Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Poropat, Adjunct Researcher, Swinburne University of Technology

Fossilised bones belonging to enormous long-necked sauropod dinosaurs have been known from western Queensland since the 1930s, when Austrosaurus mckillopi was discovered on Clutha Station near Maxwelton. Since then, western Queensland has yielded many more sauropod bones and skeletons, particularly in the past two decades.

But the footprints of these behemoths, which can reveal much about how they behaved in life, remained elusive until 2016 when we and our colleagues at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum were informed about sauropod tracks dating back some 95 million years at Karoola Station, northwest of Winton.

The tracksite, which we named “Snake Creek”, comprises a layer of siltstone less than a metre thick, as wide as a basketball court and twice as long. Ninety-five million years ago, this was a silt flat situated between a billabong and a meandering river.

Over the course of more than two years, the tracksite was excavated and moved in its entirety to a purpose-built facility at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum in Winton, where it is now open to the public.

A snapshot of a prehistoric menagerie

The largest footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite were made by sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods walked on all fours, and the front and back feet left very different prints.

The front footprints are crescent-shaped, whereas the back feet are oval with a front taper. At least four individual sauropods walked across the tracksite in the same direction within a very narrow time frame.

The sauropod footprints appear to have been made when the tracksite was not underwater. They are surrounded by concentric ridges that imply brittle deformation of the silt, and many have blobs of siltstone in the middle (called “adhesion traces”) that show where sediment pooled after the animal lifted its foot.

One of the sauropod footprints had a surprise in store: a single three-toed footprint preserved within. This appears to have been made by a medium-sized, meat-eating theropod dinosaur, similar to Winton’s own Australovenator wintonensis, that crossed the tracksite before the sauropod when the silt was still fairly wet at depth.

Read more:
Introducing Australotitan: Australia’s largest dinosaur yet spanned the length of 2 buses

Most of the other footprints at the tracksite appear to have been made after the sauropod footprints, by animals buoyed up in water. Parallel to the sauropod tracks but running in the opposite direction are several trackways of small, three-toed footprints.

Initially, we thought all of these footprints were from small-bodied theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs, similar to those at the nearby Lark Quarry Conservation Park. However, closer examination of the relative lengths of the toes and the width of the trackways revealed that some were not — at least four of the trackways were made by ancient relatives of modern crocodiles called crocodyliforms.

The absence of belly or tail drag marks, coupled with the scarcity of front footprints, means it is likely the crocodyliforms were swimming in shallow water, pushing off the bottom periodically with their back feet to propel themselves along.

Read more:
Prehistoric ‘river boss’ is the largest extinct croc species ever discovered in Australia

Other footprints at the Tracksite appear to be those of swimming turtles that touched down very rarely. Perhaps the most unusual traces are not footprints at all: they are horseshoe-shaped divots that appear to have been left by bottom-feeding lungfish.

Protecting the Tracksite

Fossilised footprints require conservation if they are to be protected from weathering and erosion. They are often moulded with latex and cast in plaster or resin to create replicas for further study.

Much more rarely, fossilised footprints or trackways may be removed wholesale to a museum. The most notable example before now was the relocation of a relatively small section of a tracksite from the Paluxy River in Texas to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.

In 2018, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum set out to relocate and preserve the entire Snake Creek Tracksite, which was at risk of erosion from periodic flooding in Snake Creek.

Between April 2018 and November 2020 a small team of AAOD Museum staff and volunteers systematically removed hundreds of tonnes of rock from Karoola Station to the AAOD Museum.

In May 2021, the new home of the Snake Creek Tracksite was opened to the public: a temperature-controlled, 885-square-metre building at the AAOD Museum in Winton, set up with the help of funding from the Queensland Government. The tracksite will now be accessible to future researchers, and offers a glimpse of a long-lost ecosystem in Australia’s deep past to any visitors to town.

Read more:
A new look at a lost dinosaur dig in the Australian outback

Stephen Poropat works for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, and a substantial portion of his research on the Snake Creek Tracksite was conducted while he was working for Swinburne University of Technology.

Adele Pentland is affiliated with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. She has benefited from funding awarded to Stephen Poropat in 2017 by the Paleontological Society (Arthur James Boucot Research Grant).

– ref. The march of the titanosaurs: the Snake Creek Tracksite unveiled – https://theconversation.com/the-march-of-the-titanosaurs-the-snake-creek-tracksite-unveiled-161039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Poropat, Adjunct Researcher, Swinburne University of Technology

Fossilised bones belonging to enormous long-necked sauropod dinosaurs have been known from western Queensland since the 1930s, when Austrosaurus mckillopi was discovered on Clutha Station near Maxwelton. Since then, western Queensland has yielded many more sauropod bones and skeletons, particularly in the past two decades.

But the footprints of these behemoths, which can reveal much about how they behaved in life, remained elusive until 2016 when we and our colleagues at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum were informed about sauropod tracks dating back some 95 million years at Karoola Station, northwest of Winton.

The tracksite, which we named “Snake Creek”, comprises a layer of siltstone less than a metre thick, as wide as a basketball court and twice as long. Ninety-five million years ago, this was a silt flat situated between a billabong and a meandering river.

Over the course of more than two years, the tracksite was excavated and moved in its entirety to a purpose-built facility at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum in Winton, where it is now open to the public.

A snapshot of a prehistoric menagerie

The largest footprints at the Snake Creek Tracksite were made by sauropod dinosaurs. Sauropods walked on all fours, and the front and back feet left very different prints.

The front footprints are crescent-shaped, whereas the back feet are oval with a front taper. At least four individual sauropods walked across the tracksite in the same direction within a very narrow time frame.

The sauropod footprints appear to have been made when the tracksite was not underwater. They are surrounded by concentric ridges that imply brittle deformation of the silt, and many have blobs of siltstone in the middle (called “adhesion traces”) that show where sediment pooled after the animal lifted its foot.

One of the sauropod footprints had a surprise in store: a single three-toed footprint preserved within. This appears to have been made by a medium-sized, meat-eating theropod dinosaur, similar to Winton’s own Australovenator wintonensis, that crossed the tracksite before the sauropod when the silt was still fairly wet at depth.

Read more:
Introducing Australotitan: Australia’s largest dinosaur yet spanned the length of 2 buses

Most of the other footprints at the tracksite appear to have been made after the sauropod footprints, by animals buoyed up in water. Parallel to the sauropod tracks but running in the opposite direction are several trackways of small, three-toed footprints.

Initially, we thought all of these footprints were from small-bodied theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs, similar to those at the nearby Lark Quarry Conservation Park. However, closer examination of the relative lengths of the toes and the width of the trackways revealed that some were not — at least four of the trackways were made by ancient relatives of modern crocodiles called crocodyliforms.

The absence of belly or tail drag marks, coupled with the scarcity of front footprints, means it is likely the crocodyliforms were swimming in shallow water, pushing off the bottom periodically with their back feet to propel themselves along.

Read more:
Prehistoric ‘river boss’ is the largest extinct croc species ever discovered in Australia

Other footprints at the Tracksite appear to be those of swimming turtles that touched down very rarely. Perhaps the most unusual traces are not footprints at all: they are horseshoe-shaped divots that appear to have been left by bottom-feeding lungfish.

Protecting the Tracksite

Fossilised footprints require conservation if they are to be protected from weathering and erosion. They are often moulded with latex and cast in plaster or resin to create replicas for further study.

Much more rarely, fossilised footprints or trackways may be removed wholesale to a museum. The most notable example before now was the relocation of a relatively small section of a tracksite from the Paluxy River in Texas to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1940s.

In 2018, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum set out to relocate and preserve the entire Snake Creek Tracksite, which was at risk of erosion from periodic flooding in Snake Creek.

Between April 2018 and November 2020 a small team of AAOD Museum staff and volunteers systematically removed hundreds of tonnes of rock from Karoola Station to the AAOD Museum.

In May 2021, the new home of the Snake Creek Tracksite was opened to the public: a temperature-controlled, 885-square-metre building at the AAOD Museum in Winton, set up with the help of funding from the Queensland Government. The tracksite will now be accessible to future researchers, and offers a glimpse of a long-lost ecosystem in Australia’s deep past to any visitors to town.

Read more:
A new look at a lost dinosaur dig in the Australian outback

Stephen Poropat works for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, and a substantial portion of his research on the Snake Creek Tracksite was conducted while he was working for Swinburne University of Technology.

Adele Pentland is affiliated with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. She has benefited from funding awarded to Stephen Poropat in 2017 by the Paleontological Society (Arthur James Boucot Research Grant).

– ref. We moved hundreds of tonnes of rock to preserve the dinosaur footprints of the Snake Creek Tracksite – https://theconversation.com/we-moved-hundreds-of-tonnes-of-rock-to-preserve-the-dinosaur-footprints-of-the-snake-creek-tracksite-161039

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

A Victorian Resolve poll for The Age gave Labor 37% of the primary vote (42.9% at the 2018 election), the Coalition 36% (35.2%), the Greens 9% (10.7%) and independents 12% (6.1%).

This poll was presumably conducted at the same time as Resolve’s federal May and June polls, from a sample of 1,103. As usual with Resolve polls, no two party figure was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated 53-47 to Labor, about a 4% swing to the Coalition since the election.

On the high vote for independents, it appears some voters are dissatisfied with the three main options, and are parking their vote. It’s unlikely independents would get 12% at an election, as those who say they will vote for independents may not like the actual independents in a particular seat.

Incumbent Daniel Andrews led Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien as preferred premier by 49-23. Andrews had a net +10 likeability rating (42% positive, 32% negative), and O’Brien a net -8 rating (14% positive, 22% negative). Acting Premier James Merlino had a net +15 rating (30% positive, 15% negative).

The Age is comparing the Victorian ratings with the ratings for NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian in May’s NSW Resolve poll. Berejiklian was at a net +33 (51% positive, 17% negative).

In questions on the recent COVID crisis that were presumably asked in just the June sample, by 46-36 voters agreed that the government was too quick to lockdown large parts of the state. However, voters agreed 46-34 that the government has handled this outbreak well so far.

There is other evidence of a backlash against the Victorian government over its handling of COVID. In last week’s Essential federal poll, 48% gave the Victorian government a good rating on COVID, down from 63% in the late May Essential before the current crisis.

It’s likely that the 2018 election landslide was a high water mark for Labor in Victoria, and that they would fall from that position even with better perception of handling of COVID. However, Labor is still comfortably ahead and the clear favourites for the November 2022 election.

Read more:
Morrison slumps in Newspoll but Coalition gains, as lockdown shows vaccination is essential

Federal Resolve poll: flawed question on carbon price

In a federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted June 8-12 from a sample of 1,600, the Coalition had 40% of the primary vote (up one since May), Labor 36% (up one), the Greens 10% (down two) and One Nation 3% (up one).

No two party vote was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated a 50.5-49.5 lead for Labor from these primaries, a 0.5% gain for the Coalition.

55% supported the government adopting a net zero emissions target by 2050, with just 12% opposed. However, when offered a choice between new technologies and putting a cost on emissions to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions, 61% supported new technology and just 13% the cost on emissions.

The problem with the second question is that voters were given a choice between something that sounds free (new tech), and something that has a cost (carbon price). It is completely unsurprising, given this framing, that voters massively prefer new tech. A better framing would be to ask whether the government should invest money in new tech, or put a price on carbon.

However, voters are reluctant to spend money on emissions reduction. In a February 2020 Newspoll, 50% said they were prepared to pay nothing more on electricity to meet emissions targets, and a further 23% just $100 more a year. This poll was taken after the 2019-20 summer bushfires, and before COVID. Voters are unlikely to be so concerned about climate change now.

In other Resolve questions, Scott Morrison had a 48% good, 41% poor rating for his performance in recent weeks, with his +7 net rating down eight points since May. Anthony Albanese had an unchanged -13 net rating, and Morrison led Albanese by 46-23 as preferred PM (48-25 in May).

The Coalition and Morrison continued to hold large leads over Labor and Albanese on the economy and COVID. They led by 43-20 on the economy (46-20 in May) and by 40-20 on COVID (46-20).

Read more:
Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable?

Essential and Morgan polls

In last week’s Essential poll, Morrison had a net approval of +21, down five points since May, and Albanese a net approval of +3, down one point. Morrison led Albanese by 48-28 as better PM (50-24 in May).

53% gave the federal government a good rating on COVID and 24% a poor one, well down from the 58-18 rating in late May. In all states, the state government was ahead of the federal government, with the largest gap in WA (75% good for state government, just 49% for federal government).

In a Morgan poll, conducted May 29-30 and June 5-6 from a sample of over 2,800, Labor led the Coalition by 51-49, a 0.5% gain for Labor since March. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (down one), 35.5% Labor (up one), 11.5% Greens (down one) and 3% One Nation (up 0.5%).

Netanyahu ousted in Israel, and other international politics

I wrote for The Poll Bludger on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been ousted in a confidence vote, ending his 12 successive years as PM. Also covered: a German state election and federal polls ahead of the September 26 election; two UK byelections that occur in the next fortnight; and the far-left’s narrow win over the far-right in Peru.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. Victorian Labor holds comfortable lead; flawed climate change question in federal Resolve poll – https://theconversation.com/victorian-labor-holds-comfortable-lead-flawed-climate-change-question-in-federal-resolve-poll-162923

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Buchanan, Professor, Discipline of Business Information Systems, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

Australia has a serious wage problem. Over the past decade wages for all but the top 20% of income earners have flat-lined.

This is part of the longer-term problem concerning productivity and wages identified by groups like the OECD – namely, workers have not shared in productivity gains, with “labour market flexibility” experiments mostly to blame.

So the decision of the Fair Work Commission – the guardian of what’s left of Australia’s historical approach to ensuring decent pay – to increase the minimum wage by 2.5% is significant.

The commission reviews the minimum wage annually. Last year it granted a 1.7% increase – the lowest in 12 years. This year’s 2.5% is less than the 3.5% wanted by unions, but more than the 1.1% sought by employer groups.

The increase directly affects only about a fifth of Australian employees. It will, however, have indirect benefit for workers earning more, and aid economic renewal.

Higher wages are good for employment

The 2.5% increase is more than what Treasury and the Reserve Bank forecast for average wages over the coming year, but also something these conservative institutions would welcome.

Sluggish wage growth does not just result in greater wage inequality. It effectively retards demand, a key determinant of employment.

Unemployment and underemployment have affected about one Australian worker in eight (12-13%) for more a decade. Only expansive monetary, fiscal and wages policy offer any hope of boosting employment.

Unemployment and underemployment in Australia

Most immediately, the decision will benefit up to 200,000 workers paid the national minimum wage rate (which will increase to $20.33 an hour) and about 2.2 million employees that rely on awards whose conditions reflect the minimum conditions (that is, they aren’t covered by an enterprise agreement or other contract that guarantees them more).

The commission has ruled the increases won’t apply to most retail workers before September, and for those in aviation, tourism, fitness and a few retail sectors before November.

With these exceptions, the flow-on will be immediate for workers employed by reputable employers subject to union scrutiny. It may be slower in more informal enterprises where award compliance is more variable.

Read more:
Resistance to raising the minimum wage reflects obsolete economic thinking

Indirect impacts

There will be flow-on affects to other workers, though less than in the past.

Up to the early 1990s, movements in one part of the award system rippled through to other job classifications in a very direct way. This has not been the case since workers – especially those on middle and upper incomes – have been required to bargain at enterprise level for wages.

Such “bargaining”, however, has been supressed for more than a decade, due to:

• chronic and significant unemployment and underemployment

• the crippling of union bargaining capacity through restraints on collective industrial action entrenched in the Fair Work Act

• the imposition of legislated caps on wage increases for public-sector workers since the early 2010s, which have also helped suppress private-sector wages.

That said, having a publicly defined wages norm of 2.5% is helpful to all workers. It provides a benchmark for what is reasonable to claim in enterprise bargaining or negotiating an individual contract.

A hint of prices and wages accord

The Fair Work Commission tacitly noted it could have granted more.

Its decision, it said, was influenced by legislated changes to income tax that have benefited low and middle income earners. It also acknowledged the importance of the Superannuation Guarantee Levy increasing by 0.5% from July.

In weighing these factors there are elements of a tacit incomes policy – something Australia hasn’t had since the Hawke-Keating era of the 1980s and early 1990s.

During that period the federal government made agreements (known as prices and incomes accords) with the trade union movement to explicitly coordinate “industrial wages” (that is, actually wages) and the “social wage” (that is, provisions such as Medicare and superannuation that effectively increased living standards). In exchange for increases in the social wage, unions curbed their demands for industrial wage rise, which helped the government tackle inflation.

There are echoes of those ideas in this decision. Indeed Fair Work Commission president Ian Ross, who was in charge of the wage review, was a key official at the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the last years of the accords.

Getting the balance right

Institutions like the Fair Work Commission and its annual wages review are rare globally. It is the legacy of Australia’s pioneering system of regulated wages and employment conditions that began in 1904 with the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The court’s first landmark decision in 1907 (known as the Harvester decision) was to define and set a “living wage”.

Read more:
A national living wage is on the table. Now let’s talk about a global living wage

Over the decades this arbitration system has adjusted wages in light of changes to economic and social conditions. More often than not it has got the balance right – ensuring improved labour standards for workers in economically sustainable ways.

Even with the push for “labour market flexibility” since the 1980s, things – especially at the bottom of labour market – would certainly be worse were it not for the award system and its current custodian, the Fair Work Commission.

This decision reveals the commission can still provide important leadership in supporting recovery from a deep economic crisis. More will be needed if we are to “build back better”.

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

– ref. Australia’s 2.5% minimum wage rise: there’s something in it for you, and the economy – https://theconversation.com/australias-2-5-minimum-wage-rise-theres-something-in-it-for-you-and-the-economy-162862

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hall, Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology

With its emissions budgets, the Climate Change Commission’s final advice to the government charts a course towards a low-emissions economy. But its comprehensive policy package is arguably the more decisive element — targets can only be achieved if the right policies are in place.

For many years, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has been the government’s primary policy response to climate change. It puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions, but given New Zealand’s failure to cut emissions, its efficacy has been called into question.

In part, this failure is circumstantial. The ETS was deliberately hobbled by the fifth National government to “moderate” its impact on the economy in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

But recent changes to the ETS settings, especially the introduction of a flexible cap on the total emissions allowed in the scheme, make it more rigorous than ever. The price of New Zealand units (NZUs) has risen correspondingly and, presumably, behaviour change will follow. Or will it?

The commission has taken a clear position that emissions pricing, while necessary for driving the low-emissions transition, is not sufficient. To drive down emissions, the ETS needs complementary policies and tools. Hence the commission’s endorsement of a comprehensive policy package.

Read more:
Climate explained: how emissions trading schemes work and they can help us shift to a zero carbon future

This has proven controversial domestically, but it is the standard view in international climate policy circles, including among many economists. A recent expert workshop in the US concluded that:

Carbon pricing cannot stand alone. Politically feasible carbon pricing policies are not sufficient to drive emissions reductions or innovation at the scale and pace necessary.

Why is this the case? Because the real world is more complicated than economic models typically allow.

Not just market fixing

There are many finicky obstacles to behaviour change, even when an adequate carbon price is in place.

Consumers may lack adequate information, or lack access to capital to purchase cleaner technology (such as electric cars), or lack the authority to respond to the price signal (such as a building tenant who carries the cost of electricity but cannot undertake energy efficiency improvements to a building she does not own). Not every such barrier will require a regulatory solution, but sometimes this will be just the ticket.

Beyond market fixing, there are deeper challenges to market-based approaches such as emissions pricing.

In theory, an emissions price enables markets to identify the least-cost emissions reductions. This is valuable because the more cost-effective the climate policy, the more resources are left over to do further good.

Read more:
Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt

But there are instances where more expensive options make sense, especially from the perspective of long-term strategy. It is well known that investing in expensive technologies lowers their cost over time, such that steeper upfront costs are justified in the long run.

For example, Germany drove down the price of solar panels through feed-in tariffs, which meant Germans overpaid for electricity but also accelerated the global shift to renewable energy.

Similarly, in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are opportunities, especially in agriculture and land use, to make future solutions more cost competitive by investing now.

Take investing in native forests — it’s exactly what will reduce the relatively higher costs of establishment (compared to commercial pine plantations that have enjoyed decades of investment already). The higher cost is currently seen as a reason not to plant native forests.

Read more:
Greening the planet: we can’t just plant trees, we have to restore forests

Not so sensitive

Another complication is that some sectors are more sensitive to a carbon price than others. For example, the planting of exotic forest has proved very sensitive to carbon price. So too has electricity because costs are direct and alternatives are available.

But sectors such as agriculture and transport tend to be less sensitive, because costs are diffuse, cultural norms are entrenched, and alternatives are lacking.

An analysis of transport found an emissions price of NZ$235/tonne — about six times higher than today’s price — would be needed to align transport emissions with New Zealand’s international commitments. This is because, in order to change transport behaviour, we ultimately need to change the transport system.

Existing infrastructure creates a lock-in effect which keeps people in their cars even as the emissions price rises, because alternative means of mobility are inadequate. This is known as “price inelasticity” and has likely been significantly underestimated in economic modelling. It is also the source of political pushback because people have no choice except to bear higher costs.

Consequently there is a case for starting early, rather than attempting an expensive transformation of the transport system only once the carbon price reaches a certain threshold. As others have said:

Carbon taxes stimulate a search for low-hanging fruit. That ceases to matter when we know we must eventually pick all of the apples on the tree.

A paradigm shift ahead

It is time to take seriously the notion that climate policy cannot only be about correcting the status quo, but undertaking a major technological transition. What is required isn’t only market-fixing, but a mission-oriented approach which embraces people’s capacity to find solutions and put them into action.

It also involves more than just allocating costs efficiently by emissions pricing, but searching for policy levers that trigger systems change over time, especially through technological tipping points that cascade upwards into a global-scale impact.

It bears emphasising that, even though there is a case for complementary policies, this does not mean every complementary policy is justified. A new way of evaluating policy options, which accounts for the risks and opportunities of the low-emissions transition, is seriously overdue.

Cost effectiveness ought to retain its place as an instrumental value, alongside other principles of justice. But the purpose of the exercise is risk mitigation — that is what climate action should be judged against. Getting that wrong will be more costly and more unjust than the burdens of the transition.

David Hall received funding from Biological Heritage National Science Challenge.

– ref. Why a carbon price alone won’t be enough to drive down New Zealand’s emissions – https://theconversation.com/why-a-carbon-price-alone-wont-be-enough-to-drive-down-new-zealands-emissions-162657

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW

Almost a year ago, in July 2020, our calls for the government to urgently upgrade the guidelines to protect health workers from airborne SARS-CoV-2 fell on deaf ears.

The existing guidelines said health providers working around COVID-19 patients should wear a surgical mask. It restricted use of the more protective P2 or N95 masks, which stop airborne particles getting through, to very limited scenarios. These involved “aerosol-generating procedures”, such as inserting a breathing tube. This was expanded slightly in August 2020 but still left most health workers without access to P2/N95 masks.

More than 4,000 Australian health workers were infected by COVID-19 during the Victorian second wave. Health authorities denied the importance of airborne transmission and blamed clinical staff for “poor habits” and “apathy”. Health workers expressed despair and a sense of abandonment, cataloguing the opposition they faced to get adequate protection against COVID-19.

Last week, 15 months after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the Australian guidelines on personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers, including masks, were finally revised.

What do the new guidelines say?

The new guidelines expand the range of situations in which P2/N95 masks should be available to staff – essentially anywhere where COVID-19-infected people are expected to be – and remove all references to “aerosol-generating procedures”.

This recognises that breathing, speaking, sneezing and coughing all generate aerosols which can accumulate in indoor spaces, posing a higher risk than “aerosol-generating procedures”.

Read more:
Which mask works best? We filmed people coughing and sneezing to find out

“Fit testing” is an annual procedure that should be done for all workers wearing a P2/N95 mask or higher grade respirator, to ensure air can’t leak around the edges.

But this was previously denied to many Australian health workers.

The new guidelines unequivocally state fit-tested P2/N95 masks are required for all staff managing patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. This means health workers can finally receive similar levels of respiratory protection to workers on mining and construction sites.

The new guidelines leave ambiguity around which workplaces are within the scope by stating that health care:

may include hospitals, non-inpatient settings, managed quarantine, residential care facilities, COVID-19 testing clinics, in-home care and other environments where clinical care is provided.

The guidelines also allow employers to decide what comprises a high risk and what doesn’t, allowing more wiggle room to deny workers a P2/N95 mask.

The guidelines say when a suitable P2/N95 mask can’t be used, a re-usable respirator (powered air purifying respirators, or PAPRs) should be considered.

But the guideline’s claim that a PAPR may not provide any additional protection compared to a “well-sealed” disposable P2/N95 mask, is not accurate. In fact, re-usable respirators such as PAPRs afford a higher level of protection than disposable N95 masks.

The new guidelines should also apply to workers in hotel quarantine – both health care and non-clinical staff. This will help strengthen our biosecurity, as long as they’re interpreted in the most precautionary way.

That means not using the wiggle room that allows workplaces to deem a situation lower risk than it actually is or that their workplace is exempt. When working around a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case, all workers must be provided with a fit-tested P2/N95 mask. Otherwise they are not protected from inhaling SARS-CoV-2 from the air.

In aged care and health care, where cases linked to quarantine breaches can be amplified and re-seeded to the community, the new guidelines go some way towards better protecting our essential first responders and their patients.

Read more:
What’s the Delta COVID variant found in Melbourne? Is it more infectious and does it spread more in kids? A virologist explains

Guidelines miss the mark on ventilation

The guidelines fail to explicitly acknowledge COVID-19 spreads through air but nonetheless recommend the use of airborne precautions for staff.

Airborne particles are usually less than 100 microns in diameter and can accumulate indoors, which means they’re an inhalation risk.

The old guidelines focused on “large droplets”, which were thought to fall quickly to the ground and didn’t pose a risk in breathed air. This was based on debunked theories about airborne versus droplet transmission.

The new guidelines fail to comprehensively address ventilation, which is only mentioned in passing with a reference to separate guidelines for health-care facilities. This may not cover aged care or hotel quarantine.

Read more:
This is how we should build and staff Victoria’s new quarantine facility, say two infection control experts

We must ensure institutions such as hospitals, hotel quarantine facilities, residential care, schools, businesses and public transport have plans to mitigate the airborne risk of COVID-19 and other pandemic viruses through improved ventilation and air filtration.

Australia could follow Germany, which has invested €500 million (A$787 million) in improving ventilation in indoor spaces.

Meanwhile, Belgium is mandating the use of carbon dioxide monitors in public spaces such as restaurants and gyms so customers can assess whether the ventilation is adequate.

Cleaning shared air would add an additional layer of protection beyond vaccination and mask-wearing. Secondary benefits include decreased transmission of other respiratory viruses and improved productivity due to higher attention and concentration levels.

No updated advice on hand-washing

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now acknowledges exposure to SARS-CoV-2 occurs through “very fine respiratory droplets and aerosol particles” and states the risk of transmission through touching surfaces is “low”.

Yet this is not acknowledged in the latest Australian health-care guidelines.

Australians have been repeatedly reminded to wash or sanitise their hands, wipe down surfaces and stand behind near-useless plexiglass barriers.

The promotion of hand hygiene and cleaning surfaces is not based on science, which shows it is the air we breathe that matters most.

Revised public messaging is needed for Australians to understand shared air is the most important risk for COVID-19.

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC and Medical Research Futures Fund. She has consulted for mask manufacturers Detmold and Ascend Performance Materials in the past 12 months, and for Cleanspace in the past five years.

Benjamin Veness co-founded Health Care Workers Australia.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah is a past recipient of a MRFF TRIP Fellowship (2019-2020) and co-founder of Health Care Workers Australia, a grass roots advocacy group for health professionals.

– ref. At last, health, aged care and quarantine workers get the right masks to protect against airborne coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/at-last-health-aged-care-and-quarantine-workers-get-the-right-masks-to-protect-against-airborne-coronavirus-162601

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Basil Sharp, Professor of Energy Economics, University of Auckland

New Zealand faces two enormous challenges if it is to meet its international climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement: biogenic methane emissions from agriculture, and carbon emissions from industry and transport.

For now, there seems little prospect of significantly reducing agricultural emissions, short of reducing actual livestock numbers, because the technology is currently not available. The same can’t be said for decarbonising industry and transport.

The question is, how best to do that. Carbon emissions are currently priced by the emissions trading scheme (ETS), but in its present form this can’t provide the financial incentives to decarbonise within the timeframe recommended by the Climate Change Commission.

To meet the government’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, other market mechanisms will be required. Hence the recently announced “feebate” scheme to encourage a transition to electric and cleaner hybrid or conventional vehicles.

There’s no doubt the technology exists to transition industry and transport to a low-carbon future. For industry, electricity and possibly hydrogen are the obvious substitutes for coal and gas.

Decarbonising transport is also technically feasible, but creating the right incentives remains a challenge. While taxes on petrol and diesel already include a price on carbon, demand is relatively insensitive to price, regardless of global costs and local taxes.

Read more:
Climate policy that relies on a shift to electric cars risks entrenching existing inequities

The new rebate policy simply switches the focus from fossil fuel energy for internal combustion-powered transport to electricity-powered transport.

Ironically, this reverses what happened when hybrid electric vehicles were first produced in the late 19th century. Mass production of cars and cheap oil put an end to that early form of EV. Back to the future!

How will consumers respond?

Reducing the price of EVs by lowering the government’s tax take and increasing the levy on certain classes of fossil-fuelled vehicles is a bold initiative — but also something of an experiment. The outcome will depend on the extent to which the rebate increases consumer demand.

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of car ownerships in the world — close to 0.8 vehicles per person. EVs are becoming more popular but still account for less than 1% of the market. Higher uptake depends on a range of variables.

Most car manufacturers are moving into the production of EVs. Although this will occur at scale, we can’t be sure the vehicles will become cheaper, particularly if recent price spikes in raw material markets continue.

Read more:
NZ’s Climate Change Commission needs to account for the huge potential health benefits of reducing emissions

New Zealand is also at the end of the supply chain, making us price takers in the global market for new EVs. The supply of second-hand EVs from Japan will depend on how often owners replace their vehicles.

On the demand side, the feebate initiative will change the relative price of cars and should increase sales. By how much and over what period is harder to predict.

New Zealanders’ ability to pay for EVs is perhaps more significant. New Zealand is not a high-income economy, and this will probably have a greater bearing on uptake. Even a second-hand vehicle at NZ$25,000 is beyond the reach of many households.

If demand turns out to be relatively insensitive to a change in price, further policy adjustments will be needed. This, of course, opens up the possibility of future governments altering the entire course of transport decarbonisation policy.

Read more:
As NZ gets serious about climate change, can electricity replace fossil fuels in time?

A nudge in the right direction

Economies are complex interdependent systems. The rebate scheme is a policy “nudge”, but clearly public transport, cycling and walking should be part of a broader set of policies aimed at getting people out of private motor vehicles.

Furthermore, the impact on electricity prices remains unclear. About 80-85% of New Zealand’s electricity comes from renewable sources. Timely investment in wind, geothermal and stored hydro can add to supply in the future, and the current government wants to see 100% renewable electricity generation by 2030.

Paradoxically, however, transitioning to a low-carbon economy will most likely result in higher electricity bills. Bringing additional generation capacity on line, increased demand from transitioning industry and transport to electric, and the prospect of producing green hydrogen from renewable sources, will all drive up prices.

Nevertheless, New Zealand’s endowment of renewable resources positions it well to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement. But achieving the 2030 target remains a huge challenge. The rebate scheme is but a step in that direction.

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

– ref. NZ’s clean car discount is a turn in the right direction, but how much will it drive consumer demand? – https://theconversation.com/nzs-clean-car-discount-is-a-turn-in-the-right-direction-but-how-much-will-it-drive-consumer-demand-162751

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim O’Hara, Senior Curator of Marine Invertebrates, Museums Victoria

Let me introduce you to Ophiojura, a bizarre deep-sea animal found in 2011 by scientists from the French Natural History Museum, while trawling the summit of a secluded seamount called Banc Durand, 500 metres below the waves and 200 kilometres east of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

Ophiojura is a type of brittle star, which are distant cousins of starfish, with snake-like arms radiating from their bodies, that live on sea floors around the globe.

Being an expert in deep-sea animals, I knew at a glance that this one was special when I first saw it in 2015. The eight arms, each 10 centimetres long and armed with rows of hooks and spines. And the teeth! A microscopic scan revealed bristling rows of sharp teeth lining every jaw, which I reckon are used to snare and shred its prey.

As my colleagues and I now report in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ophiojura does indeed represent a totally unique and previously undescribed type of animal. It is one of a kind — the last known species of an ancient lineage, like the coelacanth or the tuatara.

We compared DNA from a range of different marine species, and concluded that Ophiojura is separated from its nearest living brittle star relatives by about 180 million years of evolution. This means their most recent common ancestor lived during the Triassic or early Jurassic period, when dinosaurs were just getting going.

Since then, Ophiojura‘s ancestors continued to evolve, leading ultimately to the situation today, in which it is the only known survivor from an evolutionary lineage stretching back 180 million years.

Amazingly, we have found small fossil bones that look similar to our new species in Jurassic (180 million-year-old) rocks from northern France, which is further evidence of their ancient origin.

Scientists used to call animals like Ophiojura “living fossils”, but this isn’t quite right. Living organisms don’t stay frozen in time for millions of years without changing at all. The ancestors of Ophiojura would have continued evolving, in admittedly very subtle ways, over the past 180 million years.

Perhaps a more accurate way to describe these evolutionary loners is with the term “paleo-endemics” — representatives of a formerly widespread branch of life that is now restricted to just a few small areas and maybe just a single solitary species.

For seafloor life, the centre of palaeo-endemism is on continental margins and seamounts in tropical waters between 200 metres and 1,000 metres deep. This is where we find the “relicts” of ancient marine life — species that have persisted in a relatively primitive form for millions of years.

Read more:
Dancing brittle stars tell an ancient tale of life and death in brutal seas

Seamounts, like the one on which Ophiojura was found, are usually submerged volcanoes that were born millions of years ago. Lava oozes or belches from vents in the seafloor, continually adding layers of basalt rock to the volcano’s summit like layers of icing on a cake. The volcano can eventually rise above the sea surface, forming an island volcano such as those in Hawaii, sometimes with coral reefs circling its shoreline.

But eventually the volcano dies, the rock chills, and the heavy basalt causes the seamount to sink into the relatively soft oceanic crust. Given enough time, the seamount will subside hundreds or even thousands of metres below sea level and gradually become covered again in deep-sea fauna. Its sunlit past is remembered in rock as a layer of fossilised reef animals around the summit.

Voyage of discovery

While our new species is from the southwest Pacific, seamounts occur worldwide and we are just beginning to explore those in other oceans. In July and August, I will lead a 45-day voyage of exploration on Australia’s oceanic research vessel, the RV Investigator, to seamounts around Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean.

These seamounts are ancient – up to 100 million years old — and almost totally unexplored. We are truly excited at what we may find.

Seamounts are special places in the deep-sea world. Currents swirl around them, bringing nutrients from the depths or trapping plankton from above, which feeds the growth of spectacular fan corals, sea whips, and glass sponges. These in turn host numerous other deep-sea animals. But these fascinating communities are vulnerable to human activities such as deep-sea trawling and mining for precious minerals.

The Australian government recently announced a process to create new marine parks in the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) regions. Our voyage will provide the data required to manage these parks into the future.

The New Caledonian government has also created a marine park in offshore areas around these islands, including the Durand seamount. These marine parks are beacons of progress in the global drive for better environmental stewardship of our oceans. Who knows what weird and wonderful treasures of the deep are yet to be discovered.

Read more:
How we traced the underwater volcanic ancestry of Lord Howe Island

Tim O’Hara has received funding from the National Environmental Science Program’s Marine Biodiversity Hub.

– ref. This deep-sea creature is long-armed, bristling with teeth, and the sole survivor of 180 million years of evolution – https://theconversation.com/this-deep-sea-creature-is-long-armed-bristling-with-teeth-and-the-sole-survivor-of-180-million-years-of-evolution-162842

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW

The federal government has scrambled in recent days to minimise the political fallout from its treatment of the Tamil family from Biloela. After almost two years stuck on Christmas Island, the Murugappans are now being permitted to return to the mainland under community detention while their asylum case is settled.

Last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne raised the prospect of resettling the family in New Zealand or the US, before Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews dismissed the idea, saying they are not eligible because they have not been found to be refugees.

All this talk has caused much confusion, and sparked questions around what Canberra is doing to resolve the plight of other displaced people to whom it has refused entry — namely, the hundreds of refugees who have been held for years in Australia’s system of offshore processing.

Andrews has said the Australian government is exploring resettlement overseas for “broad cohorts” of people. The minister’s focus is apparently on refugees who were held offshore in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and are currently in Australia for medical treatment.

The chance of a resettlement deal with New Zealand for these refugees is reported to be gaining traction — although there are no tangible results yet.

Meanwhile, a deal struck with Washington in 2016 to offer resettlement to the US for up to 1,250 refugees held in PNG and Nauru is still playing out years later.

As of last month, there are approximately 200 refugees who have been approved for entry to the United States and are waiting to depart, and a further 260 pre-approved in advance of final health checks.

Who is eligible for resettlement in another country?

For a start, it helps to understand why Canberra wants other countries to resettle refugees who sought protection in Australia.

On July 19 2013, the Rudd Labor government introduced a hardline ban on entry: people who sought asylum by boat on or after that date, and were transferred to PNG or Nauru, would never settle in Australia. This has been maintained under successive Liberal governments, and a total of 3,127 people were sent offshore.

The ban has been criticised for its “absolutist ambition” — the idea that the admission of any one person would cause the entire system of border control to collapse.

This is despite the fact Australia has obligations under international refugee and human rights law to protect people fleeing persecution or other serious human rights violations.

A central plank of this absolutism is that asylum seekers who arrive by boat, and are found to be refugees, will only ever be able to secure a durable and humane solution in another country – if such an opportunity can be found.

For those not subject to the hardline ban on entry — some 30,000 people who sought asylum by boat after mid-2012 and before January 1 2014, and were not transferred offshore — a complex legal regime narrows their path to protection in Australia.

These people are subject to limited-term visas and a lot of uncertainty. The Biloela family have had to deal with this “byzantine” system, having arrived before the ban came into effect.

Deals with third countries

After the ban, successive Australian governments have tried to make deals with third countries to resettle those who were sent to PNG or Nauru.

A 2014 agreement with Cambodia was said to cost A$55 million, and was ultimately taken up by just a handful of refugees. In 2015, the Philippines was reportedly wooed by Australian officials for a potential deal to resettle refugees worth $150 million that never eventuated.

Leer más:
Resettling refugees in Australia would not resume the people-smuggling trade

The 2016 deal with Washington promised hope for those held offshore. Negotiated with the Obama administration, the deal was soon subject to the whims of President Donald Trump, with resettlement stalling several times.

In a testy phone call with then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that was leaked to the media, Trump lambasted what he called a “stupid deal” that could allow Australia to export new “Boston bombers” to the US. Turnbull, in turn, provided reassurance that Australia would resettle Central American refugees from the US, telling Trump, “we will take anyone that you want us to take”.

While Trump and Turnbull bickered, the young writer Imran Mohammad, held in detention on Manus Island, said he feared “the Australian government has no proper plans for our future”.

Amid long delays in resettlement to the US, non-profit organisations have recently taken up the cause, with one group securing up to 140 places in Canada last month for refugees still held in limbo under the offshore policy.

Contrary to “common decency”

Resettlement deals aren’t new. On several occasions since the 1960s, Australia has offered to resettle refugees whose journeys to the US were politically contentious. This includes generations of Cubans who have tried to flee their island nation since the early 1970s. As recently as 2017, Australia resettled 17 Cubans found clinging to a lighthouse off the coast of Florida.

Washington has responded in turn. The most recent and well-known example is the 2016 resettlement agreement, but the practice has a longer history, involving refugees held under the Howard government’s version of offshore processing in the early 2000s.

These transfers have been upheld by both governments as a sign of bilateral goodwill and cooperation. But the UN refugee agency UNHCR has been less impressed, noting that Canberra’s insistence on denying entry to Australia for even those refugees who have close family in the country is contrary “to common decency”.

Leer más:
Why do Tamil asylum seekers need protection — and why does the Australian government say they don’t?

No easy answer

This coming year, Australia will spend around $2 billion to maintain its onshore and offshore detention centres. Many of the people within that system have been held in limbo for years.

The government rhetoric has not softened on the issue, either, not even with Tharnicaa Murugappan marking her fourth birthday in a Perth hospital after contracting a blood infection caused by untreated pneumonia.

To release these two young children and their parents back to Biloela, the argument goes, would reignite the people smuggling trade – what Attorney-General Michaela Cash has called the “consequences of blinking”.

But this approach has a significant human and economic cost, and damages Australia’s reputation abroad. The offshore system, and the treatment of the young family from Biloela, have earned Canberra plenty of criticism in the international press.

With long delays and no guarantees, it is clear that resettlement deals cannot get Australia “off the hook”, either.

Claire Higgins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This article is part of a series on asylum seeker policy supported by a grant from the Broadley Trust.

– ref. Resettling refugees in other countries is not working, nor is it fair. So, why is Australia doing it? – https://theconversation.com/resettling-refugees-in-other-countries-is-not-working-nor-is-it-fair-so-why-is-australia-doing-it-162505

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wen Shi Lee, Postdoctoral researcher, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines accelerating, people are increasingly asking which vaccine is best?

Even if we tried to answer this question, defining which vaccine is “best” is not simple. Does that mean the vaccine better at protecting you from serious disease? The one that protects you from whichever variant is circulating near you? The one that needs fewer booster shots? The one for your age group? Or is it another measure entirely?

Even if we could define what’s “best”, it’s not as if you get a choice of vaccine. Until a suite of vaccines become available, the vast majority of people around the world will be vaccinated with whichever vaccine is available. That’s based on available clinical data and health authorities’ recommendations, or by what your doctor advises if you have an underlying medical condition. So the candid answer to which COVID vaccine is “best” is simply the one available to you right now.

Still not convinced? Here’s why it’s so difficult to compare COVID vaccines.

Clinical trial results only go so far

You might think clinical trials might provide some answers about which vaccine is “best”, particularly the large phase 3 trials used as the basis of approval by regulatory authorities around the world.

These trials, usually in tens of thousands of people, compare the number of COVID-19 cases in people who get the vaccine, versus those who get a placebo. This gives a measure of efficacy, or how well the vaccine works under the tightly controlled conditions of a clinical trial.

And we know the efficacy of different COVID vaccines differ. For instance, we learned from clinical trials that the Pfizer vaccine reported an efficacy of 95% in preventing symptoms, whereas AstraZeneca had an efficacy of 62-90%, depending on the dosing regime.

Leer más:
How to read results from COVID vaccine trials like a pro

But direct comparison of phase 3 trials is complex as they take place at different locations and times. This means rates of infection in the community, public health measures and the mix of distinct viral variants can vary. Trial participants can also differ in age, ethnicity and potential underlying medical conditions.

We might compare vaccines head to head

One way we can compare vaccine efficacy directly is to run head-to-head studies. These compare outcomes of people receiving one vaccine with those who receive another, in the same trial.

In these trials, how we measure efficacy, the study population and every other factor is the same. So we know any differences in outcomes must be down to differences between the vaccines.

For instance, a head-to-head trial is under way in the UK to compare the AstraZeneca and Valneva vaccines. The phase 3 trial is expected to be completed later this year.

How about out in the real world?

Until we wait for the results of head-to-head studies, there’s much we can learn from how vaccines work in the general community, outside clinical trials. Real-world data tells us about vaccine effectiveness (not efficacy).

And the effectiveness of COVID vaccines can be compared in countries that have rolled out different vaccines to the same populations.

For instance, the latest data from the UK show both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have similar effectiveness. They both reliably prevent COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalisation and death, even after a single dose.

So what at first glance looks “best” according to efficacy results from clinical trials doesn’t always translate to the real world.

What about the future?

The COVID vaccine you get today is not likely to be your last. As immunity naturally wanes after immunisation, periodic boosters will become necessary to maintain effective protection.

There is now promising data from Spain that mix-and-matching vaccines is safe and can trigger very potent immune responses. So this may be a viable strategy to maintain high vaccine effectiveness over time.

In other words, the “best” vaccine might in fact be a number of different vaccines.

Variant viruses have started to circulate, and while current vaccines show reduced protection against these variants, they still protect.

Companies, including Moderna, are rapidly updating their vaccines to be administered as variant-specific boosters to combat this.

So, while one vaccine might have a greater efficacy in a phase 3 trial, that vaccine might not necessarily be “best” at protecting against future variants of concern circulating near you.

Leer más:
Can I get AstraZeneca now and Pfizer later? Why mixing and matching COVID vaccines could help solve many rollout problems

The best vaccine is the one you can get now

It is entirely rational to want the “best” vaccine available. But the best vaccine is the one available to you right now because it stops you from catching COVID-19, reduces transmission to vulnerable members of our community and substantially reduces your risk of severe disease.

All available vaccines do this job and do it well. From a collective perspective, these benefits are compounded. The more people get vaccinated, the more the community becomes immune (also known as herd immunity), further curtailing the spread of COVID-19.

The global pandemic is a highly dynamic situation, with emerging viral variants of concern, uncertain global vaccine supply, patchy governmental action and potential for explosive outbreaks in many regions.

So waiting for the perfect vaccine is an unattainable ambition. Every vaccine delivered is a small but significant step towards global normality.

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

– ref. Which COVID vaccine is best? Here’s why that’s really hard to answer – https://theconversation.com/which-covid-vaccine-is-best-heres-why-thats-really-hard-to-answer-161185

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tahlia Pollock, PhD candidate, Monash University

Tasmanian devils are expert scavengers, with strong jaws and robust teeth that give them the notorious ability to eat almost all of a carcass — bones and all.
Scientists have even found echidna spikes in their poo.

But regularly crunching through bone comes at a cost: extreme tooth wear. In our new study, we analysed the skulls of nearly 300 devils, and show how regularly crunching through bones wears a devil’s teeth down from sharp-edged weapons to blunt nubbins.

Tasmanian devils are endangered and their wild population is continuing to decline. A key part of conserving this marsupial is by maintaining healthy and happy devils in captivity.

Understanding how their food affects their teeth can help us see if captive devils have the same types of tooth wear as their wild counterparts, and look for signs of any unusual or harmful wear.

Is there anything a devil won’t eat?

Tasmanian devils are the largest marsupial carnivore alive today. As scavengers, they occupy a unique niche in the Australian ecosystem by disposing of dead animal carcasses.

Devils are highly opportunistic and can eat many different types of prey. While their favourites are the carcasses of native mammals such as wombats and wallabies, they’ll also eat reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and even insects.

We know this because we find hair, feathers, scales, small bones, claws and more in their poo.

Almost nothing is off limits to devils — they’ll even have a go at a stranded whale given the chance. Although devils prefer to scavenge, they’re also accomplished hunters.

Read more:
Tassie devil facial tumour is a transmissible cancer

But due to a transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease, wild numbers of these remarkable marsupials have plummeted by around 80%.

Right now, 45 Australian zoos and wildlife sanctuaries, plus an island and a fenced peninsula, are collaborating to maintain a healthy population of disease-free devils. It’s important for these institutions to provide captive animals with the right kinds of food for their health and to help make their future release back to disease-free wild locations successful.

This is especially crucial for carnivores, who rely on tough foods to help them develop strong jaws.

Like hyaenas, but stronger

The types of food an animal eats will wear their teeth down differently. For example, big cats such as lions prefer to eat the softer parts of a carcass, like flesh or organs, and leave the bones behind.

Spotted hyaenas, however, will happily eat the bones. As a result, hyaenas have incredibly high tooth wear compared with lions.

This might not hinder the hyaena or devil as much as you might think. Both have very strong jaws that can compensate for the loss of sharp teeth. In fact, devils have the strongest bite force per body weight of any living mammal.

In the interactive below, you can check out 3D models of devil skulls to get a better idea of how much their teeth wear down.

Comparing wild and captive diets

By comparing the tooth wear of wild and captive devils, we can see if captive animals are encountering enough hard foods in their diets.

In the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program — an initiative of the federal and Tasmanian governments — captive devils are given a variety of small and large foods at different times, replicating what they’d find in the wild.

We found no signs of different or harmful tooth wear in captive devils, and they showed much the same patterns and types of wear as wild devils.

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Meet Moss, the detection dog helping Tassie devils find love

However, we noticed captive devils wore their teeth more slowly than those in the wild. This may be due to eating higher quality food, such as carcasses that were fresh, whole, and yet to be scavenged.

This means captive institutions are doing a good job of providing devils with the right types of food for their teeth and encouraging wild behaviours.

Collecting data about Tassie devils after they’ve been released confirms this. In 2012 and 2013, devils were released onto Maria Island in Tasmania after being born and raised for around a year in captivity.

Encouragingly, these devils kept the behaviours required to scavenge and hunt prey, and had diets similar to wild devils.

How you can help save Tasmanian devils

Our research is one small, but promising, piece in the overall puzzle. While captive research and breeding programs help conserve the Tasmanian devil, there are ways you can help, too.

Because they like to scavenge the carcasses of dead animals, road kill is especially tempting for devils. But being so close to the road is dangerous and road mortality is the second-biggest killer of wild devils.

So take care on the roads to help wildlife, especially if driving at night. And if you’re in Tasmania and see a devil that’s been hit on the road, log it in the Roadkill TAS app.

This will help identify road kill hotspots and protect this impressive, but endangered, species.

Read more:
10 million animals are hit on our roads each year. Here’s how you can help them (and steer clear of them) these holidays

Tahlia Pollock receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship (RTP stipend), the Monash Graduate Excellence Scholarship (MGE). The research was also funded by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment – Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation & the Ecological Society of Australia.

Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.

David Hocking has received funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.

Marissa Parrott works for Zoos Victoria, a not-for-profit zoo-based conservation organisation. She works closely with partners from the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program and Zoo and Aquarium Association for the conservation of the Tasmanian Devil. Marissa receives no additional payment or funding from outside Zoos Victoria for any work related to threatened species.

– ref. Bones and all: see how the diets of Tasmanian devils can wear down their sharp teeth to blunt nubbins – https://theconversation.com/bones-and-all-see-how-the-diets-of-tasmanian-devils-can-wear-down-their-sharp-teeth-to-blunt-nubbins-162422

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Tham, Research officer at the Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University

Thousands of primary and secondary students in Sydney and Melbourne are preparing for selective entrance exams. If successful, students will gain entry into a selective secondary school, with other high-achievers, or an “opportunity class”, which is an academic stream for years 5 and 6 in a mixed-ability primary school.

Fully selective and partially selective schools in New South Wales and Victoria are part of the government school sector. They charge minimal fees compared to non-government schools.

But unlike regular government schools that prioritise students living in their catchment zone, selective schools enrol only the highest achieving students based on the outcomes of a competitive entrance exam.

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School catchment zones may be annoying for some parents, but they help ensure equality for everyone

Selective schools are known for being consistently high-performing, producing some of the highest final-year secondary school outcomes. The chances of getting into a selective school depends on yearly demand. But are they actually worth it?

Why do families choose selective schools?

Research shows families choose selective schools for many reasons.

Parents are often drawn to them because their students produce good Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores. These then ensure they can get into the university course of their choice.

Some migrant parents believe their education opportunities were limited or disrupted in their home countries, or during migration. When settled in Australia, these families may be drawn to high-performing schools that select talented and hard-working students.

Parents who have migrated to Australia from overseas also often cite a mix of high aspirations and anxiety about the future — related to university entry, job security and racial discrimination in the workplace — as their main reasons for choosing selective schools.

Selective schools aim to offer opportunities “for all” academically talented students, regardless of their social or cultural backgrounds, or where they live. They seek to enact the ethos of equal opportunity through various practices. For example, the entrance exam comprises aptitude style questions to test students’ natural abilities. And private tutoring to prepare for the entrance exams is discouraged.

Despite this, the types of students enrolled in selective schools are not representative of the population. Selective schools predominantly enrol socially advantaged students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

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Selective schools mainly ‘select’ advantage, so another one won’t ease Sydney’s growing pains

A recent review of selective schooling in NSW showed the admission processes provide better outcomes for advantaged students — 59% of applicants were from high socioeconomic backgrounds, or have at least one parent with a bachelor degree or above. The gap widens further on selection, with 64% of selected students considered to be in the high socioeconomic group.

So, these schools take hard-working students who have the advantages of extra tutoring. But do the schools, themselves, make a difference to individual students’ scores?

Do selective schools offer academic benefits?

Studies show selective schools are high performing compared to non-selective schools, but the degree to which they stretch the abilities of selective students is relatively inconclusive.

For instance, a study of three of the four fully selective schools in Victoria found selective school students get ATAR scores that are two and a half percentile points higher than the non-selective school students who narrowly missed out on entry into selective schools.

A recent working paper from the Centre for International Research on Education Systems explored how selective schools shape the socioeconomic composition and academic performance of non-selective schools in Sydney and Melbourne.

It compared the types of students enrolled in geographical “clusters” with one of each type of school: fully selective, partially selective, private and non-selective government schools. The schools were matched where possible in terms of student composition by sex and year levels to enable fair comparisons. The report included 80 schools — 64 in Sydney and 16 in Melbourne.

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The report showed academic selection through selective school entry ends up with schools being stratified based on students’ social background and academic abilities.

Fully selective schools had the highest proportions of high socioeconomic students (89%). Private schools followed, with 81% of high socioeconomic students. In partially selective schools, advantaged students made up 57% of enrolments. Public schools had the lowest attendance of high socioeconomic students, at just over half, or 50.4%.

Students in selective schools were the highest performing in numeracy, reading and writing. Private and partially selective schools had similar levels of academic performance. Public schools were the lowest performing in all three academic domains.

Given socioeconomic status is a significant predictor of academic scores, it’s unclear whether selective schools would actually make a difference to individual students’ grades. What is clear is that academic selection produces social selection in schools, separating students from wealthy families from those who are of lower socioeconomic status.

Does competition make a difference?

Recent research of 14-year-old students in the United States highlighted competitive, stressful entrance exams — and repetitive testing — affects student well-being, confidence and sense of self when they aren’t selected.

For those who are successful, the process of competitive school entry encourages individualistic mindsets and self-protective actions. The study showed it also heightens racialised stereotyping and lowers empathy towards students who miss out on a place or are unable to compete.

Australian research shows selective school students often compare entrance exam results with others after enrolment. Those who are successful through second or third round offers carry a sense of failure with them into schools, knowing they were not picked first. These successfully selected but lower scoring students see themselves as lesser than first-picked students for many years after selection.

Choosing a selective over a non-selective school flows through to sustaining inequalities in society more broadly. In contrast, enrolling into local government schools and ensuring a mix of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds will help reduce social inequalities, ensuring fairer life outcomes for everyone.

Melissa Tham no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. More stress, unclear gains: are selective schools really worth it? – https://theconversation.com/more-stress-unclear-gains-are-selective-schools-really-worth-it-160762

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Johnston, Associate Professor of English Literature, The University of Queensland

In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop’s poem The Aboriginal Mother was published in The Australian on December 13, 1838, five days before seven men were hanged for their part in the Myall Creek massacre.

About 28 Wirrayaraay people died in the massacre near Inverell in northern New South Wales. Dunlop had arrived in Sydney in February, and the Irish writer was horrified by the violence she read about in the newspapers.

Read more:
How can we achieve reconciliation? Myall Creek offers valuable answers

Moved by evidence in court about an Indigenous woman and baby who survived the massacre, Dunlop crafted a poem condemning settlers who professed Christianity but murdered and conspired to cover up their crime. It read, in part:

Now, hush thee—or the pale-faced men
Will hear thy piercing wail,
And what would then thy mother’s tears
Or feeble strength avail!

Oh, could’st thy little bosom
That mother’s torture feel,

Or could’st thou know thy father lies
Struck down by English steel

The poem closed evoking the body of “my slaughter’d boy … To tell—to tell of the gloomy ridge; and the stockmen’s human fire”.

The graphic content depicting settler violence and First Nations’ suffering made Dunlop’s poem locally notorious. She didn’t shrink from the criticism she received in Australia’s colonial press, declaring she hoped the poem would awake the sympathies of the English nation for a people who were “rendered desperate and revengeful by continued acts of outrage”.

An early life as a reader

Dunlop, the youngest of three children, was born Eliza Matilda Hamilton in 1796. Her father, Solomon Hamilton, was an attorney practising in Ireland, England and India. Her mother died soon after Dunlop’s birth, and she was brought up by her paternal grandmother.

Part of a privileged Protestant family with an excellent library, Dunlop grew up reading writers from the French Revolution and social reformers such as Mary Wollstonecraft.

In her teens, Dunlop published poems in local magazines. An unpublished volume of her original poetry, translations and illustrations written between 1808 and 1813 reveals her fascination with Irish mythology and European literature. She was deeply interested in the Irish language and in political campaigns to extend suffrage and education to Catholics.

In 1820, she travelled to India to visit her father and two brothers. The journey inspired poems about colonial locations — from the Cape Colony (now South Africa) to the Ganges River — that explored the reach and impact of the British Empire.

In Scotland in 1823, she married book binder and seller David Dunlop. David’s family history inspired poems such as her dual eulogy, The Two Graves (1865), about the bloody suppression of Protestant radicals in the 1798 Rebellion, during which David’s father Captain William Dunlop had been hanged.

The Dunlops had five children in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, where they were engaged in political activity seeking to unseat absentee English landlords, before leaving Ireland in 1837.

Settler poetry and politics

When The Aboriginal Mother was published as sheet music in 1842, set to music by the composer Isaac Nathan, he declared “it ought to be on the pianoforte of every lady in the colony”.

Dunlop often wrote about the Irish diaspora in poems which were alternatively nostalgic and political. But she also brought her knowledge of the violence and divisiveness of colonisation, religion and ethnicity to her writing on Australia.

Her optimistic vision for Australian poetry encouraged colonial readers to be attentive to their environment and to recognise Indigenous culture. This reputation for sympathising with Indigenous people — and her husband’s arguments with settlers in Penrith about the treatment of Catholic convicts — were widely criticised in the press.

This affected David’s career as police magistrate and Aboriginal Protector: he was soon moved to a remote location. There, too, local landholders campaigned against his appointment and undermined his authority.

Indigenous languages

When David was posted to Wollombi in the Upper Hunter Valley, Dunlop sought to expand her knowledge of Indigenous culture, engaging with Darkinyung, Awabakal and Wonnarua people who lived in the area.

She attempted to learn various languages of the region, transcribing word lists, songs and poems, and acknowledging the Indigenous people who shared their knowledge with her.

She wrote a suite of Indigenous-themed poems in the 1840s, publishing poems in newspapers such as The Eagle Chief (1843) or Native Poetry/Nung-ngnun (1848). These poems were criticised by anonymous letter writers, questioning her poetic ability, her knowledge and her choice of subject.

Some critics were frankly racist, refusing to accept the human emotions expressed by Dunlop’s Indigenous narrators.

The Sydney Herald had railed against the death sentences of the men responsible for the Myall Creek massacre, and Dunlop condemned the attitude of the paper and its correspondents. She hoped “the time was past, when the public press would lend its countenance to debase the native character, or support an attempt to shade with ridicule”.

Dunlop would publish with one outlet before shifting to another, finding different editors in the volatile colonial press who would support her.

Poetry of protest

Dunlop wrote in a sentimental form of poetry popular at the time, addressing exile, history and memory. She published around 60 poems in Australian newspapers and magazines between 1838 and 1873, but appears to have written nothing more on Indigenous themes after 1850. This popular writing also contributed to poetry of political protest, galvanising readers around causes such as transatlantic anti-slavery.

Read more:
Five protest poets all demonstrators should read

The plight of Indigenous people under British colonialism inspired many writers, including “crying mother” poems that harnessed the universal appeal of motherhood.

Dunlop’s poems The Aboriginal Mother and The Irish Mother are linked to this literary trend, but her experience of colonialism lent her poetry more authority than writers who sourced information about “exotic” cultures from imperial travel writing and voyage accounts.

In the early 1870s, Dunlop collated a selection of poetry, The Vase, but she was never able to publish. Family demands and financial constraints precluded it.

Dunlop died in 1880. Like many women of the time, her writing was neglected and forgotten, until it was rediscovered by the literary critic and editor Elizabeth Webby in the 1960s.

Webby identified Dunlop as the first Australian poet to transcribe and translate Indigenous songs, and as among the earliest to try to increase white readers’ awareness of Indigenous culture. Webby published the first collection of Dunlop’s poems in 1981.

Today, communities and linguists regularly use Dunlop’s transcripts for language reclamation projects in the Upper Hunter Valley.

Last year, 140 years after Dunlop’s death, Wanarruwa Beginner’s Guide — an introduction to one language of the Hunter River area — was published.

At the launch, language consultant Sharon Edgar-Jones (Wonnarua and Gringai) movingly recited one of the songs Dunlop transcribed: revitalising the words of the Indigenous women and men to whom Dunlop listened, when so few white Australians were listening at all.

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop Writing from the Colonial Frontier, edited by Anna Johnston and Elizabeth Webby, is out now through Sydney University Press.

Anna Johnston receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT130100625).

– ref. Hidden women of history: Eliza Hamilton Dunlop — the Irish Australian poet who shone a light on colonial violence – https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-eliza-hamilton-dunlop-the-irish-australian-poet-who-shone-a-light-on-colonial-violence-161592

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History, The University of Queensland

Review: European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Thanks to the pandemic, exhibitions such as European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which opened at QAGOMA on the weekend, are fraught with logistical difficulties. Quarantine rules and social distancing requirements, not to mention the actual health effects of COVID, have dramatically affected the ability of gallery and museum staff to plan, oversee and shepherd high profile exhibitions into existence.

The fact they are open at all stands as an extraordinary demonstration of trust between institutions and their commitment to the power of masterworks to speak to the human condition.

The excuse for this exhibition was a major refit of the European Galleries at the Met. Planned long before the pandemic, exhibitions like this one take on new meaning in current times. None of us are going to be able to travel with ease to New York any time soon. These exhibitions remind us of what we are missing. So, as our memories of the joy of visiting international galleries fade, what impression of the Met emerges from this show?

Certainly, the quality and depth of its collection shines through. This exhibition doesn’t give us all the Met’s greatest hits. Everyone will have a favourite painting that didn’t make the cut. However, the curatorial choices are clever.

It is fun to play the mental game of which of an artist’s pictures from the Met you would choose to include. Time and again, it proves to be on the walls in Brisbane.

Lost in the interplay of glances among the figures in Georges de La Tour’s The Fortune Teller, you don’t regret for a moment that we didn’t get his darkly moody The Penitent Magdalen.

Fans of French neoclassical painting are extremely well served by Marie Denise Villers’ portrait of Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes — a luminous, arresting portrait whose sitter is painted with breathtaking clarity and intensity.

The exhibition plays up the advantages of distance. Second-tier works gain new life separated from their more famous siblings.

In New York, Poussin’s Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man is overshadowed by the riotous profusion of bodies in his Abduction of the Sabine Women. In Queensland, away from the noise of the Sabine painting, it is possible to appreciate the elegant structure of this religious picture.

Connoisseurs of technique will not be disappointed by the works on display. Fra Angelico’s The Crucifixion rightly occupies an important place in the history of perspective. One can trace the story of the treatment of light from Caravaggio through to Cézanne.

Venice is expertly evoked with Turner’s characteristically soft, wispy brushstrokes; a perfect contrast to the thickness of paint found in El Greco’s The Adoration of the Shepherds or Rembrandt’s Flora. The Fragonard (The Two Sisters) looks like a Fragonard.

More than this, what makes these works so exciting is the way they brim with ideas. Vermeer’s Allegory of the Catholic Faith is a good example. It’s one of his cleverest paintings. One could spend a week in front of the work unpacking its symbolism and theological ideas.

The works not only reflect ideas, they stage deliberate interventions. Titian’s Venus and Adonis is a case in point. It shows the couple in a passionate embrace, the moment before Adonis is about to head off on the ill-fated hunt that will cost him his life.

The accompanying label describes this work as “re-imagining” Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Latin epic about mythological transformations. This fails to capture the dynamism of the relationship. This is a painting desperately keen to escape its origins in Ovid’s work. In Ovid, you never forget that Adonis is the product of incest, the offspring of a mother who burned with unnatural desire for her father.

Read more:
Guide to the classics: Ovid’s Metamorphoses and reading rape

It is a tale so monstrous that Ovid even warns his readers (or at the very least their daughters) not to read it. Ovid makes you feel uneasy about love. His epic is full of rape and violence. This painting rewrites Ovid’s story and invites you to devote yourself to the pleasures of love, even if they have tragic consequences.

Equally compelling is Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Pygmalion and Galatea. Critics have not been kind to Gérôme. His great crime was to be born so late and live so long. He jumped the wrong way on Impressionism, railing against the “junk” of modern art, and few have forgiven him.

Yet at the same time, Gérôme was engaged in arguably his most important sequence of works, his series of paintings and sculpture depicting the moment when the fantasies of the sculptor Pygmalion are realised and the statue he has been carving — with whom he has passionately fallen in love — comes to life.

Gérôme’s sequence is uneven. The sculpture is terrible, now perfectly at home in that temple of kitsch, Hearst Castle in California. The reason why that sculpture fails is why this painting succeeds. In the sculpture, despite a bit of added paint, we see only marble.

Here, in an example of virtuoso painting, Gérôme plays with the transition of stone to flesh. We see a miracle unfolding before our eyes. It is a painting inviting us to contemplate art’s ability to imitate, perfect, mediate and complicate our relationship with the world. In this, it is a perfect emblem of this exhibition.

European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is showing at QAGOMA Brisbane until October 21.

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

– ref. European Masterpieces from the Met demonstrates art’s power to speak to the human condition – https://theconversation.com/european-masterpieces-from-the-met-demonstrates-arts-power-to-speak-to-the-human-condition-160462

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

With Scott Morrison overseas, Nationals leader Michael McCormack has been Acting Prime Minister this week. In this podcast, he speaks about the free trade agreement with the UK, climate change, coal, the Nationals, and China.

With speculation about whether Morrison will embrace a 2050 net zero target before the Glasgow climate conference, the attitude of the Nationals is critical and McCormack is under pressure from a vocal group in his party that is strongly against the target.

McCormack says the National party will not supporting signing up to the target this year.

When it is put to him, “we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target?” his reply is definite. “Correct”.

On coal, unlike many in the government, McCormack believes the controversial proposal for a coal-fired power station at Collinsville in Queensland can be a goer. A feasibility study is being conducted for the project. (It is understood a draft report has been produced already.)

McCormack says the study is “very much on its way”. Shire Energy CEO Ashley Dodd “texts me every day of every week and highlights the progress. And last week there were some really, really positive news.”

Asked whether he thinks the government will be able to support the project, McCormack says, “provided every box [including environmental ones] is ticked, yes”.

“If the proponents come forward with everything that they’re required to do, then I can see no reason why it wouldn’t be supported. And of course, it’s not just the federal government. It’s other entities, too, which need to come on board.”

Transcript (edited for clarity)

Michelle Grattan: Michael McCormack, leader of the Nationals and deputy prime minister, is acting PM this week while Scott Morrison is overseas.

The Labor Party is relishing giving McCormack heat in question time. But McCormack himself seems to be equally relishing the limelight. And this week he had some good trade news to sell to farmers. Michael McCormack joins us today to talk about the Tamil family, the Australian-UK free trade agreement, climate change, coal and the Nationals.

Michael McCormack, can we start with the Biloela family? The government is taking quite a hard line, refusing to allow them to return to the town, which is in the National seat of Flynn. But your member for Flynn, Ken O’Dowd, supports the families return. Mr. O’Dowd is retiring at the election, would you expect your candidate next time round to say the family should be returned or to support the government’s line that they shouldn’t be?

Michael McCormack: Well, Ken has done a marvellous job for Flynn, for Gladstone, Emerald and every other town in that electorate in central Queensland. But the next candidate for Flynn hasn’t been decided. The ultimately the person who will run for the LNP and sit with the National Party, hopefully after the next election has not been determined. And that will be up to that person. But what we’ve done as far as the Biloela family, every step of the way is stick to our clear and steadfast policy. And that is that if you came to Australia via an unauthorised vessel, then you would not be settled in this country. And we’ve stuck by that. And by sticking to that policy, which was made clear at the election when we returned to power in 2013 and continued at the subsequent elections in 2016, 2019, is that we’ve stopped the boats and that has saved lives. Now, under Labor’s watch, under those six years of labour from 2007 when they dismantled John Howard’s clear policy on boats and on illegal immigrants to 2013, when they finished government, Labor saw, sadly, 1,200 people lost at sea. Now we don’t want to go back to those bad dark days. We want to make sure that at every step of the way that people know our clear immigration policies and that if they do attempt to board a vessel via a people smuggler and try to get to Australia, then they will not be settled here.

MG: Let’s move on to the free trade agreement, which was agreed in principle this week between Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson. Its got concessions and advantages for Australian farmers, but they do seem a long way off. A decade, at least 10 to 15 years for our beef and sheep meat exports.

MM: Well, there’s immediate access for 35,000 tonnes tariff free for beef, 25,000 tonnes of sheep meat, 80,000 tonnes of sugar, 24,000 tonnes for dairy produce. This is a good outcome. And trade equals jobs. More trade equals more jobs. So we can look at those things. And as it’s also eight years for beef and sheep and 10 years for the sugar cane produce. And yes, there are elements that do go out to a further period. But this is a good outcome for Australian farmers and for Australians in general. Regional Australia has grown despite Covid-19 and despite every other thing that’s been thrown against it and agriculture has grown to a $66 billion enterprise, we want to make it $100 billion by 2030. Only by doing trade deals such as this are we going to realise that outcome.

MG: In the talks that Scott Morrison has had with the British prime minister, climate change was, of course, one of the elements, and that’s been a theme of the G7 leaders. Now, your Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, this week warned that it would be against the Nationals’ policy to sign up to net zero by 2050, to sign up to that firmly. What would be the Nationals’ position if the prime minister wants to embrace that target?

MM: Well, we’re not going to sell our coal miners out, no way, shape or form, as Nationals. And nor is Scott Morrison. I was pleased to see overnight that Japan said individual countries should set their own targets and their own pathway to lower emissions. And Japan, of course, has 14 of its 53 power stations are coal-fired power stations. And so they’ve also set a clear pathway to continuing exports. And Australia is the best coal exports in the world. But Australia is not a signatory to the G7 plus or G7 communique. And Scott Morrison hasn’t signed away anything and nor would he. We’ve actually lowered our emissions by 20%, which is, from 2005 levels, which I haven’t seen those sorts of emissions being lowered to that extent, by the US, by Canada or many of those other countries that often make statements about climate, and so, you know, you look at our rooftop solar capacity, it is the highest take-up in the world. And so we’re doing our part, we’re meeting and beating our international obligations for 2030 big time. And we’ll continue to do that. And regional Australia will lead the way in that process.

MG: So if I can just clarify this, the Nationals would not embrace the 2050 target as a firm commitment this year.

MM: Well, how do we get there? That’s the question. Well, it’s technology, not taxes. That’s always been what we’ve said. And we’re not signing, we’re not signing up to anything. We’re not signing up to any international agreements, again, to see farmers and factories and households paying more for energy.

MG: So we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target.

MM: Correct.

MG: Right. So, you mentioned coal, the study of a possible coal fired power station at Collinsville. That was set up, what, before the last election?

MM: Part of the underwriting new generation investments.

MG: Around the last election. Now, where is that up to? Is that finished?

MM: Well, Ashley Dodd, who is the proponent of Shine Energy, which is the company that is exploring that possibility, they received some very good news last week. The business case is actually at the moment being reviewed. If it all stacks up, then I can’t see why you wouldn’t have such a facility in Gladstone, which needs the energy. Now Gladstone, I’m not sure whether, Michelle, you visited in more recent times, but it is booming and you’ve got so many companies looking to set up there. And looking to establish there and the port is expanding – it’s a very deep water harbour. We want to see Gladstone be its best self, we want to see it be the industrial manufacturing powerhouse of central Queensland, of the nation. But we’re not going to do it if we don’t have the power. So Shine Energy, forging on, they’re getting that help through that UNGI [Underwriting New Generation Investments] process. And measures are going well.

MG: So that means the study is nearly finished or?

MM: Very much on its way. Yes. And Ashley Dodd…

MG: And you think…

MM: Texts me every day of every week and highlights the progress. And last week there were some really, really positive news. He’s in a good frame of mind. Shine Energy, stand ready to to do what they need to do. But of course, it also needs to meet all the environmental implications. Yes, it does. And yes, it will.

MG: So you think that the government will be able to support this enterprise.

MM: Well, provided every box is ticked, yes.

MG: But nevertheless, you get the feeling that Scott Morrison has now turned away from coal and he’s putting more emphasis on gas. You don’t think that times have just passed by the possibility of this project going ahead?

MM: Well, there’s also diversification of the energy market. And we’ve always said that we believe in a range of energy options. Gas, yes, it’s a big part of it. I’m delighted that Keith Pitt has been so forward leaning with Beetaloo Basin and we’re supporting that project. Massive project, huge numbers of jobs, with the right road infrastructure, with the right amenities in that regard. In the Northern Territory, and even the, even the Gunner government which realises that this might be a way out of their economic malaise, and they’re in a bit of strife at the moment with debt. But this can only help that process of the Northern Territory government getting to some way back to where it needs to be and also addressing the energy needs and export requirements of this nation.

MG: So just to be clear, on Collinsville, it is quite feasible you think that we could have a new coal fired power station there

MM: If everything stacks up. Yes. If everything… Because that’s part of the UNGI process. That’s part of what we put in place prior to the 2019 election. And if the proponents come forward with everything that they’re required to do, then I can see no reason why it wouldn’t be supported. And of course, it’s not just the federal government. It’s other entities, too, which need to come on board. But this is a process that will be worked through.

MG: Now, turning to China, obviously Australian farmers have taken quite a lot of the brunt of China’s ire with Australia generally because it’s their products that are running into obstacles. Do you have any concerns that Australia is going too far in its criticisms of China, so far that we’re really doing ourselves damage?

MM: We trade a $149.6 billion with China. It’s our largest trading partner and I’ve been very, very careful with my comments around that, because what I don’t want to see is the barley grower in South Australia or Western Australia, the meat worker in a boning room in Casino, lose their job or lose their market because in some way, Beijing misinterpreted anything or any support that I have for our trade continuing. And it’s important. It’s important for our growers. It’s important for our workers. It’s important for our nation. That trade continues with China. Yes, I appreciate there are difficulties, but there are always difficulties in a, in a competitive market. And this is one of the reasons why we’re working through this process diligently, respectfully, pragmatically, practically, as you would expect. But that’s also why one of the reasons I’m pleased that Dan Tehan is working so hard to diversify our markets as well in the UK-Australia free trade agreement in principle is one of those recently, of course, opened up a trade arrangement with Indonesia that grew and expanded what we had before and 35,000 tonnes of barley going to Mexico for the very first time recently. That’ll help there. The beer production and everything else and indeed the sheep meat going to Saudi. These are important diversifications of our markets that are good.

MG: But do you think we need to be more careful? The government needs to be more careful with its language about China?

MM: We’ll always do and say what’s in Australia’s national interests first and foremost.

MG: Do you think there’s any possible threat to iron ore exports?

MM: I would like to think not, because Australia’s iron ore is the best in the world.

MG: But what do you think?

MM: Well, I mean, these are matters for others to decide. But I say again that the mills and the production processes in China need our metallurgical coal, need our iron ore. China knows that if it wants to build a better future, then Australia’s resources are one way to be able to enhance and provide that.

MG: Now, just turning to the Nationals. These days, there always seems to be a good degree of angst in the Nationals – more than there used to be – at least in my memory. Is this mainly to do with issues or is it a question of personalities and ambitions?

MM: Oh well, there’ll always be personalities and ambitions in Canberra. That’s why, that’s why the place is like it is. But I’m focused on making sure that our $110 billion of infrastructure is rolled out supporting 100,000 workers. I’m focused on making sure that the regions can get the best deal that they can get in every way, shape or form, whether it’s through infrastructure, whether it’s through water resources, whether it’s through agriculture. That’s my only focus. You’ll only ever get me commenting publicly and privately about the things that will be good for regional Australia. I’ll leave the politics to others if they so choose to go down that path. People out in regional Australia, particularly through Covid and particularly when they’re catching mice in greater numbers than they ever expected. People who are looking to the skies to see that the next shower is going to provide them with that subsoil moisture, to be able to give them hope when they’re planning a crop. They’re not worried. They’re not worried about the internal goings on, the machinations of a federal parliament. They want what’s best for them. And the bread and butter issues are my issues as well. Their concerns are my concerns.

MG: Just finally, because we can hear the bells ringing…

MM: I think that’s just the start of parliament, so a little bit of time…

MG: For parliament to start. I just wonder what it feels like as acting prime minister, sitting in that question time hot seat, being peppered with questions which are well-outside your normal field of the questions you need to answer?

MM: Funnily enough, it’s actually not because when you are the deputy prime minister, you get asked questions from every which way, every angle, every topic. When you’re out at a Bathurst roadside on the Great Western Highway, you’ll get questions about every topic under the sun.

MG: Not so many people are listening, though.

MM: Sure. And for those people who are listening to question time, I’m always amazed by the number of truckies who are listening in as they deliver the goods around the nation, and good on them, they they keep the wheels of the economy turning.

MG: So what’s their feedback?

MM: Good. Generally good. And question time is a cauldron. It’s a robust debating chamber. And you just have to have read your topic, know your topic, and but also show that you’re human. I don’t think people want politicians to be just reading from script all the time or just sticking to the, to the talking points, and I’ve never been like that, I’m always somebody who yes, you’ll see me as I am. I’m Michael from Marra – little town with, tell you what, when I was when I was born and grew up there in the first four years that dad had the farm there, it had only a population of just over 100. How good is it that we have a nation where a little village of just over 100 people can produce somebody who can go on and be the acting prime minister? That gives hope to every boy and girl out there who ever aspired to open the batting for Australia in the cricket, to be a politician, to be the best nurse or doctor or engineer or scientist that they could be, that providing they work hard, providing they listen to their parents and their teachers and provided they have a bit of luck, you can be anything in this nation.

MG: Also, you’re former journalists, of course. So…

MM: I am, and what a great and noble profession that is!

MG: You’ve seen the process from a different perspective. Michael McCormack, thank you very much for talking with the conversation today. We’ll let you get back to those briefs for the parliamentary day.

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Acting PM Michael McCormack on net zero 2050 and prospects for a new coal-fired power station – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-acting-pm-michael-mccormack-on-net-zero-2050-and-prospects-for-a-new-coal-fired-power-station-162853

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rocio Camacho Morales, Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University

It’s a familiar vision to anyone who has watched a lot of action movies or played Call of Duty: a ghostly green image that makes invisible objects visible. Since the development of the first night-vision devices in the mid-1960s, the technology has captured the popular imagination.

Night vision goggles, infrared cameras and other similar devices detect infrared light reflected from objects or rather detect infrared light emitted from objects in the form of heat. Today these devices are widely used not only by the military, but also by law enforcement and emergency services, the security and surveillance industries, wildlife hunters, and camping enthusiasts.

But current technology is not without its problems. Commercial infrared cameras block visible light, disrupting normal vision. The gear is bulky and heavy, and requires low temperatures — and, in some cases, even cryogenic cooling — to work.

We have proposed a new technology that uses ultra-thin layers of nanocrystals to make infrared light visible, addressing many of the longstanding problems with current devices. Our research is published in Advanced Photonics.

Our eventual goal is to produce a light, film-like layer that can sit on glasses or other lenses, powered by a tiny built-in laser, allowing people to see in the dark.

Conventional infrared detection

Commercial infrared cameras convert infrared light to an electric signal, which is then shown on a display screen. They require low temperatures, because of the low energy and frequency of infrared light. This makes conventional infrared detectors bulky and heavy – some security personnel have reported
chronic neck injury due to regular use of night vision goggles .

Another drawback of the current technology is that it blocks the transmission of visible light, thereby disrupting normal vision. In some cases, infrared images could be sent to a display monitor, leaving normal vision intact. However, this solution is not feasible when users are on the move.

Read more:
Looking at the universe through very different ‘eyes’

All-optical alternatives

There are also some all-optical alternatives, which do not involve electrical signals. Instead, they directly convert infrared light into visible light. The visible light can then be captured by the eye or a camera.

These technologies work by combining incoming infrared light with a strong light source – a laser beam – inside a material known as “nonlinear crystal”. The crystal then emits light in the visible spectrum.

However, nonlinear crystals are bulky and expensive, and can only detect light in a narrow band of infrared frequencies.

Metasurfaces provide the solution

Our work advances this all-optical approach. Instead of a non-linear crystal, we set out to use carefully designed layers of nanocrystal called “metasurfaces”. Metasurfaces are ultra-thin and ultra-light, and can be tweaked to manipulate the color or frequency of the light that passes through them.

This makes metasurfaces an attractive platform to convert infrared photons to the visible. Importantly, transparent metasurfaces could enable infrared imaging and allow for normal vision at the same time.

Our group set out to demonstrate infrared imaging with metasurfaces. We designed a metasurface composed of hundreds of incredibly tiny crystal antennas made of the semiconductor gallium arsenide.

This metasurface was designed to amplify light by resonance at certain infrared frequencies, as well as the frequency of the laser and the visible light output. We then fabricated the metasurface and transferred it to a transparent glass, forming a layer of nanocrystals on a glass surface.

To test our metasurface, we illuminated it with infrared images of a target and saw that the infrared images were converted to visible green images. We tested this with various positions of the target, and also with no target at all — so we could see the green emission of the metasurface itself. In the images obtained, the dark stripes correspond to the infrared target, surrounded by the green visible emission.

Despite different parts of the infrared images being up-converted by independent nanocrystals composing the metasurface, the images were well reproduced in visible light.

While our experiment is only a proof of concept, this technology can in principle do many things that are not possible with conventional systems, such as a broader angle of view and multi-colour infrared imaging.

The future of metasurfaces in novel technologies

The demand for detecting infrared light, invisible to human eyes, is constantly growing, due to a wide variety of applications beyond night vision. The technology could be used in the agricultural industry to help monitor and maintain food quality control, and in remote sensing techniques such as LIDAR – a technology that is helping to map natural and manmade environments.

In a wider context, the use of metasurfaces to detect, generate and manipulate light is booming. Harnessing the power of metasurfaces will bring us closer to technologies such as real-time holographic displays, artificial vision for autonomous systems, and ultra-fast light-based wifi.

Read more:
Small and bright: what nanophotonics means for you

Rocio Camacho Morales would like to acknowledge the support of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT),

– ref. Seeing the invisible: tiny crystal films could make night vision an everyday reality – https://theconversation.com/seeing-the-invisible-tiny-crystal-films-could-make-night-vision-an-everyday-reality-162615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

QR code contact-tracing apps are a crucial part of our defence against COVID-19. But their value depends on being widely used, which in turn means people using these apps need to be confident their data won’t be misused.

That’s why this week’s revelation that Western Australian police accessed data gathered using the SafeWA app are a serious concern.

WA Premier Mark McGowan’s government has enjoyed unprecedented public support for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic thus far. But this incident risks undermining the WA public’s trust in their state’s contact-tracing regime.

While the federal government’s relatively expensive COVIDSafe tracking app — which was designed to work automatically via Bluetooth — has become little more than the butt of jokes, the scanning of QR codes at all kinds of venues has now become second nature to many Australians.

These contact-tracing apps work by logging the locations and times of people’s movements, with the help of unique QR codes at cafes, shops and other public buildings. Individuals scan the code with their phone’s camera, and the app allows this data to be collated across the state.

That data is hugely valuable for contact tracing, but also very personal. Using apps rather than paper-based forms greatly speeds up access to the data when it is needed. And when trying to locate close contacts of a positive COVID-19 case, every minute counts.

But this process necessarily involves the public placing their trust in governments to properly, safely and securely use personal data for the advertised purpose, and nothing else.

Read more:
Australia has all but abandoned the COVIDSafe app in favour of QR codes (so make sure you check in)

Australian governments have a poor track record of protecting personal data, having suffered a range of data breaches over the past few years. At the same time, negative publicity about the handling of personal data by digital and social media companies has highlighted the need for people to be careful about what data they share with apps in general.

The SafeWA app was downloaded by more than 260,000 people within days of its release, in large part because of widespread trust in the WA government’s strong track record in handling COVID-19. When the app was launched in November last year, McGowan wrote on his Facebook page that the data would “only be accessible by authorised Department of Health contact tracing personnel”.

In spite of this, it has now emerged that WA Police twice accessed SafeWA data as part of a “high-profile” murder investigation. The fact the WA government knew in April that this data was being accessed, but only informed the public in mid-June, further undermines trust in the way personal data is being managed.

McGowan today publicly criticised the police for not agreeing to stop using SafeWA data. Yet the remit of the police is to pursue any evidence they can legally access, which currently includes data collected by the SafeWA app.

It is the government’s responsibility to protect the public’s privacy via carefully written, iron-clad legislation with no loopholes. Crucially, this legislation needs to be in place before contract-tracing apps are rolled out, not afterwards.

It may well be that the state government held off on publicly disclosing details of the SafeWA data misuse until it had come up with a solution. It has now introduced a bill to prevent SafeWA data being used for any purpose other than contact tracing.

This is a welcome development, and the government will have no trouble passing the bill, given its thumping double majority. Repairing public trust might be a trickier prospect.

Trust is a premium commodity these days, and to have squandered it without adequate initial protections is a significant error.

The SafeWA app provided valuable information that sped up contact tracing in WA during Perth’s outbreak in February. There is every reason to believe that if future cases occur, continued widespread use of the app will make it easier to locate close contacts, speed up targeted testing, and either avoid or limit the need for future lockdowns.

That will depend on the McGowan government swiftly regaining the public’s trust in the app. The new legislation is a big step in that direction, but there’s a lot more work to do. Trust is hard to win, and easy to lose.

Read more:
Not just complacency: why people are reluctant to use COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

Tama Leaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) as a chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

– ref. Police debacle leaves the McGowan government battling to rebuild public trust in the SafeWA app – https://theconversation.com/police-debacle-leaves-the-mcgowan-government-battling-to-rebuild-public-trust-in-the-safewa-app-162850

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia Ranald, Honorary research fellow, University of Sydney

We’re being told about the new Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement, but not a lot about most of what’s in it.

After an in-principle agreement overnight, Australia released a five-page summary.

Australian farmers will benefit from tariff-free access to the UK for limited amounts of Australian beef, lamb, sugar and dairy products to the UK (but will have to wait ten years for the full elimination of tariffs). Australian consumers will benefit from immediate zero tariffs on products like UK whiskey and cars. Longer working holiday visas may be available for citizens from both countries.

It will take at least a month for the deal to be finalised and signed, and only after the signing will the Australian public see the full text and a parliamentary committee be given the right to inquire into it but not change it.

This secrecy continues what’s become something of a tradition — one that has attracted the ire of the Productivity Commission which in 2010 recommended the government commission and publish an independent and transparent assessment of future free trade agreements “at the conclusion of negotiations but before an agreement is signed”.

The parliament’s joint standing committee on treaties (the same one that will examine this agreement) began inquiring into the system mid last year and took many submissions, but still has not reported.

As many as 30 unseen chapters

The timing of the deal is driven by the UK’s post-Brexit desperation to sign one-on-one agreements and the greater prize of being part of the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) including Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Mexico, Chile and Peru which the UK has applied to join.

Like the CPTPP, the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement is likely to have as many as 30 chapters, some of which restrict the ability of governments to regulate in fields including medicines, essential services and data privacy.

UK trade minister Greg Hands said last month he wants the deal to include investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions of the kind excluded from the Australia-European Union current trade talks, and from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership recently signed with Japan, China, South Korea, New Zealand and the 10 ASEAN countries.

The provisions would allow UK firms to sue Australian governments in international tribunals over decisions they believed infringed on their interests in a way Australian firms cold not.

In return Australian firms could sue UK authorities in a way UK firms could not.

But UK companies are more frequent users of ISDS, having launched 90 recorded ISDS cases, the third most after the US and the Netherlands. Australian companies have launched nine.

Defending the idea in the House of Commons, Hands said the UK had “never lost an ISDS case”.

There are now 1,104, known ISDS cases with increasing numbers against health and environment laws, including laws to address climate change and to protect indigenous rights.

Australians remember that the US Philip Morris tobacco company used an obscure Hong Kong investment agreement to sue Australia for billions over our plain packaging law.

Read more:
Last to know: the EU knows more about our trade talks than we do

It took the international tribunal almost five years to decide that Philip Morris was not a Hong Kong company as it had claimed. Australia had to pay $12 million in legal costs.

ISDS rules in the Australia-UK treaty would give UK mining companies such as Rio Tinto the right to claim compensation for new laws to protect Indigenous heritage areas, and UK aged care companies such as Bupa the right to claim compensation for new regulations arising from the Aged Care Royal Commission.

Longer pharmaceutical monopolies

The UK has also said in its negotiating objectives that it wants to preserve its “existing intellectual property standards” which include rules that provide for longer data protection monopolies on medicines than Australia has.

The UK also supported this demand as a member of the EU before Brexit when it was published by the EU as part of the ongoing EU-Australia FTA negotiations.

Pharmaceutical companies already have 20 year monopolies on new medicines.

Read more:
Planned trade deal with Europe could keep medicine prices too high

The UK has an additional “data protection” monopoly of up to ten years before data is released enabling production of cheaper competitors.

The current Australian standard is five years. Adopting the UK standard would delay the availability of cheaper medicines, costing Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Unless the text is released before it is signed, we won’t know whether ISDS and longer medicine monopolies are part of the deal.

The Australian government should release the text for public scrutiny and independent assessment of its costs and benefits before it is signed, so that we are able to see what is being traded away before it’s too late.

Dr Patricia Ranald is an honorary research associate at the University of Sydney and the honorary convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network.

– ref. There’s a lot we don’t know about the UK trade agreement we are about to sign – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-lot-we-dont-know-about-the-uk-trade-agreement-we-are-about-to-sign-162841

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damian Lettoof, PhD Candidate, Curtin University

When a snake sheds its skin, why isn’t it colourful? Yahya, aged eight

Thanks for the question Yahya!

Snakes come in all sorts of colours and patterns, especially in Australia. Our prettiest snakes include the Jan’s banded snake, the black-striped snake and the broad-headed snake (but this one is endangered, which means there aren’t very many broad-headed snakes left in the world).

You can see each of these snakes in the photos I’ve taken below.

Snakes are well known for being able to shed their entire skin in one piece. But why isn’t the shed skin of a snake colourful, like the snake itself?

To answer your question, we should explore how snake skin and colour works.

All animals grow new skin over their lifetime. This replaces old skin, heals wounds and lets the animal grow bigger. Most animals, including humans, shed tiny pieces of dead skin all the time.

Read more:
Curious Kids: How do snakes make an ‘sssssss’ sound with their tongue poking out?

But snakes have to do it all at once, and this is because snake skin is quite different to a lot of other animals.

Snake skin is actually made up two main layers: the soft, colourful tissue (what scientists call the “dermis”), and hard, mostly see-through scales.

The dermis is filled with nerves, which is what we use to feel things touching us, as well as tiny grains called pigments, which is what gives skin its colour.

Scales sit on top of the snake’s soft dermis. These are much harder than the skin because scales are made of “keratin” — the same thing our fingernails and hair are made of.

In mammals, like us, the keratin grows from a single point and keeps on growing — think how your fingernails grow from the end of your finger. But in snakes, keratin grows all over, and is stuck on top of the soft dermis, protecting it like a thin shield.

Read more:
Curious Kids: What happens if a venomous snake bites another snake of the same species?

While the keratin in snake (and lizard) scales is mostly see through, it also holds lots of tiny dark brownish black grains called “melanin”, which protects snakes from harmful sun rays. This means scales themselves are mainly either colourless or dark brownish black, depending on the snake.

But sometimes, like for Australian water pythons, the outer layer of scales can shine rainbow colours when the light hits it at the right angle.

So let’s say it’s time for a snake to shed its skin

First, it’ll grow a new layer of keratin scales underneath the old layer. When the new layer has finished growing, the snake rubs its body along rocks, plants and other rough things to peel the old layer of keratin off — often in a single, snaky piece.

Because all the brightly coloured pigments live in the soft dermis, and not the scales, the colour mainly stays on the snake, not the part it sheds.

But every so often, the shed skin can show dark brownish black stripes or blotches, because of melanin in the scales.

Have you ever touched a snake’s shed skin?

Since it’s made up of both the hard keratin scales and a bit of the softer dermis, it feels both rough and soft. And because it’s so stretchy, it can be much longer than snake itself!

Damian Lettoof will be taking questions from kids at the Perth launch of our new Curious Kids picture book Why Do Tigers Have Whiskers, published by Thames and Hudson.

Venue: Paperbird Books

Date: July 10, at 10:30am

Price: Free, but space is limited and bookings are essential.

If you’re a Curious Kid with a question you’d like an expert to answer, ask an adult to send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

Damian Lettoof is affiliated with the Australian Society of Herpetologists, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, the Ecological Society of Australia and the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

– ref. Curious Kids: when a snake sheds its skin, why isn’t it colourful? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-when-a-snake-sheds-its-skin-why-isnt-it-colourful-160997

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

The federal government recently indicated it will launch a new COVID-19 vaccine advertising campaign in July, targeting younger Australians under 40.

To date, federal vaccine promotion efforts have not been particularly engaging, perhaps due to an over-reliance on consulting firms over vaccine social science researchers. But news of a revitalised campaign is welcome, and could offer a chance to change course.

In our recent Victorian COVID-19 Vaccine Preparedness Study, we looked at the vaccine-related intentions, concerns and information needs of people prioritised in phases 1a and 1b of the rollout.

The results are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. But drawing on our findings, as well as peer-reviewed research in this area, here’s what we want to see in any upcoming COVID vaccination campaign.

1. Diverse spokespeople

The diversity of Australia should be reflected in the spokespeople delivering messages around COVID vaccination, through both broad and tailored campaigns. Research shows we’re more likely to trust people who look like us, which means we need spokespeople from different ethnic backgrounds, of different ages, and with different body shapes.

While it was encouraging to see Channel 9 using its platform to promote COVID-19 vaccination, their cast was rightly criticised for being entirely white. They were also all able-bodied and generally homogenous.

Our research also found members of the public wanted to hear about the COVID-19 vaccines from real people — not politicians. They wanted to hear how people like them made the decision to be vaccinated, what it was like getting the vaccine and what the side effects were afterwards.

Read more:
The government is spending almost A$24m to convince us to accept a COVID vaccine. But will its new campaign actually work?

2. Humour and emotion

It seems like the COVID-19 vaccine advertisements that have been shared most widely in Australia are actually from other countries, like the United Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand and France.

This is a shame, but it’s not surprising, when you compare these funny, entertaining messages with the relatively dry Australian ads. The Singapore ad is colourful, musical and a little bit bonkers. But amid the silliness, it still manages to highlight key messages like “don’t wait and see” and “low cases isn’t no cases”.

The more engaging the messaging is, the more widely it will be shared. And we need information about the vaccine rollout to reach as many people as possible.

3. Avoid scare tactics

Some people have been calling for fear-based campaigns to scare people into vaccinating. This kind of campaign might include, for example, footage of people with severe COVID or scary statistics about COVID-related deaths or serious illness in Australia or overseas.

However, fear-based messages to promote vaccines can actually backfire, increasing fear of vaccine side effects. Fear campaigns can also stigmatise people who have concerns, questions, or simply face challenges accessing vaccines. This makes it harder to bridge the gap with those who are hesitant.

Fear messaging can also make people angry and erode trust in the messengers. Trust in the public health system is crucial to support vaccine uptake — and we can’t afford to damage this as it’s very hard to build and easy to lose.

What else do we need?

Barriers to vaccine uptake for any group are likely to be a mix of acceptance and access factors. So while a diverse, engaging communication campaign is clearly needed, this should be implemented alongside other evidence-based strategies to bolster vaccine acceptance and uptake.

Nudges

Behavioural “nudges” are simple ways to encourage vaccination. A recent study from the United States found the most effective nudge to increase influenza vaccine uptake was a text message sent to people before a regular GP appointment, indicating a flu vaccine was reserved and waiting for them.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has recently clarified people in Australia could also be offered incentives to vaccinate. In other countries, incentives have included anything from a free beer to a lottery ticket.

Read more:
Incentives could boost vaccine uptake in Australia. But we need different approaches for different groups

Community engagement

Outreach and face-to-face engagement may be more effective than TV or social media campaigns for many groups, particularly culturally and linguistically diverse populations.

Training community, faith and industry leaders to become vaccine champions enables communication messages to reach more people in a targeted, culturally appropriate way. People want to discuss concerns with their community leaders and communities, where there is the greatest trust.

Support for health-care workers

GPs, nurses and pharmacists are at the coalface of the vaccine rollout, discussing COVID-19 vaccines with people every day. Health-care workers in our study said they wanted resources like decision aids and pictorial representations of risk and benefits to support personalised discussions with people with varying levels of health literacy.

It’s also time we considered Medicare item numbers for GPs separate to vaccine administration, to support the additional time spent addressing hesitancy.

Improved accessibility

Improving access to COVID-19 vaccines is crucial to increase uptake. In addition to securing adequate vaccine supply and clearly communicating where and when vaccines are available, the booking systems need to be simplified and streamlined. In Victoria, the phone booking system crashed as soon as the government announced people aged 40-49 were eligible.

Data

Finally, we need better data about vaccine uptake, concerns and barriers faced by different groups. This will allow us to better target communication and other strategies.

Read more:
Yeh, nah, maybe. When it comes to accepting the COVID vaccine, it’s Australia’s fence-sitters we should pay attention to

Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the Victorian Department of Health (C9824) and the National Health and Medical Research Foundation (Vaccine Barriers Assessment Tool, GNT1164200). She is a member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI) network.

Margie Danchin receives funding from the NHMRC, WHO, Victorian and Commonwealth Departments of Health and holds an MCRI clinician scientist fellowship. She is Chair, Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI).

– ref. Diverse spokespeople and humour: how the government’s next ad campaign could boost COVID vaccine uptake – https://theconversation.com/diverse-spokespeople-and-humour-how-the-governments-next-ad-campaign-could-boost-covid-vaccine-uptake-162240

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gwilym Croucher, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has called on Australian universities to “start a conversation about how we can support greater differentiation and specialisation in the university sector. We have 39 comprehensive universities, which may not be an optimal model for the quality of teaching or research in this country.” This is a worthy aspiration, depending on what we mean by differentiation and specialisation.

At its best, seeking to differentiate and specialise can be a way to marshal talent and focus. At worst, such calls can be euphemism and set up a false dilemma of having a simple choice between teaching and research.

A recurring debate

The debate about greater specialisation in Australian universities is not new. As an opposition education spokesman and then Coalition government minister, Christopher Pyne made similar calls for specialisation in the system a decade ago. More recently it was discussed in the context of the 2019 Review of Provider Category Standards.

At different times during the past century governments and university leaders have examined whether teaching and research in some areas should be limited to only a few institutions. From forestry education to legal studies, debate has been common about what is taught where and by whom.

Questioning the need for specialisation and diversity is welcome. Leaving for a moment what benefits it can bring, for some degrees a critical mass of students means it is impractical (and highly costly) to offer them at all institutions.

Not so similar, you and I

Despite Australia public universities often being labelled as “comprehensive”, there is already a lot of specialisation and differentiation in the system.

Medical education is one longstanding example. Only a subset of universities offer it. This is for numerous reasons, not least that it is tightly regulated and requires significant facilities.

Australia has a number of universities for which specialisation is core to their identity and mission. The University of Divinity, for example, offers scholarship in theology, philosophy and ministry.

The idea of specialised institutions in Australia is not new either. The University of New South Wales began life as the New South Wales University of Technology in 1949. This lasted only a few years, though, before it became UNSW, gaining a law school and other faculties.

Yet discussion about greater specialisation and diversification can often be contentious. It can hit a raw nerve when “specialisation” is used as a euphemism for excluding some universities, especially from research activity.

What’s in a name?

The legal definition of an Australian university requires it to undertake research. Australia specifies what a university is and controls the use of the title “university” for good reason.

One case in point is the short-lived Greenwich University on Norfolk Island. In 1999 the quality of the newly established university came sharply into focus. The then education minister, Brendan Nelson, was forced to intervene to ensure it could not continue to offer sub-standard education.

The Greenwich case also hints at preconceived ideas in Australia about what a university should aspire to in terms of quality and offering. For most people this now includes undertaking research.

This is understandable; there are synergies between teaching and research. Students can benefit from their teacher’s research experience and being exposed to the latest research. They can witness an active research culture.

A false dilemma

When the debate is crudely framed, it can be easy to set up a false dilemma.

There are good reasons to specialise. For one, it makes programs with limited demand financially viable.

Equally, specialisation is not always appropriate for legitimate reasons. An important consideration is to ensure core teaching and research are located where local communities can access them.

There is nothing wrong necessarily with having only comprehensive institutions, if that best meets the needs of students, employers and the community.

There is more that unites Australian universities than divides them: they are all part of an international academic community and hold themselves to standards set by peers who are leaders in their fields.

Which is not to argue they all do (or should do) the same thing. Yet it can be easy to erroneously limit what specialisation means or, at worst, set it up as a proxy for debate about other things, such as prestige and privilege.

Gwilym Croucher 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.

– ref. Let’s talk about what each uni does, but don’t make it a choice between teaching or research – https://theconversation.com/lets-talk-about-what-each-uni-does-but-dont-make-it-a-choice-between-teaching-or-research-162249

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lizzy Lowe, Researcher, Macquarie University

Stunning photographs of vast, ghostly spider webs blanketing the flood-affected region of Gippsland in Victoria have gone viral online, prompting many to muse on the wonder of nature.

But what’s going on here? Why do spiders do this after floods and does it happen everywhere?

The answer is: these webs have nothing to do with spiders trying to catch food. Spiders often use silk to move around and in this case are using long strands of web to escape from waterlogged soil.

This may seem unusual, but these are just native animals doing their thing. It’s crucial you don’t get out the insecticide and spray them. These spiders do important work managing pests, so by killing them off you would be increasing the risk that pests such as cockroaches and mosquitoes will get out of control.

Read more:
After the floods, stand by for spiders, slugs and millipedes – but think twice before reaching for the bug spray

Using silk to move around

What you’re seeing online, or in person if you live locally, is an amazing natural phenomena but it’s not really very complicated.

We are constantly surrounded by spiders, but we don’t usually see them. They are hiding in the leaf litter and in the soil.

When these flood events happen, they need evacuate quickly up out of holes they live in underground. They come out en masse and use their silk to help them do that.

You’ll often see juvenile spiders let out a long strand of silk which is caught by the wind and lifted up. The web catches onto another object such as a tree and allows the spider to climb up.

That’s how baby spiders (spiderlings!) disperse when they emerge from their egg sacs — it’s called ballooning. They have to disperse as quickly as possible because they are highly cannibalistic so they need to move away from each other swiftly and find their own sites to hunt or build their webs.

That said, I doubt these webs are from baby spiders. It is more likely to be a huge number of adult spiders, of all different types, sizes and species. They’re all just trying to escape the flood waters. These are definitely spiders you don’t usually see above ground so they are out of their comfort zone, too.

This mass evacuation of spiders, and associated blankets of silk, is not a localised thing. It is seen in other parts of Australia and around the world after flooding.

It just goes to show how versatile spider silk can be. It’s not just used for catching food, it’s also used for locomotion and is even used by some spiders to lay a trail so they don’t get lost.

Don’t spray them!

The most important thing I need readers to know is that this is not anything to be worried about. The worst thing you could do is get out the insecticide and spray them.

These spiders are making a huge contribution to pest control and you would have major pest problems if you get rid of all the spiders. The spiders will disperse on their own very quickly. In general, spiders don’t like being in close proximity to each other (or humans!) and they want to get back to their homes underground.

If you live in Gippsland, you probably don’t even need to clear the webs away with a broom. There’s no danger in doing so if you wish, but I am almost certain these webs will disperse on their own within days.

Until then, enjoy this natural spectacle. I wish I could come down to see them with my own eyes!

Read more:
City spiders are getting bigger — but that’s a good thing

Lizzy Lowe is a Senior Extension Scientist at Cesar Australia.

– ref. Spiders are cloaking Gippsland with stunning webs after the floods. An expert explains why – https://theconversation.com/spiders-are-cloaking-gippsland-with-stunning-webs-after-the-floods-an-expert-explains-why-162852

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keiran Hardy, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

A producer for YouTube comedian Friendlyjordies was recently arrested for allegedly stalking and intimidating NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, following investigations by the Fixated Persons Investigations Unit (FPIU) of the NSW police.

This unit, set up in the wake of the Lindt café siege, was created to monitor extremists and fixated persons who may not fall under Australia’s counter-terrorism laws but nonetheless pose a risk of serious violence.

At the heart of this case will be the charges of intimidation and stalking, but it also will raise questions around what constitutes a “fixated person” and when the use of this unit is appropriate.

À lire aussi :
Australia doesn’t need more anti-terror laws that aren’t necessary – or even used

Two alleged incidents

Kristo Langker, 21, produces videos for the popular YouTube channel Friendlyjordies, run by Jordan Shanks. At the time of writing, the channel has around 500,000 subscribers.

Shanks has appeared in videos alleging wrongdoing by NSW Nationals leader Barilaro, which Barilaro has strenuously denied. Lawyers for Barilaro say Shanks defamed the deputy premier in a number of “vile and racist” videos. The NSW deputy premier is now suing Shanks (and Google) for defamation.

Langker was arrested at a home in Dulwich Hill, Sydney, on June 4. The charges relate to two alleged incidents.

According to a Guardian Australia news report, the first allegedly occurred at a Macquarie University politics in the pub event. Langker and Shanks (who was dressed as Luigi from Mario Brothers) approached Barilaro and shouted “Why are you suing us?”. According to police, as reported in the Guardian, Shanks then left but Lankger stayed, repeating the question and allegedly “tussling with several persons in an attempt to get close” to Barilaro.

The second alleged incident involved Langker filming and speaking to Barilaro as he returned to his car after the funeral of rugby league player Bob Fulton. According to the same Guardian report, Langker asked the NSW deputy premier again, “why are you suing my boss?”. According to the report, this second incident allegedly occurred hours before Langker’s arrest.

Based on these alleged incidents, Langker was arrested by the FPIU and charged with two counts of stalking and intimidation. The offence attracts a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, where someone stalks or intimidates another person with intent to cause the person fear of physical or mental harm.

Langker has been released on bail under very strict conditions. He is even prohibited from possessing images or caricatures of the deputy premier, or “commenting on his appearance or behaviour”.

The Fixated Persons Investigations Unit

The FPIU was established in April 2017, shortly before the NSW coroner released his report into the Lindt café siege.

In announcing the new unit, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller referred to people who are “obsessed about issues, ideals or individuals” and are “plotting acts of violence” or “capable of acts of terrorism”.

The unit comprises 17 detectives and government mental health workers. It is based on similar units established previously in the UK and Queensland.

The FPIU is a specialist unit that performs risk assessments of people with obsessions, grievances or ideologies that may lead to serious violence. It can access a suspect’s medical records to assess the level of risk they pose.

People monitored by the FPIU include a man who bombed a couple’s car following months of online abuse, and another who was charged with terrorism offences after threatening Sydney police with a knife.

The NSW coroner supported the unit’s creation, calling it a “commendable” step towards improving terrorism prevention. He believed there was a clear gap in the identification and management of “lone-actor terrorists or fixated individuals”, who could fall through the cracks despite repeated warning signs of violence.

In response to questions from The Conversation, NSW Police said the FPIU investigates “fixated persons”, which is defined as someone who

has an obsessive preoccupation, pursued to an excessive or irrational degree with:

• a public office holder or internationally protected person, or

• other person/s nominated by the commissioner of police, or

• a cause influenced by an extreme ideology (a “cause” is an intensely personal and idiosyncratic grievance or quest for justice).

Police might argue Langker fits under the first of these grounds, if the content and conduct towards Barilaro could be classed as obsessive and excessive. Langker’s lawyers have argued Langker’s arrest and bail conditions “strike at the core of our democracy”.

At trial, the issue will be whether the charges of stalking and intimidation can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but the case may also set a precedent about what is fixated behaviour and an appropriate use of the FPIU. If that bar is set too low, there will be a serious risk to free speech and democracy. Of course, everything will turn on the evidence at trial, so we should watch this case closely.

Keiran Hardy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Friendlyjordies producer arrest: what is the NSW Police Fixated Persons Investigations Unit and when is it used? – https://theconversation.com/friendlyjordies-producer-arrest-what-is-the-nsw-police-fixated-persons-investigations-unit-and-when-is-it-used-162758

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University

Organised crime has been front page news after the Australian Federal Police revealed its pivotal role in a multinational sting, three years in the making.

Along with drug cartels, the mafia and Asian crime syndicates, the AFP listed bikie gangs as one of the prime targets of Operation Ironside, with media reports also highlighting the role of bikies.

This follows recent calls from Western Australian police commissioner Chris Dawson for tougher laws against bikies to tackle organised crime.

But are outlaw motorcycle gangs the serious organised crime threat they are made out to be?

Outlaw motorcycle gangs

According to the Australian Institute of Criminology an outlaw motorcycle gang is a motorcycle club used by members to engage in criminal activity. This activity can include:

violent crimes designed to protect the club and its reputation, its members and its territory, and more profit-motivated crimes that enhance the gang’s power or economic resources.

Outlaw motorcycle gangs have been the prime target in Australia’s fight against organised crime in recent years, with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission identifying them as a priority crime “theme” (along with cyber crime and illicit drugs). It launched a special operation against bikie gangs in 2020, describing them as a “significant threat”.

In the wake of Operation Ironside, the AFP’s anti-gangs squad commander Andrew Donoghoe told The Courier Mail:

They are purely an organised crime network that is there to make money, generally off drug dealing, sometimes off intimidation and acts of violence and with no remorse for anyone, including innocent members of the community being hurt or killed in the process.

But the common assumption that all members of bikie gangs are criminals is incorrect.

What type of crime do they commit?

Much of the rationale for targeting bikie gangs is they predominately commit high-level or serious offences, such as murder, drug trafficking and extortion.

But our analysis of crime data in two Australian jurisdictions shows outlaw motorcycle gangs in both Queensland and the ACT contribute less than 1% to most organised crime offence categories. For example, in Queensland, between 2008 and 2014, bikie members represented 1% of murders and 0.1% of reported robberies. In the ACT between 2000 and 2019, gang members represented 0.4% of reported drug offences and 0.3% of unlawful weapons possessions.

The top ten offences by numbers committed by bikie gang members are minor offences such as low-level drug possession, driving offences and public nuisance.

How much crime are we talking about?

A 2020 study by the Australian Institute of Criminology showed 12.5% of bikie gang members had a history of organised crime offending. But this finding is problematic in that it relies on apprehension data. Not all apprehensions will result in a court appearance or caution, or a finding of guilt.

Importantly, bikie gang members are subjected to over-policing and targeting. The failed prosecution rate for outlaw gang members charges is much higher than the general population rate on data available both in the ACT and Queensland.

For example, the failed prosecution rate for bikie gang members in Queensland is 23%, compared to 6% for the general population. In the ACT, the rate is 27% compared to 4%.

Queensland government data shows outlaw motorcycle gang members were found guilty of just 0.17% of all reported offences in the state from 2008 to 2014. This accords with a separate 2016 taskforce in Queensland, which noted:

On any view of all the statistics, [outlaw motorcycle gangs] account for a very small proportion of the overall reported crime in Queensland – definitively, less than 1%.

In 2019, we conducted a review of the criminal activity of all current outlaw motorcycle gang members in the ACT. We found they were guilty of 0.06% of all reported ACT offences between 2000-2019.

The role of the gang structure in criminal enterprise

One could fairly have expected broader involvement of bikie gangs to been uncovered Operation Ironside’s three-year, landmark investigation. Yet of some 44 clubs in Australia, to date only the Comancheros and Lone Wolves received any specific mention.

One reason for this is that bikie gangs do not usually engage in organised crime as a collective unit. Rather, their threat arises from small numbers of members conspiring with other criminals for a common purpose.

A systemic review of relevant research by Australian Institute of Criminology in March 2021 found if bikie gang members are involved in crime – especially organised crime,

it appears that they tend to operate in small, loose networks that may include other [outlaw motorcycle gang] members but also individuals who are not members.

A 2018 study noted individuals within the group were more likely to interact with other criminal groups and freelance for common criminal purposes.

What are the big organised crime threats?

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission says around 70% of Australia’s serious and organised criminal threats have an offshore base or linkage.

Operation Ironside has shown just how attractive Australia is to overseas criminal groups other than just bikie gangs, with groups such as the mafia, Asian and Eastern European crime groups are now operating in Austalia’s criminal markets.
Mexican drug cartels are also moving into Australia’s lucrative methamphetamine market.

Read more:
The great bikie beat-up: why we shouldn’t confuse crime lords with boofheads on bikes

So when it comes to organised crime, we need to look beyond simple generic responses, such as consorting laws — that theoretically stop bikies from interacting with each other — and bring a more nuanced approach to fighting organised crime.

Bikies make good headlines and are seen as the “usual suspects”, but we also need to look at the data to support our policy, legislative and investigative decisions.

Terry Goldsworthy has previously received funding from the Australian Capital Territory Government to conduct an independent review of its responses to organised crime.

Gaelle Brotto has previously received funding from the Australian Capital Territory Government to conduct an independent review of its responses to organised crime.

– ref. As organised crime makes headlines, are bikie gangs the threat they are made out to be? – https://theconversation.com/as-organised-crime-makes-headlines-are-bikie-gangs-the-threat-they-are-made-out-to-be-157425

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gail Iles, Senior Lecturer in Physics, RMIT University

Last month, China successfully landed and deployed the ‘Zhurong’ rover on Mars, becoming the second country ever to set wheels on the surface of red planet.

Last year the United States, the United Arab Emirates and China all launched missions to Mars, taking advantage of the relatively short journey time offered by the two planets’ unusually close proximity.

Why are planetary scientists so obsessed with Mars? Why spend so much time and money on this one planet when there are at least seven others in our solar system, more than 200 moons, countless asteroids, and much more besides?

Fortunately, we are going to other worlds, and there are lots of missions to very exciting places in our solar system — worlds bursting with exotic features such as ice volcanoes, rings of icy debris, and huge magnetic fields.

There are currently 26 active spacecraft dotted around our solar system. Some are orbiting other planets and moons, some have landed on the surfaces of other worlds, and some have performed fly-bys to beam back images. Only half of them are visiting Mars.

Included in those 26 spacecraft are long-term missions like Voyager 1 and 2 – which are still operational after over 40 years and have now left the Solar system and ventured into interstellar space. And it also includes some less famous, but no less weird and wonderful, spacecraft.

Take the Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, for example. Launched in 2011, it arrived in orbit around Jupiter almost five years later. It is now measuring various properties of the giant planet, including its magnetic field, atmospheric conditions, and determining how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere. This will help theorists work out which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed). Juno has already surpassed its planned seven-year mission duration, and has been extended to at least 2025.

Rocky ride

One of the most complex feats of astrodynamics was completed late last year when the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) not only landed a spacecraft on an asteroid, but in a spectacular slingshot manoeuvre, returned a sample to Earth.

Hayabusa2, named after the Japanese term for a peregrine falcon, completed a rendezvous with asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018, surveying the surface and taking samples.

Departing in 2019, Hayabusa2 used its ion engines to change orbit and return to Earth. On December 5, 2020, a sample-return capsule about the size of a hatbox and weighing 16 kilograms was dropped through Earth’s atmosphere, landing unscathed at the Woomera Test Range in Australia.

As JAXA begins analysing the rocks and dust collected on the Ryugu asteroid, Hayabusa2 is off on its travels once more – this time to meet up with a second asteroid, 1998 KY_(26), some time in 2031.

Well of knowledge

Not included in the list of planetary missions earlier, are those spacecraft trapped in “gravitational wells” within our Solar system.

There are special locations in orbits called “Lagrangian points”, which are gravitationally balanced spots between two bodies.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is one of four spacecraft close to the Lagrangian point between the Earth and the Sun, roughly 1.5 million kilometres from Earth (about four times further away than the Moon).

It makes observations of the Sun’s outer layer and the solar wind, sending early warning back to Earth of potentially disastrous space weather. Geomagnetic storms from the Sun are powerful enough to hit the Earth with electromagnetic blasts so strong they have been known to take out country-wide power grids.

Another hostile location is our nearest planetary neighbour, Venus. Despite the searing temperatures and crushing pressures on the surface, NASA recently approved funding for two big missions to explore the origins of Venus and its atmosphere. The discovery of phosphine gas in the upper atmosphere led life scientists to believe life may exist at the more habitable and cooler temperatures of higher altitudes.

Read more:
NASA is returning to Venus, where surface temperatures are 470°C. Will we find life when we get there?

Hot on the heels of the successful flight of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars — the first flight of any powered aircraft on another world — NASA’s Dragonfly mission will fly a drone through the atmosphere of Saturn’s icy moon, Titan. Launching in 2026 and arriving in 2034, the rotorcraft will fly to dozens of promising locations on Titan looking for any chemical precursors or life similar to those on Earth.

So how much does all this cost?

Governments tend to allocate relatively small amounts of their budgets to science and space exploration. Countries typically spend less than 1% of their budget on space missions — far less than social services or military defence.

Deciding what space missions will receive that money is very often driven by public interest. But trying to decide definitively which probe or spacecraft offers the most bang for buck is almost impossible.

When humans first set foot on the Moon, 25% of the world’s population watched the video with bated breath, inspiring several generations of space explorers for decades afterwards. You can’t put a price on that.

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

– ref. Why is everyone so obsessed with going to Mars? Here are some other worlds ripe for exploration – https://theconversation.com/why-is-everyone-so-obsessed-with-going-to-mars-here-are-some-other-worlds-ripe-for-exploration-161802

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judith Brett, Emeritus Professor of Politics, La Trobe University

Why didn’t the federal government increase funding for the National Archives of Australia in its recent budget?

We know it wasn’t because of budget discipline. Money was splashed around on all sorts of worthy causes. And the emergency funding to save film and magnetic tape recordings from disintegration was modest: A$67 million over seven years.

Nor was it because a scorn for history is in the Liberal Party’s DNA. The party’s founder, Robert Menzies, was a history buff. His library, which is the centrepiece of the newly established Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne, is full of books of history and biography.

Moreover, his government established the precursor of today’s institution, the Commonwealth Archives Office, in 1961 so the records of the past could help guide the future. Prominent Liberals like Paul Hasluck and David Kemp have written histories, as has John Howard in The Menzies Era.

There are plenty of distinguished Liberal-aligned historians, and historians across the political spectrum supported the open letter to the prime minister, spearheaded by journalist Gideon Haigh and academic Graeme Davison.

Read more:
Our history up in flames? Why the crisis at the National Archives must be urgently addressed

Some commentators have seen the failure to provide the archives with emergency funds as a skirmish in the culture wars against an intellectual and cultural left purported to be obsessed with identity politics. This, the argument goes, is of a piece with the government’s apparent hostility to universities, its increase in fees for humanities degrees and its parsimonious treatment of the arts.

But was it that deliberate? Perhaps it was just careless philistinism in a budget designed for a forthcoming election. It was a budget addressed primarily to groups of voters rather than to national problems, and the users of archives will never swing a marginal electorate. Last week, The Australian ran an editorial on the issue, which concluded: “Failure to fund the NAA properly is an oversight that must be corrected.”

The government is wrong to think it is only professional and academic historians who use the archives. So do family historians, as the archives include personal records of hundreds of thousands of Australians. They are especially relevant to those of non-Anglo descent who had to apply to government authorities for various exemptions and entry permits. These include Indigenous Australians, Chinese living in Australia or displaced persons wanting to immigrate.

Haigh has pointed out that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s defence last year of his eligibility to sit in parliament depended on a document in the archives – the certificate of exemption from the provisions of the Immigration Act for his mother, then a seven-year-old girl deemed to be “stateless”.

The National Archives sit in the attorney-general’s department. Queensland Senator Amanda Stoker, who is assistant minister to the attorney-general as well as assistant minister for women and industrial relations, defended the government’s failure to provide the recommended emergency funding with the facile claim that “time marches on and all sources degrade over time”.

The government had nothing to be embarrassed about, she said, even when she was reminded Prince Charles had expressed his alarm at the threatened loss of records. Judging from her silly remarks, she seems to have given the subject little thought. The aim of the letter is to bring the archive’s budgetary neglect to the attention of the prime minister and his senior ministers.

Read more:
Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the ‘Palace letters’ should matter to all Australians

While I do not think the neglect of the archives is a deliberate move in the culture wars, it is evidence of the Coalition’s truncated temporal imagination. This is in part an occupational hazard of politicians with their eyes on the electoral cycle. But it is also evident in the difficulty too many of the Coalition have in understanding what climate scientists have been telling them about the future, so they focus on present costs as if future costs will never arrive.

To understand the value of archives, we have to think not just about the past but about the future, when the present will be well and truly over. As the open letter says, the National Archives’ “most important users have not yet been born”, and we do not know what questions they will want to ask.

Thinking about time is difficult, wrenching oneself out of the dramas and routines of the present to fully imagine worlds that were and will be different, confronting our transience and our mortality.

Historians are experts in temporal imagining. They spend their days reading the words and examining the objects of the men and women who walked the world before us. We hope the prime minister will heed our words on the future’s desire for a memory bank of Australian life as full and rich as it can be.

Judith Brett is a signatory to the open letter to the prime minister.

– ref. In neglecting the National Archives, the Morrison government turns its back on the future – https://theconversation.com/in-neglecting-the-national-archives-the-morrison-government-turns-its-back-on-the-future-162599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Sacks, Associate Professor, Deakin University

Public health experts have long argued that when it comes to preventing obesity, we need to stop blaming individuals.

Our new online tool, released today, confirms we live in an environment where the odds of having a healthy diet are heavily stacked against us.

Unhealthy foods are readily available and heavily marketed to us by the food industry. This makes it very easy to over-consume unhealthy foods. It also makes it very difficult to consistently select healthy options.

Our online tool – Australia’s Food Environment Dashboard – brings together the best-available data to describe Australia’s food environments. For the first time, we have a clear picture of the ways our environment drives us to consume too much of the wrong types of foods.

Supermarkets heavily promote unhealthy food

Australian supermarkets are a key setting in which unhealthy foods are pushed at us.

More than half of the packaged food on Australian supermarket shelves is unhealthy. At end-of-aisle displays, unhealthy products are promoted much more often than healthier products.

Read more:
Supermarket price deals: the good, the bad and the ugly

Unhealthy products are also “on special” almost twice as often as healthy foods. What’s more, the discounts on unhealthy foods are much larger than the discounts on healthier foods.

And at checkouts, it’s almost impossible to pay for groceries without being exposed to unhealthy foods.

All of this intense marketing for unhealthy foods contributes to the unhealthy mix of products in our supermarket trolleys.

Children’s exposure to junk food promotion

Australian children cannot escape unhealthy food marketing. As they travel to school, and play and watch sport in their community, kids are exposed to a constant barrage of promotions for unhealthy food and drinks.

When they turn on the TV they will see more than twice as many ads for unhealthy food compared to healthy food.

And when kids are on their mobile devices, they are hit with as many as ten unhealthy food and drink ads every hour.

It’s worse in more disadvantaged areas

Our dashboard shows food environments in disadvantaged areas are less healthy than those in advantaged areas. The cost of a healthy diet is generally higher in low socioeconomic areas and is much higher in very remote parts of Australia.

Critically, the cost of a healthy diet is simply unaffordable (meaning it costs more than 30% of a household’s income) for people on low incomes and those living in rural or remote areas.

Read more:
Supermarkets claim to have our health at heart. But their marketing tactics push junk foods

People living in low socioeconomic areas are also exposed to more promotions for unhealthy food. A study in Perth, for example, found low socioeconomic areas had a significantly higher ratio of unhealthy food ads to healthy ads within 500m of schools, compared to high socioeconomic areas.

Some good news stories

While almost all the key aspects of food environments in Australia are currently unhealthy, there are some areas that support health.

Our major supermarkets are leading the way in displaying the Health Star Rating on their home-brand product labels, which helps consumers make more informed food choices.

Read more:
We looked at the health star rating of 20,000 foods and this is what we found

Some state governments have shown great progress in creating healthier environments in their hospitals and other health services, by offering water and nuts in vending machines, for example, rather than sugary drinks and lollies.

Greater monitoring is needed

Unhealthy diets and obesity are leading contributors to poor health in Australia. For that reason, it’s critical to closely monitor the key drivers of our unhealthy diets.

We’re pretty good at monitoring our exposure to other key health risks and taking public health action accordingly. For example, the government has successfully reduced road fatalities through a range of measures, including prominent identification and eradication of traffic “black spots”.

Now we need the same level of attention paid to our food environments, where there are still some key gaps in our knowledge.

For example, while most state governments have policies to guide foods available in schools, only Western Australia and New South Wales monitors and/or reports adherence to policies.

In many other areas, such as food promotion, data is not routinely collected. This means we often need to rely on data that’s a few years old and that might only be relevant to small geographic regions.

Governments need to take stronger action

The unhealthy state of our food environments indicates much stronger policy action is needed from all levels of government in Australia.

The National Obesity Strategy which is currently in development and now overdue, can provide the framework for Australian governments to fix up the “black spots” in our food environment.

Improvements can be made by introducing globally recommended policies, such as taxes on sugary drinks and higher standards for how the food industry markets its unhealthy food and drink products.

These actions can help ensure all Australians have access to food environments that support healthy diets.

Read more:
How much longer do we need to wait for Australia to implement a sugary drinks tax?

Gary Sacks receives funding from the National Heart Foundation of Australia, National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council and VicHealth.

Funding for Australia’s Food Environment Dashboard was provided from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). The MRFF provides funding to support health and medical research and innovation, with the objective of improving the health and wellbeing of Australians. MRFF funding was provided to The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre under the MRFF Boosting Preventive Health Research Program.

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

– ref. No, it’s not just a lack of control that makes Australians overweight. Here’s what’s driving our unhealthy food habits – https://theconversation.com/no-its-not-just-a-lack-of-control-that-makes-australians-overweight-heres-whats-driving-our-unhealthy-food-habits-162512

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Dore, Scientia Professor, Kirby Institute; Infectious Diseases Physician, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, UNSW

Many thousands of people need to return to Australia, and many at home wish to reunite with partners and family abroad.

A move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to quarantine is a way to make this happen — including home quarantine for vaccinated returnees.

The federal government implemented home quarantine over a short period in March 2020, before switching to mandatory hotel quarantine for returned residents and other incoming passengers.

But the considerably changed circumstances — most importantly, access to effective vaccines — calls for its reintroduction despite caution among politicians and the community.

The low rate of positive cases, and proven effectiveness of further safeguards to limit breaches, make home quarantine a persuasive strategy.

It’s worth remembering people who contract COVID, and their contacts, have successfully self-isolated at home since the pandemic began.

How will we make sure it’s safe?

There are several protective layers which would ensure extremely limited risk of home quarantine for fully vaccinated returned overseas travellers.

The first is requiring a negative COVID test within three days of departure, which is currently a requirement for all returnees.

The second is COVID vaccination. Recent studies indicate full vaccination provides 60-90% infection risk reduction. In cases where fully vaccinated people do get infected, these “breakthrough cases” are less infectious.

It’s also important to test returnees in home quarantine. A positive case would trigger testing of any contacts and may extend self-isolation.

Also, high levels of testing in the broader community can ensure early detection of outbreaks, enabling a rapid public health response to limit spread, if it did leak out of home quarantine.

Read more:
The crisis in India is a terrifying example of why we need a better way to get Australians home

The risk would be extremely low

Data from hotel quarantine in New South Wales, which takes around half of returned travellers in Australia, suggests home quarantine for fully vaccinated returnees would likely present an extremely low risk.

In 2021, NSW has screened around 4,700 returnees a week, with the proportion of positive cases detected during quarantine averaging around 0.6%.

From March 1, since vaccination has become more accessible, only eight of 406 positive cases were fully vaccinated.

Unfortunately we don’t have the overall data on how many returnees were fully vaccinated, but even if only 10-20%, this would equate to a positive rate of around 6-12 per 10,000 among the vaccinated. This is considerably lower than the overall rate of 66 COVID cases per 10,000 since March 1.

Read more:
Hotel quarantine causes 1 outbreak for every 204 infected travellers. It’s far from ‘fit for purpose’

If home quarantine was initially restricted to fully vaccinated returnees from countries with low to moderate caseloads, the rate would be lower again, probably less than five per 10,000.

If NSW increased their quarantine intake by taking an extra 2,500 per week from this population into home quarantine, it would equate to maybe a few positive cases per month, compared to around 120 cases per month in hotel quarantine. As vaccination uptake increases, this capacity could be expanded, with reduced hotel quarantine requirements.

Will people comply?

The enormous desire for stranded Australian residents, overseas partners and family of residents in Australia to return and reunite should ensure a high level of compliance with home quarantine.

Home quarantine has been successfully implemented in other countries with elimination strategies such as Taiwan and Singapore. Taiwan’s system was deployed rapidly and has 99.7% compliance. Singapore uses a grading system to enable lower-risk returnee residents to do seven days in home quarantine, with a negative test required for release on day seven.

Two major reviews of the hotel quarantine system — the Victorian government-commissioned Coate report, and the national review of hotel quarantine — recommended implementing home quarantine with monitoring technology, such as electronic bracelets. Their recommendations were made prior to the approval of vaccines.

Recent data suggests the current hotel quarantine system has harmful effects. Research published in the Medical Journal of Australia in April found mental health issues were responsible for 19% of all emergency department presentations among people in NSW hotel quarantine. It’s highly likely home quarantine would be more beneficial for the mental health of returnees.

What are the barriers?

Issues which would need to be sorted through include:

• methods for determining how risky different countries are

• how returnees can prove they’ve been vaccinated

• how we would test returnees and home-based contacts, and how frequently

• and how long home quarantine would be for.

But none of these are insurmountable, and small-scale home quarantine already exists in the ACT.

Health authorities could ensure returnees can collect their own COVID testing samples, for example by doing nasal swabs or collecting saliva themselves. This would reduce contact with health workers.

Home quarantine is undoubtedly being considered by major Australian COVID policy committees, along with other measures to enable a larger number of returnees and to increase the safety of the quarantine system.

Australians’ excessive caution continues to have direct consequences for the well-being of many thousands of stranded Australian residents, together with non-resident partners and family members desperate to return.

It’s time to change this situation and make their human rights a public health priority.

The author would like to thank John Kaldor, Esther Rockett, and Liz Hicks for their input.

Gregory Dore receives funding from NHMRC, National Institutes for Health, Australian Government Department of Health, and NSW Health.

– ref. Home quarantine for vaccinated returned travellers is extremely low risk, and won’t damage their mental health – https://theconversation.com/home-quarantine-for-vaccinated-returned-travellers-is-extremely-low-risk-and-wont-damage-their-mental-health-162436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yuanyuan Huang, Research Scientist , CSIRO

Peatlands, such as fens, bogs, marshes and swamps, cover just 3% of the Earth’s total land surface, yet store over one-third of the planet’s soil carbon. That’s more than the carbon stored in all other vegetation combined, including the world’s forests.

But peatlands worldwide are running short of water, and the amount of greenhouse gases this could set loose would be devastating for our efforts to curb climate change.

Specifically, our new research in Nature Climate Change found drying peatlands could release an additional 860 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, by around 2100. To put this into perspective, Australia emitted 539 million tonnes in 2019.

To stop this from happening, we need to urgently preserve and restore healthy, water-logged conditions in peatlands. These thirsty peatlands need water.

Peatlands are like natural archives

Peatlands are found across the world: the arctic tundra, coastal marshes, tropical swamp forests, mountainous fens and blanket bogs on subantarctic islands.

They’re characterised by having water-logged soil filled with very slowly decaying plant material (the “peat”) that accumulated over tens of thousands of years, preserved by the low-oxygen environment. This partially decomposed plant debris is locked up in the soils as organic carbon.

Read more:
Peat bogs: restoring them could slow climate change – and revive a forgotten world

Peatlands can act like natural archives, letting scientists and archaeologists reconstruct past climate, vegetation, and even human lives. In fact, an estimated 20,500 archaeological sites are preserved under or within peat in the UK.

As unique habitats, peatlands are home for many native and endangered species of plants and animals that occur nowhere else, such as the white-bellied cinclodes (Cinclodes palliatus) in Peru and Australia’s giant dragonfly (Petalura gigantea), the world’s largest. They can also act as migration corridors for birds and other animals, and can purify water, regulate floods, retain sediments and so on.

But over the past several decades, humans have been draining global peatlands for a range of uses. This includes planting trees and crops, harvesting peat to burn for heat, and for other land developments.

For example, some peatlands rely on groundwater, such as portions of the Greater Everglades, the largest freshwater marsh in the United States. Over-pumping groundwater for drinking or irrigation has cut off the peatlands’ source of water.

Together with the regional drier climate due to global warming, our peatlands are drying out worldwide.

What happens when peatlands dry out?

When peat isn’t covered by water, it could be exposed to enough oxygen to fuel aerobic microbes living within. The oxygen allows the microbes to grow extremely fast, enjoy the feast of carbon-rich food, and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Some peatlands are also a natural source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with the warming potential up to 100 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

But generating methane actually requires the opposite conditions to generating carbon dioxide. Methane is more frequently released in water-saturated conditions, while carbon dioxide emissions are mostly in unsaturated conditions.

Read more:
Emissions of methane – a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide – are rising dangerously

This means if our peatlands are getting drier, we would have an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, but a reduction in methane emissions.

So what’s the net impact on our climate?

We were part of an international team of scientists across Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, the US and China. Together, we collected and analysed a large dataset from carefully designed and controlled experiments across 130 peatlands all over the world.

In these experiments, we reduced water under different climate, soil and environmental conditions and, using machine learning algorithms, disentangled the different responses of greenhouse gases.

Our results were striking. Across the peatlands we studied, we found reduced water greatly enhanced the loss of peat as carbon dioxide, with only a mild reduction of methane emissions.

The net effect — carbon dioxide vs methane — would make our climate warmer. This will seriously hamper global efforts to keep temperature rise under 1.5℃.

This suggests if sustainable developments to restore these ecosystems aren’t implemented in future, drying peatlands would add the equivalent of 860 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year by 2100. This projection is for a “high emissions scenario”, which assumes global greenhouse gas emissions aren’t cut any further.

Protecting our peatlands

It’s not too late to stop this from happening. In fact, many countries are already establishing peatland restoration projects.

For example, the Central Kalimantan Peatlands Project in Indonesia aims to rehabilitate these ecosystems by, for instance, damming drainage canals, revegetating areas with native trees, and improving local socio-economic conditions and introducing more sustainable agricultural techniques.

Likewise, the Life Peat Restore project aims to restore 5,300 hectares of peatlands back to their natural function as carbon sinks across Poland, Germany and the Baltic states, over five years.

But protecting peatlands is a global issue. To effectively take care of our peatlands and our climate, we must work together urgently and efficiently.

Read more:
People, palm oil, pulp and planet: four perspectives on Indonesia’s fire-stricken peatlands

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

– ref. Peatlands worldwide are drying out, threatening to release 860 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year – https://theconversation.com/peatlands-worldwide-are-drying-out-threatening-to-release-860-million-tonnes-of-carbon-dioxide-every-year-162438

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Kent, Senior Research Fellow in Urbanism, University of Sydney

We’ve being looking at the ways people travel with dogs and what it says about attempts to shift towards a more sustainable and healthier transport system. Our research first established that trips with dogs in Australia are both common and car-dependent. This is because Australia has some of the highest rates of dog ownership in the world but we are relatively unusual compared to other countries in that we restrict people taking dogs on public transport.

We are interested in how this situation might be changed. Our recent research explores why some people might not want dogs on public transport, and how these concerns can be managed.

This research, published in the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, reports the results of an analysis of 163 comments made on a Conversation article about dogs on public transport. About 40% of comments supported the idea. A similar proportion expressed disapproval.

Read more:
Riding in cars with dogs: millions of trips a week tell us transport policy needs to change

The trouble with dogs

Many of the negative comments included simple statements about the smell of dogs. Others referenced more complex concerns such as hygiene and disease.

Several focused on the impact on people with allergies to dogs. These comments often pointed out that the rights of people with allergies and of those who do not like dogs should take precedence over the rights of dogs and dog owners.

Some comments referred specifically to concerns about the operation of the transport system. They raised issues such as the increased cleaning workload for facilities, the need to replace upholstery more regularly, as well as concern about who would pay the costs of accommodating dogs on public transport.

There were several passionate comments about dog attacks. Statements that dogs are dirty and dangerous often either implicitly or explicitly referenced the notion that dog owners cannot be trusted to control, or minimise the impact of, their dog.

Many claimed that canine and transport contexts are different in Australia, suggesting a policy that works in, for example, a European country would not work in Australia. Sentiment that Australia is somehow “behind” countries in Europe often underpinned these comments.

Read more:
Australians love their pets, so why don’t more public places welcome them?

We need to listen to objections, but there are solutions

Many of the comments contained opinions that were obviously posted with some emotion. Dogs are, indeed, a polarising issue. This polarity reflects the common perception that there are “dog people”. Policy change proposals must consider the opinions of those who support pets on public transport and those who don’t.

Our analysis, however, does provide several reasons Sydney’s public transport agencies should consider a policy to allow dogs to travel on public transport.

First, negative comments were more likely to demonstrate unfamiliarity with the operational details of a policy that permits dogs to travel on public transport. For example, physical separation of those travelling with dogs could overcome many of the concerns about smell and even allergies. This separation is easily attainable on trains and also possible on buses.

Similarly, concerns about payment could be resolved by ensuring a ticket must be bought for dogs prior to travel, with the fare based on the cost to the system. This may also go part way to alleviating the sense that allowing dogs on transport is a clash of rights between dog owners and non-owners.

Third, negative comments suggesting Australia’s dogs and dog owners are somehow less responsible than their European counterparts are not supported by empirical evidence. Positive local experiences of travelling with well-behaved dogs could soften negative perceptions.

Read more:
We need a better understanding of how we manage dogs to help them become better urban citizens

What might a policy change look like?

The analysis does suggest opposition could be allayed in time. However, the policy would have to be applied with care.

Other cities that have managed this shift could be consulted for strategies to ensure the policy works well in practice. In Milan, Italy, for example, dogs are allowed only on the first and last carriages of the metro. No more than two dogs are allowed on a bus at any one time.

In Gothenberg, Sweden, only one dog is allowed per bus and the dog must board at the rear of the bus. On trains, dogs are permitted to travel in the last carriage only. In Dublin, Ireland, dogs over a certain size must travel near the guard’s bay on trains.

Read more:
Curious Kids: is it true dogs don’t like to travel?

It’s not just about the dogs

Travel with dogs might not seem like a priority issue for public transport systems. We argue, though, that Australia’s heavily car-dependent cities need public transport that meets our need for the less obvious, “messy” trips that make up modern lives in cities. By looking beyond the car for these trips, we can develop a system that Australians can use for more than just the journey to work.

This analysis, however, demonstrates the complexity of dragging our public transport systems up to the task of competing with the private car.

Jennifer Kent receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She volunteers for the Cat Protection Society.

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

– ref. Many of us want to take our dogs on public transport, but others shudder at the thought — what’s the solution? – https://theconversation.com/many-of-us-want-to-take-our-dogs-on-public-transport-but-others-shudder-at-the-thought-whats-the-solution-161983

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

Review: Hilma af Klint, The Secret Paintings. Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In 1986, those art historians who see art as some form of linear progression “improving” with time received a rude shock. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s exhibition The Spiritual in Art — Abstract Paintings 1890 – 1985 introduced a hitherto unknown woman artist.

The issue was not just that this art was so exquisitely beautiful — but that the paintings had been painted in the early 20th century.

Hilma af Klint was once known as a minor academic Swedish artist. Born in 1862, she had been one of the first women to graduate from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and had exhibited at the Swedish General Art Association.

But these paintings on display in Los Angeles revealed another life, a different art. Her involvement with spiritualism had radicalised her art to such an extent she can only be described as one of the great abstract artists.

Her work was the sensation of the 2013 Venice Biennale, with a full scale retrospective organised by the Moderna Museet shown in Stockholm, Berlin and Malaga the same year. In 2018, New York’s Guggenheim Museum exhibition broke all attendance records. Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings brings her art to the southern hemisphere for the first time.

The transformation of af Klint from competent academic to inspirational mystical abstractionist is a result of the same ideas that influenced many of her contemporaries including Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee and Malevich.

Rather than rewriting the history of art by slotting her in as a hitherto unknown great woman artist, it is probably more useful to consider these ideas and their impact on her art.

Scientific and mystical change

The scientific discoveries of the late 19th and early 20th century encouraged many to question the very nature of the universe.

In the 17th century, Isaac Newton discovered light was made of particles. In the early 19th century, Goethe’s Theory of Colours led many to see colour had spiritual and psychological powers. In the early 20th century, Max Planck demonstrated light particles had energy.

Many began to think that, if the universe was more than it seemed, then perhaps there were other lives living on different astral planes. Perhaps it was possible for some to be mediums, opening themselves to communicate with spirit guides to these worlds.

At the end of the 19th century a new religion, Theosophy, appeared, incorporating both ancient wisdom and modern science.

Today, this may seem esoteric in the extreme, but Theosophy offered an apparently logical and modern system of belief. Its spread was global, and was a major factor behind the liberation of colour in early Australian modernism. In Sydney in 1926, the Theosophical Society was sufficiently mainstream to start a radio station: 2GB.

Read more:
Clarice Beckett exhibition is a sensory appreciation of her magical moments in time

It is not surprising af Klint should become a follower. What is surprising is the power of the art unleashed as a consequence.

In 1896, she joined with four colleagues in a group they called The Five whose investigation of the spirit world included automatic drawing.

In 1906, her spiritual communications led to her spirit guide Amaliel “commissioning” a new series, The Paintings for the Temple. She later described this as “the one great task that I carried out in my lifetime.”

However, af Klint did not see herself as just a simple conduit for the spirits to control:

it was not the case that I was to blindly obey the spirits, but that I was to imagine that they were always standing by my side.

The first Paintings for the Temple were completed five years before Kandinsky proclaimed his revolutionary argument for abstraction in The Spiritual in Art.

In 1907 she painted her great series of works, The Ten Largest.

They are, by any measure, a magnificent study of the seasons of life. Elements of nature, geometry and mysterious writing are traced through juvenile floral blues to orange youth, mauves and yellows of adulthood, then in the seeds of old age where the red paint is all scumbled and thin.

The value in being forgotten

To understand both why her art developed the way it did, and why it was so little known for so long, it is probably worth considering the events of her lifetime and her own position.

Hilma af Klint was from an aristocratic Swedish naval family. During the first world war, Sweden’s position was armed neutrality, but was only too aware of the carnage. Her Swan series, started shortly after the outbreak of war, pitches white swan against black as forms become abstracted, looping in harmony, dissolving into geometry and pure abstraction — until at the very end the two swans are locked together. Each contained elements of the other.

In 1908, Hilma af Klimt showed the Paintings of the Temple to Rudolph Steiner who failed to understand her work, and did not appreciate the way she saw herself as working with spirits.

This, as well as the burden of caring for her frail and blind mother, may be why she abandoned painting for four years. It may also be why she specified her art be kept secret until 20 years after her death.

There is also a more pragmatic reason. For all its studied neutrality, Sweden was very close to Germany as the Nazis assumed power: radical abstract art with mystical overtones could have caused problems.

Hilma af Klint died in 1944. In 1970, after seeing the riches of his aunt’s creative legacy, her nephew Erik offered her art to Sweden’s Moderna Museet. The gift was rejected out of hand when the director heard she was a mystic and a medium.

A year later Linda Nochlin published Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? — an essay ushering in a new era of scholarly reassessment of art by women.

Read more:
Why weren’t there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin

It was perhaps fortunate this gift was rejected. Almost all her art is now owned by the Hilma af Klint Foundation, created by her family. It will never be scattered by the art market nor be the subject of speculation by dealers. Instead, it is both a constant resource for scholars and for audiences to marvel at the meditative beauty of her forms, the incandescence of her colour and the way she opens eyes to new ways of seeing.

Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until September 19, then City Gallery Wellington from December 4.

Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. How the stunning abstract art of Hilma af Klint opens our eyes to new ways of seeing – https://theconversation.com/how-the-stunning-abstract-art-of-hilma-af-klint-opens-our-eyes-to-new-ways-of-seeing-162605

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Breen, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

The petition presented to parliament last week calling for trans women to be excluded from women’s sport is simply the latest round in a difficult and volatile global debate.

Organised by Save Women’s Sport Australasia, the petition challenges Sport New Zealand’s “draft guiding principles for the participation of transgender players in sport” for failing to consult widely enough.

Despite the draft principles covering community-level sport, not international competition, former Olympians and elite athletes supported the petition in an open letter to Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson.

The controversy comes not long after New Zealand transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s Pacific Games victory was criticised due to her alleged physical advantage, and not long before the Olympic Games open in late July.

Overall, this polarising issue is likely to keep dividing people. Consensus looks increasingly difficult to achieve. With both sides claiming discrimination, can existing laws and principles provide a way forward?

Sports participation as a human right

The wider relationship between sports and human rights is complex and often contradictory. No explicit right to participate in sport exists in international law. However, a number of core human rights are relevant:

• the Universal Declaration on Human Rights says everyone has the rights to freedom of association, health, rest and leisure, and to participate in cultural life

• the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says everyone has the right to freedom of association; its sister treaty, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognises the rights to health and cultural life

• the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child identifies the rights to rest, leisure and participation in cultural life, which include participation in sport, as does the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

• UNESCO’s International Charter of Physical Education and Sport identifies sport as a fundamental right, as does the International Olympic Committee.

Recognising trangender athletes

As with all human rights, the right to participate in sport is underpinned by the right to be free from discrimination on grounds of sex, gender or other status. That includes gender identity and the right of trans people to be free from discrimination.

This broad principle informs much of the thinking on the issue. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, for example, has said the participation of girls and women in sport should not result in the arbitrary exclusion of transgender people.

Read more:
How high school sports became the latest battleground over transgender rights

The rapporteur has also asked for a consensus by all international sporting bodies and national governments, in consultation with transgender organisations, with subsequent policies ideally reflecting international human rights norms.

The UN’s Independent Expert on “protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity” has highlighted the negative impact of exclusionary practices in sport, and noted the value of inclusive programs.

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women calls for equality between men and women in sports and includes gender identity among the forms of potential discrimination.

The devil is in the detail

Beyond these areas of broad agreement, however, the issue quickly becomes more complex.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Human Rights Act 1993 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of “sex” and “sexual orientation”. These prohibitions have been interpreted to encompass the legal right of trans people to be free from discrimination.

Read more:
Hostility to elite trans athletes is having a negative impact on participation in everyday sport

However, the act also says it is not discriminatory to exclude people of one sex from participating in any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant.

Unfortunately, this is where the arguments run into the limited help offered by science. There is still strong disagreement about whether transgender athletes have a competitive advantage or not.

The limits of science and the law

Research focusing on testosterone levels to justify the exclusion (or inclusion) of trans athletes has been criticised as an inappropriate oversimplification.

Whether testosterone even provides a competitive advantage is disputed, and commentators point to other factors that may be at play.

One study of the available literature concluded that a consensus could not be reached due a lack of data. That finding was itself challenged, but both sides agreed more research was required.

Read more:
Do naturally high testosterone levels equal stronger female athletic performance? Not necessarily

In the meantime, we need to recognise the limits of science and the law when it comes to setting demonstrably balanced guidelines for trans athletes’ participation in sport.

Progress will only come through listening to both sides in the short term, but broad support for the required research is also needed in the longer term.

Ultimately it is in everyone’s interests that this hugely complex issue is resolved properly. Given it goes to the heart of human identity, the potential benefits are not confined to the sporting world.

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

– ref. The debate over transgender athletes’ rights is testing the current limits of science and the law – https://theconversation.com/the-debate-over-transgender-athletes-rights-is-testing-the-current-limits-of-science-and-the-law-162593