Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Cronin, Professor, Strength and Conditioning, Auckland University of Technology

It’s the time of year to make resolutions to improve fitness and strength, but this may not require a gym membership or even hard work.

Strength training can be effective with small weights, provided by household items like a small can of spaghetti or wearable resistance loads incorporated into clothing.

You might remember from your school physics classes that strength and force are fairly synonymous. The formula for force was given to us by Sir Isaac Newton: force = mass x acceleration.

When you think of getting stronger or improving the force of certain muscles, you may have visions of lifting relatively heavy weights. But because of the large mass, you can’t move a heavy load quickly. As a result your movement velocities and accelerations are small.

But the Newtonian formula shows there is another possibility for improving strength. This type of training highlights the velocity and acceleration of movement, which means the masses have to be small or light – like the wearable resistance 600g weights the sprinter in this video is using on his thighs.

Depending on whether he is doing a tempo run or a sprint, the angular velocity at his hip can be between 400 to 1000 degrees per second, in other words very fast.

Wearable resistance

From a physics perspective, there are two ways to develop strength. You either move heavy loads slowly or light loads quickly.

Wearable resistance refers to strength training where you affix a load to your body in some manner. It takes advantage of the concept of moving small masses (micro-loading) at high velocities.

That small mass is being accelerated and decelerated at high rates, which in turn loads the muscles substantially.

Let’s add one more layer of physics to show how micro-loading with wearable resistance trains strength. Have you heard of inertia? It describes the resistance to a change in motion. Resistance is a function of mass.

For example, if you place a 400g weight on your mid-thigh, then your thigh is 400g heavier and therefore requires more muscular effort to accelerate and decelerate. If you place the same weight further away from the rotating hip joint, you’ll need to put in more muscular effort to get it going because that loading has greater rotational inertia.

It’s this rotational inertia you are really interested in when it comes to assessing the muscle training with limb-loaded wearable resistance. It is important to understand so you can use it safely and effectively.

The formula here is: rotational inertia = mass x radius²

Let’s take the thigh as an example. The thigh requires rotational force (torque) to move it. The larger the thigh mass, the more muscular effort (torque) is required by the hip flexors and extensors.

By simply adding more wearable resistance to the thigh you can increase the rotational inertia, which means more muscular effort or turning force (torque) is required at the hip joint.

But let’s not forget the second part of the formula (r²), which describes where we put the mass. This has a bigger influence on rotational inertia (muscular effort) because the distance between the joint and the added weight (radius) is squared.

Read more:
Resistance band workouts are everywhere – but do they work?

Increasing the training effect

I have modelled the rotational inertia associated with the thigh of a 86kg athlete. In the table you can see the rotational inertia for a variety of loads when they are placed mid-thigh.

By shifting the load further down the leg, you can increase the rotational inertia, for example from 4.7% to 12.1% for a 400g load.

This is called distal loading and it is one of the most important parameters to understand with wearable resistance. For every centimetre you move from the axis of rotation, the distance is squared and hence has a substantial effect on rotational inertia and therefore the muscular work required.

Read more:
Four ways older adults can get back to exercising – without the worry of an injury

Wearable resistance micro-loading provides an alternative to traditional strength training with heavy loads. It also has the added bonus of happening as part of what you are doing anyway, such as walking or swimming. For the time-poor, this is good news as the gym can take on less importance.

By slipping a weight further away from the rotating joint, you can systematically and progressively increase the training effect on your muscles without adding weight.

As a result of the greater mechanical load, your metabolic activity and calorie burning increase. There are many possible applications of wearable resistance training beyond strength and fitness building, including for general health, injury prevention and recovery.

John Cronin has worked for Lila Movement Technology, Malaysia and received shares in the company previously. He no longer receives funding or shares from this organisation.

– ref. Wearable resistance: how to get stronger by simply moving, with a little help from small weights – https://theconversation.com/wearable-resistance-how-to-get-stronger-by-simply-moving-with-a-little-help-from-small-weights-166350

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Wood, Associate Professor, Discipline of Childhood and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

Australian children aged 5-11 are eligible to receive their COVID-19 vaccine from today.

For many parents, vaccinating their child is a shared decision with both parents agreeing to go ahead.

But not all parents agree.

As we roll out COVID vaccines to younger children this week, what options are there if one parent wants to vaccinate their child but the other doesn’t?

Why do parents disagree about COVID vaccines?

Before COVID, parents chose to vaccinate their children for a range of reasons. This included a feeling of social responsibility, a belief in the protective medical benefit and safety of vaccines, and possibly a financial incentive, driven by policies including “No Jab No Pay”.

However, for some, barriers to timely vaccination remain. For instance, childhood illnesses may have prevented vaccination, or it may be difficult to get to a vaccine clinic because of work commitments or lack of transport.

Read more:
Why do people not vaccinate?

Others believe vaccination has unacceptable side effects or immunisation is ineffective in preventing disease. Others believe vaccines contain harmful substances, prefer natural or homeopathic alternatives, or mistrust medical evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

A minority of parents also falsely believe these apply to COVID-19 vaccines.

Why are disputes more of an issue now?

As we roll out COVID-19 vaccines to more children, vaccine disputes between parents may rise.

If parents disagree, what happens next partly depends on the age and maturity of the child.

For instance, teenagers aged 16 years and older are usually considered to have the capacity to consent for themselves. So if parents disagree, older teenagers with the capacity to consent can go ahead and get their shot anyway.

Where disputes are likely to arise is for younger children. For those aged 12-15, vaccinators like to see agreement from the adolescent to be vaccinated plus consent from the parent or guardian.

For children under 12, a parent or guardian needs to provide consent as young children are not deemed to have capacity to do so.

Written consent to vaccination is not required in Australia.

What happens next?

When parents disagree over whether to vaccinate their child, the child may be delayed in getting vaccinated or can remain unvaccinated until they can consent themselves.

Depending on the relationship between parents and whether it is safe to do so, parents can look together at reliable sources of information and answers to frequently asked questions about vaccination. These may address any misunderstandings or disagreements.

Seeking external advice from a neutral third party, such as a GP or specialist immunisation service, is also recommended. Other options include getting in touch with community organisations, such as family relationships organisations, or the Family Relationship Advice Line (1800 050 321). These may be able to advise about mediation.

If these methods fail, going to court may be the last resort. This comes with significant financial and emotional costs, so is best avoided.

Australia’s Family Court has set up a COVID-19 list to prepare for hearing disputes about children being vaccinated against COVID-19. The courts have already seen a rise in applications.

We can’t say for certain how the courts will decide. What we do know, however, is what happened when non COVID-19 vaccination disputes went to court.

The court has favoured vaccination

In research we have submitted for publication, we reviewed 27 cases involving parental disputes involving non COVID-19 immunisations. These went to court in Australia between 2002 and 2021.

In 21 of those cases, the court decided in favour of the parent who supported vaccination. In five cases, the court declined to make a decision due to a lack of medical expert evidence presented and asked this be gathered for future hearings. In only one case was parental responsibility awarded to the party opposing vaccination.

In all cases where traditional Western medical expert evidence was presented, the court decided in favour of the parent who supported vaccination.

Read more:
Safety, side effects, allergies and doses. The COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine for 5-11 year olds explained

In many cases, courts made statements on the individual and public benefits of immunisation. Common themes across judgements included:

• any potential risks of vaccination are greatly outweighed by the risk of harm from vaccine-preventable diseases
• failure of a parent to immunise exposes a child to risk of harm
• indirect benefits of immunisation to the community argues in favour of vaccination.

Many of these statements made about non COVID-19 vaccines also apply to COVID-19 vaccines.

Based on prior experience it seems likely courts will decide in favour of immunisation.

Start the discussion now

Almost 80% of Australian 12 to 15 year olds have had one dose of COVID vaccine and about 73% have had two doses. So if vaccine uptake in this age group is an accurate guide of parents’ views, we are likely to see similar high uptake in children aged 5-11.

Over 7 million children aged 5-11 in the US have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and over 4 million have had two doses.

Clinical trial data of children this age showed they made antibodies and the vaccine showed efficacy. Real-world data is anticipated. There have been no safety concerns to date.

So, if you haven’t already started talking about vaccinating your child, now is the time.

Grace Barbara, a 4th year medical student at the University of Sydney, conducted the review of legal cases and contributed to research mentioned in this article.

Nicholas Wood receives funding from the NHMRC for a Career Development Fellowship. He holds a Churchill Fellowship awarded in 2019.

– ref. Should my child have a COVID vaccine? Here’s what can happen when parents disagree – https://theconversation.com/should-my-child-have-a-covid-vaccine-heres-what-can-happen-when-parents-disagree-174395

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ana Manero, Research Fellow, Australian National University

Before COVID-19, global surf tourism spending was estimated at up to A$91 billion per year. And since the start of the pandemic, demand for surfing has boomed as people increasingly turn to outdoor activities.

But surfing’s benefits to human well-being aren’t often studied in economics terms. This is a major knowledge gap we are now trying to fill.

Such research is important. Changes to the coastline – such as from sea walls and groynes – can dramatically reduce the quality of surfing waves. But the consequences of coastal developments on surfing are often poorly understood and rarely quantified before projects start.

It’s crucial we understand the real value of surfing, before we lose the myriad of benefits they bring – not only to Australia’s 1.2 million active surfers, but to hundreds of coastal towns where surfing underpins the local economy and lifestyle.

Surfing economics

There are many studies on the economic value of Australian beach pastimes such as fishing, swimming and diving. But not for surfing.

Internationally, we know surfing is a major direct contributor to the economy of wave-rich places. However, until recently, the value of surfing to human well-being has been largely unaccounted for.

This is despite recent evidence pointing to surfing’s positive social and health outcomes, including among war veterans and children with chronic illnesses.

Surfing Economics is an emerging field of research that documents and quantifies the total economic value of surfing. This can include, for example, increased house prices near good quality breaks, or social welfare benefits people derive from visiting surf beaches.

Read more:
Girls Can’t Surf shows how determined women battled sexism in their sport

Building on the few previous surfing economics studies in Australia, our research aims to calculate the total economic value of surfing.

Our forthcoming study on the Noosa World Surf reserve, so far, demonstrates that the local economic contribution of surfing is in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. This in terms of surfers’ welfare, as well as direct spending on surf gear and travel.

Overseas, the economic contribution is a little clearer. A 2017 study used satellite imagery to demonstrate that economic activity grows faster near good-quality surf breaks, particularly in developing countries such as Indonesia and Brazil.

In the UK alone, the overall annual impact of surfing on the national economy is calculated at up to £5 billion (over A$9 billion).

How coastal projects make or break waves

Swell waves are typically formed by winds blowing many kilometres offshore. It’s perhaps easy to think that this natural, distant origin means there’s nothing we can do about the formation of waves.

But the truth is surfing waves are the product of complex interactions between waves, tides, currents, wind and the shape of the seabed. Shallow coral reefs, headlands and sand banks are responsible for making highly sought-after waves.

By directly or indirectly impacting any of these factors, wave quality has been changed for better – or for worse.

The world-renowned Mundaka wave, in northern Spain, temporally disappeared because dredging of the nearby rivermouth changed ocean dynamics. This resulted in a decline in economic activity and the cancellation of the Billabong Pro World Championship in 2005 and 2006.

In the Portuguese island of Madeira, the construction of a rock-wall severely disrupted the formation of the Jardim do Mar wave in 2005, and a fall in local economic growth rates followed. In Peru, the extension of a fishing pier negatively impacted Cabo Blanco, one of Peru’s best barrelling waves, by shortening its length.

Closer to home, the Ocean Reef Marina, currently under construction in Perth’s north, will significantly impact three local surf breaks. About 1.5 kilometres of mostly unmodified beaches are being redeveloped into a brand new marina.

Read more:
Why surfing is an antidote to the relentless march of capitalism

Studies have shown that well planned coastal management interventions can dramatically increase benefits to surfers and non-surfers alike.

One of the most iconic examples is the “Superbank” at Snapper Rocks in the Gold Coast. There, a world class wave forms thanks to river sediment being relocated through the Tweed Sand Bypassing Project.

The project is costly to operate, but its expenses are outweighed by improvements to surf quality and beach amenity, which underpin the local economy and the nature-based, active lifestyle the Gold Coast is famous for.

Giving waves legal protection

Building on efforts nearly 40 years ago to protect Victoria’s iconic Bells Beach wave, Peru and New Zealand have granted statutory protection to their surf breaks under environmental protection laws.

In practice, this means threats to surf breaks by coastal activities, such as sewage discharges or building offshore structures, must be avoided or mitigated.

Read more:
Australia’s pristine beaches have a poo problem

Similar recognition and valuation of surfing resources is necessary and would be highly beneficial for Australia.

A rigorous, science-based evaluation of surfing’s total economic value could serve to inform cost-benefit analysis of coastal management programs. These may include fighting erosion to protect the coastline, or building artificial surf reefs.

In these uncertain times of COVID-19, many of us cannot yet travel far away. But with 85% of Australians living by the coast, many of us can still catch a wave at our doorstep – and that is priceless.

Read more:
White sharks can easily mistake swimmers or surfers for seals. Our research aims to reduce the risk

Ana Manero is an adjunct research fellow at the University of Western Australia.

From 2005-2010, Neil Lazarow was part of a team that received funding from Gold Coast City Council to produce the Gold Coast Shoreline Management Plan and various other small grants, such as for the development of the ‘Economic and social values of beach recreation on the Gold Coast’. He is also Member of the Planning Institute of Australia, and was a founding member of the Australian Coastal Society.

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

– ref. What is the value of a wave? How changes to our coastline could wipe out surfing’s benefits – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-value-of-a-wave-how-changes-to-our-coastline-could-wipe-out-surfings-benefits-173502

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Lakeman, Associate Professor, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University

Student evaluations, in the form of anonymous online surveys, are ubiquitous in Australian universities. Most students in most courses are offered the opportunity to rate the “quality” of their teachers and the course they take.

The original intention of student surveys was to help improve the learning experience. But it’s now become much more. Student surveys are often the only measure of teaching quality (along with pass rates). For lecturers, positive ratings and comments are often required to ensure continued employment or promotion.

But these anonymous surveys have also become a platform for defamatory, racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments against staff.

Read more:
Read the student survey responses shared by academics and you’ll see why Professor Hambling is justified in burning hers

We surveyed 791 Australian academics from different universities about their experience of anonymous student evaluations. The participating academics shared verbatim some of the non-constructive feedback students gave them. We collated examples of this feedback and published these in the journal Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.

We grouped the feedback into five broad themes: attire, appearance and accent; allegations against character; general insults; projections of blame; and threats or calls for punishment.

1. Attire, appearance and accent

Often the comments about appearance were gendered, misogynistic or racist with variations on being “too fat”, “ugly” and “old”.

One student wrote:

You look like something the cat dragged in.

Another said:

People who’s [sic] mother tongue is not English should not be employed as lecturers.

2. Allegations against character

These typically accused the lecturer of incompetence, racism or having negative attitudes towards students:

She is really rude which is why everyone hates her.

You are a cultural Marxist, your Wokeness undermines everything you do. Not all your students are left wing nut jobs like you. You seriously need to lose some weight.

3. General insults

Most insults were clearly designed to wound the teacher and there was no pretence about the comments having anything to do with teaching – although the following was an exception:

What the fuck did you think you were doing to take a couple of days off for your grandmother’s funeral when we had an assignment due?

Apart from variations on “I hate everything about you”, most insults were a combination of unimaginative adjectives or name calling including “bitch”, “bitter”, “crap”, “devil’s spawn”, “dick”, “dog”, “dinosaur”, “idiot”, “loser”, “mentally unstable”, “mole”, “Nazi”, “needs to chill”, “out of control”, “pathetic”, “psychotic”, “senile shit”, “smiling assassin”, “trash”, “unhappy” and “useless”.

4. Projections of blame

Most student evaluation surveys are done before grades are released but many students anticipated failure and blamed the teacher:

That fucking dyke bitch failed me she’s fucking useless that’s why I failed.

5. Threats and punishment

Hand-in-hand with projection of blame were threats or calls for punishment. Most often these called for the teacher to be sacked but also included far more harsher measures:

I’d like to shove a broom up her arse.

She should be stabbed with a pitchfork.

If I was X, I would jump off the tallest building and kill myself if I was that dumb.

Some managed to combine themes to achieve maximum offensiveness:

Stupid old hag needs a good fucking.

This bitch should be fired immediately. Why is someone this ugly allowed to teach? She better be careful I never see her in the car park. She needs to get a better fashion pick. Her clothes are hideous.

The impacts are serious

An analysis of research on university student evaluations of teaching, published in March 2021, found they were influenced by factors that have nothing to do with teaching quality. These include student demographics, and the teaching academic’s culture and identity. It also found evaluations include increasingly abusive comments.

While much of the criticism may seem like playground-level name calling, the impacts can be serious.

As part of our survey we asked teachers how anonymous student evaluations of their teaching affected their well-being, mental health, and professional and personal relationships. From our ongoing analysis of the survey data (yet to be published) a profile is emerging of a highly traumatised workforce. Early career academics, casual staff, women and minorities are disproportionately affected. Many appear to be triggered by every round of student evaluations.

If Australian universities persist in employing anonymous surveys, university teachers can continue to expect to receive racist, misogynistic, defamatory comments, threats of censure and even death.

Read more:
Our uni teachers were already among the world’s most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse

Even the Australian government is taking action against anonymous hate speech by announcing an inquiry into trolling on social media. But universities still protect people who want to insult, defame and make baseless accusations about others protected by a veil of anonymity.

Perhaps it is time to unmask the anonymous online trolls in the university sector, or require students to be potentially identifiable. The risk of being identified might at least reduce exposure to hate speech and increase civility in the corridors of higher learning.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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. ‘Lose some weight’, ‘stupid old hag’: universities should no longer ask students for anonymous feedback on their teachers – https://theconversation.com/lose-some-weight-stupid-old-hag-universities-should-no-longer-ask-students-for-anonymous-feedback-on-their-teachers-173911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean Teaching & Learning, Edith Cowan University

Australia has experienced plenty of supermarket shortages since the COVID pandemic began. The emerging crisis now is a bit different.

In 2020 and 2021, empty shelves were due to spikes in demand, as shoppers responded to lockdowns by buying more toilet paper, pasta and other consumables. This disrupted the usual rhythms of predictable supply chains. Apart from the first wave in March 2020, shortages were localised.

Now the shortages are due to supply-side problems, and occurring (almost) nationally. As Omicron infections surge in every state apart from Western Australia, supply chains are being crippled by the sheer number of transport, distribution and shop workers now sick or required to isolate.

The major problem now is in transport and distribution. The Transport Workers’ Union says a third to half of Australia’s truck drivers are off work. Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci said on Friday more than 20% of distribution centre staff and more 10% of store workers are absent.

There are also problems in production, particularly in meat processing – an industry prone to the spread of COVID-19. Hundreds of workers in eastern states abattoirs are off work, according to Meat Industry Council chief executive Patrick Hutchinson. He has warned of severe shortages within weeks due to the lack of rapid antigen tests.

Read more:
Treating workers like meat: what we’ve learnt from COVID-19 outbreaks in abattoirs

A self-fulfilling crisis

Then, of course, there is the response of shoppers to shortages (or the expectation of shortages). We’ve seen how this works multiple times: products disappear from shelves, people buy more in response. Fear of shortages become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Coles has already imposed buying limits on certain meat items (except for WA) and warned customers to expect shortages for all of January. Woolworths and ALDI have not (apart from limits on hard-to-get rapid antigen tests).

But they might be forced to. That depends mostly on what happens in the next weeks in NSW, which plays a large role in national grocery logistics and where COVID-19 infections are surging.

So what to do?

What you can do

Open your freezer, go to your pantry. Do you have three weeks’ worth of essential items? Mince, pasta, rice, flour, beans, toilet paper?

I’ve been following these issues closely over the past two years. All of Australia’s supermarket supply crises were dealt with in less than three weeks. You really don’t need more than that.

If you don’t have three weeks’ supply, and have both the space and money to stock, go for it. If not now, because there is a shortage, then in the next opportunity. This is not about panic-buying or hoarding. I’m not suggesting you buy a year’s worth of toilet paper or tinned food. Just always have enough so you can have peace of mind next time.

Read more:
Disagreeability, neuroticism and stress: what drives panic buying during the COVID-19 pandemic

Supermarket restrictions

The pandemic has exposed the brittleness of just-in-time supply-chain management, which over decades honed the amount of stock held by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to a minimum. This was fine for maximising profits in good times. Now the times call for more of a just-in-case approach, with enough flexibility to avoid the system collapsing in a crisis.

Supermarkets have already made changes to avoid repeats of the supply crises of 2020 and 2021 by keeping more stock on hand. But this alone can’t solve the problem. The grocery business is competitive. Floor and refrigeration space is finite. They can’t afford to overstock.

What they can do is move to a more decentralised system for restricting quantities of items customers can buy when shortages do occur.

Every store can calculate safety stock levels to protect them from supply-chain fluctuations. When an item is about to go missing from the shelves they shouldn’t have to wait for a decision from the central office to restrict quantities. They should be able to do it on the spot, while corporate headquarters works out alternatives.

When the problem is not lack of inventory but insufficient people to move products from warehouses to stores, the solution is visibility – letting consumers know about staff shortages, that there’s more than enough product on its way as soon as logistics allow, and that other stores are better supplied.

Cooperation is key

It is unlikely every store will be equally hit by labour shortages at the same time. Imagine evolving to a point where a Coles store with empty shelves informs shoppers the product is available two blocks away at the IGA.

For this to happen, of course, requires cooperation between competitors, and therefore easing of the usual anti-cartel rules that expressly prohibit collusion. But there is a clear precedent for this. In April 2020 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission gave temporary authorisation to telcos, banks, medical suppliers and supermarkets to collaborate to ensure supply of essential goods and services.

Read more:
Look who’s talking: Australia’s telcos, banks and supermarkets granted exemption to cartel laws

There is a clear case for supermarkets to cooperate now – and for the foreseeable future, with the Australian Retailers Association expecting the supply chain issues to continue for at least 12 months.

Both federal and state governments can help set the rules of engagement, and provide accurate and actionable information to give the correct dimension of the problem. They have, for example, data from past decisions such as the effect of Victoria’s restrictions on abattoirs in 2020.

If everyone is ready, doing what they can, we may reach a culture of resilience in Australia where empty shelves in supermarkets is but a bitter memory.

A/Prof Flavio Macau is affiliated with the Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI)

– ref. Supermarket shortages are different this time: how to respond and avoid panic – https://theconversation.com/supermarket-shortages-are-different-this-time-how-to-respond-and-avoid-panic-174529

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natasha Yates, Assistant Professor, General Practice, Bond University

For two years, COVID has dominated our world. In Australia, we’ve tested every sniffle, undergone extensive lockdowns, and double-vaccinated more than 90% of adults to combat this lethal virus.

So, it’s understandable our first reaction when we test positive to COVID ourselves is to panic.

However, a positive test doesn’t mean you will necessarily end up in hospital.

As a GP, here’s my advice on what you should do.

When you test positive

If you test positive on a rapid antigen test at home, you’re no longer required to get a PCR test.

If you have symptoms and cannot get either a PCR or a rapid antigen test, you should assume you have COVID and self-isolate until you can get tested.

Who should you tell?

Tell a support person – someone who will be able to check on you every day, either in person (taking appropriate precautions) or by phone.

Also notify your work and cancel any other commitments you have coming up for the following week.

Contact tracing is completely overwhelmed in most states and territories, so make sure to notify your close contacts yourself.

Currently, this is defined as a person who has spent four hours or more with you in a household or “household-like” setting while you’re infectious, which includes the two days before you got symptoms. Realistically, someone can catch it from you in much less than four hours, so notifying anyone you spent time with (even if less than four hours), would make medical sense.

In some states you are asked to notify the public health unit that you’ve tested positive. But at the time of writing there’s no national approach to self-reporting.

Only inform your doctor if you have certain conditions

Don’t automatically notify your GP. In many cases, if you’re young, fit and healthy there’s no benefit to you.

The current national recommendations for treating COVID suggest adults with mild illness and no other risk factors may manage their symptoms at home.

With tens of thousands of people being diagnosed daily – and GPs rolling out booster vaccines, vaccines for children, and continuing our usual work – we don’t have capacity to review every person in Australia who’s a positive test each day.

However, certain people testing positive should arrange a telehealth consultation with a GP regardless of how well they feel on receiving the news.

This includes people who are over 65, pregnant, immunocompromised, unvaccinated, or have certain diseases like diabetes, obesity, kidney, heart, liver or lung disease.

As people in this group are at higher risk of deteriorating, they may be able to access medications such as antiviral therapy to reduce that risk.

Read more:
It’s still not too late to fix the rapid antigen testing debacle. Why the national cabinet decision is wrong and must be reversed

Treating ourselves at home

Most of us will be treating ourselves at home.

This will usually apply to people who are under 65, aren’t pregnant, have had at least two doses of a COVID vaccine, and don’t suffer from any chronic conditions.

Here are some things to consider:

• make sure your home is as safe as possible for others who live there. It’s not inevitable everyone at home will catch it from you, especially if you keep it well ventilated

• as you’re not allowed to leave the house at all (except for urgent medical care), ensure you have ways of getting food and medication, such as via home delivery services

• rest, keep up your fluids, and treat pain and fever symptoms with over-the-counter medications if needed, like paracetamol and ibuprofen

• nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea aren’t uncommon. If you experience any of these, eat small meals more often, stick to “white coloured” foods (pasta, rice, potato, white bread), and drink enough for your urine to look pale

• continue your usual medications. It’s very important you don’t stop taking these, unless your GP specifically advises otherwise

• if you have access to an oxygen monitor, use it three times a day or if you feel your breathlessness is worsening. If your levels are 92% or lower, you need urgent review. Don’t rely on a smart watch for oxygen monitoring.

Here are some further helpful guides to managing COVID at home.

Read more:
5 tips for ventilation to reduce COVID risk at home and work

When to get medical help

The national Healthdirect website suggests asking yourself these questions morning, afternoon and night:

• can I get my own food?

• can I drink?

• can I go to the toilet normally?

• can I take my regular medication?

If you answer “no” to any of these questions, call your GP for a telehealth assessment.

Some parts of Australia have systems where home monitoring takes place under a management plan devised by a health-care provider. Your GP will help you access this if appropriate.

You may also like to complete a daily symptom checklist.

When to go to hospital

Bypass your GP, go to straight to hospital, or call 000 if you develop any of the following:

• breathlessness, so you’re unable to speak in sentences, for example you cannot count to 20 in a single breath

• fainting, unusually sleepy (difficult to rouse) or lethargic, or become unconscious at any point

• skin turning blue or pale, or becoming clammy and cold

• pain or pressure in the chest

• confusion

• passing no urine or a lot less urine than usual

• coughing up blood.

When will you be safe to stop isolation?

Current guidelines on this are complicated, vary from state to state, and change frequently.

For starters however, you can expect at least seven days of isolation.

Rules around safely stopping isolation centre on protecting both yourself and others. Therefore, as a general rule, you may stop isolating once you’re no longer infectious (evidenced by a negative PCR or rapid antigen test), your symptoms have passed (mild/occasional coughing is OK as this can last weeks) and you feel well enough to return to your normal life.

It’s best to check local requirements before stopping your isolation.

Finally, if you’re reading this before having tested positive, now is a great time to do some planning and put preparations in place, just in case you do.

Natasha Yates is affiliated with the RACGP

– ref. I’ve tested positive to COVID. What should I do now? – https://theconversation.com/ive-tested-positive-to-covid-what-should-i-do-now-174458

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Marsh, Research fellow at the Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University

Have you recently spotted a spider peeking out from a brown, curled-up leaf in your garden?

Chances are you’re sharing your yard with the leaf-curling spider, Phonognatha graeffei (pronounced fon-og-natha greef-e-i), a fascinating member of the orb-weaving spider family Araneidae (pronounced aran-ee-i-dee).

This spider – found in each state and territory in Australia – builds its orb web in plants and places in it a special custom-built hiding spot: a curled up leaf.

Similar to other orb-weaving spiders, the leaf-curling spider lives for only one year and is most commonly seen in late summer.

They are found in woodlands as well as urban gardens and greenery and have particularly interesting family arrangements.

Why and how do they curl the leaves?

To make their leafy retreats, these spiders use silk to lift a leaf up from the ground and into their orb web.

Using their legs, they then carefully curl it up and secure it with silk in a funnel or cone shape. They weave this curled leaf into the web using more silk.

If they can’t find a suitable leaf, they might use other objects such as snail shells and pieces of paper.

Young spiders, which aren’t as strong as adults, start by curling up small, fresh green leaves for their retreats and move on to bigger dry leaves as they get older.

The curled leaves – or bits of paper – protect the spider from hungry predators, such as birds. They also shield the spider from parasitic wasps, which lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other insects and spiders, eventually killing their hosts.

The spider can sit safely in their retreat, while keeping their front legs extended and in contact with their orb web. That way, the spider can sense any vibrations caused by an insect trapped in its web – and nip out to grab the food.

Like most other orb-weaving spiders, leaf-curling spiders are not fussy and will eat any insect that happens to get tangled in their web, such as flies, bees, moths and butterflies. They can even handle prey quite a bit bigger than them.

The spiders will spend most of their time in their retreat, only venturing out to get food in the day, or to repair and rebuild their webs (usually at night).

Venomous? Yes. Dangerous? No.

Nearly all spiders you come across are venomous – in other words, they have venom.

But being venomous isn’t the same as being dangerous to humans, and like most spiders, leaf-curling spiders aren’t dangerous to us.

The leaf-curling spider has small fangs that point together, a bit like pincers. Bites are rare. If you hassle one, the spider could try to bite, which may cause localised pain and swelling at the site – but the symptoms are generally mild.

If you spot one, just “leaf” it alone and it will do the same to you.

And remember: having leaf-curling spiders in your back yard is something to be proud of! These fascinating little creatures are great for keeping down pest insects and are a gardener’s friend.

Are there eggs or baby spiders inside the curled leaves?

These spiders have interesting family arrangements.

Unusually for spiders, males and female leaf-curling spiders form pairs and share a leaf retreat.

The male moves in with the female when she is young and once she is mature he will mate with her. According to one study

Females may cannibalise cohabiting males, which occurs independently of whether the female has been deprived of food.

After mating, the female makes another curled leaf retreat in vegetation away from her web. This one is a “nursery” retreat, in which she will lay her eggs.

A fascinating and beautiful world

Spiders aren’t top of most people’s favourite animal list, I get that.

But, if you are able to spend a bit of time observing their lives and getting to know them and their stories, it can open up a fascinating and often beautiful world.

Spiders and other invertebrates such as beetles, flies, snails and millipedes are really important for the workings of our natural world, and so for us.

And when you get to know them, they are also pretty cool.

Jess Marsh 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. Leaf at first sight: how leaf-curling spiders pair up and build a family home – https://theconversation.com/leaf-at-first-sight-how-leaf-curling-spiders-pair-up-and-build-a-family-home-170775

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Karnon, Professor of Health Economics, Flinders University

Following considerable public pressure over the past few weeks, the federal government has announced concession card holders will soon be able to collect up to ten free rapid antigen tests over three months.

But everyone else will continue to have to purchase their own rapid antigen tests, which cost upwards of A$10 a test.

In countries like Singapore, the UK and Germany, rapid antigen tests are free for everyone.

We’ve developed a model that estimates how cost-effective a policy of government-funded rapid antigen tests for all Australians would be. We’ve released our economic analysis as a pre-print online, which is yet to be independently reviewed by other researchers.

We found a policy of government-funded rapid antigen tests for all is highly likely to be cost-effective.

Even minor reductions in COVID transmission rates due to increased early isolation would justify the additional costs associated with the policy.

Here’s why.

Read more:
It’s still not too late to fix the rapid antigen testing debacle. Why the national cabinet decision is wrong and must be reversed

Why is testing so important?

Testing and contact tracing have been the primary measures used to interrupt the spread of COVID around the world.

One of the benefits of testing for cases is it allows countries to rapidly identify new cases, isolate affected people and their close contacts, and thereby slow further transmission of the disease.

Australia has relied on PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests to confirm COVID cases, which are funded by the federal government and free for Australians.

But the emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, coinciding with a relaxation of public health restrictions and the social festive season, has led to a surge in COVID cases in Australia, swamping the PCR testing system.

Governments are pivoting towards using rapid antigen tests to confirm positive cases, which can give results in 15 minutes, although they’re not as accurate as PCR tests.

Read more:
Taking your first rapid antigen test? 7 tips for an accurate result

How does our analysis work?

We created a “decision tree” model, which represents the testing pathways for a hypothetical group of people without COVID symptoms.

We used it to estimate the number of COVID-positive people isolating before developing symptoms.

It’s key people isolate as early as possible, to reduce the risk of spread to others.

We analysed a range of possible scenarios.

A key parameter is the proportion of people who use a rapid antigen test who have COVID.

Let’s play out one scenario.

Let’s say a group of 10,000 people get free rapid antigen tests funded by the government. Assume 1,000 out of 10,000 users have COVID, and that a rapid antigen test costs $10.

Let’s also assume 2,000 of the 10,000 would buy rapid antigen tests if not government-funded. (The real-life proportion who would be willing and able to buy a rapid antigen test is impossible to know, given the current shortage.)

What did we find?

In the group where everyone had access to free rapid antigen tests, the model estimates this policy would result in successfully isolating an additional 464 people early, compared with a group in which 20% purchased their own rapid antigen tests.

Providing free rapid tests for 10,000 people would cost the government $100,000, but spending less on PCR tests (which are about $150 each) reduces the additional costs to the government to around $52,000.

Rapid antigen tests are less effective in people with no symptoms, so they wouldn’t catch everybody in the group who’s COVID-positive.

But the net effect is preventing an additional 464 people from infecting more people, thereby reducing costs to the economy of further infections. The costs of these people isolating only after developing symptoms would likely be far higher than the extra $52,000 spent on tests.

Dividing the $52,000 by the 464 earlier isolating cases gives us an estimate of the cost to the government per additional earlier isolating person with COVID – $112. This allows us to compare alternative scenarios.

For example, if only 500 of 10,000 users of government-funded rapid antigen tests had COVID, 232 more people would isolate early and the cost per additional earlier isolating person with COVID would be $328.

If only 100 of 10,000 users have COVID, the corresponding value is $2,052.

The less COVID circulating, the less effective a policy of free rapid antigen tests for all would be. But even with low prevalence, it’s still highly likely to be cost-effective.

The expected benefits of early isolation are difficult to quantify, but it can only help to constrain the spread of COVID and the number of people infected by each person with COVID (the reproductive number). Modelling shows that in Australia the reproductive number increased from around 1 to 1.5 over the course of December 2021, and daily reported COVID cases increased from around 1,000 to over 30,000. This illustrates the importance of the reproductive number and the magnitude of the potential effects of increasing early isolation of people with COVID. Even a minor reduction in the reproductive number will have a significant effect on the number of daily cases.

There are high costs to health and the economy of not successfully isolating COVID positive people early.

COVID positive people, who don’t know they’re positive, will spread it to others, many of whom will get sick, require medical attention, and take time off work. Some will need to go to hospital, be in intensive care, and be put on a ventilator. And some will die.

A proportion of those who do recover from the initial phase of the infection will have lingering symptoms from the virus, known as “long COVID”.

All of these outcomes impose significant costs to people and society. We could make a conservative assumption that each early isolated case prevents at least one new COVID case and that the broad range of costs associated with one COVID case are far higher than the $112 it might cost the government per additional early isolated person with COVID.

Are there any downsides?

One thing to consider is overuse. If people used rapid antigen tests too much, for example when people are highly unlikely to have been exposed to COVID, this would reduce the cost-effectiveness of the policy.

In saying that, the unpleasant nature of the testing process should limit such overuse – no one enjoys sticking the swab up their nose!

Hoarding is another risk, as with toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic. So it would be important to ensure confidence in the supply and distribution of the tests.

Read more:
Why are people stockpiling toilet paper? We asked four experts

Constraining the spread of COVID is important for many reasons, including avoiding short- and long-term health effects, reducing burden on the health system, and increasing availability of essential workers.

Easy and equitable access to testing is a cornerstone of the public health response to COVID. It also makes economic sense.

Jonathan Karnon receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund.

Billie Bonevski receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund, NSW Ministry of Health, National Heart Foundation and The Hospital Research Foundation.

Hossein Afzali receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Free rapid antigen tests makes economic sense for governments, our analysis shows – https://theconversation.com/free-rapid-antigen-tests-makes-economic-sense-for-governments-our-analysis-shows-174342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris J Jolly, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Charles Sturt University

The estimate that one billion animals were killed by Australia’s 2019-20 Black Summer fires drew international attention to the fate of wildlife during fire.

This estimate assumed all animals in the fire’s path were killed by the flames, or in the immediate aftermath due to injury, predation, dehydration or starvation.

However, our new research, published today in Global Change Biology, suggests that, on average, the vast majority of animals (more than 90%) actually survive the immediate passage of a typical fire. But there are precious few studies of animal survival through catastrophic fires, such as those observed during Australia’s Black Summer.

We urgently need data on how animals cope with megafires, given these are expected to increase in a warming world.

How do we know how many animals are killed by fire?

How do researchers actually know the fate of wildlife exposed to fire? The most reliable way is to track animals wearing radio or GPS collars.

As fire passes through a landscape, animals in its path unable to flee or find shelter often die from the the flames, radiant heat, or smoke. By tracking these individuals, as well as those that survived, we can calculate the proportion of animals that live and die during fire.

We systematically reviewed all studies tracking animal survival during fires from around the world. The 31 studies we found came largely from Australia and North America. The fires included planned burns, as well as opportunistic studies where an unexpected wildfire passed through an existing animal tracking programme.

Studies mostly tracked mammals and reptiles, though some included birds and amphibians. Animals studied ranged from tiny red-backed fairywrens weighing only 8 grams through to African bush elephants, the world’s largest terrestrial vertebrate at up to 4.4 tonnes.

So what did we find? The most remarkable finding is that almost two-thirds of studies (65%) found zero animal deaths directly caused by the fires. It turns out animals are surprisingly good at avoiding oncoming fire. Some animals may have evolved these tricks over time.

Read more:
3 billion animals were in the bushfires’ path. Here’s what the royal commission said (and should’ve said) about them

For instance, all mountain brushtail possums tracked through Victoria’s intense 2009 Black Saturday fires survived.

It’s important to note the 31 studies often tracked only a handful of animals (half tracked less than ten individuals), with a wide variation in death rates. In one study, for instance, up to 40% of rattlesnakes were killed. However, this study only tracked five snakes, two of which perished in the fire.

When we aggregated the studies we found something interesting. On average, fires killed just 3% of tracked animals. This figure rose to 7% for studies tracking animal survival through high severity fires.

Not all fires are the same, and some animals are good at surviving one kind of fire, but succumb to other fires. Take frill-necked lizards, who typically shelter in the tree canopy during fires in northern Australia. When they employed this tactic during cool, early dry season fires, all tracked lizards survived.

When more severe fires occurred later in the dry season, a quarter of the lizards were killed. Many that remained in place were killed by flames that scorched the canopy. Those savvy enough to shelter in termite mounds survived.

The silver lining: All is not lost after fire

When you read a headline about the number of animals killed in fires, it can be easy to despair.

That’s why we believe our research is good news. Why? Because it means there may be a narrow window of opportunity after fires to have a real impact, by helping animals survive the challenging post-fire period.

You might remember stories of helicopters dropping sweet potatoes and carrots to starving rock wallabies immediately following the Black Summer fires.

Our research suggests this is exactly the time to act to help as much wildlife as possible.

That’s because the post-fire landscape is exceptionally challenging for surviving wildlife. For months afterwards, home has turned hostile for animals.

It’s very hard to find shelter, with food and water also scarce. Predators roam, looking for easy pickings.

So what can be done? Efforts to reduce these dangers are key, such as supplementing food and water, and even dropping in temporary shelter options. Controlling foxes and cats might also help.

Taken together, this package could help save threatened species after wildfire – even from high-severity megafires. But these interventions need to be monitored to assess their effectiveness.

Read more:
Some animals have excellent tricks to evade bushfire. But flames might be reaching more animals naive to the dangers

Can animals cope with megafires?

At present, we know next to nothing about animal death rates during catastrophic fire events like the megafires raging over the Black Summer.

Although animals might survive typical fire, there are increasing instances of fires around the world that display extreme behaviour. For instance, the numerous fire storms that occurred during the Black Summer probably left a narrow pathway to survival for many species.

We simply lack the data to provide justifiable estimates of how many animals are killed across such vast areas during such extreme fires.

As climate change intensifies, megafires are likely to become more common.
Even if populations are resilient to individual megafires, their cumulative impacts may gradually erode that resilience. We also need to consider the major impact fires can have on habitat, which can last for decades or centuries.

We will urgently need to find ways of helping wildlife before and after these fires.

Chris J Jolly receives funding from Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program (Threatened Species Recovery Hub).

Dale Nimmo receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, and the World Wildlife Fund.

– ref. Surprisingly few animals die in wildfires – and that means we can help more in the aftermath – https://theconversation.com/surprisingly-few-animals-die-in-wildfires-and-that-means-we-can-help-more-in-the-aftermath-174392

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

Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese this week announced a commitment to funding high-speed rail between Sydney and Newcastle.

At speeds of more than 250km/h, this would cut the 150-minute journey from Sydney to Newcastle to just 45 minutes. Commuting between the two cities would be a lot more feasible.

The Sydney-Newcastle link would be a first step in a grand plan to link the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane corridor by high-speed rail.

Albanese also wants the trains to be built at home, saying “we will look build as much of our fast and high-speed rail future in Australia as is possible”.

Of course, this idea has been around for a long time. Nobody has ever got the numbers to stack up before.

Federal infrastructure minister Paul Fletcher made the obvious but reasonable point that such a rail link would be very expensive.

“It is $200 to $300 billion on any credible estimate,” he said in response to Labor’s announcement. “It has to be paid for, and that means higher taxes”.

Or does it?

Social cost-benefit analysis

Traditional cost-benefit analysis is how governments tend to make decisions about big infrastructure projects like this. Figure out the costs (such as $300 billion) and then figure out the benefits. Adjust for timing differences and when money is spent and received, and then compare.

This generates an “internal rate of return” (IRR) on the money invested. It’s what private companies do all the time. One then compares that IRR to some reference or “hurdle” rate. For a private company that might be 12% or so. For governments it is typically lower.

An obvious question this raises is: what are the benefits?

If all one is willing to count are things such as ticket fares, the numbers will almost never stack up. But that’s far too narrow a way to think about the financial benefits.

A Sydney-Newcastle high-speed rail link would cut down on travel times, help ease congestion in Sydney, ease housing affordability pressures in Sydney, improve property values along the corridor and in Newcastle, provide better access to education and jobs, and more.

The point is one has to think about the social value from government investments, not just the narrow commercial value. Alex Rosenberg, Rosalind Dixon and I provided a framework for this kind of “social return accounting” in a report published in 2018.

Newcastle might make sense, Brisbane might not

I haven’t done the social cost-benefit analysis for this rail link, but the social return being greater than the cost is quite plausible.

The other thing to remember is that the return a government should require has fallen materially in recent years. The Australian government can borrow for 10 years at just 1.78%, as opposed to well over 5% before the financial crisis of 2008.

Read more:
Let’s get moving with the affordable medium-speed alternatives to the old dream of high-speed rail

I’m less sure about the Brisbane to Melbourne idea. The cost would be dramatically higher for obvious reasons, as well as the fact that the topography en route to Brisbane is especially challenging.

Nobody is going to commute from Sydney to Brisbane by rail, and the air routes between the three capitals are well serviced.

Transport policy is not industry policy

The decision about building a Sydney-Newcastle rail link is, and should be kept, completely separate from where the trains are made. Transport policy shouldn’t be hijacked for industry policy.

To be fair, Newcastle has a long and proud history of manufacturing rolling stock, at what was the Goninan factory at Broadmeadows – much of it for export.

But ask yourself how sustainable that industry looks in Australia, absent massive government support. Can it stand on its own?

Read more:
Look beyond a silver bullet train for stimulus

It’s also true there have been some recent high-profile procurement disasters buying overseas trains.

Sydney’s light-rail project has run massively late and over budget, with Spanish company Acciona getting an extra A$600 million due to the project being more difficult than expected.

Then cracks were found in all 12 trams for the city’s inner-west line, putting them out of service for 18 months.

These are terrible bungles due to the government agreeing to poorly written contracts with sophisticated counterparties. When contracts don’t specify contingencies there is the possibility of what economists call the “hold-up problem”.

But these problems could have occurred with a local maker too.

The Tinbergen Rule

An enduring lesson from economics is the Tinbergen Rule – named after Jan Tinbergen, winner of the first Nobel prize for economics.

This rule says for each policy challenge one requires an independent policy instrument. This can be widely applied. But here the lesson is particularly clear.

Addressing housing affordability is a good idea, and a Sydney-Newcastle link could help with that. But if Labor want a jobs policy it should develop one.

The more TAFE places Labor has already announced is a reasonable start.

Read more:
Vital Signs: we need to make things in Australia, but not like in the past

Reviving 1970s-style industry policy – something that has almost never worked – is not a good move. Governments are lousy at picking winners. The public invariably ends up paying more for less, and the jobs are typically transient.

But aside from this conflation of policy goals, Albanese deserves credit for being bold about the future of high-speed rail in Australia.

Richard Holden is President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

– ref. Vital Signs: Sydney to Newcastle fast rail makes sense. Making trains locally does not – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-sydney-to-newcastle-fast-rail-makes-sense-making-trains-locally-does-not-174341

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hail, Adjunct Associate Professor, Torrens University Australia

In the new Netflix sensation Don’t Look Up, two astronomers, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo Di Caprio, discover a massive comet heading towards Earth, and desperately try to warn the US president, played by Meryl Streep.

Their hope is the government will take action to avert catastrophe while there is time. Their efforts are subverted by a combination of self-serving political cynicism, billionaire business interests, a media that sees its job as respecting those interests and that cynicism, and a population conditioned not to look up.

It is an obvious metaphor for the threat of climate breakdown, where warnings and pleadings from climatologists and scientists and from a growing number of campaigners, ecological economists and others, are being ignored, trivialised and sometimes even ridiculed by political insiders.

But after 40 years marked by the dominance of neoliberal pro-market economic policies, the metaphor can be extended to almost any challenge requiring a serious response, particularly where it involves standing up to vested interests.

There’s more amiss than vision and courage. Public services no longer have the capacity they did to respond to problems like long-term climate change and short-term pandemics.

Their administrative and decision-making capacity has been stripped away, as has the surge capacity in health systems and in many countries the ability to react to disruptions to supply chains – all in the name of efficiency, but with the effect of creating fragility while contributing to inequality and extremism.

Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan got us here

Neoliberalism is rooted in the work of three Chicago School economists: Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and James Buchanan.

Hayek, though a famous name, was probably the least influential of the three. He saw mixed economies, market-based but regulated by governments, as inevitable steps on the road to totalitarianism.

Friedman espoused a naïve and outdated theory of money, which was no sooner adopted than abandoned in the early 1980s, but like Hayek saw freedom in low taxes and championed privatisation and deregulation. It was Friedman who argued that many people had to remain unemployed in order to suppress wages.

Buchanan, like Friedman, argued that politicians and public servants could be trusted to act in in their own interests at a cost to society, and that almost anything that could be done by public servants could be done better by the private sector.

In the 1980s the trio effectively took over the conservative side of politics in high-income countries. Their ideas also helped intimidate those on the other side, including the Hawke-Keating Labor government in Australia, and every Labor front bench that succeeded them. That influence persists to this day.

Mazzucato, Kelton and Raworth want to get us out

In her book Mission Economy, the University College London economist Marianna Mazzucato imagines a different relationship between the public and private sectors: a proactive, problem-solving government cooperating with the private sector to address, among other things, climate change and the problems and opportunities associated with a rapid transition to sustainability.

This would require rebuilding public capacity and an approach to government experimentation and risk-taking not seen for 40 years.

Aligned with her are modern monetary theorist Stephanie Kelton and ecological economist Kate Raworth.

Kelton’s The Deficit Myth describes how modern monetary systems work and demolishes the metaphor of the government as a household used by neoliberals to push for balanced budgets and minimalist governments.

Kelton points out it is normal for governments to run deficits (Australia’s Commonwealth government nearly always has) and that these deficits allow the private sector to avoid building up debt.

Governments that create their own currencies such as America’s or Australia’s are well-placed to guide the private sector to serve a public purpose.

While both Mazzucato and Kelton discuss what this means, and give examples, it is Raworth’s book that most clearly identifies the goal governments should aspire to.

That book is called Doughnut Economics. It sets out a framework for providing everyone with an opportunity to enjoy a secure, dignified and connected life, while respecting nine environmental planetary boundaries that are prerequisites for the maintenance of the planet.

The framework requires a shift of focus away from the goal of economic growth as defined by gross domestic product towards a set of indicators of a successful society. The indicators are similar to the UN sustainable development goals.

Both Kelton and Raworth are members of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mazzucato. Its guiding principle is that health should be seen not only as a human right but also as an investment in continued prosperity. It is an approach that would have led, among much else, to better preparations for the long-predicted pandemic.

Deficit-funded spending pays dividends

With Kelton and others, including leading medical researcher Steve Robson and health economist Martin Hensher, I have discussed the implications of modern monetary theory for health in an article for the Insight magazine of the Medical Journal of Australia, and in a position paper for the Institute for Health Transformation at Deakin University.

As a nation, we should not have been worried by the prospect of health spending climbing above 10% of gross domestic product as it did in 2015-16, nor by the prospect of it climbing higher in future decades. We should be investing in resources including the skills, health infrastructure and technology we will need to deal with future pandemics and the consequences of climate change.

Read more:
‘Don’t Look Up’: Hollywood’s primer on climate denial illustrates 5 myths that fuel rejection of science

On climate change, it is gradually dawning on people that the outcome of COP26 in Glasgow was not up to the challenge we face and that many countries will not even achieve what they committed themselves to at Glasgow.

To a greater or lesser extent, every leader of a high-income country is failing to articulate a mission in regard to climate change, to drive that mission with the right public investments, and to locate the problems of climate change within the broader context of the planetary boundaries identified by Raworth – the most obvious of which is biodiversity.

The attitude is “Don’t Look Up!”, we have got this. Or “technology will save us”, as President Orlean (Meryl Streep) believed in the movie.

Few leaders any better than Streep

A search by Raworth’s colleagues at the University of Leeds has failed to identify any country anywhere in the world that is providing its citizens with the social foundations for a good life while remaining inside planetary boundaries.

If that was to be the definition of a developed economy, none of our economies are developed.

We are either not meeting the needs of our people or exceeding the carrying capacity of our planet, or (in the case of about a third of countries) doing both at once.

Therein lies both a warning and a challenge; a threat and an opportunity.

Our mission ought to be to meet social foundations everywhere without destroying the environment of which we are a part and on which we depend.

We have an opportunity to govern differently

Governments, and especially monetary sovereign governments in high income countries such as Australia, will have to lead the way.

They will have to throw off the neoliberalism of Friedman, Hayek and Buchanan, and the baggage which goes with it and buy into the new economics of Kelton, Raworth, Mazzucato and their colleagues.

Then we can look up, with some confidence that we can deflect the metaphorical comets that threaten the lives of millions and the quality of life for us all.

The resources and the technology to do what’s needed already exist. But until now we have been trapped in an outmoded way of thinking about both the role of government and the purpose of economic activity that has held us back to the point where the comet is bearing down upon us.

Steven Hail 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. Don’t look Up! has a surprising amount to tell us about economics, much of it useful – https://theconversation.com/dont-look-up-has-a-surprising-amount-to-tell-us-about-economics-much-of-it-useful-174399

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne

The Sydney Festival opens today under a cloud. Several artists and arts organisations have withdrawn from the festival over the Israeli Embassy’s sponsorship of the dance work Decadance, by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.

The crazy thing is the value of the sponsorship in question. A$20,000 is very small in the context of the festival’s overall budget.

Why, then, did the festival accept the funding agreement for Decadance, given the overall size of its budget and the potential community reaction?

It’s true it is common, when a festival invites an arts performance from another country, for the country of origin to provide financial support for the project. They do this because they see an advantage for their culture to be presented internationally.

But critics have said this particular funding arrangement “serves to artwash the Israeli regime’s violent control over the lives of Palestinians”.

This is not an isolated incident but part of a broader global debate around sources of arts funding. If an arts organisation accepts money from a donor, there is always a price to pay. It’s a question of how high the price is.

Read more:
The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott

Is a donation ever free?

Arts organisations can sometimes demonstrate a strange naivety when asking for or accepting donations. It’s as though the gift is more precious than its actual monetary value. Certainly, government funders and bodies such as Creative Partnerships Australia provide rewards such as matched funding to arts organisations for attracting private donations.

Ironically, too, there are expectations from governments that arts organisations must find outside funders, to justify receiving government support. A recent arts minister, George Brandis, threatened in 2014 that if arts organisations or artists rejected private donations, they should be banned from receiving any government grants.

On the other hand, the donor, in this case the Israeli Embassy, insists it’s not about politics but that

culture is a bridge to coexistence, cooperation and rapprochement and should be left out of the political arena.

But are there ever any “free” donations? And can we separate the “giver” from their brand or past actions?

A history of protest over arts sponsorship

There was an outcry at the 2014 Sydney Biennale about an art sponsor, Transfield, and its connection with offshore asylum seeker processing centres. That did not go well for either party, with both suffering negative press and eventually breaking ties.

In December 2021 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York finally removed the Sackler name from seven of its exhibition spaces, given that family’s association with producing the drug at the centre of the US opioid crisis, OxyContin.

The museum’s board seemingly took this action reluctantly, thanking the family for their gracious donations, despite the community havoc wrought by their drug.

The Fringe World festival in Perth provoked an outcry in 2020 for insisting on accepting a large sponsorship from fossil fuel giant Woodside, and then later stipulating artists “not do any act or omit to do any act that would prejudice any of Fringe World’s sponsorship arrangements”.

Artists put in a difficult position

Artists are always desperately searching for money to make their art happen.

Yet it was the artists who stood up and withdrew their labour during the 2014 Sydney Biennale. It was the artists who protested the sponsorship of the Fringe World festival, and it is the artists again who are protesting and withdrawing their labour from the 2022 Sydney Festival.

When artists protest about the sources of arts funding, they are often framed as ungrateful brats rather people standing up for their beliefs.

Artists are some of the poorest people in our community, and yet are prepared to forgo their limited income to support fellow artists from other countries – in this case Palestine. This is not meant as a criticism of artists from Israel, for example the dancers involved in Decadance, but a criticism of their government.

Arts organisations are not separate from life or politics. And arts and cultural practices more broadly are not independent of any political association or connections. Nations around the world use arts and culture to promote their views, or to project a more benign image of their culture.

It is true, as the Israeli Embassy states, that arts and culture are a bridge for creating better cultural understanding.

But the protesters would argue that arts or cultural practices can be used cynically to drive a political or cultural agenda, hence the accusation of “artwashing”.

So where does this leave the Sydney Festival?

So far, according to a statement, the festival’s board has said it wishes to:

affirm its respect for the right of all groups to protest and raise concerns […] All funding agreements for the current Festival – including for Decadance – will be honoured, and the performances will proceed. At the same time, the Board has also determined it will review its practices in relation to funding from foreign governments or related parties.

But it may have been wiser if the board had been more careful about its funding arrangements. Arts organisations, like artists, must be vigilant about the contracts they enter into.

Read more:
We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding

Jo Caust has received funding from the Australia Council. She is a member of NAVA and the Arts Industry Council (SA).

– ref. Sydney Festival boycott: when arts organisations accept donations, there is always a price to pay – https://theconversation.com/sydney-festival-boycott-when-arts-organisations-accept-donations-there-is-always-a-price-to-pay-174393

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

Dams serving capital cities such as Canberra, Hobart and Sydney are near full after two years of widespread rainfall. But these wet conditions won’t last.

Under climate change, droughts in Australia will become more frequent and severe. Our drinking water supplies, and water crucial for irrigation and the environment, will dwindle again.

Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, is among those that must prepare for the next drought. The NSW government is developing the Greater Sydney Water Strategy, to guide water management in coming decades.

Among the plan’s more contentious proposals are increased use of Sydney’s existing desalination plant and expanding the use of recycled water (highly treated sewage), including for drinking water. So let’s examine whether such measures are enough to secure Sydney’s water future.

A city of water scarcity

During the most recent drought from 2017 to 2020, Sydney’s water storage levels dropped by 50% of full dam capacity in two years – a much faster depletion than in previous droughts.

Inflows into Sydney’s dams have dropped over the past 30 years. From 1991 to 2020, inflows averaged 770 million litres a year – 45% less than the long-term average.

The news isn’t all bad. Sydney used less water in 2019-20 than it did in 1990, despite its population growing from 3.8 million to 5.4 million.

But as the Greater Sydney Water Strategy states, increasing climate variability means that, without action, the city could face a shortage of drinking water as periods of severe drought become longer and more frequent.

Desalination for the nation?

The strategy raises the prospect of increased use of Sydney’s existing desalination plant, and building a second plant in the Illawarra region south of Sydney.

Desalination removes salt from sea water to create drinking water. The Millenium drought – from the late 1990s until 2010 – prompted several major Australian cities, including Sydney, to build desalination plants.

The technology can revolutionise water supply. For example, in 2020-21, Perth’s two desalination plants supplied 47% of the city’s water. But desalination plants can also face limitations and challenges.

The plants are expensive to build and to operate – and can sit idle for years, as the Kurnell plant did between 2012 and 2019. This can make them politically unpopular and see them criticised as “white elephants”.

Even at full production, the Kurnell plant produces only 15% of Sydney’s daily demand. And while an additional plant in the Illawarra will extend desalinated supply to more households, the technology can’t supply water to all parts of Sydney due to the city’s complex distribution infrastructure.

As I discuss below, expanded use of recycled water is a better option for Sydney than more desalination.

Read more:
Melbourne’s desalination plant is just one part of drought-proofing water supply

Can we stomach recycled water?

Many Australian cities, including Sydney, already use recycled water – sewage that has been heavily treated – in applications such as watering golf courses and parks, flushing toilets and fighting fires.

The draft plan raises the prospect of also adding recycled water to drinking supplies, which has long been a vexed issue in Australia. Some people oppose it on health grounds, while others just can’t get over the “yuck” factor.

The concept of recycled water has a lot going for it. For example, analysis suggests it would be far cheaper and use much less energy than desalination.

Making better use of recycled water would also reduce the environmental impact of disposing of wastewater in rivers and oceans. And the potential supply of recycled water will only increase as populations grow.

Finally, good recycled water projects are used continuously, not just at times of water stress. The Rouse Hill recycled water scheme in Sydney, which supplies 32,000 properties for non-drinking water uses, is a great model.

The draft plan says recycled water would not be added to drinking supplies without public support, but past history suggests this may be hard to achieve. In 2006, for example, Toowoomba residents rejected a plan to drink recycled water, despite the town facing a grave water shortage.

However, as urban water supplies become ever more scarce, Australians may have to get used to the idea of drinking recycled water – and authorities will have to find new and better ways of selling the concept to the public.

The Sydney water plan recognises this. It emphasises the need for public consultation, and raises the prospect of investing in a recycled water demonstration plant to “highlight the safety of demonstrated and proven technology”.

Read more:
When water is scarce, we can’t afford to neglect the alternatives to desalination

A major omission

The plan shows how Sydney’s growing population could sustainably adapt to to a drier future. But it ignores one important measure for reducing water use – charging customers a penalty for excessive water use.

Under the measure, also known as an “inclining block tariff”, the rate per unit of water increases as the volume of consumption increases.

Research has shown water pricing can be an effective way to manage water scarcity, as well as helping water utilities recover the costs of their services. Australian cities such as Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane apply inclining block tariffs to water, but Sydney does not.

Sydney Water’s price regulator, IPART, has argued against charging high water users more, saying it would provide less incentive for smaller households to conserve water and impose unfair costs on larger households.

Granted, water pricing is a complex issue and may require protections for lower-income users and the environment.

But under worsening climate change, our major cities cannot eschew any opportunity to ease pressure on water supplies.

Ian Wright receives research funding from local governments, Sydney Water and the Clean Ocean Foundation. He is a research associate with the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute.

– ref. Sydney’s dams may be almost full – but don’t relax, because drought will come again – https://theconversation.com/sydneys-dams-may-be-almost-full-but-dont-relax-because-drought-will-come-again-170523

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health and Aged Care Program, Grattan Institute

Yesterday’s national cabinet meeting was called to address another COVID crisis – not the crisis about burgeoning case numbers, nor the crisis about hospital staff being overwhelmed.

This crisis was of the Commonwealth’s own making – what to do about the mess it is in about pricing and availability of rapid antigen tests for use at home.

The problem was foreseeable. The UK government ordered rapid antigen tests from manufacturers in January 2021. The tests have been distributed to the public since April 2021. Sooner or later it was inevitable pressure would mount for the same policy in Australia.

Read more:
Rapid antigen tests have long been used overseas to detect COVID. Here’s what Australia can learn

There were 4 options

Before this week’s national cabinet meeting, the Commonwealth government had four options.

1. Head in sand, fingers in ears, problem goes away

This was tried and failed. A variant of this was to attempt to deflect the issue as being about removing GST on rapid antigen tests. That also failed and GST on the tests remain.

2. Encourage states to provide free tests

This has also been tried, with the Commonwealth offering a 50% subsidy to states that come on board. Some have accepted the deal to make rapid antigen tests available in some circumstances, but not universally. Details of these circumstances are still unclear.

3. Implement a 2-tier scheme with rapid antigen tests free for the identified poor and not for others

This is an inequitable throwback to the pre-Medicare world. It suffers from a key problem of any means-tested program. There will be those at the margins of eligibility who cannot afford the test but need to use it.

Pathology tests are covered by Medicare, with out-of-hospital tests almost universally bulk billed (so largely free to the consumer). This and the free availability of PCR tests create important precedents for universal free access to rapid antigen tests.

Politically, means-testing also lays the Commonwealth open to a “Mediscare” type campaign, with accusations the government is seeking to undermine Medicare.

4. Make rapid antigen tests free

This would have heeded the calls of public health experts, the medical profession and economists to make rapid antigen tests free, as a critical public health screening tool.

Here’s what happened

The Commonwealth leaned on the states into supporting option three with a touch of option two.

Over 6 million Australians will get access to ten rapid antigen tests to use at home over a three-month period. It is unclear how this number was set. Close contacts in Victoria, for example, are recommended to use five rapid antigen tests for each exposure to a known case.

Free tests will be distributed through pharmacies to check people’s eligibility, presumably adding an extra cost in the distribution chain. Pharmacies will presumably be paid to manage this process.

New rules make it harder to track virus spread

At national cabinet on December 30, close contacts were redefined as people exposed for more than four hours. This was designed to reduce pressure on testing centres and it did. However, this move immediately underestimated the true COVID rate in the community. Those asymptomatic people with COVID, but exposed for less than four hours, no longer presented for testing.

National cabinet yesterday further hampered the government’s ability to monitor case numbers by more actions to reduce demand on testing. In all states other than Western Australia, people with a positive rapid antigen test no longer need to have a confirmatory PCR test.

Both changes make it harder to track the progress of the virus.

Read more:
Taking your first rapid antigen test? 7 tips for an accurate result

Bad public health and bad economics

The national cabinet outcome on rapid antigen tests fails on two criteria for decision-making during a pandemic: what is good for the public health and what is sensible economically.

A public health fail

The main public health objective during a pandemic is to minimise transmission – this was the point of the extended lockdowns in south-east Australia and the main point of mask mandates and state border closures. A secondary objective is to minimise the impact of COVID on those infected, mainly via vaccinations.

The public health rationale for home rapid antigen tests rests on their role in reducing the likelihood infectious people will go out and infect others. People should therefore be encouraged to use the test if worried about transmitting the virus, particularly if asymptomatic. So from a public health perspective, we want to maximise the use of rapid antigen tests to reduce asymptomatic but potentially infectious people spreading the virus.

Read more:
Home rapid antigen testing is on its way. But we need to make sure everyone has access

Young people generally have more social contacts and are more likely to spread the virus. Unfortunately, young people are less likely to be eligible for free tests under the Commonwealth’s means-testing regime, and also less likely to be able to afford the tests. They will therefore likely use the test less than would be desirable on public health grounds and this will in turn lead to more spread of the virus, including to higher-risk, older relatives.

An economic fail

The economic case for widespread rapid antigen tests rests on two bases. The main benefit from my use of this test falls on other people – if I test positive, I isolate and don’t infect others.

In a normal market the price of a product reflects the benefit (utility) that I get from it. For rapid antigen tests, most of the benefit falls on others and so the price set in the market will not lead to the optimum number of tests been purchased. As the objective is to maximise people who think they may spread COVID using the test, the price of a rapid antigen test should be zero or as close to that as possible.

Read more:
Morrison’s political judgement goes missing on rapid antigen test debacle

Because rapid antigen tests are cheap to produce and the cost to the community of infections is high, there is also a cost-effectiveness argument for maximising use of rapid antigen tests.

One argument against rapid antigen tests is so-called moral hazard – if a product is free people might consume too much of it. The evidence about moral hazard is weak. But sticking a swab up one’s nose is not pleasant and so is probably sufficient deterrent against frivolous use.

We need a u-turn

Despite the national cabinet decisions, the case for free rapid antigen tests remains. People who want to do the right thing will continue to be annoyed at having to pay to protect others. The community will not be as well protected as it should be.

This is yet another wrong decision by the Commonwealth government in its mishandling of the pandemic, and it should urgently reverse its decision and provide free rapid antigen tests for everyone.

Read more:
Australia has not learned the lessons of its bungled COVID vaccine rollout

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website.

– ref. It’s still not too late to fix the rapid antigen testing debacle. Why the national cabinet decision is wrong and must be reversed – https://theconversation.com/its-still-not-too-late-to-fix-the-rapid-antigen-testing-debacle-why-the-national-cabinet-decision-is-wrong-and-must-be-reversed-174391

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Finlayson, Honorary Principal Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne

In 1922, Australia was even more remote from the rest of the world than it is today. But when it came to astronomy, that year it was the centre of everyone’s attention.

On September 21, the shadow of a total solar eclipse would cross the entire continent, from Eighty Mile Beach in Western Australia, right through the outback, and out over the Pacific Ocean just south of the Queensland-New South Wales border.

Astronomers came from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, India and Britain – journeying to places so remote that many Australians had never heard of them before their names started appearing in the press.

The scientists were there not just for the spectacle, but also in the hope their observations of the eclipse would validate Albert Einstein’s then-controversial theory of general relativity, postulated just seven years earlier.

Einstein’s theory, broadly speaking, suggested gravity can bend the very fabric of space-time itself. One possible way to test this was to photograph the background of stars both before and during an eclipse. The Sun’s gravity should bend the light from the distant stars as it passes in front of them, causing them to appear in a slightly different position – and the eclipse would allow astronomers to make this observation by helpfully blotting out the Sun’s glare.

Read more:
Explainer: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

War and weather

The first world war prevented astronomers from investigating Einstein’s 1915 prediction. But a total solar eclipse on May 29 1919 offered the first decent chance to prove him right. Britain mounted two separate expeditions in the hope at least one of them could make the necessary observations. In Sobral, Brazil, the team led by Astronomer Royal Frank Dyson suffered equipment failure. But on the island of Principe off Africa’s west coast, Arthur Eddington, despite inclement weather, successfully photographed the event.

Dyson, after viewing Eddington’s photographic plates, pronounced “there can be no doubt that they confirm Einstein’s prediction”. But many sceptics remained unconvinced.

The next suitable eclipse was in Australia on September 21 1922. The famous Lick Observatory in California had used its fine 12-metre camera to photograph several previous eclipses, and director William Wallace Campbell was determined his observatory would solve “the Einstein problem” in Australia.

Read more:
Explainer: what is a solar eclipse?

Campbell’s chosen location – Wallal, on the WA coast 320km south of Broome, was remote and almost inaccessible. But it had virtually no chance of cloud, and the eclipse there would last longest, offering a full five minutes of totality.

Shallow seas meant the expedition’s ships could not get close to shore, and instead had to ferry the equipment ashore at high tide with the help of local Indigenous people.

The Royal Australian Navy also played an essential role in transporting the heavy and delicate equipment to Wallal, where Campbell’s group, which also included Canadian and New Zealand astronomers, had set up camp near the telegraph station.

Also at Wallal were astronomers from the Perth Observatory, the Kodiakanal Solar Observatory in India, and a smaller private British expedition. The various teams made several practice runs, knowing they would get just one chance at the eclipse itself.

Afterwards, having spent months studying the huge photographic plates created during the eclipse, Campbell telegraphed Einstein to tell him the observations were indisputable. A remote corner of Australia had played a pivotal role in proving one of the fundamental truths of the Universe.

Meanwhile, other astronomers and amateur enthusiasts right across Australia were turning their eyes heavenwards as the eclipse passed overhead. South Australia sent an expedition to Cordillo Downs in the state’s northeast, led by Government Astronomer George Dodwell. His remote journey, laden with bulky equipment, was an undertaking of heroic proportions. Yet now, Cordillo Downs is chiefly known for its historic woolshed.

In the eastern states travel was somewhat easier, and many of the public gathered in Goondiwindi on the Queensland-NSW border to watch the eclipse. Scientist, businessman and philanthropist Sir Wilfrid Russell Grimwade organised a trip there from Melbourne; Sydney Observatory sent its astronomers; Sydney University mounted an expedition led by physicist Oscar Vonwiller that also included Father Edward Pigot, president of the NSW branch of the British Astronomical Association. Queensland’s Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, motored out for the event, and locals came from miles around.

Twenty of Pigot’s fellow members of the British Astronomical Association opted to travel to nearby Stanthorpe, while special trains carried Brisbane residents to Sandgate for the viewing. The indefatigable scientist Reverend Skertchly travelled from Brisbane to Mount Tamborine, where he made many different observations and later described viewing the corona as an epiphany.

Time for recognition

Australians from all walks of life engaged with the eclipse. Wonderful photographic records exist of the event, as well as special brochures and copious newspaper coverage. Scientific enthusiasm was mingled with fun, bringing together not just astronomers but also schoolchildren, Indigenous peoples, outback camel drivers, and the wider community.

Yet, a century later, this extraordinary coming together of global and local people isn’t very well documented in the places it happened. In September 1972, Goondiwindi’s citizens marked the golden jubilee of the eclipse, but we are not aware of any formal plans to mark its centenary this year.

At Wallal, which is close to a large and popular caravan park on Eighty Mile Beach, there is no mention of the momentous observations that helped prove Einstein’s genius. Perhaps a commemorative plaque or installation there would be a fitting place to start.

Read more:
We counted 20 billion ticks of an extreme galactic clock to give Einstein’s theory of gravity its toughest test yet

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

– ref. A century ago, Australia was ground zero for eclipse-watchers – and helped prove Einstein right – https://theconversation.com/a-century-ago-australia-was-ground-zero-for-eclipse-watchers-and-helped-prove-einstein-right-172605

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fatemeh Aminpour, Associate Lecturer, School of Built Environment, UNSW

Conflict is one of the main barriers to children’s play during school recess. Research has found students experience an average of one conflict at recess every three minutes. My own research shows how well-designed school grounds can reduce conflict and help vulnerable students take part in recess play activities.

Clashes happen most often when children organise play themselves. Causes include difficulties sharing resources and disputes over who’s taking control of them, including play space.
School staff can manage conflicts. However, this tends to limit children’s self-directed executive functioning, through which they regulate thoughts and behaviours to support goal-directed actions.

Read more:
Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop

My study explored children’s views on the activities that usually triggered conflict and the ways in which school grounds could be designed to avoid it. The study was carried out at three public primary schools in Sydney, Australia. It offers the following six design recommendations that draw upon children’s perspectives.

1. Offer more than one grassed area

Children recognise grassed areas as major areas of conflict. The school rule of “No Running Fast on Concrete” generally restricts running games to these grassed areas, but these activities can easily clash when all in the same area.

Read more:
Are our school playgrounds being wrapped in cotton wool?

Instead of having a single grassed area, children prefer to “play more separate games”. This means they need separate grassed areas for playing soccer, gymnastics or bullrush – a game in which children must race across a field without getting tagged by those who are “in”.

Children in a focus group voiced their dissatisfaction with the lack of alternative grassed areas. As students said:

When you’re back to score a goal, someone just runs in the way and kicks it […]

There’s three goalkeepers in the goals […]

You can’t even see your ball and it makes everyone stop.

When multiple grassed areas are not available, older children, particularly boys, often dominate the main play space. As a result, more sensitive children – usually younger girls – feel excluded from these settings. They retreat to the edges or corners to avoid those who play “rough”.

2. Separate zones for different types of activities

Although this seems an obvious design recommendation, separate zones are not always available, particularly in schools with limited space. As a result, a zone is used for both fine and gross motor activities. Children running around fast or playing with balls are then seen as “disruptive” to those sitting or playing with cards, and vice versa.

The space is no longer felt as a “very relaxing place”. Children who seek “peace” and “quiet” have to withdraw.

3. Offer more natural settings

My research indicates that children of diverse personal characteristics – including gender, age and ability – use natural settings without conflict, although their play activities in these settings vary. They hide behind tree trunks, use them as “base” in running games, practise balancing on their massive roots, build imaginary houses under their canopies and use their malleable resources in their creative play. These activities don’t usually come into conflict.

As indicated by children, their preferred natural settings in Australian schools include trees such as bottlebrushes, Moreton bay figs and paperbarks, and bushes with no “spiky” leaves. Increasing these natural environments can encourage more peaceful school ground activities, with benefits for children’s social functioning.

Read more:
Children learn science in nature play long before they get to school classrooms and labs

4. Use physical barriers to separate activities

To reduce disruption, barriers can be subtly incorporated into the design of school grounds. These might be a row of trees, furniture, raised edges or retaining walls. Barriers can be also imposed, such as fences or netting around playing fields.

Children identify ball games as the most invasive activity that justifies barriers. Children can be easily struck by balls flying out of playing fields, but physical barriers can stop this sort of interference with other activities.

5. Allow buffer space to create clear pathways

If a school playground is densely populated and/or play areas are in close proximity, children inevitably pass through the playing fields and that can cause conflict:

I found it annoying when the year 6s run through our handball court […] When we’re playing with the ball, they run through it and they take the ball and hit it and it sometimes becomes really hard to find it.

Providing an adequate buffer area allows children to pass around games and avoid situations like this.

Read more:
Physical distancing at school is a challenge. Here are 5 ways to keep our children safer

6. Ensure all students have a place to play

Enough play areas and opportunities are needed to keep all children engaged during recess. Otherwise, as observations show, children can loiter and annoy others to avoid getting “bored”.

If school grounds lack suitable settings, children may also create informal play spaces in areas disruptive to other play activities. Unorganised play settings can worsen conflict and bullying.

Contrary to common beliefs, children who retreat to the edges of school grounds are not necessarily “unable” or “unwilling” to take part in play; they are often trying to avoid conflict in the main play zones. By minimising the chance of conflict during recess, school design can support children in building positive, reciprocal social relationships through play.

Fatemeh Aminpour 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. Recess is a time of conflict for children. Here are 6 school design tips to keep the peace – https://theconversation.com/recess-is-a-time-of-conflict-for-children-here-are-6-school-design-tips-to-keep-the-peace-173140

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evan Shellshear, Industry Fellow, The University of Queensland

Mike is a 40-something crop farmer from southern Queensland. With a chestnut tan, crushing handshake and a strong outback accent, he’s the third generation of his family to grow sorghum, a cereal mostly used for animal fodder.

But, like most farmers, Mike faces more challenges than his forbears. Climate change has eroded Australian farms’ profitability by an average of 23% over the past 20 years. It’s a constant challenge to improve productivity by producing more with less.

Read more:
Australian farmers are adapting well to climate change, but there’s work ahead

After the devastating 2019 bushfire season, Mike began exploring “smart” farming techniques enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). Agriculture has been called one of the most fertile industries for AI and machine learning. Mike was enthused about an AI powered system enabling him to use less fertiliser and water.

After months of inquiries he found a company promising its technology could reduce crop inputs by up to 80%. It involved software processing information from digital sensors placed across his fields to allow “precision farming” – tailoring water, pest and fertiliser treatment for each plant.

The salesperson’s pitch was compelling. But the cost to install the system was $500,000, plus $80,000 a year for data storage and processing. Support costs were on top of that.

Ultimately, Mike calculated the cost would offset any extra profit generated, even if the slick technology lived up to all the promises. If it delivered less, it would only help him into bankruptcy.

This experience – of being pitched an AI technology with big claims but questionable value – is common. It’s easy to be swayed by the promises. But new technology is not the solution to everything. For it to be worth the money for people like Mike – indeed any organisation – requires a cold calculation of its economic value.

In this article we provide a simple methodology to do so.

Blinded by technological potential

For all the focus now on how AI will revolutionise the world, hype about it isn’t new. Since the inception of practical AI techniques in the early 1960s, obsession with AI potential has led to two major “AI winters” – in which huge investments by corporations and research institutions failed to deliver promised results.

The first was in the 1970s, when money poured into variety of AI systems such as speech recognition and machine translation. The second was in the 1980s, when companies invested heavily in so-called “expert systems” meant to do things like diagnose illnesses or control space shuttle launches.

In both cases what the technology could do fell well short of the hype. It was not that AI was useless. Far from it. But what it could do had limited economic value.

The backlash set the scientific and economic advance of the technology back almost a decade both times, as funding and interest dissipated.

To be sure your investment in technology is worth the money, you need to guard against being swept up by the promises and possibilities.

As Ben Robinson, the chief strategy officer at financial software company Temenos has put it:

we can safely predict it won’t be blockchain or APIs or AI that transform the industry. Instead it will be new business models empowered by those technologies.

Read more:
If machines can be inventors, could AI soon monopolise technology?

Focus on the economics

The following figures outline a simple approach to focus on the economics, not the engineering.

Figure 1 summarises the basic economics of any investment decision. Invest if the extra profit is greater than the “opportunity cost” – the benefit you can gain from spending your money another way, or by not spending the money.

Figure 1 can be hard to use so Figure 2 frames the investment decision in slightly more detailed terms using the economic concept of “marginal utility” – the additional (marginal) benefit (utility) that comes from additional expenditure.

To make this simple to apply, Figure 3 summarises this decision-making process into a simple “decision tree”.

Resolving Mike’s AI investment challenge

Applying this methodology to Mike’s situation, we can see why he couldn’t make business sense of the pitch of AI-enabled precision farming.

The salesperson passed the first question by stating the gains from AI adoption would reduce Mike’s crop input costs by up to 80%. This would translate to Mike saving about $80,000 per year (in the best-case scenario).

The salesperson also passed the second question, with a clear statement of the system’s cost.

But the business case failed on the third question. The best-case marginal benefit of adopting the AI (saving $80,000 a year) was just equal to the marginal cost ($80,000 a year) – not counting the initial installation.

Read more:
Artificial intelligence is now part of our everyday lives – and its growing power is a double-edged sword

Putting it this way makes it clearly look like a dud investment, and that Mike didn’t have put a lot of time into deciding against it. But the fact is many decisions to invest in AI don’t make economic sense and the above process will make this easy to know why.

Using an economic framework of worth, rather than an engineering claim of possibility, is the first step to make better decisions. Doing so reduces the prospect of another AI winter, and increases the chance of real gains contributing to a more prosperous and sustainable world.

Evan Shellshear is head of analytics at Biarri, a mathematical and predictive modelling company.

This article was co-authored by Brendan Markey-Towler, previously a lecturer and research fellow at The University of Queensland and now an analyst with Westpac. All three authors declare they do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article.

– ref. A simple calculation can stop artificial intelligence sending you broke – https://theconversation.com/a-simple-calculation-can-stop-artificial-intelligence-sending-you-broke-173501

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

Novak Djokovic, nine times Australian Open tennis champion, has confirmed via social media – after much speculation – that he will indeed be competing in the 2022 tournament.

The sticking point for him was the Victorian government’s requirement that all players be vaccinated, in the interests of reducing public transmission of COVID-19.

A noted anti-vaxxer, Djokovic submitted a request for a medical exemption to the vaccine mandate, which has now been approved. In tennis parlance, a COVID wildcard will jettison Djokovic to Melbourne.

Djokovic’s rocky history with COVID-19

In June 2020, Djokovic contrived a tournament, the Adria Tour, in the Balkans, as a response to the cancellation of many tennis events during the pandemic. It was organised by the Novak Djokovic Foundation, as a “charity tour to help the coronavirus victims”.

However, players and officials did not wear masks or socially distance – it was instead a party atmosphere. No surprise, then, that COVID broke out among attendees. Djokovic and his wife Jelena were among those infected, with the tournament abandoned before it reached the finals.

Read more:
Vaccinated or not, Novak Djokovic should be able to play at the Australian Open

Being young and healthy, Djokovic’s body handled the virus in a way that others – the elderly and immune-compromised – often do not. Six months later, he competed at the 2021 Australian Open, although was annoyed at having to follow quarantine protocols. The imposition did not impede the Serb’s on-court performance, for he left Melbourne with yet another major singles title.

For the 2022 tournament, lengthy quarantine is not required for fully vaccinated players and officials. Yet, for Djokovic, the requirement to be vaccinated – as a condition of entry – was something he objected to. His father, speaking to Serbian media, described the rule as tantamount to “blackmail”.

Given that Djokovic has had COVID, what is the case for requiring him (and others) to be vaccinated?

In general, antibodies produced naturally to fight COVID are effective in healthy patients, but their longevity is uncertain. By contrast, the antibody responses through vaccinations – with boosters – are better understood.

The dual goal, of course, is to optimise personal protection and reduce the risk of transmission. So, this is about the health of the wider community, with individuals expected to commit to a greater good. After all, an unvaccinated person is “roughly 20 times more likely to give you COVID” than someone who has been fully jabbed.

How are medical exemptions assessed?

So, what is the process for assessing a medical exemption for a COVID-19 vaccine? Applications are first assessed by “an expert panel of doctors specialising in immunology, infectious diseases and general practice”. Assuming they see merit in the submission, a second review is conducted by a government-appointed expert panel, known as the independent Medical Exemption Review Panel (IMERP). This panel’s job is to establish that the application meets the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) guidelines on medical exemptions to vaccination.

ATAGI has two guideline categories:

• acute major medical conditions that warrant a temporary medical exemption

• a permanent exemption arising from “a medication contraindication to all COVID-19 vaccines available for use in Australia”.

The first of these speaks to an individual having experienced a significant medical challenge, such as serious illness or surgery, that is likely to be temporary and can be reviewed six months later.

The second speaks to “medication contraindications” to “a component” of one of more of the three vaccines available in Australia, leading either to “anaphylaxis” or a “serious adverse event”. Those seeking an exemption for either of these scenarios need to “produce evidence provided by a medical practitioner”.

Shrouded in secrecy

So, how is it that one of the world’s fittest athletes has been granted a COVID-19 vaccine medical exemption? By design, the public cannot know. Nor, it seems, can those who adjudicated on the medical merits of Djokovic’s case. That is because exemption submissions were “blinded”, which means those evaluating the application (should) have no idea whom they were assessing, and thus could be medically objective.

Tennis Australia’s chief executive Craig Tiley revealed 26 athletes had applied for exemptions for the Australian Open this year, “and a handful of those have been granted”.

The decision was supported by the Victorian Department of Health as it was confirmed those given exemptions have a “genuine medical condition”.

Read more:
Self-entitled prima donnas or do they have a point? Why Australian Open tennis players find hard lockdown so tough

Of course, the public cannot automatically know who these individuals are because that information is protected by privacy conventions and laws around personal health data.

In Djokovic’s case, though, he has indirectly revealed he is unvaccinated, given he has a medical exemption that permits him to travel to Australia and play at the open. This means Djokovic also has the same quarantine status as someone who is fully vaccinated. All that is required of him is a COVID-19 test within 24 hours of arriving in Australia and to isolate at his hotel until receipt of a negative result. He must then repeat that process 5-7 days after entering the country.

Other than avoiding “high-risk settings”, such as schools and aged-care homes, Djokovic is free to go about his business. In that sense, it is game, set and match to the Joker.

But how the medical exemption sits with the Australian public is combustible. Many are infuriated by what they see as Djokovic’s hubris in seeking an exemption and, given his power and celebrity status in tennis, their lack of confidence that the correct medical decision was made.

Djokovic could, of course, choose to be candid with the Australian public, explaining to them the medical calamity that allows him to meet the exemption guidelines. But that would invite debate about the scientific merits of his case, so that seems unlikely.

As ever, Djokovic has positioned himself as a maverick, a sceptic of medicine and science while an advocate of alternative therapies, such as his belief in the transformative power of celery juice and the capacity of water to “react with human emotions”.

“#Novax Djokovic” will have many human emotions to contend with when he walks onto centre court later this month.

Daryl Adair 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. Secrecy surrounding Djokovic’s medical exemption means star can expect a hostile reception on centre court – https://theconversation.com/secrecy-surrounding-djokovics-medical-exemption-means-star-can-expect-a-hostile-reception-on-centre-court-174331

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW

Australia has swung from one extreme in pandemic control to the other – having great control of COVID, to now having the world’s highest rise in daily cases.

Across the country (except for Western Australia), COVID cases are exploding.

True case numbers are much higher than official reports, as many sick people cannot even get a test or are only tested with a rapid antigen test, which isn’t counted in statistics.

Frail, ill and vulnerable people have queued for hours at testing centres, only to be turned away. Others find testing centres closed down without explanation.

Instead of rushing to expand capacity, state and federal governments restricted access to testing even more, by narrowing the definitions of who was eligible for a test and of what a close contact is.

State and federal governments have also pivoted to a strategy of using rapid antigen tests, as the traditional PCR testing system is overwhelmed. But these tests aren’t provided free, are exceedingly hard to come by, and there have been reports of price gouging.

The net effect of inaccessible, restricted and expensive testing is falsely low case numbers but exploding transmission, because undiagnosed cases fuel transmission.

Combined with vastly reduced contact tracing, this has toppled two pillars of epidemic control: test and trace. Modelling for the national plan assumed these would be still standing. Without these, it will get much worse.

The public has been left to their own devices as all our previous safeguards collapse around us.

We urgently need to change our approach and follow a “vaccines-plus” strategy to flatten the curve.

We can’t rely solely on vaccines

Available data suggests two vaccine doses provides minimal protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron.

Multiple countries already tried a vaccine-only strategy and failed. OzSage warned this wasn’t enough.

The New South Wales government persevered with the roadmap despite the emergence of Omicron and rising cases in early December – mask mandates were dropped and QR codes abolished.

By late December, cases predictably soared. With Christmas and New Year looming as superspreader events, NSW reintroduced QR codes and mask mandates, both highly effective and minimally intrusive. Then within weeks there was more flip-flopping about QR codes in what remained a chaotic response.

Meanwhile, people in Sydney cancelled restaurant and party bookings in droves for New Years Eve, leaving business and the economy worse off.

We’ve been told we have to live with COVID. In Queensland, the Chief Health Officer went as far as saying: “Not only is the spread of this virus inevitable, it is necessary (for COVID to become endemic).”

But COVID will never be endemic. It will always be an epidemic infection, with recurrent epidemic waves.

Lack of planning

Every government health agency was informed by modelling that cases and hospitalisations would surge when mitigation measures were relaxed.

But there has been inadequate surge planning at all levels of government, leaving us sitting ducks with low third-dose vaccine coverage.

There was no planning for expedited third-dose boosters, expanded testing capacity, rapid antigen tests, hospital in the home, opening of schools or even guidance for people to protect their household when one person becomes infected.

During the Delta wave, hospital in the home was set up to spare hospital capacity, but this time people are on their own and must take “personal responsbility”, according to the Prime Minister.

Read more:
As restrictions ease, here are 5 crucial ways for Australia to stay safely on top of COVID-19

Health systems buckling

The Omicron wave has made health systems buckle in most states, with NSW worst affected currently. Delta was twice as severe as previous variants, so if Omicron is 20-45% less severe than Delta, that’s still no laughing matter with low booster rates.

Daily case numbers across Australia are already 30 times what they were in the Delta peak (and may be 200 times higher soon). The enormous volume of cases means the small proportion needing hospital care will overwhelm the system.

Hospitals are already so overwhelmed that in NSW, infected nurses are instructed to work. If you need to come into hospital for a heart attack or broken leg, the chances are you will catch COVID as a bonus.

“Collapse” of the health system means we move to disaster mode, where the standard of care we expect for any condition becomes compromised. Already, self-caring COVID patients are told to call their GP if they’re worried, with no easy access to the public health system.

General practice is struggling without any additional funding or support, withdrawal of some telehealth support, and the extra load of vaccination of children 5-11 years (from next week) and third dose boosters.

Several people died at home during the Delta wave. And there’s already a death at home of a 30 year old reported during the current wave. People dying at home is a measure of health system failure, and should be tracked.

There are also domino effects of mass illness on all parts of society. Supermarkets are unable to supply fully, because of the amount of illness all the way along the supply chain.

It could go one of two ways from here

If there’s no change in policy, there will be a higher, faster peak that far exceeds available health care, which may then force a lockdown. If people who need simple measures like oxygen cannot get a hospital bed, the death rate will start rising.

The other option is to use “vaccines-plus” to flatten the curve and ease the load on society and the health system.

Such measures include:

• expanding PCR capacity and free rapid antigen tests for all, like the UK, US and Singapore

• building on existing QR code infrastructure for automated digital tracing

• mandating masks in indoor settings and subsidised high quality options like N95 masks

• expediting third dose boosters and ensure adequate supply for fourth doses if required

• expediting the vaccination of children 5-11 years

• ensuring safe indoor air, including at schools.

Taking personal responsibility will be easier for the affluent, who can afford their own supplies, like rapid antigen tests.

For everyone else, some simple measures to prevent transmission in the home is to ensure safe indoor air, use KF94 masks which are much cheaper than N95s, and get your third dose booster as soon as you can.

It’s worth doing everything we can to prevent COVID and the long term burden of illness it may cause. In addition to long COVID, SARS-CoV-2 lingers in the heart, brain and many other organs long after the acute infection, and we don’t know the long term impacts of this.

Omicron isn’t the end – there will be new variants. There are promising new variant-proof vaccines on the horizon, so we shouldn’t surrender.

Raina MacIntyre is a member of the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory group, a member of OzSAGE, and has consulted for or been on advisory boards for Janssen, AstraZeneca and Seqirus on COVID-19 vaccines. She has been on advisory boards for Sanofi and Seqirus for influenza vaccines in the past 5 years. She is currently working on a clinical trial of a non-COVID vaccine for Moderna. She currently receives funding from NHMRC (Principal Research Fellowship, Centre for Research Excellence) and the Medical Research Futures Fund, and has done COVID 19 modelling for the Tasmanian Government.

– ref. From COVID control to chaos – what now for Australia? Two pathways lie before us – https://theconversation.com/from-covid-control-to-chaos-what-now-for-australia-two-pathways-lie-before-us-174325

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

As a laureate professor in nutrition and dietetics people often ask – what do you eat?

Plant-based foods are good sources of healthy nutrients. These include different types of dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, and a range of “phytonutrients”, which plants produce to help them grow or protect them from pathogens and pests.

A review of research published in May 2021 looked at 12 studies with more than 500,000 people who were followed for up to 25 years. It found those who ate the most plant foods were less likely to die from any cause over follow-up time periods that varied across the studies from five to 25 years, compared to those who ate the least.

Here are four versatile and tasty plant foods I have on my weekly grocery list, and the research showing why they’re good for you.

Read more:
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1. Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a berry fruit (not a vegetable). They’re rich in vitamin C and “lycopene”, which is a carotenoid. Carotenoids are pigments produced by plants and give vegetables their bright colours.

A review of six trials asked people to consume tomato products equivalent to 1-1.5 large tomatoes or 1-1.5 cups of tomato juice daily for about six weeks.

The researchers found people who did this had reduced blood levels of triglycerides (a type of fat in your blood that increases heart disease risk), as well as lower total and “bad” cholesterol levels, compared to those who didn’t have any tomatoes.

These people also had increased levels of “good cholesterol”.

Read more:
Love meat too much to be vegetarian? Go ‘flexitarian’

Another review of 11 studies tested the effect of tomatoes and lycopene on blood pressure.

Researchers found consuming any tomato products led to a large decrease in systolic blood pressure (the first number that measures the pressure at which the heart pumps blood).

However, there was no effect on the diastolic pressure (the second number which is the pressure in the heart when it relaxes).

In the group who had high blood pressure to begin with, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased after eating tomato products compared to placebos.

A review of studies included a total of 260,000 men and found those with the highest intakes of cooked tomatoes, tomato sauces and tomato-based foods (equivalent to around one cup per week) had a 15-20% lower risk of developing prostate cancer compared to those with the lowest tomato intakes. Keep in mind correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, though.

Recipe tips

Keep canned tomatoes in the cupboard and add to pasta sauce, casseroles and soup. Make your own sauce by roasting tomatoes and red capsicum with a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then puree with a spoon of chilli paste or herbs of your choice. Keep in the fridge.

Try our fast tomato recipes at No Money No Time, a site full of dietary advice and recipes founded by my team at the University of Newcastle.

2. Pumpkin

Pumpkin is rich in beta-carotene, which is also a carotenoid (plant pigment). It gets converted into vitamin A in the body and is used in the production of antibodies that fight infection. It’s also needed to maintain the integrity of cells in eyes, skin, lungs and the gut.

A review of studies that followed people over time looked at associations between what people ate, blood concentrations of beta-carotene and health outcomes.

Read more:
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People who had the highest intakes of foods rich in beta-carotene (such as pumpkin, carrots, sweet potato and leafy greens) had an 8-19% lower relative risk of having coronary heart disease, stroke, or dying from any cause in studies over 10 years or more compared to those with the lowest intakes.

Recipe tips

Pumpkin soup is a favourite. Try our design-your-own soup recipe.

Heat oven to 180℃, chop the pumpkin into wedges, drizzle with olive oil, roast till golden. Speed it up by microwaving cut pumpkin for a couple of minutes before roasting.

3. Mushrooms

Mushrooms are rich in nutrients with strong antioxidant properties.

The body’s usual processes create oxidative stress, which generates “free radicals”. These are small particles that damage cells walls and cause the cells to die.

If these aren’t neutralised by antioxidants, they can trigger inflammation, contribute to ageing and development of some cancers.

Read more:
What are antioxidants? And are they truly good for us?

A review of 17 studies on mushrooms and health found people who ate the most mushrooms had a 34% lower risk of developing any type of cancer compared to those with lowest intakes. For breast cancer, the risk was 35% lower. Though, again, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

Across the studies, a high mushroom intake was equivalent to eating a button mushroom a day (roughly 18 grams).

Recipe tips

Check out our mushroom and baby spinach stir-fry recipe. It makes a tasty side dish to serve with scrambled or poached eggs on toast.

4. Oats

A review of ten studies tested the effects on blood sugar and insulin levels from eating intact oat kernels, thick rolled oats or quick rolled oats compared to refined grains.

These found eating intact oat kernels and thick rolled oats led to significant reductions in blood glucose and insulin responses, but not after eating quick rolled oats.

This is likely due to the longer time it takes for your body to digest and absorb the less-processed oats. So it’s better to eat whole grain oats, called groats, or rolled oats rather then quick rolled oats.

Read more:
Phytonutrients can boost your health. Here are 4 and where to find them (including in your next cup of coffee)

Oats are a good sources of beta-glucan, a soluble fibre shown to help lower blood cholesterol levels.

Across 58 studies where people were fed a special diet containing about 3.5 grams of oat beta-glucan a day, “bad” cholesterol levels were significantly lower compared with control groups.

The impact of oats on blood pressure has been tested in five intervention trials which showed a small, but important, drop in blood pressure.

Recipe tips

You can eat rolled oats for breakfast year round.

Eat them as muesli in summer or porridge in winter, add to meat patties, mix with breadcrumbs for coatings or add to fruit crumble toppings.

Clare Collins is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition, the University of Newcastle, NSW. She has received research grants from NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, Hunter Medical Research Institute, Diabetes Australia, Heart Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nib foundation, Rijk Zwaan Australia, WA Dept. Health, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Greater Charitable Foundation. She has consulted to SHINE Australia, Novo Nordisk, Quality Bakers, the Sax Institute and the ABC. She was a team member conducting systematic reviews to inform the Australian Dietary Guidelines update and the Heart Foundation evidence reviews on meat and dietary patterns.

– ref. 4 plant-based foods to eat every week (and why science suggests they’re good for you) – https://theconversation.com/4-plant-based-foods-to-eat-every-week-and-why-science-suggests-theyre-good-for-you-157235