beaches and almost half were due to people caught in offshore flowing rip currents.

Crucially, all of these drownings occurred in locations not patrolled by professional lifeguards or volunteer surf lifesavers. That is a stark statistic.

The core safety message promoted to beachgoers is to always “swim between the flags” on patrolled beaches. But clearly, unpatrolled beaches represent the major beach safety challenge in Australia – and this must be addressed.

All drownings are preventable

A recent study showed coastal drowning rates in Australia did not change between 2004 and 2021. This was despite significant financial investment into coastal safety by all levels of government during this time.

And in 2023, the NSW government announced the biggest ever funding commitment to Surf Life Saving NSW (SLSNSW) – A$23 million over four years.

This raises important questions for both beach safety providers and their funding bodies. Are we doing enough to address the issue of drowning on unpatrolled beaches? Why aren’t we seeing a decrease in the number and rate of beach drowning? Is the current approach working? Are we doing enough evaluation?

These questions need to be answered because beach drowning, like all types of drowning, is preventable.

Read more:
Drowning risk increases during heatwaves in unexpected ways — here’s how to stay safe this summer

The ‘swim between the flags’ message is not enough

The safest place to swim on Australian beaches is between the red and yellow flags, under the supervision of trained lifeguards and surf lifesavers. This is the core safety message promoted to beachgoers, and should always take precedent.

But it’s unrealistic to assume beachgoers will always adhere to the message – in part, because the flags and lifeguards aren’t everywhere at all times.

Less than 5% of Australia’s 11,000 beaches are patrolled, and most of those are patrolled only seasonally. Patrols rarely cover early mornings and evenings when many people choose to swim, and the supervised flagged area may only cover a tiny percentage of the length of the beach.

A recent study documented why beachgoers swim at unpatrolled beaches. The reasons included proximity to their holiday accommodation and because the location is quieter and less crowded than patrolled beaches.

So while most Australians know they should swim between the flags, many choose not to, or simply don’t have the option. This can have fatal consequences. Surf Life Saving Australia’s latest National Coastal Safety Report report reported that 75% of the 902 coastal drowning deaths over the previous decade occurred more than 1km from a surf lifesaving service.

Read more:
When is the right time for children to learn to swim?

Getting it right

There’s an obvious need in Australia for a beach safety campaign that directly addresses safety on unpatrolled beaches. But we have to get it right – and taking an evidence-based approach is crucial.

For example, it seems logical to teach beachgoers how to identify dangerous rip currents. But research has shown that people armed with this knowledge might become emboldened to swim at unpatrolled beaches.

In 2018, Surf Life Saving Australia launched the “Think Line” campaign, which encourages beachgoers to spend a few minutes thinking about beach safety when they arrive at the beach. It’s a simple concept that could become generational over time. But it requires more promotion, more collaboration between beach safety providers, and more research into whether the message is changing beachgoer behaviour in a positive way.

Other efforts to improve safety on unpatrolled beaches include investment in technology such as emergency response beacons. However, to date there’s been little to no evidence-based evaluation of their effectiveness.

Research into beach safety is a powerful tool. It provides evidence that can identify which educational approaches are working and which are not. Yet, funding of beach safety research pales in comparison to the amounts invested in untested safety interventions, or upgrades to existing surf club facilities and equipment.

It’s globally accepted that lifeguards are the best beach safety intervention. So why aren’t we directing more funding into increasing the presence of local government lifeguard services?

This expansion should involve extending lifeguard patrol hours during the summer on patrolled beaches and adding seasonal lifeguards on popular but hazardous unpatrolled beaches.

Staying safe this summer

Preventing drownings on our beaches requires a new approach – and some serious questions about where funding should be best directed. Otherwise, the terrible drowning death toll will continue.

In the meantime, you might find yourself wanting to swim at an unpatrolled beach this summer, or to swim early in the morning before lifeguards start duty. To help you understand the hazards and stay safe, UNSW Sydney has developed a new educational resource, including a video. They are both worth a look; in fact, they may just save a life.

Rob Brander receives funding from Surf Life Saving Australia, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Australian Research Council

– ref. Australian beachgoers are told to always ‘swim between the flags’ – but what if there aren’t any? – https://theconversation.com/australian-beachgoers-are-told-to-always-swim-between-the-flags-but-what-if-there-arent-any-220043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, and links to old newspaper stories and research papers using outdated and potentially offensive terminology.

The ABC’s series The Way We Wore takes a look at stories of Australian fashion design and style.

First Nations people participated in the series and spoke about various periods and tales, looking at forced clothing policies during the Stolen Generation period, the contribution of Flinders Ranges/Adnyamathanha knowledge to the creation of the RM Williams iconic boot, and the emergence of First Nations fashion design from the 1970s and at Parisian fashion shows in the 1980s.

Yet, left out from the show was the rich backstory of our First Nations fashion design industry.

Prior to Parisian fashion shows, First Nations people showcased handmade clothing and accessories at 1800s international and national exhibitions, often as unpaid labour.

Earlier still, the making and crafting of animal and plant cloaks, skirts, belts, shoes and accessories were the original fashion designs.

Read more:
‘The first designers and models of this world’: attending the 2023 National Indigenous Fashion Awards

Traditional clothing and adornment

Climates, materials and stories guided traditional fashion design.

Items were crafted from natural materials that eventually returned to the environment.

Footwear was made from animal skins, furs, and feathers, human hair and bark.

Cloaks were made from animal skin and plants, often inscribed with designs that reflected a person’s identity.

Intricate jewellery and accessories included head ornaments, necklaces, mourning caps, belts and bags, some made from highly traded pearl shells and rare seashells.

Today, we are seeing a resurgence around the country of these adornments and the role they play in healing, wellbeing and cultural practice.

Showcasing at trades and exhibitions

First Nations women and girls who lived on reserves, missions and schools were forced to learn sewing and many produced goods including hats, bags, baskets, jewellery and rugs.

These items were crafted from cultural or Western methods, using both traditional or introduced materials.

From the mid-1800s, their work was often produced for various tourist trades and national and international exhibitions.

One Melbourne CBD shop stocked woven baskets and bags from Victoria’s Coranderrk Reserve.

Sydney’s La Perouse Mission sold shell baskets in the city and later exhibited them at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and in London.

At the 1888 Melbourne Exhibition, the Queensland section presented pearl jewellery from Thursday Island and the Torres Strait.

While some of the women and girls from these institutions received pay for their work, many did not.

Emergence of fashion within the craft industry

From the 1930s, non-Indigenous textile artists and fashion designers started producing First Nations-inspired designs using motifs such as boomerangs, shields and “hunting stick figures”, without the permission or input from First Nations artists.

Partly in response to this popularity, craft centres within the missions and reserves established their own industry and several hired First Nations people to design cultural textiles and fashions.

Some of this early work in the 1940s included bags with traditional weaving styles, practical linens with cultural designs and unique Ernabella scarves.

As the newspaper The Sun reported from the Mount Margaret Mission in 1941:

One of the most interesting exhibits in the exhibition of Aboriginal handicrafts and school children’s work at the Y.W.C.A. to-day is a bag woven from wool in a native stitch. It has been adapted from old aboriginal work which is usually seen only in tribal grass weaving.

Children’s work from these institutions were often exhibited in Australia and internationally. There was particular overseas interest in turning art from the Carrolup Native settlement onto textiles for fashion garments.

The business of First Nations textiles and fashion

Economic and cultural autonomy became more attainable for First Nations people from the 1950s.

Bill Onus produced cultural furnishing fabrics with non-Indigenous artist Paula Kerry for his Melbourne Aboriginal Enterprises store.

First Nations women from the Coffs Harbour area started mass-producing fashions for the tourist trade using non-Indigenous designs in the mid-1960s.

By the late 1960s, First Nations designed textiles became a fully-fledged fashion industry.

In 1969, Tiwi Island clothing production and textiles had launched through Bima Wear and Tiwi Designs.

A few years later, other arts centres started crafting textiles for fashion designs.

Throughout the 1970s, fashion shows paraded these textiles and some First Nations people wore the designs at formal events.

Bronwyn Bancroft, the owner of the Sydney store Designer Aboriginals, and Euphemia Bostock and Mini Heath presented their garments at the Parisian Au Printemps Department Store in 1987.

The 21st Century and beyond

By the start of the new millennium, Robyn Caughlan, in collaboration with Benjamin Mach, was the first Indigenous designer to contribute to a fashion collection at Australian Fashion Week.

Two decades later at Australian Fashion Week 2023, Denni Francisco’s brand Ngali was the first Indigenous label to present a standalone collection.

Today, many First Nations labels promote their designs internationally in Paris, Milan, London, and New York. There are now several First Nations fashion bodies to support them in the industry.

These bodies connect with national and international fashion weeks and art fairs, and have insight into cultural appropriation and Intellectual Property Rights.

For First Nations people, fashion and style are significant channels through which culture, identity, healing and social change can be communicated and practised.

Learning about the foundation of First Nations fashion design is vital to understanding Australian history and advocating connection, wellbeing, expression and sustainability.

Read more:
‘Cultural expression through dress’: towards a definition of First Nations fashion

Treena Clark has received funding through the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellowship scheme.

– ref. A brief look at the long history of First Nations fashion design in Australia – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-look-at-the-long-history-of-first-nations-fashion-design-in-australia-219328

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasih Norman, Research Fellow, Griffith University

For much of the 65,000 years of Australia’s human history, the now-submerged northwest continental shelf connected the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land. This vast, habitable realm covered nearly 390,000 square kilometres, an area one-and-a-half times larger than New Zealand is today.

It was likely a single cultural zone, with similarities in ground stone-axe technology, styles of rock art, and languages found by archaeologists in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.

There is plenty of archaeological evidence humans once lived on continental shelves – areas that are now submerged – all around the world. Such hard evidence has been retrieved from underwater sites in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea, and along the coasts of North and South America, South Africa and Australia.

In a newly published study in Quaternary Science Reviews, we reveal details of the complex landscape that existed on the Northwest Shelf of Australia. It was unlike any landscape found on our continent today.

A continental split

Around 18,000 years ago, the last ice age ended. Subsequent warming caused sea levels to rise and drown huge areas of the world’s continents. This process split the supercontinent of Sahul into New Guinea and Australia, and cut Tasmania off from the mainland.

Unlike in the rest of the world, the now-drowned continental shelves of Australia were thought to be environmentally unproductive and little used by First Nations peoples.

But mounting archaeological evidence shows this assumption is incorrect. Many large islands off Australia’s coast – islands that once formed part of the continental shelves – show signs of occupation before sea levels rose.

Stone tools have also recently been found on the sea floor off the coast of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

However, archaeologists have only been able to speculate about the nature of the drowned landscapes people roamed before the end of the last ice age, and the size of their populations.

Our new research on the Northwest Shelf fills in some of those details. This area contained archipelagos, lakes, rivers and a large inland sea.

Mapping an ancient landscape

To characterise how the Northwest Shelf landscapes changed through the last 65,000 years of human history, we projected past sea levels onto high-resolution maps of the ocean floor.

We found low sea levels exposed a vast archipelago of islands on the Northwest Shelf of Sahul, extending 500km towards the Indonesian island of Timor. The archipelago appeared between 70,000 and 61,000 years ago, and remained stable for around 9,000 years.

Thanks to the rich ecosystems of these islands, people may have migrated in stages from Indonesia to Australia, using the archipelago as stepping stones.

Read more:
An incredible journey: the first people to arrive in Australia came in large numbers, and on purpose

With descent into the last ice age, polar ice caps grew and sea levels dropped by up to 120 metres. This fully exposed the shelf for the first time in 100,000 years.

The region contained a mosaic of habitable fresh and saltwater environments. The most salient of these features was the Malita inland sea.

Our projections show it existed for 10,000 years (27,000 to 17,000 years ago), with a surface area greater than 18,000 square kilometres. The closest example in the world today is the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.

We found the Northwest Shelf also contained a large lake during the last ice age, only 30km north of the modern day Kimberley coastline. At its maximum extent it would have been half the size of Kati Thandi (Lake Eyre). Many ancient river channels are still visible on the ocean floor maps. These would have flowed into Malita sea and the lake.

A thriving population

A previous study suggested the population of Sahul could have grown to millions of people.

Our ecological modelling reveals the now-drowned Northwest Shelf could have supported between 50,000 and 500,000 people at various times over the last 65,000 years. The population would have peaked at the height of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, when the entire shelf was dry land.

This finding is supported by new genetic research indicating large populations at this time, based on data from people living in the Tiwi Islands just to the east of the Northwest Shelf.

At the end of the last ice age, rising sea levels drowned the shelf, compelling people to fall back as waters encroached on once-productive landscapes.

Retreating populations would have been forced together as available land shrank. New rock art styles appeared at this time in both the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.

Rising sea levels and the drowning of the landscape is also recorded in the oral histories of First Nations people from all around the coastal margin, thought to have been passed down for over 10,000 years.

This latest revelation of the complex and intricate dynamics of First Nations people responding to rapidly changing climates lends growing weight to the call for more Indigenous-led environmental management in this country and elsewhere.

As we face an uncertain future together, deep-time Indigenous knowledge and experience will be essential for successful adaptation.

Kasih Norman received funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Award and the Australian Research Council.

Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Frédérik Saltré receives funding from Australian Research Council

Tristen Anne Norrie Jones receives funding from Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia – and it had an inland sea – https://theconversation.com/people-once-lived-in-a-vast-region-in-north-western-australia-and-it-had-an-inland-sea-219505

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aakansha Zala, The University of Queensland

Maybe you feel worn out. Perhaps you’re also having trouble losing weight. Generally, you just don’t feel 100%.

Could it be Hashimoto’s disease? This common autoimmune thyroid disorder is when your immune system (which fights off viruses and bacteria), mistakenly attacks a part of your body. In this case, it’s your thyroid – a gland located at the base of your neck – and can cause low thyroid hormones levels (hypothyroidism).

Hypothyroidism affects one in 33 Australians and Hashimoto’s is one of the most common thyroid conditions in first-world countries.

While symptoms can be subtle, untreated Hashimoto’s can cause long-term problems with your heart, memory and fertility. Here is what you need to know.

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What happens when you have Hashimoto’s?

Your thyroid gland is a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck. It is essential in regulating things like muscle function, digestion, metabolism, the heart and lungs. In children, thyroid hormones are also needed for normal growth and development.

Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, named after the Japanese doctor who discovered it in 1912, is also known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis. The disease can cause the immune system to mistakenly produce proteins called antibodies (thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin). These can cause inflammation and long-term damage to the thyroid gland. Over time, as thyroid tissue is inflamed and/or destroyed, there can be a decrease in the production of thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism).

Hashimoto’s can present subtly at first. If you only have antibodies with no change in thyroid levels, it is likely you won’t have any symptoms.

However, as the disease progresses, you may experience fatigue, weight gain (or difficulty losing weight), increased sensitivity to the cold, constipation, dry skin, muscle aches, irregular or heavy menstrual cycles, enlarged thyroid (goitre) and occasionally hair loss, including at the ends of your eyebrows.

Read more:
Why am I so tired and when is it time to see the doctor about it? A GP explains

What causes Hashimoto’s thyroid disease?

Several risk factors can contribute to the development of Hashimoto’s including:

• genetic risk – your risk is higher if you have family members with Hashimoto’s

• gender – women are up to ten times more likely than men to develop the disease

• age – you are more likely to develop the disease from 30 to 50 years of age

• autoimmune condition – having another autoimmune condition like systemic lupus, Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease increases your risk

• excessive iodine intake and radiation exposure may also increase risk in people who are already genetically at greater risk.

What are the long-term risks?

Long-term, untreated Hashimoto’s thyroiditis can cause heart issues, higher cholesterol levels, nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy), reduced cognition and infertility.

In pregnancy, Hashimoto’s has a higher risk of pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure affecting several organs), premature birth, placental abruption (when the placenta separates from the inner wall of the uterus before birth) and, in severe cases, pregnancy loss.

The disease has also been linked with an increased risk (but low incidence) of the lymphocytes of the thyroid turning into cancer cells to cause thyroid lymphoma.

How is Hashimoto’s diagnosed?

Diagnosis can be confirmed with a blood test to check thyroid levels and antibodies.

Thyroid peroxidase antibodies are commonly present but about 5% of patients test antibody-negative. In those people, diagnosis depends on the thyroid levels, clinical presentation and ultrasound appearance of general inflammation. An ultrasound may not be required though, especially if the diagnosis is obvious.

Three hormone levels are tested to determine if you have Hashimoto’s.

Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) is produced by the brain to speak to the thyroid, telling it to produce two types of thyroid hormones – T3 and T4.

If you have either relative or absolute thyroid hormone deficiency, a test will show the stimulating hormones as high because the brain is trying to get the thyroid to work harder.

Can it be treated?

The management of Hashimoto’s depends on the severity of the thyroid levels. Up to 20% of the population can have antibodies but normal thyroid levels. This is still Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, but it is very mild and does not require treatment. There is no current treatment to reduce antibody levels alone.

Because thyroid peroxidase antibodies increase the risk of abnormal thyroid levels in the future, regular thyroid testing is recommended.

When the thyroid stimulating hormone is high with normal thyroid hormone levels it is termed “subclinical hypothyroidism”. When it is paired with low hormone levels it is called “overt hypothyroidism”. The first is a mild form of the disease and treatment depends on the degree of stimulating hormone elevation.

Overt hypothyroidism warrants treatment. The main form of this is thyroid hormone replacement therapy (levothyroxine) with the dose of the drug adjusted until thyroid levels are within the normal range. This is usually a lifelong treatment but, once the dose is optimised, hormone levels usually remain relatively stable.

In some people with very enlarged thyroid glands causing compressive symptoms (such as difficulty swallowing or breathing), thyroidectomy (surgical removal of the thyroid) is considered.

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is a common condition caused by your body’s immune system incorrectly damaging to your thyroid and can go undetected. Long-term, untreated, it can cause issues with your heart, cognition, and fertility. It can be diagnosed with a simple blood test. Speak to your doctor if you have any concerns as early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent complications.

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Aakansha Zala 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. Fatigue? Unexplained weight gain and dry skin? Could it be Hashimoto’s disease? – https://theconversation.com/fatigue-unexplained-weight-gain-and-dry-skin-could-it-be-hashimotos-disease-218342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nickola Overall, Professor, University of Auckland

Do your attitudes about women and men influence how you parent your children?

Perhaps you think women are warmer and more supportive and so naturally better caregivers. Perhaps you see men as stronger, more independent, and better able to protect and provide for families.

But thinking women and men are different can do a lot of harm.Nowhere is this more obvious than in how some people view the roles of parents.

In this traditionalist world view, men should be physically strong, seek resources and status, and provide for their family. On the flip side, women should serve their partners and nurture their children.

And people who break with these gendered norms can face criticism from those who hold these views – also known as “hostile sexism”.

The term refers to overtly negative or misogynistic attitudes toward women. People inclined to hostile sexism more strongly agree with statements such as:

• most women fail to appreciate fully all that men do for them
• women seek to gain power by getting control over men
• women exaggerate problems they have at work
• once a woman gets a man to commit to her she usually tries to put him on a tight leash
• women are too easily offended.

But how do parents with these hostile attitudes fare in the job of parenting? Our new research has found that hostile sexism can harm parenting. And it’s not just dads with more sexist attitudes. Mothers with sexist attitudes can cause problems as well.

How does hostile sexism affect parenting?

There is evidence that sexist attitudes contribute to gender inequalities by generating discrimination, harassment, and violence toward women.

Research also shows that men who hold more hostile sexist views commit increased levels of violence toward intimate partners.

But while there is a growing understanding of how hostile sexism might harm women, the way it might affect behaviour toward children has been largely ignored. This is starting to change.

For example, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in New Zealand, men with higher levels of hostile sexism reported more aggressive parenting when they were isolated at home with their families.

Read more:
Gentle parenting can be really hard on parents, new research suggests

But self-reports measure what parents think they do, which is only weakly associated with how they actually interact with their children.

“Gold standard” behaviour assessments involve video recording parents interacting with their child. Trained observers then rate how warm, engaged and responsive parents are to their child.

In two studies, we used these behavioural methods to examine how hostile sexism influenced parenting.

We recruited 376 families with heterosexual parents and a five-year-old child from the Auckland community. Each child’s father and mother first completed scales assessing hostile sexism that included the statements listed above.

We then recorded parents undertaking family tasks, such as playing games or building a cardboard tower with their child. A team of trained coders independently rated how much fathers and mothers were warm, engaged and responsive to their child.

Both parents’ hostile sexism is harmful

Fathers who reported higher hostile sexism exhibited less responsive parenting towards both daughters and sons. They expressed less warmth, were less engaged with their child, were less sensitive to their child’s needs, and were more intrusive or controlling.

But mothers who held hostile sexist views also demonstrated less responsive parenting, showing less warmth, engagement, and sensitivity toward their children.

We propose two potential reasons for the unexpected effects of mother’s hostile sexism.

Mothers with higher levels of hostile sexism believe they should follow the father’s authority. Following the father’s lead during family interactions may detract from mothers attending to their children’s needs.

Another possibility is that mothers higher in hostile sexism believe they should be the primary caregiver and so limit fathers’ involvement in family interactions. Known as maternal gatekeeping, this could involve mothers controlling or criticising how the father is engaging with their child.

Enforcing their caregiving role may interfere with mothers being responsive to their children.

These findings have important consequences for children. Responsive parenting is pivotal to healthy child development. Less responsive parenting predicts greater behavioural problems, emotional difficulties, and lower health and wellbeing in children.

Read more:
Exhausted, disconnected and fed up – what is ‘parental burnout’ and what can you do about it?

Improving gender equality and child wellbeing

Our findings indicate that reducing beliefs about rigid gender roles, and whether fathers or mothers should have power, could allow parents to be more responsive to their children.

Changing gender roles and beliefs is challenging. Interventions designed to reduce hostile sexism typically involve showing that gender stereotypes are untrue or that gender inequality is harmful. But these intervention studies are ineffective.

However, parents generally do love and care about their children. So understanding what sexist attitudes mean for parenting and children’s wellbeing may offer motivation for parents to rethink their sexist attitudes.

Nickola Overall has received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

– ref. Men and women who hold sexist views are less responsive as parents: new research – https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-who-hold-sexist-views-are-less-responsive-as-parents-new-research-216622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Kilah, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Tasmania

“Gravy Day” is a relatively new date in the Australian calendar. Paul Kelly’s song How to Make Gravy tells the story of a prisoner (Joe) writing to his brother on December 21. Joe laments missing the family Christmas celebrations and asks who will make gravy for the roast lunch in his absence.

While a roast may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect Christmas feast, “Gravy Day” does give the opportunity to discuss the chemistry involved in making gravy – a thickened sauce made from drippings collected from roasted meats.

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Give my love to Angus (beef?)

Roasting meat sets off a cascade of chemical reactions, producing myriad new flavour chemicals. More than 1,000 flavour compounds have been identified in roasted meats.

Each chemical gives its unique characteristics to the taste and smell of the finished roast. The chemical 12-methyltridecanal helps give roast beef its “beefy” flavour, while the sulfur-containing compound 2-methyl-3-furanthiol is more often found in roast chicken.

There are three main types of chemical reactions taking place when roasting meats that produce flavour chemicals.

The Maillard reaction is responsible for both colour and flavour. This broad reaction type takes place between amino acids from the protein and sugars and simple carbohydrates found in the meat.

The Maillard reaction is also the chemistry responsible for many favourite flavours, including roasted coffee, chocolate, steak, toast and more.

A hundred degrees, even more maybe

The other main type of reaction occurring in a hot oven is the breakdown of fats by “lipid degradation”. This can form hundreds of different chemical compounds. Many of these chemicals are described as “fatty”, “tallowy”, or smell like fried foods.

The unique fat profiles found in different animals translate to the profile of flavour chemicals that form from lipid degradation when roasted. Further flavour compounds can arise through the third type of reactions combining products of Maillard reactions and lipid degradation.

One specific flavour compound identified as having a “gravy aroma” is known as 3-mercapto-2-methylpentan-1-ol. This compound comes from roasted vegetables, so including some veggies in your roasting pan will give you more depth of gravy flavour. Also, “cutting onions” is a useful excuse if listening to How to Make Gravy gets you feeling emotional.

The treasure and the trash

Roasting meats causes the fats to “render” and separate from the meat as a liquid. The fat pools in the tray with flavour-rich meat juices.

While the fat and the water both carry flavour compounds, too much fat can give the finished gravy an unpleasant mouth feel, or can separate into layers when served.

It’s worth pouring off the pan juices into a jug to allow the fat to separate from the liquid so you can control how much fat you’re adding. Be sure to dispose of the excess fat responsibly – don’t pour it down the drain.

Just add flour…

Flour (or, more specifically, starch) is the secret ingredient of a good gravy. Starches are large complex chemicals that are made up of lots of sugars joined together.

Starch granules are tightly packed and swell greatly when they absorb water. The swollen starch molecules forms a gel-like network that traps water and oil to give a thickened gravy.

Wheat flour is most often used as the starch source. Corn and arrowroot starch can also be used. They have a higher percentage of starch than flour and a more neutral flavour.

Wheat starch typically requires a larger quantity to be added and longer cooking to form a paste. Whichever starch you use, don’t add it too quickly or without mixing as you’ll form lumps.

…salt, red wine, and a dollop of tomato sauce

Salt is a common ingredient when preparing roast meats, both on the surface of the meat to draw out moisture and as a flavouring agent. The pan juices are typically concentrated as part of the gravy making process.

Make sure you taste the gravy before seasoning, as salt will be concentrated by heating.

Additional flavour components can be introduced by adding red wine, sherry, stock, or tomato sauce. These ingredients will broaden the flavour profile through sweetness (sugar), acidity (vinegar, citric and malic acids), and umami in the case of tomato sauce (natural glutamates, such as those found in MSG). Some folk even add Vegemite to their gravy for an extra umami boost.

I bet it will taste the same

If you happen to have screwed up your gravy this time, or are after convenience, then you can turn to an instant gravy powder. The main ingredient is typically maltodextrin or another corn-derived (and possibly chemically modified) starch.

Shelf-stable powdered fats, salt, colours, and a range of flavour additives will be present in varying amounts depending on the style and price point of the product.

The advantages of the instant version are speed and uniformity due to the carefully controlled commercial production.

So unlike Joe’s concerns for his family’s gravy, an instant gravy will be more likely to taste the same, regardless of who ends up making it.

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

– ref. How to make gravy (using chemistry) – https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-gravy-using-chemistry-219589

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Zunica, Lecturer in Secondary Maths Education, University of Sydney

Have you ever bumped into someone with the same birthday as you? What about someone sharing a birthday in your workplace? How common is a shared birthday, anyway?

The birthday problem, as it’s called by mathematicians, reveals problems with our understanding of number theory, probabilities and our assumptions of how the world works. It comes back to how counter-intuitive maths is for a lot of people.

In the birthday problem you are asked “what’s the minimum number of people in a room to get better than 50% chance of two people having the same birthday?” A simple question with a puzzling answer.

To get a more intuitive understanding of this problem we’ve created an interactive simulation, below. It arranges birthdays along a line, with January on the left and December on the right.

The intuitive answer is the wrong one

When the birthday problem is described to maths students for the first time, the majority of responses are that a group of 183 people is needed to have a better than even chance of two people having the same birthday.

The thinking here is: 183 is half of 365 (number of days in the year). Students assume they only need to compare others against a single person – themselves, and then try to match their birthday with other people.

If you use this assumption, you need to find 183 people to have an even chance of finding a person matching with you. However, when students understand that not every combination has to be with yourself – for example, person 2 and person 5 might be the right combination – it becomes clearer the number needed is lower than 183.

Combinations do not scale linearly

If you’ve been playing with the interactive above you may have come across the answer to the birthday problem: only about 23 people are needed for a greater than 50% chance of a shared birthday. But how can this be if there are 15 times more days in the year?

We’ve created another interactive below to visualise how the connections between people in a room do not scale linearly as you add more people. Play around with adding a node and see if you can guess how many connections should be added.

It should give you a better grasp of factorial growth through multiplication, which is the area of number theory that underpins the birthday problem.

Large numbers are hard to comprehend

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the world most of us have a limited understanding of exponential growth when presented with models of what could occur if the pandemic were left unchecked.

There are many great examples of the ill-understood power of exponential growth, but one I often use is asking this question: would you take $1 million on the first day of the month only, or one cent on the first day of the month, doubled each day until the end of the month (30 days)?

Nearly all people choose the $1 million lump sum. However, if you choose the one cent option, you end the month with approximately 10 times more money due to the effect of exponential growth.

In a similar tale, the supposed inventor of chess requested to sell their game to a king for some rice. They proposed placing a single grain on the first tile and doubling it each tile. The amount of rice on the final tile would be the sale price.

As you can see below, that number can very quickly become larger than the entire world’s rice supply.

Asking ‘what comes next’ is seldom simple

Another real world example of counter-intuitive mathematics was on the roulette wheels in Monte Carlo in 1913. There was a run of 26 straight black results, which is improbable but not impossible.

One striking aspect of the story is that gamblers increasingly bet on red as the run of blacks continued, thinking red was “due”. However, the mathematics says otherwise. Each spin of the roulette wheel has no memory of what happened before, so the chance of red appearing does not increase as time goes on. In short, lots of people lost money that night!

However, some situations do rely on the probabilities of what came before. For example, in the Monty Hall problem you are trying to win a car, which is hidden behind one of three doors (the others have goats). You are given the option to pick a door, then shown a different door with a goat.

The question is: should you stay with your first pick or switch doors? Try it out with the game below.

The assumption here is that after Monty shows you the goat then the odds of winning a car if you switch or stay are 50/50 – there are only two doors left and one of them has a car.

But that doesn’t take into account the likelihood that you originally picked a goat to begin with. Thus the chances of your next choice are informed by your previous choice.

Becoming numerate is important

These examples demonstrate the importance of being “numerate”, defined as being able to reason with numbers and being able to apply this reasoning in a range of contexts. The importance of developed numeracy skills cannot be understated, with correlations to better overall life outcomes such as employment, income, health and well being.

If people are highly numerate, they can understand how our world works at a deeper level, even if it doesn’t feel like it should work that way. Also, they are likely to have a better idea of what actions will yield the desired results in certain situations.

So, keep turning your mind to mathematical and numerical problems, they may just come in handy one day.

Benjamin Zunica 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 many people need to be in a room for two to share a birthday? It’s less than you think. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-need-to-be-in-a-room-for-two-to-share-a-birthday-its-less-than-you-think-heres-why-218250

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexey D Muraviev, Associate Professor of National Security and Strategic Studies, Curtin University

China’s expanding naval presence in the Pacific Ocean and the South and East China seas has become a major focus for Australia, the US and its allies.

Australia’s latest strategic defence review, for instance, was prompted, in part, by the rapid modernisation of China’s military, as well as its increasing naval presence in the South China Sea.

According to the US Department of Defence’s most recent annual report to Congress, China’s navy has been strengthened with the addition of 30 new warships over the past 12 months. By 2030, the total number of ships is expected to increase to 435, up from the current 370.

But China is not the only potentially adversarial maritime power that is flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region. Russia is becoming a cause for concern, too, even though the 2023 strategic review did not mention it.

My latest research project, Battle Reading the Russian Pacific Fleet 2023–2030, recently commissioned and published by the Royal Australian Navy, shows how deeply the Russian military is investing in replenishing its ageing, Soviet-era Pacific Fleet.

Between 2022 and October 2023, for instance, it commissioned eight new warships and auxiliaries, including four nuclear-powered and conventional submarines. On December 11, two new nuclear-powered submarines formally joined the fleet, in addition to the conventional RFS Mozhaisk submarine, which entered service last month.

These figures may not look as impressive as the new Chinese vessels mentioned above, but it’s important to recognise that the Russian Navy has the unique challenge of simultaneously addressing the needs of four fleets (in the Arctic and Pacific oceans and Black and Baltic seas), plus its Caspian Sea flotilla.

Furthermore, Russia’s war in Ukraine has not had a considerable impact on the Pacific Fleet’s ongoing modernisation or its various exercises and other activities. Between early 2022 and October 2023, for instance, the Pacific Fleet staged eight strategic-level naval exercises, in addition to numerous smaller-scale activities.

Read more:
Russia is a rising military power in the Asia-Pacific, and Australia needs to take it seriously

Rebuilding its powerful navy, partnering with China

In addition to rebuilding its once-powerful navy, the Russians are committing enormous resources to building up naval ties in the Indo-Pacific and strengthening their key maritime coalitions.

In recent months, for instance, a naval task group of the Pacific Fleet embarked on a tour across southeast and south Asia. This tour made international headlines, but was effectively overlooked by the Australian media.

The Russian warships spent four days in Indonesia, then staged their first-ever joint naval exercises with Myanmar and another exercise later with India. The ships then visited Bangladesh for the first time in 50 years, followed by stops in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The tour signals a widening of Russia’s scope in the region, though its most important naval partner remains China.

According to my findings, between 2005 and October 2023, the Russian and Chinese navies have taken part in at least 19 confirmed bilateral and trilateral (also involving friendly regional navies) exercises and three joint patrols. The most recent was carried out in mid-2023, when the Russian and Chinese joint task force was deployed to the north Pacific, not far from the Alaskan coast.

Implications for Australia and its allies

Canberra’s preoccupation with China should not make us blind to other potential adversaries that could threaten our national security in the medium to long term.

According to my estimates, by the time the Royal Australian Navy commissions its first Hunter class frigate and the first Virginia-class, nuclear-powered attack submarine begins operations in 2032, the replenished Russian Pacific Fleet would have a battle force of at least 45 core warships.

This is expected to include 19 nuclear-powered and conventional submarines, supported by minor combat and auxiliary elements. Most of these units would be newly designed and built.

This clearly shows that if war someday breaks out in the Pacific, the Russian Pacific Fleet could present a formidable challenge to Australian and allied naval fleets in the western and northwestern Pacific, as well as the Arctic.

Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear-powered platforms from the United States and United Kingdom suggests our intent to support and engage in long-range maritime operations with our allies, possibly as far as the northern Pacific and Arctic oceans.

And in times of crisis short of open war, Russia will also have more assets to support operations around Southeast Asia and in the Indian Ocean, extending its reach closer to the Royal Australian Navy’s areas of immediate concern.

Finally, the deepening naval cooperation between China and Russia could become a risk factor in its own right as the two countries seek to counter the AUKUS security pact. This is especially true with the possibility of expanded joint naval operations in the Pacific.

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Despite the tyranny of distance between Australia and Russia, we are no longer irrelevant in Moscow’s strategic planning. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu made this clear in recent remarks blasting AUKUS as a threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

This means Australia’s navy and its maritime ambitions are increasingly being viewed as a risk factor to the Kremlin.

During the Cold War confrontation in the Asia-Pacific, the Soviet Union’s naval power in the region was a primary point of strategic concern for Australia, the US and its allies. This is once again proving to be true. Canberra can’t afford to ignore these developments any longer.

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

– ref. Australia can no longer afford to ignore Russia’s expanding naval power in the Pacific – https://theconversation.com/australia-can-no-longer-afford-to-ignore-russias-expanding-naval-power-in-the-pacific-217913

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Poulton, Senior Lecturer, Brain Mind Centre Nepean, University of Sydney

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more often diagnosed in children. That might make you wonder if people grow out it as they reach adulthood.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves difficulties focusing attention (for study or work) and/or sitting still or keeping impulsive actions in check. This means people with ADHD are different and the differences are there for life. But development is a dynamic process because people change, mature and develop their skills.

If people have ADHD, the way it affects them can change over time too.

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When kids change, ADHD can be easier to spot

As children’s skills develop, differences due to ADHD may become easier to spot.

So hyperactivity may not be noticed in a baby who waves their arms and legs around, but once the child develops new skills and starts to run and climb, the hyperactivity may be obvious.

As children develop their cognitive skills, like listening and understanding and learning to talk, they have to learn from other people. This requires the child’s attention. As a child progresses through school, the demands on their attention increase.

Finally a person has to function independently as an adult. This may involve a career, running a household and raising a family.

ADHD can’t be formally diagnosed until it affects a person’s functioning. This will depend on the balance of their natural abilities and the demands of life.

So a bright child may not have to try very hard while learning to read and write. But as the child progresses through school, lapses in concentration, particularly if prolonged, may mean that important information is missed.

If this is happening a lot, the person may struggle to keep up, particularly if catch-up studying at home requires a “super-human” level of effort due to their difficulty with concentration.

Other children may struggle with the more fundamental learning or tasks and may be diagnosed earlier.

Read more:
You might have heard ADHD risks being over-diagnosed. Here’s why that’s not the case

Brain differences and checklists

Studies of people with ADHD show subtle differences in the overall size of the brain and the sizes of some of the structures such as the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate and hippocampus (which help coordinate emotion, learning and behaviour).

The brain also matures more slowly. These changes are so small they cannot be used for diagnosing ADHD. But they do demonstrate ADHD is real.

So the key to diagnosing ADHD is in the answer to the question: is this person having difficulties in managing in life (functional impairment) due to their impulsiveness or difficulties with attention?

Generally, impairment is assessed based on whether the person:

• is considered capable of higher achievement; that is they could or should do better
• behaves in a way that causes unreasonable stress or disruption in class or at work
• behaves in a way that unreasonable stress or disruption in the family
• behaves in a way that significantly affects peer relationships
• is aware of having difficulties and has low self-esteem.

Read more:
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ADHD can appear differently over time

A person’s ability to manage will change over time. The formal diagnosis of ADHD is dependent on meeting the required number of diagnostic criteria as well as showing functional impairment.

This may involve a symptom checklist. Globally, around 5% of children and 2.5% of adults meet the full diagnostic criteria for ADHD.

A person’s ADHD may only be diagnosable at particular stages of their life when the demands on their abilities are greatest, particularly at transitions such as moving into a new educational stage or starting a new job.

ADHD is most often diagnosed in primary school children, with more boys diagnosed than girls.

So if ADHD is stable, why is it hard to consistently diagnose?

As people mature they develop coping strategies, which can make their ADHD much less obvious. Some adults may not meet enough of the diagnostic criteria, because they have learned effective coping strategies.

For example, when asked whether they often lose things necessary for tasks or activities (such as keys, their glasses or phone) they may respond “No”. But this is because they always put their keys on the same hook as soon as they get home, and they keep their mobile phone or glasses on a lanyard around their neck.

Others might have learned to control some of their impulsive behaviour. But they may still show ADHD-related functional impairment.

ADHD used to be considered solely a condition of childhood and the diagnostic criteria are biased towards identifying hyperactive boys. The criteria are less applicable to adults and as a result, adults who were treated in childhood but no longer meet the full diagnostic criteria may be considered to have ADHD “in remission” even when they continue to experience ADHD-related difficulties.

The current diagnostic criteria are not sensitive enough to identify ADHD consistently.

In the future, instead of an over-reliance on symptom checklists for diagnosis, clinicians should seek to understand the person’s lived experience of the way their attentional difference affects their daily functioning – and how it might change over the years as demands shift and successful strategies develop.

Alison Poulton is a board member of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association. She has received personal fees and non-financial support from Shire/Takeda; and book royalties from Disruptive Publishing (ADHD Made Simple).

– ref. Do kids grow out of ADHD as they get older? – https://theconversation.com/do-kids-grow-out-of-adhd-as-they-get-older-218692

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Edwards, Research Fellow Bushfires, Charles Darwin University

As the semi-arid Pilliga Scrub burns in New South Wales, many of us are thinking about fire once again. It’s an El Niño summer in the hottest year on record. And there’s a remarkable amount of grass drying out and ready to burn.

Over the past few years, more rain than usual has fallen over vast regions of Australia’s rangelands, the arid and semi-arid regions that account for most of our land mass.

These rains have triggered an enormous boom in native grasses. But it’s also boom time for introduced species such as buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) in the deserts, and Gamba grass (Andropogon Gayanus) in the savannas. These fast-growing grasses have outcompeted native grasses in many areas.

As they dry out, they become fuel for grass fires. Fuel loads have become extreme, especially in areas where invasive grasses are abundant. Already this fire season, enormous tracts of rangelands have burned, covering an area the size of Spain.

Our bushfire-mapping site has captured the rangeland fire season so far. Fast-moving grassfires recently hit South Australia. These grassfires can have fronts hundreds of kilometres wide. Yet this is only the beginning of the summer fire season.

Arid lands and buffel grass

When we think of fire in Australia, we often think of bushfires raging through a forest. But grassfires are very common once you leave the coast.

In Australia’s northern savannas, research has shown the direct link between fires, dried grass fuel at the end of the dry season in October, and how much rain fell over the year. Put simply, more rain leads to more grass, which usually leads to more fire.

These past few La Niña years have dumped enough rain to trigger major grass growth in the deserts – producing enough fuel to carry very widespread fire.

Buffel grass has made the problem far worse. This tussock grass native to parts of Africa and Asia was introduced for pasture, as it grows fast, roots deeply, spreads easily and needs less rain than other grasses. But these traits have now made it the biggest risk to biodiversity in arid Australia. Buffel has been a declared weed in South Australia since 2015, and the Northern Territory is considering whether to follow suit.

Management burns are needed to reduce the hazard but are increasingly difficult to implement. Buffel grass grows right up to trees and regrows quickly, promoting hotter and more frequent fires. Fire encourages buffel to regrow, which creates a grass-fire cycle. Native plants and fauna can’t adapt to this.

Read more:
The buffel kerfuffle: how one species quietly destroys native wildlife and cultural sites in arid Australia

Buffel also grows more evenly across a landscape, rather than in patches like many natives. At a fine scale, this means fire damage is worse, with more trees and shrubs killed. At a broader scale, areas invaded by buffel grass create links between flammable native plant communities previously separated by open patches.

The result? Fires can spread across larger tracts of land from a single ignition point, as we saw in Tjoritja National Park (West MacDonnell) in 2019.

Because fires spread so easily, management burns become much more risky and also more damaging to native shrubs and trees – even in winter. That’s a problem, because we need these burns to reduce fuel loads. More intense and wide-ranging fires are likely to injure or kill more native animals, both directly and from the loss of shelter and food after the fire.

Fires can start from lightning – or from simply driving through long, dry grass. Historical weather and fire information indicates central Australia is in for a long hot summer.

How much fire might we see? In 2011, a year when we saw similar fuel loads, about 45% of arid and semi-arid lands had burned by the end of the summer.

Gamba grass on the savanna

In northern Australia’s tropical savannas, there’s a similar problem: fast-growing Gamba grass. This African tussock grass can grow up to four metres high. It’s invading new areas rapidly – government surveys show it increased from about 1,500 sites to more than 9,000 sites in six years in the Greater Darwin Region.

When Gamba dries out, the fuel loads it creates are many times greater than native grasses. Gamba is now widespread throughout the greater Darwin rural area, including large areas of Litchfield National Park.

When Gamba grass burns, the fire runs so hot it can kill tall trees and devastate biodiversity. It’s also more dangerous for firefighters. The high fuel loads produce very high greenhouse gas emissions and harmful pollutants such as particulate matter.

Unlike Buffel, Gamba is a declared weed in the NT. The territory government is putting in considerable effort to reduce the damage it does through prescribed burning and requiring property owners to control Gamba.

Unfortunately, these control efforts have a cost. Days with very high levels of air pollution in Darwin are increasing each year, caused by the burning of Gamba to reduce fuel load and the chance of big fires later in the dry season. Polluted air is damaging human health.

To combat this, we need to use weather forecasting to advise volunteer firefighters (who do most of the prescribed burns) of the best time to burn.

As the heat of summer continues, we can expect to see more extensive grassfires in central and northern Australia. Highly flammable invasive grasses will make them worse still. We cannot ignore the changes they are making to central and northern fire regimes.

Read more:
The summer bushfires you didn’t hear about, and the invasive species fuelling them

Andrew Edwards receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Charles Darwin University.

Christine Schlesinger receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Ellen Ryan-Colton has received funding from the Ecological Society of Australia (Holsworth wildlife research endowment, and Jill Landsberg Trust), Ten Deserts Project and Alinytjara Wilurara Landscape Board.

Peter Jacklyn receives funding from the Clean Energy Regulator and National Emergency Management Agency.

Greg Barber 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. Invasive grasses are worsening bushfires across Australia’s drylands – https://theconversation.com/invasive-grasses-are-worsening-bushfires-across-australias-drylands-215530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penny Van Bergen, Head of School of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Wollongong

School is out and Santa is on his way, but there’s still a bit of a wait before he wriggles down that chimney. The days before Christmas are both exciting and challenging for children and families.

How can you manage kids’ excitement in this last build-up to Christmas? What should you do if emotions run over? And how might you respond if all the focus on Santa means some kids start asking if he is real?

Help kids manage outbursts

Parents and carers may notice children are adorably ridiculous at this time of year (or maybe just ridiculous).

Each day brings a swirling mix of tears, laughter, shouts and tired panda eyes. Sleep patterns can also be disturbed across the Christmas break, with late nights and early mornings leading to extra tiredness.

For younger (and even older) children, temper tantrums may be more common.

If your child does have an outburst, give them some time to cool off. Although it can be tempting, try not to enforce harsh punishments in the moment. An angry threat to cancel Christmas (“I’m going to tell Santa not to come!”) may be matched by an equally angry response by your child.

Instead, come back when you are both calm, acknowledge how they and others might be feeling and discuss how best to manage those emotions (“If you are feeling very excited, go outside and run around instead of hitting your brother”).

Also be conscious of your own emotions. Children often model the emotions and behaviours they see from others. So, despite all the things you have to do at the moment, try and pause, relax and seek out opportunities for joy in this festive season.

Read more:
Parents make mistakes. So what does ‘good enough parenting’ look like?

Help children explore questions about Santa

Of course, Christmas holds a range of deeper meanings for religion and family. But a key source of excitement in the lead up to Christmas is Santa. The magical world of Santa, reindeers and elves sparks particular joy for kids.

If your child is in early primary school, you might be worrying “what happens if Stella discovers the truth”?

Try not to let this become a family stressor.

Children begin making distinctions between fantasy and reality in preschool, although often continue to believe in Santa for longer: particularly if parents promote these beliefs.

In one study, children who no-longer believed were interviewed about how they had felt when they realised Santa was not real. Some felt momentarily bad or disappointed but more than half reported feeling happy or relieved to know the truth. They had been wondering anyway.

If children are questioning their beliefs already, consider exploring this with them by asking “what do you think?” Either way, negative emotions tend to be short-lived: indeed, many children continue to pretend to believe in Santa just for fun.

Help manage holiday expectations

For those at home before Christmas, complaints of boredom may already have set in. These are particularly challenging for parents who are still working.

Some children may be happy playing with siblings. For other children, it can help to create routines to manage their expectations. This might include times you will be available to play with them, excursions and free play. Include children in the negotiations and help them to manage excitement by creating a list of activities they would like to complete.

For families already away on holidays, the challenges are different but real. An expectation of relaxing bliss can sometime contrast with a reality that is more intense.

Interviews with Danish children and their parents about their trips away reveal both joy and tension, with closer living quarters and 24/7 activities bringing social overload and frayed tempers over time.

Routines can help here too, even if they differ from those at home. Map out when you will be sharing fun activities together and build in quiet time to soothe frayed nerves.

Plan Christmas Eve

For all children, Christmas Eve is likely to see a clash of excitement and emotion. Help children to plan out any family rituals beforehand, including what time they will go to bed.

For those with siblings, help them to plan who will complete what tasks. This might include chopping carrots for reindeer, pouring milk for Santa, or lighting special Christmas candles. Ensure the negotiations are fair and everyone is happy.

Above all, enjoy. Stories of stress and conflict related to Christmas abound, yet research shows an abundance of positive emotions across the period. ‘Tis a most wonderful time of the year.

Read more:
8 tips to navigate Christmas if you have a fussy eater or child with allergies

Penny Van Bergen receives funding from the Australian Research Council and NSW Department of Education.

– ref. Santa Claus is coming to town! How to help kids manage the big build-up to Christmas – https://theconversation.com/santa-claus-is-coming-to-town-how-to-help-kids-manage-the-big-build-up-to-christmas-220047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Olynyk, Director of Financial Planning, Deakin Business School, Deakin University

Australia’s superannuation and retirement income system is complex and difficult to navigate.

Retirees need to make decisions on numerous issues where they have less than full information and understanding, both financial and non-financial. They also require access to retirement products to help them manage and balance income needs against longevity risk.

Recognising these issues, the government released a discussion paper this month seeking views on three key issues:

1. helping super fund members navigate the retirement income system

2. supporting superannuation funds to deliver better services

3. making retirement income products more accessible.

Australia has one of the largest and most sophisticated pension systems in the world. Valued at more than A$3.5 trillion as at September 2023, and is the 5th largest pension scheme in terms of asset size.

It is also the 5th most highly rated retirement income system internationally behind the Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark and Israel.

What is wrong with the super system?

But while the super system ranks highly in terms of integrity and sustainability, the numbers are not as flattering when it comes to “adequacy”.

Adequacy is the level of income available to retirees depending on their different circumstances. According to a recent study, Australia is ranked 20th out of 47 worldwide on the adequacy index.

Reform in the pre-retirement phase of Australia’s retirement income scheme is ongoing and designed to support accumulating wealth for retirement.

These ongoing reforms have been designed to make superannuation easier to understand and to reduce much of the decision making required. They’ve been needed because of an apparent lack of skills, interest and financial literacy among Australians.

While the message that we need to save to be comfortable in retirement is getting through, the lack of information about how to manage these savings once we retire means many retirees are left to navigate the complex system as best they can.

Given the complexity and volatility of Australia’s financial system, it’s hardly surprising many of the decisions made by retirees don’t produce the best financial results. For example, more than 84% of retirement savings are held in account-based pensions which, if not properly managed, can run out. This is despite government and community awareness that outliving your savings is a real possibility.

About 50% of retirees currently withdraw at the minimum pension rate, which means many people experience a lower standard of living than what would normally be expected with the super they have accumulated. This can result in wealth not being used and instead being passed on to the next generation.

Help is needed now because the retiree sector is booming

Over the next decade there is going to be a big increase in the number of people retiring and transitioning from the accumulation phase of their super to the pension phase. It’s estimated 2.5 million Australians will move to the retirement phase in this period.

Read more:
Super has become a taxpayer-funded inheritance scheme for the rich. Here’s how to fix it – and save billions

Following the 2014 Financial System Inquiry, the government introduced the Retirement Income Covenant in 2022 to force super fund trustees to develop a strategy that would provide better retirement outcomes for their members.

The strategy is based on retirees maximising their expected retirement income, managing expected risks to their retirement income and having flexible access to super funds during their retirement.

A 2022-23 review conducted by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found while trustees were providing more help to retirees, overall there was a lack of progress and urgency among trustees to improve retirement outcomes.

Read more:
Should I put more money into my super? What are the benefits and can I take it out before retirement if I need it?

How the system could be improved

Several proposals have been put forward to improve the experiences and decision-making of retirees. These have included:

• improved support from and education by superannuation fund trustees

• changing how people view their super savings from an accumulation of wealth to a system that enables drawdown of retirement savings over time to fund expenses.

• providing an automatic rollover of retirement savings into an income-stream instead of allowing a lump sum withdrawal on retirement

• expanding existing income products (that are starting to be offered by several financial institutions) which combine providing investment choice with a pension for life

• setting up a MyRetire product that would run parallel to MySuper and provide a simple and cost-effective retirement income system for less engaged members. MySuper only applies to the accumulation phase. Once a member starts an income stream in retirement, their MySuper account ceases

• improving access to financial planning advice which is shown to play a significant role in preparing Australians for retirement.

The government, superannuation industry and the community all have a greater role to play in improving the financial outcomes and experiences of retirees.

With Australia’s ageing population, the need to better support retirees to achieve a dignified retirement is becoming more urgent.

All Australians expect and deserve a financially secure retirement.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jim Chalmers says Australians will be better off next year

Marc Olynyk is Chair of the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC). FPEC has been accrediting higher education courses and supporting research in financial planning for more than 20 years. FPEC seeks to raise the standard of financial planning education, and promote financial planning as a distinct learning area, as a profession, and as a career of choice for new students and career changers. FPEC is comprised of representatives from the higher education sector, financial planning practice, and professional associations. Fpec receives administrative support from the Financial Advice Association Australia.

– ref. It’s not just about accumulating super. Australians need to learn how to spend their retirement savings – https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-about-accumulating-super-australians-need-to-learn-how-to-spend-their-retirement-savings-219217

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

For some, December 25 is a solemn day, key on the Christian calendar, involving important traditions to be treated with reverence. But for many, Christmas is a time for unbridled fun: Santa, presents, and the random grump next door who suddenly decorates his house in an overwhelmingly delirious light display. For a month, we embrace with childlike delight things that for the rest of the year we would dismiss as kitsch, tacky, too bright, too shiny.

Christmas films reflect these differing approaches to the season. There are the solemn, wholesome type, the model for which is Frank Capra’s marvellous It’s a Wonderful Life. There are cynical big budget comedies, trying to skewer the consumerism with which the holiday is now associated while maintaining a sentimental “Christmas cheer for all” ending, like Surviving Christmas and Christmas with the Kranks. And there are sweet comedies, films such as Elf and The Santa Clause, that cloak their gags in a more or less touching sense of wonder.

And often the best Christmas films aren’t “Christmasy” at all. They either go against the cliches – Black Christmas by Canadian auteur Bob Clark, who also made possibly the greatest Christmas film of all time, A Christmas Story – or are positioned tangentially in relation to the holiday (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon).

Read more:
Here’s why Christmas movies are so appealing this holiday season

Straight to the small screen

The telemovie has dominated the genre for the past 50 years or so. Sometimes these are excellent. The House without a Christmas Tree, from 1972, is a fantastic film starring Jason Robards. But usually, like the Olivia Newton-John vehicle A Mom For Christmas, they offer, at best, pleasantly distracting images and sounds to have in the background while you wrap presents.

The reign of the Christmas telemovie (now the Christmas made-for-streaming movie) is partly the result of networks looking for cheap fodder to program in December. But there’s also something about the telemovie aesthetic – the plots ludicrous and maudlin, the low-budget design, the characters so cheerful you could scream – that fits the kitsch flavour of pop-Christmas.

Usually these films – with titles such as Trading Christmas, Christmas All Over Again, and The National Tree – feature hokey narratives, the endings mawkish to an extent unacceptable outside of the silly season, the aesthetic extremely low-rent.

Some deliberately play up their kitsch elements and explode into camp extravaganzas – like the inimitable (and limitlessly pleasurable) Santa with Muscles, in which Hulk Hogan dressed in a sleeveless Santa suit fights mad scientists in order to save an orphanage. Though Santa with Muscles was briefly released theatrically in the Unites States, it found its viewers through TV repeats.

Netflix has made several made-for-TV Christmas movies in recent years, many of them unwatchable. For the ones that work, their success usually hinges upon the charm of the leads. Vanessa Hudgens in The Princess Switch, for example, is so infectiously likeable that we forget (or forgive) the absolute absurdity of the material.

There has been a slew of recent Australian Christmas movies made for Stan, including Christmas Ransom, Christmas on the Farm, and A Sunburnt Christmas, each sparkling about as much as a lump of coal in a stocking. This year’s new offering from Stan, Jones Family Christmas, doesn’t fare much better.

Read more:
Christmas Ransom: I quite enjoyed watching this (terrible) new Aussie Christmas film

Jones Family Christmas

From the opening ditty – Clive Smith’s extremely irritating “It’s Christmas in Australia and I am upside down” – Jones Family Christmas’ deliberate Australian dagginess is pretty hard to stomach.

We get it. This is Australian Christmas. There are “redbacks” and “mates rates”, people are “happier than a pig in shit.”

The narrative is predictable but unassuming. Matriarch Heather Jones (Heather Mitchell in a low-key, oddly touching performance) tries to hold her family together over Christmas in the midst of interpersonal turmoil and bushfires encroaching on their rural Victorian property.

The film plods through such a plethora of dumb cliches – rusty tractors, joeys, laconic parents suppressing family tensions and tragedies – that it all feels terribly laboured. But the cinematography is effective and the acting solid, and the whole thing has enough charm balancing its silly humour to make a watchable if forgettable film, its schmaltzy, sentimental narrative bow appropriately wrapping it up.

In any case, one of the major redeeming features of these made-for-Stan Christmas movies is that they don’t imagine they’re doing anything more than they’re doing: providing some entertaining and cheerful Christmas pap.

A Savage Christmas

This year Binge is following Stan’s lead, securing the first rate Christmess, fresh from its cinema release, and the truly terrible A Savage Christmas, which fails to work across almost every element.

Writer-director Madeleine Dyer’s feature film debut, A Savage Christmas follows the children of rich Australian parents Brenda (Helen Thomson) and James (David Roberts) as they return to their family house for Christmas – mainly to secure their expected $10,000 Christmas cheque.

Davina (Thea Raveneau), their trans daughter, hasn’t been home for three years. She drags her trans boyfriend Kane (Max Jahufer) in tow. Jimmy (Ryan Morgan), the Savage’s son, is an ex-cop-turned wannabe rapper who owes money to a gangster, and daughter Leia (Rekha Ryan) is an Instagram-style princess-mum whose life is secretly falling apart.

Past resentments predictably arise amid the simmering tension in occasionally funny but mainly uninteresting and off-putting ways.

Like Jones Family Christmas, the film fits firmly in the “families are messy, everyone has issues” Christmas sub-genre – think of The Family Stone or Christmas with the Coopers. But while those films were buoyed by excellent stars, solid writing and a style that big budgets can buy, A Savage Christmas is characterised by amateurish performances, uneven comedy, and a repellently smug tone.

Its point is so obvious – everyone is messed up in their own way and those who appear less messed up are often more so – it feels about as subtle as an axe to the face. It’s trying to be a mixture of fresh, cynical, wry and edgy, but feels empty and mean-spirited.

The comedy is mostly puerile – a major gag is a sweet potato carved like a phallus knocking the head off a Baby Jesus ornament – and there are no believable moments, no character touches, to sustain any emotion or sense of drama. It completely lacks the dramatic heft needed to make it feel like these characters are worth caring about in any capacity – and it seems to want you to care.

There are a handful of moments where the film allows you to breathe, where it ceases to feel like a heavy-handed discourse machine willing to suspend all verisimilitude in order to make its point, and Darren Gilshenan gives a beautifully unhinged performance as the deranged Uncle Dick.

The cinematography and production design are efficient – there’s nothing technically wrong with the film – but it fails hopelessly as both a comedy and as a feelgood film of a broken family beginning to heal. A Savage Christmas would give Crackers a run for its money as the worst Australian Christmas film to date.

If you feel like watching a new Australian Christmas film, Christmess is infinitely better than both A Savage Christmas and Jones Family Christmas, covering similar terrain with much more subtlety, intelligence, style and good humour. More evidence that a bigger budget does not necessarily equal a better film.

And if it’s simply Hallmark-style trash you’re after – true Christmas telemovies, warmly embracing the saccharine spirit of the holiday – there’s a plentiful supply of these across the major streaming services.

Read more:
Christmess is undoubtedly one of the best Christmas films to emerge – from anywhere – in recent years

Ari Mattes 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. Telemovies have dominated Christmas movies for 50 years – so why are the Aussie straight-to-streaming ones this bad? – https://theconversation.com/telemovies-have-dominated-christmas-movies-for-50-years-so-why-are-the-aussie-straight-to-streaming-ones-this-bad-219963

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yohanna Villalobos, Postdoctoral research fellow, Lund University

If you really want to know how much Australia contributes to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, you have to study all the “sources” and “sinks”.

Sources release CO₂ into the atmosphere, while sinks take it out. There are sources from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, and there are natural sinks such as plants absorbing CO₂. You can tally it all up on a balance sheet to find the net result. Are we adding to CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, overall? And if so, by how much?

It’s an enormous undertaking, but not impossible. We have just published the most comprehensive assessment of Australian CO₂ sources and sinks. It covers the decade from 2010 to 2019, and it reveals some surprising features.

Astonishingly, we found the net annual carbon balance of the entire continent switches from year to year. Australia can be a large net source of CO₂ one year and a large net CO₂ sink the next, in response to our increasingly variable climate. That makes it harder to detect long-term trends and understand whether our natural carbon sinks are growing or decreasing.

Read more:
Fossil CO₂ emissions hit record high yet again in 2023

What is the contemporary carbon budget?

Our research reveals what we call the “contemporary carbon budget” for Australia.

This budget is different from the “remaining carbon budget”, which refers to the CO₂ that can still be emitted before we exceed a certain level of warming.

We constructed the contemporary budget using a wide variety of data and modelling approaches. We needed to estimate the carbon “fluxes” (sources and sinks) of land-based ecosystems, freshwater bodies, and of human activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land clearing and revegetation.

We also used global assessments, Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and trade statistics. And we used atmospheric and satellite CO₂ information to constrain the dynamics of the Australian carbon balance, as well as other satellite-based data to estimate Australia’s fire emissions.

We developed this carbon budget with the best available data and scientific tools. However, large uncertainties such as data gaps and model limitations remain for some of the estimates. We report all uncertainties in the research paper.

Carbon in, carbon out

The biggest CO₂ source from Australia’s human activities is fossil fuels, with an average of 403 million tonnes of CO₂ for the decade 2010-19. That can be broken down into coal (44%), oil (34%), gas (18%), gas flaring (3%) and cement (1%).

Emissions from wildfires (natural) and prescribed burning (human-caused) were 568 million tonnes of CO₂ a year which, unlike fossil fuels, are largely offset by subsequent vegetation regrowth. This led to a net CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere of 36 million tonnes a year. CO₂ emissions from the Black Summer fires in 2019 were exceptionally high at 951 million tonnes, much of which has already returned to vegetation after three years of above-average rainfall.

Rivers, lakes and reservoirs – both natural and human-made – are also sources of CO₂, contributing 82 million tonnes.

Natural forests, savannas and the large expanses of rangelands all contributed to removing vast amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere at a rate of more than 388 million tonnes a year.

Coastal ecosystems “blue carbon” such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses soaked up 61 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, further adding to Australia’s CO₂ sinks. However, estuaries, including tidal systems, deltas and lagoons, released 27 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

The oceans surrounding Australia are also strong CO₂ sinks, removing about 183 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. This highlights the important role of the oceans, in addition to the land sink, in slowing the buildup of atmospheric CO₂ due to human emissions.

Exported carbon

Every year, about 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ are exported in the form of fossil fuels, primarily coal and natural gas.

A further 22 million tonnes of embedded CO₂ are exported every year in products such as wheat, wood pellets and livestock.

When these exported fossil fuels and products are consumed overseas, they release their carbon content into the atmosphere as CO₂.

However, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and rules supporting the Paris Agreement only require nations to report emissions released from their own territory. Emissions from exports are counted by the countries where the fossil fuels and products are eventually consumed.

The flip-flop carbon dynamics

We have long known about the “boom and bust” dynamics of Australia’s vegetation growth as it responds to periods of above-average rainfall and drought.

But we never imagined the entire nation could flip-flop so quickly from being a very strong and globally significant CO₂ sink, as in the La Niña of 2010-11, to being a major source of CO₂. But that’s precisely what happened as drought and fire changed the carbon accounts of Australia, during the southeast drought of 2018-19 and the following Black Summer fires in 2019.

Read more:
A staggering 1.8 million hectares burned in ‘high-severity’ fires during Australia’s Black Summer

What this tells us about the path to net zero

When we put all of the land-based CO₂ sources and sinks together, overall Australia was a net source to the atmosphere of 200 million tonnes of CO₂ a year during 2010-19. This drops to 140 million tonnes of CO₂ a year if we count the sinks from coastal ecosystems.

This means CO₂ sinks are partially offsetting fossil fuel emissions. This is something we have also estimated at the global scale, where about one-third of global fossil fuel emissions are removed by terrestrial land-based CO₂ sinks.

While this highlights the important role natural CO₂ sinks play in slowing climate change, it does not imply we have less work to do to reach the net zero emissions target.

That is because natural CO₂ sinks are already accounted for in estimates of the remaining carbon budgets and decarbonisation pathways to stabilise the climate. Accordingly, the Paris Agreement calls for achieving a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases, the so-called net zero target.

The large year-to-year variability of Australia’s non-anthropogenic carbon dynamics also underscores the need for a comprehensive and long-term monitoring and modelling observatory system to track the evolution of sources and sinks. We need high quality data supplementing the National Greenhouse Accounts to support decisions around how to use Australia’s natural assets to mitigate climate change.

Read more:
Carbon removal is needed to achieve net zero but has its own climate risks

Yohanna Villalobos receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program (NESP) and CSIRO Australia.

Benjamin Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Swedish Research Council, European Union and R&D funding programs of the New South Wales Government.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub.

Peter Briggs receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub and is a member of the ACT Greens.

– ref. Carbon in, carbon out: Australia’s ‘carbon budget’ assessment reveals astonishing boom and bust cycles – https://theconversation.com/carbon-in-carbon-out-australias-carbon-budget-assessment-reveals-astonishing-boom-and-bust-cycles-219592

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

Suddenly the talk in global financial markets has spun from “when will interest rates next rise?” to “how soon before they fall?”.

Some commentators are flagging the shift as a “pivot party”.

This change has been most prominent in the United States. It was prompted by the Federal Reserve, the US equivalent of the Reserve Bank of Australia, releasing its latest “dot chart”. This shows most members of its policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee expect their interest rate would be lower by the end of 2024.

The recent review of the Reserve Bank in Australia wanted more transparency. But, after the whacking former Governor Phil Lowe got when he wrongly predicted rates would stay low until “at least” 2024, I doubt his successor Michele Bullock will be keen to publish a similar chart.

Even so, financial markets in Australia are also now implying interest rates will fall over the course of next year.

The latest indicators

The Australian economy has continued to slow according to the latest national accounts. Consumer spending did not increase at all in the September quarter, despite an increase in population. Exports contracted. Overall GDP grew by a mere 0.2%.

The news from the labour market was mixed. There was a solid rise in employment in November. The hours worked data, however, have been basically flat for the past six months.

The government maintained fiscal discipline in the mid-year budget update released last week. They saved rather than spent almost all the extra revenue from higher than expected commodity prices.

The minutes of the Reserve’s latest meeting on December 5 show the board noted “encouraging signs of progress” in returning inflation to the target.

Subsequent events have suggested inflation will likely continue on its downward trajectory, which means the Reserve has increased interest rates enough.

Another development since the Reserve last met is an update of the
Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the board. This sets out the common understanding between them about Australia’s monetary policy framework.

Much of this statement carries over the existing framework. The bank’s primary tool is its cash rate target and it is varied to achieve a medium-term inflation target of 2-3%. Employment considerations influence how quickly it is regained when shocks move inflation away from it.

The statement explicitly refers to the midpoint of the target, reflecting a suggestion in the recent Reserve Bank review. Some commentators have interpreted this as indicating the bank cannot cut rates as its forecast for inflation only has it reaching the top, not the middle, of the range by the end of 2025.

Read more:
The 7 charts that show Australians struggling as saving falls to near zero

I disagree. The bank has always aimed at the midpoint of the target as the most likely way to ensure inflation averages within it. If the board was happy at its December meeting to have reached 3% by the end of 2025 on its way to achieving 2.5% later, there is no reason for it to change this view in February.

So what will the Reserve Bank do?

On balance, the economic news does not suggest the Reserve Bank will feel a need to raise rates in February. But with inflation still high, and plenty of uncertainty, they are unlikely to cut rates any time soon. The bank does not generally make sharp U-turns with the average gap between the last interest rate increase in a cycle and the first cut being ten months.

At its next meeting, on February 5-6, the Reserve board may have a new member, deputy governor Andrew Hauser, and a new adviser, chief economist Sarah Hunter. They share a British background so will be familiar with the Bank of England model, which influenced the Reserve Bank review.

The impact of (eventual) lower interest rates

The movements in the Reserve Bank’s interest rate matters most to the third of households with a mortgage. Most of these have variable rate loans where the interest rate closely follows that set by the Reserve. An interest rate cut would ease the cost-of-living pressures they have been facing.

A household with the average loan size of around A$600,000 would have seen their monthly repayments rise by almost $1,700 since early 2022. This would drop by $100 if rates were cut by 0.25%.

While the impact on mortgagees always gets the most attention, interest rates affect other members of the community too.

Read more:
Will the RBA raise rates again? Unless prices surge over summer, it’s looking less likely

Lower interest rates mean a lower income to retirees dependent on interest on their savings. They tend to boost the prices of assets such as shares and houses. They encourage borrowing and spending and reduce incentives to save. They tend to lower the exchange rate, making imports more expensive for Australians but our exports cheaper to foreigners. The net impact is generally to lower unemployment.

A lot of people are therefore looking forward to an interest rate cut. But they should not be holding their breath.

Financial markets may be getting prematurely excited. The last thing the Reserve Bank would want is to find themselves having lowered rates too quickly and see inflation turn back up, necessitating the interest rate cut to be reversed. More likely, they will wait for inflation to drop much closer to their target before there is any easing of interest rates.

John Hawkins is a former senior economist at the Reserve Bank and has worked as an economic forecaster at the Bank for International Settlements and the Australian Treasury.

– ref. Interest rates will eventually fall but it’s a bit early for borrowers to break out the champagne – https://theconversation.com/interest-rates-will-eventually-fall-but-its-a-bit-early-for-borrowers-to-break-out-the-champagne-220038

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne

Joko Widodo, popularly known as “Jokowi”, has served as Indonesia’s president for almost a decade. He is hugely popular, garnering around 80% in some polls. But the constitution bars him from serving a third term in office.

Repeated proposals in recent years years to amend the constitution to allow Jokowi to run again have gained little public or political traction. This leaves him unable to contest the next presidential election in February.

Key powerbrokers, however, have been keen to make the most of the tens of millions of votes that Jokowi commands – and maintain his inner circle’s influence after he leaves the palace next year.

Perhaps their most conspicuous strategy to do this has been to install Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as vice presidential running mate for Prabowo Subianto, now ahead in the polls with a huge lead of 20 points.

Read more:
The professor, the general and the populist: meet the three candidates running for president in Indonesia

Concerning legal moves

Getting Gibran into that position required the co-option of one of Indonesia’s most respected judicial institutions – the Constitutional Court.

The main roadblock for Gibran (and Jokowi) was that the election law imposed a minimum age of 40 for presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

In a case challenging that age limit, Chief Justice Anwar Usman, Jokowi’s brother-in-law and Gibran’s uncle, intervened to ensure a majority of judges would reverse the court’s position in three previous decisions.

As a result, the election law was altered to permit younger candidates to stand if they had previously held office as head of a sub-national government. Gibran, 36, just happens to have served as mayor of Solo in central Java, a job his father once held, and so the decision meant he could now run for vice president.

The decision has trashed of the reputation of the Constitutional Court, raising questions about its continuing credibility and future, with witty hackers changing its name on Google Maps to the “family court”.

However, not all judges agreed with the decision. Three judges dissented, with some raising questions about Anwar’s behaviour and his obvious conflict of interest. Public outrage over the decision led to the court’s ethics tribunal removing him from his position as chief justice last month.

Read more:
A twist in Indonesia’s presidential election does not bode well for the country’s fragile democracy

Yet, Anwar remains one of the nine judges on the court, the decision he is accused of “fixing” stands, and Gibran’s nomination as a vice presidential candidate can probably not be reversed.

Worse, the national legislature has been debating amendments to the Constitutional Court statute that could enable the removal of the dissenting judges. Ironically, this might be through the imposition of a minimum age requirement on Constitutional Court judges. One of the court’s most respected judges, Saldi Isra, is under the proposed age, and appears to be a target.

Jokowi picks a side

From the outside, it may seem like Gibran and Prabowo are strange bedfellows. Prabowo is a former son-in-law of the dictatorial former president Soeharto. He is a cashiered former general who has long been accused of serious human rights abuses, including alleged killings in East Timor, Papua and even the capital, Jakarta.

Prabowo has never faced trial, although several of his men were tried and convicted. He has denied the allegations against him.

Ironically, he was also Jokowi’s bitter opponent in the past two elections, which polarised Indonesia. Prabowo’s refusal to accept his electoral defeats in 2014 and 2019 led to dramatic challenges in the Constitutional Court.

Read more:
Indonesia’s presidential election dispute: Prabowo’s plan to challenge election result may be in vain

But the enmity between Jokowi and Prabowo seemed to evaporate almost immediately after the court challenges failed, with Prabowo pragmatically accepting the job of defence minister in Jokowi’s cabinet.

Now, Jokowi appears to have decided that Prabowo, of all people, offers the best chance to build a dynasty to keep some sort of hold on power. Certainly few see Gibran – largely silent or inarticulate in public appearances – as serious leadership material. He is widely assumed to be a proxy for Jokowi.

This dynasty-building exercise has involved a massive and expensive campaign that many complain has co-opted government agencies and programs to promote Prabowo and Gibran.

It has also involved reinventing Prabowo, a one-time special forces general, as a gemoy (cute) grandpa, with viral video clips showing him dancing and playing with kittens.

Jokowi’s alignment with Prabowo (through his son) is all the more surprising given Jokowi was a longtime member of PDI-P (Indonesian Democracy Party – Struggle). PDI-P is Indonesia’s largest political party. It twice successfully nominated Jokowi for the presidency, and it has its own candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, in February’s election. Party rules require Jokowi to support him.

By abandoning Ganjar for Prabowo (who has his own party, Gerindra), Jokowi will effectively be stealing votes from PDI-P and declaring war on its boss, the formidable – and vengeful – former president, Megawati Soekarnoputeri, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president. She will fight hard to maintain her party’s power and influence.

Is Indonesia’s democracy under threat?

Despite the political chaos these moves have sparked, Jokowi’s bet that his loyalists and the general public don’t really care about constitutional crises or claims of dynasty building seems to be paying off.

Of course, votes could still shift in the next month and a half. However, there is a sense the momentum created by Jokowi’s support for Prabowo may make his victory inevitable. Some former critics are already quietly changing sides to ensure a share of the spoils.

Jokowi has previously said “our democracy has gone too far”. And Prabowo has openly called for a return to the model of Suharto’s authoritarian New Order.

So, a Prabowo-Gibran victory may be good news for the elites now in power, but it will likely be bad news for Indonesian democracy. It will confirm – and probably accelerate – the regression that most observers, including Freedom House, agree is already advanced under Jokowi.

Many voters seem untroubled by this. Indonesia’s post-Soeharto “Reformasi” wave of democratisation is mere history for Indonesia’s Gen Z, who appear to have limited interest in all that was achieved two decades ago and no experience of living under authoritarianism.

But the activist legal NGOs that form Indonesia’s policy “brains trust” are depressed and anxious. Certainly, some are protesting, and a few are even challenging the court decision that allowed Gibran to run.

However, many are intimidated by criminal charges that members of Jokowi’s administration have brought against critics with increasing frequency in recent years. From the perspective of civil society, Jokowi’s strategists seem to have a fix in place and dark and difficult times lie ahead.

Tim Lindsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Simon Butt receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Is Joko Widodo paving the way for a political dynasty in Indonesia? – https://theconversation.com/is-joko-widodo-paving-the-way-for-a-political-dynasty-in-indonesia-219499

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Patrick Rule, Research Affiliate, Monash University

Baleen whales are the titans of the ocean, the largest animals to have ever lived. The record holder is the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), which can reach lengths of up to 30 metres. That’s longer than a basketball court.

However, throughout their evolutionary history, most baleen whales were relatively much smaller, around five metres in length. While still big compared to most animals, for a baleen whale that’s quite small.

However, new fossil discoveries from the Southern Hemisphere are beginning to disrupt this story. The latest is an unassuming fossil from the banks of the Murray River in South Australia.

Roughly 19 million years old, this fossil is the tip of the lower jaws (or “chin”) of a baleen whale estimated to be around nine metres in length, which makes it the new record holder from its time. This find has been published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

What are baleen whales?

Most mammals have teeth in their mouth. Baleen whales are a strange exception. While their ancestors had teeth, today’s baleen whales instead have baleen – a large rack of fine, hair-like keratin used to filter out small krill from the water.

This structure enabled baleen whales to feed efficiently on enormous shoals of tiny zooplankton in productive parts of the ocean, which facilitated the evolution of larger and larger body sizes.

The ‘missing years’ of whale evolution

Various groups of toothed whales terrorised the ocean for millions of years, including some that were the ancestors of the toothless baleen whales. Yet at some time between 23 and 18 million years ago these ancient “toothed baleen whales” went extinct.

We aren’t exactly sure when, as fossil whales from this episode in Earth’s history are exceedingly rare. What we do know is immediately after this gap in the whale fossil record, only the relatively small, toothless ancestors of baleen whales remained.

Scientists previously thought baleen whales kept to relatively small proportions until the ice ages (which began from about 3–2.5 million years ago). But the majority of research on trends in the evolutionary history of whales is based on the reasonably well-explored fossil record from the Northern Hemisphere – a notable bias that likely shaped these theories.

Crucially, new fossil finds from the Southern Hemisphere are starting to show us that at least down south, whales got bigger much earlier than previous theories suggest.

An unexpected find

More than 100 years ago, palaeontologist Francis Cudmore found the very tips of a large pair of fossil whale jaws eroding out of the banks of the Murray River in South Australia. These 19-million-year-old fossils made their way to Museums Victoria and remained unrecognised in the collection until they were rediscovered in a drawer by one of the authors, Erich Fitzgerald.

Using equations derived from measurements of modern-day baleen whales, we predicted the whale this fossilised “chin” came from was approximately nine metres long. The previous record holder from this early period of whale evolution was only six metres long.

Together with other fossils from Peru in South America, this suggests larger baleen whales may have emerged much earlier in their evolutionary history and the large body size of whales evolved gradually over many more millions of years than previous research suggested.

The Southern Hemisphere as the cradle of gigantic whale evolution

The large whale fossils from Australasia and South America seem to suggest that for most of the evolutionary history of baleen whales, whenever a large baleen whale shows up in the fossil record, it is in the Southern Hemisphere.

Strikingly, this pattern persists despite the fact the Southern Hemisphere contains less than 20% of the known fossil record of baleen whales. While this is an unexpectedly strong signal from our research, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise when we consider living baleen whales.

Today, the temperate seas of the Southern Hemisphere are connected by the chilly Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica and is extremely productive, supporting the greatest biomass of marine megafauna on Earth.

Around the time baleen whales started evolving from big to gigantic, the strength of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current was intensifying, eventually leading to the present day powerhouse Southern Ocean.

Today, baleen whales are ecosystem engineers, their huge bodies consuming tremendous amounts of energy. Upon death, these whales provide an abundance of nutrients to deep-sea ecosystems.

As we learn more about the evolutionary history of whales, such as when and where their large size evolved, we can begin to understand just how ancient their role in the ocean ecosystem may have been and how it could shift in tune with global climate change.

Read more:
The true origins of the world’s smallest and weirdest whale

James Patrick Rule currently receives funding from an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UKRI Fellowship, and previously received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project.

Erich Fitzgerald received funding from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project that supported part of this research.

– ref. 19-million-year-old fossil jaw bone hints the biggest whales first evolved somewhere unexpected – https://theconversation.com/19-million-year-old-fossil-jaw-bone-hints-the-biggest-whales-first-evolved-somewhere-unexpected-219961

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louie Ye, Clinical Fellow, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The University of Melbourne

The vagina is an internal organ with a complex ecosystem, influenced by circulating hormone levels which change during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause.

Around and after menopause, there are normal changes in the growth and function of vaginal cells, as well as the vagina’s microbiome (groups of bacteria living in the vagina). Many women won’t notice these changes. They don’t usually cause symptoms or concern, but if they do, symptoms can usually be managed.

Here’s what happens to your vagina as you age, whether you notice or not.

Read more:
Friday essay: grey-haired and radiant – reimagining ageing for women

Let’s clear up the terminology

We’re focusing on the vagina, the muscular tube that goes from the external genitalia (the vulva), past the cervix, to the womb (uterus). Sometimes the word “vagina” is used to include the external genitalia. However, these are different organs and play different roles in women’s health.

Read more:
Vulvas, periods and leaks: women need the right words to seek help for conditions ‘down there’

What happens to the vagina as you age?

Like many other organs in the body, the vagina is sensitive to female sex steroid hormones (hormones) that change around puberty, pregnancy and menopause.

Menopause is associated with a drop in circulating oestrogen concentrations and the hormone progesterone is no longer produced. The changes in hormones affect the vagina and its ecosystem. Effects may include:

• less vaginal secretions, potentially leading to dryness
• less growth of vagina surface cells resulting in a thinned lining
• alteration to the support structure (connective tissue) around the vagina leading to less elasticity and more narrowing
• fewer blood vessels around the vagina, which may explain less blood flow after menopause
• a shift in the type and balance of bacteria, which can change vaginal acidity, from more acidic to more alkaline.

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

What symptoms can I expect?

Many women do not notice any bothersome vaginal changes as they age. There’s also little evidence many of these changes cause vaginal symptoms. For example, there is no direct evidence these changes cause vaginal infection or bleeding in menopausal women.

Some women notice vaginal dryness after menopause, which may be linked to less vaginal secretions. This may lead to pain and discomfort during sex. But it’s not clear how much of this dryness is due to menopause, as younger women also commonly report it. In one study, 47% of sexually active postmenopausal women reported vaginal dryness, as did around 20% of premenopausal women.

Other organs close to the vagina, such as the bladder and urethra, are also affected by the change in hormone levels after menopause. Some women experience recurrent urinary tract infections, which may cause pain (including pain to the side of the body) and irritation. So their symptoms are in fact not coming from the vagina itself but relate to changes in the urinary tract.

Read more:
How long does menopause last? 5 tips for navigating uncertain times

Not everyone has the same experience

Women vary in whether they notice vaginal changes and whether they are bothered by these to the same extent. For example, women with vaginal dryness who are not sexually active may not notice the change in vaginal secretions after menopause. However, some women notice severe dryness that affects their daily function and activities.

In fact, researchers globally are taking more notice of women’s experiences of menopause to inform future research. This includes prioritising symptoms that matter to women the most, such as vaginal dryness, discomfort, irritation and pain during sex.

Read more:
Vaginas, pheromones and TikTok: what is the strange new trend of ‘vabbing’?

If symptoms bother you

Symptoms such as dryness, irritation, or pain during sex can usually be effectively managed. Lubricants may reduce pain during sex. Vaginal moisturisers may reduce dryness. Both are available over-the-counter at your local pharmacy.

While there are many small clinical trials of individual products, these studies lack the power to demonstrate if they are really effective in improving vaginal symptoms.

In contrast, there is robust evidence that vaginal oestrogen is effective in treating vaginal dryness and reducing pain during sex. It also reduces your chance of recurrent urinary tract infections. You can talk to your doctor about a prescription.

Vaginal oestrogen is usually inserted using an applicator, two to three times a week. Very little is absorbed into the blood stream, it is generally safe but longer-term trials are required to confirm safety in long-term use beyond a year.

Women with a history of breast cancer should see their oncologist to discuss using oestrogen as it may not be suitable for them.

Read more:
Your vagina cleans itself: why vagina cleaning fads are unnecessary and harmful

Are there other treatments?

New treatments for vaginal dryness are under investigation. One avenue relates to our growing understanding of how the vaginal microbiome adapts and modifies around changes in circulating and local concentrations of hormones.

For example, a small number of reports show that combining vaginal probiotics with low-dose vaginal oestrogen can improve vaginal symptoms. But more evidence is needed before this is recommended.

Read more:
Health Check: should healthy people take probiotic supplements?

Where to from here?

The normal ageing process, as well as menopause, both affect the vagina as we age.

Most women do not have troublesome vaginal symptoms during and after menopause, but for some, these may cause discomfort or distress.

While hormonal treatments such as vaginal oestrogen are available, there is a pressing need for more non-hormonal treatments.

Dr Sianan Healy, from Women’s Health Victoria, contributed to this article.

Martha Hickey previously received research funding for a study of an ultrasound device for vaginal dryness (Madorra)

Louie Ye 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. What happens to your vagina as you age? – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-to-your-vagina-as-you-age-212198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Beban, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University

Who does which household chores – or who does the most – is a perennial source of tension for many couples. From cleaning the toilet to taking out the trash, it’s sometimes the little things that can cause the biggest trouble.

Not without reason, either. Research shows women still do the bulk of the housework and caregiving in most heterosexual couples. And this unequal labour can lead to burnout, health problems and financial stress.

We also know same-sex couples often have a far more equitable division of labour than heterosexual couples. But it’s not clear how same-sex couples manage to achieve this fairer split of household chores.

Our recent research aimed to shed some light on this. We surveyed same-sex couples in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and identified three key factors that enabled them to share the chores in ways they both feel is fair.

The couples in our study focused on achieving a sense of fairness and equality over time, rather than a strict 50-50 split. They all had different patterns of dividing tasks. However, they shared some common strategies that offer valuable lessons for any couple, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

1. Keep changing things up

We know that when couples negotiate roles based on their individual availability and what they like doing – or what they least despise – it contributes to a sense of fairness and satisfaction.

Same-sex couples we interviewed embraced flexibility when it comes to dividing housework. They negotiated chores based on their specific needs, preferences and availability. Flexibility is key – if the person who usually takes the children to swimming lessons has a lot on at work, the other partner would step in.

Beyond the day-to-day, same-sex couples often play the long game, balancing unpaid labour with each other’s career progression. Some couples in our study planned their working and family lives so both partners could progress at work by taking turns as the main caregiver when their children were born.

Others recognised that task specialisation – such as one person always doing the taxes, and the other always cooking – could lead to dependence and rigidity. So they consciously practised task sharing to avoid this.

Read more:
How last night’s fight affects the way couples divide housework

2. Communicate

Couples who engage in honest conversations about their labour responsibilities tend to view their household division as fair. On the flip side, negative communication – aggression, avoidance or criticism – fosters a sense of unfairness.

In our research, effective and open communication was key to achieving an equitable division of unpaid labour. But these conversations weren’t always easy.

Couples who felt guilty about not doing enough around the house, or frustration with their partner for not pulling their weight, found simple conversations could become emotionally intense.

Read more:
Yet again, the census shows women are doing more housework. Now is the time to invest in interventions

We all have different standards of cleanliness, gender socialisation and family background that shape how we approach housework. And this can also make it difficult to understand a partner’s perspective or expectations.

Couples in our survey navigated disagreements through candid conversations, transforming conflict into opportunities for greater mutual understanding and agreement.

It’s not just about talking, but also about regular “check-ins” to see how each person is feeling about the labour load, and renegotiating things when household circumstances or feelings change.

3. Remember unpaid labour is valuable

Housework is often devalued when compared with paid work. Previous research has shown how undervaluing housework diminishes the quality of relationships.

Same-sex couples in our research sought to revalue unpaid labour by assigning it equal worth to paid labour. As one person said:

The domestic tasks, we might not enjoy them, but we both value them equally. We both think they are important.

Some couples actively acknowledged and appreciated difficult and time-consuming tasks, such as their partner cleaning the bathroom. Participants also found value in unpaid labour beyond the chores themselves, viewing them as acts of love, and found joy in small tasks.

One couple even turned household chores into a game, writing tasks on slips of paper and randomly selecting them from a bag – including enjoyable activities like walks or coffee breaks as rewards.

This not only lightens the mood but is also a strategy for involving children with less fuss.

Read more:
Why married mothers end up doing more housework when they start out-earning their husbands

4. Do a stocktake of the unpaid load

We often fall into patterns of domestic labour without realising it. In our study, we found completing simple time-use surveys and discussing them can illuminate disparities in responsibilities.

Why not try it yourself? List down the household tasks done last week, including physical chores (like shopping or cleaning), emotional tasks (caring for children or pets), and mental tasks (planning meals, managing finances).

Estimate the time both you and your partner spent on each task. Then, have a heart-to-heart about who is doing what, how you both feel about it, and how it can be fairer.

Lessons for all couples

Adapting these strategies in heterosexual relationships isn’t easy. Deep-seated gender norms and societal expectations about the feminine “homemaker” and masculine “breadwinner” can be tough to shake.

And same-sex couples are more likely to both be working part-time rather than having one partner at home and one working.

But that’s the challenge – to redefine and negotiate labour in a way that works for your unique relationship. Start by tossing out the old gender scripts about who should do what. Next, open a dialogue about chores.

Flexibility, communication and revaluing unpaid labour are strategies available to everyone.

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. Same-sex couples divide household chores more fairly – here’s what they told us works best – https://theconversation.com/same-sex-couples-divide-household-chores-more-fairly-heres-what-they-told-us-works-best-219477

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Shortis, Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

In the United States, one of the men vying for the presidency faces 91 criminal charges in four concurrent criminal cases. He uses openly fascist language, and has mused about “terminating” the Constitution. Just last week, he said that should he win the election, he would be a “dictator” for day one of his presidency (but not after that).

He currently sits four percentage points ahead of the incumbent president.

Last week, a Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 US voters found that, in a hypothetical head-to-head, Democratic President Joe Biden would attract 43% of votes compared to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s 47%. When five independent candidates were added to the mix, Biden’s projected vote dropped to 31%, compared to Trump’s 37%. The same poll measured Biden’s current approval rating at 37%.

In a country that prides itself on being the “oldest democracy in the world,” how is it possible that an explicit anti-democrat is outpolling the democratically elected president? Why is Biden so unpopular?

There are some obvious, immediate answers to this question. While not many of the truisms of the 1990s retain their relevance, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign dictum that “it’s the economy, stupid” retains a lot of explanatory power.

While the big indicators of economic recovery and success are tracking reasonably well in the United States – gross domestic product is up, inflation is down, and unemployment is at its lowest level since 1969 – these numbers just don’t line up with Americans’ material experiences.

That’s why the Biden administration is scrambling to sell the positive message of “Bidenomics”. They are struggling to sell that message at least in part because while those policies, such as Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, are having an impact, they haven’t been enough to reduce rampant inequality.

Read more:
Bidenomics: why it’s more likely to win the 2024 election than many people think

These perceptions – real and imagined – of an economy that doesn’t work for the majority of Americans are colliding with other crises in the United States that, sometimes fairly and sometimes not, are being laid at the feet of the president.

There is the ongoing trauma of a pandemic that killed over one million Americans; of gun violence; and of deaths of despair. And for young people especially, there is the sense of betrayal that a president who promised to be a generational bridge has not lifted young people up, has not done enough on climate, and proudly proclaims his Zionism in the face of unspeakable horror being perpetrated in Gaza by the right-wing Israeli government.

In what we might unsatisfactorily call a “normal” election cycle, this polycrisis would be enough of an explanation for recent polling.

But the possibility that an openly authoritarian candidate might win the highest office in the world’s most powerful democracy, even if it is an imperfect one, is not “normal”. Given the stakes of this election, there has to be more at play.

Polling consistently shows that Americans are deeply worried about the state of their democracy. At the end of 2022, for example, an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll found that a vast majority of Americans – eight in ten people – see American democracy as under threat.

Experts agree that they are right to understand the 2024 presidential election in these terms. American democracy has always been fragile, and it is now at as dangerous a point as at any other moment in its history.

It is these long threads of American history that connect to the present. For many, if not all, of his supporters, Trump’s seemingly untouchable popularity comes because, not in spite of, his particularly American brand of anti-democratic white supremacy.

Understanding Trump’s popularity with these voters means confronting what Fintan O’Toole has described as the “unresolved contradictions of American history”. By that he means the legacy of slavery, the Civil War, the undoing of Reconstruction, and the unfinished business of the Civil Rights movement.

Trump is popular precisely because he sits at the intersection of American history – the mutually reinforcing trends of white supremacy, exceptionalism and conspiracy.

At his strongest, Biden understands and acknowledges this. Biden speaks clearly and consistently of the threat Trumpism poses to American democracy. Twice in recent history, in the 2020 presidential elections and the 2022 midterms, voters have agreed with him.

Read more:
Polls say Trump has a strong chance of winning again in 2024. So how might his second term reshape the US government?

When it comes down to it, those voters may well agree with him once more. We can say with reasonable certainty that Biden’s “disaffected Democrats” won’t turn out for Trump. And we know from experience that polls are incomplete snapshots of intention and sometimes fail to capture other motivating factors.

The real risk is that this time around, Biden’s message of threat mitigation will not be enough. As the United States’ immediate polycrisis collides with its old one, Biden’s tendency to fall back into old tropes of American exceptionalism has started to ring hollow, and only reinforces existing perceptions that, at 81, he is too old to run again.

As he seeks out a second term, the president’s apparent inability to articulate a coherent alternate vision for the future of his country may well be critical.

While those four percentage points might not seem like much, and will likely keep moving until November, they’re representative of a very big problem for the future of American democracy.

Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute.

– ref. Biden’s burden: four percentage points, a struggling economy and a fragile democracy – https://theconversation.com/bidens-burden-four-percentage-points-a-struggling-economy-and-a-fragile-democracy-219496

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland

Sun exposure can accelerate ageing, cause skin burns, erythema (a skin reaction), skin cancer, melasmas (or sun spots) and other forms of hyperpigmentation – all triggered by solar ultraviolet radiation.

Approximately 80% of skin cancer cases in people engaged in outdoor activities are preventable by decreasing sun exposure. This can be done in lots of ways including wearing protective clothing or sunscreens.

But not all sunscreens work in the same way. You might have heard of “physical” and “chemical” sunscreens. What’s the difference and which one is right for you?

Read more:
How should I add sunscreen to my skincare routine now it’s getting hotter?

How sunscreens are classified

Sunscreens are grouped by their use of active inorganic and organic ultraviolet (UV) filters. Chemical sunscreens use organic filters such as cinnamates (chemically related to cinnamon oil) and benzophenones. Physical sunscreens (sometimes called mineral sunscreens) use inorganic filters such as titanium and zinc oxide.

These filters prevent the effects of UV radiation on the skin.

Organic UV filters are known as chemical filters because the molecules in them change to stop UV radiation reaching the skin. Inorganic UV filters are known as physical filters, because they work through physical means, such as blocking, scattering and reflection of UV radiation to prevent skin damage.

Read more:
Explainer: how does sunscreen work, what is SPF and can I still tan with it on?

Nano versus micro

The effectiveness of the filters in physical sunscreen depends on factors including the size of the particle, how it’s mixed into the cream or lotion, the amount used and the refraction index (the speed light travels through a substance) of each filter.

When the particle size in physical sunscreens is large, it causes the light to be scattered and reflected more. That means physical sunscreens can be more obvious on the skin, which can reduce their cosmetic appeal.

Nanoparticulate forms of physical sunscreens (with tiny particles smaller than 100 nanometers) can improve the cosmetic appearance of creams on the skin and UV protection, because the particles in this size range absorb more radiation than they reflect. These are sometimes labelled as “invisible” zinc or mineral formulations and are considered safe.

So how do chemical sunscreens work?

Chemical UV filters work by absorbing high-energy UV rays. This leads to the filter molecules interacting with sunlight and changing chemically.

When molecules return to their ground (or lower energy) state, they release energy as heat, distributed all over the skin. This may lead to uncomfortable reactions for people with skin sensitivity.

Generally, UV filters are meant to stay on the epidermis (the first skin layer) surface to protect it from UV radiation. When they enter into the dermis (the connective tissue layer) and bloodstream, this can lead to skin sensitivity and increase the risk of toxicity. The safety profile of chemical UV filters may depend on whether their small molecular size allows them to penetrate the skin.

Chemical sunscreens, compared to physical ones, cause more adverse reactions in the skin because of chemical changes in their molecules. In addition, some chemical filters, such as dibenzoylmethane tend to break down after UV exposure. These degraded products can no longer protect the skin against UV and, if they penetrate the skin, can cause cell damage.

Due to their stability – that is, how well they retain product integrity and effectiveness when exposed to sunlight – physical sunscreens may be more suitable for children and people with skin allergies.

Although sunscreen filter ingredients can rarely cause true allergic dermatitis, patients with photodermatoses (where the skin reacts to light) and eczema have higher risk and should take care and seek advice.

Read more:
There’s a serious ethical problem with some sunscreen testing methods – and you’re probably not aware of it

What to look for

The best way to check if you’ll have a reaction to a physical or chemical sunscreen is to patch test it on a small area of skin.

And the best sunscreen to choose is one that provides broad-spectrum protection, is water and sweat-resistant, has a high sun protection factor (SPF), is easy to apply and has a low allergy risk.

Health authorities recommend sunscreen to prevent sun damage and cancer. Chemical sunscreens have the potential to penetrate the skin and may cause irritation for some people. Physical sunscreens are considered safe and effective and nanoparticulate formulations can increase their appeal and ease of use.

Yousuf Mohammed receives funding from U.S FDA grants. This article reflects the views of the author and should not be construed to represent views or policies.

Khanh Phan 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. What’s the difference between physical and chemical sunscreens? And which one should you choose? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-physical-and-chemical-sunscreens-and-which-one-should-you-choose-217097