Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose Marroncelli, Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University

Denim is present in practically every country in the world and is widely adopted as one of the most common forms of everyday attire. Its appeal spans generations and social groups: jeans are worn worldwide by those who follow fashion and those who do not, by people seeking to stand out and by those who prefer to blend in. However, many of us have never found the perfect pair.

Although denim has been produced since the 16th century, its association with American culture and durable workwear emerged during the Californian gold rush of the 1850s. It was during this time that Levi’s – now arguably the most recognisable denim brand – was established.

Levi Strauss, an immigrant entrepreneur who arrived in California from Bavaria in the 1850s, opened a dry goods business catering to miners. One of his customers, the tailor Jacob Davis, developed the innovative use of metal rivets to reinforce stress points in work trousers, making them more durable. Strauss and Davis jointly patented this technique, and the Levi’s brand was born.

Blue jeans were originally a seen as symbol of labourers (like the miners) and they also gained a strong association with cowboys. In the decades that followed, denim jeans evolved from practical workwear into one of the most iconic and enduring symbols of global fashion and culture. Film stars such as Marlon Brando and James Dean popularised the jeans and t-shirt look to a young generation in the 1950s. These films personified motorcycle-loving nonconformists, and 1950s Hollywood embraced denim as the garment of rebellion.

Today, the cultural significance of denim jeans has moved beyond early associations with workwear, the cowboy and the teenage rebel, to become a staple worn by people of all ages and backgrounds.

Finding the perfect pair

Denim jeans are often seen as a problematic fashion product in terms of sustainability, because their production leaves a considerable environmental footprint.

Cheap prices on the high street can encourage consumers to treat denim products as short-term items, reducing their lifespan. Cotton, which is commonly the main fabric for denim, is incredibly water intensive; the production of one pair of jeans uses approximately 7,500 litres of water.

Different components involved in the making of a single pair of jeans, such as denim, thread, cotton and buttons, can originate from different countries all over the world. This raises questions regarding the environmental costs involved in the production process. Further issues include that jeans are often not made from single fibre materials and therefore cannot be recycled.

Adding to sustainability concerns, at the consumer level, the perfect pair of jeans remains an elusive concept. But in a recently published book chapter, I explain that the perfect pair of jeans is elusive for a reason. Jeans have to be correct for the individual wearer in terms of comfort, social and personal identity, and also the complexity of fit.

Previous reports have focused on women’s struggle to find jeans that fit and are flattering. The inability to find the perfect pair of jeans may encourage overconsumption, due to repeated purchasing based on poor fit.

My research shows that this is an issue which applies to all genders. The men I spoke to noted how they resented paying a higher price for brands like Levi’s, so spent less by purchasing cheap, high street alternatives. This attitude can lead to overconsumption, as low price points achieved through low-quality production often compromise product longevity.

This demonstrates the perpetuating cycle of fast fashion, driven by cheap, low-quality production, and contradicts the original purpose of jeans of being highly durable and having longevity. The combination of highly environmentally damaging production processes with overconsumption results in even greater environmental harm.

Retailers can make efforts to reduce the trend of overconsumption with better fitting garments. However, fit is a complex issue for retailers as well as consumers. For the retailer, producing jeans in a wide range of sizes and styles is often not cost effective, and complex sizing systems can also confuse the consumer.

Technology could provide future solutions to improving the accuracy of fit. Personalised virtual fitting, made possible through improvements in 3D human shape recognition, could ensure improved fit for the consumer. This would benefit online shoppers, although the technology does remain in its infancy, and is yet to be adopted by major online fashion retailers. Virtual fitting rooms also cannot replicate the feeling of denim next to the skin, so although the fit may be perfect, comfort could be compromised.

Ultimately, the enduring challenge of finding the “perfect pair” of jeans highlights not only the garment’s cultural significance but also the opportunity for the fashion industry – and consumers – to move toward more sustainable, better-fitting and more thoughtfully designed denim for the future.

– ref. A brief history of denim – and why the ‘perfect pair’ of jeans remains elusive – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-denim-and-why-the-perfect-pair-of-jeans-remains-elusive-276118

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Reifler, Professor of Political Science, University of Southampton

Approximately one month into the Iran war, public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic is decidedly opposed to this conflict. A recent CBS/YouGov poll shows that 60% of the public oppose military action against Iran, as do a similar percentage in the UK: 59%.

As a political scientist who studies public attitudes about foreign policy and the use of force, my research addresses an important question: under what conditions do people support military action? Based on this research, the widespread opposition to American military action against Iran is completely understandable, as the action lacks the usual foundations for support from domestic as well as international audiences.

Decades of research in political science show that broad support for use of the military rests on three key pillars: purpose, likelihood of success and legitimacy. When these elements are present, support can be high. It can even be maintained in the face of significant costs, both financial and in terms of lives lost. When they are absent, support tends to be weak, polarised and prone to erosion.

At present, these key ingredients are missing.

What’s the objective?

First and foremost, the Trump administration’s strategic rationale remains poorly articulated. Public support for military action is strongly tied to policy goals. When citizens believe force is being used to prevent a clear and immediate danger, they are far more likely to support it. But the US has not made the case that Iran was close to achieving a nuclear weapon – or posed other imminent threats for that matter. The CBS/YouGov poll confirmed that the public does not believe the rationale for war has been convincingly articulated – by a count of 68% to 32%.

In the first few days of the bombing, US president Donald Trump strongly advocated regime change as a reason for the war. But among voters there is little appetite to change another country’s domestic politics. A majority thinks this is not important, although now it has started, a small majority of respondents (53%) felt it would be a mistake to leave the regime in power. It’s a big political risk though – American voters don’t have to cast their memories back far to think of unsuccessful regime change missions.

What does winning look like?

The ambiguity surrounding mission goals complicates the second key element: what constitutes success? Airstrikes can damage nuclear facilities or disrupt Iran’s ballistic weapons programme. But they can’t eliminate the scientific knowledge or technical know-how which will enable to regime to rebuild. And, clearly, if previous strikes were as decisive as the US president, Donald Trump, has claimed, the current action would be unnecessary. The rest of the world knows that too.

The same question about what qualifies as success also applies to regime change. Killing the leadership is one thing, but creating a stable government that breaks from the Islamic revolution and protects American interests is quite another. The essential nature of politics is that there are competing factions, which will want to build or maintain governmental structures that advantage those interests. The the type of government Iran might adopt under a regime change scenario – and which faction(s) will control the levers of domestic power – are two dramatic unknowns.

Any plan to completely disempower the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would risk a re-run of the disastrous de-Baathification strategy after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Leaving the IRGC even partially in power leaves the civilian population at continued risk and would hardly make it easier to achieve American aims – whatever they may be. As we’re still seeing in Libya, a power struggle between factions is unlikely to produce the sort of result the region – and the wider world – want to see.

Is this a legitimate war?

Finally, there are severe concerns regarding the legitimacy of the war. Citizens rely on cues from their political leaders and institutions to inform their view about the use of force. The Trump administration had not made a sustained case for the need for military action before the war, nor has it secured Congressional authorisation or bipartisan support. There is no clear domestic consensus supporting the use of force.

Not only is there no clear signal of legitimacy domestically, the same is true internationally. Multilateral backing — especially through institutions such as the United Nations security council — has historically played an important legitimising role (especially to reassure domestic audiences who want a second opinion). This is is absent here – in fact, key US allies have expressed their opposition. The UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has declared military action against Iran is “not our war”, language remarkably similar to that of Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius. Having foregone building international support prior to the use of force, the US is now struggling for support from allies — particularly when it comes to protecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

None of this means the operation will be uniformly unpopular. Partisan attachment is also important: those who back the administration are likely to view the operation more favourably. Accordingly, a majority of Republicans (84%) support the action, though there is a strong divide between Maga (92%) and non-Maga (70%) Republicans.

Meanwhile, Democrats (92%) and independents (69%) overwhelmingly disapprove of the conflict, so domestic support for the conflict is extremely narrow. The factors that sustain backing beyond a president’s core supporters — perceived necessity with clear strategic goals, confidence in eventual success of the mission, and legitimacy conferred by domestic or international institutions — are conspicuously absent.

Over time, events on the ground may change how the public views the conflict. Iranian efforts to expand the scope of conflict – particularly when directed at US allies – could swing support towards the American action. Or, a unified Iranian opposition could quickly coalesce on who and what replaces the Islamic Republic government. These are just two possibilities seen through rose-tinted spectacles – frankly, developments that complicate America’s position seem just as likely.

Without significant changes in clarity of goal, verifiable indicators of success, or signals of legitimacy from persuasive actors outside the administration, support will diminish. But the consequences are graver than the domestic popularity of an American military operation. Sidelining institutional constraints – such as Congressional authorisation and international institutions – erodes limits on the use of force.

When the US ignores these constraints, it invites other countries to do the same, resulting in a more unstable and insecure world.

– ref. Iran war lacks strategy, goals, legitimacy and support – in the US and around the world – https://theconversation.com/iran-war-lacks-strategy-goals-legitimacy-and-support-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-279114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eef Hogervorst, Professor of Biological Psychology, Loughborough University

The Mediterranean diet – rich in olive oil, fish, vegetables and legumes – has long been linked to better heart health. Growing evidence suggests it may also help support brain health as we age, with a brain-focused variation of the diet drawing increasing scientific attention.

It is called the Mind diet. The name stands for Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay – though what matters more than the acronym is what it actually involves: plenty of green vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, berries, poultry and fish, with olive oil as the main cooking fat, and limited amounts of red meat, butter, cheese, fried food and sweets. It combines the most brain-friendly elements of two well-studied eating patterns: the traditional Mediterranean diet and the Dash diet, which was originally developed to lower blood pressure.

A recent analysis from the long-running Framingham heart study examined the diets of adults aged 60 and over and assessed how these dietary patterns were associated with brain scan data collected later in the study. Those who followed the Mind diet most closely tended to have more grey matter – the tissue associated with memory and decision-making – and showed less overall loss of brain volume over time.

Both findings point in the same direction: that this way of eating may help keep the brain in better shape as we get older.

This is not the first study to suggest a link between diet and dementia risk. An earlier analysis combining 12 observational studies found an overall reduction in dementia risk of between 15 and 22% among people who followed Mediterranean-style diets, with the Mind diet showing the strongest effect of the three patterns studied. That is a meaningful difference, even if it cannot be taken as proof that diet alone is responsible.

Within the Framingham study, berries and poultry stood out as particularly beneficial for grey matter. This fits with what other research has suggested. Blueberries, for instance, have been the subject of several small trials, with one recent study finding improvements in memory even in people already showing early signs of memory problems.

Since red and processed meat have been linked to higher dementia risk in other studies, replacing them with chicken may be part of why poultry appears beneficial.

Some of the findings were less straightforward. Fried food, as expected, was associated with worse outcomes. But whole grains, generally considered one of the healthier staples, produced a surprisingly weak result.

The reasons are unclear, though large amounts of bread and pasta – even wholegrain varieties – may raise blood sugar enough to offset some of the benefits. The evidence on whole grains and brain health remains mixed, and this is one area where more research is needed.

It is also worth noting who, in the Framingham study, was most likely to follow the Mind diet. They tended to be women, non-smokers, well-educated, and less likely to be overweight or to have diabetes, high blood pressure or heart disease. All of these factors are independently associated with better brain health, which makes it genuinely difficult to untangle how much of the benefit comes from the diet itself, and how much from the broader lifestyle it tends to accompany.

What the science can and can’t tell us

This is the central challenge facing all research in this area. Most of the studies are observational, meaning they track what people eat and what happens to them over time, rather than randomly assigning people to follow a particular diet and measuring the results.

Observational studies can show associations, but they cannot prove cause and effect. Self-reported diet data is also unreliable at the best of times – and particularly so among people whose memory is already beginning to fail.

The few trials that have actually put the Mind diet to the test have produced mixed results. One small three-month study found no improvement in memory or thinking skills, though participants did report better mood and quality of life.

Another trial found improvements in both brain scans and mental performance, but the participants were obese middle-aged women who also lost weight during the study, making it hard to know how much the diet itself contributed. Three months is also a short window in which to expect measurable changes in brain structure, and longer trials may yet tell a different story.

None of this means the Mind diet is not worth following. The broader evidence – across multiple studies and populations – consistently points in the same direction, and there is little downside to eating more vegetables, berries, fish and olive oil.

But diet is only one piece of a much larger picture. Not smoking, staying active, keeping blood pressure and blood sugar under control, and maintaining social connections all appear to matter at least as much when it comes to keeping the brain healthy in later life.

The Mind diet is not a cure for dementia, and it would be misleading to present it as one. What the evidence does suggest is that the food choices we make over decades – not just in later life, but across adulthood – may quietly shape the health of our brains in ways that only become visible much later. That is not a guarantee, but it is a reasonable basis for eating well.

– ref. This Mediterranean-style diet could keep your brain sharp as you age – new study – https://theconversation.com/this-mediterranean-style-diet-could-keep-your-brain-sharp-as-you-age-new-study-278461

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert W Jones, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Leeds

It is a truth, though not one universally acknowledged, that a country house possessed of spacious grounds must be in want of a large fortune. A film or television company might offer one, or at least an honourable provision.

The forthcoming marriage of Harewood House in west Yorkshire to Netflix, is much like any other in this respect. The union will produce a new version of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (from whose work I have been very obviously scrumping), to be released later this year. Harewood will become Pemberley, Mr Darcy’s famously enticing home. Yorkshire will pose as Derbyshire.

Harewood is a grand house. Whether it is too grand for Pemberley is hard to say. In the book, Mr Darcy’s annual income of £10,000 is a huge sum. But the house might be contested in other ways too.

The estate has been the seat of the Lascelles family since 1738, when the Gawthorpe and Harewood Castle estates were acquired with money gained in the West Indies, from owning enslaved people, plantations, ships, warehouses and their associated goods and crops (as the estate’s website explains). The current owners, aware of the implications of the source of their inheritance, are among the cofounders of the Heirs of Slavery group, which advocates for compensation to address the ongoing consequences of slavery.

Built between 1759 and 1771, the house boasts interiors designed by fashionable architect Robert Adam and furniture by Thomas Chippendale. Its serious art collection features Sir Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W Turner, Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Reynolds’s painting Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne (1762-64) graces, as she should, the splendid Adam-designed music room.

Read more: Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter captures the spirit of two great geniuses, born 250 years ago

Historian Mark Girouard’s classic study Life in an English County House: A Social and Architectural History (1978) still helpfully explains places like Harewood. He writes that these houses served several functions; business and work for much of the time, though the labour that sustained its splendours occurred in the Caribbean. They were also spaces intended for leisure and diverse forms of public and private sociability. Each activity was allocated (if imperfectly) different spaces within the house.

More recent studies academic studies, such as Karen Lipsedge’s Domestic Space in the British Eighteenth-Century Novel (2012) have developed this interest, explaining how space and gender interconnect. The music room at Harewood, with Mrs Hale as its central focus, would have held a special function in this respect.

Visiting Pemberley

Great houses like Harewood were designed to receive and impress guests. Any visitor would have needed to negotiate the shifting codes of privacy and publicity that might be in play (they were never static).

Read more: Netflix to remake Pride and Prejudice – why Jane Austen novels make perfect period adaptations

The further into a house you were allowed, the more you entered a private realm where distinctions of rank might be in abeyance. In Pride and Prejudice the awful Lady Catherine de Bourgh knows this, doesn’t care and ploughs on. She enters the intimate space of the Bennet family’s drawing room where she expects to be accorded all respective and deference. Brilliantly, she isn’t. But she cannot be refused either and is guided to the more public realm of the garden.

In their Georgian heydays great houses like Harewood would have received many inveigling visitors, though they were not all like the bumptious, bungling de Bourgh. It is in this capacity that Pemberley is encountered in Pride and Prejudice, though its eligible but prideful owner (Darcy) has made the house intriguing long before.

Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, take their tour of the Derbyshire at the opening of the third volume of the novel. Elizabeth is still composing herself after the horrors of Darcy’s proposal and the revelations of his letter, detailing Mr Wickham’s atrocious conduct with its obvious implications for her young sister. As soon as Elizabeth sees the house and its grounds, she is taken with it and reflects: “To be mistress of Pemberley might be something.”

While the house is praised repeatedly in the novel, it is the views from Pemberley, not the “fine carpets and satin curtains” (which any house might have) which appear to attract Elizabeth most. There are several references to windows, and what can be seen from them in these scenes.

If Darcy is redeemed in Elizabeth’s eyes at Pemberley, it is partly because he proves himself to be a good landlord. The change in Austen scholarship, especially since the last Pride and Prejudice adaptation, has been tremendous. Elizabeth has appeared more and more independent, less easily impressed by Darcy. Her perspective is now seen as far more important than all his trees, however much they convey his status.

Harewood and its prospects have changed too since Austen’s day. The landscape has altered. From some of Harewood’s windows you can still see what remains of Lancelot “Capability” Brown’s improvements: his clumps of trees and the great lake he introduced. But the Victorians removed a great deal.

What will the new Elizabeth see from Harewood — and what, in turn, will the viewer see? How might the new Darcy delight and interest his guest? Not by plunging into the lake surely. And from which window might Elizabeth finally catch that brilliant view?

– ref. Netflix’s new Pride and Prejudice features Harewood House as Pemberley – here’s what the estate reveals about Austen’s world – https://theconversation.com/netflixs-new-pride-and-prejudice-features-harewood-house-as-pemberley-heres-what-the-estate-reveals-about-austens-world-277786

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tauel Harper, Associate Professor in Communications and Media, Murdoch University

The US military action in Iran may have an unintended secondary effect – ending the cultural dominance of the internal combustion engine and ushering in the age of electric vehicles.

Back in the 1970s, a sudden increase in the price of oil led to the public embracing smaller and more fuel efficient cars; similarly, the choking of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resultant high cost of oil, is driving a historic surge of interest in electric vehicles.

Google Trends data shows that almost three times as many Australians searched for “electric vehicles” on March 23 when compared to February 27, the day before the US started to bomb Iran and the cost of oil (and fuel) started to skyrocket. The increase in RSV (Relative Search Volume) represents a 278% increase in Australians searching for “electric vehicles”.

While research shows a number of factors influence Australians’ choice to own an electric vehicle, the price and availability of energy clearly plays a central role and the weight of public opinion is slowly shifting towards embracing EVs.

EV interest remains over time

Historically, the relationship between the cost of petrol and interest in electric vehicles (EVs) is even more telling. The graph below shows a clear pattern of higher petrol prices leading to more searches for EVs.

While the most notable feature of this data is the dramatic increase in searches for EVs since the US attacks on Iran began, it’s also interesting that while interest in EVs often drops as oil prices return to “normal”, it never drops back down to its previous level. Once sparked, our interest in EVs remains higher than before.

For instance, after the spike in oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you can see a similar spike in searches for EVs. However, even after the oil price had dropped back down and stabilised, the Relative Search Volume (RSV) of Google searches for EVs remained at a higher level than before the invasion.

This suggests consumers retain some interest in EVs after the increase in oil prices has passed. Perhaps these global oil crises prompt the realisation that relying on energy imported from the other side of the world is more tenuous than relying on energy from your own rooftop.

A pragmatic interest in saving money

My colleagues and I recently explored Australia’s cultural attitudes to EVs. We argued increasing access to household solar energy was driving an enthusiasm for a new relationship with energy. But long-held anxieties around range, infrastructure, gender roles and national image, as well as traditionalist hold outs like enthusiast car culture and engine sounds, as factors that inhibit the take up of EVs in Australia.

However, the clear signal this trend data sends is that Australians are a pragmatic lot. If using an EV might save them money, then they are interested.

The data also presents a warning to car makers that have “bet against” the rise of the electric vehicle. Porsche, Lambourghini and Ferrari have all recently announced plans to reconsider or scale back their production of EVs. This is based on their assessment of shifts in the “political climate”, with security and trade taking precedence over “environmental concerns”.

While economic driving may not be a concern for many Ferrari drivers, Toyota has also made the decision to “not go all in” on electric. Instead, it offers only one full EV in Australia, amid a range of internal combustion and hybrid options. This bet against electric vehicles may look foolish if oil prices continue to rise.

Is this the ‘critical mass’ for EVs?

Google trends data is an enigmatic metric. It tells you how interest in things changes but not how much interest there is overall. According to sales data, there was a slump in EV sales in 2024, but EV sales in February 2026 were already 95% higher than they were in February 2025. The evidence of Google Trends suggests March’s results will show even more of an increase.

While technological change can be difficult to initiate, new technologies tend to reach a tipping point when they reach a “critical mass” of public adoption. Like the move from LPs to CDs to streaming services, what starts out as idiosyncratic can soon become a norm. Similarly, technology that once seemed here to stay can quickly become outdated.

With the cost of petrol rising once again, and Australians increasingly harnessing their solar electricity, we are rapidly normalising the benefits of electric vehicles.

I’d like to acknowledge the contribution to this article of my colleague, car enthusiast and academic Damian Fasolo, whose understanding of car culture contributed significantly.

– ref. Our interest in electric vehicles has grown due to oil price spikes. And it’s likely to remain – https://theconversation.com/our-interest-in-electric-vehicles-has-grown-due-to-oil-price-spikes-and-its-likely-to-remain-278664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Rowe, Associate Professor in Education, Deakin University

At this time of the school year, many schools are asking families to pay fees. These are not private schools, but public schools.

The fees are voluntary and go towards a range of items such as stationery, textbooks and excursions.

The voluntary fees range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per child, per year.

This often depends on the socioeconomic status of the school, with more advantaged or select-entry public schools tending to ask parents to contribute more.

Are schools allowed to do this?

Yes, public schools can ask families for fees. But they cannot force parents to pay. The precise rules around fees for public school students also differ from state to state.

For example, in Victoria, public schools must provide students “with free instruction”.

But they can ask parents to make voluntary financial contributions in two categories: “curriculum contributions” and “other contributions”. Schools do not have to be specific about each item within this category but this could involve things such as stationery, library books and IT programs used in classrooms.

Schools might ask parents to contribute towards extracurricular activities, which must be categorised as “optional”. These include excursions, camps, sports programs, music programs or non-curriculum-based school events such as graduations.

In New South Wales, parents might be asked to contribute towards “mandatory excursions” such as camps, swimming and athletics carnivals, and incursions – where experts or performers come to the school.

State governments – such as in NSW – emphasise to parents how voluntary school contributions are “at the discretion of parents and carers” and “there must be no incentives or penalties tied to voluntary contribution payments”.

This is helpful and important for parents who cannot afford to pay. As The Age reported this week, many parents are struggling to pay these fees. But it also puts further pressure on schools to fund basic operations and meet government funding shortfalls.

Why is this happening?

Public schools ask parents to make voluntary contributions because they need the funds. These voluntary contributions are important to the school.

State governments have consistently not met their funding targets for public schools. On current timelines – and provided future governments deliver the funds – schools will not have their full funding entitlements until 2034.

This puts school principals in a very difficult situation. Their schools are not properly funded by the government and there are limits to their ability to seek additional funds from parents.

How do schools make up the shortfall?

Many parents might not know that principals spend a lot of time applying for competitive funding government grants, as my 2024 study showed.

These grants can be for a range of reasons, such as paying for a school bus, or fixing a school wall.

But many of these applications are unsuccessful. There is no feedback available to principals and it is common for them to seek the funding year upon year.

Are there alternatives?

There have been some recent government polices to help with the costs of public schooling. But these are directed at families, not schools.

In 2025, the Victorian state government provided parents with a A$400 school saving bonus. This was provided directly to parents to help with uniforms, textbooks and school activities.

However, it was schools who had to administer the voucher. This meant extra work and costs for schools. The state government did not allow any additional funding to schools to meet this cost. So it had little-to-negative impact for schools when it comes to meeting their funding needs.

The South Australian government has pledged to abolish voluntary parent fees in public schools. It says this will save families more than $8,000 over the life of a child’s schooling.

But with the state’s schools not receiving their full funding entitlements for eight years, this will create an ongoing shortfall for schools.

This is yet another reason why we need full funding for public schools immediately, rather than a commitment to do so in 2034.

– ref. Why are public schools asking parents to pay fees? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-public-schools-asking-parents-to-pay-fees-278985

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marianne Hanson, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

Israel’s avowed goal in the Middle East war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, the double standard associated with this is hardly sustainable in the long run.

The worst-kept secret in the world of nuclear politics is that Israel possesses a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons. It began developing these in the 1950s and reached a fully operational capability by the late 1960s.

Although Israel refuses to confirm or deny this fact, arms control organisations have assessed that the country has some 80–90 nuclear weapons.

In recent days, Iran targeted Israel’s nuclear facility in the southern town of Dimona, injuring more than 100 people. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for restraint to avoid a “nuclear accident”.

A program shrouded in secrecy

There is much evidence to support the existence of Israel’s arsenal.

In 1963, then-Deputy Defence Minister Shimon Peres famously stated Israel would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What this actually meant was spelled out a few years later by the Israeli ambassador to the US. For a weapon to be “introduced”, he said, it needed to be tested and publicly declared. Merely possessing them did not constitute introducing them.

Several whistleblower accounts, intelligence reports and satellite imagery confirm the extent of the Israeli program and its capabilities.

More recently, Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, alluded to using nuclear weapons in Gaza – a tacit acknowledgement of Israel’s capabilities. He was later reprimanded by Netanyahu.

And in 2024, Avigdor Lieberman, a former defence and foreign minister, threatened to “use all the means at our disposal” to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. He added: “It should be clear at this stage it is not possible to prevent nuclear weapons from Iran by conventional means.”

It is important to remember that Israel not only developed its nuclear weapons in secret – employing subterfuge, misleading claims, and even the suspected theft of bomb-grade nuclear material from the United States – it has also rejected international inspections of its facilities and refused to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty has been signed by almost every state in the world.

Concerns over Iran’s program

Iran, meanwhile, has never had a nuclear weapon, though its program has been the source of international concern for more than a decade.

In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as the Iran nuclear deal) with the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, which imposed restrictions on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. This included inspections by IAEA monitors.

However, Trump scuppered the plan in 2018. Since then, Iran has enriched uranium to levels well above those needed for its energy program. And last year, the IAEA said Iran was non-compliant with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations for failing to provide full answers about its program.

But since the current war began, US and international officials have confirmed that Iran was not close to developing a nuclear weapon and did not pose an imminent nuclear threat to the US or Israel.

In short, there is no truth to the claim, made for almost 40 years by Israel, that Iran is “weeks away” from acquiring the bomb. The IAEA made clear two years ago that a nuclear weapon requires “many other things independently from the production of the fissile material”.

Getting close to nuclear threshold status, but stopping short of developing an actual bomb, likely provides a fall-back position for Iran. If Iran were to feel pushed or threatened, it could, in time, accelerate its energy program towards a weapons program. Or it could use this enriched uranium as leverage in negotiations with the US.

Nuclear powers need to show restraint

This brings us back to a major question: can double standards about who can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon be sustained indefinitely?

Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been tacitly accepted by the West, implying there are “right hands” and “wrong hands” for nuclear weapons. But this is a risky and ultimately unsustainable position.

As Australia’s Canberra Commission noted in 1996, as long as any one state has nuclear weapons, other states will want them, too.

This is precisely why many states voted in 2017 to adopt the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty’s purpose is to make the possession, threat and use of nuclear weapons illegitimate for all states, not just for some, on the basis of international humanitarian law.

Signed by 99 states so far, the treaty recognises that nuclear weapons promise massive destruction to civilians and combatants alike, and that even a “small” nuclear war will cause catastrophic damage.

At the end of the day, a consistent approach to nuclear weapons is more likely to prevent nuclear proliferation (by Iran or other states) than the current mess, where some states are tacitly permitted to have these weapons (and wage war on others), while other countries are not.

It is possible we are at a tipping point when it comes to nuclear proliferation, with some countries suspected of wanting to develop nuclear weapon capabilities. This includes US allies South Korea and Japan.

Are the nuclear weapons states ultimately willing to accept the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and disarm in the interest of global peace and security? If they don’t, then the current trajectory of keeping one’s own nuclear weapons and waging war against states that don’t have them will only weaken an already crumbling rules-based international order.

– ref. Israel wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But should it have nuclear weapons itself? – https://theconversation.com/israel-wants-to-destroy-irans-nuclear-program-but-should-it-have-nuclear-weapons-itself-278801

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul M. Garrett, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

You’ve only been in the shopping centre for a few minutes, but back in the car park, you suddenly freeze. Where did I park? The memory feels gone. You guess and start to head left. Then you see the sign – “Blue Zone 1” – and realise your guess was correct.

This everyday experience is at the heart of new research colleagues and I have published in the journal Computational Brain & Behavior.

It shows that even “wrong” short-term memories may not be empty guesses.

What is short-term memory?

When we compare options, debate opinions, and recall very recent events, we hold this information in our “working memory”, also known as our short-term memory.

Researchers agree short-term memory has its limits – most people can only keep four or fewer items in mind at any one time. But the nature of these limitations is debated.

One popular “slot” theory suggests information is either stored fully or not at all. Think of this like a light switch: on or off. If the light is off, any resulting decision is a stab in the dark.

A competing “resource” theory suggests information is stored with different levels of accuracy. Think of this like a lighthouse shining through fog. Some memories are lit up, clear and strong. Others are just out of sight, fuzzy and only touched by the faintest of light.

If true, these fuzzy signals may still help us recognise important information and make good decisions, even when it feels like the memory has disappeared entirely.

Searching for the signal

My colleagues and I used advanced models of decision speed and accuracy to test whether “guessed” memories contained useful information for a subsequent recognition decision.

Put simply, if memory works like a light switch, then guesses will contain no useful information when assessed in a later recognition task.

However, if guesses come from fuzzy memories, then even wrong recollections will contain some useful information for later recognition.

To test these theories, we showed participants up to six colourful dots. After hiding the dots, we then asked them to recall the colour of one of the previous dots on a colour wheel.

Once they’d chosen their colour, we gave them a second shot.

After calculating their response error, we presented the correct colour alongside an alternative one that was located an equal yet opposite distance from the response location as the correct colour on the colour wheel. This ensured the target and alternative (or “distractor”) colours were similarly difficult to recognise, relative to the participant’s initial recollection.

We then asked participants to recognise the correct colour from among the pair.

Fuzzy or gone?

As expected, people recalled colours less precisely when they had more items to remember. But what happened when their answers looked like guesses?

We first separated “guessed” memories (for example, responses made on the wrong side of the colour wheel) from memories centred on the correct colour.

The rate at which participants accurately recognised the correct colour far exceeded chance following guesses for four or fewer items (more than 70%) and on average, was above chance for six items (55%).

Our modelling shows why: even when recall looked very wrong, people were still drawing on the same fuzzy memory trace to achieve better than chance recognition.

We didn’t take this finding at face value.

Using the latest computational methods, we considered alternative accounts: swap errors (where the wrong item was initially recalled and then corrected for during recognition), complex guessing patterns, varying memory limits, and combinations thereof.

No other account explained our findings.

Why ‘fuzzy’ short-term memories matter

Daily life rarely gives us the time or mental space to rely on perfect recall, especially when the information we’re retrieving isn’t all that crucial: the exact location of our parked car or the exact details of an acquaintance’s face.

Our work shows that even when short-term memories feel like they’re gone, they may still hold information that’s useful for making correct decisions.

Understanding this is important.

We often treat short-term memory like a light switch. But that might be leaving people in the dark.

For example, comprehensive short-term memory tests need to assess not only recall, but how recognition memory helps people achieve their daily tasks.

Our work encourages people to reevaluate “guesses” as low-precision memories.

For example, instead of dismissing mistakes as errors, educational tools might use recognition prompts to probe memory lapses and encourage learning.

Our work also supports the use of redundant information when navigating settings using short-term memories. “Blue Zone 1” is a great memory prompt to navigate a car park, but it’s also incredibly helpful in other settings such as hospitals.

Finding ways to better support short-term memory for people’s everyday decision-making, as in the above examples, is a matter for future research.

For now, when you next feel a memory is lost, know that it might not be gone. With any luck, it’ll be there, catching just enough light to lead you in the right direction.

– ref. Gone but not forgotten: how fuzzy memories improve decision-making – https://theconversation.com/gone-but-not-forgotten-how-fuzzy-memories-improve-decision-making-278883

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Mary Hallinan, Senior Research Fellow, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Medicinal cannabis has become a routine part of health care in Australia far more quickly than many expected.

What began in 2016 as a tightly controlled pathway for patients with complex conditions that had not responded to other treatments has grown into a large, mainstream prescribing market. Today, medicinal cannabis is increasingly delivered through telehealth and online platforms.

But our health system was not designed for this demand, nor for the shift in prescribing practices. So many of the safeguards in place for other medicines don’t exist for medicinal cannabis.

Now, Australia’s medicines regulator is deciding how best to update medicinal cannabis prescribing and regulation to make it safer.

Its yet-to-be released review is focusing on “unapproved” medicinal cannabis products, ones that are legal but that it hasn’t assessed to make sure are safe, of good quality and actually work.

The rise and rise of medicinal cannabis

Prescribing of medicinal cannabis rose sharply from 2019. By the end of 2025, publicly available Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) data I analysed shows close to one million approvals for medicinal cannabis in Australia.

However, the systems needed to monitor safety, effectiveness and longer-term outcomes have lagged behind this rapid growth.

Doctors told us as far back as 2018 (in research published in 2021) of their concerns about medicinal cannabis prescribing. They described how the rollout had occurred before the system was fully prepared.

At the time, they raised the potential for fragmented care (patients seeking health care from multiple professionals, not all aware of what the others were prescribing), limited guidance for prescribers, and the absence of routine mechanisms to monitor benefit and harm.

These concerns have persisted as the market has grown, and changed.

From oils to flower, and telehealth

Over time, publicly available TGA data I analysed shows a shift in the type of medicinal cannabis prescribed.

Herbal products – such as dried flowers you smoke and inhale – are increasingly prescribed at higher rates than oral oils containing cannabis extract. This shift from oils to herbal products matters.

Inhaled cannabis is absorbed rapidly through the lungs, with effects felt within minutes, making it one of the fastest ways cannabis acts in the body. But oils are absorbed more slowly through the gut, have delayed onset, and can take hours to reach peak effect.

But this shift towards inhaled cannabis (with its rapid onset) challenges the conventional way medicines are prescribed. This would be to start off with a low dose, then monitor the effects (known as the “start low and go slow” approach).

Medicinal cannabis prescriptions have skyrocketed in Australia, mostly for legal but unapproved products we don’t even know work or are safe. In this series, experts tease out what’s fuelling the rise of medicinal cannabis, the fallout, and what needs to happen next.

Approvals for THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) dominant products are also rising, according to publicly available TGA data I’ve analysed.

THC is psychoactive and can cause side effects such as impaired cognition, anxiety and, in some people, psychosis.

When medicines, including the less-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) products, are prescribed by someone other than a person’s usual doctor, it is often unclear who is responsible for monitoring any harm.

There’s also been a rise in product-specific telehealth consultations for prescribing medicinal cannabis. With these, there’s often limited contact with a patient’s regular doctor.

This matters because many patients prescribed cannabis are also taking antidepressants, sedatives, opioids or other medicines with overlapping side-effects.

Products containing THC can cause sedation, dizziness and cognitive impairment. Both THC and CBD can interact with other drugs, altering blood levels and increasing the risk of harm.

So we end up with a system in which prescribing often occurs in one place, while monitoring occurs elsewhere, or nowhere in particular.

Limited evidence, social media filling the gap

Many others have written about the limited, robust evidence for whether medicinal cannabis works for a range of conditions, including for anxiety, pain and sleep. Based on the evidence to date, it’s unlikely to reduce your anxiety, pain or help you sleep.

Reviews show a similar lack of evidence for mental health conditions more broadly and for substance use disorders.

These are among the many reasons Australians are prescribed medicinal cannabis.

This means health professionals are often prescribing medicinal cannabis in the absence of clear benchmarks for benefit, harm or how long treatment should last.

So patients are increasingly turning to social media, online forums and internet searches to share experiences, compare products, discuss dosing strategies, and interpret side-effects.

While shared experience can be valuable, it is a poor replacement for medical oversight, particularly for patients using multiple medicines or inhaled cannabis products where dose, timing and drug interactions matter.

What needs to happen next?

The federal government has announced reforms requiring medicines prescribed online or via telehealth to be visible in My Health Record, alongside any clinical context.

This means patients and doctors will have a more complete picture of someone’s medicines, including medicinal cannabis. That’s especially the case if they are prescribed in different settings.

But visibility alone is not enough to prevent the safety issues I’ve highlighted.

We need to examine how medicinal cannabis is promoted and prescribed, how it is used in mental health care and by young people, how safety risks are managed, and whether current regulatory arrangements remain fit for purpose.

We need to move towards nationwide oversight and monitoring of medicinal cannabis prescribing. This could include analysing secure, de-identified data from electronic medical records, linked across care settings, to provide the real-world evidence needed to support safer prescribing, detect emerging harms, and inform policy.

If we had that, we could answer:

• who is using medicinal cannabis, and for which conditions?

• which health professional starts the treatment, and how?

• what benefits are patients experiencing?

• what adverse effects, interactions and longer-term harms may be occurring?

Medicinal cannabis is now part of routine health care, and it should be monitored with the same level of accountability expected of any other widely used medicine.

– ref. Medicinal cannabis has gone mainstream. But Australia’s struggling to cope – https://theconversation.com/medicinal-cannabis-has-gone-mainstream-but-australias-struggling-to-cope-271744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Moyle Ogbeide-Ihama, Academic Lead Indigenous Knowledges, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

Ngank, the sun, warms a morning in Bunuru, the second summer season, on Boorloo Whadjuk Noongar lands.

I’m sitting outside the Art Gallery of Western Australia, here to see the I AM exhibition. This collection of Aboriginal artworks has been drawn from the State Art Collection by Carly Lane, a Murri woman from Queensland, and curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the gallery.

A small crowd is now milling, waiting for the ten o’clock opening. One man cannot wait. I watch him walk to the locked glass doors, press his nose and the palms of his hands against the pristine pane, and stare longingly inside, trying to catch someone’s attention. He retreats, then returns, four times in as many minutes.

It’s a space he wants to enter, but he’s not allowed in – yet. I think about the traditional custodians of the land I’m on. They’ve been here for tens of thousands of years, yet from 1927 to 1954 they were restricted by law from being in this very spot without a permit.

Ironically, this segregation was instigated by the Chief Protector of Aborigines, who sought to create a refuge for white citizens. It’s within living memory for some and indelibly marked in the spirits of others through deep time.

Soon, we are all invited in. The man rushes to the front and disappears into the building.

It takes me no time to realise this collection is not driven by aesthetics alone. It is a coming together of rich individual identities voicing their history, knowledge and lived experiences so that, collectively, the greater palette of Peoples emerges.

It privileges the multiple stories of creation, of connection to Country and people, and life lived within the complex realities of a colonised existence.

Articulating identity

Gordon Bennett’s Painting for a New Republic (The inland sea) spreads itself across the wall. It marks the start of a journey centring the many facets of identity. The canvas echoes foundations of his personhood, both inherited and imposed. As we unite with the blood red, blacks, bright yellow and white of his bold marks, we ask ourselves who we are too.

I am urged to stand in front of Making the Warakurna to Warburton Road, by Judith Yinyika Chambers of the Nganyatjarra People of Western Australia. This story is brought to life with tjanpi grass, raffia, acrylic wool and wire – media both old and new – woven together to spin a yarn about community.

It reminds me of Ian Abdulla’s paintings and I am transfixed. I am sitting around the karla (campfire) with them. I can hear the axe head’s dull thump into the tree trunks followed by its echo, the tractor’s throaty gurgle, and the dog’s sharp incessant bark amid all the activity.

Tamisha Williams of the Manyjilyjarra People of Western Australia shares her photographic digital works printed on cotton rag paper, Chilling out Ngurra (home). The muted brightness of these images insists you pause and contemplate what home is.

Christopher Pease’s Whalers arrests my attention. Oil on canvas, it is beautifully realised. Noongar iconography is transposed over 19th century prints, a harpooned whale with a target painted on its side, struggling in the wake of the assault.

I am taken back to Albany, Minang Country where my father was born. As a child my Nanna took me on a drive to the top of the hill above the whaling station, the bloody sight and offensive stench keeping the visit short.

Ancestral presence and resistance

The Wandjina, the Supreme Creator of the Ngarinyin, Worrorra, and Wunambal peoples from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, is a welcome sight. He stares out from Leah Umbagai’s ochre and pen drawing, Baddaa Badaa (I’m telling you a story), summoning eye contact.

Donny Woolagoodja’s linocuts – Namarali (Worrorra God) and Wandjina the Rainmaker – invite quiet reverence.

Humour abounds too. Tiwi man Mai Luki Harry Carpenter’s carving of the Spirit Man Purukapali has an arresting grin that is hard to take your eyes off, like he’s told a joke only he understands.

I also love Julie Dowling’s painting of Noongar warrior Yagan, surrounded by colonisers – homogenous and dull in their aspect and appearance.

Dianne Jones, a Ballardong Noongar artist, brings irreverence and satire to the space with her photographic digital prints, her own image seamlessly merged into classic stereotypical images of 1940s suburban mums going about their lives. She instils an Aboriginal presence in places previously marred by blunt exclusion.

Yhonnie Scarce’s glass installation confronting the dark history of British nuclear testing in South Australia will stay with you long after you’ve left the building, as will Fiona Foley’s bold print of the Hedonistic Honky Haters, HHH#1 (pictured in the header image).

The curation of I AM is mindful and cohesive, a visual and textural manifesto of Australia’s Indigenous art. It is not an exhibition to rush through. You’ll be so glad to view it for yourself. I know I am.

I AM is currently showing at AGWA. The exhibit will have two major rotations, introducing new works in August 2026 and again in early 2027.

– ref. I AM: a powerful declaration of Indigenous identity at the Art Gallery of Western Australia – https://theconversation.com/i-am-a-powerful-declaration-of-indigenous-identity-at-the-art-gallery-of-western-australia-277497