JOY PAN/Getty When most people imagine scientists discovering new species, they probably still picture an expedition into the unknown. A naturalist travels somewhere remote, perhaps on a wooden ship, and traipses through the jungle to encounter an animal or plant never before described by science.

The intrepid explorer brings back specimens or observations to a museum, where they can be compared, named and described. There is some truth to this stereotype. Between 1854 and 1862, scientist Alfred Russel Wallace travelled through the Malay Archipelago, discovering animals and insects unknown to Western science.

This led him to the theory of evolution by natural selection, contemporaneously with Charles Darwin. Antarctica had its own era of discovery. In 1840, scientists on a French expedition encountered what we now know as Adélie penguins.

Imagine seeing penguins for the first time: strange black-and-white birds waddling over the ice, sliding on their bellies, leaping from freezing seas. Of course, “discovery” is a loaded word. Many animals and plants described by Western science were already known to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

What changed was their entry into the formal scientific naming system – the global process by which species are compared, classified and recognised. Today, scientists are still finding new life in remote places and hidden inside the DNA of animals we thought we already knew.

We still explore unknown worlds Scientists still discover species this way: by probing Earth’s nooks and crannies and travelling to remote places to study what lives there. Last year, I was onboard the scientific vessel R/V Falkor (too) in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, where one scientific team was searching for seafloor methane seeps.

These are not just geological curiosities. Methane seeps create unusual habitats that harbour strange communities of life fuelled not by sunlight, but by chemicals rising from below. Scientists have already found new microbial diversity at Antarctica’s first known active methane seep.

Not all hard-to-reach worlds are underwater. In Papua New Guinea’s Southern Fold Mountains, camera traps captured a shy, ground-dwelling bird slipping through rugged limestone forest. Scientists described it as a new species in 2025, the hooded jewel-babbler.

But there is another kind of discovery happening too. White microbial mats underwater are telltale signs of seeping methane. Andrew Thurber, CC BY-ND Hidden species in familiar animals Some species are not hidden because they live at the bottom of the sea or deep in a mountain forest.

They are hiding in plain sight. Gentoo penguins are a good example. With their bright orange bills and comic waddle, they are familiar to anyone who has visited Antarctica. To most observers, they are simply “gentoos”.

But our new research shows gentoo penguins are not one widespread species, but four. Our 2020 study first showed major genetic and physical differences between gentoo penguins from different islands. Now, using whole genomes – the complete set of genetic instructions inside an animal – and ecological modelling, we found these penguins are not just separated by distance, but have adapted to different Southern Ocean worlds.

Gentoo penguins on Cuverville Island, Antarctica. David Stanley/flickr, CC BY-ND Learning to see in higher resolution Discoveries like this are often called “hidden” species. They look very similar to their relatives, but if we study their DNA, body measurements, behaviour and ecology, it’s clear they are separate species.

Species discovery has always depended on the tools available. Early naturalists relied on what they could collect: feathers, skins, eggs and bones. These museum collections are like time machines and remain incredibly important. Today, whole genomes tell us if animals have different coding.

Ecological models show whether animals live in different environmental conditions. Mathematical approaches test whether groups are evolving independently. In other words, we are learning to see biodiversity in higher resolution. This sharper view is changing how we understand familiar animals.

For a long time, giraffes were considered one species, but genetics suggests they are four. My own work on forest birds in Madagascar found a new species of Newtonia bird. The Tapanuli orangutan is a powerful example.

This Indonesian great ape from Sumatra was described as a new species in 2017, based on genomic, anatomical and behavioural evidence. It was extraordinary to recognise a new great ape in the 21st century, and sobering to realise fewer than 800 may remain.

Again and again, the message is the same. The natural world is more complex than we know. And sometimes, by the time we recognise that complexity, a species may already be in deep trouble. The Tapanuli orangutan is a species of orangutan restricted to South Tapanuli in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

It is one of three known living species of orangutan. Prayugo Utomo/Creative Commons, CC BY Why names matter Taxonomy – the science of naming and classifying life – can sound like an old-fashioned labelling exercise. But it’s how we map life on Earth.

Conservation laws, threatened species lists and monitoring programs usually work at the species level. If several species are mistakenly treated as one, a declining species can be hidden inside a larger group that looks secure.

As we stand at the precipice of Earth’s sixth mass extinction, this has never been more important. Recognising hidden biodiversity does not solve conservation problems by itself. But it helps us ask better questions.

Which species are increasing? Which are declining? Which have not been counted for decades? These questions are urgent, because we are racing to understand biodiversity while climate change and habitat loss reshape life on Earth.

Even now, in an age of satellites and genome sequencing, Earth still has secrets. Not only in the most remote places, but in the first animals we learn to recognise as children: penguins, giraffes, orangutans.

The closer we look, the more life reveals itself.

Our task now is to keep looking and protect the richness that was there all along.

Jane Younger receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Geographic Society, Rolex, WIRES, the Marine Megafauna Research Fund, and Lindblad-National Geographic.

She is affiliated with the University of Tasmania and Senior Editor of Ecology & Evolution.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/hidden-in-plain-sight-the-race-to-discover-new-species-before-theyre-gone/

Getty Images What would attending your own wake be like? To say goodbye to the people in your life in person? What stories would you tell in your own eulogy? While still relatively uncommon, living wakes are an emerging end-of-life rite in Australia.

They may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who want to share one more cuppa before they go, they offer a final opportunity to come together. There are multiple initiatives increasing death literacy in Australia.

These include events such as Dying to Know Day, a rise in death cafes (where people can ask questions, tell stories and talk about death) and death doulas, as well as national advocacy around voluntary assisted dying.

My ongoing ethnographic research has involved extensive interviews and time spent with families and deathcare workers around Australia, particularly those involved with living wakes. My findings show people are becoming more confident and willing to discuss, plan and craft these personalised end-of-life rituals.

What is a living wake? A living wake goes by many names, and sometimes no name at all. It can be called a living funeral, a celebration of life, an “awakening”, a bon voyage party, or even a creatively personalised name such as the “Festival of Barry’s Life”.

Regardless of the name used, it is a deliberate coming together around a person who is dying, in order to say goodbye and celebrate their life.

One of my interviewee’s described why her mum wanted a living wake: she wanted to have a chance to tell her stories, and see the friends and family that she hadn’t seen […] she wanted to see everyone together again.

The late Australian radio broadcaster James Valentine held his own living wake, before his death last month. His celebration, on Valentine’s day, became part of a documentary tracing his last year. Sharing stories such as James’, as well as those of less public figures, is vital in bringing living wakes into the public imagination.

Bringing personality to end-of-life rituals Timing can be one of the challenges with a living wake. These events are typically hosted by people who have a terminal illness and are aware of their imminent death.

Many death doulas – non-medical deathcare workers who support the dying person and their families – advise that people who would like to have one should have it as early as they can, while they still feel up to it.

Voluntary assisted dying also enables the choice to include these goodbye rituals. Living wakes are part of a growing trend of ritual creativity. This includes newer ritual elements, such as coffin decorating, alongside the personalisation of familiar funerary traditions – which could be as simple as holding a memorial at the person’s favourite place.

The event may incorporate religious or cultural elements, such as prayers or cultural ritual, or may be more secular with activities that best represent the dying person, such as karaoke or ice-cream tasting. Hosts and guests at living wakes tend to have few rigid expectations, as it’s usually everyone’s first time taking part in one.

There are no guidelines, no set structure and no need for formalities. A barbeque in the backyard with the dying person’s favourite beers is as legitimate as an event with a formal celebrant and speeches.

“We made it up as we went along, really” is a common refrain from family and friends. This doesn’t make the rituals less meaningful. Rather, it creates opportunities for authentic and memorable gatherings. An Australian irreverence and practicality can sometimes colour the event with playful and unexpected flair, without denying the very real feelings of anticipatory grief.

Shared storytelling, including from the dying person, is often described as the highlight for guests: an opportunity to laugh and cry alongside each other and make new memories. Families who choose to host living wakes are often creating unique events tailored entirely around their person.

Getty Images An increasingly accepted practise Living wakes have gained traction in recent years as part of a broader shift towards more celebratory and personalised funerals that aim to offer the bereaved a goodbye that feels authentic.

As Melbourne-based death doula told me: You know, people walk away from funerals and say ‘she would have loved that’. A living wake is a chance to say instead ‘it was great that Granny was there to hear those stories and feel loved’.

My research has found only a few reported examples of living wakes in Australia before the 1980s. A scattering of events in the 1990s started to show global rising interest, and since then media reports have helped further expose these events to the general public.

That said, most living wakes go entirely unrecorded by anyone other than attendees.

With only a few deathcare professionals present, such as funeral directors and celebrants, these intimate events become stories held in the family, rather than in public archives.

Cindy Stocken receives funding from the Commonwealth through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

She is studying with University of Melbourne and the Death Tech Research Team ( https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/research/deathtech ).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/whats-a-living-wake-the-end-of-life-ritual-that-lets-you-say-goodbye-on-your-own-terms/

Research shows that some ‘distraction blocker’ apps can deepen feelings of shame and inadequacy around productivity for neurodivergent people. (Unsplash/Nubelson Fernandes) In today’s attention economy, social media platforms, entertainment apps and news feeds all compete for our focus.

Millions of people have turned to focus apps in response to help them be more productive while studying or working. Some of these apps help us manage our attention by blocking distracting apps or websites.

Whether it’s growing a virtual tree in Forest or locking down social media with Apple Screen Time, these apps promise to help us “regain control.” Unfortunately, if you’re neurodivergent, these digital distraction blockers may actually make you feel worse about yourself, according to our recent research at the University of British Columbia.

Inflexible designs Neurodivergent individuals, who make up an estimated 10 to 20 per cent of the Canadian population, are people whose brains work differently than most. They have conditions that include attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

For post-secondary students, this percentage is likely higher, as fewer than half choose to disclose their neurodivergence — meaning these focus apps fail to support a significant population of users, including many who may benefit from them most.

While distraction blockers aim to help, we found that their inflexible designs often clash with the ways neurodivergent individuals think and focus. These apps fail to consider their distinct strengths, like hyperfocus, and can unintentionally deepen feelings of shame and inadequacy around their ability to be productive.

The researchers interviewed 27 neurodivergent post-secondary students in Canada and the United States who regularly use digital distraction blockers, such as Forest (pictured above), Freedom and Apple Screen Time. (Forest) Focus isn’t a faucet Most distraction blockers assume there’s one “right” way to focus: set a fixed amount of time where distractions are blocked, sit still and immediately get to work until time’s up.

For example, the popular Pomodoro Technique encourages people to work in uninterrupted, distraction-free 25-minute blocks. However, for many of the 27 neurodivergent students we interviewed, focus doesn’t work like a faucet that can simply be turned on and off.

Neurodivergent individuals may struggle with organizing and carrying out tasks (executive dysfunction), sensing the passage of time (time blindness) or feeling overwhelmed by busy environments (sensory overstimulation) — all of which can make starting tasks and entering a state of focus particularly challenging.

At the same time, some students with ADHD described entering rare and hard-won states of hyperfocus that can take longer than the commonly assumed 25-minute focus block to reach. A few students with anxiety shared that focus timers cause stress rather than soothe it.

Digital stimming Perhaps our most surprising finding was that some neurodivergent students intentionally turn off their blockers to look at distractions.

Distraction blocker apps could be redesigned to empower neurodivergent students. (Unsplash/Sanket Mishra) While a neurotypical perspective might view this as a failure of willpower, for our research participants it was a vital self-regulation strategy.

We refer to this alternative pathway to focus as “digital stimming.” Inspired by the repetitive, soothing behaviours known as stimming often seen in neurodivergent communities, digital stimming involves engaging with familiar, predictable digital content, like a favourite YouTube clip or social media feed, to manage cognitive overload and ease transitions into difficult tasks.

But turning off blockers comes with a catch: the same content that was supposed to soothe can just as easily lead to doomscrolling. Existing distraction blockers offer no support for a middle ground. The shame of a ‘crutch’ These frictions with their blockers remind neurodivergent students of how differently their minds work.

Several of our research participants said they often feel shame when using distraction blockers, especially when they don’t meet their own standards for productivity or when they compare themselves against others. One participant told us that the amount of time they could stay focused in apps like Forest became a shameful point of comparison.

Others worry about becoming dependent on blockers, like a “crutch,” and asked if they have to use these apps “for the rest of their lives,” reinforcing their feelings of inadequacy. Empowering designs If we want distraction blockers to truly include and empower all users, we need to move away from the all-or-nothing approach of current tools.

Our findings suggest three ways to re-imagine future distraction blockers: 1. Support curated digital stimming: Blockers could provide familiar, soothing content that fits neatly into a set amount of time for digital stimming, helping users settle their minds without falling into doomscrolling.

2. Use task-based rules over timers: Distractions could be blocked until a specific goal is met (for example, “until I write two pages”) rather than setting arbitrary time limits for focus. 3. Use scaffolds, not crutches: Blockers could be framed as a way to build personalized growth and self-acceptance through affirming language that normalizes fluctuating focus.

Focus apps are currently designed as if everyone’s minds should work the same way, but they fail to help neurodivergent people. Focus apps should adapt to us, not the other way around. With better designed tools, we can empower people to focus without making them feel guilty for needing support.

Marvel Hariadi, an undergraduate student in business and computer science at the University of British Columbia, co-authored this article.

Joanna McGrenere receives funding from NSERC.

Kevin Chow completed this research as a PhD candidate at UBC, where he received funding in the form of a 4YF (Four Year Doctoral Fellowship).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/focus-apps-are-failing-neurodivergent-minds-new-research-finds/

The northern resident orca is one of the species threatened by major infrastructure development in Canada. (Unsplash/Thomas Lipke) The federal government recently released “Getting Major Projects Built in Canada,” a discussion paper proposing to fast-track major infrastructure developments.

The paper comes less than two months after A Force of Nature, the government’s new .8-billion strategy committing to protect 30 per cent of Canada’s lands and waters by 2030. The dissonance between the two is striking.

A Force of Nature aims to protect ecosystems and wildlife for the betterment of Canada. In contrast, the reforms proposed in “Getting Major Projects Built” could threaten natural environments, species-at-risk and human health for generations.

One proposal in the discussion paper is the creation of “federal economic zones,” in which environmental impact assessments would not be required. For others outside these zones, construction could begin before assessments are complete. But impact assessments are not red tape.

Their entire purpose is to prevent irreversible harm. Circumventing the process, or allowing shovels in the ground before the risks are understood, is misguided and a gamble with our collective future. As leaders of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution — a non-partisan society of nearly 1,000 ecologists and evolutionary biologists — we believe Canadians need to understand what is at stake.

Gambling with Canada’s endangered species The woodland caribou is federally protected under the Species At Risk Act and under the Canada National Parks Act.

It’s also provincially protected in Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories and Alberta. (Flickr/beezart), CC BY-NC-ND Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) contains a legal requirement known as the jeopardy test.

Before a major project can proceed, it must be demonstrated that the project will not push a listed species closer to extinction or prevent its recovery. Under the government’s new proposal, specific projects would be exempt from the jeopardy test.

This would remove one of Canada’s very few legally binding safeguards for endangered species. Canada has more than 600 SARA-listed species. Some of the most iconic ones are directly in the path of projects now being fast-tracked.

Take the northern resident orca, which ranges through B.C.’s northern waters. With under 500 individuals remaining, the species is listed as threatened under SARA. Both the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project and the LNG Canada expansion at Kitimat would increase shipping traffic, noise pollution and the risk of an oil spill within the orca habitat.

In Ontario, the Crawford Nickel Mine north of Timmins is slated to destroy 11,785 hectares of legally-designated habitat critical for threatened woodland caribou. Habitat loss and disturbance are the primary reasons woodland caribou are declining. A 2024 federal government report found that caribou habitats across Canada have declined since 2017.

Irreversible harms could become routine Montréal’s Contrecoeur port expansion project on the St. Lawrence River provides a stark example of the type of environmental destruction the government’s proposed fast-tracking could normalize. The copper redhorse, a freshwater fish found only in Québec, is one of Canada’s rarest species and has a legally-designated critical habitat in the port expansion zone.

The project will destroy part of the species’ habitat. The federal government authorized this destruction. As compensation, they proposed the creation of a seagrass bed.

However, scientists from Québec’s Ministry of Environment have said that this is “not a proven method and that compensation for this type of habitat remains experimental.” The federal government’s discussion paper signals that fast-tracking major projects will require increased reliance on such fish habitat offsetting.

But the science shows offsetting has a poor track record in Canada. Monitoring for offset fish habitats is often inadequate. Even when offsetting works, there are often substantial delays between when a vulnerable species’ habitat is destroyed and when compensatory habitat becomes functional.

The cumulative effect of many losses adds up to harms to fisheries that communities, Indigenous Peoples and wildlife all depend upon. Communities at risk Environmental assessments do more than protect wildlife. They are also how Canada’s rural, Northern and Indigenous communities learn about risks to their drinking water, air quality, and the ecosystems that underpin their food security and cultural practices.

Past projects approved without adequate assessments have poisoned the air, waters and soils of our country. As of May 2026, 39 active long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in 37 Indigenous communities, and over 24,000 contaminated sites on federally-owned land.

Removing assessment requirements for projects, or short-circuiting their procedures, places local communities and their environments at risk. These impacts will disproportionately affect Indigenous Peoples, who already bear the brunt of toxic soils and waters. Building better We are in favour of building new infrastructure.

The need to transition towards a clean energy future demands investment in new infrastructure. However, the way to do it is not to hollow out the scientific processes designed to safeguard communities and the environment.

Impact assessments can be better co-ordinated. Agencies can be better funded. Indigenous communities can — and must — be engaged earlier. The path to faster, better decisions requires investment in science and in people, not compressing timelines to the point that assessments become meaningless.

The Force of Nature strategy commits to “building Canada well” and ensuring that industrial development complements the conservation of Canada’s rich biological diversity and wild spaces. These are not only Canada’s natural heritage but some of its greatest resources and future assets.

The major projects discussion paper is not consistent with that commitment. Allowing construction before thorough assessments are completed, permitting development on endangered species’ critical habitats and substituting real habitat protection with offsets, will not build Canada well.

It will build Canada at the expense of safeguarding communities and the environment. It will risk species extinctions, and it could cause irreparable harm to the health and well-being of many communities across Canada.

The government should require impact assessments for all major infrastructure projects, commit to maintaining the jeopardy test under SARA for all such projects, reject any framework permitting construction before assessments are finalized, and abandon expanded reliance on fish habitat offsetting as a substitute for habitat protection.

What Canada builds in the next decade will determine this country’s natural inheritance for generations. Let’s get it right.

Julia K. Baum receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Mitacs, Oceans North, and World Wildlife Fund Canada.

She serves as Special Advisor, Climate for the University of Victoria and on the Board of Directors for the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC).

She is the President of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution

Marc Johnson receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Canada Research Chair Program.

He is co-founder and past Chair of the Board of Support Our Science. He is the Vice-President and President-Elect of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.

Sarah Otto receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

She volunteers as Director of the Liber Ero Post-doctoral program in conservation science and on the Advisory Council of The Nature Trust of British Columbia, the Board of the Sitka Foundation, and the Board of the Liber Ero Foundation.

She is the Vice President elect of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/canadas-major-projects-should-not-come-at-the-cost-of-the-environment/

It’s been roughly six years since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a global conversation about anti-Black police violence and the excessive use of police force against Black and Indigenous communities. Around the same time, in Toronto, the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet — who fell from the balcony of an apartment while police officers were present — elicited outrage in Canada.

But police violence — shootings and beatings resulting in serious injury, and sometimes even the death of civilians — has been an ongoing issue in Canada, particularly during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The shootings of Lester Donaldson (1988), Michael Wade Lawson (1988) and Raymond Lawrence (1992), to name a few, spurred community uprisings in the form of protests and political disruptions that eventually led to the 1995 report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System.

More than 30 years later, however, we know police institutions continue to use force disproportionately when interacting with Black, Indigenous and other racialized residents in Ontario. Following the numbers We have information about this topic because the 2017 Ontario Anti-Racism Act requires all public institutions, such as police services, to collect and release race-based data to address systemic racism.

A 2020 report by the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre found that despite making up only about 19 per cent of Hamilton’s population, roughly 38 per cent of use-of-force incidents in the region involved at least one racialized person.

In the last five years, as a Black diaspora studies scholar, I have been working with a team of community leaders and researchers in Hamilton, including McMaster University social work associate professor Ameil Joseph, and community organizations such as the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre and the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion — to address the over-representation of Black, Indigenous and racialized populations in the use-of-force data.

Eventually, we expanded the analysis of use-of-force data to other cities and regions in Ontario. We analyzed data from the Solicitor General’s website and created a preliminary analysis of information from 17 cities and regions in Ontario.

A province-wide pattern In her book Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, abolition scholar at the University of Toronto-Scarborough Robyn Maynard explains that Black communities are associated with criminality in public spaces and interactions with police officers.

She traces this to historical slave patrols, a legacy she connects to the current deaths of Black men, women and Indigenous Peoples when interacting with police officers. We developed snapshots for Ontario cities revealing that in Thunder Bay, Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Brantford, Windsor, Sault Ste.

Marie, Barrie, Guelph, Peel Region, Waterloo Region, York Region, Durham Region, Halton Region, Niagara Region and for the Ontario Provincial Police, Black, Indigenous and racialized communities are over-represented in use-of-force data while making up a small portion of the overall population.

Read more: Force is no substitute for social justice, so let’s dismantle the police In Thunder Bay, 71.9 per cent of all women and girls who had force used against them were Indigenous, as were 46.6 per cent of all individuals who had force used against them, according to the 2021 census.

The Indigenous population makes up 15 per cent of the overall population in Thunder Bay. Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people have gone missing or have been murdered in Thunder Bay for many years, with the local police service failing to solve several of these cases.

Demographic information such as age, race and gender explains the impact of use-of-force against Black, Indigenous and racialized communities. It honours the historical struggle of speaking up against police brutality and systemic racism in policing.

In Toronto, 83 per cent of all boys, 17 and younger, who had force used against them were Black or Middle Eastern. Thirty-nine per cent of use-of-force incidents involved members of the Black community, although they account for only 9.6 per cent of the overall population.

In the Durham Region, 67.2 per cent of all youth, 17 and younger, who had force used against them were Black, and yet the Black population accounts for 9.5 per cent of the overall population. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has documented these realities in the anti-Black racism by the Toronto Police Service report.

Between 2013 and 2017, a Black person in Toronto was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be involved in a fatal shooting by the Toronto Police Service. These disparities are systemic and widespread. In Windsor, 26.5 per cent of all individuals who had force used against them were Black, yet the Black population makes up about four per cent of the overall population.

In Ottawa, 22 per cent of all individuals who had force used against them were Black — 41.2 per cent of men aged 18 to 24 — yet the Black population accounts for 8.3 per cent of the overall population. In Hamilton, Erixon Kabera died in 2024 after Hamilton police officers responding to a call in his building fired 24 shots at him, striking him eight times.

From research to resistance With this research, we hope to provide Black and Indigenous communities with data to enhance their advocacy efforts in addressing systemic racism in policing. We also aim to educate the public on the adverse effects of police brutality in use-of-force interactions.

In July 2025, when I spoke about my findings on CBC’s Ontario Today and Superior Morning radio programs, Indigenous and Black community members called in to share harrowing experiences of their interactions with police officers.

Sharing these stories publicly is part of the continual struggle against police brutality.

It is a way of building solidarity, connecting historical struggles to current realities and making sure community members and organizations who have raised concerns about excessive use of force are central to developing interventions, solutions and paths to liberation.

Kojo Damptey ran for the Ontario New Democratic Party as a candidate in February of 2025.

Kojo Damptey received a grant from the Centre of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto for this research project on use of force in Ontario. https://www.crimsl.utoronto.ca/news/csri-announces-support-four-projects

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/an-unfinished-reckoning-with-police-violence-community-data-shows-ongoing-systemic-racism/

fizkes/Shutterstock Spend ten minutes talking to a soon-to-be graduate about their job search and you might come away convinced that a university degree has become a confidence trick. The class of 2025 spent the better part of a year sending hundreds of applications for a handful of replies.

The class of 2026 is now graduating into the same market and reporting similar experiences. Employers have warned of falls in entry-level hiring. The recent British Social Attitudes survey has found that a third of people surveyed thought that a degree “just isn’t worth the amount of time and money”.

The numbers do nothing to soften the picture. Youth unemployment among 16-to-24-year-olds reached 16.2% in the first quarter of 2026, the highest in more than a decade. Graduate hiring fell 8% from 2024 to 2025, the weakest year since the pandemic.

Employers are fielding an average of 140 applications for every vacancy, according to the Institute of Student Employers’ 2025 student recruitment survey.

The recent independent review for the Department for Work and Pensions counted nearly a million young people – about one in eight – as Neet (not in education, employment or training), and warned the figure could pass 1.25 million within five years.

For a young person sending CV after CV into the void, hearing that “it still pays to go to university” may sound, to put it mildly, unconvincing. But two things are happening at once. The level of graduate hiring has fallen sharply: fewer openings, longer searches, more graduates taking jobs below their qualification.

The relative benefit of a degree in securing work has held. That matters most in a downturn.

The value of a degree in finding work This is not a claim that the experience of looking for a graduate job is anything other than miserable right now, or that the misery is imagined.

It plainly is not. But the experience of the job search and the objective value of a university qualification are different things. The employment benefit of a degree is large. This is evident when comparing young graduates against young non-graduates entering the same labour market at the same time.

The most recent Graduate Outcomes survey tracked the 2022-23 leavers 15 months out, into the autumn of 2024. Their unemployment rate had crept up to 6%. Grim enough. But the Department for Education’s graduate labour market statistics for 2024 allows us to compare unemployment between graduates and their non-graduate peers of the same age.

Among 21- to 30-year-olds, graduate unemployment stood at 5.5%, against 8.1% for non-graduates, the latter at its highest since 2015. Even as the market softened, a young graduate was around a third less likely to be unemployed than a non-graduate the same age.

The degree did not fully insulate this cohort from a bad jobs market. It reduced their exposure by about a third — which is remarkable, and the key lesson to hold on to in this discussion.

A degree is often worth most when the market is worst: it helps you most exactly when you need it most. The relative benefit of a degree in securing work has held. Lee Charlie/Shutterstock The recent independent report on young people and work for the government has found that good qualifications remain one of the best defences against labour market detachment.

According to the interim report, most graduates who fall out of work are out only briefly: 57% of those not in education, employment or training have been out for under a year, against just 16% of those with no qualifications.

Lifetime financial benefit A degree is a 40-year asset bought at 21, and the market a graduate steps into at 22 is not the one they will work in at 40. When researchers modelled graduates’ earnings across the whole working life, they found the return is back-loaded.

The pre-tax salary advantage for men rises from around 5% more than those without a degree at 30 to more than 30% by 40, and keeps widening into the mid-40s. For women it starts higher — about 25% at 30 — and climbs above 40% by 40 before declining to 30–35% later in their careers.

Read more: Why a ‘rip-off’ degree might be worth the money after all – research study The raw lifetime earnings difference between graduates and non-graduates is about £430,000 for men and £260,000 for women.

Adjust for the fact that university-goers tend to start with stronger prior attainment and more advantaged backgrounds, then net off tax and loan repayments, and the gain settles at roughly £130,000 and £100,000 — around a fifth more over a career.

Substantial, but not a fortune. And it is an average, not a promise.

The same study estimates that about one in five graduates would have been better off financially had they not gone to university, with the weakest returns in subjects like creative arts and social care and the strongest in medicine, economics and law.

A degree improves your odds; it does not assure them. What’s more, when you graduate matters, not just whether you graduate.

Enter the labour market in a downturn and the first job, too often one that doesn’t recognise the value of your degree, tends to stick: graduates who start out underemployed are roughly three times as likely to still be underemployed three and a half years later.

A degree improves the odds of working, but it doesn’t guarantee the right work. Much of this will be cold comfort to the soon-to-be graduate sending off application number 200. The case for university was never that graduation guarantees a smooth landing, still less a windfall.

But even now – especially now – the odds still favour going to university.

Sean Brophy 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/2026/06/03/the-graduate-job-market-is-grim-right-now-but-the-data-says-university-is-still-worth-it/

A chimpanzee sits in the Pongoland enclosure at Leipzig Zoo, where a huge amount of research has been conducted since 2004. Marco Warm/Shutterstock Leipzig Zoo in central Germany is a world-leading centre of great ape research.

Recent studies have seen chimpanzees there using touchscreen controls to navigate virtual forests and locate food rewards – applying similar techniques to what they would use in the wild. Other research (of which I was part) has investigated chimpanzees’ social curiosity.

We discovered they actively seek out information about others’ interactions, even if it means forgoing food rewards. Keeping track of their peers’ latest social developments appears central to these great apes’ social wellbeing. But in my decade working with Leipzig Zoo’s chimpanzees and bonobos, one question came up repeatedly.

Were differences in how each great ape would cooperate and resolve conflicts simply down to its mood on a particular day? Or were there longer-term explanations – deep-rooted personality traits, for example, or their relationship history with other apes?

Long-term questions like this are very difficult to tackle in single studies, which often draw on just a handful of participants. So, my colleagues and I have developed EVApeCognition: a standardised database of 18 years’ worth of great ape experiences, decisions and relationships.

This lays the groundwork for answering many more questions about these extraordinary creatures’ cognition, intelligence and social behaviour. If a bonobo showed striking generosity towards a partner in 2008, for example, we can piece together whether that behaviour was linked with their stable disposition, a particular relationship, or some other factor.

Changing how we study great apes In all, EVApeCognition comprises 262 experimental datasets from 150 scientific publications between 2004 and 2021. These were all overseen by the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre, headquartered at Leipzig Zoo. Eighty-one great apes participated in these studies, with the vast majority (78) taking part in more than one.

These wide-ranging social cognition studies have assessed how great apes think about other apes, how they cooperate, and to what extent they are motivated to help their peers. But there have been limitations to this research.

Larger-group studies of chimpanzees and other great apes may prove more relevant to their behaviour in the wild. The Otters/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA In the wild, great apes are social animals who live in stable groups with histories, hierarchies and relationships that change over time.

In contrast, a large majority of the studies in our database were with apes in pairs that imposed strict control conditions. So, moving to larger-group studies could offer a more ecologically relevant window on their cognition and social behaviour.

Group settings can present apes with different problems that map more closely on to the social challenges they face every day in the wild. Our most recent study, led by Kirsten Sutherland at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, found that great ape quartets maintained access to a pool of yoghurt for significantly longer than pairs did.

Social tolerance played a key role, with more tolerant quartets maintaining access to the yoghurt for longer periods. We found that cooperation was strongest when the highest-ranking individual showed restraint, emphasising the importance of tolerant leadership.

The new database also highlights an imbalance running through captive great ape research: chimpanzees dominate the record, while bonobos, gorillas and orangutans remain comparatively underrepresented. Bonobos – which, unlike chimpanzees, are known to cooperate in the wild outside the limits of their group’s territory – would be particularly compelling subjects for this research shift towards studying larger groups.

Closing the gap with wild settings Experimental performance does not occur in a social vacuum.

A great ape’s willingness to cooperate on a task on a given Tuesday may not only reflect its intelligence, but whether it groomed its partner that morning, or if its status had changed within the group.

Providing this context is essential to understanding how everyday experience and social relations shape their cognitive development. Fortunately, the field is moving in promising directions, with the EVApeCognition database one piece of a larger picture.

The global ManyPrimates project, established in 2017, has already produced the most comprehensive overview of primate short-term memory. This shows that genetic lineage has played a larger role than ecology or sociality in the evolution of their short-term memory.

At the level of higher-order reasoning, we now know that chimpanzees update their beliefs by considering all sources of information before making a choice. A 2025 study showed they remained committed to an initial belief when counter-evidence was weaker, but revised this when the supporting evidence became stronger – a pattern long thought to be distinctly human.

Perhaps most ambitiously, the divide between captive and wild settings is also beginning to close. Research led by Sofie Forss at the University of Zurich, for example, has found a systematic “captivity effect” when presenting the same new stimuli to both wild and captive orangutans.

The wild individuals responded far more cautiously to novelty than their zoo-housed counterparts.

Taken together, these efforts point in a common direction: toward an understanding of great ape cognition that is at once broader in scope, richer in context, and more faithful to the complexity of their social lives.

Alejandro Sánchez-Amaro 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/2026/06/03/great-apes-what-we-know-about-their-cognition-cooperation-and-curiosity-after-two-decades-of-research/

In most multilingual African countries, language policy is a highly charged and controversial issue. It touches on regional identity, religion and political power – as is evident in Chad, in central Africa. Around 130 languages are spoken in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Chad.

The two official languages are Standard Arabic and French. Neither has its origins in the country and neither is the mother tongue of the majority of the population. Arabic has shaped the identity of most ethnic groups in northern Chad for several centuries, while French has done so for just under a century, primarily in southern Chad.

Having studied ethnic and religious conflicts in Chad for some time, I can suggest why the country’s new approach to language in education is not just about what happens in schools. The new education minister, Mahamat-Ahmat Alhabo, issued a circular in April 2026 demanding that, from the coming school year onwards, Standard Arabic be granted the same status as French as language of instruction and examination.

This circular sheds light on the political situation in Chad, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, the immediate granting of equal status to both languages suggests a deliberate effort to promote the Arabic-speaking economic and political elite.

This comes at the expense of the Francophone population, from whom most of the political opposition originates.

It also reflects an ongoing shift away from the former colonial power, France, and an attempt by the current regime under Mahamat Déby to forge closer ties with the Arab world, particularly the United Arab Emirates.

Arabic and French: Islamisation and the colonial legacy Arabic and French have different historical roots in the country. It is believed that Arabic reached the north of what is now Chad as part of the Islamisation process between the 8th and 11th centuries.

As in other countries, alongside Standard Arabic, a distinct colloquial language known as Chadian Arabic has developed, enhanced by vocabulary from regional local languages. Today, Standard Arabic is the language in which the Qur’an is taught and recited.

It is spoken by a small, predominantly Muslim, educated wealthy elite with close links with Arabic-speaking countries, often through temporary migration for study or work. The majority of those who would call themselves Arabophone generally speak the local Chadian Arabic.

French colonial rule from 1900 to 1960 established French as the language of worship and instruction in the southern regions of the country. Employment in the colonial administration required knowledge of French. The southern part of Chad embraced the French language more.

However, the Islamised north largely rejected it and relied on its own schools instead. Chadian Arabic and French now serve as two lingua francas nationwide, especially in urban centres. However, they continue to represent different origins and religions: Muslims from the north and Christians from the south.

There are also political power dynamics: part of the Arabophone Muslim elite has held power for more than 40 years. Bilingualism: requirement and challenge Like many other states, independent Chad adopted the French education system and French as the official language under the leadership of its Francophone president, Ngarta Tombalbaye.

Although Arabic was recognised as a national language in 1962, French remained the sole official language of administration and education. Consequently, in the first decades following independence, the civil service and political power were dominated by a French-speaking elite.

After years of civil war, in 1978 power was transferred from the predominantly Christian south to the predominantly Islamic north. This was evident in the agreement to recognise Arabic as a second official language.

President Félix Malloum, who had only been in power for a few months, agreed with his prime minister, Hissène Habré, who would rule Chad with brutal force from 1982 to 1990, that Arabic should also be included in the constitution.

Following Idriss Déby’s seizure of power in 1990, the 1993 National Conference sought to establish a path towards democratic development in a unified Chad. The conference addressed the issue of language. However, the debate was no longer focused on Arabic or French.

Delegates from across the country agreed that the goal should be bilingualism. The question was: Standard Arabic or local Chadian Arabic? Standard Arabic was chosen. This presented an insurmountable challenge to the already poor education system for the coming decades.

There was, and still is, a severe shortage of Arabic teachers and educational materials. Consequently, few lessons took place, resulting in a low level of Arabic proficiency in state schools. Even universities where courses are taught in Arabic complain that they have to start with basic literacy.

Bilingualism in Chad’s schools is still a long way off. Furthermore, a large proportion of the Francophone population viewed Standard Arabic as a tool of political oppression and refused to learn it. Language as a political and economic force According to the circular, Standard Arabic is to be taught from the next academic year onwards with the same number of teaching hours as French.

It will also become an exam subject for the final school leaving exam with immediate effect. This will only benefit the children of the elite. They enhance their language skills by studying at the growing number of private schools that offer high-quality Arabic lessons or by studying abroad.

In practice, the groups that gained their wealth under Idriss Deby’s rule will retain their influence and status. By contrast, the Francophone former elite will be politically and economically marginalised. Conclusion The shift to Standard Arabic reflects the current direction of Chad’s foreign policy.

The country has ended its military cooperation with France and is seeking closer ties with the Middle East, particularly with the United Arab Emirates. Since Idriss Déby’s death, the Emirates have stepped in on several occasions to provide generous financial support.

But it’s come with conditions, such as Chad supporting Hemedti in neighbouring Sudan’s civil war, which risks involving Chad in the conflict. In summary, the language policy of the Chadian regime is not without risk.

Excluding a large part of the population from hopes of a better future could lead to conflicts that cannot be resolved peacefully.

Helga Dickow 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/2026/06/03/chad-is-making-arabic-equal-to-french-in-schools-the-politics-behind-the-move/

South African teacher education qualifications are expected to comply with the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications. But evidence points to gaps in teacher competence and the quality of instruction. Many students who enrol for teaching at South African universities have lower grade 12 results than those studying other degrees.

This means universities need to provide support and a good foundation for them to develop as teachers.

Zayd Waghid and Yohana William’s book Preparedness to Teach draws on research between 2015 and 2018 into pre-service teachers’ beliefs, motivations and professional identities, and offers some ideas (which Prof Waghid sets out here) about improving teacher training.

Their study involved 324 student teachers – 212 in first year and 112 in fourth year – from two historically disadvantaged universities in South Africa. The research is still relevant today as it captured the formation and development of student teachers’ beliefs, motivations and professional identities over time.

What have you identified as the problems? First, there is a persistent gap between the theoretical knowledge taught at universities and its practical application in schools. Teacher education curricula generally focus on what to teach, how to teach (including using basic tools), learning through teaching practice, and being aware of the conditions in schools.

However, many student teachers still feel unprepared to deal with classroom realities and the wider societal conditions that shape teaching. This disconnect can leave them disempowered in schools. One of the student teachers we interviewed noted that although modern teaching approaches were taught at university, these were not always accepted in certain government schools.

Secondly, there are challenges of language and multilingualism in diverse classroom contexts. The Language in Education Policy promotes multilingualism and affirms learners’ rights to access education through the official languages in South Africa. But teacher education programmes have been criticised for inadequately preparing student teachers to develop learners’ reading abilities in their home languages.

And research shows that African children are most disadvantaged when they do not develop a strong foundation in their mother tongue and are taught in another language. Thirdly, the power imbalance between universities and schools means that teacher education curricula are designed without consulting current teachers in schools.

This has certain implications for the way future teachers are prepared for schools. The book argues that this model works against genuine, mutual co-creation of knowledge. Fourth, heavy workloads, large classes, learner discipline, weak parental support and limited school resources can weaken motivation and confidence among student teachers.

By the fourth year, most student teachers in the study saw teaching as stressful: 76% at one university and 85% at the other agreed or strongly agreed. Why do these problems matter? These shortcomings and challenges can be expected to have an impact on the quality of primary education, which is critical for both individual and societal development.

Addressing these issues is vital for transforming an education system shaped by historical inequality, into one that is more equitable, capable of preparing, supporting and retaining high-quality teachers. The number of graduates studying teaching increased by more than 200% over the ten years between 2011/12 and 2020/21.

How do you fix them? Teacher education should not simply focus on delivering content. It must also help future teachers connect what they learn at university with the real challenges they will face in classrooms.

Teacher education programmes must better prepare teachers for multilingual classrooms. This means moving away from the idea that teaching happens in only one language. It means promoting learners’ different languages as a resource for inclusion and learning even if it creates some discomfort.

While one cannot be an expert in multiple languages, technology does help here. Universities, schools and communities must work together as an ecosystem in designing teacher education curricula. This will help ensure that teacher training responds to the real social, political and economic conditions of the communities that schools serve.

It’s been done before, for example in a study involving a New Zealand university and three schools. In practice, it means that teacher educators and school staff co-teach in schools, and share practices and resources with the idea of making university content more practical and relevant.

The book argues that wider changes are needed to restore dignity to the teaching profession. This means improving teachers’ salaries, providing schools with better resources, and reducing heavy workloads. In its 2026 national budget, the South African government allocated R358.556 billion (over US$21 billion) to public schooling, teacher salaries, school operations, nutrition, infrastructure and early childhood development.

Education received the largest portion of the budget for spending (23%). However, the question around whether existing resources are used effectively to support teachers in difficult classroom contexts remains vital. Teacher education improves when institutions care about student teachers’ well-being and confidence.

Student teachers need to feel safe, supported, and able to cope emotionally throughout their training. In practice, this means establishing a community of practice to build caring relationships. It can happen by recognising their struggles, creating a sense of belonging, and using innovative ways of keeping them connected, while building their confidence.

In a full-time Bachelor of Education programme in South Africa, student teachers must spend a minimum of 20 and maximum of 32 weeks in teaching practice in schools.

What we found in the study, was that one student teacher’s positive experience during teaching practice helped her “fall in love” with teaching and strengthened her sense that she was prepared to become a teacher.

Teaching practice was a turning point in shaping her identity as a teacher – which is a useful insight. Mentorship is vital in helping student teachers build confidence and commitment during teaching practice.

This is why regular feedback between universities and in-service teachers as mentors during and after teaching practice is critical in further strengthening student teachers’ experiences.

Zayd Waghid is the DSTI/NRF SARChI Chair: Transformative Education, Social Justice and Innovation in the Faculty of Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/student-teachers-in-south-africa-face-a-stressful-career-how-to-prepare-them-better/

Bilateral aid to Africa fell by nearly a quarter in 2025, the largest annual decline in the history of official development assistance. Meanwhile, sovereign debt interest payments now consume on average 27% of government revenues across the continent, up from 19% in 2019.

The pressure to fund development from within has never been greater. But meeting it requires African governments to understand their own economies with precision: which tax policies work, which incentives serve their purpose, how fiscal decisions distribute their consequences.

Administrative tax data, the anonymised filings, returns and transaction records generated through the tax system that African revenue authorities already hold, is one of the most powerful tools for answering those questions. South Africa, Uganda and Zambia have built the means to use it, and what they are finding is shaping how they govern.

Each has established a secure research data lab where researchers work with anonymised tax records under strict confidentiality protocols. All three were developed with support from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER).

It provides technical expertise and facilitates knowledge-sharing across countries, while ensuring that the data, the research agenda and the findings are retained by the institutions that use them. We have been part of that support, from the establishment of the labs and making raw administrative data research-ready, to facilitating partnerships and ensuring findings reach the people placed to act on them.

What these data labs are producing is evidence that has fed into solutions including tax policy reform, budget decisions, labour market programmes and social protection. It can deepen how governments understand the economies they are responsible for, and the people within them.

From research findings to decision In South Africa, the National Treasury Secure Data Facility, the cornerstone of the Southern Africa Towards Inclusive Economic Development programme, has been doing this work for over a decade. The cumulative impact reflects that longevity.

The data has repeatedly illuminated how the economy works, often differently from how policy expected. Findings have shaped a number of decisions. For example: Research revealed that the corporate tax system was quietly favouring debt over equity financing.

This was nudging firms to borrow more than they otherwise would, making companies and the economy more fragile in downturns. This informed corporate tax restructuring in Budget 2020. Analysis of the Employment Tax Incentive, a wage subsidy for young workers in a country where nearly 60% cannot find work, revealed a more complicated picture of impact than its designers had anticipated.

This informed a decision to expand the subsidy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research which describes how much economic activity increases when the government raises spending or cuts taxes emphasised the importance of growth-oriented investments such as infrastructure, education, or public health.

Analysis of behavioural patterns at tax thresholds provided evidence for designing fairer policies that reduce avoidance and broaden the tax base. Similarly, in Kampala, Uganda’s commercial capital, adjustments were made to policies based on the use of the data.

Research conducted through the Uganda Revenue Authority’s secure data lab found that fewer than 15% of firms were paying both national corporate income tax and the local trade licence fee. The gap had existed for years.

It had simply never been quantifiable before. Separate research revealed that corporate tax incentives were costing approximately US million in forgone revenue. More than half of the benefiting firms likely remained profitable at the full statutory rate of 30%.

An incentive regime designed to attract investment was, in measurable terms, more generous than the investment required. For policymakers, findings like these do not simply describe a problem. They reframe it. The questions have shifted from how to collect more revenue to where the system is working against itself, and what can be changed.

Some examples from Zambia: Tax gap research estimated the country’s compliance gap at between 47% and 56%. This helped quantify, for the first time, where revenue was being lost and how audit resources could be better targeted.

The findings fed directly into the 2026 budget. The government’s audit strategy was reshaped. And the findings informed the deliberations of the Tax Policy Review Committee. Separately, research on VAT administration uncovered a structural inefficiency: large firms generating simultaneous liabilities and credits on the same accounts, a circular flow consuming administrative effort without producing revenue.

This was invisible without transaction-level data. When it was identified, the problem was corrected. From a number to a life Statistics, even compelling ones, exist in abstraction. What brings them to reality is the chain of consequences, from research finding, to decision, to the life that decision shapes.

Zambia’s domestic revenue contribution to the national budget is rising from 55.7% in 2020 to a planned 73.1% in 2026. This reflects fiscal decisions made with increasing precision and confidence, in a country that now has the tools to interrogate its own tax system rather than rely on external assessments of it.

That stronger revenue base has also made possible a free education initiative that has brought approximately 2.3 million children who were previously out of school back into classrooms. A research lab did not put those children there.

Evidence-informed fiscal policy did. South Africa’s record adds another dimension. Microsimulation modelling showed that the Social Relief of Distress grant was significantly reducing poverty just when a decision about its future needed to be made.

The evidence changed what that decision could credibly be. The distinction matters, because it clarifies what these labs are actually for: not the production of research, but the conditions that allow governments to govern better.

The case in practice Africa’s financing challenge will not be resolved from outside. The most durable path runs through domestic revenue systems that are efficient, fair, and sharpened by what the evidence shows. That requires a particular kind of analytical honesty: the willingness to examine fiscal systems rigorously and act on what the data reveals.

Development economics has long argued that evidence-based policymaking produces better outcomes. South Africa, Uganda and Zambia are making that argument in practice. They are doing this through what they have built, what they have found, and what they have chosen to do because of it.

At a moment when external financing is contracting and debt service is rising, the quality of fiscal decisions is not an academic question. It is the difference between governments that can see their own economies clearly enough to act, and governments that cannot.

The data is already there. The model has been proven.

What remains is the will to use it.

Amina Ebrahim receives funding from Norad QZA-18/0207 Domestic Revenue Mobilization.

Patricia Justino 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/2026/06/03/tax-data-can-be-mined-to-shape-better-policies-south-africa-uganda-and-zambia-show-how/

Although they’re often called ‘mobile,’ it’s hard and costly to relocate manufactured homes. Julia Robertson/Photodisc via Getty Images Roughly 20 million Americans live in manufactured houses, which are homes made in factories. Although they’re often called mobile homes or trailers, that’s really a misnomer because their owners can’t easily relocate them.

Typically, the people who own them rent the land underneath the houses from the owners of manufactured home parks. Sometimes, an owner will rent their home to someone else while paying to rent the land as well.

Manufactured homes tend to be far more affordable than other single-family homes because they have lower upfront and monthly expenses. A typical one costs around US0,000; smaller ones, known as single-wides, cost around $87,000. I’m studying poverty, inequality, collective action and rural housing as a sociology Ph.D. candidate.

In 2025, I began to conduct in-depth, on-the-ground research documenting the experiences of residents in manufactured home parks in rural Wisconsin whose park was either for sale or had been sold to a private equity firm.

So far, I’ve interviewed 15 people as part of an ongoing study that is forthcoming and not yet published. I’ve found that in this region, as is occurring in the rest of the country, rents tended to spike soon after those firms bought the parks.

Those rent hikes are, in turn, creating a crisis for many low-income residents who may suddenly need to move, but have limited options. Getting priced out Nationally, rents in these parks have increased by 45% over the past decade.

This increase, which is not adjusted for inflation, mirrors overall rent growth. But it shows how manufactured housing is becoming less affordable at the same rapid pace as the broader rental market. And in many rural areas, mobile homes are the main source of affordable housing.

In 2025, I interviewed a man I’m calling Anthony Perez. (I’m using pseudonyms to protect the privacy of everyone who spoke with me, which is a standard social science research method.) He had worked as a logger in northern Wisconsin until a debilitating back injury ended his ability to continue in the profession past his early 50s.

In anticipation of having a low income for the long term, Perez chose to invest his life savings in a manufactured home. “There was a trailer for sale, and it was decent,” he said.

“I had a little savings and workers comp, so I bought it for $9,000, thinking I could afford to live there on my disability income.” That plan broke down when a private equity firm bought his park and instantly raised his monthly rent from $350 to $500, now costing him more than half of the $800 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits he received.

It’s hard for people like Perez to relocate a manufactured home. That’s because moving them after installation is expensive, costing anywhere between ,000 to ,000. These costs leave low-income residents effectively stuck if their rents rise beyond their means.

With no other housing options, Perez decided to stay and fight alongside his neighbors, all of whom were facing the same rising rents and uncertainty about their ability to remain in their homes. Together, the residents have started organizing meetings to conjure up strategies to resist the changes imposed by the new ownership.

“They’re bullies,” Perez said. “So we here residents have to make some noise and get some power in a group to push back.” Many mobile home communities are located in rural areas with scant affordable housing stock.

AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel Rising anxiety Perez was among the many residents I met who lived in fear of losing their home and with limited options of where to go.

Johanna Hansen, a retired high school teacher who also invested her life savings in her manufactured home, lived about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west in another manufactured home park that a private equity firm had recently put in an offer for.

“I own my home, but I don’t own the land that it’s on,” Hansen said.

“I always feel that insecurity of not knowing what will happen a year from now – or with the current sale, maybe even sooner than that.” If the monthly cost of renting her lot rises by more than $100, Hansen says she will have to sell her home and move.

“Had I known the park was going to be sold to an investment group, I wouldn’t have bought in the first place,” she said. “But now I’m stuck.” Repeating a similar mistake In my view, today’s threat to mobile home parks echoes the loss of another affordable housing option: single-room occupancy units.

In the 1950s, these rooms accounted for roughly 10% of rental housing. They typically offered shared bathrooms and kitchens for the equivalent of about $100 to $300 per month in 2025 dollars. Starting in the mid‑20th century, cities rewrote zoning and building codes to eliminate hundreds of thousands of those units, contributing to an increase in homelessness.

Manufactured housing today stands at a similar crossroads. Like single-room units, manufactured homes are stigmatized and undervalued as an important source of affordable housing by policymakers and the public. And like the single-room units that have largely disappeared, that housing is at risk of being lost, too.

The author would like to thank University of Wisconsin-Madison Sociology professor Jessica Calarco for her supervisory role and support on this project.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/when-private-equity-firms-buy-mobile-home-parks-rent-increases-leave-residents-with-few-affordable-options-in-rural-areas/

New reuse networks will include collection points like this. Rebrand Reuse, CC BY-NC-ND A new universal symbol for reuse aims to encourage the switch from single-use to reusable packaging and the development of a more integrated reuse systems worldwide.

Reuse systems reduce the use of virgin material, retain packaging materials within the economy for as long as possible, and will help dramatically reduce plastic waste and associated pollution by 2040. The introduction of this symbol on a diverse range of reusable products (such as cups, foodware, to-go containers, wine bottles and cleaning products) goes hand-in-hand with new reuse infrastructure.

This includes collection bins, delivery vehicles, marketing material and signage. Together, this helps create more obvious and accessible reuse networks across whole towns and cities. Research undertaken with our colleagues at the University of Portsmouth’s Revolution Plastics Institute has identified that a systems approach to reuse is the key to success at scale.

A systems approach involves transformative change that tackles the root causes of a problem, rather than just dealing with the symptoms of an issue. So by shifting how we govern, as well as industry and habits, deeper change can be achieved.

While momentum for reuse is gaining traction across the globe, progress is constrained by fragmented policies to address plastic pollution, lack of investment in alternatives to recycling and gaps in infrastructure that enable reuse. The new bright purple symbol is the result of a year-long global design initiative led by an international environmental organisation PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse to promote circularity across various sectors.

As one of the judges on the jury panel, I (Cressida Bowyer) assessed 236 designs submitted from 29 countries as part of PR3’s open call to create a global icon for reuse systems. In 2025, the expert panel assessed each design for criteria such as distinctiveness, recognisability, how memorable it was and cultural adaptability.

A global competition was launched to create a symbol that is as recognisable as the recycling logo and as culturally resonant as other enduring global icons such as the peace sign. Rebrand Reuse, CC BY-NC-ND The symbol needed to be clearly distinguishable from the recycling chasing arrows logo.

Following several rounds of jury review, a shortlist of symbol designs was market tested in 17 countries. The winning design, produced by a creative agency in Colombia called Epigramma Studios, captures and communicates the spirit of reuse.

To avoid any risk of greenwashing, the use of the new symbol will be tied to PR3’s marking and labelling standards. Brands and organisations using the symbol must agree to abide by criteria outlined by PR3’s global standards.

This ensures that the symbol can only be used for packaging and infrastructure operating within reuse systems that encompass the full life-cycle of collection, transport, sorting, washing and return. The global standards have been developed with input from more than 80 organisations representing industry, government, environmental campaign groups, reuse operators and civil society.

Coupling this new visual marker with robust global standards will address some of these shortcomings, plus build trust, understanding and adoption among consumers. With consistent use, this symbol can make the identification of reusable products much easier across sectors and regions, and support the scale-up of reuse systems.

Moving on from recycling For decades, the green chasing arrows recycling symbol has dominated as visual shorthand for environmental responsibility. Printed on packaging, adverts, bins and household products, it has provided consumers with a simple and widely recognised signal of how to “do their bit” for the environment through more responsible consumption and disposal.

However, the success of recycling messaging has led many people to overestimate its environmental impact relative to other more effective actions. The waste hierarchy is a globally recognised framework that ranks waste management options according to what is best for the environment.

It ranks waste prevention as the top priority, followed by reuse, recycling, material recovery and finally disposal. Reuse is above recycling in the waste hierarchy. VectorMine/Shutterstock Recycling is a relatively resource-intensive way to manage waste that sits below reuse in terms of environmental benefit.

But people often assume recycling is the most effective way to manage waste. Reducing the amount of material entering the system in the first place, such as through reusable packaging, remains the most effective strategy.

Plastic consumption is expected to triple by 2060. Yet recent evidence suggests that despite most household plastic carrying a recycling symbol, only 16% of UK household plastic packaging is actually recycled. Most (59%) is burned in the UK, while 16% is exported overseas and a further 9% is sent to landfill.

Why symbols matter While policy and infrastructure are essential to reducing waste, behavioural science shows that people rely heavily on visual cues when making everyday decisions. Symbols reduce mental effort and help people navigate complex systems quickly and intuitively.

A reuse symbol could play an important role by making reuse visible and helping to shift perceptions of what environmentally responsible consumption looks like. With support from government and industry, it could help reinforce reuse as the primary mode of consumption and packaging use, with recycling repositioned as a lower-priority option within the waste hierarchy.

However, symbols alone are not sufficient. Reuse depends on supporting infrastructure, regulation and viable business models. Without these, even well-designed systems struggle to scale. A reuse symbol is not a solution in itself, but a coordination tool.

It can help align consumer behaviour, business practices and policy around a shared visual language.

If the recycling logo defined an era of waste management, a reuse symbol could help define what comes next: shifting focus from managing waste after it is created to designing it out altogether.

Cressida Bowyer receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Wellcome Trust, the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution Programme (SMEP) and the Flotilla Foundation.

She is a member of the British Plastics Federation Sustainability Committee.

Cressida served on the jury panel for the PR3 Rebrand Reuse design initiative.

Kate Whitman 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/2026/06/03/a-new-reuse-symbol-aims-to-be-as-recognisable-as-the-recycling-logo-and-make-more-of-a-difference/

An undocumented Honduran immigrant walks her child to a school bus stop in November 2025 at an unspecified location in the U.S. John Moore/Getty Images All public schools in the U.S. must provide an education to all students, regardless of their immigration status.

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of immigrant students in Texas to attend school free of charge, regardless of their citizenship, in Plyler v. Doe. Texas had passed a law in 1975 that allowed public school districts to charge these students tuition, or not let them attend altogether.

This law was repealed following the Supreme Court decision. As scholars of history and education, we are particularly interested in understanding how Americans feel about this policy, which has been in place for four decades.

Some legislators in states like Ohio, Idaho and Oklahoma have unsuccessfully tried to make it harder for immigrant students to attend public school, by proposing that all public school students must share their immigration status prior to enrolling in school.

Tennessee considered a bill in 2025 and 2026 that would allow public school districts to not admit undocumented students. Though the bill passed the state Senate, it did not ultimately pass the House. In March 2026, Republican representatives led a Congressional hearing focused on Plyer’s negative effects on U.S. schools and students, such as straining schools’ funding and available resources.

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has called on all state legislators to propose laws that would challenge undocumented students’ right to attend public schools free of charge. But what do most Americans actually think about undocumented students attending public schools?

According to our recent survey, which is in the process of publication, most Americans broadly support public education for undocumented children. All immigrant children have the right to attend public school, though there have been some state efforts to challenge this.

Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public via Getty Images Who supports public school for all?

In mid-April 2026, with support from the Public Religion Research Institute – an organization that supports public scholarship on the beliefs of the American public – two colleagues and I worked with Ipsos to survey a nationally representative random sample of more than 1,500 Americans about their views on public education and immigration.

It was a diverse cross section of people who held a range of political beliefs and affiliations.

We asked respondents whether they agreed with the statement: “I believe all children, regardless of immigration status, should have the right to public education.” We found that there were obvious differences between survey respondents’ views, depending on their political affiliation.

For instance, of the survey respondents who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, 95.7% of people agreed with the statement. Only 48.8% of survey respondents who voted for President Donald Trump agreed with the statement.

Similarly, 57.5% of Republicans overall agreed with the statement, while 93.9% of Democrats did. But other than this political divide, we found strong support for universal education across all ages, ethnicity and faiths, with 75.5% of all Americans agreeing with the statement.

The survey revealed strong support for universal education, with 75.5% of all Americans agreeing with the statement. Among Hispanics and Latinos, nearly 86.9% supported the policy, along with 86.7% of African Americans, 77.7% of Asians Asian Americans and 69.9% of non-Hispanic white people.

In each income bracket, there was over 70% of support for free public education for all. Wealthier Americans – those making more than US$150,000 a year – supported this policy least, at 70.4%. More than 77% of those making under $150,000 supported it.

Those making under $25,000 a year supported it by 82%. Among age groups, American adults between 18-29 had the highest support for undocumented immigrant children attending public school, at 81.4%. Americans we surveyed over the age of 60, meanwhile, had the least support for the policy, at 71.5%.

Our survey showed that even looking at educational levels, there was little difference, with every group supporting public education for all students at 73% or more. Across a range of faiths, people tended to support public education for all students, including undocumented immigrants.

We found that 92.9% of Muslims, 82.2% of unaffiliated respondents, 81.1% of Jewish respondents, 79.5% of Catholics and 72.6% of mainline Protestants supported the idea of undocumented students attending school for free. Evangelical Protestants were the outliers, with only 59.9% agreeing with this policy.

A shift in public opinion While our data shows that today there’s widespread support for immigrant kids attending public school, these attitudes have shifted over time. We can compare these numbers with polling about past state legislation, such as California’s Proposition 187, which passed in 1994.

Almost 60% of the state voted that year to bar undocumented students from public education. A federal court struck down the law in 1998 as unconstitutional.

While little other public polling exists showing how people feel about the Supreme Court’s Plyler ruling, there is data on a related question about undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, often known as Dreamers.

There seems to have been a shift since the ‘90s in public opinion toward supporting undocumented students. Much of this may have been due to the strong advocacy of Dreamers themselves. In 2020, Pew Research found 74% of Americans think that people who were brought to the U.S. as young children without legal authorization should be allowed to legally stay in the country.

Approximately 91% of Democrats said they thought Dreamers should be able to remain in the U.S., while 54% of Republicans said the same. At 57.5%, Republicans’ support for public education for undocumented children might seem low. However, it does correlate with other recent polling from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst that shows 91% of Republicans support Trump’s overall immigration policies.

Even as political parties may play a role influencing views toward immigration, as a whole, Americans overwhelmingly support public education for all children.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/most-americans-broadly-support-public-education-for-undocumented-students-regardless-of-their-political-affiliation-and-religion/

While some countries are introducing abatement policies, key gaps remain in current policies. Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock There’s no sign that methane emissions are declining globally. That’s according to the International Energy Agency’s latest report on methane, which revealed a worrying implementation gap in current policies.

The UN has warned repeatedly that getting methane emissions under control is critical to address the climate crisis. Methane emissions have a powerful greenhouse effect, with 1 tonne of methane causing 80 times more warming than 1 tonne of carbon dioxide over 20 years.

That is why reducing methane emissions has been described as an emergency brake for addressing climate change. With scientists warning of dangerous feedback loops, where global warming triggers large stores of methane to be released from underneath melting ice sheets, stabilising emissions is becoming increasingly urgent.

Our team’s analysis at Oxford University’s Climate Policy Monitor aligns with the International Energy Agency’s finding about an implementation gap in this area. The Climate Policy Monitor is an online database powered by a pro bono network of more than 60 law firms which assesses how policies and regulations are aligned – or not – with global climate goals.

The analysis spans 37 jurisdictions, including 36 countries and one large sub-national economy (California). We recently identified over 100 methane policies across 32 jurisdictions. However, fewer than one-third of these policies are mandatory. Four countries – India, Indonesia, Thailand and Tanzania – had no identifiable methane policies at all.

This is concerning as India and Indonesia together account for more than 12% of global methane emissions. The recent analysis indicates continued interest in methane regulation – with around 20% of policies issued in 2024 and 2025. Yet implementation and enforcement remains weak.

Over two-thirds of methane policies showed little sign of implementation, such as evidence of sanctions for non-compliance.

Signs of progress On methane policies related to fossil fuels, most policies targeted oil and gas: methane is burned off (or flared) during oil extraction, and as the main component of natural gas it can leak from faulty pipes.

However, even in this comparatively well-regulated sector, few policies required public disclosure, third-party verification or standardised methods for measuring emissions. Japan stands out as a leader on robust policymaking on fossil methane. Japan’s Act on Promotion of Global Warming Countermeasures (1998) mandates public disclosure of facility-level emissions and third-party verification of emission inventories.

Japan successfully reduced methane emissions by roughly 40% between 1990 and 2022. In the current context of high energy prices, cutting methane emissions can also help improve energy security and reduce wastage of natural resources. Coal methane – the methane that either escapes during coal mining or builds up in disused mines – remains a global policy gap.

Less than half of the jurisdictions analysed (15 out of 37) had policies covering coal methane. Coal methane remains a problem in countries like Poland which are phasing out coal, since methane venting can continue long after mines are closed.

This highlights the urgent need for action in this area.

Read more: MethaneSat: the climate spy satellite that went quiet A global blindspot Agriculture makes up largest human source of methane emissions, accounting for around 40% of methane emissions, mainly from cow burps (with the remainder coming from fossil methane and food waste).

Yet the management of agricultural methane remains a global blindspot. Fewer than half of the 100 methane policies we identified targeted agriculture specifically. Thirteen jurisdictions – including the EU, France and Poland – did not have any agricultural methane policies.

Together, these jurisdictions account for more than 20% of global methane emissions. Agricultural policies were also less likely to be mandatory – only 20% (13 out of 66) policies were found to be mandatory compared to 44% for the electricity sector.

This imbalance suggests governments continue to prioritise tackling energy-sector methane while overlooking agricultural emissions. The lack of ambition in methane regulation extends to the agri-food sector. The campaign organisation Changing Markets Foundation recently found that only three of the largest dairy and coffee companies have a target to reduce methane emissions by 2030.

As the monitor’s annual review noted, the focus on energy neglects other mitigation pathways, such as dietary changes in developed countries, primarily through cutting beef and dairy consumption. This could be transformative in putting an emergency brake on climate change.

Shifts toward more sustainable diets would also have additional co-benefits for the environment and public health. Backsliding amid global growth The Climate Policy Monitor report found a trend of backsliding by one country in particular – the US.

In 2025, amid other announcements, the US Environmental Protection Agency delayed methane regulations for oil and gas facilities that were issued in 2024.

More recently, the EU has been lobbied by the US to delay penalties for oil and gas importers on methane, although investors urged the EU to resist pressure from US politicians to water down the regulation.

However, there are signs of hope at the global level. More than half of recent methane policies emerged in African and Latin American jurisdictions. This highlights how developing and emerging economies are prioritising climate action through rule-making based on their distinct contexts.

Despite backsliding in some jurisdictions, the overall global trend is moving towards stronger climate policies.

With strong policy and enforcement, there is still a chance for the world to get to grips with methane emissions.

Helena Wright 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/2026/06/03/how-methane-policy-will-make-or-break-the-climate-crisis/

Warren Faidley/Getty Images Everyone has a storm story – whether it’s that time you just escaped a downpour, or the hailstorm that wrote off your car. Even though hailstorms are relatively rare, they cause significant damages.

Two new studies shed light on how hail might change as the world warms. In our study, published today in Nature Climate Change, we show that hail conditions may move towards the poles with global warming and shift a bit from summer to winter.

This could lead to more hailstorms in places such as northern Europe, Canada, southeastern Australia and New Zealand’s South Island. Another new study led by Shiyi Zhang at Peking University shows that hail may also become more damaging.

Hailstorms are costly. In Australia in 2025, hail in New South Wales and Queensland caused A.9b in insurance claims, and in recent years severe storms have caused enormous losses globally. Severe storm costs are increasing.

Much of this increase is because people and assets are more exposed to storms as populations increase and cities expand. But is climate change also playing a role? How does hail form? To get hail you need a thunderstorm, and to get a thunderstorm you need an updraught.

Updraughts form when buoyant air rises in a localised area. They bring up water vapour, which condenses into clouds made of tiny water droplets. Inside a storm those drops hit each other, and if it’s cold enough, liquid drops freeze onto ice particles, growing them into hailstones.

For hail to affect us at ground level, a strong updraught needs to keep hailstones aloft for long enough to grow, and the hailstones must then survive melting as they fall to Earth’s surface.

Wind shear, or shifts in wind with height, increases storm severity by moving falling rain and hail away from the updraught, so the updraught is not inhibited and can grow stronger. Buoyancy and wind shear form the basic atmospheric “ingredients” required for hail.

How might climate change affect hailstorms? Climate change is warming the atmosphere and adding moisture to it. Moisture is the fuel for storms, and a warmer atmosphere is more likely to make strong updraughts that can support larger hail.

A warmer atmosphere also melts falling hail faster, which might make hailstones shrink or melt away before they reach the ground. So, these two changes work against each other. According to past research, the broad expectation of climate change’s impact on hail is that it will bring less frequent hail, but the hailstones will be larger when hail does happen.

That’s because more melting would mean smaller hail reaches the ground less often, but stronger updraughts would enable larger hailstones. However, these changes vary regionally, depending on variations in the delicate balance between hailstorm ingredient changes.

Global climate models generally can’t tell us about individual storms, let alone hailstones – think of a low-resolution image that only shows the broad picture but no details. So, instead of looking at hail directly, our study examined how the ingredients for hailstorms change.

Because the exact relationships between ingredients and hail risk remain unclear, we used several so-called “proxy” relationships, including one that we previously developed for Australia and the wide range of weather regimes here. New global projections for hail frequency We applied three proxies to outputs from eight climate models to look at a range of possible future warming scenarios.

First, the proxies and models agree that in the warming scenarios hail-prone conditions are shifting toward the poles – decreasing across mid-latitudes in the southern hemisphere, and increasing in mid-high latitudes, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

We project more frequent hail conditions in northern Europe, Canada and the northwestern US, southeastern Australia, and the South Island of New Zealand; and less frequent hail conditions in northern Australia, most of Africa, southern India and southeastern China.

Changes in normalised annual hail-prone days in climate projections under 2 (a) and 3 degrees Celsius (b) of mean global warming. Red shows increases and blue shows decreases in hail-prone day frequency. Hatched areas are where there was more model and proxy agreement.

For full details see Raupach et al., 2026. CC-BY, Tim Raupach, UNSW Sydney Second, our results predict less frequent hail conditions in summer and more in winter. That means winter crops like wheat may see increasing risk, while risk may decrease for summer crops like maize.

If climate change shifts arable regions closer to the poles, these crops may be subjected to increased hail frequency there. Third, the different proxies don’t always agree, particularly in the tropics where some show increases and others decreases.

These disagreements highlight the difficulties in estimating changes in hail environments and how that connects to whether hail happens. Less frequent, but more damaging What about the severity of hail when it occurs? Zhang and colleagues took a different approach to ours.

They applied a model of hailstone growth and melting to climate simulations, to examine possible hail sizes and changes in potential damage they might cause. Their new global simulations overall predict more large hailstones and fewer small ones.

This result is in line with previous reasoning – a warmer atmosphere can melt smaller hailstones away but produce larger hail through stronger updraughts. Like ours, their study shows regional differences in changes. Both studies show increasing hail risk with increased frequency and hail damage potential in the mid-high latitude northern hemisphere and southeastern South America.

In sub-tropical regions of Africa and northern South America, both studies show decreasing hail risk. In southeast US, mid-northern Africa, southern India, and northeastern Australia, we project decreasing frequency while Zhang and colleagues project increasing damage potential.

These two studies point to increasing risk from hail damage in a warming world, even though the details of where this will be experienced are still not clear. The more warming occurs, the more this risk will increase.

Quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the surest way to blunt the most damaging effects of climate change.

Timothy H. Raupach’s role at UNSW receives funding from QBE Insurance, which had no role in the design of this study.

He receives funding for other projects from the Australian Research Council, Guy Carpenter, and Aon Japan.

Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Minderoo Foundation.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/03/climate-change-may-shift-hailstorms-towards-earths-poles-new-study/