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.
Map published in the Argus newspaper, showing the eclipse track. Argus, Author provided
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.
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.
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.
Eighty Mile Beach at Wallal, during low tide. Brian Finlayson, Author provided
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.
Location of the eclipse observation site, viewed seaward. Left of the vehicle are remains of Wallal Telegraph Station, including a well. Brian Finlayson, Author provided
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.
Star displacements observed during the 1922 eclipse, consistent with the movements predicted by Einstein’s theory. Campbell & Trumper/Lick Observatory Bulletin 1923, Author provided
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Computer scientist John McCarthy, who coined the term ‘AI’, at work in his laboratory at Stanford University. AP
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Djokovic’s discontent at quarantine requirements for the 2021 Australian Open did not impede his performance, with him winning the grand slam event. AAP/AP/Hamish Blair
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?
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.
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”.
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.
Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley has revealed 26 players and support staff have applied for medical exemptions to this year’s Australian Open, with a handful of those granted. AAP/Joel Carrett
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
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.
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”.
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.
Tomatoes are high in vitamin C and other important healthy nutrients. Shutterstock
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.
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.
Pumpkins, carrots and sweet potato have high levels of beta-carotene, which has health benefits. Shutterstock
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.
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).
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.
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.
People from 35 countries vacuumed their homes and sent their dust to universities in different countries, where it was tested for potentially toxic trace metals. Researchers gathered data on the human and household factors that might affect how much humans are exposed to these contaminants.
This is the first effort to collect global data of this type in a single study. It shed new light on the sources and risks associated with trace metal exposure, which can lead to concerning neurocognitive effects in people of all ages.
The study shows it doesn’t matter whether you live in a high or low income country, are rich or poor – we’re all exposed to contaminants via dust.
It doesn’t matter whether you live in a high or low income country, we are all exposed to contaminants in dust. Shutterstock
Differences between countries
Local environmental factors and contamination histories can make a difference.
In New Caledonia, elevated chromium, nickel and manganese were evident, due to local rock, soil and nickel smelters. These may be linked to increased lung and thyroid cancers in New Caledonia.
In New Zealand, arsenic concentrations are naturally high. One in three New Zealand homes exceeded the acceptable health risk for children under two, set by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Australia has concerning levels of arsenic and lead contamination in house dust. One in six Australian homes exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency acceptable health risk. Arsenic exposure can increase cancer risk and cause problems to respiratory health and immune function. Lead can affect children’s brain and nervous system development, causing behavioural and developmental problems.
It’s clear lead mining and smelting activities cause high lead levels in dust for local communities. But the study shows inner city areas are equally affected, commonly from legacy sources like emissions from the leaded petrol era, or peeling lead paint in homes.
Data from Accra, in Ghana showed homes contained elevated lead concentrations, likely due to nearby electronic recycling operations. Old wiring and circuitry are burned to extract metals, causing trace metals such as lead, nickel and copper to fall out as dust across the city.
So where do contaminants in house dust come from?
One source reflects lead from past leaded petrol emissions and paints. Another reflects the degradation of building materials, rich in copper and zinc. This was more prevalent in older homes, which have seen more wear and tear and have been exposed to traffic emissions longer.
The third common source is soil, which gets blown in from outside and walked into homes by people and pets.
Simple home cleaning practices, like frequently vacuuming, mopping and dusting with a damp cloth can reduce your exposure to contaminants in dust. Shutterstock
What factors affect how risky your dust is?
We also gathered global data on building materials, pets, hobbies, habits and home characteristics.
What made the most difference to metals in dust were house age, peeling paint, having a garden and smoking.
Interestingly, homes with garden access had higher dust concentrations of lead and arsenic.
Older homes had higher levels of all metals except chromium, and are likely to have residues from peeling paints, traffic and industrial pollutants, pest treatments and other chemicals.
Other factors, such as home type, building material, heating fuel didn’t appear to influence trace metal concentrations in homes.
Critically, what’s outside ends up in our homes, where it can be inhaled and ingested.
While global averages were within accepted thresholds, many individual homes exceeded these, particularly homes in Australia for lead-related risks, New Caledonia and the US for chromium-related risks, and New Zealand for arsenic-related risks.
Reduce the amount of dust entering your home by taking your shoes off at the door. Shutterstock
How to reduce your exposure to contaminants in dust
Frequent vacuuming, mopping and dusting with a damp cloth can reduce your risk. Vacuuming reduces contaminants like microplastics in house dust.
If you live in an older home, keep the paint in good condition so it’s not flaking off.
When painting or renovating, follow safety guidance from your state’s environmental protection authority – or call a professional.
Hobbies involving lead, like fishing, shooting and metal work, can affect your trace metal exposure. Choosing not to smoke inside will reduce exposures to chromium and manganese.
Cover exposed soil in your garden with mulch or grass, use a dual system of outdoor and indoor mats, take shoes off at the door and towel down muddy pets before letting them inside.
Considering we spend most of our lives indoors, there is growing international interest in setting public health guidelines for chemicals in indoor settled dust.
In Australia and the US, we have guidance for lead dust, but not other contaminants.
The best way to know what’s in your house dust is to have it tested by DustSafe researchers.
Cynthia works on the DustSafe program at Macquarie University as a postdoctoral researcher. The DustSafe program received funding from an Australian Government Citizen Science Grant, CSG55984 to M.P. Taylor.
Kara Fry is a research assistant for the DustSafe citizen science program at Macquarie University. This program has received funding from an Australian Government Citizen Science Grant, CSG55984 to M.P. Taylor.
Mark Patrick Taylor received funding via an Australian Government Citizen Science Grant (2017-2020), CSG55984 ‘Citizen insights to the composition and risks of household dust’ (the DustSafe project). He is an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University and a full time employee of EPA Victoria, appointed to the statutory role of Chief Environmental Scientist.
This article is part of a series explaining how readers can learn the skills to take part in activities that academics love doing as part of their work.
Many of us could happily fold a paper crane, yet few feel confident solving an equation like x³ – 3 x² – x + 3 = 0, to find a value for x.
Both activities, however, share similar skills: precision, the ability to follow an algorithm, an intuition for shape, and a search for pattern and symmetry.
I’m a mathematician whose hobby is origami, and I love introducing people to mathematical ideas through crafts like paper folding. Any piece of origami will contain mathematical ideas and skills, and can take you on a fascinating, creative journey.
As a geometer (mathematician who studies geometry), my favourite technique is modular origami. That’s where you use several pieces of folded paper as “building blocks” to create a larger, often symmetrical structure.
The building blocks, called units, are typically straightforward to fold; the mathematical skill comes in assembling the larger structure and discovering the patterns within them.
Many modular origami patterns, although they may use different units, have a similar method of combining units into a bigger creation.
So, for a little effort you are rewarded with a vast number of models to explore.
My website Maths Craft Australia contains a range of modular origami patterns, as well as patterns for other crafts such as crochet, knitting and stitching.
They require no mathematical background but will take you in some fascinating mathematical directions.
This model, folded by the author, uses a design from the book Perfectly Mindful Origami – The Art and Craft of Geometric Origami by Mark Bolitho.
Building 3D shapes from smaller 2D units
In mathematics, the shapes with the most symmetry are called the Platonic solids. They’re named after the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (although they almost certainly predate him and have been discovered in ancient civilisations around the world).
The Platonic solids are 3D shapes made from regular 2D shapes (also known as regular polygons) where every side and angle is identical: equilateral triangles, squares, pentagons.
While there are infinitely many regular polygons, there are, surprisingly, only five Platonic solids:
the tetrahedron (four triangles)
the cube (six squares)
the octahedron (eight triangles)
the dodecahedron (12 pentagons) and
the icosahedron (20 triangles).
To build Platonic solids in origami, the best place to start is to master what’s known as the “sonobe unit”.
Sonobe units, like these ones piled in a stack, can be put together to create 3D shapes. Julia Collins, Author provided
Enter the sonobe unit
A sonobe unit (sometimes called the sonobe module) looks a bit like a parallelogram with two flaps folded behind.
I’ve got instructions for how to make a sonobe unit on my website and there are plenty of videos online, like this one:
How to make a sonobe unit.
Sonobe units are fast and simple to fold, and can be fitted together to create beautiful, intriguing 3D shapes like these:
Three sonobe origami models by Julia Collins.
You will need six sonobe units to make a cube like the yellow-blue-green one pictured above, 12 to make an octahedron (the red-pink-purple one), and 30 to make an icosahedron (the golden one). (Interestingly, it’s not possible to build a tetrahedron and dodecahedron from sonobe units).
I’ve got written instructions for building the cube on my website, and some quick searching online will find you instructions for the larger models.
Sonobe units can be put together to build wondrous shapes. Julia Collins, Author provided
Into the mathematical rabbit hole
Once you’ve mastered the basic structure of each 3D shape, you may find yourself (as others have done) pondering deeper mathematical questions.
Can you arrange the sonobe units so two units of the same colour never touch, if you only have three colours?
Are larger symmetric shapes possible? (Answer: yes!)
Are there relationships between the different 3D shapes? (For example, the icosahedron is basically built of triangles, but can you spot the pentagons lurking within? Or the triangles in the dodecahedron?)
One seemingly innocent question can easily lead to a mathematical rabbit hole.
Questions about colouring will lead you to the mathematics of graphs and networks (and big questions that remained unsolved for many centuries).
Questions about larger models will lead you to the Archimedean solids and the Johnson solids. These 3D shapes have a lot of symmetry, though not as much as the Platonic solids.
Or perhaps your questions will lead you in the opposite direction.
Instead of using origami to explore new ideas in mathematics, some researchers have used mathematical frameworks to explore new ideas in origami.
Origami can take you into the mathematical rabbit hole. Julia Collins, Author provided
Solving old problems in new ways
Perhaps the most famous mathematical origami artist is the US-based former NASA physicist Robert Lang, who designs computer programs that generate crease patterns for fantastically complicated models.
His models include segmented tarantulas and ants, stags with twisted antlers and soaring, feathered birds.
My final example of the power of origami goes back to the cubic equation I mentioned at the outset:
x³ – 3 x² – x + 3 = 0
Cubic equations relate to some “impossible” mathematical problems, such as trisecting an angle (splitting an arbitrary angle into three equal angles). Or doubling a cube (which is finding a cube with double the volume of a given cube).
Any piece of origami will contain mathematical ideas and skills. Julia Collins, Author provided
Famously, these problems cannot be solved using the classical methods of a straightedge (ruler without the markings) and compass.
I am excited to see where mathematics and origami will intersect in future. Grab some paper today, make a few models and start your own journey of mathematical exploration.
Julia Collins 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.
January 3 2022 was a day like most others in the roughly two years of the COVID-19 pandemic preceding it – except it wasn’t.
Despite reassurances from a federal government desperate to consign the health emergency to history, it was a day in which the number of new infections in every state (bar Western Australia, which is closed off) soared to record highs.
Hospital admissions were spiking too, even though intensive care admissions remained lower than the worst days of the Delta outbreak, due to the apparently milder effects of the Omicron variant and high community vaccination levels.
Nonetheless, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard’s deliberately frightening suggestion just weeks ago that his state could face 25,000 cases daily by the end of January now looks conservative.
At the time, the minister admitted to having used large numbers to get the public’s attention at earlier stages of the pandemic, arguing this approach probably saved lives. He said on December 16:
Because the community came out and responded, because they wore masks, because we all kept the 1.5-metre social distance, because we did all we were asked to do by NSW Health, we managed to keep the deaths down considerably.
So we may not get 25,000 new cases every day, but we could.
In the 24 hours prior to January 4, the number of infections in NSW tipped over 23,000. This meant it was nudging 25,000 at the start of the month rather than its end. Long queues were forming at PCR testing sites, and rapid antigen tests (RATs) were increasingly difficult to find. Test results were taking days to come through, and people missed out on Christmas and other family events while they waited, sometimes for days.
As case numbers have soared, testing sites have been swamped and wait times for results have blown out. AAP/Mick Tsikas
For a federal government seeking re-election, the dramatic deterioration of the COVID picture is a complex and unwelcome problem. It is also one in which Prime Minister Scott Morrison is displaying feet of clay.
The opposition critique of Morrison as always reluctant to act – too little, too late – seems apt in the curious matter of rapid antigen tests.
With the far more expensive and time-consuming PCR testing system now being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of Omicron infections, the federal government has championed the shift to faster and cheaper rapid antigen testing.
But that shift has not been accompanied by a willingness at the national government level to purchase the kits for free distribution to those who need them.
Morrison’s rationale appears ideological to the point of crazy-brave, and it seems only to be a matter of time before some kind of retreat is effected.
His argument invoking the limitations of government, and the value of personal responsibility, should have his colleagues questioning his political judgement, and thus his ability to lead them to an unlikely fourth term in office:
This isn’t a medicine, it’s a test, and so, there’s a difference between those two things. They are available at $15.
By any reading, this is a tortured rationale making a distinction without a difference.
It got worse, though, when he appeared to argue against himself:
We’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars getting Australia through this crisis. But we’re now in a stage of the pandemic where you can’t just make everything free because when someone tells you they want to make something free, someone’s always going to pay for it, and it’s going to be you.
Which raises the question of government: well why not buy them then – seeing as you (the government) can get them cheaper and we (taxpayers) are paying in the end anyway?
Amid widespread concerns the self-administered test kits are unavailable and that where they are, there has been price-gouging, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) , has warned it will consider action to name and shame pharmacists and other retailers profiteering from the demand.
In any event, Morrison’s refusal to fund the purchase of enough test kits for Australians also looks like false economy.
After lavishing hundreds of billions of dollars in various Jobkeeper payments as well as Jobseeker supplements, the prime minister wants to lecture voters about the virtues of personal responsibility, while ducking government responsibility.
Along with the states, the Commonwealth is set to meet some of the costs of rapid antigen tests for concession card holders. They will also support those required to undertake the tests by health rules, such as when they are known close contacts of infection cases.
But so far, it has stopped short of providing the kits for those wanting to monitor their health to avoid spread – that is, the main value of RATs.
So, in a phase of the pandemic when Australians are being encouraged to resume their normal social and economic activities, attend work, and travel between cities and states, rapid antigen tests represent the main method of detecting the presence of the virus and thus limiting the scale of future outbreaks.
This penny-pinching not only threatens to undo past success in keeping community infections down, it comes within sight of an election.
Government, which has been central to Australia’s largely successful management of the pandemic, is in retreat.
From a political perspective, Morrison’s inflexible behaviour is beyond curious. By refusing to use the Commonwealth’s bulk-purchasing power to obtain the kits at lower prices, it has surrendered the very role of pandemic coordination it had claimed to be so central to until now.
Further, this debacle risks reviving memories of Morrison’s dull insouciance through 2020 when he had said vaccines could wait justifying the slow delivery at one point with the words “it’s not a race”.
With each glib excuse, the scar tissue builds. So Morrison’s argument the rollout is “not a race” in turn reminded critics of his misjudged secret trip to Hawaii during the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfire crisis and its toxic one-liner, “I don’t hold a hose, mate”.
Just why he would want to reanimate voter umbrage of these damaging miscalculations just months out from an election is not clear. Perhaps his colleagues are starting to wonder too?
From almost the moment she assumed the role as Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard faced criticism that she lacked political judgement.
Various missteps such as the no carbon tax pledge and the “real Julia” pivot acted as catalysts, but the criticism of her judgement was ruthlessly exaggerated by critics, and with lethal effect, to undermine her legitimacy.
A decade on and with Morrison’s multiple missteps, backflips and retreats accumulating, Gillard’s treatment looks all the more unconscionable.
And the question of Morrison’s political judgement, his ability to lead, all the more pressing.
Mark Kenny 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.
Stuart Robert, who as acting Education Minister vetoed six ARC approved research projects.Lukas Coch/AAP
On Christmas Eve, many researchers across the country received the news that their Australian Research Council (ARC) funding applications had failed. For most of them, this was disappointing but not surprising: the success rate for the scheme is 19%.
Six research teams were informed they had been recommended for funding within this competitive pool, but the acting Education Minister Stuart Robert had vetoed their applications. The rationale provided was that the vetoed projects “do not demonstrate value for taxpayers’ money nor contribute to the national interest”.
The focus of Robert’s veto is particularly worrying: all the rejected projects are in the humanities, and four of the six are in literary studies. The applications that were vetoed offer a snapshot of how literature has long been part of everyday life, examining topics such as Elizabethan theatre, popular narratives, science fiction and fantasy.
This shows a wilful ignorance of the value that literature and its study provide to Australia’s society, culture and economy. It is an affront to the principle of independence that should underpin research funding in a democracy. It disregards the expertise and time of the thousands of scholars involved in the process of writing and assessing these applications.
The Australian University Heads of English, the peak body for the study and research of literature in Australia, has released a statement calling on the minister to “reinstate the defunded projects and commit to legislating the complete independence of the ARC from government interference and censorship.”
Thus far, the more than 800 signatories to the statement include many of Australia’s most brilliant writers: Alexis Wright, J.M. Coetzee, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Gail Jones, Delia Falconer, Natalie Harkin, Peter Goldsworthy, Amanda Lohrey, Evelyn Araluen, Michelle de Kretser, Maria Tumarkin, and Roanna Gonsalves.
Amanda Lohrey, one of the signatories to the statement and the winner of the 2021 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction and Miles Franklin Literary Award. Richard Bugg
When then education minister Simon Birmingham rejected 11 ARC applications four years ago, they were all in the humanities, including four from literary studies. The statement notes:
The actions of the government reveal that it is committed to defunding Australia’s literary culture by overriding academic autonomy and determining what kinds of knowledge can and cannot be pursued.
ARC applications are onerous. Each proposal goes through a process of drafting, internal university review, informal reading and advice, audit and redrafting. This process relies on collegial good will. Because of the timing of the deadlines, it is often undertaken over the summer.
Each application is then assessed by readers who are respected scholars in the field. This round, 9,402 assessors’ reports were submitted. The applications are then ranked by an overseeing assessor, and appraised by a selection committee and an eligibility committee.
The decisions to fund projects in such a competitive field, where research funding is already constrained, are the end result of a process that is extremely time-intensive and relies on countless hours of labour. This process is already a significant drain on the time and resources of universities across the country.
Minister Robert’s rejection of the expert recommendations is a shocking waste of time and money.
ARC funding can make the difference between researchers keeping or losing their jobs. In some institutions, it is a hard barrier to promotion and it has a compounding effect on gender disparity at professorial level in many disciplines.
Fewer than half of the chief investigators on research projects in the current round of applications were women. The success or failure of funding applications also influences how far institutions are willing to invest in particular areas of study.
The value of literature
Such ministerial decisions imply that the discipline of literary studies is antithetical to the national interest. On behalf of the nation’s readers, I would like to disagree.
Literature in Australia is put to many and diverse uses: it is part of our leisure, our social connections, our inner lives. It connects us to the past and informs our thinking about the future. It shapes our children’s and young adults’ sense of themselves and how they fit into the world at large.
Students study literature at school and university and find themselves challenged by and reflected in the works they read. Politicians quote poetry in their speeches in parliament. Book clubs are a vital source of community and connection for people of all walks of life.
For these and many other reasons, I find it difficult to believe the study of literature does not provide “value for taxpayers’ money nor contribute to the national interest”.
What the writers who have signed the statement contribute “to the national interest” is inestimable. Unlike Robert, they recognise the role of literary research in supporting the literary cultures that enrich the lives of all Australians.
Julieanne Lamond is affiliated with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.
Micro-drilling sediment blocks to extract powder for genetic analysis
Archaeological deposits typically consist of a mix of artefacts and the remains of plants and animals — including the occasional human fossil — all held in a matrix of dirt. But these days, we dig for a lot more besides fossils and artefacts.
Now we can find clues to the deep past in the very dirt that we excavate. Alongside plant and animal remains, the sediments in an archaeological deposit might also contain ancient DNA molecules that can be extracted and used to identify the species that once lived there.
This was the case at Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, where “sediment DNA” revealed the evolutionary comings and goings of two now-extinct groups of humans who once lived there: the Neanderthals and a mysterious group dubbed the Denisovans.
Recent advances in this new field of genetic research offer exciting opportunities to study the geographic spread, timing and behaviour of past human populations. The possibility of obtaining clues from sediment DNA is important also because human remains (bones and teeth) are rarely preserved at archaeological sites.
Our new research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals exactly where the DNA in archaeological sediments comes from — at a microscopic scale.
DNA in the dirt
Together with colleagues from around the world, we extracted ancient DNA from intact blocks of resin-soaked sediment collected at 13 archaeological sites in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. From these blocks, we identified a variety of mammals, including Neanderthals in a sample from Denisova Cave.
We recovered ancient DNA from 23 of the 47 blocks analysed, including samples from Russia, Germany, France and Turkey, but not from samples collected at sites in Israel, Morocco, South Africa or the United States.
These results align with previous reports on the limits of ancient DNA preservation in bones and teeth. DNA survival depends on the complex interaction of environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity and soil composition. It is usually much better preserved in cold and dry environments than in deserts or the tropics.
Sediment blocks from 13 sites were screened for the presence of ancient mammalian DNA, which was detected in blocks collected at the sites shown in red.
Although DNA can survive in sediments for tens of thousands of years under favourable conditions, lingering questions persist about where these DNA molecules originate, and whether they could have been transported by water between archaeological layers.
In archaeological research, it’s crucial to know the exact location of where a piece of evidence was found. Sediment layers are laid down over many millennia, so if DNA molecules find their way into older or younger layers, then our estimates of their age could potentially be out by thousands of years.
Setting the record straight
To investigate whether DNA molecules can indeed be transported by water from one archaeological layer to another, we looked at sediment samples from caves occupied in the past by humans and other animals.
We cut resin-soaked blocks of cave sediment into thin slices for microscopic imaging and genetic analysis. From these, we successfully extracted DNA from blocks dug up as long as 40 years ago.
The blocks were originally collected and set in hardened resin to help understand how archaeological sites were formed. But our relatively new-found ability to retrieve ancient DNA from these samples opens new possibilities to explore the past.
A resin-soaked sediment block from Denisova Cave, containing bones, stones and fossilised faeces.
We used a dental drill to bore tiny holes into the sediment slices and were encouraged to find the resulting powder contained ancient DNA. So we then looked in detail at particular microscopic features preserved intact in the blocks from which we cut the slices, and targeted them for genetic analysis.
In our samples, the ancient DNA was concentrated in millimetre-sized “hotspots”. These were typically associated with tiny fragments of bone — in effect, microfossils — or fossilised faeces. By understanding better where DNA is preserved in sediments, we now know which microscopic features to target in future studies.
Drill-hole locations in a sediment block from Denisova Cave (left, circles indicate sample size) and the ancient mammalian DNA recovered from them. Locations 5 and 16 yielded Neanderthal DNA.
Resin-hardened sediment blocks are very stable over time and are unlikely to become contaminated by other sources of DNA, such as modern DNA from present-day humans.
Blocks of resin-soaked sediment can be found in archaeology storerooms around the world, offering a largely untapped reservoir of clues about ancient human populations and the animals and plants that lived alongside them.
In a pandemic world, where access to archaeological sites might be limited, these sediment blocks might also usher in a new era of “scientific excavation”, carried out in the lab, not in the field.
Detailed analyses of archived sediment blocks could reduce the need to travel to remote sites. Already a financially and environmentally costly exercise, it has become even more challenging during the current pandemic.
Pinpointing the origin of DNA in archaeological dirt will help us to refine this understanding, especially for sites that lack ancient bones and teeth.
Mike W Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
Diyendo Massilani receives funding from the Max Planck Society.
Matthias Meyer receives funding from the Max Planck Society.
Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
To increase urban cycling, we need more than extra cycling infrastructure; we need a culture change. A worldwide movement of community bike workshops, also known as bike kitchens, can help.
Bike kitchens offer tools, second hand parts and bikes, and convivial help with repairs. They are also hubs for community development.
Since 2014 we have visited over 50 bike kitchens around the world – in the US, Australia, NZ, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Mexico and Belgium to research how they operate. We have also volunteered and led student projects at several workshops.
Bike kitchens offer tools, second hand parts and bikes, and convivial help with repairs. Shutterstock
Building a culture of cycling
Dedicated bike lanes, road treatments and bike parking are relatively cheap to build and maintain compared to roads, car parks, and major public transport schemes. There is some correlation between better bike infrastructure and more riders.
But better infrastructure alone does not solve the problem. In Paris, with its pro-bike mayor and traffic calming initiatives, a recent explosion in bike use has led to accidents and clashes, suggesting other factors like social acceptance and up-skilling need attention.
Cycling in cities is a social practice, and building a culture of cycling is essential – especially where bike use has traditionally been low.
It’s essential to cycling culture that a critical mass of people have riding and bike maintenance skills, and the activity is more socially accepted.
That’s where bike kitchens come in.
WeCycle, a workshop in Gumbri Park, Melbourne gives free bikes to asylum seekers, refugees, and people in need. Simon Batterbury, Author provided
Convivial places to build and repair a bike
Bike kitchen workshops are initiated and run by activists and socially-minded cyclists. Most teach hands-on self-repair and maintenance skills to people who want to learn. Others give away free bikes to those who need them.
Workshops extend the use life of bicycles and components. They are part of the community economy and interrupt the waste stream; most parts come from donated or scavenged bikes and are re-used creatively and cheaply with a DIY ethos, avoiding new consumption.
Some bikes may be sold to support ongoing workshop costs, but rarely for high prices.
Workshops numbers have grown since the 1990s, and are widespread across Europe, the Americas, Australasia and the rest of the world.
The largest concentration is in France. Most are networked through l’Heureux Cyclage, which coordinates events, logistics, and learning between 250 workshops, assisting well over 110,000 people yearly.
Brussels has at least 18, like Cycloperativa, spread across the city’s arrondissements.
Ten bike workshops operate in Austria, with at least four in Vienna. They include Flickerei and WUK which, established in 1983, is probably the world’s oldest.
Workshops extend the use life of bicycles and components. Shutterstock
How bike kitchens work
There are two main types of bike kitchens:
1) places where tools, parts and bike stands are offered for anybody to use, assisted by workshop volunteers and sometimes by paid mechanics. Most are social enterprises or non-profits, promoting what’s known in French as vélonomie: the ability of a cyclist to maintain a bicycle and ride safely and with confidence.
2) those that fix bikes for others – often for the disadvantaged – such as WeCycle in Melbourne which offers bikes to refugees and asylum seekers. Working Bikes in Chicago sends bikes to the Global South.
Récup’R in its former premises in Bordeaux, France. Simon Batterbury
There are often fixing sessions and other activities for specific ages, genders and groups. At one of the oldest French bike workshops, Un p’tit vélo dans la tête in Grenoble, one volunteer told us some fixing sessions are women-only.
For members of the public without money, earn-a-bike programs convert volunteer hours into eventual bike ownership.
Workshop rules vary, but almost all forbid racist and sexist behaviour and support conviviality, diversity and respect. The main goal is “integrating a community”, the same volunteer told us.
Over time, a few diversify to become big social enterprises, like Cyclo in Brussels. Fees from memberships or workshop time, bike sales or government employment schemes allow some workshops to take on paid staff.
Others like Atelier Vélorutionaire in Paris reject commercial or government support entirely, championing a more militant stance against cars and capitalism.
Bike kitchens in Australia
Australia has had many community bike projects dating back over 30 years, with The Bike Shed in Melbourne being one of the first. Workshops come and go, but there are at least 18, with seven in Melbourne and four in Sydney.
Many smaller initiatives work in schools, churches, or at recycling centres. They are networked through BiCANZ.
WeCycle in Melbourne is a workshop focused on fixing bikes for others. Founders Gayle Potts and Craig Jackson have supplied refurbished bikes to asylum seekers, refugees and people in need since 2016.
Donated bikes accumulate in a workshop, ready for repair and re-homing. Simon Batterbury, Author provided
A community approach to sustainable transport
Workshops need volunteers and secure premises with power and light, on or off-grid. Limited budgets make this a challenge.
While workshops can be co-housed, secure premises is the key area where support from government and bike-friendly donors is welcome. Tools, racks and spares are also needed.
Community bike workshops extend bicycle lifespans and promote a community approach to sustainable transport – all while promoting conviviality and making our cities more liveable.
Simon Batterbury received funding from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne and Cosmopolis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. The assistance of Bernardita del Real, Stephen Nurse, Derlie Mateo-Babiano, Alexandre Rigal, Max Teppner and Carlos Uxo is appreciated.
Alejandro Manga is a board member of L’Heureux Cyclage. He has a research grant from the Mobile Lives Forum that partly funds the European part of his PhD. He is a dual degree PhD Candidate in the program of Communication, Culture and Media (Drexel University, Philadelphia) and in Urban and Regional Planning at Université Gustave Eiffel LVMT.
Justice and peace advocates in New Zealand have strongly criticised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “horrific crackdown” on community leaders, activists, and educators.
They have condemned in a statement published in Manila yesterday the arrest last September of Filipina educator and poet Lorena Sigua on a “trumped-up murder charge”.
The advocates of the Auckland Philippiness Solidarity (APS) say Sigua, who is also a community activist, had recently returned from a visit to New Zealand and was not in Mindanao at the time of the alleged killing of Filipino soldiers on 22 April 2018.
Writing in a letter to the editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper, Helen Te Hira of APS, said: “It is outrageous that thousands have been unjustly arrested and brutally killed under Duterte’s drug war and war against community activists.
“Meanwhile those who are rich and close to power such as Kerwin Espinosa, a self-confessed drug dealer, will soon be free after the court dismissed drug trafficking charges against him.
“New Zealand indigenous rights advocates and community leaders were shocked to hear of the arrest of Lorena Sigua, a Filipino educator, poet, and community advocate on a trumped-up murder charge.
“Lorena was arrested on September 19, 2021, in Bulacan, Northern Luzon, and charged with murder for allegedly taking part in an attack by the New People’s Army [NPA] on members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines [AFP] on April 22, 2018, in Agusan del Sur, Mindanao.
Not in Mindanao “But in fact, she was not in Mindanao at this time. Lorena returned to Manila after arriving back from New Zealand on April 6, 2018, and on the day of the alleged murder she was attending the indigenous festival “Cordillera Day” in Baguio, 1413 kilometers from Agusan.”
She met members of Parliament, representatives from the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), human rights advocates, members of the local Filipino community, Māori leaders, and students and staff at kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori and tertiary wānanga.
Te Hira wrote that kohanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori students and staff “enjoyed a rich dialogue with Lorena and the delegation as they exchanged experiences around the strategies that Māori and indigenous communities have adopted to build a national movement for language and cultural revitalisation”.
“We were particularly disturbed to learn of the routine harassment and state violence that our Lumad counterparts face for attempting to educate children in indigenous ways,” she said.
Te Hira described Sigua as a volunteer with the Education Development Institute in developing curriculum, books, and resources for Lumad schools in Mindanao.
Sigua was also a volunteer for students at the Lumad Bakwit School at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, a school set up for young people forced to leave their ancestral lands due to militarisation and human rights violations.
“Lorena’s bravery and commitment to quality education for indigenous communities resonate with the struggles of our people in the kura kaupapa movement,” Te Hira wrote.
“We call for immediate freedom for Lorena and all political prisoners who have been slapped with trumped-up charges.”
Fiji parents are advised not to send their children to school today if they are not feeling well as the country is rocked by a third wave of the covid-19 pandemic.
That was the advice from the Ministry of Education as the last term for 2021 begins on January 4 for Years 8 to 13 to make up the education gap.
Education Minister Premila Kumar said the students were expected to comply with covid-safe measures introduced in school, including the wearing of masks.
“We must all take the necessary steps to reduce risk of covid-19 in our communities to keep our schools safe,” Kumar said.
The minister said the ministry was also aware that not all students had had regular and reliable access to online learning tools during the long school closure due to covid-19.
As such, she said the return of students to school this month would provide them with the opportunity and resources to work closely with their teachers to successfully complete the requirements of the 2021 academic year before progressing to the next level.
“We know that face-to-face learning is vital for the academic achievement, mental and physical health, and overall well-being of our students.
“By continuing to work together, we can help ensure a positive school experience for everyone.”
Kumar added that the schools would be finalising the provisional enrolments for the 2022 academic year by the end of January 2022, giving parents and guardians ample time to prepare their children for the new school year.
805 new cases in Fiji The Ministry of Health and Medical Services reported 805 new cases of covid-19 in the last three days ending at 8am on Sunday morning.
“Since the last update on 29/12/2021, we have recorded a total of 805 new cases; of which 316 new cases were recorded on 30/12/2021, 223 new cases were recorded on 31/12/2021, and 266 new cases in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am this morning,” stated the ministry in a statement.
The Fiji Times reports that Health Secretary Dr James Fong said plans to amend curfew hours and close Fiji’s international borders were still under discussion.
He said that if a variant was transmissible enough, stringent border and community measures would only delay the inevitable entry and spread of current and future variants of the covid-19 virus.
“We must all get vaccinated when it is our turn and continue to be strict with our covid-19 safe measures,” he said.
The ministry, in a statement, said that from January 1, 2022, travellers from travel partner and non-travel partner countries must produce a negative covid-19 PCR test taken no more than two calendar days before the scheduled day of departure.
Timoci Vulais a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
In all of the meandering years in the life of Papua New Guinea, 2021, which ended on Friday has to be it.
The colours were there, the love and laughter were there, the sadness, emotions, losses, highs and lows, the bleakness of our long-suffering population and blackness of ethereal poor governance were all intertwined with making 2021 standout.
In a nutshell, 2021 will be remembered as the year that shook PNG to the core.
The biggest and most enduring life changer was covid-19. Like a thief in the night, it descended on our lives. It robbed our children of their innocence. It stopped our businesses dead in their tracks. It stole our bread. It stole the breath of our nation builders.
This year, we will still be waking, walking and wandering with covid-19. It was and is the most tumultuous health issue ever, hovering over the gardener in a remote valley to a bush driver in a town to a business executive in the city.
Big or small, rich or poor, we all face the same anxiety.
Covid-19 was on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s ears. It is a global event that is still unraveling and we cannot predict what it holds for us in 2022.
The Kumul will fly Now you can’t go anywhere without a face mask. But we must rise to the occasion. We must be resilient like our forefathers. We must face it. The Kumul will fly.
So many of our fathers and forefathers left us over the past year. Men, who walked and talked with giants, whose dreams and aspirations – covid-19 or not – we must carry in our hearts and move forward. That is the challenge that awaits our bones in 2022.
Sir Mekere Morauata (2020), Sir Pita Lus, Sir Philip Bouraga, Sir Paulias Matane, Sir Ramon Thurecht, Sir Ronald Tovue and the Chief of Chiefs, GC Sir Michael Thomas Somare.
One could only wonder as we wandered, tearfully from “haus krai” to the next mourning house. Why?
In one swoop, 2021 took our history book and shook the knights of our realm out of its pages.
Men whose colourful and storied existence led to the birth of our nation. How said indeed it is that a country loses its foundation so suddenly. Shaken to the core.
While mainland PNG mourned the loss of Sir Mekere, Kerema MP Richard Mendani, Middle Fly MP Roy Biyama and recently Middle Ramu MP Johnny Alonk, Bougainville was not spared.
The island is reeling from losing its Regional MP Joe Lera and just two weeks ago, Central Bougainville MP Sam Akoitai. Our leadership shaken to the core!
Historic year for PNG This is also a historic year for PNG. Sixty-four years after Sir Michael shook his fist at Australia and demanded: “Let my people go,” Bougainville has done the same, voting overwhelmingly to secede from PNG in a referendum.
Two weeks ago, its president declared: “Let my people go!” Shaken to the core!
Ethnic violence — 1000 tribes in distress with violence becoming an everyday happening, Tari vs Kerema, Kange vs Apo, Kaimo vs Igiri, Goi vs Tari, threatening the very fabric of our unity. Our knights in their freshly dug tombs would be turning in their graves.
Family and Sexual Violence against women and children and the ugly head of sorcery related violence.
I mean, how dare we call ourselves a Christian nation and tolerate such evil? How dare you men accuse our women, mothers, sisters and daughters, and murder them in cold blood?
What more can we, as a newspaper say? We have spent copious amounts of sheet and ink, more than enough on these issues, we have raised our anger, we have commiserated with those in power about these issues. The message is not getting through to the men of this nation. Where have all the good men gone?
Spectre of ‘pirate’ Tommy Baker Law and order wise, the name Tommy Baker raises the spectre of piracy, armed robbery, shootouts with law enforcement and a million kina manhunt that has failed to corner Baker.
Until he was shot dead by police, the self-styled pirate was still out there in Milne Bay, hiding, abiding in time, waiting to strike again.
The Nankina cult group on the Rai Coast and its murderous rampage also shocks us, as a reminder of the Black Jisas uprising gone wrong, two decades before.
Add the consistent and constant power blackouts in the major cities and towns. This is hardly a sign of progress, especially when the management of the major power company PNG Pawa Ltd has been changed three times!
However, yes, we need to remember this too. In our topsy turvy perennial spin, some of the major positive developments need to be mentioned.
The giant Porgera Mine was shut down and promised to be reopened, Ok Tedi, Kumul, BSP and IRC all handed the government a gold card standard in millions of kina dividends.
And the government has signed for a gold refinery in PNG for the first time.
22 billion kina budget The passing of a 22 billion kina (about NZ$9.2 billion) budget. That is, in the finest words of my best friend Lousy, preposterous. Never before has the budget being built around such a humongous money plan.
Spending is easy but raising it sounds very challenging. Therein lies the challenge.
The most important part is to ensure this money plan reaches the unreached, that service delivery will go where the ballot boxes, somehow manage to reach on election days.
One noticeable explosion of knowledge is the awareness of social communications platforms. For better or worse, Facebook has taken a stranglehold of the lives of ordinary Papua New Guineans.
Communication around the country has changed overnight at the touch of a button or dial of a mobile phone.
In sport – the heart of the nation missed a beat when star Justin Olam was overlooked in the Dally M awards. A major uproar in PNG and popularly support down under forced the organisers to realign the stars. Justin easily pocked the Dally M Centre of the Year.
The good book the Holy Bible, says there is a season for everything. Maybe we are in a judgement season, being tried and tested and refined. Only we can come out of that judgement refined and define the course of our country – from Land of the Unexpected to the Land of the Respected!
We will remember the 365 days of you, as the jingle fiddles our imagination, we were “all shook up!”
Patrick Levois a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
Australia has one of the longest coastlines in the world. And it’s packed with life of all shapes and sizes – from lively dolphins leaping offshore, to tiny crabs scurrying into their holes.
Here is just some of the diverse coastal life you might expect to see this summer, if you spend some time at the water’s edge.
Dolphins and turtles
We’re fortunate to have 15 species of dolphin (and one porpoise!) living in Australian waters. The large bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops spp.) are relatively common and can be spotted all the way around our coast.
You might see them playing in the waves, jumping out of the water, or even surfing among humans.
Bottlenose dolphins are generally grey with a lighter underside and have a pronounced, curved dorsal (upper) fin. Shutterstock
Turtles are less obvious, but can be spotted as they bob their heads out of the water to breathe. Australia’s coasts are home to six of the world’s seven sea turtles (all listed as either vulnerable or endangered).
The more common green turtle (Chelonia mydas) can be found everywhere except in the coldest southern waters. In summer, the turtles travel north to the tropical waters of QLD, NT and WA to reproduce – laying their eggs in the warm sand.
Green turtles often get tangled in discarded fishing gear and nets and can die from ingesting plastics, so don’t litter! John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Another reptile you might encounter in the eastern coastal areas is the water dragon (Intellagama lesueurii). You’ll find them hovering around beach-side picnic areas, looking for tasty treats such as flies, ants, bugs, native fruits and flowers. As with all native animals, it’s important not to feed them.
Water dragons are good swimmers and stay near the water. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Heads in the clouds
If you cast your eyes up, you’ll see many coastal bird species soaring above.
Two of our favourites are the protected white-bellied sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) and the sooty oystercatcher (Haematopus fuliginosus). Both rely on marine animals for food, and nest in coastal areas right around Australia.
With a wingspan of up to 2m, you can find white-bellied sea eagles soaring above headlands. WikiCommons
Meanwhile the sooty oystercatcher is, well, all black. It has distinctive bright-orange eyes and a long beak. Sooties can be found strutting among the seaweed and sea squirts on rocky shores.
As the name suggests, these birds enjoy eating molluscs and other invertebrates.
The sooty gives a loud whistling call before taking flight. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Crawling coastal critters
Many a critter will run for cover as sooties (and humans) approach, including the swift-footed crab (Leptograpsus variegatus). This crab’s mostly purple body is sprinkled with flecks of olive, and sometimes orange.
The species lives among the rocky shores around southern Australia, from WA to QLD, and even Tasmania.
The swift-footed crab can grow to about 5cm in shell width. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
You’re much less likely to see another common crab, the sand bubbler. But you might see the results of its industrious activity on flat, wet and sandy areas.
Sand bubblers live in underground burrows, emerging during the low tide to filter sand through their mouthparts looking for food.
In this process, they end up making little pea-sized sand balls. When the tide starts to rise again, they return to their burrows and wait in a bubble of air, which they use to breathe, until the tide recedes.
Sand bubblers, from the family Dotillidae, are tiny and will quickly hide if they sense danger. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Magnificent molluscs
Molluscs are another diverse group of marine animals on our shores, and one of the best known molluscs is the octopus. Along with squid and cuttlefish, this trio of cephalopods is considered to be among the most intelligent invertebrates on Earth.
Near urban areas, octopuses have been known to make homes of bottles, jars and even discarded coffee cups. John Turnbull, Author provided
In the case of the octopus, this may be due to having nine “brains”, including a donut-shaped brain in the head and a mini brain in each tentacle, which allow the tentacles to operate somewhat independently.
Australia has several octopus species, from the gloomy octopus (Octopus tetricus) on the east coast, to the Maori octopus (O. maorum) in the south. The potentially deadly blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena sp.) is found right around Australia.
This gloomy octopus made a move for my camera as I took its photo. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Octopus forage at night, in shallow waters and to depths exceeding 500 metres. During the day they’ll return to their lair, which may be a hole, a ledge or a crack in a rock. They’ll often decorate their home with the discarded shells of their prey.
You’ve probably seen jellyfish at the beach before, too. Species such as the moon jelly (Aurelia aurita) are harmless. But others can deliver a painful sting; bluebottles (Physalia utriculus) might come to mind here, also called the Pacific man-of-war.
Bluebottles and their relatives, blue buttons (P. porpita) and by-the-wind sailors (V. velella) don’t swim. They float at the ocean’s surface and go where the winds blow, which is how they sometimes get washed onto the beach.
By-the-wind sailors have an angled ‘sail’ which takes advantage of the wind, moving them large distances to catch prey. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Rather than being one animal, they are made of many polyps or “zooids” living together in a floating colony. Each polyp has a specialised role such as flotation, stinging, catching prey, digestion or reproduction.
Anemones are also related to jellyfish, and come in many shapes and colours – from the bright red waratah anemone (Actinia tenebrosa) found in all states, to the multi-coloured shellgrit anemone (Oulactis muscosa) found from SA to QLD. They use their tentacles to sting and catch prey, but have no impact on humans.
Many anemones live among the rocks and rock pools in the intertidal area, although some species, such as the swimming anemone (Phlyctenactis tuberculosa), live as deep as 40m underwater.
Top left: shellgrit anemone, top right: swimming anemone, bottom left: red waratah anemone, bottom right: green snakelock anemone (Aulactinia veratra) John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
Fancy fishes
Of course there are many fish to be seen along our shores – more than we could possibly mention here! In the shallows, we particularly like to find big-eyed gobies.
Some of the most colourful fish in this zone are young damselfish. These are most diverse in tropical Australia, but still found in temperate waters. Their juvenile forms can be striped and spotted, with colours ranging from bright yellow to iridescent blue.
Immaculate damsels are endemic to Australian waters. John Turnbull/Flickr, Author provided
If you upload your photos to the iNaturalist website, other users can help you ID them too. Uploading is also a big help to scientists, who then have a record of each sighting.
Finally, the diversity of marine life on our coast isn’t something we can afford to take for granted. So if you hit the beach this summer, make sure you:
do not bring any single-use plastics
never leave anything behind (and preferably pick up any litter you see)
and keep pets and cars away from sensitive habitats, such as dunes and bird nesting areas.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris James, ARC DECRA Fellow, Centre for Hypersonics, School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland
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How exactly does a spaceship get into space? – Mathilde, age 5, Sydney
Hello Mathilde, thanks for this great question! It isn’t easy to get to space, and there are a few steps to it. First, let’s think about where “space” itself actually begins.
Well, some time ago, a number of experts decided on one point above us as being the point where “space” begins. They marked it with an invisible line called the Kármán line.
This line goes all around the Earth and is about 100km above us. To help you understand how high that is, a normal aircraft flies only about 10km above the ground.
The Kármán line is very high above us, and wraps all around the Earth. Shutterstock
Could we take a plane to space?
There are many reasons we can’t just use an aircraft to get into space. A major one is that the higher up we go, the less air there is – or specifically the less “oxygen” there is in the air.
The engine is what helps the aircraft fly. And just like car engines, aircraft engines need oxygen to work. Thankfully, the air we breathe is made up of 21% oxygen (although you can’t see it)!
Aircraft suck air in at the front, using big fans on either side. They then mix this air with jet fuel, creating a mixture of fuel and oxygen which is then burned, making the air hotter. The hot air is then shot out the back at a very high speed – pushing the aircraft forward.
The two large fans on the sides of an aircraft help suck in air, which has oxygen. Shutterstock
But an aircraft trying to fly too close to space, where there isn’t enough oxygen, would be like a person trying to breathe in a room with no air in it.
This is why we need rockets to get to space. The big difference between rocket engines and jet engines used in aircraft is rocket engines do not need to get oxygen from the air. Instead, they carry their own oxygen with them.
In some ways this is bad, since rocket engines have to carry something that an aircraft can easily get from all around it. That means there’s less room on a rocket for other cargo, such as passengers and luggage.
But on the bright side, being able to take oxygen along for the journey means rockets can work in space, much higher up than where most aircraft fly.
How does a rocket engine work?
Similar to an aircraft’s jet engine, rocket engines work by shooting very hot gas out from the back of the rocket. As the gas is pushed backwards, the rocket is pushed forward.
This is an example of a rule in science called the Third Law of Motion, first discovered by a famous scientist named Isaac Newton. This law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
You can even make a very basic “rocket” at home with some help from an adult! If you get a balloon, blow it up, and let it go without tying off the end, the air inside will shoot out and send it flying around the room – just like a very badly controlled rocket!
Chris James 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.
The year is 2040 and Aotearoa New Zealand has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the commitment to keep global heating below 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The economy, society, local government, transport, housing and urban design, energy, land use, food production and water systems have all changed significantly. Fossil fuels have been mostly phased out internationally and import taxes are imposed on high emissions goods.
New Zealand is now a world leader in natural infrastructure, clean hydrogen energy, engineered wood and high quality low emissions food. Despite ongoing challenges, with a prosperous economy, most people think the transition was worth it. Cities are more pleasant places to live, air and water are cleaner, nature is more abundant.
Following the emissions budgets stipulated by the Zero Carbon Act in late 2021, emissions are now properly priced into all economic decisions. The Emissions Trading Scheme has been reinforced and the price of emitting carbon has stabilised at $300 per tonne, after hitting $75 in 2022 and $200 by 2030.
In 2026, New Zealand signed the International Treaty to Phase out Fossil Fuels, which prohibits fossil fuel extraction, phases out use and requires international cooperation on renewable energy.
Carbon import taxes mean many high emissions commercial activities are no longer economically viable. Trade unions have played a major role in the industrial strategy underpinning the transition to a lower emissions economy.
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Local focus
The Māori economy is bigger than any other sector and has benefited from wider international recognition of the long term value of climate and biodiversity work.
New Zealand’s economy is based on productive activity that stays within planetary boundaries – including emissions and pollution of land and water – while respecting social requirements, such as a decent standard of living for all.
Building on their successful response to the COVID pandemic, marae-based organisations are prominent as centres of excellence for climate and economic strategy, health and social services, managed retreat from coastal areas and natural infrastructure development.
Public financing was radically rebalanced in the 2020s, delivering more for local government and a greater partnership between councils, government and Māori organisations. This has enabled far better delivery of local services and much more meaningful connections within communities.
Councils and council organisations laid the groundwork for the climate transition, helping address the unequal impacts of climate change on different groups. Councils and mana whenua collectively administer substantial funds for regional development.
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Rail returns
The government’s 2022 Climate Budget provided the massive injection of funds required to redesign our cities, which are now organised around mass transit, safe and segregated routes for cycling and vibrant pedestrian areas. People can access fast, frequent light rail and dedicated busways with low cost fares. Less road space is required for driving, which is more accessible now for those who need it, including disabled people and service vehicles.
People travel between cities primarily via electric rail, managed by a new national passenger rail agency InterCity, which acquired the InterCity regional bus operator in 2023. Through major reforms in 2024, KiwiRail became a dedicated rail freight operator. A new government agency, OnTrack, oversees maintenance and renewal of tracks and rail infrastructure.
Passenger rail services run across the North Island main trunk line on improved electrified tracks at up to 160kph. South Island rail uses hydrogen trains fuelled by locally produced green hydrogen.
Most of the work to upgrade transport, housing and energy infrastructure has been done by a new Ministry of Green Works set up in 2025. This Ministry partners with local hapū and iwi, as well as councils through regional hubs. It is backed by the government’s expanded Green Investment Finance company.
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Housing for all
Anger at the divide between property owners and renters culminated in a general rent strike in 2024. The government responded with new financial rules ending the treatment of housing as an asset class. Kāinga Ora, Māori organisations and councils have undertaken a massive public housing construction effort.
Most new housing is now public infrastructure rather than private homes built to store individual wealth. Public ownership has expanded, in particular for entities that provide core services such as transport, energy and water.
In 2024, the government worked with councils to focus plans on quality universal design housing. Since the new building code was adopted in 2025, all new homes have high standards for energy efficiency and accessibility. Higher density apartments line public transport routes in the main centres, with terraced homes in smaller towns. Structural timber has replaced concrete and steel in many construction projects.
Changes to housing, transport and urban design have supported improvements in health, well-being and physical activity. Health improved dramatically after universal basic services were introduced in 2024 to cover free visits to the doctor and dentist as well as free childcare and elderly care.
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Energy goes green
Electricity generation has doubled, with a mix of wind, solar and geothermal. Many more energy storage facilities exist, including pumped hydroelectricity. Distributed energy is commonplace. Many councils have helped their communities set up local solar schemes and dozens of towns are completely independent of the national grid.
Green hydrogen is produced at the converted aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point using hydroelectricity. This is used in heavy industry and transport and exported from Southport.
In 2027, after New Zealand blew its first carbon budget, the government replaced MBIE with a new Ministry for Economic Transition. The Ministry oversaw the transition to green jobs via a universal job guarantee scheme.
It also supported a dramatic reduction in energy use in all parts of society and the economy. This effort had a greater impact on emissions reduction than the replacement of energy and fuel with renewable sources.
In 2025 the government established a Natural Infrastructure Commission. The term “natural infrastructure” emerged in the 2020s as a term to include native forests, wetlands, coastal environments and other ecosystems that store and clean water, protect against drought, flooding and storms, boost biodiversity and absorb carbon.
The Commission has supported massive land restoration for carbon sequestration and biodiversity purposes, with an annual budget of NZ$5 billion from emissions revenue. Among other uses, the fund compensates land owners for land use changes that reduce emissions and build up resilience.
Under the new Constitution of Aotearoa adopted in 2040, ownership of the Conservation Estate transferred from Crown ownership to its own status of legal personhood.
International carbon taxes have transformed agriculture. Dairy herds have reduced in size and New Zealand is known for organic, low emissions food and fibre. High quality meat and dairy products, as well as plant-based protein foods, supply international markets.
Seaweed and aquaculture operations have flourished. Along with regenerative agriculture, this transition has reduced pollution and emissions. With native ecosystems regenerated, tōtara and harakeke can now be sustainably harvested for timber and fibre.
In urban and industrial settings water use has dramatically reduced. Every business, home and building stores its own water. Water use is measured and charges are levied for excess water use beyond the needs of the household. No water is ever wasted.
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A better place
The country feels steadier than 20 years ago. There is hope for the future in a world that was full of uncertainty after the pandemic stricken early 2020s.
Many government agencies and councils are now seen as useful and relevant, having been equipped with the money to provide housing, social services, environmental restoration and support for economic and land use change.
Moving away from high emissions exports was more successful than anyone expected, but it took strict rules to make it happen. Some in the business sector opposed more government direction and regulation, but it’s widely accepted that relying on market forces would not have delivered a successful transition.
That approach had driven the country to the brink of failure on climate, biodiversity and social cohesion. Having been leaders in milk powder and tourism, the country now leads on natural infrastructure and the future of food, timber and energy.
In 2040, Aotearoa is a better place to be.
Thomas Nash is a regional councillor for Greater Wellington Regional Council and a member of the Green Party. He is a committee member of New Zealand Alternative, and works as an adviser to Auckland-based social enterprise Big Street Bikers.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Associate Professor in Sociology and Co-Director of The Policy Lab, The University of Melbourne
The COVID pandemic has made the very private issue of the domestic division of labour – the way housework and childcare are divided – a very public issue.
During lockdowns, the burden of housework and childcare grew significantly for men and women in opposite-sex and same-sex couples both in Australia and elsewhere.
Overnight, homes became offices, childcare centres and makeshift schools and it was mothers who largely stepped into these teaching and caring roles at the expense of their anxiety levels and sleep.
While the pandemic exacerbated the physical demands of care – housework and childcare – it also exacerbated another part of the work that keeps households and families running: the mental load.
A lot has been written about the mental load over the past two years, with many confusing the mental load with household labour – cleaning and cooking or caring after children – or planning tasks involved with childcare. But the mental load is so much more.
In our recently published research, we define the mental load as the combination of two types of work or labour: cognitive labour and emotional labour.
The cognitive aspect of the mental load involves the scheduling, planning, and organising required to support the smooth operating of families. This type of work ranges from organising a play date to planning dinner.
We argue this cognitive work becomes a load or the mental load when it has an emotional element, for example, when there is worry or stress attached to these tasks.
Some have described list-making as the mental load, but list-making isn’t always stressful or emotional and, importantly, list-making has a finite beginning and end.
But, once cognitive tasks like list-making take on an emotional element – like worry about whether Nana will like her present, anxiety about how relatives will get along at holiday dinners and stress about filling stockings while finishing work – then it becomes the mental load.
How does the mental load operate?
We argue the mental load operates in families and societies in three ways.
First it’s invisible – it’s the type of work that is done internally. Unlike housework or childcare, it’s unseen and therefore hard to recognise.
Second, the mental load is boundaryless. Because it’s invisible, it can be performed anywhere or at anytime.
American sociologist Arlie Hochschild termed women’s domestic labour done after work as the “second shift” but the mental load has no shifts – it can be done before, during and after work or even during time that should be spent sleeping.
And lastly, the mental load is enduring, meaning it never ends. Unlike housework such as like cooking or cleaning, thinking and caring about family members never ends, which is why the mental load can be so burdensome and Nana still reminds you to take a jacket.
How can we lessen mental loads in 2022 and beyond?
Individuals and society can do a number of things to decrease the mental load.
1) Make the mental load more visible by quantifying it
We have no robust, standardised and nationally representative measure of the mental load. This means, unlike housework and childcare, we have no idea the volume and consequences of the mental load for Australians.
Recent reports on housework show women do 21 more hours of unpaid work than men. They may also spend the bulk of the day thinking about, planning and worrying about their families.
The mental load can last long after your children have left home. Clem Onojeghuo
Yet, we have no measure of this labour and, importantly, we don’t know how men carry the mental load either.
Quantifying and capturing how much time we spend on the mental load and how this is shared between couples will help lay the groundwork for change.
2) Acknowledge the toll on women
The pandemic has left workers burnt out, stressed and overwhelmed by the intensity of balancing work, homeschooling and full-time care demands while isolated at home.
Mothers are exhausted not only from the physical demands of work and family but also the cognitive labour of holding it all together at work while worrying about torpedoing children’s educational futures from keeping them home, alone and glued to screens.
The mental load, as the unrelenting internal nag, is a drain on well-being with serious consequences for economic productivity and fatigue.
The mental load is a national health emergency and should be treated seriously by workplaces and governments alike.
3) Help families better reconcile work and family demands
Both organisations and governments need to be better at helping families combine their work and care responsibilities. The mental load overloads women (and some men) particularly at work when they are thinking and worrying about their children’s needs.
Workplaces need to improve support for families to lessen the mental load. This may mean more working remotely or concrete programs to support workers’ mental loads. This is also likely to improve workers’ productivity.
At the same time, governments need to provide better care infrastructure to support families, for example more universal affordable childcare, supports for transitioning children to and from school, and better aged care. This will lessen workers’ worries about the experiences of loved ones while they’re engaged in paid work.
Ultimately, the mental load is a mental health issue and companies and governments should treat it as such. This will unburden families, and particularly mothers, from managing the mental load alone.
Leah Ruppanner receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Brendan Churchill receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Liz Dean 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.
Have you opened your post-lockdown wardrobe, only to discover some of your beautiful summer clothes have holes in them? You’re probably blaming clothes moths but the real culprits are the larvae (caterpillars).
But who are these moths? The fact that they’re feeding on your precious clothes, fabrics and yarn actually reflects an interesting and – for moths – unusual biology.
What can you do to protect your precious clothes, fabrics and yarn from the hungry larvae? Shutterstock
An old foe
Early references to clothes moths in Greek and Roman literature suggest humans have been battling clothes moths for thousands of years. Clothes moths are part of an ancient lineage of moths (Tineidae) and as such have preserved some quirky behaviours and adaptions that have led to a few species becoming pests.
The most well-known species of clothes moths in Australia are the webbing clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella) and the case-making clothes moth (Tinea pellionella). These common names refer to the appearance of silk spun by the caterpillars as shelter.
The adult clothes moth ranges in size from 4mm to 9mm – about the size of a grain of rice. Once the larvae turn into adult moths, they never eat again.
An inconvenient diet
The evolutionary origin of clothes moths diverged from 98% of all other moths a long time ago, so these moths do some things differently from most other moths.
Most tineid species don’t feed on living plants like “normal” caterpillars, but on rotting wood, fungi, lichens, detritus and even bat poo in caves. So it is unsurprising some species even feed on the keratin (a kind of protein) found in natural fibres.
They love to nibble on items derived from animals such as fur, wool and silk. But the synthetics or mixed fibres in your wardrobe aren’t safe either. Clothes moth larvae have been known to feed on synthetic and blended fibres, particularly those stained with sweat or food. The preferred diet of these caterpillars means some species have become unwelcome pests in our homes.
They love to nibble on items derived from animals such as fur, wool and silk. But synthetics or mixed fibres aren’t safe either. Shutterstock
Not all clothes moths are pests!
Fortunately, only a few species from this group containing over 2,600 species are pests. In Australia we have over 190 known species of moths belonging to the clothes moth group, and many more unnamed specimens located at the Australian National Insect Collection are waiting for scientists to formally name them.
Researchers are working to understand more about the diversity and behaviour of moths that feed in unconventional ways, including the authors of this article. One of us (Ying Luo) is currently studying moths whose larvae feed inside a leaf, rather than on the outside of a leaf. Luckily, you won’t find these inside your wardrobe.
Why are they in my house – and how do I get rid of them?
The introduced clothes moths are a well-established pest in Australia and were brought here by accident. But how did they get into your house?
Sadly, you probably brought the eggs or larvae home yourself. They may have been hidden in a piece of clothing thrifted from the op-shop, borrowed from a friend or even bought new from a big brand store.
One of the best methods for keeping on top of clothes moths is to regularly check your clothing. Like their wild cousins, clothes moths enjoy dark, enclosed spaces.
You could try packing your clothes away in plastic tubs or bags, but this may mean you check on your clothes less often. You could risk sealing in some clothes moth larvae with your clothes.
If you haven’t been using certain clothes – the summer clothes packed away during winter for example, or any work or going-out clothes that stayed in the wardrobe during lockdown – then this is the perfect environment for clothes moths larvae to settle in for a nice, undisturbed feast.
Bring them out for washing and airing every now and then, and you could even give your wardrobe a refresh while you’re at it.
If you already have an infestation, you should remove all your clothing from the wardrobe and give the space a good vacuum. Some larvae may even be present in the carpet (if you have it). Wash all clothing before putting it back into the wardrobe.
What about moth balls?
Modern mothballs are a crystallised form of a chemical known as 1,4-dichlorobenzene (C₆H ₄Cl₂).
Over time, it turns (or “sublimates”) into a gas, which produces the strong smell you probably associate with moth balls.
They are used to deter moths – but if you already have an infestation, mothballs will not help.
And you may need quite a high concentration to be effective. At that point, you might not particularly enjoy the strong smell of the mothballs on your clothes.
We use a commercial form of “moth balls” to deter pests, and quarantine incoming specimens to prevent future infestations. But don’t worry about quarantining your clothes, we’ve found that careful observation is also an effective way to stay on top of pesty moths!
If you already have an infestation, mothballs will not help. Shutterstock
Ying Luo’s PhD is funded by an ABRS grant. She is also affiliated with the Research School of Biology at ANU, as her PhD is done through ANU.
Andreas Zwick is a research scientist in the Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO. He is affiliated with the Australian Entomological Society, the Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica and the Japan Heterocerists’ Society.
This article is part of a series explaining how readers can learn the skills to take part in activities that academics love doing as part of their work.
There’s no doubt about it, seeing a whale rise from the depths of the ocean is something special. Whether it’s the first time you’ve seen a whale or you’ve seen many like I have, it’s the thrill of hearing and sometimes smelling whale breath that gets you back for more! It’s time to dust off your binoculars because we’re about to dive into learning to whale watch.
When to see whales
Whale watching is a great outdoors activity we can all enjoy from May to November each year in Australia. Thousands of humpback whales migrate from their feeding waters of Antarctica to the warm northern breeding waters off the Kimberley, Western Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland.
These giants traverse the sea and play important ecological roles in our marine environment.
What to look for
Ironically, trying to spot an animal the size of a bus is not always easy.
One of the first things to look for is that puffy tell-tail sign of a whale, its blow. Whales are mammals like you and I, which means they breathe air. Their nose is located on top of their head like an in-built snorkel.
A humpback whale takes a breath in the cool waters of Antarctica. Photo: Vanessa Pirotta, Author provided
This allows whales to breathe on the go and without having to raise their heads out of the water. As they breathe out you can see a spout or puffy blow as a combination of water and air is blasted upwards as they exhale. This air comes directly from their lungs and is also known as whale snot.
Whale blow can stick around for longer when weather conditions are ideal such as times with good visibility and low wind. This is a great advantage for spotting a whale.
If you’re lucky, you may also be able to spot a whale breaching, which is when they jump out of the water. Humpback whales are most famous for this. We don’t exactly know why whales do this but it most likely serves as a form of communication with other whales.
A humpback whale breaches off Manly, Sydney, Australia. Photo: Vanessa Pirotta, Author provided
You may also be able to see other behaviours such as pec (arm) and tail slapping, resting at the surface and spy hopping – where a whale brings its mouth and eyes out of the water to look around.
After a dive, whales sometimes leave a whale footprint, which is a circular disruption at the surface caused by the whale’s tail. This is where the whale last surfaced. The whale will now likely be further ahead of this location.
After a whale surfaces, they sometimes leave a visible footprint at the surface.
Boat or land-based whale watching, what’s better?
It depends. Some of the best whale watching I’ve ever had has been from land. High land-based viewing platforms such as those in national parks enable you to see further and wider out to sea. This allows you to document a lot more whale action but from a distance.
But if you’re after the salt in your face and the thrill of being on the water, then whale watching with a responsible ecotourism company is your best option. Australia has rules and regulations in place to keep both whales and humans safe from each other. This means humans must keep their distance from whales when on the water.
In some cases, whales may choose to approach your vessel and swim around at close range. This is known as a whale mugging and there is nothing you can do but turn off the boat engines and enjoy the show.
Whale mugging off the New South Wales south coast, Australia.
Tools people can use to whale watch
Whale watching is an outdoors activity so prepare for any type of weather. I always suggest a weatherproof jacket to keep warm and protected from the wind and rain. I also recommend sunglasses, sun screen, a hat and comfy shoes.
If you’re a keen wildlife photographer like me, then pack your camera. Alternatively, a phone can be used to video or take photos.
Finally, don’t forget your binoculars. These can be great for seeing whales a little closer, but don’t worry if you don’t own a pair. I personally prefer spotting whales first with the naked eye.
Tips and tricks for success
It’s important to know whales don’t sit at the surface breathing all the time. Depending on what they are doing, they will likely spend time swimming underwater. This can range from a few minutes to up to 20 minutes for humpback whales. So be patient.
Scanning the horizon from left to right is a great tip when starting, especially from land. Start from one side and move along the horizon slowly. This will increase your chances of picking up anything between you and the horizon.
Spotted: a sunfish swims near the surface off Sydney, Australia. Photo: Vanessa Pirotta
If on a boat, be aware that you’re likely moving, so try to use landmarks or other boats as potential navigational markers. Keep an eye out for anything at the surface that moves or pops up suddenly. I’ve seen some amazing things while waiting for whales, such as jumping sharks and sunfish.
Dive in
Whale watching is a great annual outdoor activity anyone can do. Whether you’re watching from land or sea, keep an eye out because you never know when you might spot your next or very first whale.
Vanessa Pirotta 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.
COVID-19 has dramatically changed how businesses and consumers behave. We’ve seen panic buying, the rise of the “homebody economy” and a strong shift towards contactless shopping.
As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it seems the right time to reflect on the most important changes in consumer behaviour we’ve seen, and to make some predictions about COVID-19’s lasting and pervasive effects on how we shop.
Pandemic purchasing
One of the first impacts of COVID-19 was supermarket shelves being repeatedly stripped of toilet paper and other products ahead of lockdowns.
One debate this behaviour sparked was about how much it could be considered irrational panic buying – or if it was rational to stockpile in response to the irrational behaviour of others.
It was a real-life lesson in game theory. Decisions that make perfect sense for individuals can add up to a bad outcome for the community.
Spending more money at the supermarket was at least possible.
Consumption patterns changed significantly due to closed borders, restricted shopping, stay-at-home orders and general uncertainty.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows large drops in spending on transport, accommodation, recreation and entertainment services, and catering.
Spending on food increased marginally, and on alcohol even more. The main reasons cited for increased drinking, according to one study, were stress (45.7%), increased alcohol availability (34.4%) and boredom (30.1%).
It is too early to tell to what extent these pandemic-driven shifts will translate into permanent behavioural change. However, research published last month, based on surveying 7,500 households in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, supports the likelihood of at least some long-term sectoral shifts in consumer behaviour.
Certainly many higher-income households have the money to splash out on a holiday, or new car, or home renovation, with Australians banking an estimated A$140 billion in extra savings during the pandemic.
Other research, such as the National Australia Bank’s quarterly Consumer Sentiment Survey, suggests the pandemic has engendered greater caution. In its most recent survey, 37% said they were mindful or careful of where they spent their money (42% of women and 33% of men). In terms of purchasing influences, 43% nominated supporting local businesses, compared with 15% environmental issues and 14% social concerns such as labour practices.
In NAB’s consumer sentiment survey 43% said their purchases were influenced by the desire to support local business. Shutterstock
Some have wondered if, in the wake of COVID-19, we are about to experience another “Roaring Twenties” – emulating that period of economic prosperity and cultural dynamism in the 1920s following the deprivations of the first world war and the “Spanish flu” epidemic.
The circumstances are not exactly analogous. But new technologies and changes in habits are likely to drive several long-term changes in the way we shop.
Going contactless
Our desire to reduce physical contact accelerated contactless payment methods. Research (from the Netherlands) suggests this will, for most, be a permanent change, accelerating a steady decline in the use of cash for shopping.
Ways to buy things without ever having to step inside a shop – such as curbside pick-up and home delivery – should also continue. In 2021 we’ve seen a number of startup businesses promising grocery deliveries in 15 minutes.
“Omni” experiences
Increasingly our buying behaviour will be shaped by what marketing experts call omnichannel shopping – a fancy word meaning using a variety of experiences to make a purchase.
You might, for instance, go into a store to try out headphones, then go online to read third-party reviews and compare prices from different retailers.
Technologies such as augmented reality will facilitate this trend. For example, IKEA’s Place app allows you to see how furnishing will into your space.
IKEA’s ‘Place’ app. IKEA
More and more what were once physical experiences will have their digital variants, from attending university to having an appointment with a health professional to taking a tour of the British Museum or exploring the Grand Canyon. Though these cannot replicate the real experience, they will be an increasingly common way to “try before you buy”.
The future of shopping will gradually merge the digital and physical. But whatever changes, some things will remain constant: the human desire to make experiences convenient, fun and meaningful.
Adrian R. Camilleri 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.
Most of the classic New Year resolutions revolve around improving your health and lifestyle. But this year, why not consider cleaning up your passwords too?
We all know the habits to avoid, yet so many of us do them anyway: using predictable passwords, never changing them, or writing them on sticky notes on our monitor. We routinely ignore the recommendations for good passwords in the name of convenience.
What’s wrong with your pa$$w0rd?
Choosing short passwords containing common names or words is likely to lead to trouble. Hackers can often guess a person’s passwords simply by using a computer to work through a long list of commonly used words.
The most popular choices have changed very little over time, and include numerical combinations such as “123456” (the most common password for five years in a row), “love”, keyboard patterns such as “qwerty” and, perhaps most ludicrously, “password” (or its Portuguese translation, “senha”).
2017-2019* list of common passwords from SplashData, 2020-2021# from NordPass.
Experts have long advised against using words, places or names in passwords, although you can strengthen this type of password by jumbling the components into sequences with a mixture of upper- and lowercase characters, as long as you do it thoroughly.
Complex rules often lead users to choose a word or phrase and then substitute letters with numbers and symbols (such as “Pa33w9rd!”), or add digits to a familiar password (“password12”). But so many people do this that these techniques don’t actually make passwords stronger.
It’s better to start with a word or two that isn’t so common, and make sure you mix things up with symbols and special characters in the middle. For example, “wincing giraffe” could be adapted to “W1nc1ng_!G1raff3”
These secure passwords can be harder to remember, to the extent you might end up having to write them down. That’s OK, as long as you keep the note somewhere secure (and definitely not stuck to your monitor).
Passwords on a sticky note are still a bad idea in the workplace.
Reusing passwords is another common error – and one of the biggest. Past data leaks, such as that suffered by LinkedIn in 2012, mean billions of old passwords are now circulating among cyber criminals.
This has given rise to a practice called “credential stuffing” – taking a leaked password from one source and trying it on other sites. If you’re still using the same old password for multiple email, social media or financial accounts, you’re at risk of being compromised.
Pro tip: use a password manager
The simplest and most effective route to good password hygiene is to use a password manager. This lets you use unique strong passwords for all your various logins, without having to remember them yourself.
Password managers allow you to store all of your passwords in one place and to “lock” them away with a strong level of protection. This can be a single (strong) password, but can also include face or fingerprint recognition, depending on the device you are using. Although there is some risk associated with storing your passwords in one place, experts consider this much less risky than using the same password for multiple accounts.
The password manager can automatically create strong, randomised passwords for each different service you use. This means your LinkedIn, Gmail and eBay accounts can no longer be accessed by someone who happens to guess the name of your childhood pet dog.
If one password is leaked, you only have to change that one – none of the others are compromised.
There are many password managers to choose from. Some are free (such as Keepass) or “freemium” (offering the option to upgrade for more functionality like Nordpass), while others charge a one-off fee or recurring subscription (such as 1Password). Most allow you to securely sync your passwords across all your devices, and some let you safely share passwords between family members or work groups.
You can also use the password managers built into most web browsers or operating systems (with many phones offering this functionality in the browser or natively). These tend to have fewer features and may pose compatibility issues if you want to access your password from different browsers or platforms.
Password managers take a bit of getting used to, but don’t be too daunted. When creating a new account on a website, you let the password manager create a unique (complex) password and store it straight away – there’s no need to think of one yourself!
Later, when you want to access that account again, the password manager fills it in automatically. This is either through direct integration with the browser (typically on computers) or through a separate application on your mobile device. Most password managers will automatically “lock” after a period of time, prompting for the master password (or face/finger verification) before allowing access again.
Protect your most important passwords
If you don’t like the sound of a password manager, at the very least change your “critical” account passwords so each one is strong and unique. Financial services, email accounts, government services, and work systems should each have a separate, strong password.
Even if you write them down in a book (kept safely locked away) you will significantly reduce your risk in the event of a data breach on any of those platforms.
Remember, however, that some sites provide delegated access to others. Many e-commerce websites, for example, give you the option of logging in with your Facebook, Google or Apple account. This doesn’t expose your password to greater risk, because the password itself is not shared. But if the password is compromised, using it would grant access to those delegated sites. It is usually best to create unique accounts – and use your password manager to keep them safe.
Adopting a better approach to passwords is a simple way to reduce your cyber-security risks. Ideally that means using a password manager, but if you’re not quite ready for that yet, at least make 2022 the year you ditch the sticky notes and pets’ names.
Lorrie Cranor receives funding from Bosch, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Mellon CyLab, DARPA, DuckDuckGo, Facebook, an endowed professorship established by the founders of FORE Systems, Google, Highmark Health, Innovators Network Foundation, NSA, and NSF. She is affiliated with the Computing Research Association, the Future of Privacy Forum, the Aspen Institute Cybersecurity Group, the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law, and the Consumer Reports Digital Lab Advisory Council.
Paul Haskell-Dowland 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.
New Zealand’s fossil record of land dinosaurs is poor, with just a few bones, but the collection of ancient extinct marine reptiles is remarkable, including shark-like mosasaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs.
Plesiosaurs first appeared in the fossil record around 200 million years ago and died off, alongside dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.
They are best known for the fanciful but appealing idea, suggested by British scientist Sir Peter Scott, that the fabled Loch Ness monster was in fact a plesiosaur that somehow outlasted all other giant reptiles and remained undetected throughout human history.
In a recent research project, we used medical CT imaging to scan plesiosaur fossils collected in New Zealand back in 1872.
The scans reveal a new level of detail, confirming that plesiosaurs swam mostly with their heads down, in contrast to the Loch Ness creature, and showing a close link between the New Zealand fossils and South American specimens from 70 million years ago.
In 1872, the Canterbury Museum director Julius von Haast employed self-taught Scottish geologist Alexander McKay to undertake geological surveys and collect fossils.
Von Haast had heard that explorer and amateur scientist Thomas Cockburn-Hood had discovered significant reptile fossils in the upper Waipara Gorge, in the Canterbury region. Cockburn-Hood described the area as “the saurian beds”, and we now know the marine sediments preserved fossils from 70 million years ago.
McKay went to the Waipara during the winter of 1872, and he was spectacularly successful, collecting several partial skeletons of marine reptiles and hundreds of bones.
Among this material were two rather unimpressive, compressed, semi-spherical groupings of bones. These sat in Canterbury Museum’s storerooms, unidentified and stuck inside the concretions they were excavated in, for over 120 years.
An artist’s impression of an elasmosaur. Flickr/Peter Montgomery, CC BY-ND
South American link
It would take until the late 1990s to realise the importance of the fossil. Museum preparator and famous fossil collector Al Mannering and his colleagues prepared these two unloved fossils, chipping away the stone to reveal the bones contained in the rocks.
Visiting English scientist Arthur Cruickshank believed these fossils were remarkable and possibly similar to plesiosaur material he had seen from South America.
In 2004, Canterbury Museum’s geology curator Norton Hiller and Mannering published a paper, in which they suggested the two groups of bones, the size of soccer balls, were actually the two sides of the skull of the same animal — one remarkably similar to plesiosaurs from South America.
In 2014, internationally renowned marine reptile experts Rodrigo Otero (Universidad de Chile) and Jose O’Gorman (Argentina’s Museo de La Plata) visited New Zealand and examined the specimens. They concluded Hiller and Mannering were correct. The two halves were indeed from the same animal and the Waipara fossil was most similar to a group of plesiosaurs hitherto only known from Chile and Argentina.
They described the Canterbury Museum specimens fully and gave them the scientific name Alexandronectes zealandiensis, Latin for Alexander’s swimmer from Zealandia.
A hospital checkup
Science and technology move on and O’Gorman’s team wanted to confirm the evolutionary relationships of Alexandronectes zealandiensis, using the latest technologies.
CT scan images of the skull (left) of Alexandronectes zealandiensis (the scale bar is 40mm). Jose P. O’Gorman, CC BY-ND
In 2019, I took the two fossils to hospital to be CT scanned, using the latest dual energy CT scanners at St George’s radiology in Christchurch. The results were extraordinary, showing previously unseen features of the anatomy.
Without the CT scanning technology, these details could only have been seen by destroying the fossil. We examined the creature’s inner ear and concluded, based on the orientation of the ear, that it maintained a posture where its head was habitually held either perpendicular to the body or just slightly below the body (not like Loch Ness monster fans would maintain, up in the air like a sock puppet).
We also saw a feature known as the stapes, also unseen in plesiosaurs up until then. The stapes is a small umbrella-shaped bone in the middle ear which transmits vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear.
This work allowed us to conclude that Alexandronectes zealandiensis was an unusual plesiosaur.
It belonged to a unique group of southern-hemisphere plesiosaurs now called the Aristonectinae. This group was part of the Plesiosaur family known as elasmosaurs. They were the last experiment in plesiosaur evolution, with the longest necks of all plesiosaurs.
Paul Scofield 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.
Working holidaymakers will be one of the first international visitor markets to return to Australia in 2022.
But as global travel slowly resumes and many young people start thinking about working overseas again, global competition for this market will be intense. Australia will need to out-compete other destinations to bring working holidaymakers back, particularly those from Europe.
There were more than 300,000 working holidaymakers in Australia per year before the pandemic. The absence of these workers resulted in a loss of more than A$3.2 billion in visitor spending in 2020. It has also created critical labour shortfalls, particularly in regional Australia.
With borders reopening, the Australian government needs to rethink its working holiday program. It needs not only to make it easier for young travellers to come back, but also have a better understanding of their goals and expectations of a fulfilling working holiday experience.
Working holidaymakers stay longer and spend more
The working holiday visa program was established in 1975 as a cultural exchange initiative. Working holidaymaker visas are available for young people (mostly aged 18 to 30) and typically last for one year, though there can be opportunities to extend this. Australia now has reciprocal agreements with 45 countries.
The program has remained open throughout the pandemic to people from eligible countries. Yet, visa applications declined by an astonishing 99.5% in 2020. People were free to apply for working holiday visas, but the closed borders prevented them from actually coming.
One-third of working holidaymakers come from the UK, Germany and France. However, there is a growing demand in Asia. In 2019, almost 29% of working holidaymakers were from Japan, South Korea and China.
Combining study with a working holiday is particularly attractive for young people from Asia. As such, reactivating this market after the pandemic is critical to rebuilding Australia’s international education sector.
According to Tourism Australia, the most popular jobs for working holidaymakers are waiter, farmhand, construction worker and childcare worker. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland were the most affected by the absence of these visitors – the three states accounted for 83% of working holiday jobs in 2019.
But this doesn’t mean working holidaymakers stay in capital cities. In fact, they disperse more widely around the country than other international visitors.
These travellers have been sorely missed in regional Australia, which have suffered from crippling labour shortages during the pandemic. Cairns, Port Douglas and other areas in northern Queensland have been the most severely affected.
This year, the Queensland government launched the A$7.5 million “Work in Paradise” scheme, offering a A$1,500 incentive to lure young Australians to work in tourism and hospitality jobs in regional Queensland.
Extending this program to overseas workers could be instrumental in bringing foreign working holidaymakers back to Queensland as borders reopen.
How Australia can bring them back
As a first step to restarting this market, the Australian government has removed the visa application charge for those working holidaymakers who were previously granted a visa but were unable to come to Australia because of the pandemic.
They have also relaxed some visa requirements, such as allowing working holidaymakers to work for one employer for up to 12 months (up from six months previously). This is aimed at encouraging holidaymakers to take jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Negotiations are also underway as part of the Australia-UK free trade agreement to extend the reciprocal working holidaymaker agreement between the countries. This includes increasing the age eligibility from 30 to 35 years, and having no job-specified work requirements. The visa duration could also be extended from one to three years.
But luring working holidaymakers back will require more than just loosening the rules. We need to delve deeper into what motivates these young people to take a working holiday trip, particularly to Australia.
In the past, these travellers have worked in low-skilled, low-paid jobs. This experience has also been seen as a “gap year” between high school and university.
But those in Generation Z have different life aspirations than previous generations. Many are increasingly focused on kick-starting their careers, and taking a year off to travel abroad may be less attractive.
So, for destinations like Australia, it’s important to offer opportunities for young people to use their working holiday to gain critical skills and experience for their careers, not just make money to travel. The Gold Coast-based Global Work and Travel Company, for example, now offers overseas internships so young people can advance their professional skills while gaining international travel experience.
Internships are one way to give young travellers different work experiences. Shutterstock
Some backpacker accommodations have also closed or shifted to other purposes during the pandemic. So, one thing local leaders can do is ensure there is adequate low-cost accommodation to support returning travellers.
The government also needs to make it affordable and easy to travel to Australia. Subsidising airfares to get them here, making it easier to find job vacancies, and providing low-cost or free transport out to the regions would help.
Employers also need to ensure holidaymakers are well-treated and have an enjoyable work experience. This requires stronger mechanisms to ensure employers are complying with the legal requirements around fair pay and adequate workplace conditions for those on temporary visas.
Improving the working holiday experience can have long-term benefits for the country. Research shows that many visitors develop a deep emotional attachment and affinity for Australia during an extending working holiday stay and return multiple times throughout their lives.
They can develop an understanding of Australian society and our economic and business practices during their experience. As such, they can help build future trade and investment opportunities between Australia and other countries.
So, making working holiday travel easy, fun and safe is not only vital to getting Australia’s tourism industry back on track – it’s critical for the country’s long-term engagement with the world. We need to make this a priority in 2022.
Sarah Gardiner is affiliated with Destination Gold Coast.
Summer is a time we associate with love. The longer days and warmer weather can lead to people feeling happier, more relaxed and in the mood for romance. This year in particular, Australians are longing for human connection with the ease of state border restrictions and lockdowns.
Before you head to the bar or the beach or swipe right, here are some things to think about to make the most of summer relationships.
Summer romances
Relationships research tell us the initial stages of a romance are highly influenced by context and social norms.
This means when expressing romantic interest, we tend to go with what makes us feel confident and comfortable. For some, it might mean seeking out someone in a night club, for others it is online dating.
We tend to act differently depending on where we are and who we are with. This explains why you might be willing to engage in a casual romance when holidaying abroad, although this is not something you would normally do at home.
Summer romances or “holiday flings” often occur outside of the routine of everyday life, where normal behaviour is not necessarily followed. Research has found people feel less inhibited on holidays and willing to try new things, including embarking on a “hot romance” with someone they just met or experimenting with sexuality.
Similar to casual relationships such as one-night stands and “friends with benefits”, summer romances tend to be shorter and more intense.
They often have an accelerated timeline, where people will seek to experience important relationship milestones, such as disclosing personal information and having physical intimacy, in a shorter period of time.
Things can move quickly with a summer fling. www.shutterstock.com
There is also more chance of people engaging in risky behaviours, and the expectation that sex (or increased sexual activity) is an inevitable part of the interaction.
But summer romances can also allow us to date without commitment. This is an appealing option if you are looking to minimise the chances of rejection or getting hurt. It is also appealing for those of us who like to flirt for fun.
As there is more than one way to experience romance during the holidays, it is important people know what they are looking for and understand their expectations upfront.
Great expectations
Regardless of whether casual romances can turn into committed relationships, the experience is real and can be treasured as a moment to remember and learn from. For instance, research suggests people might use these experiences as a way to “test drive” partners that might be suitable for a long-term relationship.
Research also suggests women place more importance on the friendship aspects of casual relationships, while men are attracted to casual relationships as a means to have sex without commitment. So, for singles looking for a serious commitment, a casual summer romance might be emotionally risky. I would recommend communicating this expectation with your partner upfront to manage the risk of disappointment.
We also know there is a natural increase in feelings of stress, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts during the holiday season, associated with social demands and unmet expectations. So, if you are already feeling emotionally vulnerable, this might not be the best time to embark in new romantic experiences without acknowledging the risk of having your heart broken.
You must talk about sex
Regardless of whether you’re on holiday or not, it’s important for partners to talk about their expectations around casual sex, so it is safe and consensual. This might include telling your partner if you’re also seeing other people, or being upfront about your sexual history and last sexual health check.
Studies report that when engaging in casual sex, partners communicate less about sexually transmitted infections compared to partners in committed relationships. It is also important to be honest if you are just looking to have fun and not considering a serious commitment.
It’s important to talk about your expectations around sex. www.shutterstock.com
Altogether, the holiday season is a time filled with opportunities to experiment with new romantic adventures or experience magical moments with loved ones. But, managing expectations in advance is paramount to experiencing healthy intimate encounters.
This means people should be able to take responsibility for their choices with insight into what they want and need – and most importantly – can emotionally handle at the time.
What about couples?
Holiday romances are not only for singles. It can also be a time to strengthen existing relationships.
The holiday period is also the perfect time to establish relationship rites of passage, such as getting engaged, with Christmas and New Years being a very popular time to pop the question.
For more established relationships, it is also a chance to get out of everyday routines and repair relationships that might have fallen into a bit of a rut during the year.
Summer holidays can be a chance to press ‘reset’ on your relationship. www.shutterstock.com
When managing work and family commitments, it is easy to feel like you might not have enough time to talk to your partner about your needs or your desire to try new things.
A good place to start is by communicating with your partner about your expectations before a holiday. Are you wanting to recreate a special sentimental memory from a past holiday or looking to create new traditions and experiences?
This time of the year can be a chance for people to embark on romantic adventures, create new meanings for the holidays, and reinvent themselves. To make the most of these experiences, open and honest communication is key.
Raquel Peel 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.
First published in 1972, The Joy of Sex styled itself as a sexual cookbook, with positions and predilections presented as loose recipes.
As any good cookbook author knows, however, sometimes people really need a picture to be able to get a sense of the finished dish. The success of the book owes much to its plentiful graphic sketches, as well as its playful and unanxious approach to sex (“unanxious” is a word the book’s author uses a lot).
For many of us born in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, The Joy of Sex changed everything. Not in the way it was intended, of course (as a gourmet guide to lovemaking), but rather as the transmitter of the awful realisation that not only did our parents have sex, but they were keen to do it joyfully. So keen, in fact, that they had bought, and presumably read, a 250-page erotic guide.
Such was the popularity of the book (it has sold over 12 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than a dozen languages) that it became relatively commonplace for people to have it on their shelves or even coffee tables.
The book’s cover lists Alex Comfort, a physician, novelist and poet, as its editor. But rather than gently editing the sexual advice and escapades of a happily married couple, Comfort later revealed he had written the book himself, with the help of his long-time mistress (also his wife’s best friend and his subsequent wife). His private polaroids and descriptions of sexual positions served as the basis for many of the sketches in the book, along with photographs taken of colour illustrator Charles Raymond and his wife Edeltraud that Chris Foss used as references for his line drawings.
Today, this backstory of subterfuge and polaroiding adds to what is already a pretty unusual read. There is liberal talk of grope suits, the buttered bun, the goldfish, and railways (not what you think). At the time of publication, the book was revolutionary – perhaps not in its content, but in its popularity. It followed Alfred Kinsey’s books on sexual behaviour in men and women in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
By the early 1970s the sexual revolution was underway, and it is possible that the Joy of Sex both reflected an increased societal focus on sexual pleasure and worked to enhance it.
At its core, the book’s advice is pretty simple. Comfort urges the reader to be open minded about sex, to explore and experiment, and to communicate without judgement. Fifty years on, this is all still good advice.
Qualitative research (focused on themes rather than data) shows that many people see sexual satisfaction as reflecting sexual openness and a willingness to act out desires, as well as the more obvious benchmarks like orgasm and sexual frequency. People who really communicate with their partner about what turns them on (and what doesn’t) and who are ready to talk about the often embarrassing nitty gritty of sex, tend to report having better sex. They also report better relationships overall (perhaps in large part because of the better sex).
And it’s not just that people who are better at communicating in general are also better at communicating about sex – rather, there appears to be something special about talking openly about sexual wants and needs that improves both sexual and overall relationship satisfaction.
It’s not just the hair that’s outdated though
Today, there is a lot in the book that is dated, outmoded, or incorrect. Comfort appears fixated with sexual perfectionism. Although he dismisses some sexual myths (such as the inherent superiority of a “vaginal” versus “clitoral” orgasm) he does seem to believe most sexual encounters can (and perhaps should) be characterised by simultaneous orgasms. Subsequent research demonstrates that when we demand sexual perfectionism (in ourselves, or our partners) we tend to enjoy sex a lot less.
The book is very strongly geared towards heterosexual cisgender sex – a modern reimagining of the book would need an enhanced focus on gender and sexual identity diversity, and the many ways we have sex. (Note there have been revised editions and spin-offs including The Joy of Gay Sex and The Joy of Lesbian Sex.)
The advice in the orginal, however, around open and non-judgemental communication about sex and sexual needs feels relevant to everyone. And Comfort acknowledges there are groups of people for whom other books are needed. Although his language around these issues is awkward under today’s gaze, there is a broad acceptance of same-gender attractions (without citing any evidence Comfort happily claims everyone is bisexual) and aspects of gender fluidity.
There are still more aspects of the book that need revision or updating, but also delightful inclusions in the 1972 edition.
There are the many unusual assumptions. When talking about male turn-ons (termed “releasers”), for example, Comfort confidently declares:
A horse, seen from behind, is a male ‘releaser’ – it has long hair, big buttocks, and a teetering walk. A cow isn’t.
In fact, there is a lot of talk of horses, horse symbolism, and riding play throughout the book.
Comfort rails against deodorant and cautions lovers never to wear it.
Elsewhere he helpfully warns:
[…] the only really disturbing manifestation of love music is when the woman laughs uncontrollably – some do. Don’t be uptight about this.
Today’s scientific support for The Joy of Sex as a whole is mixed, and the book is dated, and cis-heterosexual and male-centred. But is it still joyful? Yes, it is.
The central message – that sex can be a source of pleasure, love, communion, and play – remains as true today as it was in 1972. There are some good tips in there, too, if you can sort the horses from the cows. So excuse me, while I read up on the buttered bun.
You’re not alone. Most people wait until they’re sick to see a GP, so there’s not usually much time in a consultation to also talk about preventative health.
So, should you book a check with your GP just to talk about what you can do to stay well? And if so what should you be discussing?
It depends on your life stage.
Doctors won’t check you for everything
It may surprise you there is no evidence that a “general health check-up” will give you better health outcomes.
Some preventive checks in low-risk and otherwise well patients have shown no benefit, including some blood tests and imaging investigations, such as whole body CTs or MRIs for cancer screening.
As well as being a waste of your time and money, there is another concern with generic health screening: it may lead to overdiagnosis, which results in additional tests, appointments, anxiety, drugs and even operations. Ironically, this can leave you less healthy.
This is why doctors don’t “check you for everything”, but are guided by what you personally would benefit from, based on your individual history, as well as which tests have evidence for their benefits outweighing any harms.
One of your doctor’s key considerations will be your age.
Young adults (20–30s)
The main evidence-based screening check for young adults is the cervical screening test for women. This is a five-yearly cervical swab which looks for the human papillomavirus (HPV) and pre-cancerous cells.
When young women present for their cervical smear test, several other important preventative discussions often take place, including pregnancy prevention or planning.
As young men don’t need an equivalent screening test, they often miss out on the chance to talk about prevention.
Young men might need to be more proactive about seeing a GP in their 20s and 30s. Annie Spratt/Unsplash
Both men and women in this age group should find a GP with whom they feel comfortable discussing STI (sexually transmitted infection) checks, skin cancers, mental health struggles and intimate partner violence.
Even otherwise fit and healthy young adults should consider talking with their GP about what they can do to prevent chronic disease down the track. Health behaviours such as diet, sleep, smoking and exercise levels in young adulthood increase or decrease the risk of developing conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and cancer down the track.
Finally, regular checks from dentists and optometrists can pick up problems early.
40–50 year olds
Despite the adage “life begins at 40”, this is the age at which many of the things that can cause an early death are worth screening for.
Current evidence shows benefits in assessing your blood pressure, cholesterol, and risk of heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and skin cancer.
If you have a higher risk for certain cancers (such as breast or colorectal cancer), then screening for these may start around this age too.
It’s also not too late to improve your longevity with some lifestyle changes so discussing things like losing weight, stopping smoking, and improving your exercise are all important.
As with young adults, women should continue getting a cervical smear test every five years.
And everyone should consider getting checked by a dentist and optometrist.
Mental health may deteriorate around this age too, because the strain from looking after children, ageing parents and demanding careers can all come to a head. Input from a psychologist may be helpful.
50–65 year olds
Patients often comment on the 50th “birthday present” they find in the mail: a stool sample collection kit for colorectal cancer screening. While it’s not the highlight of your 50s, it is effective in saving lives through early detection of this cancer, with checks recommended every two years.
Women will also be invited to start mammograms for breast cancer screening every two years (unless they have already started in their 40s, depending on their individual risk).
Women will be screened for a breast cancer, colorectal cancer and osteoporosis. Shutterstock
The third health issue to start screening for in your 50s is osteoporosis, a condition where bones become fragile and your risk of a fracture increases. Osteoporosis is painless and therefore often not discovered until too late. You can start checking your risk for this at home via an online calculator, such as this one from the Garvan Institute.
Oral health and eye checks remain important in this age group as well.
Over-65s
Several immunisations are recommended from the age of 65, including shingles and influenza, as your immunity starts to wane and your risk of serious illness increases.
Other preventative checks include those for your vision, dental health, hearing, and your risk of falls. These often involve allied health providers who can screen, monitor and treat you as needed.
Some of your other regular screening will stop in your mid-70s, including for colorectal, cervical and breast cancer.
First Nations people
The above age-related recommendations are for those with standard risk factors. First Nations Australians are at higher risk of developing a range of diseases including diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and certain cancers.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may be offered more thorough screening, according to a different timeline, with some checks at earlier ages.
While annual generic “health checks” aren’t recommended, a conversation with your GP will help you work out your specific health risks and screening needs.
Prevention is better than a cure, so make sure you’re accessing evidence-based screening and preventative strategies that are right for you.
When we release a group of endangered animals into the wild, we always hope they will survive. They usually don’t. We find bilby carcasses under bushes, bettongs ripped apart by feral cats, and tufts of rock wallaby fur in fox scats.
Over the last 25 years I’ve seen the devastation caused by introduced foxes and cats firsthand during attempts to conserve our threatened mammals. At one of my research sites, Arid Recovery, we have tried again and again to protect bilbies, bettongs and wallabies outside fences.
Unfortunately, our native animals have not co-evolved with these canny predators and simply don’t have the anti-predator behaviours or physical traits needed to avoid them.
So what to do? After years of discouraging results, we’re trying something new. We want to help our native marsupials evolve to become warier and better at surviving. Not in fenced-off sanctuaries – but in the wild, alongside these extraordinarily clever predators.
Too lethal: A feral cat hunting at night in central Australia. Author provided
Why are our native mammals such easy prey?
If our native marsupials had more time to adapt, we wouldn’t have to do this. But rabbits, foxes and cats operate like an unholy trinity. European settlement brought high rabbit numbers. These animals competed with native marsupials for food and became food for cats and foxes – inflating their numbers in turn. The damage was exacerbated by widespread land clearing and overgrazing.
Our mammal extinctions to date include burrowing or smaller marsupials, including wallabies, bandicoots and rodents mostly within the critical weight range of 35 grams to 5.5 kilograms. Those smaller or larger are safer. Those in the middle? Cat and fox food.
The problem we are faced with in conservation is doubly difficult, because to protect the most vulnerable species – Shark Bay bandicoots, burrowing bettongs, greater stick-nest rats – we have to breed them in islands of safety. They live behind high fences while the predators roam outside.
When you breed animals in captivity, they become even more naive about predators. So what’s the solution? Do we simply keep stocks of these rare marsupials on life support?
Researchers release a burrowing bettong in the Arid Recovery sanctuary in South Australia. Author provided
We spend millions of dollars a year controlling cats and foxes by trapping, shooting and baiting them. Much less effort has gone into improving the responses of prey animals.
If our native mammals are to claw back any part of their previous range, they will eventually need to co-exist with cats and foxes in more places in the wild. And to do that, they need our help.
Can we really speed up adaptation?
To date, most efforts to improve naive prey animals’ responses to predators pair an unpleasant experience with a predator cue. Rubber bands, water pistols, loud noises or physically chasing animals are paired with cues like taxidermied foxes, models, cat odour or vocalisations. Unfortunately, results are generally poor or short lived.
In response to these challenges, we have been testing a more interventionist approach – in situ predator exposure. This is where we expose threatened mammals to low densities of real predators over long time periods to accelerate natural selection and direct learning through real predator encounters.
For the six years we have been running this experiment in South Australia, the approach has yielded some promising results.
We placed bilbies and burrowing bettongs into a fenced paddock and added low numbers of feral cats. Then we waited. Over the next six years, we compared their physical and behavioural traits over time with a control population not exposed to predators.
Greater bilby photographed at the Arid Recovery centre. Alexandra Ross, Author provided
We found cat-exposed bilbies became warier and sought areas of thicker cover within only a couple of years. Not only that, they had higher survival rates than control bilbies when both were reintroduced to an area where cats were present.
Within 18 months, predator-exposed bettongs became significantly harder to approach at night. Remarkably, their hind feet became longer relative to control populations over several years and they had significantly faster reaction times during escapes from predators, though not yet fast enough to show a significant difference in survival between control and cat-exposed populations.
In short, exposing naive prey to predators changed behaviour and in some cases survival after just a few generations. This is positive news.
You might be wondering why this doesn’t just happen naturally in wild populations. In some cases it does. Many native mammals now recognise and respond to dingoes, which have only been in Australia for a few thousand years. The problem is that cat and fox densities are likely too high to enable prey to adapt before local extinction occurs.
Anti-predator behaviour can be lost within only a few generations, studies have shown. It’s heartening to know it can also be regained quickly.
Burrowing bettongs were once extremely common across Australia’s interior. Photo by Andrew Freeman, Author provided
Will these changes endure?
What we need to know is if these changes are due to plasticity or selection. If it’s plasticity, it means the changes and learning experienced by individual bilbies and bettongs may not be passed on to the next generation.
If selection is at work, it means ongoing predator exposure could result in changes to the genetic makeup of the species, with further improvements and adaptations over time.
So which is it? Our initial results suggest selection may be occurring in some traits such as hind foot length. Similar efforts to teach northern quolls to avoid cane toads have found learned behaviour can be inherited.
This kind of assisted evolution is also being trialled in corals to give them the adaptations necessary to survive our warming oceans.
To achieve the dream of successful coexistence between introduced predators and our native mammals, we will need a range of approaches. These include better predator control methods to reduce numbers, improved habitat quality for our mammals, and enhanced prey responses.
We urgently need a better understanding of predator thresholds – the level of predation at which native species can maintain stable or increasing populations while applying enough selective pressure to evolve new behaviours and traits. Under these conditions we could expect some (but not all) native species to eventually adapt to introduced predators.
After spending the last three decades watching our native animals continually decline, we are now at the point where we need to carefully explore new options with an open mind.
Katherine Moseby receives funding from Arid Recovery and The Australian Research Council.
Pacific Island New Zealanders are now 90 percent fully vaccinated against covid-19, and a public health expert is urging them to keep up that momentum in the New Year.
In a daily briefing, the Ministry of Health said 90 percent of eligible Pacific people in New Zealand had now had both vaccines.
Associate Professor Collin Tukuitonga from the University of Auckland said that is a tremendous effort and the threat of omicron is the next challenge.
He hopes the community embraces booster shots to guard against the more infectious variant.
“It looks as if the two doses doesn’t give you enough protection for omicron, and the most important priority now is to get people to get their boosters as soon as that’s possible.”
He hopes as many regions move into lower levels of restrictions in the government’s Framework Protection system people will still stay vigilant, contact trace and get tested.
“There’s a risk that people might have gone back into a lower level of alertness, so I would hope that we maintain that [alertness].
Ramp up once again “In mid-late January I think we’re going to have to ramp up once again in respect of rolling out the vaccine for the young ones.”
Children aged between 5 and 11 become eligible for covid-19 vaccinations in mid-January, and those 12 and older are already eligible.
“Parents are perhaps less certain about the benefits and more concerned about risks. So every effort is going to be needed to get the vaccination rollout in children up to the kind of levels that is needed.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Pacific year has closed with growing tensions over sovereignty and self-determination issues and growing stress over the ravages of covid-19 pandemic in a region that was largely virus-free in 2020.
Just two days before the year 2021 wrapped up, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama took the extraordinary statement of denying any involvement by the people or government of the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea being involved in any “secret plot” to overthrow the Manasseh Sogavare government in Solomon Islands.
Insisting that Bougainville is “neutral” in the conflict in neighbouring Solomon Islands where riots last month were fuelled by anti-Chinese hostilities, Toroama blamed one of PNG’s two daily newspapers for stirring the controversy.
“Contrary to the sensationalised report in the Post-Courier (Thursday, December 30, 2021) we do not have a vested interest in the conflict and Bougainville has nothing to gain from overthrowing a democratically elected leader of a foreign nation,” Toroama said.
The frontpage report in the Post-Courier appeared to be a beat-up just at the time Australia was announcing a wind down of the peacekeeping role in the Solomon Islands. A multilateral Pacific force of more than 200 Australian, Fiji, New Zealand and PNG police and military have been deployed since the riots in a bid to ward off further strife.
PNG Police Commissioner David Manning confirmed to the newspaper having receiving reports of Papua New Guineans allegedly training with Solomon Islanders to overthrow the Sogavare government in the New Year.
According to the Post-Courier’s Gorethy Kenneth, reports reaching Manning had claimed that Bougainvilleans with connections to Solomon Islanders had “joined forces with an illegal group in Malaita to train them and supply arms”.
The Bougainvilleans were also accused of “leading this alleged covert operation” in an effort to cause division in Solomon Islands.
However, Foreign Affairs Minister Soroi Eoe told the newspaper there had been no official information or reports of this alleged operation. The Solomon Islands Foreign Ministry was also cool over the reports.
Warning over ‘sensationalism’
How the PNG Post-Courier reported the “secret plot” Bougainville claim on Thursday. Image: Screenshot PNG Post-Courier
Toroama warned news media against sensationalising national security issues with its Pacific neighbours, saying the Bougainville Peace Agreement “explicitly forbids Bougainville to engage in any foreign relations so it is absurd to assume that Bougainville would jeopardise our own political aspirations by acting in defiance” of these provisions.
This is a highly sensitive time for Bougainville’s political aspirations as it negotiates a path in response the 98 percent nonbinding vote in support of independence during the 2019 referendum.
In contrast, another Melanesian territory’s self-determination aspirations received a setback in the third and final referendum on independence in Kanaky New Caledonia on December 12 where a decisive more than 96 percent voted “non”.
Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama … responding to the PNG Post-Courier. Image: Bougainville Today
However, less than half (43.87 percent) of the electorate voted – far less than the “yes” vote last year – in response to the boycott called by a coalition of seven Kanak independence groups out of respect to the disproportionate number of indigenous people among the 280 who had died in the recent covid-19 outbreak.
The result was a dramatic reversal of the two previous referendums in 2018 and 2020 where there was a growing vote for independence and the flawed nature of the final plebiscite has been condemned by critics undoing three decades of progress in decolonisation and race relations.
In 2018, only 57 percent opposed independence and this dropped to 53 percent in 2020 with every indication that the pro-independence “oui” vote would rise further for this third plebiscite in spite of the demographic odds against the indigenous Kanaks who make up just 40 percent of the territory’s population of 280,000.
Kanaky turbulence in 1980s A turbulent period in the 1980s – known locally as “Les événements” – culminated in a farcical referendum on independence in 1987 which returned a 98 percent rejection of independence. This was boycotted by the pro-independence groups when then President François Mitterrand broke a promise that short-term French residents would not be able to vote.
A Kanak international advocate of the Confédération Nationale du Travail (CNT) trade union and USTKE member, Rock Haocas, says from Paris that the latest referendum is “a betrayal” of the past three decades of progress and jeopardises negotiations for a future statute on the future of Kanaky New Caledonia.
The pro-independence parties have refused to negotiate on the future until after the French presidential elections in April this year. A new political arrangement is due in 18 months.
“The people have made concessions,” Haocas told Asia Pacific Report, referencing the many occasions indigenous Kanaks have done so, such as:
• Concessions to the “two colours, one people” agreement with the Union Caledonian party in 1953; • Recognition of the “victims of history” in Nainville-Les-Roches in 1983; • The Matignon and Oudnot Agreement in 1988; • The Nouméa Accord in 1998; and • The opening of the electoral body (to the native).
‘Getting closer to each other’ “The period of the agreements allowed the different communities to get to know each other, to get closer to each other, to be together in schools, to work together in companies and development projects, to travel in France, the Pacific, and in other countries,” says Haocas.
“It’s also the time of the internet. Colonisation is not hidden in Kanaky anymore; it faces the world. People talk about it more easily. The demand for independence has become more explainable, and more exportable. There has been more talk of interdependence, and no longer of a strict break with France.
“But for the last referendum France banked on the fear of one with the other to preserve its own interests.”
Is this a return to the dark days of 1987 when France conducted the “sham referendum”?
“We’re not really in the same context. We are here in the framework of the Nouméa Accord with three consultations — and for which we asked for the postponement of the last one scheduled for December 12,” says Haocas.
“It was for health reasons with its cultural and societal impacts that made the campaign difficult, it was not fundamentally for political reasons.
“The French state does not discuss, does not seek consensus — it imposes, even if it means going back on its word.”
Haocas says it is now time to reflect and analyse the results of the referendum.
“The result of the ballot box speaks for itself. Note the calm in the pro-independence world. Now there are no longer three actors — the indépendantistes, the anti-independence and the state – but two, the indépendantistes and the state.”
Rock Haocas in a 2018 interview before the the three referendums on independence. Video: CNT union
Comparisons between Kanaky and Palestine In a devastating critique of the failings of the referendum and of the sincerity of France’s about-turn in its three-decade decolonisation policy, Professor Joseph Massad, a specialist in modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York, made comparisons with Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
“Its expected result was a defeat for the cause of independence. It seems that European settler-colonies remain beholden to the white colonists, not only in the larger white settler-colonies in the Americas and Oceania, but also in the smaller ones, whether in the South Pacific, Southern Africa, Palestine, or Hawai’i,” wrote Dr Massad in Middle East Eye.
“Just as Palestine is the only intact European settler-colony in the Arab world after the end of Italian settler-colonialism in Libya in the 1940s and 1950s, the end of French settler-colonialism in Morocco and Tunisia in the 1950s, and the liberation of Algeria in 1962 (some of Algeria’s French colonists left for New Caledonia), Kanaky remains the only major country subject to French settler-colonialism after the independence of most of its island neighbours.
“As with the colonised Palestinians, who have less rights than those acquired by the Kanaks in the last half century, and who remain subject to the racialised power of their colonisers, the colonised Kanaks remain subject to the racialised power of the white French colonists and their mother country.
“No wonder [President Emmanuel] Macron is as ebullient and proud as Israel’s leaders.”
Professor Joseph Massad … “European settler-colonies remain beholden to the white colonists.” Image: Screenshot Middle East Eye
West Papuan hopes elusive as violence worsens Hopes for a new United Nations-supervised referendum for West Papua have remained elusive for the Melanesian region colonised by Indonesia in the 1960s and annexed after a sham plebiscite known euphemistically as the “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 when 1025 men and women hand-picked by the Indonesian military voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control of their former Dutch colony.
Two years ago the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) was formed to step up the international diplomatic effort for Papuan self-determination and independence. However, at the same time armed resistance has grown and Indonesia has responded with a massive build up of more than 20,000 troops in the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua and an exponential increase on human rights violations and draconian measures by the Jakarta authorities.
As 2021 ended, interim West Papuan president-in-exile Benny Wenda distributed a Christmas message thanking the widespread international support – “our solidarity groups, the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, the International Lawyers for West Papua, all those across the world who continue to tirelessly support us.
“Religious leaders, NGOs, politicians, diplomats, individuals, everyone who has helped us in the Pacific, Caribbean, Africa, America, Europe, UK: thank you.”
Wenda sounded an optimistic note in his message: “Our goal is getting closer. Please help us keep up the momentum in 2022 with your prayers, your actions and your solidarity. You are making history through your support, which will help us achieve independence.”
But Wenda was also frank about the grave situation facing West Papua, which was “getting worse and worse”.
“We continue to demand that the Indonesian government release the eight students arrested on December 1 for peacefully calling for their right to self-determination. We also demand that the military operations, which continue in Intan Jaya, Puncak, Nduga and elsewhere, cease,” he said, adding condemnation of Jakarta for using the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visiting West Papua.
New covid-19 wave hits Fiji Fiji, which had already suffered earlier in 2021 along with Guam and French Polynesia as one of the worst hit Pacific countries hit by the covid-19 pandemic, is now in the grip of a third wave of infection with 780 active cases.
Fiji’s Health Ministry has reported one death and 309 new cases of covid-19 in the community since Christmas Day — 194 of them confirmed in the 24 hours just prior to New Year’s Eve. This is another blow to the tourism industry just at a time when it was seeking to rebuild.
Health Secretary Dr Dr Fong is yet to confirm whether these cases were of the delta variant or the more highly contagious omicron mutant. It may just be a resurgence of the endemic delta variant, says Dr Fong, “however we are also working on the assumption that the omicron variant is already here, and is being transmitted within the community.
“We expect that genomic sequencing results of covid-19 positive samples sent overseas will confirm this in due course.”
A DevPolicy blog article at Australian National University earlier in 2021 warned against applying Western notions of public health to the Pacific country. Communal living is widespread across squatter settlements, urban villages, and other residential areas in the Lami-Suva-Nausori containment zone.
“Household sizes are generally bigger than in Western countries, and households often include three generations. This means elderly people are more at risk as they cannot easily isolate. At the same time, identifying a ‘household’ and determining who should be in a ‘bubble’ is difficult.
“‘Stay home’ is equally difficult to define, because the concept of ‘home’ has a broader meaning in the Fijian context compared to Western societies.”
While covid pandemic crises are continuing to wreak havoc in some Pacific communities into 2022, the urgency of climate change still remains the critical issue facing the region. After the lacklustre COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, Pacific leaders — who were mostly unable to attend due to the covid lockdowns — have stepped up their global advocacy.
End of ’empty promises’ on climate Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown appealed in a powerful article that it was time for the major nations producing global warming emissions to shelve their “empty promises” and finally deliver on climate financing.
‘As custodians of these islands, we have a moral duty to protect [them] — for today and the unborn generations of our Pacific anau. Sadly, we are unable to do that because of things beyond our control …
“Sea level rise is alarming. Our food security is at risk, and our way of life that we have known for generations is slowly disappearing. What were ‘once in a lifetime’ extreme events like category 5 cyclones, marine heatwaves and the like are becoming more severe.
“Despite our negligible contribution to global emissions, this is the price we pay. We are talking about homes, lands and precious lives; many are being displaced as we speak.”
Marylou Mahé … ““As a young Kanak woman, my voice is often silenced, but I want to remind the world that … we are acting for our future. Image: PCF
“As a young Kanak woman, my voice is often silenced, but I want to remind the world that we are here, we are standing, and we are acting for our future. The state’s spoken word may die tomorrow, but our right to recognition and self-determination never will.”
National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad has asked if the Fiji government inquiry into the Office of the Auditor-General will be held in public.
Professor Prasad was responding to the announcement this week of a Commission of Inquiry into the OAG “to inquire into and report on: the conduct, operations and performance of the Office of the Auditor-General” and other issues concerning the office.
Prasad, an economist before his political career, said commissions of inquiry were usually held in public.
“So we ask the government if this will be a public inquiry?” he said.
“Will the public hear the allegations against the Auditor-General’s office? Will the Auditor-General be allowed to respond in public to the Government’s complaints?”
“The government refuses to talk about Walesi’s accounts. Even though Walesi’s accounts up to 2017 are ready, the government refuses to release them.”
Petty argument while people in poverty The NFP leader said the government would end 2021 as a “laughing stock”.
He said government “only cares about winning a petty argument even when tens of thousands of people are still living in poverty and despair because of the pandemic”.
“We are once again threatened by the omicron variant,” he said.
“Many families are in isolation because they have tested positive in homes, in villages and settlements on Vanua Levu, are struggling and are in need of help.
“What is the government doing to help? We should be preparing for the cyclone season and ensuring our people are safe.”
Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Unionists and political activists are among seven prominent women who have brought a lawsuit against the Fiji government challenging new electoral laws requiring them to use their birth certificate names to be registered as voters.
The seven are former government minister Bernadette Rounds Ganilau, politicians Priscilla Singh and Seni Nabou, teacher and community worker Adi Davila Toganivalu, unionists Dr Elizabeth Reade Fong and Salote Qalo and Yasmin Nisha Khan.
They have filed a constitutional redress action against the Attorney-General and the Supervisor of Elections, challenging changes passed by Parliament earlier this year to the Electoral (Registration of Voters) Act and the Interpretation Act.
The seven are challenging the requirement that citizens must only use the name on their birth certificates for voting and other official purposes — including for official identification documents.
Under the new laws, people who wished to use their married or adopted names for these purposes must formally change their names on their birth certificates.
In their action, the applicants say they believe the new laws have a disproportionate, adverse impact upon married women compared with other groups. An estimated 100,000 women are believed to be affected by the law.
The matter was called in the High Court in Suva yesterday before Chief Justice Kamal Kumar.
The Chief Justice gave directions for the filing of affidavits and fixed the case for hearing on February 24.
The applicants are represented by Munro Leys partner and former Supervisor of Elections Jon Apted.
Lawyer Devanesh Sharma, of R Patel and Co, represents the Attorney-General and the SOE.
As some North Island regions moved to the orange traffic light setting at 11.59pm last night, New Zealand has now found two omicron cases that were briefly in the community, and close contacts are urgently being chased up.
As a British DJ outed himself as the omicron community case identified yesterday, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday expressed his disappointment in the musician’s non-compliance with rules.
Robert Etheridge, also known as DJ Dimension, went out into the community on December 26 and 27 after 10 days of isolation but before he received his final covid-19 test result.
As such, he has faced abuse online over the matter.
“I want to reiterate my apologies to those who I have inadvertently put at risk as a result of my misunderstandings,” he wrote in an Instagram post.
“I realise the gravity of the situation and I am deeply regretful to those who have been impacted; including members of the public, event organisers and close contacts.”
Etheridge had tested negative to the virus three times before while in isolation. It was also revealed today that he completed his three-day self-isolation period (after seven days in MIQ) on Waiheke Island.
“We understand they travelled by private car and ferry to the island. While on the ferry they did not leave their vehicle and travelled straight to their accommodation.”
DJ Dimension – Robert Etheridge – tested positive for the omicron variant while in the community. Image: RNZ/Instagram
Race to get to close contacts The DJ was due to play at Wanaka’s Rhythm and Alps festival but had been forced to pull out, along with another DJ known as Friction and artist Lee Matthews, who were considered close contacts.
Fourteen people who dined with Etheridge at Soul restaurant are also considered close contacts.
Eight of those people remain in Auckland, while six flew to Christchurch where they performed at the Hidden Lakes Festival on December 28. But the Canterbury District Health Board considered the risk to be extremely low.
“All identified close contacts are being urgently contacted by contact tracers,” the Ministry of Health said.
But the exact number of contacts is still being confirmed and identified, according to Hipkins.
He told media today that while Etheridge was on Waiheke Island, he had drinks on the beach with neighbours, who have been told to self-isolate.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fact that three of the case’s four Waiheke Island housemates had tested negative so far may suggest he was not infectious at the time.
“But again we will just have to await more of those results.”
However, the source of Etheridge’s infection remains a mystery because his case has not been able to be genomically linked to the other omicron cases that were in MIQ when he was there.
“It’s just really important that we don’t think that seven days [of isolation] is okay and that people are still cautious … After receiving several negative tests, people could still be incubating the virus and that’s what it shows us.”
Five of the international arrivals came from Australia, two from the United Kingdom, two from Singapore, one from United Arab Emirates, and one from Ethiopia.
Surveillance testing on December 27 of an Air New Zealand crew member has returned a positive result, with genome sequencing finding it is the omicron variant.
Their infection has been genomically linked to three other omicron cases from a December 24 flight that the person worked on between Auckland and Sydney.
New Zealand-based international aircrew are mostly exempt from a 14-day isolation or quarantine period as long as they meet certain conditions.
So far for this case, no locations of interest have been identified, but there are eight close contacts — seven of whom have tested negative so far.
The case was immediately transferred to a MIQ facility.
And with positive cases reaching 33 in Rotorua yesterday, iwi-lead health provider Te Arawa Covid-19 Response Hub is stepping up its testing abilities by training more staff.
Meanwhile, across the Tasman two team players and one staff member of the men’s Wellington Phoenix football have tested positive to the virus. The team is currently based in New South Wales, where cases topped 12,000 today.
‘We need to throw everything we can at it’ In light of the cases, the National Party is calling on the government to allow people to get their booster shot sooner, bring forward the timeline for children’s vaccines, and use more rapid antigen testing.
Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop said there were people who had passed four months since their second dose and had been turned away when they tried to get their booster injection.
Meanwhile, the National Māori Authority said it was not too late to introduce tougher border restrictions.
Chairman Matthew Tukaki said the government should shut the borders to anyone who was not a resident or citizen.
“We can’t afford any more unnecessary prolonged lockdowns, so anything we can do to limit the exposure of Omicron until we can get ahead of this, then I think we need to throw everything we can at it.”
Tukaki said the government should also consider extending the amount of time people from high-risk countries spend in MIQ.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A human rights advocate in Fiji says the country should be ashamed of the exile of the now dead celebrated academic professor Brij Lal and his family.
Professor Lal was expelled from Fiji in 2009 after speaking out against coup leader Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government.
Lal died at his home in Brisbane on Christmas Day. Tributes have been pouring in since.
Rights advocate Shamima Ali, coordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, said that while the region mourned Professor Lal’s death, people should not forget the injustice meted out to him and his wife.
Ali said the government disrespected academia and the contributions academics made to Fiji’s development.
In the case of the Lals, Ali said there had been a “miscarriage of justice and a gross violation of their basic human rights — the right to nationality and citizenship and to a fair trial”.
Ali said Lal’s “writings and utterances irked the government” so they banned him from Fiji.
‘Smacks of sexism’ “And Dr Padma Lal, along with her husband, was also banned from Fiji.
“This smacks of sexism and once again disregards Dr Lal’s illustrious career as an ecological economist and her work on the sugar industry and environment.
“I urge the Fiji Human Rights and Anti Discrimination Commission to step up and challenge this draconian decision of arbitrarily banning citizens and taking away their birthright.”
Professor Brij Lal … deported from Fiji in 2009, but tributes have been flowing since his death on Christmas Day. Image: RNZ
Lal’s legacy would live on as an upstanding human being and citizen of our country, Ali said.
“Shame on you, Fiji. Those who violated his and Padma’s rights will surely live in ignominy and infamy.
“There is still time for a change, to amend the wrongs, too late for Brij but not for his family.”
Sad day for Fiji, says Sodelpa Fiji’s main opposition party said the death of Professor Lal in exile was a sad time for Fiji.
The Social Democratic Liberal Party said Lal had hoped that he would one day return to his homeland.
Fiji claimed to have democracy but it still has a very long way to go, said Sodelpa leader Viliame Gavoka.
“The news of Professor Brij Lal’s passing fills me with great pain,” he said.
“We all know about him, a favourite son of Fiji who was refused permission to return home.
“He lived and hoped that he would one day come home and many of us pleaded for his case.”
But Gavoka said now he had died in a foreign land, away from his people and loved ones.
“How can our hearts be so hardened that we denied someone the right to his homeland and all because he expressed views different from those at the helm of leadership.
“Professor Brij Lal was loved by many and his legacy will live on in Fiji.”
Fiji poorer with loss of academic, says NFP Among historians and scholars, Professor Lal stood tall around the world, said the National Federation Party.
From a poor farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu, NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad said Professor Lal rose to be an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University, one of the world’s highest-ranked places of learning.
“He was an acknowledged expert on the Indian diaspora around the world.
He was recognised as the pre-eminent historian on the history of indenture and Girmitiya.”
In his obituary to Professor Lal, Dr Prasad said Fiji was poorer with the passing of the academic.
“Professor Brij Lal banished from the land of his birth by the Bainimarama government in November 2009 for championing democracy and barred from entering Fiji upon the orders of the prime minister, has died, 12 years after the draconian act of a heartless government,” Dr Prasad said.
“The sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal at the age of 69 should create a moment for all Fiji citizens to pause and reflect, even while we are distracted by our many personal challenges brought on by the pandemic and our other deep national problems.”
Dr Prasad said Lal was “a giant on the international academic stage” who was banned by the Bainimarama and FijiFirst government from returning to the place of his birth.
“But the pettiness of our leaders will not take away Prof Lal’s towering achievements and scholarship, for which he will one day be fully recognised in the place he was born.
“All of us in Fiji are the poorer for his irreplaceable loss.”
Dr Prasad said the NFP had organised a condolence gathering to remember Professor Lal.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has confirmed that a border-related case with the omicron variant was briefly active in the community in the Auckland CBD earlier this week.
The case arrived on a flight from the United Kingdom via Doha on December 16 and is fully vaccinated with a mRNA vaccine.
They completed a full 10 days in isolation – seven days in a managed isolation facility and three days in self-isolation.
“They had previously returned three negative tests for covid-19 while completing 7 days of managed isolation at a facility in Auckland,” the ministry said last night.
However, the person went out into the community before getting the results of their day nine test after the self-isolation period was complete, the ministry said.
The day nine test result came out on December 27, by which time the case had already been out in Auckland’s CBD on December 26 and 27.
Risk of transmission As a result, there is risk of transmission to unknown members of the public, the ministry said.
“They were immediately transferred to an Auckland MIQ facility on the same day [December 27].”
Subsquent whole genome sequencing has revealed they have the Omicron variant.
“No other covid-19 infections have been identified from the individual’s flight. Investigations are underway as to the source of the infection.”
A number of close contacts have been identified and those tested have returned negative test results.
Locations of interest include the Impala nightclub on Shortland Street, the Sunny town restaurant, Partridge jewellers, Ahi Restaurant and Soul Bar.
Some attendees have been identified as close contacts and will be contacted by public health.
Taking situation seriously The Ministry of Health said it was taking the situation seriously and taking a precautionary approach.
“However, we do not believe that the individual was highly infectious at the time of the above exposure events.”
It is encouraging all Aucklanders to check the Locations of Interest website regularly and follow the advice provided.
“We have been doing everything we can to prepare for Omicron and to keep it out of the community since the variant was first identified. This has included undertaking whole genome sequencing on every PCR sample taken from Covid-19 cases detected in international arrivals.”
Any further information on the case and next steps will be made available today.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra
David Foote/National Archives of Australia
2001 was the final year of the Howard government’s second term in office.
It began with the government on the political defensive, doing poorly in opinion polls, but ended with a third successive victory in November.
Two epic political developments – the “Tampa crisis”, in which the government ordered Australian troops to board a foreign vessel carrying rescued asylum seekers to stop them landing on Australian soil, and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States – were decisive in the government’s re-election.
Tampa and September 11 remained influential factors in Australian politics for the next 20 years. These events drove a decisive turn towards “securitisation” in political discourse and public policy.
In a political context, securitisation refers to the systematic transformation of regular public policy matters into security issues. This in turn is used to justify unusual measures as necessary to the survival of the state and safety of its citizens.
In 2001, Australia pivoted into this new securitised mindset. It was partly driven by events but also, to a significant extent, by political choice.
This pivot is evident in the 2001 Cabinet papers, released today by the National Archives of Australia. In them, domestic submissions, free from a securitisation mindset, dominate until Tampa and the September 11 attacks occur.
The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, along with the Tampa crisis, would reshape Australian politics for the next two decades. Richard Drew/AP/AAP
The papers show the government developing possible responses to sharply rising asylum-seeker arrivals by sea during the first half of 2001.
This culminated in the so-called “Pacific Solution” of offshore detention, which unfolded over the last week of August.
Shortly afterwards, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred. Although unrelated, the two events became fused in popular perception by political design as well as chronological proximity.
Strong support for the Beazley-led Labor opposition eroded under the combined weight of the Tampa and the September 11 attacks.
All of this meant the 2001 “khaki election” was conducted against the backdrop of perceived external threat and military action abroad. The government, in electoral trouble earlier in the year, was returned with effectively the same majority after allowing for a two-seat expansion of the House of Representatives.
Strong support for the Labor opposition led by Kim Beazley quickly eroded under the combined weight of Tampa and the September 11 attacks. National Archives of Australia
Five of the 2001 Cabinet papers directly arise in response to the September 11 attacks.
One of these – “Options for defence enhancement for domestic security”, dated October 2 2001 – is historically significant as a window into a government grappling with a sudden shift in perceived domestic security needs. It also addresses questions about the continuing appropriateness of strategic fundamentals decided on just a year earlier in the 2000 Defence White Paper.
Interestingly, there is no “Pacific Solution” Cabinet submission nor decision in the 2001 release.
While asylum-seeker policy and Islamic terrorism dominate memories of federal politics in 2001, they do not dominate the 2001 Cabinet papers.
Two-thirds of a year elapsed before September 11 marked the beginning of the new securitised era in Australian and world politics.
Most of the 2001 papers are concerned with domestic policy across a wide range of areas, including many of continuing concern – notably climate change.
The climate policy and energy policy papers in this release are significant.
They show the Howard government had a far more nuanced view on climate change and its significance than any Coalition government since. These papers, along with last year’s, provide context for the Coalition’s proposal of a carbon trading scheme in the run-up to the 2007 election.
We can see a coalition Cabinet not yet captured by resource sector interests, expressly constraining its resources minister from the untrammelled promotion of those interests.
The government is seen operating in once familiar co-operative frameworks for national actions with the states.
The 2001 papers reveal a far more nuanced view of climate change than any Coalition government since. National Archives of Australia
In preparation for a COAG meeting in June, for example, Cabinet in May settled agenda items including a national energy policy framework, a national action plan on salinity, and a proposed ban on human cloning.
The Reconciliation framework was also on the COAG agenda. Cabinet noted that “some state and territory governments had been actively campaign(ing) for a national apology to indigenous Australians”. Cabinet opposed such an apology.
Another paper states the government’s ongoing opposition to a treaty with Indigenous Australians.
Against the backdrop of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is interesting to note the government sought state agreement through COAG on:
continued high priority review and revision of national whole-of-government frameworks for the management of a major emergency animal disease outbreak, such as FMD (foot and mouth disease), to be co-ordinated by COAG Senior Officials.
Population policy is another interesting focus in the papers.
The then immigration and multicultural affairs minister, Philip Ruddock, had for some time favoured a higher profile for government-led population policy discussions in Australia. In pursuit of this he meshed discussion of long-term challenges, including an ageing population and declining fertility, with related issues of skilled migration, the workforce participation rate of women and older Australians, and the environmental impact of overall population levels.
While Ruddock was a population policy enthusiast, ministerial colleagues were concerned about the political sensitivities of such discussions. Cabinet decided at the beginning of 2001
to continue to resist the development of a formal population policy or the setting of long-term population targets.
The Coalition’s relative electoral success federally has its roots in political lessons flowing from this pivotal year in contemporary Australian politics. It has continued deriving enormous political dividends from them, while its opponents struggle to come to grips with and negate the potent impact of wedge politics.
Under the Howard government, security and immigration policy were the main, and interrelated, sites for its use.
From Tony Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal leadership onwards, energy policy and climate policy became key additional, interrelated, sites for wedge politics.
The consequences are ongoing.
Chris Wallace has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
At the beginning of each year, many people make vows to either do or not do something to improve their life in some way. The fresh start of a new year is magically equated with a fresh start to life and often imbued with renewed hope that this year things will be better.
As we enter 2022, after two years of living with COVID-19, this hope may be stronger than usual.
The pandemic’s impacts have ranged from deaths and other adverse effects on physical and mental health, to huge changes in employment, income, travel, leisure and the ability to socialise. The effect on individuals has varied considerably, depending on what their life was like beforehand, how much it has affected them personally, and their own resilience.
Based on discussions with colleagues and patients, we may see resolutions driven by loss, guilt and anger, plus a rush on common types of self-improvement resolutions and a greater drive for overall life changes.
Resilience
How we respond to the shocks of the pandemic depends in part on our resilience: the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress. It involves “bouncing back” from difficult experiences, and it can also involve personal growth.
People who have lost loved ones to COVID may respond with New Year’s resolutions, but they may take positive or negative forms.
Positive resolutions might be commitments to honour the deceased in some way, or to live well because your loved one cannot. A pact or vow made with or to a deceased loved one to “live life better” can be a powerful, positive motivator to change bad health habits such as smoking, excessive drinking or gambling, although professional help is advisable to ensure safe and lasting change.
Negative resolutions, often driven by strong feelings of anger and despair, might be vows to seek revenge or punish those who may seem responsible for the death of their relative or friend.
“Revenge resolutions” are not usually helpful adaptations and may spring from a sense of guilt arising from not being able to save their loved one or spend time with them.
Guilt-driven resolutions are driven by powerful emotions. They are likely to be realised in some form throughout the year, when hopefully the driving emotions become less intense by the following year.
Personal improvement
Since the virus has posed a major health risk, it would make sense for more people than ever to choose the New Year to resolve to improve their own health.
Quitting smoking is a very common New Year’s resolution, and it seems even more sensible than usual amid a global pandemic of a virus that mainly attacks the respiratory system. However, as many people have found in the past, giving up cigarettes is very difficult and often requires significant planning and help to succeed.
Quitting smoking or other drugs is a very common New Year’s resolution. But while the pandemic may have increased the desire for change, it won’t necessarily make it any easier to achieve. Shutterstock
While the pandemic may have made the desire for change stronger, it does not magically make resolutions any easier to achieve. This applies similarly to resolutions to change the use of alcohol or other drugs, which would also benefit from planning and professional help.
Weight loss is another favourite New Year’s resolution. The famous “COVID kilos” will no doubt drive more people than usual to resolve to lose weight in 2022.
Crash diets are common, but are often abandoned by February. Careful eating and an exercise plan accompanying the resolution will make it more likely to succeed.
Bigger changes
While COVID is likely to give an extra edge to common resolutions, we are also likely to see a surge in resolutions for overall “lifestyle change”. Many people’s attitudes to work and family have changed dramatically over the past two years, due to travel restrictions, work or study from home, and little socialisation with those outside our immediate families.
This hugely significant alteration in our way of life has caused many people to reconsider their futures.
Many have found great enjoyment in spending time with family and are now rethinking their work–home balance. Discovering that working from home is possible has made many people reconsider their career options moving into 2022.
Some experts anticipate a post-pandemic work exodus, dubbed the “great resignation”, in which millions of people, from frontline workers to senior executives, may resign from their jobs.
As working from home has become more common, attitudes to work and family have shifted. Shutterstock
According to recent research by Microsoft, more than 40% of the global workforce are considering leaving their employers. This trend is expected to be replicated in different industries in the USA, UK and Europe. In Australia, this trend is not evident, but nonetheless, a New Year’s resolution may be to determine a different type of employment for 2022 and beyond.
Two paths for 2022
COVID-19 has left most of us drained and wary of the future. Many people believed the pandemic would end in 2020, but 2021 brought more infection, lockdowns and restrictions.
In times of trauma, when the future is uncertain, there can be a polarisation of behaviours. Some people adopt a “devil may care, live for now” attitude to life, with greater risk taking. Others take the opposite attitude, and exercise extreme caution and narrow their existence further.
Both groups may well make New Year’s resolutions to fit their approach to life.
Professor Kulkarni has received research grants in other areas from NHMRC,pharmaceutical industry, Victorian and Federal Governments. This work is unfunded and not influenced by any grants received by the author
At a recent tasting, I was presenting some sparkling wines from the Limoux region of France, a region that produced sparkling wines at least 100 years before wines from the Champagne region were well known.
Towards the end, I commented that if the bottle is not empty, seal it with a sparkling wine stopper and store it in the refrigerator. The response was: “Why bother to seal it? Just put a spoon in the neck.”
I was somewhat surprised. Although I had heard it suggested previously, I did not think anyone took the idea seriously.
The fact is, it’s a myth to say a spoon in an open bottle of sparkling wine keeps it bubbly. You’re better off buying a proper stopper.
If you need to store a partly-used bottle, go and buy a proper sparkling wine stopper. Shutterstock
From my years researching wine chemistry and wine oxidation, I know minimising contact between wine and oxygen is vital for stopping the onset of oxidative spoilage. Sealing the bottle is essential.
The carbon dioxide in sparkling wine is more soluble in wine at a lower temperature, so storing the wine in the refrigerator is also beneficial. In other words, you’ll retain more bubbles if you stick it in the fridge.
Some even claim the teaspoon must be silver, not stainless steel, although the basis for this seems highly speculative.
If you plan to keep your leftover sparkling wine, store it properly. Shutterstock
Bubble behaviour
It is important to note some of the critical features of sparkling wine bubbles.
Pouring into a tilted glass retains more carbon dioxide than pouring into a vertical glass. Using bubble imaging techniques, Liger-Belair was able to track the flow of the bubbles in a glass.
He separately showed the bubbles are in fact aerosols (a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air) containing aroma compounds that affect the taster’s impression. The release of bubbles even depends on the inside surface of the glass.
Bubble behaviour is therefore complex. Any study on them needs to be replicated to ensure one is measuring a real effect and a one-off.
The release of bubbles even depends on the inside surface of the glass. Shutterstock
A key study on ‘the myth of the teaspoon’
One such study on champagne by Michel Valade and colleagues was published in the periodical Le Vigneron Champenois in 1994.
The work, titled Le mythe de la petite cuillère – the myth of the teaspoon – was designed to address the claim that a teaspoon, preferably a silver one, could (according to my translation):
defy all the laws of physics and possess some legendary efficiency to protect the bubbles escaping from an open bottle.
These researchers used three strategies to assess the impact of bubble conservation on the wine: the change in pressure, the loss of weight and sensory analysis.
After opening, the wine was decanted, leaving 500 millilitres in one set and 250 millilitres in a second set.
The wines were then stored at 12℃ with four methods to conserve the bubbles: open bottle, silver teaspoon, stainless steel teaspoon, cork stopper (which uses a hermetic seal) and crown seal (a metal lid with crimped edges, like you often see on a beer bottle). Each approach was performed in triplicate.
The researchers then analysed how pressure inside the bottle changed (measured in a unit called atmospheres; 1 atmosphere is about 101 kilopascals). The initial bottle pressure was 6 atmospheres, dropping after decanting to 4 atmospheres when there was 500 millilitres remaining. When only 250 millilitres remained, the pressure was just 2 atmospheres.
After 48 hours storage, the pressure in open bottles and those with a teaspoon inserted in the neck had dropped by a further 50%, indicating a significant loss of bubbles.
Clearly there was no teaspoon effect. Those sealed with a cork stopper or crown seal had a pressure drop of only 10%, demonstrating the significant advantage of using a proper closure.
The source of bubbles in sparkling wine is the carbon dioxide released during the secondary fermentation. Shutterstock
These researchers also measured the change in the weight of bottles stored three different ways: fully open, tightly sealed or with an inserted teaspoon.
No decrease in weight was observed for the tightly sealed bottles. But for the fully open bottles and those with a teaspoon in the neck, the loss in weight was significant.
To finalise the evidence to dispel the myth of the teaspoon, the wines were subjected to sensory analysis by expert champagne tasters.
All wines showed some characteristics of oxidation, due to oxygen getting in during opening. However, those sealed with a hermetic seal were clearly more effervescent and livelier than those unsealed or with an inserted teaspoon.
Clearly, the teaspoon effect is a myth.
So, if you need to store a partly-used bottle, go and buy a proper sparkling wine stopper.
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