Two contested decisions at the 2026 World Cup have reignited debate over how video assistant referee (VAR) reviews should work, and how far back a referee should look when deciding what counts as part of the same passage of play.

VAR allows referees to review contentious incidents using replay footage, with the human referee making the final decision. It’s meant to catch “clear and obvious errors” or incidents that the on-field officials missed. A referee reviewing an incident must decide how far back in time the reviewable passage of play extends.

A 2021 study of 2,195 competitive football matches across 13 countries found referees got calls right 92.1 per cent of the time, rising to 98.3 per cent after a VAR intervention.

But replay only supplies the evidence. It doesn’t supply interpretation, responsibility or a decision about how much of the play needs to be examined to establish appropriate context. That judgment falls to the referee. VAR’s effectiveness depends on referees interpreting the evidence within the incident’s interactions and its relevant context.

As researchers who study the ethical implications of AI use in soccer, we’ve found that two decisions from the 2026 tournament illustrate how difficult these boundary calls can be in practice.

Argentina’s overturned goal

In the round of 16 match between Argentina and Egypt, VAR overturned an Egyptian goal after reviewing an incident that occurred nearly a minute earlier.

Egypt was leading 1-0 when Mostafa Ziko scored in the 58th minute to make it 2-0. VAR recommended an on-field review of Egypt’s Marwan Attia stepping on Argentina’s Lisandro Martínez’s foot 17 seconds before the goal and more than 80 metres from where it was scored.

The referee reviewed the incident and cancelled the goal. Argentina came back to win the game 3-2.

The integral question is whether that foot-stepping incident still counted as being connected to the goal a minute later, or whether play had moved on enough to be treated as over and done with.

FIFA, soccer’s governing body, says an attacking phase in a game has no pre-set time or distance limit.

Providing commentary on the situation, former referee Chris Foy argued the play should count as one continuous move because the ball kept travelling forward. Another former referee, Mark Clattenburg, disagreed, arguing the distance covered and the time that had passed were enough to break the connection between the foul and the goal that followed.

Egypt also appealed for a penalty late in the match, after Mohamed Salah went down following contact with Julián Álvarez, but it didn’t prompt an on-field review; FIFA said the defender played the ball first before normal contact followed.

Both decisions may be legally defensible, but their different treatment shows why officials should explain where their review began, why the earlier act remained relevant and why one incident reached the VAR monitor while the other did not.

Haaland push overturns Norway’s goal

A second case, from Norway’s World Cup quarterfinal against England, raises a similar question: does a VAR review apply before the ball is back in play?

Torbjørn Heggem appeared to put Norway ahead in the 55th minute of the game, scoring on a rebound from a corner kick.

But replays showed that as the corner was being delivered, Norway’s Erling Haaland had extended both his arms and pushed England’s Elliot Anderson to the ground. The two had been jostling for position prior to the moment of contact, and Haaland appeared to be reacting to Anderson.

The ball was not yet in play when the push occurred, but officials judged it had a direct causal link to the goal that followed: Haaland remained involved as the ball arrived from the corner kick, which fell to Patrick Berg. His shot was saved by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, and the rebound fell to Heggem, who scored.

Under a World Cup clarification, an attacking offence before a
restart of play may be reviewed if it directly affects a goal. After review, the goal was cancelled and the corner retaken. Norway lost the match 2-1 after extra time.

Questions were nonetheless asked about when the review began, since it did not appear to include Anderson’s own physical duel with Haaland in the moments before the push. That earlier jostling does not necessarily mean Anderson provoked Haaland, but it is a reminder that the referee wasn’t reviewing an isolated fact off a VAR screen.

Neither case necessarily proves the referees’ decisions wrong, but both show that defining the relevant incident remains part of human refereeing.

Where does an incident begin?

VAR’s core problem is, in fact, defining the event under review: how far it extends through time and across the pitch, and where the causal connection ends. This requires reading whether ball possession, player positions and opportunities to challenge still carry the effects of an earlier incident, or whether the game has moved on and reset.

Too narrow a frame isolates an action from the broader context that makes it significant. Too broad a frame drags in remote events after a new phase of the game has begun.

Footage is not self-explanatory. Referees and video officials choose duration, angle, speed and relevant interactions, turning play into a visual narrative of the game. This process can test the referee’s impression, but it can also shape what appears on screen as “the incident.”

A study of 88 elite referees from five countries found slow motion produced more severe sanctions than normal speed. An accurate slow-motion fragment can produce a contextually incomplete judgment when compared with the whole event.

Consider two children, A and B, competing for a reward. A provokes B in ways a parent, C, doesn’t see. When B pushes A, C sees only the reaction. B is still responsible, but the fuller context can change how the act is understood.

This is the test we suggest: could an omitted interaction change perceptions about what offence occurred, who was responsible or what consequences should follow? By that measure, reviews should end once possession, position and opportunities to challenge have been genuinely reset.

Making reviews fairer

We propose three changes to make VAR reviews clearer and fairer.

First, the referee’s initial call on the field, including any decision to let play continue, should establish what actually needs reviewing. Second, the replay should be checked against that specific call. Third, the human referee should interpret what the replay shows using the relevant passage of play, FIFA’s official rules and football’s shared norms for what counts as fair.

Football’s law-making body allows competitions to publish public VAR explanations. To preserve match flow, FIFA should add a public post-match note for consequential reviews and checks, laying out the timing and distance of the incident, and the intervention threshold, including whether play continued or reset.

Referees should also judge intensity at normal speed, and only use slow motion to confirm that contact happened, not to judge how hard it was. The technology should support human judgment, not replace it. The clarity of an isolated replay must never be mistaken for the completeness of a fair judgment, since only a human referee can supply that judgment.

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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/world-cup-var-controversies-show-why-human-referees-should-decide-where-potential-fouls-begin/

Wildfire smoke has been pouring across the U.S. border from fires in Canada again, turning skies an eerie shade of orange in several states in July 2026. In the West, smoke has also been spreading into communities in Colorado and neighboring states as more wildfires burn in hot, dry conditions.

University of Colorado environmental health researcher Colleen Reid explains what’s in that smoke and why breathing it is a health concern everyone should be aware of.

What is in wildfire smoke?

Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture that includes nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter. When homes or buildings also burn, they can release an even more toxic stew of chemicals from burning electronics, furniture, plastics, paints and much more.

What you see when you see a smoke plume or when the air is hazy with wildfire smoke are the tiny particles that are too small to fall to the ground right away with gravity.

These particles, which scientists call particulate matter, are very small – we measure them in microns. When you breathe them in, they can harm your health. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can get into your lungs and body.

You may have heard the term PM2.5. It means particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter, many times smaller than the width of a human hair. High concentrations of these particles in the air during wildfire smoke episodes are what trigger air quality alerts.

Has wildfire smoke been increasing recently, and why?

Yes, wildfires have become more frequent and more intense just in the past couple of decades, and when wildfires become more frequent and intense, so does the smoke.

Scientists have found that wildfires are becoming more frequent due to a variety of factors that include increases in fire weather – hot, dry, windy conditions that fuel the spread of fires due to climate change – as well as other natural and human factors. The reasons for the increases in wildfires vary in different parts of the world.

Other studies have found that wildfire smoke makes up an increasing portion of the PM2.5 in the air in the U.S., and in many areas it is offsetting the decreases in air pollution that the U.S. has gained through regulations of industrial and vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act.

How could wildfire smoke affect my health?

Some effects of breathing wildfire smoke include shortness of breath, coughing, itchy or watery eyes, headaches, rashes and itchiness. But smoke can cause more serious harm. Numerous epidemiological studies have shown that hospitalizations and emergency department visits for asthma and other respiratory diseases increase during wildfire smoke events.

After you breathe in the particles, they cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and they can move into the blood and spread throughout the body, affecting other organ systems.

Breathing wildfire smoke has been associated with higher risk of preterm births and other issues during pregnancy, and potentially cardiovascular problems such as heart attacks and strokes, although the evidence for these effects are more mixed.

The longer-term health effects of wildfire smoke are less clear, but it is a growing area of research.

Where can I learn more about wildfire smoke risks where I live?

The first thing to do to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is to know how bad the smoke is and how long it is going to last.

One great place to get information for where you live on current wildfire smoke is fire.airnow.gov. You can zoom in on the map to where you live and find color-coded circles reflecting data from both U.S. EPA air-quality monitors and PurpleAir sensors that people have put in their homes.

The colors show the level of PM2.5 at that location and suggest the associated health risk.

To find out how wildfire smoke is expected to change over time in North America, you can look at maps from FireSmoke Canada and the U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program.

What can I do to protect myself and my family from wildfire smoke?

First of all, depending on the level of the air quality index where you are, there are different recommendations. When wildfire smoke reaches unhealthy levels, stay indoors as much as possible, with doors and windows shut to keep the wildfire smoke out.

If you have an air cleaner, use it, but check the filter, as filters can fill up quickly. Similarly, check the filter on your home HVAC system and replace it if needed.

If you have to go outside, consider wearing a well-fitting N95, KN95 or KF94 mask. These masks can protect you from inhaling particles in the air around you. Looser masks, such as surgical masks, mostly protect others from what you breathe out instead. They do not have a tight seal around your mouth, and when you breathe in, the air with all of the particles can find its way around the sides of the mask.

Having a tight fit of the mask to your face is important so that when you breathe, the air is going through the mask and capturing the smoke particles rather than letting them into your body where they cause harm.

If your home is leaky and you can see haze inside, consider going to a public space, such as a library or mall, with a good HVAC system. Some municipalities have designated clean air spaces where anyone can go.

Colleen E. Reid has received funding for her research previously from the U.S. EPA, NIH, NSF, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the JPB Foundation, the Joint Fire Science Program, and the CDC.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/yes-breathing-wildfire-smoke-can-harm-your-health-heres-what-you-can-do-to-protect-yourself/

Have you noticed more smoking on screens lately?

Social media feeds are littered with images of celebrities smoking at fashion events, in music videos, at parties and on the cover of Vanity Fair. Just as 1990s fashion has made a comeback, it can feel like cigarettes are having a major cultural resurgence.

But social media posts aren’t a proxy for research and data. The latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey results released today tell a far more important story: smoking rates in Australia are still declining.

In 2025, 5.6% of Australians aged 14 and over smoked daily. This is down from 8.3% in 2022–23. Among adults aged 18 and over, daily smoking fell to 5.8%.

Australia is now very close to achieving its national target of reducing adult daily smoking to 5% or less by 2030.

Current smoking (daily, weekly, or less than weekly) among young adults aged 18–24, an age group highly targeted by tobacco industry marketing, also fell to 6.1% in 2025.

What about vaping?

Daily e-cigarette use (vaping) among people aged 14 and over remained stable at 3.6%, rather than continuing the steep increases seen in previous years.

Among young adults aged 18–24, current e-cigarette use (daily, weekly, monthly, or less than monthly) fell from 20.6% in 2022–23 to 14% in 2025.

And there was no compensatory rise in smoking. This is important because critics of Australia’s stronger vape laws had warned restrictions would push young people towards cigarettes. These results don’t support this claim.

Instead, the results suggest Australian legislation adopted in 2024 that limited vape sales to pharmacies only is working to stop a new generation becoming addicted to harmful nicotine products.

Can we trust these results?

While research results should always be cautiously interpreted, it’s reassuring the 2025 National Drug Strategy Household Survey results are consistent with other 2025 Australian state surveys that also show a continued downward trend in smoking.

While there are some differences in findings across surveys that can be accounted for by variations in methods, who was sampled, response rates and data collection timing, collectively these surveys present a similar trend: fewer Australians are smoking.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey is one of Australia’s most trusted national surveys. Its strengths include its large national sample, long-running design, continuity of questions over time, and independence in both the survey commissioning agency and data collection.

The main limitations are that the response rate has not yet been released. It’s likely some subgroups of the population were harder to reach, such as people experiencing homelessness. The survey provider also changed in 2025, which may have impacted the results.

Nicotine pouches are the new product to watch

Nicotine pouches are small, flavoured sachets, like miniature teabags, placed between the lip and gum.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2025 survey asked about nicotine pouch use for the first time, finding 1.8% of Australians aged 14 and over had used pouches in the previous 12 months.

This figure needs careful interpretation as it only asks about use in the past year so cannot be compared with daily smoking or vaping prevalence.

Because pouches sit against the gum, they may cause oral irritation, lesions, or inflammation. Their biggest risk, however, is nicotine addiction, particularly among young people who may never otherwise have used nicotine.

Read more:
Nicotine pouches are being marketed to young people on social media. But are they safe, or even legal?

The tobacco industry targets young people with these products through their discreet design, flavours and social media promotion.

What about illicit tobacco?

Illicit tobacco is a serious and ongoing threat to efforts to reduce smoking. The 2025 survey found that among those who smoke, around one in three (34%) recently bought or used illicit tobacco.

This is a substantial increase from the 16.7% who used illicit tobacco in 2022–2023.

Other reports have estimated the size of the illicit market to be anywhere from 50–60% of the total tobacco market.

Why the difference? Estimates of the size of the illicit market in terms of volume share of the total cigarette market may be higher than estimates of the prevalence of illicit tobacco use because people who smoke illicit tobacco could be smoking more cigarettes per day than people who do not.

Cheap illegal tobacco undermines tobacco control and makes smoking more affordable.

It also exposes the current major weakness in Australian tobacco control: a lack of control of the tobacco supply chain. There are too many shops able to sell illicit tobacco and vapes with too little consequence.

How did Australia get here?

Australia has implemented a comprehensive approach to tobacco control by:

• increasing tobacco taxes
• introducing plain packaging
• banning tobacco advertising and promotion
• creating smoke-free public places
• adopting graphic health warnings
• funding mass media campaigns
• supporting people to quit.

Combined, these efforts make smoking less affordable, less visible, less socially acceptable and easier to quit.

What needs to happen next?

While smoking is not back, now is not the time for complacency. The rise of illicit tobacco and new nicotine products remain a threat to continued success in reducing smoking.

To continue this progress, we need:

• well-funded enforcement action to crack down on illicit tobacco sales
• long-term funding for high-profile anti-smoking campaigns that highlight the debilitating harms and link to support and tools to help people quit
• strong restrictions on how and where tobacco is sold.

Selling cigarettes is a dying business. It’s time Australia adopted a national plan to rapidly phase out the “anytime, anywhere” approach to selling such a dangerous and addictive product.

The survey shows decades of strong public health focus and policy have worked. Now it is time to finish the job.

Becky Freeman is an expert advisor to the Cancer Council tobacco issues committee, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) e-cigarette advisory committee, and a member of the Cancer Institute vaping communications advisory panel. She has received relevant competitive grants and funding from the Australian Department of Health Disability and Ageing, NHMRC, Medical Research Future Fund, NSW Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, VicHealth, Cancer Council, and Healthway WA.

Michelle Jongenelis has received relevant competitive grants and funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, VicHealth, Healthway, and the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. She is an Executive member of the Australian Council on Smoking & Health. Michelle co-convenes the Public Health Association of Australia’s Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Special Interest Group. She is also Deputy Convener of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand’s Tobacco and Related Substances Special Interest Group. Michelle is a member of the World Federation of Public Health Associations Tobacco Control Working Group.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/despite-claims-smoking-has-made-a-comeback-just-5-6-of-australians-now-smoke-daily/

In a moment of brazen hubris in the Oval Office last year, US President Donald Trump railed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He accused Zelensky of not being thankful for US support in Ukraine’s existential struggle against invading Russian forces, and famously told him: “You don’t have the cards”.

Now, more than a year later, it is Trump who doesn’t have a winning hand in his standoff with Iran.

Iran may be no match for the United States militarily, but it’s been very successful in exerting what leverage it does have over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump can declare the strait open to commercial shipping as much as he wants, but he cannot make it so.

The US has resumed bombing Iran this week to try to wrest control of the strait from Iran, but Trump could go even further if he finds himself backed into a corner.

How Iran is wielding its leverage

Iran’s leverage over the strait comes down to playing a spoiling role – one of the key tactics in asymmetric warfare.

The longer it can keep the strait closed, the more pressure it places on the US and its partners in the Persian Gulf to end the war. Some 20% of the world’s oil and gas and large supplies of sulphur, ammonia, urea and helium transit through the narrow passageway every day.

And as evidenced by its actions over the last week, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) can threaten commercial traffic with drones or missile strikes anytime it likes. Despite heavy US bombardments since the war began, most of Iran’s missile sites along the strait are operational again.

Given this, shipping insurers, such as Lloyd’s of London, will either refuse to insure transits through the strait or charge hefty, nonviable premiums as long as the war continues.

Not only can the IRGC threaten shipping, it can also strike sites in every single Gulf state, as it has been doing at scale this week. Many US military bases across the region have been severely damaged. And the myth that having America as a house guest guaranteed security for Gulf states has been completely blown apart.

Why escalation is possible

The reality is there is no military pathway to reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

At the same time, neither the Iranian regime nor the Trump administration want to return to a significant escalation of hostilities. Both have much to lose – the military operations alone may have already cost the US more than US$100 billion – and nothing to gain from a prolonged war.

But the hardliners in Tehran, emboldened by an emotional week of national mourning for the martyred Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have a much larger appetite for conflict than more pragmatic leaders in other countries. Analysts believe they could withstand a US naval blockade and bombardments for many more months.

As unpopular as it might be with the majority of the Iranian people, the regime appears to be in a stronger position now than it was when the war began.

Trump, meanwhile, wants desperately to be seen as a winner. And now that many of the conventional checks and balances that constrain a president’s power have been weakened, there is a real risk of reckless escalation.

For instance, Trump has long threatened to strike Iranian civilian infrastructure, such as electric and desalination plants, which could trigger a similar response by the Iranian regime on Gulf state energy infrastructure.

This happened earlier in the war, when Iran targeted energy sites in several Gulf states. If these sites are targeted again, it could have lasting impacts on the global economy.

Should the escalation go further and involve direct strikes on the 400 desalination plants the Gulf states depend on for their drinking water, the consequences would be devastating.

The Iranian regime could also pressure the Houthis in Yemen to escalate from merely blocking Israeli ships from transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea to returning to attacking vessels in the chokepoint. About 10% of global trade passes through that strait.

So far, the Houthis have held off on further attacks, in part because after years of war, they have achieved a detente with their neighbour, Saudi Arabia.

However, this ceasefire now appears shaky, after an airport attack this week that the Houthis blamed on Saudi Arabia.

A ground campaign would be disastrous

The larger reality is that military campaigns from the air have never achieved regime change. Another reality: America, for all its formidable military might, has failed to win a major war in the past 80 years.

Any serious military escalation against Iran would require US “boots on the ground”, similar to Iraq two decades ago. But an international coalition force of hundreds of thousands of military personnel proved to be insufficient in bringing stability to that country after the 2003 invasion. And Iran is almost four times the size of Iraq. It is inconceivable the vastly larger force that would be required to take control of just the mountainous southern coast of Iran could ever be assembled.

With the advent of modern drones, we have also entered a new era of warfare – one Iran is better positioned to exploit than the US. Iran possesses a remarkable depth of industrial military capacity, which has produced a more even match than might have been expected against the world’s most powerful military.

The implications for a US ground campaign are clear: any forces attempting an occupation of even a limited part of the Iranian coast, or Kharg Island, would face formidable opposition.

The risk of a much more serious escalation, though, remains. This includes the very small, but not negligible, risk of tactical nuclear weapons being deployed by the US, opening a Pandora’s box of global consequences.

What is Trump’s best option, then? Allowing Iran to retain a new level of control over the Strait of Hormuz establishes a terrible precedent, but it might be the least worst of all possible outcomes.

Greg Barton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is engaged in a range of projects funded by the Australian government that aim to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/backed-into-a-corner-by-iran-over-the-strait-of-hormuz-trump-may-resort-to-even-more-reckless-escalation/

Electromagnetic waves are everywhere. They’re the reason you can hear music when you turn on the radio, use wi-fi, find your way using satellite navigation, and make calls on a mobile phone.

They are a form of electromagnetic radiation and sit at the weaker end of the spectrum, meaning they have the lowest energy and the longest wavelength.

But because very high-energy forms of electromagnetic radiation – such as x-rays – can cause cancer, there has long been concern that radio waves could also harm human health.

With the explosion of mobile phone use over the past two decades, there has been particular concern over whether holding these devices to your ear could increase your risk of brain cancer.

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) commissioned 13 reviews on the health effects of electromagnetic waves.

A new study, released today has analysed the findings of these reviews. It’s found no evidence that electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phones cause cancer in the brain, head or neck. Let’s take a look at what else they found.

Did the fear of cancer have any basis?

Anxiety about the potential health effects of low-energy radiation has its roots in the Cold War.

This was the period when new technologies such as microwave ovens and televisions were first widely adopted and entered many homes.

Microwaves, the electromagnetic radiation we use to heat food, have somewhat higher energy than the waves emitted by mobile phones, but are still low.

Read more:
Are bananas really ‘radioactive’? An expert clears up common misunderstandings about radiation

Over time, the evidence that emerged showed there are no clear, consistent effects on health for humans exposed to lower-energy electromagnetic radiation.

But there were still legitimate safety concerns. For example, microwaves can still make things very hot. These concerns shaped the standards for consumer electronics, which govern and limit how much radiation they can emit. These standards ensure their safety, based on the best evidence available.

Of course, high-energy electromagnetic radiation was known to be very dangerous, and capable of causing cancers such as leukaemias.

Coupled with sensational Cold War events – such as the Soviets’ suspected intentional use of “electromagnetic signals” to target staff at the US embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation, and an ambassador developing leukaemia – these dangers likely shaped public opinion and led to some fear about any kind of radiation, including low-energy radiation.

And, as our exposure to electronics emitting low-energy radiation has dramatically increased in the intervening decades, the concern about its effect on health has remained widespread and perhaps even grown.

What the new study looked at

The 13 reviews the WHO commissioned in 2019 aimed to understand what we already know and what we still need to find out about any health effects of electromagnetic waves.

Teams of scientists looked through the published scientific evidence available for a particular health concern and wrote a report summarising not only the findings but also the quality, or strength, of the available data. Reviews were completed for a number of different health concerns, including fertility, symptoms such as headaches or tinnitus, and cancer.

But the WHO has not yet completed its analysis of the commissioned reviews.

So two authors of the review on brain cancer have summarised their own results, and those of the other reviews. This new research gives us an insight into the WHO’s expected findings.

What the new study found

The authors’ own review focused on brain cancer and mobile phone use. In it, they analysed 63 different studies published between 1994 and 2022, and found no association between mobile phone use and brain cancer, or cancers of the head or neck.

It also didn’t matter how much someone used their mobile phone, or whether they had been using it over long periods (ten or more years).

The same review also found there was no evidence linking radio or television transmission and leukaemia in children (another persistent fear).

Read more:
Mobile phones are not linked to brain cancer, according to a major review of 28 years of research

Most evidence is limited or low-quality

The other reviews of observational studies in humans similarly found no evidence that exposure to mobile phones – and other devices that emit electromagnetic waves – affected health. But a key finding was that, for many health effects, the quantity or quality of the evidence was really too poor to make firm conclusions.

This is because determining the precise effects of anything on humans is complicated. Many different factors affect health outcomes, including diet, exercise, genetics and socioeconomic considerations.

Fortunately, the evidence for brain cancer was given the highest quality rating possible for an observational study (meaning a study in which scientists only observe the effects of electromagnetic waves on people, without controlling exposure).

The authors also cut to the heart of the matter for brain cancer, noting: “If there was an increased risk of brain cancer from mobile phone exposures, increases in the incidence would be expected.”

In Australia, rates of all types of brain cancer have remained steady since the 1980s, well before widespread and regular mobile phone use.

The takeaway

As the authors of the summary report state: “No science can ‘prove’ the absence of any risk.”

One goal of the WHO reviews was to understand what future research is still needed so exposure guidelines can be kept up to date as technology develops.

But the takeaway should be that no clear association has been found between mobile phone use and any type of brain, head or neck cancer.

This will hopefully reassure you that current exposure limits are likely safe.

Sarah Diepstraten receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Cure Cancer Australia and My Room Children’s Cancer Charity.

John (Eddie) La Marca receives funding from Cancer Council Victoria. He is affiliated with the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/no-evidence-mobile-phones-cause-brain-cancer-new-study/

Tour de France riders are facing some of the hottest racing conditions in the event’s history.

As a heatwave swept across western Europe last week, temperatures in southern France approached 40°C. Organisers shortened Stage 9 by 30 kilometres to reduce heat exposure.

As climate change accelerates the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, questions are increasingly being asked about whether current approaches are sufficient.

Cycling in the heat

The Tour is held in France, with the start often taking place in neighbouring European countries. Over its 21 stages, riders cover roughly 3,500km and accumulate between 45,000 and 55,000 metres of elevation gain.

Competing in cycling’s premier event under extreme heat places significant strain on the human body. Riders must cope with both the demands of professional racing and the environment.

During professional road cycling races, core temperature can exceed 40ºC and, in exceptional circumstances, reach 41.5ºC. Such temperatures place substantial strain on the cardiovascular system, increase the sense of effort, and contribute to declines in performance.

More importantly, the rise in body temperature increases the risk of heat-related illnesses such as muscle cramps and heat exhaustion. In the most severe cases, riders can suffer exertional heat stroke, a life-threatening condition in which intense exercise causes the body’s core temperature to rise above 40°C.

What changes have been made?

In 2024, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), global cycling’s governing body, launched a new high temperature protocol to protect rider health.

This requires race officials and team representatives to assess heat risk using wet-bulb globe temperature, an index that combines the effects of air temperature, humidity, solar radiation and wind.

Under the protocol’s highest heat-risk category, when wet-bulb globe temperature reaches or exceeds 28°C, countermeasures include the provision of extra shade during warm-up, cooling and hydration during racing, and even shortening, altering or cancelling a stage.

During this year’s Tour de France, the use of feeding bags in zones where only bottles are usually allowed was permitted on specific climbs. This was intended to get riders to drink more water on days with forecasted extreme heat.

Organisers also extended the stage time limit by 2% on Stage 9 in response to requests from the riders’ union, the Association of Professional Cyclists. This reduced the likelihood of riders dropped from the peloton – the tightly packed main group of riders in a road cycling race – in the heat would be eliminated from the race.

How can we protect riders long term?

Riders have called for additional measures to be considered, including changing start times to protect their performance and health.

Earlier start times could substantially reduce heat exposure at the Tour de France and other major races such as the Vuelta a España, where stages typically begin around midday. This would help riders avoid the hottest part of the day.

But questions remain about whether current approaches are sufficient.

While recent measures adopted by the UCI and Tour de France organisers are a positive step, relying on wet-bulb globe temperature has limitations.

One limitation is that the evaporation of sweat – the body’s primary mechanism for dissipating heat during exercise – is restricted at any given wet-bulb globe temperature when humidity is high or air movement is low. Consequently, the same wet-bulb globe temperature can be associated with different levels of heat strain, depending on the specific environmental conditions experienced by riders.

While the wet-bulb globe temperature index provides a measure of environmental heat stress, it does not account for the metabolic heat produced by riders. Nor does it factor in the clothing they wear, which can impede sweat evaporation.

This is particularly important in road cycling, where the demands on the body can change dramatically within a single stage. For example, climbing uphill results in slower speeds and less airflow across the body at a time when metabolic heat production is soaring.

Together, these factors suggest that wet-bulb globe temperature alone may not provide a complete picture of the thermal challenge experienced by riders during competition.

Competitive but safe

As global temperatures continue to rise, heat strain – the stress placed on the body by the combination of intense exercise and hot weather – is likely to become an increasing determinant of performance in professional cycling.

Future policies may need to move beyond broad environmental indices to capture the unique demands professional cyclists put on their bodies if the sport is to remain competitive and safe in a warming world.

Julien Périard 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/as-extreme-heat-pummels-the-tour-de-france-can-cycling-keep-riders-safe/

To meet demand from artificial intelligence companies, some of the world’s largest data centres are planned for the outskirts of major Australian cities. Dozens more are planned. OpenAI chief Sam Altman has said Australia could be a global leader.

This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced plans to fast-track new data centres. He promised the AI boom would not drive up power prices. The government would require big new data centres to “underwrite new power supply” and to “put at least as much energy into our grid as they take out of it”.

The push for more AI data centres is increasingly controversial. Huge data centres use a lot of power to run their servers and keep them cool. In the United States, the AI rush has led to a boom in gas generation as well as for clean energy.

If done poorly, Australia’s data centre boom could risk the ongoing shift to renewables and storage – and potentially drive up power prices.

But if it’s done well, the boom could be a win-win for energy. Many solar and wind projects have been stuck in limbo waiting for grid connections. Locating data centres in these areas could unlock new renewables – and decentralise the AI boom.

Is surging power demand a problem?

Power use by AI-focused data centres worldwide could potentially triple by 2030, according to International Energy Agency forecasts.

Last year, a study commissioned by the Australian Energy Market Operator suggested data centres could account for around 6% of National Electricity Market electricity demand by 2030.

But it could go higher still. Australia has a growing pipeline of giant data centre developments moving through planning and connection processes. These hyperscale centres can typically require 100–500 megawatts of power. Next-generation AI facilities are approaching 1 gigawatt. The eventual power demand could be considerably higher if all are approved.

It’s understandable consumers, policymakers and network planners are worried about whether electricity systems can keep pace.

But focusing on how much more energy is needed can be an error. It would be better to look at where new demand is emerging and focus on coordinating this demand with generation, storage and network investment.

Most big new data centre projects are planned for the outskirts of Melbourne and Sydney. But they don’t have to be built in cities.

An opportunity for regional Australia?

Australia has some of the world’s best solar and wind resources, along with enormous potential for energy storage.

But many renewable projects have to wait years for access to the grid. The new transmission lines essential for the renewable transition have faced long delays, opposition from some communities and planning uncertainty.

It would make sense to encourage new data centre projects to be built in regions with good renewable resources and tricky grid access.

This would mean renewable projects could launch without waiting for grid access in the knowledge they have a reliable customer. Data centre developers could benefit from cheap power. The power grid would benefit from reduced pressure, potentially avoiding the need for expensive network upgrades. And regional communities could benefit from investment and economic development.

A manufacturing plant often needs to be close to transport corridors, customers or raw materials. But these factors don’t matter to data centres, as long as they have access to high-quality internet connectivity, water and affordable and reliable power. Renewable projects would need to be supported by grid batteries, able to store power and release it steadily to keep the data centre running.

More than big energy consumers?

Data centres are often viewed as large electricity consumers that need power all the time. But this doesn’t have to be the case. They can be active participants in the energy system.

Many modern data centres are now designed with their own battery storage systems, and energy management platforms. Some computing tasks such as AI training can be set to run when power prices are low.

Increasingly, data centres are being paired with separate energy storage facilities such as grid-forming battery systems. These systems do more than simply provide backup power. They can keep electricity voltage and frequency stable, soak up power from renewables during peak output and reduce pressure on the grid during peak demand.

Combining data centres with grid-forming batteries makes energy demand more flexible. The data centres of the future could actively support the grid rather than simply consume power.

Looking ahead

To date, much of the debate over data centres and electricity has focused on how much power they will use.

It’s worth asking a more important question: where can we build them so they interact best with Australia’s energy system as it shifts from fossil fuels to renewables and storage?

Data centres are becoming essential infrastructure. If planned strategically, they could help unlock renewable energy development, strengthen regional economies and support the shift to a cleaner, more resilient electricity system.

It’s worth thinking about how data centres and renewables can work best together as an integrated ecosystem. The question is not whether data centres need too much power. It’s whether we are building the right energy ecosystem around them.

Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/the-data-centre-boom-wont-mean-higher-power-prices-if-we-unlock-stalled-renewable-projects/

Seen from the air, Channel Country resembles a vibrant and vast tapestry, with a network of waterways crisscrossing the land. Spread across more than 280,000 square kilometres in outback Australia, it is one of the world’s last free-flowing desert river systems.

In the heart of Channel Country, in southwest Queensland, live the Mithaka people whose ancestors over at least the past 3,000 years played a key role in the development of a transcontinental trade and exchange system. Plants were a central part of the economy of Mithaka people, with at least 200 different species used for food, medicine, materials and ceremonial purposes.

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, we reveal important new information about the genetic complexity of one particular food source from the region: channel millet (Echinochloa turneriana).

The traits we found are often associated with domestication.

Deep importance of plants in Mithaka life

How people managed and interacted with plants is an area that’s slowly starting to gain momentum in Australian archaeology.

Genomics has played a fundamental role in increasing understanding of relationships between people and plants in several regions of the world, including the Americas and Asia. It has the potential to shed light on how humans influenced vegetation communities in Australia, though much of the detailed research is yet to be done.

The few genetic studies undertaken in Australia working with Aboriginal people on understanding their history of plant interactions have revealed important new insights.

One outstanding example is the discovery that Aboriginal people in northeast New South Wales and southeast Queensland deliberately dispersed the black bean (Castanospermum australe), a valuable native food source.

The Mithaka people have a rich archaeological record that highlights the deep importance of plants in everyday life. Our previous research has identified hundreds of grinding stone quarries used to process the seeds of native grasses, herbs, shrubs and trees – evidence of sophisticated knowledge of local ecosystems and food resources.

Together, these sites form an interconnected cultural landscape of exceptional significance, recently recognised and added to the National Heritage List.

Untangling complex genetics

Our new study builds on this foundation.

Channel millet grows more than a metre tall. A robust grass, it flourishes after flooding, forming extensive fields of waving brown seedheads. At such times in the past, it was an important food source for Aboriginal people.

The explorer Augustus Gregory came upon “fields of 1,000 acres of millet” on the Cooper Creek floodplain in 1884, and described people cutting the stalk halfway up. Early pastoralist and writer Alice Duncan-Kemp described the processing of “ugar” or “egar” (grass seeds resembling canary seeds) by Aboriginal women on the Diamantina River.

We first sequenced the DNA in the channel millet. When we analysed the genome we found it to be highly complex. While humans and many plants have two copies of each chromosome (one from the father and one from the mother), this plant has 12 copies of each chromosome.

This is called polyploidy, in which an organism acquires multiple sets of chromosomes, typically through accidents of reproduction or through hybridisation.

Large numbers of copies of each chromosome are common in domesticated crops such as wheat, rice and sugarcane. It’s not a smoking gun for domestication; in fact, natural polyploidy has been occurring for millions of years through the processes of chromosome duplication and hybridisation.

People, however, have greatly accelerated and exploited the process, sometimes accidentally, but in more recent history deliberately, inducing chromosome doubling to produce crops with larger fruits, greater vigour and improved resilience.

This novel genetic pattern may explain how this plant survives the bust and boom environment in which it grows. Populations of channel millet are decimated during extended dry periods. But they survive as underground seeds that germinate rapidly in periods when floodwaters flow across the region.

Multiple copies of each chromosome may help these populations endure the dramatic fluctuations of life in the Channel Country. Like the hybrid crops prized by farmers, plants with extra chromosome sets can be especially vigorous, giving them a genetic toolkit that helps them survive and thrive in an unpredictable environment.

More than natural selection?

Natural selection may not be the only force that has contributed to the evolution of such unusual genetics.

This plant has large seeds making it an attractive food source. Like other grass species such as wheat, rice and corn that have been domesticated by people in the past, it also shows little shattering (shedding of the mature seed). This means it is quite efficient to harvest, with seeds remaining attached to the plant at harvest.

Human harvest, storage and consumption may have contributed to the evolution of this unique plant. Harvest will have favoured large seeds that did not shatter.

Human consumption may have contributed to population bottlenecks in the ancestors of modern channel millet, while storage may have ensured survival of at least some seeds during extended dry periods. Studies of population variation and other species in the area will be needed to better define these impacts.

Informing knowledge for future foods

Today, Mithaka people are keen to learn more about plants such as channel millet, and how past human interactions with these species may inform knowledge for future foods.

Our future research will link plant genetics with evidence from ancient fireplaces and shell midden sites, plant residues from grinding stones and pollen cores from waterholes targeting specific landscapes in Mithaka country.

Combined with Indigenous knowledge, this research will help build a clearer picture of how Mithaka people actively shaped – and were shaped by – the vegetation communities around them over thousands of years.

Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jennifer Silcock receives funding from the Queensland Government (Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation) and the Australian Research Council.

Rahul Chandora receives funding from ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Indian Council of Agricultural Research

Robert Henry receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture and the ARC Research Hub fo Engineering Plants to Replace Fossil Carbon.

Shawnee Gorringe works for Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation & The University of Queensland.

Sammi Blinco 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/aboriginal-people-harvested-this-native-grass-for-millennia-scientists-have-now-found-an-odd-trait-in-its-dna/

Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated adaptation of The Odyssey officially opened in theatres this week. It retells Homer’s ancient epic of Odysseus’ journey home from the Trojan war.

The Trojan war of Homer’s epics is heavily mythologised. But it is set in a world of seafaring and sea passages that the ancient Greeks knew intimately well.

Interestingly, Nolan’s film has reframed the Trojan war as a trade war over a shipping route. This economic motive is absent from Homer’s original.

But it would have been a highly relevant theme for the Athenians listening to the Homeric epics hundreds of years later, when actual wars hinged on control of a vital shipping route to the Black Sea, passing right by where Odysseus began his mythological journey home: the Dardanelles.

Controlling this waterway – including tolling the ships that traversed it – was crucial to the rise of the Athenian Empire. That has parallels with – and lessons for – today, when placing tolls on crucial shipping routes is again being debated.

A gateway to the Black Sea

The Dardanelles (which the ancient Greeks called Hellespont) is a narrow natural strait situated in modern-day Turkey.

Along with the Sea of Marmara and another strait to the north-east called the Bosphorus, it connects the Aegean Sea (and therefore the Mediterranean Sea) to the Black Sea.

From about 500 BCE, the Greek city-states, but especially democratic Athens, began to realise that control of this waterway was crucial to their survival and success.

A couple of decades later, the Persian wars had only reinforced this realisation because Xerxes, the great king of the Persian Empire, had built a pontoon bridge across the Dardanelles to get his invading army into Greece.

After the Greeks defeated Xerxes in the Balkans in 480 and 479 BCE, one of the first things they did was to secure the Dardanelles and capture other cities to its north in what is now Turkey, especially Byzantium (Istanbul today) and Chalcedon (now Kadıköy).

At the same time, the Athenians, who were now leading the Greek coalition against Persia, also captured three big islands on the approach to the strait: Imbros, Lemnos and Skyros.

This made it safer for their warships and grain ships to traverse the shipping route from Athens to the Dardanelles.

Feeding an empire

Securing this shipping route was soon about more than just warfare. It also allowed the Athenians fully to exploit the trade coming from the Bosporan kingdom, which covered roughly modern-day Crimea and parts of southern Ukraine.

Greece’s climate and terrain were well suited to some crops, and Athens was completely self-sufficient in olive oil. But very dry Attica especially was poorly suited to others – notably grain – so trade with the north was vital to fuelling its rise.

Controlling the Dardanelles and hence the shipping line to the Black Sea allowed the Athenians to secure enormous amounts of cheap food, leading to a huge population boom.

By 431 BCE, the Peloponnesian War broke out between Athens and Sparta.

At this point, we know Athens was importing two thirds of its food from overseas, and the bulk of it through the Dardanelles.

Sparta and its allies invaded the territory of Athens repeatedly during the first ten years of this storied 30-year war. In response, the Athenians simply withdrew their population behind their fortifications and relied on the grain coming through the Dardanelles to keep them alive.

Tolls on shipping

In the last ten years of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens started to run out of money, it actually became more heavy-handed in its control of this vital narrow waterway.

Athenian democracy had long had garrisons on either side of the Bosphorus to police what the other Greek city-states were importing through this shipping route.

But, in 413 BCE, it introduced a 10% toll on the value of all cargo passing through this strait. The enormous amount of money this toll raised helped Athens hold out against Sparta for another seven years.

How losing control crushed Athens

However, the Spartans ultimately won the Peloponnesian War. In its final decade, they struck a deal with the Persian Empire to build a fleet to challenge Athens at sea.

In 405 BCE, very close to modern-day Gallipoli, the Spartan fleet captured almost the entire last fleet of Athens without a battle – close to 200 ships – and executed the captured Athenian sailors.

Without any fleet, Athens lost control of the shipping line and the Spartans stopped the grain ships sailing to Athens from the north.

Athens was quickly starved into submission through a land and sea blockade, and ultimately lost the Peloponnesian War. Losing control of that vital narrow waterway near ancient Troy had thus resulted in the fall of the Athenian Empire.

The pattern repeats

Christopher Nolan’s film is poignant and timeless lesson about the human costs of war and how waging it should be an absolute last resort.

But the ancient history of the narrow waterway on which Troy was situated also holds lessons for understanding the current war between the United States and Iran.

The history of the Dardanelles warns us that states and empires can rise and fall over who controls such a waterway. Prudent states – such as democratic Athens – secure such straits over generations, using all the tools in their diplomatic and military tool kits to do so. To imperil free trade through such waterways or to act recklessly in relation to them can come at a terrible cost.

David M. Pritchard receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/how-controlling-and-tolling-a-narrow-waterway-near-ancient-troy-changed-history/

As New Zealand heads toward another general election, political attention is naturally focused on the issues touching people’s lives right now.

The months ahead are sure to bring more pledged policies to ease the country’s cost of living crisis, housing unaffordability, high unemployment and health system pressures.

With so many families struggling to make ends meet, that’s hardly surprising. But focusing on today’s challenges risks ignoring, if not worsening, those of tomorrow.

Many of New Zealand’s “long problems” – including the economic and social implications of an ageing population, a changing climate and transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence – are fast coming to bear.

Others – such as an ongoing biodiversity crisis, infrastructure and housing shortages and low productivity – have long loomed in the background but increasingly also require durable and effective policy responses.

None of these problems can be solved quickly or easily. Meaningful progress requires policymakers to look beyond the next three-year parliamentary term and the short-term incentives of the electoral cycle.

Why promises are easier than persistence

Encouragingly, some campaign policies already announced do stand to address long problems. Understandably, the specific problems highlighted and the preferred solutions reflect the political philosophies of the respective parties.

Centre-right National, for instance, proposes reforming the KiwiSaver scheme to enhance long-term savings and investment. Centre-left Labour has meanwhile promised to introduce a targeted capital gains tax to improve the overall fairness of the tax system and discourage housing speculation.

The smaller parties have also identified their own long-term priorities.

The right-wing libertarian Act Party is focused on reducing public expenditure and regulatory burdens on business. The right-leaning populist New Zealand First emphasises preserving local ownership of the nation’s resources.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Greens prioritise rapid decarbonisation and reducing income and wealth inequality, while Te Pāti Māori advocates fundamental constitutional reform and stronger Indigenous rights.

The Opportunity Party, which claims to be centrist, proposes major welfare and tax reforms, along with greater public investment in research and innovation.

Announcing long-term policies, however, is only the first step. As I argue in the Helen Clark Foundation’s forthcoming book, Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand, the greater task is sustaining them over time.

Whatever the merits of individual proposals, tackling the country’s long problems will require a consistent and durable policy approach. Repeated policy reversals waste valuable resources, delay progress, discourage investment and risk eroding public confidence in the democratic process.

That kind of policy consistency cannot be delivered by one government alone.

It depends on parties of different political persuasions being willing to negotiate durable multiparty agreements, whether through formal accords or less explicit understandings.

New Zealand has demonstrated it can do this. Cross-party agreements notably led to the Superannuation Accord in 1993, the Zero Carbon Act in 2019, and, most recently, a new long-term program of infrastructure investment.

How lasting change happens

Not every democracy approaches long-term policymaking this way. The prominence of formal cross-party agreements varies considerably, reflecting each country’s constitutional arrangements, political history and culture.

That said, international experience suggests durable agreements on long-term challenges rarely emerge by accident.

They depend on broad agreement about the nature of the problem, shared goals and guiding principles, confidence in the policy tools being used and political incentives that reward cooperation rather than conflict.

For major parties of both the centre-left and centre-right, particularly, this requires informed and inclusive deliberation, negotiation and compromise. But the broader public also has an important role to play.

Voters can encourage long-term policymaking by rewarding responsible, evidence-informed and future-focused policies. Interest groups, unions, iwi and hapū, community organisations and think tanks can all help build support for long-term reform through evidence, ideas and public debate.

And other independent public institutions can identify long-term challenges, assess solutions and help build consensus.

New Zealand already has bodies such as the Climate Change Commission, the Infrastructure Commission, the Retirement Commissioner and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

But it still lacks future-focused offices such as a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, which exists elsewhere. NZ also does not have a Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology, a Parliamentary Budget Office or a centre for foresight and long-term strategy.

There is also no parliamentary select committee devoted specifically to long-term or intergenerational issues. The fiscal cost of addressing these institutional gaps would be modest.

Ultimately, governing for the future is a choice. It requires political leaders willing to look past the next election rather than simply follow the latest opinion poll.

That means respecting the best available evidence, speaking honestly about long-term challenges and unavoidable trade-offs and building the cross-party relationships needed to sustain reform over time.

Without that commitment, today’s long problems will simply become tomorrow’s bigger ones.

Jonathan Boston 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/nzs-complex-problems-require-visionary-solutions-not-quick-fixes-heres-how-we-can-govern-for-the-future/

Under the Morrison government’s Job-ready Graduates scheme, the price of arts degrees more than doubled to over A$50,000.

But while attention has understandably been focused on undergraduate degrees, what has happened at the postgraduate level?

In a new research paper we explore how the scheme slashed study costs for many postgraduate students, especially in nursing.

‘Full-fee’ versus ‘student contribution’ places

Since the late 1980s, universities have offered domestic students full-fee places in postgraduate courses. Full-fee places receive no government subsidy, and universities set the fees.

In 2024, the average university revenue per full-fee student place was $33,000 a year. Students can finance these fees with a FEE-HELP loan.

Full-fee places exist alongside postgraduate government-subsidised “Commonwealth supported places” (which are also used for undergraduates). For these places, the government provides a subsidy and students pay a price-capped student contribution.

These contributions are high – currently $17,399 a year in arts, business and law – but much less than the average full-fee rate.

Fixed numbers of subsidised postgraduate places

Before Job-ready Graduates, universities could offer postgraduate students Commonwealth supported places. But for each university the government capped numbers in total and by discipline.

By contrast, there were no restrictions around full-fee postgraduate places. As the chart shows, enrolments in full-fee places grew in most, although not all, years up to the mid-2010s.

The two largest postgraduate fields are teaching and business.

This reflected more people seeking to advance their careers through postgraduate study, as well as postgraduate degrees becoming a possible or required entry point for some professions such as psychology.

The cheaper Commonwealth supported places saved students money over full-fee courses, but produced anomalies across the system. Some universities were allocated thousands of places but others only dozens. Frustrated universities complained some competitors had Commonwealth supported places while they could only offer full-fee places in the same course.

Job-ready Graduates and student places

Job-ready Graduates, which was announced in 2020 and started in 2021, changed this situation. Instead of specifically allocating postgraduate Commonwealth supported places, the government put funding into a single, flexible grant shared with undergraduate courses.

For universities and their students this created new opportunities, but also new trade-offs: between undergraduate and postgraduate places, and between subsidised and full-fee postgraduate places.

Framing it differently, universities faced potential choices between opportunities for first and second-time students for government-subsidised higher education, and between lower and higher total revenue per student.

Increased postgraduate Commonwealth supported places was not an inevitable outcome, but it happened.

Between 2019 (the old system’s last normal year) and 2024, the number of postgraduate Commonwealth supported places increased by a third to more than 57,000. By contrast the number of full-fee postgraduate places at public universities fell by 11%, to about 41,000 places.

Which courses benefited?

Growth in postgraduate Commonwealth supported places occurred across many courses. But nursing was a standout, more than doubling to nearly 8,000 places. Specialities such as critical care and mental health nursing showed large increases.

Price differences between subsidised and full-fee places are very large in these fields. For example, for a Graduate Certificate of Critical Care Nursing at Deakin University a full-fee place costs $14,700 in 2026, while a Commonwealth supported place costs just $2,639. The University of Newcastle markets its Master of Mental Health Nursing as up to 75% cheaper, costing $5,117 with Commonwealth support.

Job-ready Graduates cut nursing student contributions to boost demand. While undergraduate nursing demand did increase, a discount was never likely attract students without prior healthcare interests. But for someone who is already a nurse, a cheap Commonwealth supported place could make a big difference to their decision to pursue postgraduate study.

University reasoning

Students prefer lower fees, but this still leaves the question of why universities offered more nursing places.

Our analysis of postgraduate enrolment trends was part of a broader project exploring university decision-making around Commonwealth supported places. As part of this project, we interviewed university leaders and officials.

A consistent theme was they wanted to prioritise postgraduate Commonwealth supported places in social service occupations with relatively low wages, such as nursing, teaching and social work.

Look at undergrad demand

While universities had social service reasons for offering more postgraduate places in certain fields, another important factor affected decision-making under Job-ready Graduates.

This was a major decline in domestic undergraduate demand. Fewer Year 12 students and more people choosing work over study in a strong labour market were both factors.

For many universities, this abolished the trade-off between undergraduate and postgraduate places. They had more funding for Commonwealth supported places than they could use.

Our interview research found universities placed a high priority on fully utilising their government funding. They saw this as a government expectation. They feared that consistent failure to use funding would see it cut. Offering additional postgraduate places was one way to use more government funding.

Can this last?

The social service reasons for offering postgraduate Commonwealth supported places will remain. But with undergraduate demand now recovering, boosted by renewed growth in Year 12 enrolments, the trade-offs with postgraduate places are returning.

At the same time, the government has introduced legislation putting tougher caps on how many Commonwealth supported students universities can take. This will see some universities need to reduce their Commonwealth supported student intake.

We cannot predict exactly how universities will navigate this changed environment. But postgraduate Commonwealth supported places have probably reached their peak as priorities are likely to move back to undergraduate education.

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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/beyond-50k-arts-degrees-what-has-job-ready-graduates-done-to-postgrad-study/

Every summer, cities around the world host car-free days and temporarily pedestrianize streets. Following their success elsewhere in the world, temporary pedestrianized streets are becoming more common in North America, such as for large sporting events, cultural festivals and farmers’ markets.

This year, as part of the FIFA World Cup, some cities in North America created pedestrianized fan zones for spectators and visitors. In Vancouver, the city pedestrianized a large stretch of Granville St. in the downtown core.

Doing so can help support local businesses, give public spaces back to people and retrieve them from cars. The City of Vancouver recently announced that Granville St. will remain pedestrianized until at least September.

Pedestrianized streets emerged in Europe more than seven decades ago. The two most notable precedents are Lijnbaan in Rotterdam and Strøget in Copenhagen. Despite apprehension from some business owners and a minority of drivers, many success stories have put those concerns to rest while often exceeding expectations.

These streets have proven to be major draws for pedestrians and cyclists, yielding increased economic activity without needing to inefficiently devote public spaces to private vehicles. Critics often worry that pedestrianization simply shifts traffic elsewhere. While the effects depend on local design, many cities have found that some trips disappear altogether as people switch routes, travel modes or destinations.

Pedestrianized streets are often evaluated economically, but their health benefits receive far less attention. Our recent study at Carleton University measured air and noise pollution experienced by people walking and cycling along Ottawa’s Queen Elizabeth Driveway (QED), with and without the presence of vehicles.

What we found

The QED is part of the National Capital Commission’s Bikedays program, which temporarily provides long stretches of its scenic roads to people on foot and bike. The program dates back to 1970, making it a pioneer.

However, despite extended hours during the COVID-19 era when downtown residents otherwise lacked recreational space and the adjacent pathways were overcrowded, the hours have since become restricted to daylight hours on weekends.

The QED presents a particularly enticing research opportunity because the roadway is exclusively open to pedestrians and cyclists on certain weekend hours in the summer. Accordingly, a near-perfect natural experiment allows the impact of vehicles to be measured.

We measured particulate matter and ultrafine particles (both of which are produced by cars and have numerous health consequences) and noise at 12 measurement stations along the roadway.

Traffic noise is not just the most annoying source of noise in cities; it’s affecting long-term health. Measurements along the QED from a combination of weekdays and weekends and at three times per day showed that air pollution was typically about 70 per cent higher when cars are present, while perceptible noise was about 50 per cent higher.

The presence of this noise may make the difference between being able to have a comfortable conversation and having to shout and strain to listen. Similar results were found in other studies, such as New York City’s Highline, which is an above-ground railway that has been converted to a pedestrian pathway.

Researchers found noise and air pollution were almost 40 per cent lower on the Highline relative to the street level. The impact of pollution and noise is particularly acute for stationary road users, such as diners at patios, who cannot easily move out of harm’s way.

The future of pedestrianization

Some might think that new technologies like electric vehicles will absolve vehicles of noise pollution. However, EV noise can approach the level of gas-powered vehicles — especially above about 50 kilometres an hour — due to tire noise, air turbulence and horns. And while EVs eliminate tailpipe emissions, their heavier weight results in greater tire-related particulate emissions.

The health and safety benefits of pedestrianized streets extend well beyond air pollution and noise. Without vehicles, collisions with people are virtually eliminated.

In 2023, one-quarter of the 1.2 million global road traffic deaths were pedestrians and cyclists who died after being hit by drivers. Not only are those deaths tragic, but the perceived risks prevent people from taking up cycling.

There are numerous physical and mental health benefits to walking and cycling. Ensuring that our cities have ample, pleasant and safe spaces to do so, particularly with access to amenities, would be a critical step forward for public health.

As YouTuber Jason Slaughter of the channel Not Just Bikes once said: “Cities aren’t loud; cars are loud.”

While the implementation details of pedestrianization are important, uncertainty should not be feared. Pedestrianized streets benefit people, businesses and the planet. It’s time to rethink our cities, especially the most car-centric ones.

This article was co-authored by Kabir Patel, an undergraduate student at Carleton University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Liam O’Brien receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Mitacs.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/car-free-streets-reduce-noise-and-air-pollution-more-cities-should-have-them/

Three months ago, Andy Burnham’s desk was filled with the business of running Greater Manchester. Buses. Housing. Policing. This mayoral region in the north of England is home to 3 million people and Burnham, a former minister in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has been its mayor for nearly a decade.

But after a whirlwind ten weeks, Burnham is due to travel to Buckingham Palace on July 20 to meet King Charles, who will appoint him as Britain’s next prime minister.

At the heart of Burnham’s plans for power lies Manchesterism, a political philosophy that centres on giving cities and towns outside London more political control. It’s about devolution, rooted in a sense of place, and culture. Burnham has also described it as “business-friendly socialism”.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we explore how running Greater Manchester shaped Andy Burnham’s politics with researchers Kirsty Fairclough and Philip Brown. They assess what Burnham achieved as mayor and discuss whether a philosophy designed around one city can work on a national level for the UK.

Brown, who interviewed Burnham for The Conversation in 2017, says that England is one of the most centralised countries in the world. “Almost everything like tax, housing, transport, health, they’re all controlled from the centre, from Westminster,” says Brown, a professor of housing and communities at the University of Huddersfield.

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Burnham pointed to hyper-centralisation as a root cause of England’s problems. Nearly a decade on, Brown says Burnham’s views on devolution have “hardened into a fully formed political philosophy for him”.

This episode is part of a series exploring how the northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. The series considers what has been dubbed Manchesterism might mean for the future of the UK.

Fairclough, a professor of screen studies at Manchester Metropolitan University and expert on Manchester’s culture, thinks that as mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham understood that culture was an essential part of the city and its identity. “People don’t simply vote based on economic indicators, they want to feel part of and proud of the place that they call home,” she says.

If Burnham does carry that philosophy on into national politics, she says “then I think Manchesterism becomes less about Manchester itself and about recognising that culture is fundamental infrastructure. It’s not the icing on the cake once everything else has been paid for.”

Listen to Fairclough and Brown on The Conversation Weekly podcast.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from Sky News, BBC News, Guardian News and Channel 4 News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Kirsty Fairclough is a member of the Greater Manchester Music Commission, set up by Andy Burnham. Philip Brown 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/manchester-the-city-powering-andy-burnham-the-uks-incoming-prime-minister/

A new independent film called the People’s Emergency Briefing has been screened more than 1,400 times across the country in recent months. The 50-minute documentary, hosted by TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham, reviews and critiques the UK’s handling of the climate and nature crisis. After screenings, prompts given by the local screening host facilitate conversations that encourage the audience to debate and assess action plans among themselves.

Designed to resonate with people who have tuned out of conventional climate messaging, this film stems from the national emergency briefing on climate and nature that was presented to more than 1,200 MPs and influential leaders at Westminster in November 2025.

The film’s hardest job is not making people understand the climate crisis. Agreeing there’s a problem isn’t enough to trigger tangible change. The film’s success depends on leaving viewers feeling mobilised, not passive. There is a risk that in-depth discussions replaces a meaningful emergency response.

At the four screenings we attended (in a punk rock venue, a church hall, a community centre and a university lecture theatre), audiences agreed that someone else – like another generation or politician – should be watching this. This repetition from viewers to “inform the masses” shifts the call to action from active participation to passive viewership. It’s not about what was viewed, but who was present.

This predictable response is not a failure of the film, rather an outcome of how the public reacts to this type of information. Understanding why it happens is more important than assigning blame.

Through a series of vignettes, the film guides the audience along high-level issues from various positions: ecological, health, security and economy.

Read more:
What we told UK leaders about climate and nature at a national emergency briefing

The film is designed to change behaviour. It turns a distant, unseen threat into something tangible, concrete and nearby. People respond to specific and visible stimuli, not the wide-angle abstraction of climate change. For example, the film shows a graph of spikes in carbon dioxide concentrations since the industrial revolution. This highlights how the stable climate that has allowed civilisation to flourish is quickly untangling.

There’s precedent for visualisation leading to shifts in policy promoting positive environmental action. The gruesome removal of a plastic straw from a turtle’s nose inspired retailers to switch to paper straws, a bottom-up approach which led to formalised legislation.

On a much larger scale, images of a growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica used in the media helped make an abstract chemistry problem more relatable to the public. Growing awareness of the problem led to the fastest introduction of an environmental treaty in history, the 1987 Montreal protocol, which phased out the chemicals destroying the ozone layer, putting it on a path to recovery.

People act when they have the tools to do something, a genuine chance to do it and a reason that motivates them.

The film gives people clear, digestible information about the crisis. Structured discussion that follows every screening can motivate viewers if the tone is deliberately hopeful rather than despairing.

In one example from the film, economist Angela Francis outlines the staggering financial benefits of transitioning to net zero. She highlights that the narrative of net zero’s financial burden is driven by those who stand to lose the most, the fossil fuel industry itself.

In another, Lt General Richard Nugee, reports that when farmers are economically burdened they can be recruited by terrorist organisations, which in turn effects food prices for the UK citizen. To make Britian safer, if the government improves legistation for clean energy, the country belong less reiliant on foregin oil.

The blame game

The gap between what the film encourages and what audiences actually do is a form of moral licensing. Watching the film and joining the discussion can serve as a symbolic moral act, allowing viewers to feel engaged without making real behaviour changes. People are drawn to defend approaches that are familiar to their beliefs, as these values feel more stable, safe and predictable than change.

In a climate context, this means some people justify high-impact decisions by relying on their previous eco-friendly actions.

The film shows eco-conscious parents recognising their environmental footprint and accepting extreme heat – yet they insist their own children deserve energy-intensive air conditioning. This mindset reinforces the very patterns the film aims to challenge. We need to look beyond the solutions we have always depended on, and approach the issue with a wider systematic mindset – that hinges on stopping doing what we have always done while expecting a different result.

Read more:
The UK’s year of climate U-turns exposes a deeper failure

The film suggests solutions like contacting MPs to improve environmental laws, but unintentionally shifts blame away from viewers to external entities. This displacement allows viewers to recognise their role in the crisis while implying that action lies with others, enabling them to feel somewhat accountable without compromising their sense of identity. Essentially, they think, “I am part of the solution because I am informed.”

In the screenings we attended, discussions frequently descended into debates over who should take action, resulting in a lack of personal commitments or consensus. This demonstrates that merely bringing people together does not address generational resentment. In fact, it can often intensify it. To effectively transition from talk to action, there needs to be a definitive next step that yields tangible results, rather than just good intentions.

Global action

Policy-based solutions are far more complex than shifts in personal lifestyle or community-based action. Any policy changes are often dictated by economic incentive and a tendency for short-term solutions in line with voting cycles. The Montreal protocol succeeded not because nations were concerned about the ozone layer, but because the cost-benefit lined up.

In contrast, the Kyoto protocol, a landmark treaty introduced in 1997 by the UN, stalled largely because it placed legally binding cuts to greenhouse gas emissions on developed nations but not on developing ones. This led to several major emitters dropping out of the agreement, mostly due to the perceived net loss of participation.

Meanwhile the UN’s Paris climate agreement softened the ask even more: suggesting nations volunteer pledges, on the assumption that peer pressure is a substitute for personal gain. Now, parties are falling short of even their own modest targets, with little sign that reputational pressure can close the gap.

That’s moral licensing at the treaty level: pledging substitutes for stronger commitments. At the community level, goodwill isn’t enough without structural support, like a council commitment or visible local stakes, to drive real change.

This begs the question, what can you do? To start, you should go see the film. Bring your friends, tell your neighbour and write to your MP. When the conversation starts, try exploring solutions that take you out of your comfort zone, and redirect any mention of blame towards actionable suggestions.

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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/new-climate-film-triggers-debate-heres-how-to-make-those-conversations-constructive/

Nigeria is grappling with banditry, kidnapping and insurgency amid renewed debates over community policing and the creation of state police. A Nollywood classic released more than 25 years ago remains strikingly relevant today.

Released in 1999, Issakaba was inspired by the real-life Bakassi Boys vigilante movement. It became one of Nollywood’s defining films, attracting audiences in Nigeria and across West Africa. The story centres on a community overwhelmed by violent crime and let down by an ineffective police force. When a vigilante group steps in to restore order, its success comes at the cost of operating outside the law. The film anticipated many of today’s debates about security, state authority and citizenship.

I research Nigerian theatre, film and popular culture, with a focus on how media and performance shape ideas about politics, governance and citizenship.

In my recent research on Issakaba, I analysed the film as a cultural text to examine how it represents justice, state authority and vigilantism. Rather than simply depicting crime and insecurity, the film explores the relationship between security, citizenship and the state. My analysis shows that it does more than dramatise crime fighting: it reveals how citizens negotiate legitimacy, justice and political authority when the state struggles to provide security.

My research drew on historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe’s work on power, violence and governance in postcolonial Africa. His work suggests that political authority is often fragmented and exercised through multiple centres of power rather than solely through formal state institutions. This helps explain why Issakaba portrays vigilante groups as acquiring legitimacy when the state is unable to provide security.

The film remains relevant because many of the conditions that gave rise to the Bakassi Boys persist. Across Nigeria, persistent insecurity has fuelled the emergence of vigilante groups like Amotekun, Ebube Agu and the Civilian Joint Task Force. Communities turn to these groups when they believe state security institutions have fallen short.

In many respects, the frustrations with state security that Issakaba captured in south-eastern Nigeria are now evident across other parts of the country.

Nollywood as a storyteller of governance

Nollywood is more than one of the world’s largest film industries. It is one of Africa’s most influential cultural industries. The films it produces contribute to public conversations about politics, justice and public life.

I found that Issakaba transformed the wave of armed robbery, violent crime and public distrust of the police that gripped south-eastern Nigeria in the late 1990s into a compelling political narrative. It did not present governance as an abstract concept. Instead, the film asks a practical question: who deserves public trust when the state can no longer guarantee security?

In the film, legitimacy depends less on formal authority than on performance. The vigilante heroes are portrayed as legitimate because they succeed where official institutions fail. Rather than presenting constitutional authority as the basis of legitimacy, the film suggests that governments earn public trust by protecting lives and property. Put simply, in times of crisis, people often judge governments more by whether they can provide security than by whether they possess formal authority.

Issakaba‘s appeal reflected more than its action-packed storytelling. It emerged at a time when many Nigerians were frustrated by rising insecurity and what they perceived as the failure of state security institutions. In the film, justice is presented as immediate and community-centred. The vigilante group identifies suspected criminals, acts swiftly against them, and restores order where the police have failed. At the same time, the film invites viewers to consider the ethical tension between effective security and the rule of law.

The film therefore offers an important insight into governance. Citizens judge institutions not only by their legal authority but also by their capacity to solve everyday problems. When governments are perceived as unable to provide security, alternative actors can acquire public legitimacy. This can happen even when their methods raise profound legal and ethical concerns.

My analysis also shows that Issakaba presents citizenship as an active rather than passive relationship with the state. Faced with insecurity, communities do not simply wait for government intervention. They organise, mobilise and participate in their own protection. This reflects broader realities across Nigeria and many African societies, where citizens frequently rely on collective action when public institutions appear inadequate.

At the same time, the film exposes a fundamental dilemma. If citizens lose confidence in formal institutions, should they support alternative systems of justice? The real-life history of the Bakassi Boys illustrates the risks of doing so. Human rights organisations documented allegations of torture, unlawful detention and extrajudicial killings linked to the movement. This demonstrates how groups established to protect communities can themselves become sources of abuse when accountability is absent.

Why the film still matters today

The questions raised by Issakaba remain remarkably relevant. Nigeria continues to face insecurity in many regions. Vigilante groups have emerged in response to banditry, kidnapping and communal violence. At the same time, policymakers continue to debate reforms, including the creation of state police forces under the control of individual state governments, as a way of strengthening local security.

More than 25 years after its release, Issakaba reminds us that public confidence in government depends not only on legal authority but also on the state’s ability to provide security effectively, fairly and in accordance with the rule of law. As Nigeria continues to debate policing reforms, Issakaba offers a timely reminder that security without accountability carries its own dangers.

Mark Tekena 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/16/issakaba-what-a-1999-nollywood-classic-reveals-about-nigerias-security-crisis-today/