Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Ebel, PhD Candidate in Evolutionary Biology, Museums Victoria Research Institute

Our bones did not begin deep inside the body. They started in the skin, not long after the first complex animals took shape.

Ever since, skin bones have remained a recurring motif in evolution. Yet we still know surprisingly little about them. Why do they keep reappearing in groups as varied as turtles, crocodiles, lizards, snakes and even dinosaurs? And was there a single ancestor with skin bones that gave rise to them all?

In a new study published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, we explored this question. We combined fossil evidence with modern computational tools to reconstruct 320 million years of reptile skin bone evolution.

What we found concludes a centuries-long debate: skin bones have indeed independently evolved across multiple lizard lineages. In the process, we also traced a unique evolutionary comeback in one of their most iconic groups – goannas.

When bones were superficial

The oldest skin bones in the fossil record may date back 475 million years. At that time, some of the earliest vertebrates evolved an elaborate bony exoskeleton.

This may seem counterintuitive, since vertebrates are literally defined by the fact that they have backbones. However, their bony internal skeleton didn’t evolve until 50 million years later.

Throughout evolutionary history, the skin’s ability to form bony tissue has resurfaced again and again. Fish scales are one example.

Another example is osteoderms – the skin bones of land-dwelling animals. After they left the water in the distant past, osteoderms may have helped animals adapt to terrestrial life.

Beyond that, the picture becomes less clear. Osteoderms vanished in most lineages, yet they kept reappearing, especially in reptiles. To understand how this happened, we needed to piece together a complex evolutionary puzzle.

A story told by bones

Imagine arriving at the scene of a bank robbery long after it happened. There’s no perfect witness. You speak to dozens of people – one saw the getaway car, another noticed the robber’s jacket. Someone else heard the alarm.

Each story is incomplete, and some even contradict one another. But as you collect more accounts, certain details begin to align. Eventually, a coherent picture emerges.

That is how we approached the mystery of skin bones in reptiles. Our witnesses were 643 living and extinct species. Each was related to the others in some way and offered a unique perspective. We kept investigating until their stories began to converge.

We found that most lizards first evolved osteoderms during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, more than 100 million years ago. At that time, some of the most iconic dinosaurs roamed the Earth, including the towering Brachiosaurus, the fierce Allosaurus, and the plate-backed Stegosaurus.

The climate and ecosystems were changing rapidly, creating new challenges and opportunities. Armour may have helped lizards survive predators, cope with harsh environments, or move into new habitats.

After those early bursts of osteoderm evolution, the pace slowed, and most groups have held onto their skin bones ever since.

With one major exception.

The goanna comeback

The ancestors of monitor lizards, also known in Australia as goannas, lost osteoderms entirely – likely because their active lifestyle and efficient bodies functioned better without the additional weight.

But when their descendants reached Australia about 20 million years ago, something remarkable happened: they grew them back.

We can pinpoint this re-evolution to the Miocene period, when Australia’s climate was becoming drier. Skin bones may have helped reduce water loss and likely offered protection in open, arid landscapes.

Strikingly, goannas are the only known lizard lineage to reacquire osteoderms after losing them. This challenges Dollo’s law, which holds that once a complex trait disappears, it cannot re-evolve.

Settling a century-old debate

Early in the 20th century, researchers assumed lizards inherited osteoderms from a common ancestor.

Later that view gave way to the idea that these bone plates evolved independently between select groups. Debates about the underlying evolutionary mechanisms followed, even at the molecular level, but these discussions raced ahead without anchoring the origin of osteoderms in a clear evolutionary timeline leading to today’s reptiles.

Our study provides this foundation, and we’re proud that it’s been published in the same journal in which Charles Darwin first shared his groundbreaking ideas. In many ways, our work is a synthesis of past and present.

Fossil evidence helped us resolve a longstanding question, but only modern computing made it possible to narrow thousands of evolutionary scenarios, each informed by trait data for hundreds of species, into a single, coherent story.

The evidence is clear: osteoderms evolved multiple times, independently, across different lizard lineages over hundreds of millions of years. Now that we know this, scientists will be able to investigate the genetic and developmental mechanisms behind them.

Among lizards, goannas stand out as the only lineage known to have lost this armour, only to regain it in a remarkable evolutionary twist. This pattern fits seamlessly among other evolutionary oddities found in Australia, where marsupials reign and mammals lay eggs.

It also shows that evolution rarely follows a straight path, instead meandering through the ever-changing conditions on our planet.

Roy Ebel receives a Higher Degree Research stipend and scholarship through the Australian Government Research Training Program.

– ref. A centuries-old debate on how reptiles keep evolving skin bones is finally settled – https://theconversation.com/a-centuries-old-debate-on-how-reptiles-keep-evolving-skin-bones-is-finally-settled-268107

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ammar Maleki, Assistant Professor, Public Law and Governance, Tilburg University

Iranians have shown a willingness to pay a devastating price for political change, as protest has consistently been met by the Islamic Republic with violence and mass killing. The death toll since Iranians took to the streets on December 28 has reportedly passed 500, with more than 10,000 arrested. Incoming reports put the casualty count much higher.

A clear majority of Iranians do not want the theocracy that came to power with the 1979 revolution. They want a secular democracy. But what does public opinion tell us about what that should entail and how this change should be achieved?

Measuring public opinion in one of the world’s most repressive countries is not an easy matter. Conventional surveys conducted through (landline) phones or by face-to-face interviews tend to reflect an implausibly homogeneous Islamic and pro-regime society. By contrast, Gamaan — the Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran — conducts surveys anonymously through the internet.

Our research is based on representative samples of anything from tens of thousands to over 100,000 respondents. In 2020 a Gamaan survey revealed a diverse, secularising and dissident society, in which around 70% rejected the compulsory hijab. These numbers materialised in the streets in 2022, during the “woman life freedom” protests (find out more about sample characteristics, weighting information, and external benchmark tests at gamaan.org and this Wapor methodology webinar).

To improve randomisation, we collaborate with Psiphon VPN, which is widely used across Iran. By 2025, an estimated 90% of Iranian internet users relied on VPNs to access blocked platforms, including basic messaging apps such as Whatsapp.

This level of coverage enabled what we call VPN sampling, yielding large, socially diverse samples under conditions of safety and anonymity. Combined with scale, anonymity offers reliable insight into what Iranians really want. The latest survey on the 12-day war with Israel, taken in September 2025, secured more than 30,000 responses from inside the country.

Why protests, again? What is different?

Our surveys consistently show that the majority shares a consensus on what it does not want. Across provinces, rural and urban areas, age groups and gender, roughly 70–80% say they would not vote for the Islamic Republic.

In all survey waves, support for regime change as a precondition for meaningful progress has been the most popular position. This support previously spiked during the “woman life freedom” protests. We believe we are currently witnessing another spike, given the increase observed after the 12-day war.

In contrast with the context of previous protests, the regime is militarily weakened from the 12-day war, during which many senior commanders were killed. Iran is now culturally weakened, no longer able to enforce the compulsory hijab. It is also economically weakened, with a plummeting currency.

Iranians believe that protests, foreign pressure and intervention are more likely to bring about political change than elections and reforms. They were thus emboldened when, for the first time, a US president threatened intervention should protesters be killed. This came days after the abduction by the US military of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, a key ally of the Islamic Republic.

What might lie ahead?

Protesters today separate the very idea of Iran from the Islamic Republic. They view the regime as an alien element, an occupying force. This has long been expressed in slogans such as “Our enemy is right here, they lie that it is America” and “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I only give my life for Iran” (supported respectively by 73% and 64% when we tested them in 2021).

The popularity of Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince in exile who represents inherited monarchical nationalism, can be understood in light of this Iran-first mentality. Pahlavi’s social base remained stable in Gamaan’s surveys between 2022 and 2025. Roughly one-third are strong supporters and another third strongly oppose him. The remaining segment somewhat agrees or disagrees, or expresses no opinion.

The current surge in pro-Pahlavi slogans suggests that his popularity is attracting segments of the latter moderate or undecided population. But our surveys found that his popularity is unevenly distributed. It is lower in provinces with higher ethnic minority populations, such as the Kurds, Azeri Turks and Baluch.

Although there is no consensus on the form or structure of an alternative political system, it is noteworthy that in 2025 there was, for the first time, a marked increase in support for monarchy. Given the significant size of those who do not voice a strong opinion on the alternative, any group that can successfully topple the Islamic Republic will have an advantage in convincing the majority to adopt its proposed model.

Iranians overwhelmingly support a “democratic political system” – with 89% in favour. Support for political liberalism, however, is weaker. In 2024, 43% agreed with having “a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”. This view is significantly higher among those without higher education – among monarchists, it is 49%.

These facts should not be lamented or mocked but understood, if the threat of a lack of liberalism is to be mitigated. While nationalism may generate the force of a revolutionary storm capable of toppling the regime, long-term stability, after the fall of the Islamic Republic, will also require an acceptance of Iran’s cultural and ideological diversity as permanent features of a truly free nation.

Ammar Maleki is the founder and director of non-profit GAMAAN. He was selected as World Association for Public Opinion Research’s national representative for Iran for the 2025–2027 term.

Pooyan Tamimi Arab receives funding from the Dutch Research Council for the project Iran’s Secular Shift (2025-2030; VI.Vidi.231F.020). He is a board member of the non-profit research institute GAMAAN.

– ref. Iran protests 2026: our surveys show Iranians agree more on regime change than what might come next – https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-2026-our-surveys-show-iranians-agree-more-on-regime-change-than-what-might-come-next-273198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Flaherty, Senior Lecturer (English and Drama), Australian National University

In her eighth novel Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell imagines the short life and tragic death of Shakespeare’s only son, aged 11, in 1596. Although it is not known how Hamnet died, O’Farrell attributes his death to the plague. She creates a visceral and affecting portrait of his swift decline and the powerlessness of those around him, particularly his mother, to save him.

A critical and commercial success, the novel’s popularity was aided by its connection with Shakespeare, whose enduring reputation as a literary genius ensures that, as the scholar John Sutherland once asserted, “where there’s a Will there’s a payday”.

The death of Hamnet is one creative trigger for this bestselling novel, but is it the main source? And was Hamnet’s death really the source for Shakespeare’s Hamlet? With the film adaptation, co-authored by O’Farrell and director Chloé Zhao, arriving in Australian cinemas this month, it is timely to consider the broader influences on O’Farrell’s novel and Shakespeare’s play.

The inspirations are not singular in either case. Shakespeare was influenced by clear creative precursors, while O’Farrell’s depiction of maternal grief is haunted by her personal experience.

A rescued wife?

O’Farrell has repeatedly stated in interviews that she had two motivations for writing Hamnet: to “rescue” Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway from negative representations in biographies of Shakespeare, and to “correct” what she perceives as the lack of acknowledgement of the significance of Hamnet’s death to Shakespeare’s art.

Her former concern manifests in her representation of Anne as a quietly wilful character, who engineers her husband’s escape from his overbearing father in Stratford to London, where his career can take flight. The novel’s third-person narrative is increasingly filtered through Anne’s perspective as the story progresses, placing her grief centre stage.

In a pointed intervention, O’Farrell names her “Agnes”. This is the name she is given in her father Richard Hathaway’s will, though the assertion that Agnes is her “true” name is problematic, due to a lack of other documentary sources and because spelling was variable at the time.

Renaming Anne is indicative of O’Farrell’s desire to offer a fresh vision, but this in itself is not a new project. Carol Anne Duffy’s poem Anne Hathaway (1999) and Germaine Greer’s speculative biography Shakespeare’s Wife (2007) are two of many earlier revisionist treatments. Katherine West Schiel’s Imagining Shakespeare’s Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway (2018) tracks the long history of this inventive impulse.

O’Farrell explicitly encourages readers to connect Hamnet and Hamlet through two historical notes at the front of the book. The first informs us that Hamlet was staged only four years after Hamnet’s death; the second cites Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt’s claim that Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable names in Stratford in the period.

These selective facts serve O’Farrell’s fiction well. But the view that Hamlet memorialises Hamnet is, as scholar James Shapiro argues, a myth. While the novel’s promise to deliver the “backstage” story of the creation of Hamlet is alluring, its imputation that Hamnet’s death was the primary inspiration for the writing of the play is countered by the historical evidence and the play itself.

Does Shakespeare’s son haunt Hamlet?

The opening of Hamnet echoes that of Hamlet. In the novel’s first scene, Hamnet explores an empty house. O’Farrell gives him an exquisitely physical existence: he jumps from the third step and hurts his knees, he notices the orange embers and spiralling smoke in the fireplace. He calls out, “Where is everyone?”

His reality is unstable, palpable and yet spectral, as though he were already dead. This impression is advanced when he spooks his grandfather, whose sight is ailing:

“Who’s there?” he cries. “Who is that?”
“It’s me.”
“Who?”
“Me.” Hamnet steps towards the narrow shaft of light slanting through the window. “Hamnet.”

The beginning of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is similarly disorienting:

BARNARDO: Who’s there?
FRANCISCO: Nay answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

We taste the fearful vigilance of the guards on the battlements of Elsinore castle. About eighteen lines later, we find out why everyone is so jumpy. The newly arrived guard asks: “What, has this thing appeared again tonight?”

As in O’Farrell’s novel, we enter a destabilised reality, in which physical sensation, here the “bitter cold”, amplifies the existential dread caused, in this case, by the repeated appearance of a ghost.

The biographical connection between Hamnet and Hamlet is clinched in the novel’s closing scene through Agnes’s response to a performance of Hamlet. Seeing her husband acting on stage as the ghost of Hamlet’s father (who is also named Hamlet), Agnes believes that Shakespeare

in writing this, in taking the role of the ghost, has changed places with his son […] he has put himself in death’s clutches, resurrecting the boy in his place.

As he exits, the ghost – Shakespeare – turns toward Agnes and “speaks his final words: ‘Remember me’.”

These words provide a poetic resolution for O’Farrell’s novel, but they are only the beginning of the tragedy for Hamlet. Readers familiar with the play may find it amusing that Agnes’s interest in the character bearing her dead son’s name evaporates before the end of Act I.

Grief is certainly a shared thread between the two stories, but if we take the drama on its own terms, “remember me”, as spoken by the Ghost, is unlikely to work as a salve for Agnes’s grief. In fact, as the next four acts bear out, the course of Hamlet’s grief for his father’s death is tortured. What torments him and results in many deaths, including his own, is not the loss of a beloved father, but regicidal corruption in the state and a personal commission to revenge “a foul and most unnatural murder”.

“Remember me” burdens Hamlet rather than frees him, making the play an ill-fitting memorial for Shakespeare’s lost son. By contrast, consider Constance’s lament in King John:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

When Shakespeare wanted to portray the grief of a parent for a lost child, he knew how.

Hamlet is unlikely to have been a tribute to little Hamnet, but there are several imaginative sources. Hamlet bears more resemblance to the 12th-century Danish legend of Amleth than it does to Shakespeare’s life: a king is murdered by his brother, who subsequently marries the king’s wife; the son acts mad to protect himself from his uncle; an eavesdropper is killed; Amleth berates his mother Gerutha.

But there were even more immediate creative precursors. A play, now lost, called Hamlet is recorded in the diary of the theatre manager Philip Henslowe as being performed in London in 1594, at least five years before Shakespeare’s. What if, rather than pouring out his heart’s grief over his son, Shakespeare was adapting a recent hit?

In addition, Shakespeare was cashing in on the popularity of a play by Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy (1592), in which a father revenges the murder of his son, Horatio, using a play to do so.

Reading Hamlet through the prism of biographical speculation impoverishes our understanding of the play and its relationship with stories in circulation during the Renaissance period. Shakespeare used matter other than his own experience as creative springboards for his imagination – just as O’Farrell, in crafting Hamnet, borrows some material from Shakespeare’s life and work, and much from her own.

A well of maternal grief

Reading Hamnet primarily in relation to Anne Hathaway, or Shakespeare, or his play Hamlet, is limiting. On the other hand, O’Farrell’s biography yields some illuminating links with her novel’s depiction of maternal grief.

In her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am (2017), O’Farrell writes about her experiences of pregnancy loss and her powerlessness in the face of her elder daughter’s life-threatening medical condition. In the mid-2000s, following the traumatic birth of her first child, a son, O’Farrell experienced multiple miscarriages.

She eventually conceived a daughter through IVF. This daughter lives with an immunological disorder, which leaves her vulnerable to ordinary illnesses, such as the common cold, and prone to anaphylaxis triggered by exposure to a variety of everyday substances. Consequently, O’Farrell and her family live “in a state of high alert”.

O’Farrell describes how the lack of vocabulary and rituals around miscarriage compounded her grief. She laments that children lost before they are born are “so invisible, so evanescent” that “our language doesn’t even have a word for them”. She also admonishes the “school of thought […] that expects women to get over a miscarriage as if nothing has happened, to metabolise it quickly and get on with life”.

In Hamnet, the absent presence of lost children is vividly portrayed. The novel evokes a matrix of loss that goes beyond Hamnet’s death. It references Shakespeare’s siblings who died in childhood, including his sisters Anne and the renamed “Eliza” (Joan). In the novel, one of Shakespeare’s surviving sisters is also called Eliza, a living memorial to her dead sibling.

In her own life, O’Farrell has been deprived of the opportunity to name and mourn, but she has meticulously populated Hamnet with lost children who continue to demand the attention of the living.

In O’Farrell’s memoir, death stalks the child who has lived when many before her did not. O’Farrell and her family must be always prepared for her daughter’s anaphylaxis. They must never leave the house without an emergency kit; they must weigh up the risks posed by a simple walk in the park or a play date. Then, when the world strikes, “you are reduced to a crystalline point, to a single purpose: to keep your child alive, to ensnare her in the world of the living, to hang on to her and never let her go”.

O’Farrell describes an attack in disturbing detail: hives leads to swelling of the airways, which, without emergency treatment, can be followed by cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, the victim is “clawing at their throat, hoarse with panic and fear,” and feels cold to the touch as their blood pressure drops.

There is more than a shade of this terror in the novel’s descriptions of Hamnet’s decline. As the fever takes hold, he is transported to a snowy landscape “he doesn’t recognise”, which tempts him to “surrender himself, to stretch out in this glistening, thick white blanket: what relief it would give him”.

One cannot fail to think of O’Farrell’s efforts to keep her daughter alive as Agnes watches Hamnet in his death throes, pleading with him not to go.

As a beautifully affecting portrait of grief, Hamnet achieves what Hamlet never set out to do: it inscribes the memory of children taken too soon and testifies to the necessity of mourning and remembrance. As readers, playgoers or film fans, it makes for a richer experience to weigh each work by its own merits, because it takes many different kinds of ghosts to make a story.

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

– ref. It takes many ghosts to make a story: how Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet takes from – and mistakes – Shakespeare – https://theconversation.com/it-takes-many-ghosts-to-make-a-story-how-maggie-ofarrells-hamnet-takes-from-and-mistakes-shakespeare-272077

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milad Haghani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience, The University of Melbourne

In recent years, the way drivers interact with cars has fundamentally changed. Physical buttons have gradually disappeared from dashboards as more functions have been transferred to touchscreens.

Touchscreens in vehicle dashboards date back to the 1980s. But modern cars consolidate functions into these systems far beyond what we’ve seen before, to the point where a car feels mostly like a computer.

This may create the impression of a modern, technologically advanced vehicle. However, scientific evidence increasingly points to touchscreens compromising our safety.

In fact, ANCAP Safety, the independent car safety assessment program for Australia and New Zealand, has announced that from 2026 it will ask car manufacturers to “bring back buttons” for important driver controls, including headlights and windscreen wipers. Similar moves are underway in Europe.

ANCAP Safety will explicitly assess how vehicle design supports safe driving, and not just how well occupants are protected in the event of a crash – which means calling time on touchscreens that control everything in your car.

What human factors research says about distraction

Decades of road-safety research show human error plays a role in the vast majority of crashes. And the design of in-vehicle interfaces can contribute to how often drivers make safety errors.

Errors behind the wheel are often linked to driver distraction. But what exactly constitutes distraction, and how does it occur?

In human factors research, distraction is typically classified as visual, manual, cognitive, or a combination of these. A distracting event or stimulus may take the driver’s eyes off the road, their hands off the wheel, their mind off the driving task – or all three.

This is why texting while driving is considered particularly dangerous: it uses our visual, manual and cognitive resources at the same time. The more types of attention a task demands, the greater the level of distraction it creates.

Interactions with touchscreen menus can, in theory, produce comparable effects to texting. Adjusting a vehicle’s temperature using a sliding bar on a screen makes the driver divert visual attention from the road and allocate cognitive resources to the task.

By contrast, a physical knob allows the same adjustment to be made with minimal or no visual input. Tactile feedback and muscle memory compensate for the lack of visual information and let you complete the task while keeping eyes on the road.

How distracting are touchscreen features, really?

Perhaps the clearest and most accessible evidence to date comes from a 2020 UK study conducted by TRL, an independent transport research company.

Drivers completed simulated motorway drives while performing common in-car tasks. These included selecting music or navigating menus using touchscreen systems such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Performance was compared against baseline driving with no secondary task, as well as voice-based interaction.

When drivers interacted with touchscreens, their reaction times increased markedly.

At motorway speeds, this delay in reaction time corresponds to a measurable increase in stopping distance, meaning a driver would travel several additional car lengths before responding to a hazard.

Lane keeping and overall driving performance deteriorated too as a result of interaction with touchscreens.

The most striking aspect of this study is that touchscreen interaction was as distracting and, in some cases, even more distracting than texting while driving or having a handheld phone call.

Drivers don’t even like touchscreens

Concerns about touchscreen-heavy design are not limited to lab studies. They have also shown up clearly in overseas consumer surveys.

Data from a recent survey of 92,000 US buyers indicate that infotainment systems – the official term for that touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard – remain the most problematic feature in new cars.

The survey shows infotainment systems lead to more complaints in the first 90 days of ownership than any other vehicle system.

Most complaints relate to usability. Drivers report frustration with basic controls that have been moved to touchscreens – such as lights, windshield wipers, temperature – and now require multiple steps and visual attention to operate while driving.

Could voice recognition be the solution?

Voice recognition is often presented as a safer alternative to touchscreens because it removes the need to look away from the road. But evidence suggests it’s not completely risk free either.

A large meta-analysis of experimental studies examined how drivers perform while using in-vehicle and smartphone voice-recognition systems, combining results from 43 different studies.

Across the evidence base, voice interaction worsens driving performance compared with driving without any secondary task. It increases reaction times and negatively influences lane keeping and hazard detection.

When voice systems are compared with visual-manual systems, performance is slightly better with voice control. But even though voice recognition is less distracting than touchscreens, it’s still measurably more distracting compared to baseline driving where drivers don’t need to interact with any menus or change settings.

The comeback of buttons

The evidence is clear: controls we frequently use while driving – temperature, fan speed, windscreen demisting, volume and many others – should remain tactile.

The driver shouldn’t have to divert their visual attention from the road to control these. It’s especially problematic when such controls are buried in layered menus, so you need to tap several times just to find the function you want to change.

Touchscreens are better suited to secondary functions and settings typically adjusted before driving, such as navigation setup, media selection, and vehicle customisation.

The good news is the evidence is being translated into car safety assessment programs. From this year, ANCAP Safety and its counterpart in the European Union, Euro NCAP, will require physical controls for certain features to award the highest safety rating for new vehicles.

It’s up to manufacturers to decide whether to comply. However, some car makers, such as Volkswagen and Hyundai, have already been responding to these requirements and to pressure from consumers to bring the buttons back.

Milad Haghani receives funding from the Australian government’s Office of Road Safety.

– ref. Yes, those big touchscreens in cars are dangerous and buttons are coming back – https://theconversation.com/yes-those-big-touchscreens-in-cars-are-dangerous-and-buttons-are-coming-back-272704

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natasha Heap, Program Director for the Bachelor of Aviation, University of Southern Queensland

You arrive at the airport in plenty of time to check in. You reach the departure gate early. You board, walking down to your seat – and that’s when you discover the overhead lockers are already full.

Too much carry-on baggage can significantly delay departures, as cabin crew try to squeeze everything in – or send bags down to the hold.

As a former pilot turned aviation safety researcher, clearer rules for carry-on baggage are welcome, not least because too much cabin baggage is a real safety concern.

But as more airlines set carry-on limits, why are there different baggage rules for different airlines?

New rules for carry-on in Australia and beyond

From Monday February 2 2026, Virgin Australia will change their carry-on baggage policy for domestic flights.

Economy passengers will be limited to one standard-sized cabin bag for the overhead locker, weighing up to 8kg. A small, personal item that can fit under a seat will also be allowed.

International airlines are also adjusting their carry-on baggage rules. About a year ago, Air Canada restricted basic fare passengers to just one personal article for flights across North and Central America.

But the rules are confusing.

You could fly on the same type of plane from Sydney to Melbourne – such as a widely-used Boeing 737 – but depending on the airline and what you paid for your ticket, you’ll have completely different bag and weight restrictions.

If you fly with Qantas within Australia, your carry-on needs to be:

• one small personal item plus one standard piece of 10kg, or
• two smaller pieces, where each piece must not exceed 10kg, and the total weight of both pieces is 14kg, or
• one small piece and a garment bag, where each piece must not exceed 10kg and the total weight of both pieces is 14kg.

Budget carrier Jetstar is different again, allowing up to 7kg of carry-on luggage allowance, shared across two items.

So how do airlines actually set bag and weight limits?

Why passenger and baggage weight matters

Each aircraft has a maximum take-off weight, which can’t be exceeded to ensure it’s a safe flight. That total includes the weight of the plane, plus fuel, food and drink supplies in the galley, any cargo, the weight of the pilots and cabin crew, and the weight of the passengers and baggage.

Checked baggage is weighed at the check-in desk or bag drop. But what about carry-on bags?

If a plane is small, with fewer than seven passengers, actual passenger weights are needed. If you fly in remote parts of Australia – such as island-hopping in the Torres Strait – you have to weigh yourself, along with your bags, at the airport.

But for bigger planes on busier routes, Australian regulations allow an average passenger weight to calculate total passenger weight.

At the start of my flying career in 1998, the regulated standard weight for passengers flying in Australia was 77kg per person (excluding carry-on baggage).

But as people’s average weight has increased, the law has tried to keep up.

For planes with a maximum seating capacity of 150-299 seats, like a Boeing 737, the current standard weight of an adult male passenger is assumed to be 81.8kg, while it’s 66.7kg for adult women.

Then the standard weight for carry-on baggage is 7kg per passenger.

However, the law also allows individual airlines to seek approval for their own passenger and cabin baggage weights. That has to be approved by the regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

That allows different airlines to have different rules around cabin baggage.

Billions of dollars for bags and other extras

Carry-on baggage rules used to be much more standard.

But the rise of low-cost airlines changed all that, charging for extra luggage, in-flight WiFi and food and drink as ancillary revenue: basically anything beyond the basic ticket.

The International Air Transport Association forecast ancillary revenue (including for extra baggage) will be worth US$144 billion (around A$220 billion) this year. That’s more than the value of transporting cargo around the world by air.

Today, how much you can pack usually depends on the fare or upgrades you choose.

Many passengers try to avoid ancillary fees by taking everything as carry-on. But airlines know this, so charge passengers extra for exceeding carry-on limits.

Lighten your load for a safer trip

Carry-on baggage is literal pain for cabin crew, who frequently suffer back and lifting injuries while helping passengers stow heavy bags in overhead compartments.

Beyond physical risk, crew members have to deal with the time-consuming congestion of passengers struggling with large items during boarding.

In an emergency, passengers stopping to grab bags rather than leaving them behind has been proven to slow down evacuations.

So the next time you’re getting ready to travel, remember: if you want to take off on time and be safer in an emergency, pack lighter.

Your cabin crew will thank you for it.

Natasha Heap was an airline pilot and captain, who flew from 1998 to 2012, including flying for QantasLink, Australia’s largest regional airline.

– ref. How do airlines set bag and weight limits? An ex-pilot explains new changes on the way – https://theconversation.com/how-do-airlines-set-bag-and-weight-limits-an-ex-pilot-explains-new-changes-on-the-way-267527

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karin Hammarberg, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Most women experience some nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy.

Although this is called morning sickness, it can happen at any time of day. Up to 80% of women report nausea and vomiting throughout the day.

While morning sickness is unpleasant and can be incapacitating, milder forms are usually manageable and often get better after the first three months of pregnancy.

But around one in 50 pregnant women (1–3% worldwide) experience morning sickness so extreme they are unable to eat or drink normally or do everyday activities.

This condition, called hyperemesis gravidarum, can last the whole pregnancy and be dangerous for both the woman and the fetus. It is the most common cause of hospitalisation in early pregnancy, but research is still emerging about exactly why it happens.

Here’s what we know, don’t know and suspect.

What causes hyperemesis gravidarum?

Until about five years ago, scientists believed the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), was the culprit. But we now know the main cause of all morning sickness – including hyperemesis gravidarum – is high levels of a hormone called GDF15.

A person’s sensitivity to GDF15 depends on how much of this hormone their bodies produce before pregnancy.

Women with naturally low pre-pregnancy levels are more sensitive to the GDF15 the placenta produces during pregnancy, compared to those whose levels were already high before pregnancy. This means having low pre-pregnancy GDF15 levels is a risk factor for developing hyperemesis gravidarum.

However, while there is a blood test that can measure GDF15 levels, it is not currently used to diagnose hyperemesis gravidarum.

The test can be used to investigate some medical conditions associated with high GDF15, including some cancers and some chronic conditions. But high GDF15 levels alone aren’t enough to distinguish hyperemesis gravidarum from other causes of vomiting during pregnancy.

Some other factors that increase the risk of hyperemesis gravidarum include:

• having had this condition in a previous pregnancy
• multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets or more)
• being pregnant for the first time
• a family history of hyperemesis gravidarum
• a history of motion sickness or migraine.

What are the symptoms?

Women with hyperemesis gravidarum can’t stop vomiting and lose a significant amount of weight (more than 5% of their pre-pregnancy weight). As they can’t keep food or fluids down, they can become dangerously dehydrated.

Signs of dehydration include ketonuria (high amounts of acids in the urine, measured in a urine test), very low blood pressure (which can cause dizziness), and imbalances of electrolytes. Electrolytes are crucial for various bodily processes, including nerve and muscle function, and to keep you hydrated.

Because symptoms are so severe, women often need hospital care for periods of time, sometimes repeatedly throughout the pregnancy. Many people may have first heard of the condition via Catherine, Princess of Wales. She made headlines sharing her experiences of hyperemesis gravidarum and her need for frequent medical care.

How is it treated?

There is no cure for hyperemesis gravidarum, so management of the condition focuses on reducing symptoms.

Rehydration

Intravenous fluids can be used for rehydration and to restore electrolyte balance.

Reducing vomiting

While research is inconclusive on the best way to reduce vomiting, there are several anti-nausea drugs that are safe to take in pregnancy. Taking ginger supplements is another safe and effective way to reduce nausea and vomiting.

Nutrition

A dietitian may be able to help by monitoring any nutritional deficiencies and suggesting certain foods or nutritional supplements. However, in very severe cases, where someone’s vomiting doesn’t respond to treatment and can’t be controlled, they may need tube feeding or an intravenous drip to provide all their nutrition.

Mental health

The physical symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum are debilitating and women who experience it have an increased risk of anxiety and depression. So it’s also essential to monitor mental health and, if needed, offer referrals for psychological support.

The flow-on health effects

Hyperemesis gravidarum is detrimental to the health of both mother and fetus.

Because they can’t eat or drink during pregnancy, women with the condition don’t get enough fluids, calories or nutrients, including vitamins. This causes nutritional deficiencies which can harm their health.

It also increases the risk of severe pregnancy complications including placental abruption (where the placenta suddenly separates from the uterus wall) and pre-eclampsia (which causes high blood pressure and can affect the liver, kidney and brain).

Hyperemesis gravidarum also increases the risk a baby will be born prematurely, with a low birth weight, and/or be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Hopes for prevention

The finding that low pre-pregnancy GDF15 levels are linked to hyperemesis gravidarum may help us find new ways to treat and prevent it.

For example, researchers are looking at whether blocking how GDF15 works during pregnancy can reduce nausea. Theories about how to prevent the condition focus on boosting GDF15 levels before pregnancy.

These advances give hope for the future. But for now, the best we can do is to improve awareness and understanding about this debilitating condition – including among health professionals – and support women who suffer from it.

Hyperemesis Australia and the Centre Of Perinatal Excellence (COPE) websites are good places to start learning more about hyperemesis gravidarum and how to support women who experience it.

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

– ref. What causes ‘extreme morning sickness’? What we know, don’t know and suspect about hyperemesis gravidarum – https://theconversation.com/what-causes-extreme-morning-sickness-what-we-know-dont-know-and-suspect-about-hyperemesis-gravidarum-267746

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

Floods, droughts and heatwaves continue to dominate headlines around the world and in Australia.

In the past few days, hundreds of bushfires have ignited in south-east Australia during an extreme heatwave. And communities in north Queensland have been lashed by heavy rain and flash flooding from ex-tropical Cyclone Koji. This is the seventh cyclone so far this season.

Behind these disasters is a deeper and less visible influence: ongoing shifts in the global water cycle. This is the process by which water evaporates, falls as rain and snow, and ultimately evaporates again. Our latest report shows how changes in rainfall, air temperature and humidity combined to amplify water-related disasters across the world in 2025.

These floods and fires are not simply isolated weather extremes, but signs of a water cycle that is being increasingly destabilised by global warming.

Why the water cycle is changing

The global water cycle connects the atmosphere, land, oceans and ice. Water evaporates from the land and seas, falling as rain and snow. This feeds glaciers, rivers, lakes and groundwater and finally either evaporates again or flows to the ocean. This cycle is driven by the energy from the sun. And as the planet warms, it is becoming more powerful and more erratic.

Global temperatures over land in 2025 were only slightly lower than a record-breaking year in 2024. This makes the last three years the hottest on record, in line with rapid global warming.

Higher temperatures accelerate evaporation from soil, vegetation and inland waters, producing dry conditions more quickly than before. At the same time, warmer air can hold more moisture, which increases the potential for intense rainfall. Together, these processes intensify both floods and droughts, sometimes in rapid succession.

Rainfall followed by heat

In 2025, many regions of the globe experienced this pattern: extreme rainfall followed closely by heat and drying. Scientists describe these abrupt swings between dry and wet extremes as “climate whiplash”.

Climate whiplash occurs when wet and dry extremes follow one another so quickly that ecosystems, infrastructure and communities struggle to cope. One example in 2025 was the severe wildfires in Spain and Portugal.

A wetter-than-average spring promoted strong vegetation growth across parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Then a sudden heatwave was followed by rapid loss of soil moisture. The rapidly-dried vegetation fuelled severe wildfires later in the season.

Queensland floods

Australia has also weathered shifts in the water cycle in the past year. In February 2025, Cyclone Alfred landed in southeast Queensland. It is not unprecedented to have cyclones so far south, but it was the first time in 50 years. In the following months, the rest of Queensland was hit hard by torrential rains and severe flooding.

Also in early 2025, tropical low-pressure systems near north Queensland produced rainfall totals comparable to those in a cyclone. More than 1,000 millimetres of rain fell within days in some areas, and Townsville recording its wettest month on record.

The event caused widespread damage to homes, transport and essential services, with economic losses exceeding $A1.2 billion.

The wet conditions, combined with high temperatures, also triggered an unprecedented outbreak of melioidosis. This is a disease caused by bacteria that occur naturally in soil and freshwater but can become dangerous when rainfall and flooding bring them to the surface. By May, Queensland Health had recorded 221 cases and 31 deaths, making it the largest outbreak in the state’s history.

The shows how water cycle extremes affect natural and human systems. Torrential rains and flooding has become a regular occurrence in Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Global instability

Several other events in 2025 revealed how different parts of the water cycle are becoming more unstable. In the Himalayas a series of unprecedented glacial lake floods occurred within just a few months following warm conditions.

Meanwhile, a rare cyclone close to the equator took Indonesian and Malaysian communities by surprise.

The increasing frequency of tropical cyclones in historically uncommon locations reflects how warming oceans and shifting atmospheric conditions are expanding the reach of water-related hazards.

The human and economic toll

Globally, our report shows that water-related disasters in 2025 were associated with nearly 5,000 deaths, displaced around 8 million people, and caused economic losses exceeding US$360 billion (A$536 billion).

In Europe, prolonged heatwaves were linked to many thousands of heat-related deaths. And in South and Southeast Asia, flooding displaced millions in countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.

This show how different parts of the water cycle – from the atmosphere to soil conditions, river flows and surface water – can influence ongoing global warming.

Being prepared helps

Our report finds that preparedness really matters. Early-warning systems and evacuation planning saved many lives in several major floods, such as those on the west coast of the US in December 2025. However, severe disruption and economic damage still occurred where infrastructure had been designed for stable, historical conditions.

Conditions in the global water cycle at the end of 2025 point to greater drought risk in parts of the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, Brazil and Central Asia in 2026. On the other hand, wet conditions mean flood and landslide risks remain high in the Sahel, south of the Sahara Desert, southern Africa, northern Australia and much of Asia.

As climate instability continues, the global water cycle is likely to become even more variable. Understanding how water moves through the climate system – and how quickly it can shift from one extreme to another – will help us reduce the impacts of future disasters. Managing both heat and water extremes will be key to adapting to a rapidly warming world.

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

– ref. What is the global water cycle and how is it amplifying climate disasters? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-global-water-cycle-and-how-is-it-amplifying-climate-disasters-272806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasey Symons, Lecturer of Communication, Sports Media, Deakin University

Heated Rivalry has taken the world by a storm. The series tells the story of rivals-to-lovers hockey players Japanese-Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), and their yearslong relationship navigating falling in love while playing professional sport.

Based on the Game Changers ice hockey romance novels by Rachel Reid, the series has garnered significant attention. The sports romance genre is experiencing a boom, and studios – and sports – are starting to take notice of these new audiences.

Can sporting bodies learn from this phenomenon to make sport more inclusive?

Queer players in men’s sports

Sport romance stories such as Heated Rivalry depict sporting worlds where queer joy, acceptance and belonging is not only possible, but is enthusiastically embraced.

While queerness in women’s sports is relatively accepted, it isn’t in men’s sport.

In Australia, there are very few out male professional athletes, with the exceptions of the A-League Men’s Josh Cavallo and National Basketball League’s Isaac Humphries.

Former AFL player Mitch Brown recently came out as bisexual, but has acknowledged he only felt comfortable doing so after retiring.

While there are now approximately 30 out players in the North American Professional Women’s Hockey League, there are currently no out players in the men’s National Hockey League.

The absence of out players in the NHL may be related to the impacts of the league’s past actions. The league infamously mishandled its pride round in 2023, when rainbow pride tape – which wraps around the hockey sticks – was banned from use. If sporting pride colours was an issue, being queer in and around the league most definitely was too.

The league is now having to grapple with the influx of Heated Rivalry fans seeking out content complementary to the show. In this, Heated Rivalry might inspire some social change in sport with new fans attending the game.

Melbourne’s Southern Lights, Australia’s first LGBT+ ice hockey club, are even promoting come-and-try opportunities off the back of Heated Rivalry’s success.

The series has also attracted straight men in sports media and content creation spaces – spaces that have not always been kind to or cognisant of diverse communities.

The popular ice hockey podcast Empty Netters is actively engaging with the series while learning about queer culture through the entry point of a sport the hosts know and love.

They are bringing along an audience unlikely to engage with queer storytelling, imbuing allyship rarely seen in sports media.

Heated Rivalry gets queer love right

Heated Rivalry is not just a hockey show about queer players. The show centres diverse, compelling human stories seldom depicted in men’s professional sport. Ice hockey might provide the setting – but falling in love, finding community and feeling seen is universal.

The show progressively recognises and affirms diversity within the queer community. Shane expresses he’s only attracted to men; he notes Ilya can potentially find “socially acceptable” love by dating women. The two may be in love, but their experiences are not the same.

Importantly, Ilya’s bisexuality is never erased.

Allyship is actively portrayed through strong supporting characters. Women, in particular, provide friendship, emotional support, home truths and moral compasses for the queer characters. They demonstrate ways those outside the queer community can be allies, advocates and offer an access point for non-queer audiences.

Even straight women are self-professed superfans. For some straight women, the distance from being immersed in straight storytelling can offer some relief from problematic stereotypes such as gendered power dynamics and body image – while also providing escapism and eye candy.

Importantly, Heated Rivalry conforms to the romance genre rule of giving the audience a happily ever after.

This is especially significant in queer storytelling. Queer love and coming out stories are often portrayed as traumatic and tragic, giving into the “bury your gays” trope.

Teaching professional sports a diversity lesson

NHL team the Seattle Kraken attempted to embrace romance readers back in 2023, encouraging social media posting by fans that embraced the voyeurism of sports romance and sexualised the real professional athletes.

But the team did not establish boundaries to protect their brand and their athletes.

This misguided approach also lead to the romance community being perceived by traditional sports fans as inappropriate women who could not distinguish reality from fiction.

Sports love a pop culture silver bullet that brings in new fans. The American National Football League is experiencing this with the Taylor Swift effect, with Swift frequently attending her fiance’s games.

But to meaningfully engage new and diverse fans, cultural change is needed. Sports organisations need to further understand these audiences to serve them and keep them connected.

Hopefully this sports romance trend and the popularity of Heated Rivalry will also shine a light on women’s sport where queer stories are plentiful and prime for storytelling. The Professional Women’s Hockey League even features a real-life equivalent of Shane’s and Ilya’s tale in Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette.

The market is there, it’s not what you’d expect, and it’s finally being catered to. Sports organisations should be paying attention.

Kasey Symons has received funding from the Victorian Government, and national and state sport governing bodies, including the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. She is also one of the co-founders of Siren: A Women in Sport Collective.

Fiona Crawford has worked in and around football for more than a decade. Her research focuses primarily on the use of sport for social change.

– ref. Could Heated Rivalry bring a whole new fanbase to ice hockey – and can the sport embrace them? – https://theconversation.com/could-heated-rivalry-bring-a-whole-new-fanbase-to-ice-hockey-and-can-the-sport-embrace-them-272702