Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Louys, ARC Future Fellow, Griffith University

From the moas of New Zealand to the dodos of Mauritius, humans have hunted many island-dwelling species to extinction in the relatively recent past. But our research reveals humans haven’t always necessarily been agents of ecosystem destruction.

Our study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that until around 12,000 years ago, the arrival of humans on new islands didn’t spell certain doom for the animals that already lived there, and that in most cases their extinction was due to many different factors.

That has since changed, of course. When humans first arrived in New Zealand around the years 1250–1300, they brought with them sophisticated toolkits, advanced maritime technologies, and a few animal companions. They landed in an ecosystem that had never seen any of these things.

Within a few centuries of landing, the biggest animals on these islands, the giant moas, were extinct, and alongside them numerous other birds, reptiles and amphibians. The true extent of these extinctions will probably never be known, but almost certainly runs to more than 30 different species. In other Pacific islands the scenario was much the same.

Further afield, on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, the arrival of humans was so inextricably linked to the demise of the dodo that this species has become a global emblem of extinction.

These events, relatively recent in evolutionary terms, have fostered a powerful and enticing narrative: that humans are perennially the agents of destruction and ecological folly.

The overkill hypothesis

These episodes of overhunting prompted the US geoscientist Paul Martin to propose his “overkill hypothesis” to explain extinctions of iconic species at the hands of humans. Martin surmised that when humans arrived in North America, they began hunting the biggest animals they found. Within a few generations, these “megafauna” had been wiped out.

This hypothesis has since been applied around the world. Megafauna extinctions in Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Australia have all been attributed to humans overhunting animals, destroying their habitats, or both.

In a relatively obscure part of the world, however, our earlier research revealed a different story. We work in Nusa Tenggara Timur, a series of small islands found in eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste and north of Australia. Although these islands have never been connected to the mainland, the earliest records of humans date to about 45,000 years ago. They also hosted various now-extinct species, including stegodons (elephant-like creatures), giant rats, and birds.

As we analysed fossil and archaeological records across several of these islands, it became clear the extinctions here were not caused by human overkill. Some species from Nusa Tenggara Timur, such as the stegodons, disappeared well before modern humans arrived. Others, like the giant rats, lived alongside people for tens of thousands of years, withstanding millennia of hunting and consumption.

Why were these island extinctions so different from the more famous human-caused examples elsewhere? Perhaps it was the fact that humans arrived relatively early, in smaller numbers, and with less sophisticated hunting tools. Or perhaps it was the nature of the islands themselves.

To try to answer these questions, we mounted a global investigation of the impacts of humans and their evolutionary ancestors on the species that lived on islands. Our study covered a huge span of time known as the Pleistocene: from 2.6 million years ago, when humans’ evolutionary ancestors began spreading across the globe, to 11,700 years ago, shortly before modern humans developed agriculture and new technologies.

This vast period predates the times when most islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans were first occupied.

We assembled leading archaeologists and palaeontologists who study island ecosystems. Next, we compared notes to see whether the extinctions of animals on each of these islands coincided with the arrival of humans.

Humans off the hook?

On only two islands, Cyprus and Kume, were all extinctions coincident with humans’ arrival. Some other extinctions on other islands also coincided with human colonisation. But, broadly speaking, the dominant pattern across all the islands we examined was that there was no relationship between humans arriving, and local animals going extinct.

This was true of both oceanic and continental islands (islands connected to continents during periods of lowered sea levels). In the latter, extinctions mostly happened when the islands were connected to the mainland. In the former, we found that volcanic eruptions weren’t coincident with extinctions either.

Read more: It was growing rainforests, not humans, that killed off Southeast Asia’s giant hyenas and other megafauna

Our study revealed important aspects of the relationship between islands, humans and extinctions. First, no two islands are the same. Each will be impacted differently by people, and in some cases the impacts may not necessarily be detrimental – in fact, they could conceivably even be beneficial.

Second, it was not until the past few millennia that humans began to wreak widespread destruction on island ecosystems. These are a result of overhunting, yes, but probably more from environmental degradation, introduction of invasive species, and overpopulation.

Read more: Aboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years

Our research shows that even in the most fragile ecosystems — islands — humans have not always been the agents of destruction they are today. We should be wary of projecting recent human behaviours and their negative impacts into the deeper past. And taking a broader view of prehistoric extinctions will help inform our current efforts to save the species that survive today.

– ref. Humans weren’t to blame for the extinction of prehistoric island-dwelling animals – https://theconversation.com/humans-werent-to-blame-for-the-extinction-of-prehistoric-island-dwelling-animals-160092

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University

In the past five years, the number of overseas-born migrants from India grew more than any other group in Australia, increasing from 449,000 to 721,000. Indian residents leapfrogged New Zealand-born and China-born migrants in the 2020 government figures to rank second in the country, behind only those from England.

Despite their increasing numbers and growing political voice, it appears those of Indian origin still do not matter enough in the mainstream Australian public sphere.

This is most apparent in the recent travel ban imposed by the federal government on flights from COVID-ravaged India. Not only are Australian citizens prohibited from entering their own country, they also risk fines of up to $66,000 or five years’ jail time if they attempt to do so.

This has left stranded 9,000 Australians who have signalled an interest in returning home, including 650 classified as “vulnerable”. Critics have decried the punitive nature of the travel ban as racist.

After attacks, a stronger voice

People of Indian descent have long experienced discrimination and racism in Australia.

In 2009–10, a series of savage attacks on Indian students in Melbourne shook the community and resulted in widespread protests, blanket coverage in the Indian media and plummeting student enrolment numbers.

The racially motivated attacks were significant enough to force the Australian government to apologise and compel then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to mend diplomatic relations by making a visit to India and setting up the Australia India Institute.

It was widely thought at the time that Rudd did so to rescue the Australian higher education industry, which had become increasingly reliant on international students from India.

In 2013, my colleagues and I organised the first conference of the Indian diaspora in Australia. This was in response to an Australia India Institute report in the wake of the student attacks, which found the Indian-Australian community was not politically active and “flying under the radar”.

My research on the attacks showed the Indian-Australian community had in fact transformed from being “de-wogged migrants” to “rabble rousers”. This means that due to India’s greater economic strength on the global stage, those migrating to other countries have higher levels of pride in their home country. This, in turn, makes them more likely to speak up against perceived discrimination in Australia.

Why do Indian-Australians feel singled out now?

The current crisis over Australian residents being stranded in India has not elicited a similar reaction from the government.

Even though the nation’s chief medical officer has warned Australians could die during the travel ban — and doctors, human rights groups and the Indian-Australian community have forcefully criticised the move — Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stood firm.

How can such a decision be explained? Some commentators have said the government is trying to deflect attention from the failures of its own quarantine system by introducing such a punitive measure on health grounds.

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

The real question is why those flying from India are being singled out. Such drastic steps were not in place when the US, the UK and Europe were going through similarly deadly and infectious COVID outbreaks in the past year.

One possible explanation is the Indian community in Australia is simply an easy target, especially when India is in an unprecedented crisis. Indian officials and media are likely to be preoccupied with more pressing domestic matters and may not complain about the treatment of Indian-Australians the way they did during the student attacks a decade ago.

And despite the Indian-Australian community growing in size in Australia and being increasingly represented in the media and politics, it appears those of Indian origin are still largely perceived as an “other” or a “model minority”.

Indian-Australians and their allies have more platforms than ever to express their legitimate anger over the travel ban, but that doesn’t mean those in power are listening.

How the Indian community can amplify its voice

On the one hand, the Australian government ought to have learned the lessons of the Melbourne student attacks and should take the lead in changing negative perceptions of its multicultural communities.

This is more important than ever with the rise of racist incidents towards Asian people since the onset of COVID.

Even before the pandemic, those of Indian heritage living in Australia reported experiencing high levels of “subtle racism” in their everyday lives. Anecdotally, this can range from being told to “go back to where you came from” in public places, to being asked to prove one’s worth and qualifications when carrying out jobs that are not regarded as stereotypically “Indian”.

On the other hand, there is still more the Indian diaspora could do to have a political voice that is take seriously in times of crisis. This is not just about speaking up for one’s own interests through formal political representation. A political voice can be achieved in other ways, such as

• listening to the voices and concerns of their younger generations and encouraging them to speak out in appropriate public forums

• showing solidarity with other communities that are subject to racism and discrimination

• using community groups to work constructively with politicians.

While there is more work to be done by the Indian diaspora in Australia to be politically proactive, it does not absolve elected leaders of the responsibility they owe to all Australian citizens to protect them. Migrants report increased feelings of belonging and civic engagement when they feel cared for.

Read more: The problem with Apu: why we need better portrayals of people of colour on television

– ref. It’s not surprising Indian-Australians feel singled out. They have long been subjected to racism – https://theconversation.com/its-not-surprising-indian-australians-feel-singled-out-they-have-long-been-subjected-to-racism-160179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Moss, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Monash University

A doomsday scenario of an end to human sperm production has been back in the news recently, now with the added threat of shrinking penises.

Professor Shanna Swan, a US epidemiologist who studies environmental influences on human development, recently published a new book called Countdown.

In it, she suggests sperm counts could reach zero by 2045, largely owing to the impact of a range of environmental pollutants used in manufacturing everyday products: phthalates and bisphosphenol A (BPA) from plastics, and per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used, for example, in waterproofing. Under this scenario, she says, most couples wanting to conceive would need to rely on assisted reproductive technologies.

She has also warned these chemicals are shrinking penis size.

Such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I would argue the evidence is not strong enough.

Correlation doesn’t equal causation

Epidemiologists find associations between disease and potential contributing factors, like lung cancer and smoking. But their work can’t identify the causes of disease — just because two things are associated doesn’t mean one is causing, or caused by, the other.

An article written by environmental activist Erin Brockovich in The Guardian in March leads by referring to “hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility”. But causation is far from established.

It’s reasonable to expect chemicals that affect hormone function in our bodies, like BPA and PFAS, could affect reproduction in males and females, given available evidence. But we don’t have irrefutable proof.

Selective reporting

In 2017, Swan and several colleagues published an exhaustive review study showing an apparent drop in men’s sperm counts of 59.3% between 1973 and 2011. This research informs the arguments Swan makes in Countdown and those we’ve seen in the media.

What’s not often mentioned is the fact the researchers only observed a decline in sperm count in groups of men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, but not in groups of men from South America, Asia or Africa.

When Swan and her colleagues combined the data from all countries, they saw a decline because the studies of “Western” men outweigh those of men elsewhere (in the number of studies and participants).

Read more: Huge drop in men’s sperm levels confirmed by new study – here are the facts

Swan and her colleagues worked hard to avoid bias when conducting their study. But selection bias (related to how study participants are chosen), publication bias (resulting from researchers’ tendency to report only observations they think will be of interest) and other limitations of the original work used as the basis for their investigation could be influencing the results of the larger study.

Many studies from different parts of the world show declining sperm counts, which is concerning, but we don’t fully understand the reasons for the apparent decline. Blaming chemicals in the environment overlooks other important factors such as chronic disease, diet, and obesity, which people can act on to improve their fertility.

The problem with extrapolation

Swan’s 2017 study boils down to a straight descending line drawn between sperm counts of groups of men studied at different times between 1973 and 2011.

Just because a straight line can be drawn through the data, this doesn’t justify extrapolation of that line beyond its earliest and latest data points. It’s unscientific to assume trends in data exist outside the range of observations.

We know sperm counts of men in the early 1940s were around 113 million sperm per ml of semen, not the roughly 140 million/ml you get from extrapolating backwards from Swan’s research. Concluding sperm counts will reach zero in 2045, based on extrapolating forward from the available data, is just as likely to be incorrect.

When Swan told news website Axios “If you look at the curve on sperm count and project it forward” she was encouraging unjustifiable and unscientific interpretation of her data — even though she acknowledged it was “risky” to extrapolate in this way. Unfortunately this caution is too often unmentioned.

For example, Brockovich writes: “That would mean no babies. No reproduction. No more humans.” That’s hyperbole. It’s just not science.

Relax, your penis isn’t shrinking

Claims of shrinking penises are obvious clickbait. But only a single study, of 383 young men from the Veneto region in northeastern Italy, links men’s penis size to the types of chemicals Swan attributes to declining sperm counts.

Within Veneto there are geographic zones with varied levels of PFAS contamination. A group of 212 men who live in areas with high or intermediate PFAS exposure and have high levels of these chemicals in their bodies, had an average penis length of 8.6cm, about 10% lower than the average of a group of 171 men from an area without exposure (9.7cm).

Read more: Science or Snake Oil: do men need sperm health supplements?

But a few features of this study affect the reliability of the observations and whether we can generalise them to other populations.

1. men were grouped according to where they lived, not where they were born. Since genital size is determined before birth, the environment during their mothers’ pregnancies is more relevant to penis size than where the men lived at the time of the study. Some men will likely have relocated from their place of birth but how many, and where they may have moved to and from, we don’t know

2. the levels of PFAS exposure for men living in the contaminated regions of Veneto are extreme, because of decades of industrial pollution. How the potential effect of such large exposures relates to smaller and more common exposures to pollutants, like from plastic food wrap, we don’t know

3. the study is missing details about its subjects and the conditions under which measurements were made. It’s usual to exclude people with conditions that might affect study outcomes, such as congenital abnormalities, but it’s not clear whether this happened in the study. Variables that influence penile measurements (such as room temperature, posture, and whether the penis is held straight or hanging) are not mentioned.

And from a semantic perspective, for penises to be “shrinking” they must be getting shorter over time, on either an individual or population basis. I cannot find any reports of men’s penises shortening as a consequence of environmental pollution. Available data don’t suggest a decline in penis size over the past few decades.

While environmental pollution is a pressing concern, the evidence suggests the catastrophic collapse of human reproduction and accompanying penis shrinkage is thankfully a pretty unlikely prospect.

Read more: Considering using IVF to have a baby? Here’s what you need to know

– ref. Are chemicals shrinking your penis and depleting your sperm? Here’s what the evidence really says – https://theconversation.com/are-chemicals-shrinking-your-penis-and-depleting-your-sperm-heres-what-the-evidence-really-says-160007

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vanessa Pirotta, Wildlife scientist, Macquarie University

Do whales fart and sneeze? — Guy, age 8, Sydney

I’ve waited a long time for a question like this! I usually talk about whale snot for my research (yes, whales have snot), and I’m so excited to look into this, too.

Let’s start with the tail end first: farts

Yes, whales do fart. Can you imagine the size and bubbles of a fart from the world’s biggest animal, the blue whale?

I’m yet to experience this, but I know of some lucky scientists who have seen a humpback whale fart. They tell me it looks like bubbles coming out underneath its body near the tail. That’s where the whale bum is — the smellier blowhole.

Whales are mammals, just like us. This means they breathe air, give birth to live young, provide their young with milk and have hair, usually in the form of whiskers around their mouth. They also have digestive processes to help break down their food.

Read more: Curious Kids: What sea creature can attack and win over a blue whale?

Unlike us, whales don’t chew their food but swallow it whole. Baleen or toothless whales, for example, use long hair-like structures to feed on krill and fish. Their food is later broken down across four stomach chambers.

As their bodies break this food down (via stomach acid), it produces gases, which are released as farts and eventually poo.

In fact, whale poo is one of the coolest looking in the animal kingdom. Blue whale poo can be bright orange!

Back to the top end: do whales sneeze?

The short answer, no.

Unlike us, whales need to think about breathing. When they want to take a breath, they need to swim to the surface. If they don’t, they could drown.

This means whales also sleep differently to us. They can rest different parts of their brain at a time, and take naps before rising to the surface to breathe.

And unlike us, they can’t breathe through their mouth and instead use their blowhole or nose to breath. This is like having an inbuilt snorkel on top of their head.

Read more: Curious Kids: Do sharks sneeze?

This makes it much easier for them to swim, breathe and eat — all at the same time. And they don’t have to worry about food going down the wrong way as their air and lung passages are separated.

We sneeze automatically and involuntarily if something tickles our nose. If whales get something caught in their noses, they could clear it using a big exhale through their blowhole, like blowing their nose. This would serve a similar function to our sneezing.

BUT, if a whale were to sneeze…

It would be big! For comparison, an adult human’s lungs can hold around six litres of air. But a humpback whale can hold over 1,000 litres — that’s a lot of bubbles!

You can actually see a whale’s breath: it’s a mixture of lung bacteria, hormones, proteins and lipids. It’s officially called “whale lung microbiota” — or whale snot — and looks like water droplets.

As a scientist, I use drones to sample whale snot to learn more about whale health.

We found the whales off Sydney didn’t even know their snot was being collected through this method. This is much safer for the whales and us as researchers as we don’t need to get close to each other.

Well there you have it, we’ve covered both ends of a whale. They’re incredible creatures who do enormous farts — thanks for the question!

Read more: Curious Kids: have people ever seen a colossal squid?

– ref. Curious kids: do whales fart and sneeze? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-do-whales-fart-and-sneeze-159636

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Gore, Laureate Professor of Education, Director Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle

In his speech to The Age Schools Summit in Melbourne last week, federal Education Minister Alan Tudge talked about his recently launched review of initial teacher education. He said quality teaching was the most important in-school factor for determining student outcomes, and the review was a step towards this goal.

Some research backs the minister’s claim — teaching has a significant impact on student outcomes. But the focus on initial teacher education is insufficient.

First, research also shows a school’s level of advantage or disadvantage has a significant role to play in student outcomes, in some cases more so than the “quality” of its teachers.

And second, 15,000 teachers are graduating from Australian universities each year. This is a fraction of the 300,000 teachers in the workforce, all having and continuing to have an impact on students.

This means reviewing initial teacher education does little to help the more than 4 million students enrolled in Australian schools.

Helping all teachers improve their teaching is a better and faster way to improve the performance of Australian students. Our research shows how we can do this.

Quality teaching and equality

In 2019, Deloitte Access Economics issued a report, commissioned by the federal Education Department, called “School quality in Australia: Exploring the drivers of student outcomes and the links to practice and schooling quality”. The report found the most important in-school factor driving student outcomes was teaching practice.

According to the report, the effect of teaching practice on student outcomes is twice as great as the next most significant driver — the classroom environment.

However, other studies, both in Australia and internationally, point to socio-economic inequalities having concentrated and considerable effects on student engagement and achievement.

For instance, a 2014 Australian study noted leaders have tended to cherry-pick evidence. The study’s author’s wrote:

[…] State and Commonwealth education ministers have tended to focus quite selectively on research findings that speak to the positive outcomes associated with quality teaching, while neglecting the complexity of this field […] The phenomenon of “residualisation” in particular, whereby disadvantage is concentrated in certain public schools as a result of “school choice”, has quite powerful effects on the engagement and achievement of low SES [socioeconomic] students.

The education minister’s current approach emphasises in-school factors while minimising the impact of out-of-school factors on student achievement. Both are important if we are to improve our students’ results.

Read more: Australian schools are becoming more segregated. This threatens student outcomes

How do we improve teaching quality?

Worldwide, four broad strategies are used to improve teaching:

1. recruiting and training “better” teachers

2. improving initial teacher education

3. measuring and evaluating the quality of teaching

4. providing professional development to build the capacity of practising teachers.

Recruiting strong candidates into teaching and improving teacher education have merit, but they are long-term strategies. Evaluating the quality of teaching might be helpful in identifying needed reforms but does not, in itself, guarantee improvement.

However, building teaching capacity in all teachers will deliver results. This is especially true when seeking quick outcomes, such as Alan Tudge’s goal for Australian schools to be back “among the world’s top nations” in reading, maths and science by 2030.

So, how do we build capacity?

As a profession, we struggle to agree on what makes a quality teacher. We developed an approach focused on what teachers do in the classroom rather than who they are. In other words, quality teaching rather than quality teachers.

At the core of our approach is a framework called the quality teaching model, which focuses on three key concepts:

• the need for intellectual quality, rigour or challenge in every learning experience

• the need to create classroom environments that support not only students but also their learning

• the need to increase the significance of student learning so they can see its connection to the world beyond the classroom.

Using this model, we devised a professional development process called “quality teaching rounds”. It is applicable to every grade, subject and teacher career stage.

These rounds involve teachers collaborating in professional learning communities of four or more. They observe and analyse each other’s teaching using the quality teaching model. Over a period of weeks, each teacher takes a turn to host a lesson observed by their peers.

Read more: Making better use of Australia’s top teachers will improve student outcomes: here’s how to do it

All the teachers (including the host) assess the lesson using the elements of quality in our model. Next, they have discussions about each teacher’s justification of their assessment, drawing on evidence gathered during the lesson.

The goal is to reach consensus on what is working. This process generates lively interaction, critical insights and goes well beyond providing feedback to the host teacher. Importantly, the assessments remain confidential to the participants, creating a safe space for their analysis.

Does it work?

This approach has been shown to improve the quality of teaching, teacher morale and, most importantly in the current context, student performance.

We conducted a trial involving 192 teachers randomly assigned to two groups: the first group did quality teaching rounds and the comparison group did professional development as usual. The researchers were blinded to group allocation.

Our findings show the quality of teaching (measured by our quality teaching model) improved significantly in the group that participated in rounds.

Read more: The government claims teaching is a national priority, but cheaper degrees won’t improve the profession

This year, we published findings of a more recent trial involving 234 year 3 and 4 primary teachers and more than 5,000 students from 133 New South Wales government schools. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a group involved in quality teaching rounds; a less structured form of peer observation; or professional development as usual (control).

Compared to the control group, student outcomes in mathematics improved by 25% in the group where teachers participated in quality teaching rounds. This was equal to two months additional improvement over an eight month period. The results also improved by less than one month in the peer observation group but were not statistically significant.

Resources matter too

If we are to meet the education minister’s objectives for Australia to again be among the world’s leading nations in student performance, we must support all teachers with professional development shown to work.

Yet it would be remiss not to acknowledge the enormous contribution of out-of-school factors in determining student outcomes.

Inadequate resources and disadvantage in low socioeconomic schools play a significant role in students’ poorer educational outcomes.

Teachers, teaching and teacher education cannot alone make the improvements sought without considerable commitment to, and investment in, rectifying longstanding inequalities.

– ref. Yes, quality teaching improves student outcomes. But that means all teachers need support – not just those in training – https://theconversation.com/yes-quality-teaching-improves-student-outcomes-but-that-means-all-teachers-need-support-not-just-those-in-training-160101

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Dovey, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, The University of Melbourne

Outdoor dining on former parking spaces – generally known as parklets – has proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reduced demand for parking coincided with increased demand for outdoor space – but when the pandemic subsides, cities must decide what comes next. Is this a temporary change before we return to the car-dependent city, or can it help us create a better city?

What has happened is that one kind of temporary private appropriation of public space (parking) has been traded for another (dining). This has been a very effective adaptation to the need for spatial distancing and to avoid indoor spaces. It has helped many hospitality businesses to survive.

Read more: We can’t let coronavirus kill our cities. Here’s how we can save urban life

Parklets are concentrated in locations where restaurants and bars front onto walkable streets with limited footpath capacity and permanent strips of parking space. It is the future of these strips that is most immediately at stake. Where do public interests lie as we decide between a return to parking, retention of parklets, or some other uses?

To be sure, the use of public space for alfresco dining and drinking has a public benefit that parking does not. Parklets contribute to the atmosphere, vitality and sense of place of the street. Increased social activity also makes the area safer.

Yet street parking is a public amenity too. Our cities’ long-standing dependency on private cars will not vanish overnight. As the pandemic abates, the demand for parking will return, along with the lure of parking revenue for local councils.

However, the costs and benefits of urban driving and parking are rapidly changing due to lower speed limits, congestion charging, ridesharing and ultimately autonomous vehicles.

It’s not an either-or choice

A first point here is that we do not need to choose between parking and parklets because they are highly interchangeable. With a standard area of about 2 metres by 5 metres, parklets can be created and removed flexibly and in stages. Parking and parklets can be complementary: the two functions could interchange according to user preferences over daily, weekly and seasonal cycles.

Parklets first emerged in San Francisco, as an urban guerrilla movement briefly turned parking spaces into public parks while feeding the meter. These parklets were defiantly public – turning private parking into publicly accessible space.

Read more: People love parklets, and businesses can help make them happen

If we decide to retain parklets, then should they only be available for commercial appropriation, or also for pocket parks and mini-plazas with free and open access? And what other uses and designs are possible?

We might re-imagine the parking strip as a territory that is variously available for uses ranging from picnics, parties, market stalls, street vendors and urban greening to parking, restaurants and bars. Uses that involve private appropriation could continue to be a source of local government revenue.

However, the key is identifying the planning and design frameworks that maximise public benefit from scarce and valuable public spaces. While local businesses and residents have often become dependent on nearby street parking, there is no natural right to such private appropriation. On what basis should a business proprietor or resident have first access to a parking space if there is a better public use?

Read more: Parking isn’t as important for restaurants as the owners think it is

Don’t forget bike lanes

The other key competitor for this space is cycle lanes. Cycling is the best prospect for easing pressure on roads and public transport. With driving in our cities above pre-pandemic levels, the case for dedicated cycle lanes is now overwhelming.

For trips of up to 20 minutes, cycling enables access to an area about nine times greater than walking and often gives better access than driving or public transport. As bike lanes make cycling safer and faster, many more of us ride bikes instead of driving. Safe cycling requires lanes about 2m wide, the same as a parking strip – but in many streets they are in competition for the same space.

The question of what comes next for parklets requires us to take a detailed look at the structure of each particular street. Some streets already have wide footpaths and the parklets are a bonus. Others have more traffic lanes than needed, and that width might be reallocated for parklets.

Read more: Don’t forget the footpath – it’s vital public space

Main streets often have buses and trams that provide additional benefits and constraints. Adjacent, quieter and safer streets might be better for cycle lanes.

Flexible solutions are likely to work best

Innovative options will likely involve dynamic outcomes involving both parking and parklets. The parking strip might morph incrementally into a mix of parking, parklets, mini-parks and mini-plazas, with local demand determining the outcome. Another prospect is a mix of expanded footpath, cycle lane and calmed traffic.

The different mixes may change with daily or seasonal rhythms, much as parking already yields to rush-hour clearways. Parklets might compete with car parking on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Rather than determining fixed outcomes, we should encourage a diversity of experiments from which we learn and adapt. Indeed, the proliferation of parklets can be seen as an experiment that works in many ways and not in others. Perhaps understandably, far too many are makeshift with minimal design and hampered by bureaucratic conventions. Many are little used for much of the time, just like parking spaces.

Read more: Of all the problems our cities need to fix, lack of car parking isn’t one of them

The pandemic has presented the best opportunity we will see for transformative change in our streets. There is huge scope for imaginative design and planning as we explore the possibilities.

After a century or so of surrendering public space to the car, large amounts have been reclaimed for active social use. Public space was allocated for car parking in an earlier era when cars represented the freedom of the city. But when times change we should change the city.

If we hope for something better than a return to car dependency or further privatisation of public space, then the thinking about what happens next needs to start now.

– ref. What next for parklets? It doesn’t have to be a permanent switch back to parking – https://theconversation.com/what-next-for-parklets-it-doesnt-have-to-be-a-permanent-switch-back-to-parking-159534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne

More than 50 years ago, George Miller, president of the American Psychological Association, urged his colleagues “to give psychology away”. No, cynical reader, he was not instructing his followers to abandon the field. Rather he hoped raising the general public’s awareness of psychology would help to solve society’s problems.

In the half century following Miller’s appeal, psychologists have popularised their ideas with missionary zeal. Books written for the public are published at an accelerating rate, bolstered by countless blogs, podcasts, magazines, TED talks and videos.

The popularisation of psychology has been strikingly successful. Writing in 1995, a historian of the field argued “psychological insight is the creed of our time”.

If anything, that creed has even more true believers today. Writers in the business of dispensing psychological insight, such as Brené Brown, are hugely popular and have armies of followers.

But other writers like Jesse Singal, whose The Quick Fix was published last month, pose serious questions to popular psychology.

So will popular psychology change your life? Or does it rest on junk science and make us self-obsessed and miserable?

What is pop psychology?

Popular psychology can be defined as any attempt to present psychological ideas to a general audience. Like all fields, academic and professional psychology have their own specialist publications and jargon. Popularisation is an effort to make this knowledge accessible, palatable and usable.

There is no agreed way of classifying pop psychology, but three main genres stand out. First, there are books and media whose primary aim is to inform the public about recent developments in scientific psychology, commonly authored by academics or science journalists.

These works are similar in nature to any other kind of science communication, but with a specific focus on mind, brain and behaviour. Classics of the genre include Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), about the two fundamental modes of human cognition; Joseph LeDoux’s The Emotional Brain (1996), on the neuroscience of emotion; and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational (2008), about decision biases.

The second genre is more applied. Instead of expounding on a scientific topic for the curious layperson, it offers guidance for people who want practical help with the challenges of everyday living. It is more often written by psychology practitioners than by academics and is commonly at arm’s length from research on the topic.

This genre of pop psychology includes publications that aim to make us better leaders and lovers, more capable partners and parents. They speak to those of us who want to be happier, thinner, fitter, richer, smarter, sexier or more productive.

Finally, we have a third pop psychology genre that targets people with mental health problems. Like the second genre it offers practical guidance, but rather than enhance functioning in everyday life, it endeavours to reduce suffering and dysfunction.

Whereas the second genre promises coaching without a flesh-and-blood coach, the third genre offers a form of self-administered therapy. Its consumers seek help in overcoming or coping better with their depression, anxiety or other conditions.

The blurry line between psychology and self-help

Genres two and three can be seen as part of the vast self-help industry. Serving an insatiable appetite for self-improvement, this trade is estimated to be worth US$11 billion (A$14.2 billion) annually in the USA alone.

Not all popular psychology is self-help (remember genre one), and not all self-help literature is grounded in psychology or produced by psychologists.

Read more: Self-help in the ‘age of responsibility’ denies unequal realities

Dale Carnegie, of How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), was a salesman, actor and public speaking coach with no psychology background.

His background in sales was shared by Werner Erhard. The influential founder of the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise peddles inspirational stories from everyday people rather than experts and sages (and now also sells pet food).

Other self-help books sell homespun wisdom, faith-based solutions or 12-step ideas rather than psychology. Leading authors have been Christian ministers (Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking), religious educators (Stephen Covey’s 1989 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and psychiatrists (M. Scott Peck’s 1978 The Road Less Travelled).

More recently Brené Brown has built a career as a popular self-help writer who does have a psychology background. In a series of best-selling books, including Dare to Lead (2018), The Gifts of Imperfection (2010) and The Power of Vulnerability (2013), Brown explores themes of courage, vulnerability and shame.

Her work emphasises the need to embrace the risk of emotional exposure and discomfort. The everyday courage required to face fears is necessary, she says, to find love, success and personal growth.

These ideas of courage and vulnerability are not unique to psychology, but they are embedded in Brown’s own qualitative research on experiences of shame in women. Her grounding of popular writing in psychological research and theory makes Brown’s work a model of contemporary pop psychology — and has netted her TED talk over 38 million views; and a Netflix special.

The case against pop psychology

It is easy to criticise and sniff at popular psychology. Self-help psychology writers in particular can rub us readers the wrong way with their simplistic claims, pat answers to difficult problems, jargon-encrusted pronouncements and relentless positivity.

Some reasons to dismiss pop psychology are good ones. It can stray far from any scientific evidence base while marketing itself as the work of a PhD-credentialed scholar, using the lustre of “science” as a lure.

Even when it is built on a foundation of research evidence, that foundation may be flimsy. As Jesse Singal shows in The Quick Fix, some of the research findings that underpin pop psychology are dubious, failing to replicate when studies were redone. Others are over-hyped: true to a degree but exaggerated in importance.

Singal’s book singles out self-esteem, power posing, grit, resilience programs and unconscious bias as ideas with a shaky research base and questionable status as pop psychological truth. In each case, popular enthusiasm has outstripped their scientific support.

Pop psychology can also be faulted for discounting the social, cultural and economic factors that constrain our lives: by focusing on the individual, pop psychology authors deflect attention and will away from the need for structural change in society.

The self-help movement’s focus on the individual may also make that individual more self-focused. British writer Will Storr’s book Selfie (2017) documents how consumption of self-help products can feed an unachievable striving for perfection.

The search for self-improvement may undermine itself.

The case for pop psychology

For all its problems, some resistance to pop psychology is unjustified. There can be an element of snobbery in imagining that it is only suited for people weaker, simpler and stupider than we are. There can also be scorn in the stereotype of the self-help addict devouring pop psychology in a desperate but vain search for happiness and success.

In fact, there is some evidence that the search may not be so vain after all. Research on bibliotherapy — the use of books to treat a mental health problem — provides some grounds for hope.

Bibliotherapy may be done individually or as part of a group. It may be directed by a professional of some kind or self-guided. It may include all manner of books, from novels to self-help manuals.

Read more: The comfort of reading in WWI: the bibliotherapy of trench and hospital magazines

Large-scale reviews now indicate bibliotherapy can be effective in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety and sexual dysfunctions. One recent review of research on depressed adults found its effectiveness may be long lasting.

Even unguided, self-administered bibliotherapy may be at least equally effective as standard care for people with depression. Nevertheless, it appears to be somewhat less effective than professionally guided bibliotherapy, which may not be significantly less effective than individual therapy.

Bibliotherapy seems to be a promising and economical piece of the mental health treatment puzzle, especially when self-help is not done solo. If that is true, then the rise of popular psychology has the potential to make a positive difference, as George Miller hoped.

– ref. The rise of pop-psychology: can it make your life better, or is it all snake-oil? – https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-pop-psychology-can-it-make-your-life-better-or-is-it-all-snake-oil-158709

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Chief executive officer, Grattan Institute

The federal government is pitching its 2021 budget as “women-friendly”. Yesterday it announced a key feature of that – more money to make child care cheaper and boost women’s workforce participation.

The Coalition’s policy will increase spending on the child-care subsidy from July 2022 by an extra A$1.7 billion over three years. That is about a 6% increase on the current investment of $9 billion a year.

Key changes

The policy has two main components.

First, it drops the “annual cap” that limits the total yearly subsidy to $10,560 per child for families with combined income of more than $189,390. After that – generally if they have their children in care for four or more days a week – they pay the full cost of care. These costs are often a big disincentive for women with high-earning partners to work more than three days a week.

Second, it boosts the subsidy for second and subsequent children in care by up to 30 percentage points (capped at 95%). This means families currently eligible for a 50% subsidy would now be eligible for an 80% subsidy on their second child if both children are aged under six. Older children using after school care are not eligible for any extra subsidy.

Read more: An extra $1.7 billion for child care will help some. It won’t improve affordability for most

This will reduce fees for families paying some of the highest out-of-pocket childcare care costs – those with multiple children in long day care.

So how does it work?

Consider a middle-income family where one parent earns $85,000 and the other parent earns $65,000, with two young children in day care paying the average cost of $110 a day per child. Under the current scheme they are eligible for a 60% subsidy for both children. So they pay $88 a day and the government pays $132.

Under the new policy, the subsidy will rise to 90% for the second child (with the first child still on a 60% subsidy). This means the parents will pay $55 a day for both children, and get a $165 subsidy. If they have the children in care for four days a week, they will be $132 a week better off.

Effect on workforce participation and family budgets

Currently, for families with two children in long day care, the primary care giver (typically the mother) can lose more than 80% – in some cases 100% – of take-home pay in the move to take a fourth or fifth day’s work. Child-care costs on those extra days are the main contributor.

The new policy reduces the disincentives for those families.

The first graph shows a family where the father earns $60,000 and the mother would earn the same if she worked full time. The current system means she loses 90% of what she earns on her fourth day and more than 100% on the fifth day.

The new policy will lower these “workforce disincentive rates”.

The mother will now lose 75% on the fourth day and 90% on the fifth day.

As the next graph shows, the family will be $5,000 a year better off if the second earner works four days, and $7,500 a year better off if she works full-time.

For a family where both parents have the potential to earn $100,000 working five days a week, the new policy will almost halve the current workforce disincentive rate for working a fifth day – from 100% to 55%.

This is because such a family will benefit from both the extra subsidy for the second child and the removal of the annual cap.

Workforce disincentives remain high even with the new policy. But it is a significant improvement on the status quo.

The flip side of a highly targeted policy is that it benefits only a small segment of families. On the federal government’s numbers, up to 270,000 families may benefit.

This compares with almost 1 million families now accessing some subsidised child care and many more who would like to access it if they could afford it.

Labor announced its child-care policy in the budget reply last year.

How the Coalition’s policy compare to Labor’s

Like the Coalition’s, Labor’s policy removes the annual cap. But it also increases the base subsidy (for all children) to 90%. It also reduces the rate at which the subsidy reduces as family income increases.

This is one of the big contributors to growing out-of-pocket costs as mothers work more and use more child care.

So Labor’s policy is broader, with all families who use child care standing to gain, regardless of the number of children, their age and the family income.

It would cost about $2 billion per year – roughly three times more than the Coalition’s. But it would also have bigger benefits, sharpening workforce incentives for a much wider group of families.

The boost to GDP from higher workforce participation is likely to also be about three times bigger.

Read more: Permanently raising the Child Care Subsidy is an economic opportunity too good to miss

In terms of the impact on family budgets, the big difference between the policies is the number of children aged under six in care.

Families with only one child under six in care (or only older children in after-school care) would be unambiguously better off under the Labor policy.

For families with two children under six in care, there is little difference at most family income levels. For families with three children under six in care (probably less than 20,000 families at any given time), almost all would be better off under the Coalition policy.

A step forward, but not a game changer

Overall, the Coalition’s policy is a helpful and well-targeted package that tackles some of the worst out-of-pocket costs and workforce disincentives. It will mean a real improvement for up to 270,000 families.

What’s missing is support for all the other families using child care. Almost 1 million families now use child care, and many would like to work more if they could afford to do so.

A broader policy supporting more families would have much larger and more widespread economic benefits. Of course, it would cost more too, but our research shows such an investment can be expected to deliver a boost to GDP of at least twice the cost.

This is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done to create a system that truly supports women’s workforce participation and long-term economic security.

– ref. The Coalition’s child-care subsidy plan: how it works, and what it means for families and the economy – https://theconversation.com/the-coalitions-child-care-subsidy-plan-how-it-works-and-what-it-means-for-families-and-the-economy-160173

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

The official medical advice to the Morrison government recommending “pausing” Australian arrivals from India also contained a blunt warning that those stranded risk serious illness and even death.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly’s advice said: “It is important in any measures we implement that we balance the burden on our quarantine and health systems and the protection of our community with the need to help Australians to get home, including those currently residing in high risk countries”.

Kelly said COVID-19 continued to be “a severe and immediate threat” to health in Australia and India was a high risk country, with a sharp increase recently in the number and proportion of overseas-acquired cases coming from there.

“Each new case identified in quarantine increases the risk of leakage into the Australian community through transmission to quarantine workers or other quarantined returnees and subsequently into the Australian community more broadly,” Kelly wrote in his Friday advice to Health Minister Greg Hunt.

“This quarantine ‘leakage’ presents a significant risk to the Australian community.”

The advice was in relation to the government’s determination under the Biosecurity Act – announced in the early hours of Saturday – which makes it an offence for anyone to enter Australia if they have been in India in the preceding two weeks.

This was to close any loopholes enabling people to arrive via third countries after the government suspended flights from India until at least May 15.

Kelly said in his advice, running to more than three pages, that Australia’s quarantine and health resources to prevent and control COVID from international arrivals were limited.

“Due to the high proportion of positive cases arising from arrivals from India, I consider a pause until 15 May 2021 on arrivals from India to be an effective and proportionate measure to maintain the integrity of Australia’s quarantine system,” he said.

But Kelly was careful to put on record a clear warning about the dangers faced by Australians who could not get home.

“I wish to note the potential consequences for Australian citizens and permanent residents as a result of this pause on flights and entry into Australia.

“These include the risk of serious illness without access to health care, the potential for Australians to be stranded in a transit country, and in a worst-case scenario, deaths.”

However he said “these serious implications can be mitigated through having the restriction only temporarily in place, i.e a pause, and by ensuring there are categories of exemptions.”

Under the law, action taken must be no more restrictive or intrusive than necessary and in place only so long as needed.

The determination will expire on May 15 unless extended.

The exemptions include crews of aircraft and vessels and associated workers, Australian officials, defence personnel and diplomats and family members, foreign diplomats accredited to Australia and family members, and members of an Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT).

There are more than 9,000 Australian citizens and residents registered in India of whom 650 are considered vulnerable.

The advice pointed out this would be “the first time that such a determination has been used to prevent Australian citizens and permanent residents entering Australia”.

On Monday Kelly was anxious to say he had nothing to do with the penalties that exist for breaching the determination, which include large fines and up to five years prison and have received much negative publicity. His letter did note the penalties the act carries.

Scott Morrison told 2GB the arrangement was aimed at ensuring Australia did not get a third wave of COVID and its quarantine system could remain strong.

He downplayed the sanctions, saying they would be used appropriately and responsibly.

Morrison said people who had been in third countries for 14 days could return home to Australia. “But if they haven’t, then they have to wait those 14 days.”

Asked on the ABC whether the government should vaccinate Australians stranded in India, Kelly said: “It’s certainly worth looking at. I would say, though, that we know that many of the Australians that are in India at the moment, they’re very scattered. So it’s a huge country; being able to get to them would be a challenge”.

Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan has condemned the government’s stand, tweeting:

– ref. Official medical advice warned of health risks Australians stranded in India face – https://theconversation.com/official-medical-advice-warned-of-health-risks-australians-stranded-in-india-face-160215

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Callum Shakespeare, Senior Lecturer in Climate and Fluid Physics, Australian National University

Last week might have been the first time you ever heard of “internal waves” — the phenomenon suspected of causing the tragic sinking of the Indonesian submarine KRI Nanggala the previous week, resulting in the deaths of the 53 crew members.

So it may surprise you to learn that you’ve doubtless encountered internal waves before. They exist all around us in the atmosphere and ocean, although they are usually invisible. If you’ve ever been on an aeroplane experiencing turbulence, you’ve felt their effects.

Internal waves are generated when a strong wind passes over a steep hill. Air is lifted up and over the hill against the force of gravity, and then accelerates down the other side as gravity takes over. This up-and-down motion kicks off an oscillation downwind of the hill. The oscillating motion is an internal wave.

You can visualise this more easily by imagining a bouncy ball rolling off a step on an otherwise level floor. If you roll it fast enough, the ball takes flight at the crest of the step and accelerates downwards under gravity. When the ball hits the ground it starts to bounce with a bounce-length (or wavelength) that depends on how fast you rolled it.

Unsurprisingly, atmospheric internal waves are most often found in mountainous regions. If you’ve ever looked up at the sky and seen long parallel bands of clouds, particularly near mountains, you’ve probably seen an internal wave propagating through the atmosphere. The waves propagate upwards at the same time as they are carried downwind of the mountain by the air flow.

The waves can reach all the way into the stratosphere, which begins roughly 10 kilometres above the ground, before changes in the atmospheric structure force the waves to break. Just as waves break on the beach as the water becomes shallower, internal waves break in the atmosphere when the properties of the air (such as flow speed or density) change rapidly with height. Such changes are common in the lower stratosphere (10-15km), which is where jet airliners fly.

And just like waves at the beach, this breaking creates a huge amount of chaotic motion – or turbulence – creating an unpleasant jolting motion for any aircraft (and their passengers) that happen to be in the vicinity!

So what about internal waves in the ocean? Just like in the atmosphere, they are generated by strong flows (in this case, ocean currents) over steep hills. But in this case the hills are on the seafloor.

The steeper the hills and the stronger the currents, the bigger the resulting waves. The seas around Indonesia have a perfect combination of these ingredients: a network of deep basins connected by narrow, shallow channels, through which strong tidal currents flow.

These currents are so strong they generate a particularly extreme kind of internal wave known as an “internal solitary wave”, which concentrates the entire wave energy into a single up-and-down motion, rather than many individual oscillations. These waves can be hundreds of metres high, several kilometres long, and travel at speeds of 10km per hour.

Solitary waves are biggest at depths of around 50-200 metres, where there is a sharp temperature gradient between the warm surface layer and the cool ocean interior — the same depths at which submarines typically operate. If a submarine sitting at this kind of depth were suddenly hit by one of these waves, it would be carried downwards (or upwards, depending on its position relative to the wave) at a rate of perhaps 10 metres per minute for 10 minutes.

Without swift action to counteract the wave motion, a submarine could quickly be carried below its maximum operational depth, leading to hull failure and sinking. An archive US Navy report reveals submarine commanders were aware of the risks of internal waves as long ago as 1966.

Read more: Indonesian submarine found: what might have happened to the KRI Nanggala in its final moments?

Besides the danger they pose to submarines, internal waves also play an important role in ocean circulation. They carry vast quantities of energy, helping to sustain ocean currents, mixing heat and carbon dioxide through the oceans, and thus influencing our global climate.

So next time you’re jolted by turbulence on a plane, or looking up at some strange stripes of cloud in the sky, give some thought to the internal waves propagating all around you.

Read more: Satellites reveal ocean currents are getting stronger, with potentially significant implications for climate change

– ref. What are ‘internal waves’ that possibly sank the Indonesian sub? If you’ve ever suffered plane turbulence, you’ve been inside one – https://theconversation.com/what-are-internal-waves-that-possibly-sank-the-indonesian-sub-if-youve-ever-suffered-plane-turbulence-youve-been-inside-one-160172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Chief executive officer, Grattan Institute

The federal government is pitching its 2021 budget as “women-friendly”. Yesterday it announced a key feature of that – more money to make child care cheaper and boost women’s workforce participation.

The Coalition’s policy will increase spending on the child-care subsidy from July 2022 by an extra A$1.7 billion over three years. That is about a 6% increase on the current investment of A$9 billion a year.

Key changes

The policy has two main components.

First, it drops the “annual cap” that limits the total yearly subsidy to A$10,560 per child for families with combined income of more than $189,390. After that – generally if they have their children in care for four or more days a week – they pay the full cost of care. These costs are often a big disincentive for women with high-earning partners to work more than three days a week.

Read more: An extra $1.7 billion for child care will help some. It won’t improve affordability for most

Second, it boosts the subsidy for second and subsequent children in care by up to 30 percentage points (capped at 95%). This means families currently eligible for a 50% subsidy would now be eligible for an 80% subsidy on their second child if both children are aged under six. Older children using after school care are not eligible for any extra subsidy.

This will reduce fees for families paying some of the highest out-of-pocket childcare care costs – those with multiple children in long day care.

So how does it work?

Consider a middle-income family where one parent earns A$85,000 and the other parent earns A$65,000, with two young children in day care paying the average cost of A$110 a day per child. Under the current scheme they are eligible for a 60% subsidy for both children. So they pay A$88 a day and the government pays A$132.

Under the new policy, the subsidy will rise to 90% for the second child (with the first child still on a 60% subsidy). This means the parents will pay $55 a day for both children, and get a $165 subsidy. If they have the children in care for four days a week, they will be $132 a week better off.

Effect on workforce participation and family budgets

Currently, for families with two children in long day care, the primary care giver (typically the mother) can lose more than 80% – in some cases 100% – of take-home pay in the move to take a fourth or fifth day’s work. Child-care costs on those extra days are the main contributor.

The new policy reduces the disincentives for those families.

The first graph shows a family where the father earns A$60,000 and the mother would earn the same if she worked full time. The current system means she loses 90% of what she earns on her fourth day and more than 100% on the fifth day.

The new policy will lower these “workforce disincentive rates”.

The mother will now lose 75% on the fourth day and 90% on the fifth day.

As the next graph shows, the family will be A$5,000 a year better off if the second earner works four days, and $7,500 a year better off if she works full-time.

For a family where both parents have the potential to earn A$100,000 working five days a week, the new policy will almost halve the current workforce disincentive rate for working a fifth day – from 100% to 55%. This is because such a family will benefit from both the extra subsidy for the second child and the removal of the annual cap.

Workforce disincentives remain high even with the new policy. But it is a significant improvement on the status quo.

The flip side of a highly targeted policy is that it benefits only a small segment of families. On the federal government’s numbers, up to 270,000 families may benefit. This compares with almost 1 million families now accessing some subsidised child care and many more who would like to access it if they could afford it.

How the Coalition’s policy compare to Labor’s

Labor announced its child-care policy in the budget reply last year.

Like the Coalition’s, it removes the annual cap. But it also increases the base subsidy (for all children) to 90%. It also reduces the rate at which the subsidy reduces as family income increases. This is one of the big contributors to growing out-of-pocket costs as mothers work more and use more child care.

So Labor’s policy is broader, with all families who use child care standing to gain, regardless of the number of children, their age and the family income.

It would cost about A$2 billion per year – roughly three times more than the Coalition’s. But it would also have bigger benefits, sharpening workforce incentives for a much wider group of families. The boost to GDP from higher workforce participation is likely to also be about three times bigger.

In terms of the impact on family budgets, the big difference between the policies is the number of children aged under six in care.

Read more: Permanently raising the Child Care Subsidy is an economic opportunity too good to miss

Families with only one child under six in care (or only older children in after-school care) would be unambiguously better off under the Labor policy.

For families with two children under six in care, there is little difference at most family income levels. For families with three children under six in care (probably less than 20,000 families at any given time), almost all would be better off under the Coalition policy.

A step forward, but not a game changer

Overall, the Coalition’s policy is a helpful and well-targeted package that tackles some of the worst out-of-pocket costs and workforce disincentives. It will mean a real improvement for up to 270,000 families.

What’s missing is support for all the other families using child care. Almost 1 million families now use child care, and many would like to work more if they could afford to do so.

A broader policy supporting more families would have much larger and more widespread economic benefits. Of course, it would cost more too, but our research shows such an investment can be expected to deliver a boost to GDP of at least twice the cost.

This is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done to create a system that truly supports women’s workforce participation and long-term economic security.

– ref. The LNP’s child-care subsidy plan: how it works, and what it means for families and the economy – https://theconversation.com/the-lnps-child-care-subsidy-plan-how-it-works-and-what-it-means-for-families-and-the-economy-160173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel J Cass, Research Affiliate, Sydney Business School; Energy policy & regulatory lead at the Australia Institute, University of Sydney

Australian governments are busy designing the nation’s transition to a clean energy future. Unfortunately, in a misguided effort to ensure electricity supplies remain affordable and reliable, governments are considering a move that would effectively pay Australia’s old, polluting coal-fired power stations to stay open longer.

The option is one of several recommendations of the Energy Security Board (ESB), the chief energy advisor to Australian governments on electricity market reform. The board on Friday released a vision to redesign the National Electricity Market as it transitions to clean energy.

The key challenges of the transition are ensuring it is smooth (without blackouts) and affordable, as coal and gas generators close and are replaced by renewable energy.

The redesign has been two years in the making. The ESB has done a very good job of identifying key issues, and most of its recommendations are sound. But its proposal to change the way electricity generators and retailers strike contracts for electricity, if adopted, would be highly counterproductive – bad both for consumers and for climate action.

The energy market dilemma

The National Electricity Market (NEM) covers every Australian jurisdiction except Western Australia and the Northern Territory. It comprises electricity generators, transmission and distribution networks, electricity retailers, customers and a financial market where electricity is traded.

Electricity generators in the NEM comprise older, polluting technology such as gas- and coal-fired power, and newer, clean forms of generation such as wind and solar. Renewable energy, which makes up about 23% of our electricity mix, is now cheaper than energy from coal and gas.

Wind and solar energy is “variable” – only produced when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Technology such as battery storage is needed to smooth out renewable energy supplies and make it “dispatchable”, meaning it can be delivered on demand.

Some say coal generators, which supply dispatchable electricity, are the best way to ensure reliable and affordable electricity. But Australia’s coal-fired power stations, some of which are more than 40 years old, are becoming more prone to breakdowns – and so less reliable and more expensive – as they age. This has led to some closing suddenly.

Without a clear national approach to emissions targets, there’s a risk these sudden closures will occur again.

Read more: Explainer: what is the electricity transmission system, and why does it need fixing?

So what’s proposed?

To address reliability concerns, the ESB has recommended a measure known as the “physical retailer reliability obligation”.

In a nutshell, the change would require electricity retailers to negotiate contracts for a certain amount of “dispatchable” electricity from specific generators for times of the year when reliability is a concern, such as the peak weeks of summer when lots of people use air conditioning.

Currently, the Australian Energy Market Operator has reserve electricity measures it can deploy when market supply falls short.

But under the new obligation, all retailers would also have to enter contracts for dispatchable supply. This would likely require buying electricity from the coal generators that dominate the market. This provides a revenue source enabling these coal plants to remain open even when cheaper renewable energy makes them unprofitable.

The ESB says without the change, the closure of coal generators will be unpredictable or “disorderly”, creating price shocks and reliability risks.

A big risk

Even the ESB concedes the recommendation comes with considerable risks. In particular, the board says it may:

• impose increased barriers to retail competition and product innovation
• lead to possible overcompensation of existing coal and gas generators.

In short, the policy could potentially lock in increasingly unreliable, ageing coal assets, stall new investment in new renewable energy storage such as batteries and pumped hydro and increase market concentration.

It could also push up electricity prices. Electricity retailers are likely to pass on the cost of these new electricity contracts to consumers, no matter how much energy that household or business actually used.

The existing market already encourages generators to provide reliable supply – and applies strong penalties if they don’t. And in fact, the NEM experiences reliability issues for an average of just one minute per year. It would appear little could be added to the existing market design to make generators more reliable than they are.

Finally, the market is dominated by three large “gentailers” – AGL, Energy Australia and Origin – which own both generators and the retail companies that sell electricity. The proposed change would disadvantage smaller electricity retailers, which in many cases would be forced to buy electricity from generators owned by their competitors.

Australia’s gentailers are heavily invested in coal power stations. The proposed change would further concentrate their market power while propping up coal.

Read more: ‘Failure is not an option’: after a lost decade on climate action, the 2020s offer one last chance

What governments should do

If coal-fired power stations are protected from competition, it will deter investment in cleaner alternatives. The recommendation, if adopted, would delay decarbonisation and put Australia further at odds with our international peers on climate policy.

The federal and state governments must work together to develop a plan for electricity that facilitates clean energy investment while controlling costs for consumers.

The plan should be coordinated across the states. Without this, we risk creating a sharper shock later, when climate diplomacy requires the planned retirement of coal plants. Other nations have acknowledged the likely demise of coal, and it’s time Australia caught up.

Read more: Spot the difference: as world leaders rose to the occasion at the Biden climate summit, Morrison faltered

– ref. Paying Australia’s coal-fired power stations to stay open longer is bad for consumers and the planet – https://theconversation.com/paying-australias-coal-fired-power-stations-to-stay-open-longer-is-bad-for-consumers-and-the-planet-160083

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angelika Poulsen, PhD candidate, Queensland University of Technology

Intimate partner violence is indisputably a crisis in Australia.

State and federal governments have invested heavily in family violence prevention. However, one area of violence prevention has until now been overlooked. A growing body of research has found a consistent link between experiencing corporal punishment from a parent – in the form of smacking – as a type of violence, and those children going on to be involved in partner violence in adulthood.

I reviewed this literature, as well as the prevalence, frequency and severity of corporal punishment practices in Australia. I found Australian policymakers have an opportunity to further strengthen partner violence prevention strategies by legislating against the legal defence of reasonable chastisement of children in the states and territories. In other words, ban smacking.

While there is a strong link between being abused as a child and growing up to become involved in partner violence, smacking has historically been considered relatively innocuous.

However, emerging research has found smacking has a similar effect on a child’s brain to that of abuse, in that the stress and fear it provokes can cause changes to some neurotransmissions. It is more likely to lead to alcohol misuse, depression and anti-social and aggressive behaviours, which may in turn be antecedents to partner violence.

Read more: A wake-up call for parents who smack their children

Prominent researchers have built a solid case for including corporal punishment as an Adverse Childhood Experience, a range of childhood experiences known to cause toxic stress linked to adversity in adulthood.

Social learning theory is also often applied to explain subsequent aggression in children who were smacked. We learn how to behave according to what we see and experience, and smacking tells the child that violence is an acceptable and normal way to show frustration and deal with others’ “misbehaviour”.

This is supported by research spanning 32 countries that found that people who had been smacked as children were more likely to approve of intra-marital violence. So normalising violence within a family to a child increases the likelihood of their involvement in partner violence in adulthood, as victims as well as perpetrators.

There are gender differences in here too. Interestingly, some research shows girls who are smacked are more likely to grow up to become the victims of partner violence. Boys who are smacked are more likely to become the perpetrators.

According to UNICEF, violence toward girls starts with corporal punishment in adolescence. And families where partner violence is occurring are also more likely to smack their children.

Researchers have argued that, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a no-tolerance approach to violence across society may increase reporting rates of partner violence and strengthen the message that violence is never okay, no matter who the victim is.

Sweden was the first country to ban corporal punishment in all settings in 1979. The first generation of children to be raised under this legislation are now being studied, and some research shows there is less violence among adolescents in countries where corporal punishment is banned.

While these are promising findings, there are too many other factors at play, such as social and cultural structures, to be able to compare Sweden and Australia too closely.

Despite the potential importance of corporal punishment as a precursor to partner violence in adulthood, research on it in Australia is lacking. However, it is likely rates are high.

Read more: What are the best ways to discipline kids?

Politically, banning corporal punishment in the home is an unpopular idea. The Greens are the only party to imply support for banning smacking by way of advancing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Parents are generally deeply opposed to allowing the government to tell them how to parent. Many grew up being smacked themselves and argue it never did them any harm.

It is therefore likely a ban on smacking in Australia would be met with much opposition. Yet in countries where smacking has been banned (currently 62), frequent initial opposition by the majority of the population has invariably turned into acceptance of and support for such a ban. Broadly targeted education campaigns and parenting support to teach alternatives to smacking have been successful in these countries.

Given the strength of evidence on the issue, we need to look seriously at the link between corporal punishment and partner violence to prevent partner violence in Australia. Attitudes and behaviours have the best chance of being learned and accepted early in life, and preventing violence against children presents an opportunity to teach both children and adults that violence is never okay.

– ref. Evidence shows children who are smacked are more likely to be involved in partner violence in adulthood – https://theconversation.com/evidence-shows-children-who-are-smacked-are-more-likely-to-be-involved-in-partner-violence-in-adulthood-159632

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland

By helping identify perpetrators and the remains of victims, forensic DNA analysis holds enormous power to solve crimes. It also has enormous implications for privacy and fairness. But with science and society changing at such a pace, the law can struggle to keep up.

It is now 25 years since New Zealand’s Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995 was written. Last year the New Zealand Law Commission recommended a complete overhaul of the law. Its report, The Use of DNA in Criminal Investigations, is now with the government for consideration.

While it contains 193 recommendations, the report still fails to engage with some of the most difficult issues involving DNA databanks.

At the heart of the issue is the offender databank, which the commission proposes limiting to DNA from people convicted of serious offences. While this might seem like a good balance between privacy and law enforcement, it sidesteps difficult philosophical questions:

• If DNA analysis is crucial in catching the guilty, eliminating the innocent and identifying the missing, why do we bank only the DNA of “criminals”?

• Is having one’s DNA placed in a databank a form of punishment, or are databanks merely a regulatory tool for more efficient and accurate resolution of crimes?

• If DNA banking is viewed as an element of punishment, how is its inclusion in sentencing authorised?

• If being included in a databank is merely an investigatory tool, why not include every New Zealander’s DNA from birth?

Whose DNA should we bank?

Proponents of DNA databanks have always sat at an uncomfortable intersection: they claim databanks are not punitive, but simultaneously seek to limit those included in such databanks to people with criminal records.

The Law Commission recommends separating the various databank categories: elimination samples (the “innocent”), the missing and unidentified (“victims”), investigations (“suspects”) and offenders (the “guilty”). While most index profiles are expunged as soon as they are no longer needed, offender profiles would be expunged only on evidence the offender had “rehabilitated”.

The problem with this distinction between the treatment of offender profiles and all other profiles in the databank is that it further entrenches the dichotomy between those who “deserve” to have their DNA banked and those whose privacy warrants protection.

Read more: Overhaul of NZ women’s prison system highlights the risk and doubt surrounding use of force on inmates

DNA banking feels intuitively like a privacy invasion, but it is difficult to articulate why. When the US Supreme Court assessed the constitutionality of expanding DNA databanks from convicted offenders to people who had only been arrested, it struggled to identify the privacy interest in not having one’s DNA collected and banked.

DNA profiles, the court argued, are effectively no different to fingerprints or mug shots. At the same time, however, the court emphasised DNA collection was limited to individuals “in valid police custody” who were arrested for “serious offences”, and did not apply to the general public.

Māori are over-represented

Because New Zealand’s primary databank contains the DNA of “offenders” only, and because DNA profiles have hereditary components, who ends up in the databank has ethnic implications. Communities already over-represented in the criminal justice system are also over-represented in the DNA databank.

The commission acknowledged the over-representation of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand’s databanks. But it didn’t adequately address the problem of potentially entrenching that disparity by filtering DNA profiles through the criminal justice system.

By recommending databanks remain limited to individuals involved in the criminal justice system, the commission helps perpetuate the mechanism that led to over-representation of Māori in databanks in the first instance.

Read more: Policing by consent is not ‘woke’ — it is fundamental to a democratic society

Creating databanks from a specific (and relatively powerless) segment of society – convicted criminals – also avoids greater political scrutiny of the privacy and ethical issues involved.

If we want to ensure there are adequate political safeguards against the abuse of databank information, we should include the DNA profiles of the rich and powerful.

This is not to advocate for a universal DNA databank. But the sound philosophical and scientific arguments for broadening the scope of databanks – more accurate identification and elimination of suspects, eliminating ethnic disparities – suggest political justifications, rather than philosophical or practical ones, underlie the commission’s decision to bank the DNA only of serious offenders.

Casting the net too wide

Compounding the problem is the commission’s decision to endorse familial searches. These allow police to identify individuals in DNA databanks whose profiles have substantial similarity to a suspect sample. The police then use the identify of the family member in the databank to track down the suspect relative who is not.

Being Māori therefore not only increases an individual’s chances of being in the databank, but also of being targeted in a criminal investigation because a relative’s profile is in the databank.

The Human Rights Commission, Te Mana Raraunga (the Māori Data Sovereignty Network), the New Zealand Law Society, the New Zealand Bar Association and the Māori Law Society all expressed concerns about familial searching in their submissions.

Their arguments included that it intruded on privacy, constituted unjustified discrimination on the basis of family status under the Human Rights Act 1993, and was inconsistent with tikanga Māori.

The commission considered the issue, but ultimately endorsed familial searches with court authorisation.

Read more: DNA database sold to help law-enforcement crack cold cases

Who should have access?

The commission recommended restricting databank access to the police or their forensic providers, excluding independent researchers. But the commission’s reasoning for this could just as easily be used to argue against the use of databanks in the first place:

• the privacy and discrimination risks if new technologies allow identification profiles that are currently anonymous

• lack of consent by individuals whose profiles are banked

• racial justice concerns from the skewed ethnic composition of the databank.

These are valid concerns, but independent research is the best way to determine the seriousness of the risks, how to mitigate them and whether they warrant discontinuing DNA banking and “cold hit” searching.

On the one hand, the commission acknowledges the risks. On the other, it insists there should be no independent (even anonymised) scrutiny of those risks.

Clearly, there is more work to be done here. The justice minister should seek answers to these questions before proposing an amendment to the law that could last another two decades.

– ref. Laws governing police use of DNA are changing: are the proposals fair for all New Zealanders? – https://theconversation.com/laws-governing-police-use-of-dna-are-changing-are-the-proposals-fair-for-all-new-zealanders-158422

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meru Sheel, Epidemiologist | Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University

From today, Australians aged 50 or older are eligible to receive their COVID-19 vaccine from special respiratory clinics or mass vaccination hubs in some states. Appointments with selected GPs are available from May 17.

However, a recent poll shows many people over 50 are hesitant to get vaccinated, particularly with the AstraZeneca vaccine earmarked for them. That’s mostly due to reports of very rare, but serious, blood clots that can develop after vaccination.

So it’s understandable why people want to know about any safety issues and how they relate to age. It’s also natural to want to know how well the vaccine works to protect people over 50.

Here’s what we know about this safe and effective vaccine from clinical trials and around 136 countries using it so far.

Does the AstraZeneca vaccine protect people over 50?

Clinical trials, which have included more than 57,000 people to date, found the AstraZeneca vaccine to be safe and effective.

When researchers pooled the results from four large trials — including about 8,600 vaccinated people and a similar number of unvaccinated persons — there were 81% fewer COVID-19 cases in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated ones. No one who got the vaccine was hospitalised due to COVID-19.

While the studies haven’t been designed specifically to look at efficacy in distinct age groups yet, there is good evidence the AstraZeneca vaccine protects both the elderly and younger adults from COVID-19. In clinical trials, adults aged 18-55 and those older than 55 had similar immune responses.

How about serious disease and death?

When it comes to protecting people from serious disease, there’s good news again. We have data from England and Scotland that one dose of it reduces COVID-19 hospitalisations by 80-88% in the elderly, similar to that of the Pfizer vaccine (88-91%).

Based on our understanding of how vaccines work — generally, vaccines are more effective in younger adults — it’s safe to assume the vaccine is at least 80% effective in preventing severe COVID-19 in people over 50.

What about the new variants?

New variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, affect the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but only slightly for the B.1.1.7 strain (the UK variant). It’s about 70% effective against this strain, compared with about 82% for the original strain.

However, there have been some concerns about protection against the B.1.351 strain (the South African variant). This is because the AstraZeneca vaccine provides less protection against mild COVID-19 disease in people infected with it.

Does the AstraZeneca vaccine limit spread of COVID-19?

We still need more long-term data to say for certain whether the vaccine prevents transmission of COVID-19.

However, preliminary UK research provides some welcome news. Researchers looked at more than 365,000 households and nearly one million contacts of COVID-19 cases. They found the vaccine reduced transmission from people vaccinated with one dose by 40-50%. This is great news in terms of slowing the spread of the disease.

How safe is the AstraZeneca vaccine in people over 50?

Both clinical trials and real-world data confirm the AstraZeneca vaccine has a good safety profile similar to other vaccines commonly used in Australia.

Side-effects are common and are mostly mild to moderate, with few recipients needing medical attention. The most common are reactions at the injection site, fatigue, headache and muscle pain. These occur in half to three-quarters of people under 55 after their first dose, and are less common in older people. The side-effects generally start within 24 hours and last around one or two days, and indicate your immune system is working.

In Australia, data from the AusVaxSafety vaccine surveillance system shows about 22% of people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine missed a day or more of work or studies as they were unwell. Fewer than 2% needed to see a doctor.

Read more: COVID vaccines have been developed in record time. But how will we know they’re safe?

What about the blood clots I’ve been hearing about?

Serious reactions to the vaccine have been very rare, one of which includes thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, which is on everyone’s mind right now.

This is a very rare condition in which blood clots (thrombosis) and low levels of platelets (thrombocytopenia) occur 4-28 days after receiving the vaccine. This can lead to disability and 20-25% of people with these clots die.

About six in every million people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine develop the condition. And it tends to be more common in people under 50. Other than younger age, there are no other risk factors for these clots we know of yet.

In Australia, there have been six cases of this type of blood clotting: one person in their 30s, four in their 40s, and one in their 80s. Of these, a person in their 40s has died from it.

Read more: What is thrombocytopenia, the rare blood condition possibly linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine?

As Australia is largely COVID-free, is it worth me getting the AstraZeneca vaccine?

The risk-benefit analysis for Australians right now differs depending on the amount of COVID-19 in the community, your age and the availability of alternative vaccines.

Based on a small amount of data so far, the risk of these blood clots after the AstraZeneca vaccine, for people aged 50-59 is about 0.4 per 100,000 and for those aged 60-69, 0.2 per 100,000.

But the risk of getting severe COVID-19 or the risk of admission into intensive care from COVID-19 is much higher for the over 50s — nearly ten-fold higher than the risk of clots after the vaccine.

It’s about 6.5 per 100,000 people aged 50-59 and 7.0 per 100,000 for people aged 60-69, based on data from Victoria’s second wave in July 2020. There are different risk-benefit calculations for different scenarios.

Australia has almost no disease in the community. However, this could change very quickly if there were new outbreaks. We also have no alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine for most people over 50 (more Pfizer vaccine is not available until the last quarter of 2021). So balancing the risks and benefits of the vaccine, is extremely challenging. People may not perceive their risk of COVID-19 as high enough to warrant vaccination and are preferring to wait, perhaps six months or more until other vaccines are available.

However, the potential benefits of the vaccine go far beyond what we’ve already mentioned. Vaccination will contribute to the prevention of long COVID-19 (symptoms that linger for months) as well as increased ability to move around freely in society, including being able to attend large events. Vaccination will help us avoid lockdowns or school closures, allow us to travel overseas and return to normal life.

Read more: A balancing act between benefits and risks: making sense of the latest vaccine news

How do I get vaccinated?

You can use the government’s vaccine eligibility tracker to check whether you can receive your COVID-19 vaccine from today, and to make an appointment.

This will give you details of the state- and territory-run vaccination clinics near you that are open from today (not all are taking appointments for the over 50s yet). From May 17, you can receive your vaccine at some GP clinics.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are needed for best protection, preferably 12 weeks apart.

– ref. I’m over 50 and can now get my COVID vaccine. Is the AstraZeneca vaccine safe? Does it work? What else do I need to know? – https://theconversation.com/im-over-50-and-can-now-get-my-covid-vaccine-is-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-safe-does-it-work-what-else-do-i-need-to-know-159814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW

Twenty-first century technologies such as robots, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are creeping into every corner of our social and emotional lives — hacking how we form friendships, build intimacy, fall in love and get off.

In a book published today, I consider the possibilities, both terrifying and inspiring, offered by these “artificially intimate” technologies.

On one hand, these tools can help deliver much-needed support. On the other, they risk increasing sexual inequality, and replacing precious in-person interaction with less-than-ideal substitutes.

Three types of artificial intimacy

At first mention of artificial intimacy, many people’s minds may jump straight to sex robots: lifelike robotic sex dolls that could one day walk among us, hard to distinguish from living, breathing, orgasming humans.

But despite the many important questions sex robots raise, they mostly distract from the main game. They are “digital lovers” which — alongside VR porn, AI-enhanced sex toys and cybersex enhanced with haptic and teledildonic devices — constitute just one of three types of artificial intimacy.

Read more: In defence of sex machines: why trying to ban sex robots is wrong

The second category, the “algorithmic matchmakers”, match us with dates and hookups through applications such as Tinder and Grindr, or with friends through social media platforms.

Finally, we have “virtual friends” including therapist apps, AI-enhanced game characters and boyfriend/girlfriend chatbots. But by far the most ubiquitous are AI assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Baidu’s DuerOS.

Virtual friends apply several kinds of AI, including machine learning, by which computers learn new ways to identify patterns in data.

Machine-learning algorithms are becoming increasingly advanced at sifting through huge amounts of users’ data, and tapping into the unique traits that make us the cooperative, cultural and romantic beings we are. I call these “human algorithms”.

Grooming our friends

Primates, from monkeys to great apes, groom one another to build important alliances. Humans mostly do this through gossip, the old-school news radio which informs us about the people and events around us. Gossip is an algorithmic process by which we come to know our social worlds.

Social platforms such as Facebook tap into our friend-grooming impulses. They aggregate our friends, past and present, and make it easy to share gossip. Their algorithmic matchmaking excels at identifying other users we may know. This lets us accumulate far more than the 150 or so friends we’d normally have offline.

Read more: FactCheck Q&A: do we only have space for about 150 people in our lives?

Social media companies know we’ll use their platforms more if they funnel us content from the people we’re closest to. Thus, they spend a lot of time and money trying to find ways to distinguish our close friends from the somebodies that we used to know.

When social media (and other virtual friends) hack into our friend-grooming algorithms, they displace our offline friendships. After all, time spent online is time not spent in person with friends or family.

Before smartphones, humans spent about 192 minutes a day gossiping and “grooming” one another. But the average social media user today spends 153 minutes each day on social media, cutting into offline relationships and the time they’d otherwise spend doing non-social work such as play and especially sleep.

The effects of this on mental health may be profound, especially for teens and young adults.

And social media will only continue to evolve, as machine-learning algorithms find ever more compelling ways to engage us. Eventually, they may transition from digital matchmakers into virtual friends that type, post and speak to us like human friends.

While this could provide some connection for the chronically lonely, it would also further occupy users’ limited time and precious cognitive capacity.

Read more: Loneliness is a social cancer, every bit as alarming as cancer itself

Intimacy-building

Intimacy involves incorporating our sense of another person into our sense of self. Psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron showed intimacy can be rapidly cultivated through a process of escalating self-disclosure.

They tasked randomly assigned pairs of people with asking and answering a series of 36 questions. The questions began innocuously (Who is your ideal dinner guest?) and escalate to very private disclosures (If you were to die this evening, with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?).

The pairs assigned to disclose more personal information grew much closer than those given only small-talk questions, and remained so for many weeks. One couple famously married and invited the Arons to their wedding.

We now have apps that help humans build intimacy via the Arons’ 36-question algorithm. But what about human-machine intimacy? People disclose all sorts of details to computers. Research shows the more they disclose, the more they trust the information returned by the computer.

Moreover, they rate computers as more likeable and trustworthy when they’re programmed to disclose vulnerabilities, such as “I’m running a bit slow today as a few of my scripts need debugging”.

Virtual friends wouldn’t have to study the Arons’ questions to learn secrets about human intimacy. With machine-learning capabilities, they would only need to comb through online conversations to find the best questions to ask.

As such, humans may become increasingly “intimate” with machines by incorporating their virtual friends into their sense of self.

Amplifying sexual inequality

Matchmaker algorithms are already transforming how people screen and meet potential dates.

Apps such as Tinder aren’t really effective at matching compatible couples. Instead, they present photographs and minimalist profiles, inviting users to swipe left or right. Their algorithms allow people of more-or-less comparable attractiveness to match and strike up a conversation.

Read more: Love in the time of algorithms: would you let artificial intelligence choose your partner?

One problem with this model is attractive people have no shortage of matches, but this is at the expense of ordinary-lookers. This type of attraction-based inequality feeds serious problems — from heightened self-sexualisation among women, to a surplus of young, unpartnered men prone to violence.

Good enough?

Then again, artificial intimacy also offers solutions. Although people deserve the company of other people, and the best care other (real) humans can offer, many demonstrably can’t access or afford this.

Virtual friends provide connection for the lonely; digital lovers are damming the raging torrent of sexual frustration. A gradual union of the two could eventually provide targeted intimacy and sexual stimulation for people of all genders and sexualities.

People already talk to Siri and Alexa to feel less lonely. Meanwhile, in a climate of unmet demand for mental health support, therapy bots are listening to patients, advising them and even walking them through psychological treatments such as cognitive behaviour therapy.

The quality of such connection and stimulation might not be a complete substitute for the “real thing”. But for those of us who find the real thing elusive or insufficient, it could prove far better than nothing.

Read more: My robot Valentine: could you fall in love with a robot?

– ref. Sex bots, virtual friends, VR lovers: tech is changing the way we interact, and not always for the better – https://theconversation.com/sex-bots-virtual-friends-vr-lovers-tech-is-changing-the-way-we-interact-and-not-always-for-the-better-159427

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

The Australian Human Rights Commission has declared the government’s travel ban on Australians returning from India, including criminal sanctions, “raises serious human rights concerns”.

In a strong statement at the weekend the commission said it held “deep concerns about these extraordinary new restrictions on Australians returning to Australia from India”.

It called on the government to show the measures were “not discriminatory” and were “the only suitable way of dealing with the threat to public health”.

The commission also urged the senate committee on COVID-19 to review the restrictions immediately, and said it was approaching the government directly with its concerns.

Last week the government stopped repatriation and commercial flights from India until at least May 15, and said indirect access was also blocked. After it found there was a loophole through Doha, it took drastic action to close all gaps.

In a statement issued in the early hours of Saturday, the government said all travellers from India would be banned from entering Australia if they had been in that country within 14 days of their intended arrival date in Australia, and anyone who breached the provision could face a large fine, imprisonment for five years, or both.

The government is acting under the Biosecurity Act.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was “critical the integrity of the Australian public health and quarantine systems is protected and the number of COVID-19 cases in quarantine facilities is reduced to a manageable level”.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the temporary pause on returns from India under the Biosecurity Act was ‘entirely founded” in the advice of the Chief Medical Officer.

She said in the month before the decision on Indian returnees 57% of the COVID positive cases in quarantine were in arrivals from India, up from 10% the month before that.

This was “placing a very, very significant burden on health and medical services in the states and territories and through the quarantine program.”

But she flatly denied this proved the government did not have confidence in the quarantine system, and rejected any suggestion of racism.

The chair of the senate COVID committee, Labor’s Katy Gallagher, said on Sunday she would be looking to schedule a hearing on the matter as soon as the committee could do so.

Meanwhile a poll done by the Lowy Institute and released on Monday found that in the second half of March – before the issue with returnees from India blew up – nearly six in ten people (59%) believed the federal government had done the right amount in helping Australians overseas return home. A third (33%) said the government had not done enough.

The Lowy COVIDpoll, with a sample of 2222 people, is part of the Lowy annual survey of Australian attitudes to the world.

Australians were divided over how much freedom they should have to travel abroad.

The poll found 41% agreed that only Australians granted special exemptions should be allowed to leave, which is the current policy. But 40% said those who had been vaccinated should be allowed to leave. Only 18% believed all Australians should be free to travel.

People overwhelmingly (95%) said Australia had handled COVID well.

– ref. Human Rights Commission expresses ‘deep concerns’ at ban on returnees from India – https://theconversation.com/human-rights-commission-expresses-deep-concerns-at-ban-on-returnees-from-india-160166

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Hare, Director, Climate Analytics, Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University (Perth), Visiting scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Limiting global warming to 1.5℃ this century is a central goal of the Paris Agreement. In recent months, climate experts and others, including in Australia, have suggested the target is now impossible.

Whether Earth can stay within 1.5℃ warming involves two distinct questions. First, is it physically, technically and economically feasible, considering the physics of the Earth system and possible rates of societal change? Science indicates the answer is “yes” – although it will be very difficult and the best opportunities for success lie in the past.

The second question is whether governments will take sufficient action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This answer depends on the ambition of governments, and the effectiveness of campaigning by non-government organisations and others.

So scientifically speaking, humanity can still limit global warming to 1.5°C this century. But political action will determine whether it actually does. Conflating the two questions amounts to misplaced punditry, and is dangerous.

1.5℃ wasn’t plucked from thin air

The Paris Agreement was adopted by 195 countries in 2015. The inclusion of the 1.5℃ warming limit came after a long push by vulnerable, small-island and least developed countries for whom reaching that goal is their best chance for survival. The were backed by other climate-vulnerable nations and a coalition of high-ambition countries.

The 1.5℃ limit wasn’t plucked from thin air – it was informed by the best available science. Between 2013 and 2015, an extensive United Nations review process determined that limiting warming to 2℃ this century cannot avoid dangerous climate change.

Since Paris, the science on 1.5℃ has expanded rapidly. An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2018 synthesised hundreds of studies and found rapidly escalating risks in global warming between 1.5℃ and 2℃.

The landmark report also changed the climate risk narrative away from a somewhat unimaginable hothouse world in 2100, to a very real threat within most of our lifetimes – one which climate action now could help avoid.

The message was not lost on a world experiencing ever more climate impacts firsthand. It galvanised an unprecedented global youth and activist movement demanding action compatible with the 1.5℃ limit.

The near-term benefits of stringent emissions reduction are becoming ever clearer. It can significantly reduce near-term warming rates and increase the prospects for climate resilient development.

A matter of probabilities

The IPCC looked extensively at emission reductions required to pursue the 1.5℃ limit. It found getting on a 1.5℃ track is feasible but would require halving global emissions by 2030 compared to 2010 and reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century.

It found no published emission reduction pathways giving the world a likely (more than 66%) chance of limiting peak warming this century to 1.5℃. But it identified a range of pathways with about a one-in-two chance of achieving this, with no or limited overshoot.

Having about a one-in-two chance of limiting warming to 1.5℃ is not ideal. But these pathways typically have a greater than 90% chance of limiting warming to well below 2℃, and so are fully compatible with the overall Paris goal.

Read more: Spot the difference: as world leaders rose to the occasion at the Biden climate summit, Morrison faltered

Don’t rely on carbon budgets

Carbon budgets show the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted for a given level of global warming. Some point to carbon budgets to argue the 1.5℃ goal is now impossible.

But carbon budget estimates are nuanced, and not a suitable way to conclude a temperature level is no longer possible.

The carbon budget for 1.5℃ depends on several factors, including:

• the likelihood with which warming will be be halted at 1.5℃
• the extent to which non-CO₂ greenhouse emissions such as methane are reduced
• uncertainties in how the climate responds these emissions.

These uncertainties mean strong conclusions cannot be drawn based on single carbon budget estimate. And, at present, carbon budgets and other estimates do not support any argument that limiting warming to 1.5℃ is impossible.

Keeping temperature rises below 1.5℃ cannot be guaranteed, given the history of action to date, but the goal is certainly not impossible. As any doctor embarking on a critical surgery would say about a one-in-two survival chance is certainly no reason not to do their utmost.

Closer than we’ve ever been

It’s important to remember the special role the 1.5℃ goal plays in how governments respond to climate change. Five years on from Paris, and the gains of including that upper ambition in the agreement are showing.

Some 127 countries aim to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century at the latest – something considered unrealistic just a few years ago. If achieved globally and accompanied by stringent near-term reductions, the actions could be in line with 1.5℃.

If all these countries were to deliver on these targets in line with the best-available science on net zero, we may have a one-in-two chance of limiting warming this century to 2.1℃ (but a meagre one-in-ten that it is kept to 1.5°C). Much more work is needed and more countries need to step up. But for the first time, current ambition brings the 1.5℃ limit within striking distance.

The next ten years are crucial, and the focus now must be on governments’ 2030 targets for emissions reduction. If these are not set close enough to a 1.5℃-compatible emissions pathway, it will be increasingly difficult to reach net-zero by 2050.

The United Kingdom and European Union are getting close to this pathway. The United States’ new climate targets are a major step forward, and China is moving in the right direction. Australia is now under heavy scrutiny as it prepares to update its inadequate 2030 target.

The UN wants a 1.5℃ pathway to be the focus at this year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. The stakes could not be higher.

Read more: More reasons for optimism on climate change than we’ve seen for decades: 2 climate experts explain

– ref. The 1.5℃ global warming limit is not impossible – but without political action it soon will be – https://theconversation.com/the-1-5-global-warming-limit-is-not-impossible-but-without-political-action-it-soon-will-be-159297

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Minas, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, University of Tasmania

Ever wondered why you’re still collecting receipts on the off-chance the Tax Office wants to see them?

A decade ago, fired up by what he’d read in the Henry Tax Review, Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan promised to end what he said was the “hassle of shoeboxes full of receipts”.

From 2012 onwards everyone would be offered a standard deduction of $500 in lieu of claiming work-related and tax-preparation expenses. It was to climb to $1,000 from 2013. 6.4 million Australians could stop stuffing shoeboxes.

Then a year later his focus changed. He had decided not to proceed because of a separate change to the tax-free threshold he said would free 1 million taxpayers from lodging returns.

As a result, we’ve kept stuffing receipts into shoeboxes (and email archive boxes).

The biggest deductions are for work-related car expenses (one-third of all taxpayers at a cost of $8.4 billion in 2017-18), travel expenses ($2 billion), uniform, clothing and laundry ($1.8 million) and self-education ($1.1 billion).

Laundry, the use of cars… we’re claiming billions

Overclaiming appears to be rife.

According to the Tax Office, while many of the overclaimed deductions are small, collectively they constitute “a significant amount of lost revenue”.

We have used Tax Office data to calculate ways in which we could revive Swan’s proposal in order to give everyone who wants it a standard deduction (and others more, up to a cap) without increasing the total paid out.

We could make most of it automatic

The data has helped us come up with four options, each of which our modelling tells us would provide a good balance between increased simplicity for most and limits on deductions for a few, costing no more than at present.

In 2017-18, the median work-related deduction was $1,116.

Our options are

• a standard deduction of $1,160, with a cap for actual deductions of $7,000

• a standard deduction of $1,040, with a cap for actual deductions of $8,000

• a standard deduction of $830, with a cap for actual deductions of $10,000

• a standard deduction of $680, with a cap for actual deductions of $12,000

Under Option 1, 61% of taxpayers would be financially better off and 6% worse off; under Option 2, 60% would be better off and 4.5% worse off; under Option 3, 55% would be better off and 3% worse off; and under Option 4, 51% would be better off and 2.3% worse off.

Many of us would be better off, a few worse off

In each option, the typical income of the small proportion of taxpayers who would be made worse off exceeds $90,000 and the typical income of the larger proportion who would be made better off is near $40,000.

The Blueprint Institute has put forward a different proposal for a $3,000 standard deduction covering work-related and a range of other expenses.

Unlike the options we have put forward, the Institute’s proposal is far from revenue-neutral — on its own estimate costing tax revenue $5 billion per year.

Read more: Be careful what you claim for when working from home. There are capital gains tax risks

A bolder way of simplifying the system would be to abolish work-related deductions altogether, as New Zealand did in 1987.

Arguments for keeping deductions in some form, are that people have grown used to them, and without them, occupations where big work-related expenses are required would become less attractive.

Our reform options suggest it is possible to make big gains in simplicity (allowing the vast majority of taxpayers to stop stuffing receipts into shoeboxes) while disadvantaging only a few and costing the budget nothing.

– ref. If we wanted to, we could stop filling shoeboxes with receipts. Here’s how to simplify work-related tax deductions – https://theconversation.com/if-we-wanted-to-we-could-stop-filling-shoeboxes-with-receipts-heres-how-to-simplify-work-related-tax-deductions-156940

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

In this series we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.

In 1981, I visited the San Marco Museum on my very first visit to Italy. I had been totally overwhelmed by the volume and concentration of great art in the nearby Uffizi Gallery. But in this much smaller building, the past started to make sense. An elegant structure, the San Marco Museum almost appeared to be in conversation with the mystical tradition of 15th century painter Fra Angelico’s frescoes within its walls. Some 35 years later, when I returned to Florence, I was pleased to see that my memories had not deceived me.

Now, at a time when travel to Europe is impossible, San Marco is the place I would most like to see again — for its architecture, its art and for the place it holds in history.

Once a convent

The Convent of San Marco, consecrated in 1443, was commissioned by banker and Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo de’ Medici and designed by Michelozzi, an architect who had trained as a sculptor under Donatello.

The building is exquisite in the way its classical proportions work in harmony with ecclesiastical traditions. Frescoes decorate the elegant arched cloisters enclosing the gardens. On the first floor visitors see the perfectly proportioned library of Cosimo de’ Medici, the first public library of the Italian Renaissance, crucial to the rediscovery of classical knowledge.

Fra Angelico was, with his assistants, responsible for most of the paintings. He may have painted with a growing awareness of geometric perspective, but he was supremely uninterested in the revival of classical imagery and form.

His art in both subject and form is based on the Liturgy, and was always an expression of his faith. There are scenes from the life of Christ, with many crucifixion paintings as well as saints including St Thomas Aquinas and St Dominic, the order’s founder. The magnificent Crucifixion and Saints fills the end wall of the Chapter House, where the monks once met as a congregation.

Read more: Grand theft art world: Netflix probe into history’s biggest gallery heist is a rollicking story of lapses and loss

The private lives of monks

The great pleasure of San Marco is the way gives visual insights into the private meditative life the monks.

At the top of the stairs on the way to the dormitory the visitor is greeted with Fra Angelico’s masterpiece Annunciation. It seems almost a contradiction that the monks, devoted to a life of austerity should see such overwhelming beauty every day.

The monk’s cells make San Marco even more special. Many of them are decorated with frescoes.

Cosimo de’ Medici was sufficiently involved in the monastery’s life that he had his own cell (naturally double the size of the monk’s cells) decorated with a magnificent Adoration of the Magi.

But the cell that most intrigues me does not have a fresco. Its plain walls are hung with a single painting captioned, “Ignoto fiorentino della fine del sec XV/Supplizio del Savonarola in piazza della Signoria/Dipinto su tavola”. This translates as: Unknown Florentine of the end of the 15th century/The Torture of Savonarola in the Piazza della Signoria/Painted on wood.

Read more: Why weren’t there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin

A fiery end

This is the cell of Girolamo Savonarola, Prior of San Marco. He warned Florentines the apocalypse was coming, and urged them to free themselves from fleshly sins by burning artworks, books, dresses and cosmetics in the original Bonfire of the Vanities.

But the friar went from burning heretics to being convicted as one — he was tortured, burnt and executed in 1498.

This painting is not a great work of art. It is a record rather than a celebration. White-clad monks are escorted to their doom while the citizens of Florence carry on their business with apparent indifference. The only hint of partisanship by either the artist or those who commissioned the work are the angels who appear ready to celebrate the arrival of a new saint. As it dates from the approximate time of Savonarola’s execution it was probably prudent to make this record portable (and anonymous) so it could be easily hidden from those who had orchestrated his death.

One artist who was profoundly influenced by Savonarola’s teaching was Sandro Botticelli, best known for the Birth of Venus, who destroyed some of his earlier paintings at friar Savonarola’s urging.

In 1494, the artist painted The Calumny of Apelles in response to the way rumour and innuendo was being used to discredit Savonarola, whose ideas were a prelude to the rise of Protestant fundamentalism. After this work, Botticelli restricted his works to religious subjects in paintings that owe a great deal to the aesthetic of Fra Angelico.

The conjunction of these two great opposing traditions of ideas and art — mystical faith and classical knowledge — are here in one building. San Marco Museum is the visual and material representation of a debate that has lasted over 500 years. It is also incredibly beautiful. For that reason alone I need to see it again.

Read more: Globalisation was rife in the 16th century – clues from Renaissance paintings

– ref. If I could go anywhere: Florence’s San Marco Museum, where mystical faith and classical knowledge meet – https://theconversation.com/if-i-could-go-anywhere-florences-san-marco-museum-where-mystical-faith-and-classical-knowledge-meet-157863

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lester, PhD candidate, University of Tasmania

The Tasmanian Liberal government has been returned for a record third term, vindicating premier Peter Gutwein’s decision to go to an election a year early.

However, rather than the big swings to the incumbent governments seen in recent elections in Queensland and Western Australia due to their management of the pandemic, the result in Tasmania maintained the status quo.

While benefiting from Gutwein’s high personal popularity due to his management of the pandemic, the Liberal vote fell slightly from 50.3% at the 2018 election to 48.8% at the close of counting late on Saturday night. However, Labor’s vote fell 4.5% to just 28%.

Read more: Liberals likely to retain majority in Tasmania; Biden’s ratings after 100 days

The Liberals are poised to win 13 seats in the 25-seat House of Assembly, Labor nine, the Greens two and one independent.

Under Tasmania’s Hare Clark proportional electoral system, five members are returned from five seats. These are Bass in the state’s north, Braddon in the north-west, Clark and Franklin in the greater Hobart area and southern region, and Lyons, which sprawls across the state’s centre and east coast.

To win a seat, each candidate needs to win 16.6% of the formal vote but, based on the percentage of vote for each party group, it is clear the Liberals will win three seats in each of Bass, Braddon and Lyons, two seats in Franklin and most likely two seats in Clark.

Labor’s nine seats include two in Bass, Braddon, Franklin and Lyons but only one in the party’s former stronghold of Clark. The main reason for this is the loss of votes to two high-profile independents – Glenorchy City Council mayor Kristie Johnston and the former Liberal speaker Sue Hickey – one of whom is predicted to win a seat on preferences.

The Greens vote is up 2% to 12.3% statewide, securing the two seats they held in the previous parliament in Clark and Franklin, but not enough to win further seats.

Labor leader Rebecca White conceded defeat on Saturday night, congratulating Gutwein on winning the election and for his high personal vote after securing almost half the available votes in his electorate of Bass. This is among the highest individual votes in the modern era.

Read more: As Tasmanians head to the polls, Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein hopes to cash in on COVID management

Gutwein claimed victory but stopped short of declaring he had secured a majority, saying only it appeared “increasingly likely”.

The election outcome means a return to the one-seat majority his government held just prior to the election. He also made history by securing the Liberals a record third term in office in Tasmania.

While the balance of seats remains much the same, there will be a turnover of members with some new faces replacing former MPs.

In the government line-up, Hickey, who was ousted from the Liberal Party a few days before the election was called, looks likely to be replaced by former Labor MP turned independent Madeleine Ogilvie, who switched to the Liberals just days after Gutwein announced the election.

In Braddon, first-term MP Felix Ellis lifted his vote by 6.1% while scandal-prone former MP Adam Brooks has edged ahead of housing minister Roger Jaensch and may replace him in the Liberal team.

On the opposition benches, Kingborough Council mayor Dean Winter, who was the subject of a fierce factional battle to prevent him standing for Labor, will replace Labor frontbencher Alison Standen in Franklin.

In Bass, former Launceston mayor Janie Finlay is poised to replace Jennifer Houston in Labor’s line-up.

Tasmania also saw elections in two of the Legislative Council seats of Derwent in the state’s south and Windemere in the north. Labor MLC Craig Farrell defeated his Liberal rival, Derwent Valley mayor Ben Shaw. In Windemere, where the sitting independent retired, Liberal candidate and television presenter Nick Duigan is leading Labor’s Geoff Lyons and independent Will Smith. That seat will be decided by preferences.

It will be 10 days before the final distribution of preferences can commence in the House of Assembly election due to the need to wait until all postal votes are counted. But only in Clark is there potential for this process to affect the election result.

Either way, it is either a Liberal majority or a Liberal minority government.

– ref. Liberals’ victory in Tasmanian election is more status quo than ringing endorsement – https://theconversation.com/liberals-victory-in-tasmanian-election-is-more-status-quo-than-ringing-endorsement-159806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Noble, Education Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

The Australian government has announced big changes to its child-care subsidy ahead of the May 11 federal budget.

The changes involve adding A$1.7 billion to the A$10.3 billion a year already budgeted for child care. This spending will particularly benefit families with two or more children under five. It will also help couples with a combined income of more than A$189,390, by removing the subsidy cap that restricts them to a maximum of A$10,560 per child a year.

The government says the changes “deliberately target low and middle income earners, with around half the families set to benefit having a household income under $130,000”.

How will these changes affect you? In the short term, not at all. They won’t affect anyone until July 2022. After that some families will see great benefit.

But our analysis suggests the policy package won’t do much to improve the affordability of child care for many families on low to middle incomes. Nor will it do anything to address systemic problems.

Read more: The child-care sector needs an overhaul, not more tinkering with subsidies and tax deductions

Defining affordability

A lot of the discussion on child-care affordability focuses on per-hour costs and anecdotal evidence based on individual families’ circumstances.

Families’ lived experiences are important, as are average out-of-pocket fees. But without understanding what affordability means, it’s very difficult to pin down how much of an issue child-care affordability actually is.

Australia has tackled the question of affordability in relation to housing and energy costs. Housing stress for lower-income households, for example, is defined as a lower-income household spending a more than 30% of gross income on accommodation.

In Australia, we don’t have a comparable threshold for child-care affordability.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has set an “affordability threshold” for low to middle income families of 7% of take-home income. If they’re spending more than 7%, child care is considered “unaffordable”.

How these measures affect affordability

Increasing subsidies for families with two children under five in child care will make a big difference to families in that situation. But child care will remain unaffordable for many.

The government has stated this package will help 250,000 families. However, there are almost 1 million families using child care, so the majority are unlikely to benefit from these changes.

Our analysis suggests 41% of families with one child aged under five years will continue to spend more than 7% of their disposable income on child care.

That includes half of all households with annual disposable income between A$100,001 and A$125,000.

For example, a family with a combined gross annual income of A$102,000 will still face out-of-pocket costs for full-time child care of about A$11,000 a year.

So although the measures aim to make child care more affordable for those families “who really need it most”, our analysis suggests child care will remain unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Australian families.

Nor will it make child-care funding and subsidies any less complicated, despite recent reforms aimed at simplifying the system.

What about preschool?

One issue not yet clear is how the changes will interact with other parts of the early childhood education and care system.

A child going to preschool, for example, is eligible for a different set of subsidies. Significant increases to child care subsidies could see families withdraw children from dedicated preschools and use cheaper child care services instead.

Given preschools tend to achieve higher quality ratings, and are important in supporting children’s transition to school, this would be a very perverse outcome.

Read more: Families in eastern states pay around twice as much for preschool than the rest of Australia

What else needs to happen?

The focus on economic growth and female workforce participation also comes at the expense of greater focus on providing a quality service for children and a decent career path for early childhood educators.

These changes are intended to increase demand for child care. Scaling up the sector to meet that demand, however, will present the same challenges that come with scaling up any service. There are risks of compromised quality – which is crucially important in an area that so intimately affects children’s health, well-being and development.

So while these changes will be welcomed by many, the more complex issues remain, with no real indication as yet of any plan to address them.

– ref. An extra $1.7 billion for child care will help some. It won’t improve affordability for most – https://theconversation.com/an-extra-1-7-billion-for-child-care-will-help-some-it-wont-improve-affordability-for-most-160163

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

With 79% counted in Saturday’s Tasmanian election, the ABC is calling 12 of the 25 Tasmanian lower house seats for the Liberals, eight for Labor, two Greens and three undecided. Vote shares were 48.7% Liberals (down 1.5% since the 2018 election), 28.4% Labor (down 4.3%), 12.2% Greens (up 1.9%) and 6.3% for independents.

Tasmania uses the Hare-Clark system, with five electorates each returning five members. A quota is one-sixth of the vote, or 16.7%.

In The Poll Bludger’s projections, the Liberals are on 3.6 quotas in Bass, Labor 1.6 and the Greens 0.6. The Liberals will win three, Labor one and the last is Labor vs Greens.

In Braddon, the Liberals have 3.4 quotas, Labor 1.6, the Greens 0.3 and an independent 0.4. The most likely result is three Liberals and two Labor.

In Lyons, the Liberals have 3.1 quotas, Labor 2.0 and the Greens 0.5. A clear three Liberals, two Labor.

In Franklin, the Liberals have 2.5 quotas, Labor 2.0 and the Greens 1.1. The Liberals will win two, Labor two and the Greens one.

Finally in Clark, the Liberals have 1.9 quotas, Labor 1.3, the Greens 1.2 and Independents Kristie Johnston and Sue Hickey 0.7 and 0.6 respectively. If this projection holds up, it is hard to see the Liberals not getting two Clark seats and a majority.

Adding it up, the most probable result of the Tasmanian election is 13 Liberals (steady since the 2018 election), eight Labor, two Greens, one Labor vs Greens in Bass and one independent in Clark (Hickey or Johnston).

Premier Peter Gutwein had called this election ten months earlier than scheduled, hoping to take advantage of high ratings attributable to COVID. A June 2020 Newspoll gave Gutwein an astonishing rating of 90-8 satisfied, almost certainly the best approval polled by any premier or PM in Australian polling history.

Gutwein gambled that his COVID popularity would get the Liberals to a majority while it remained an issue. It looks as if his gamble has succeeded. The Liberals are likely to retain government in Tasmania for a third term, while the same party is in power federally. This is a big achievement in a state that voted for Labor by 56.0-44.0 at the 2019 federal election.

The last publicly released poll, an EMRS February poll, gave the Liberals 52%, Labor 27% and the Greens 14%. In my election preview, a uComms poll for The Australia Institute gave the Liberals 41.4%, Labor 32.1%, the Greens 12.4%, Independents 11.0% and Others 3.1%.

Read more: Tasmanian election preview: commissioned poll has Liberals likely short of majority

This commissioned poll was too low on the Liberals and too high on Labor and independents.

Liberals likely to gain Windermere in upper house, but Labor retains Derwent

Two of the 15 upper house seats were up for election for six-year terms. In Derwent, which Labor has held since 1979, they led the Liberals by 48.7% to 41.2%, with 10.0% for Animal Justice. In Windermere, held by a retiring conservative independent, the Liberals had 37.7% to Labor’s 26.8% with 21.2% for an independent.

Preferences have not yet been distributed for either seat, but Labor will clearly retain Derwent while the Liberals are likely to gain Windermere. The upper house will retain its 9-6 left-right split.

After first 100 days, Biden has 54% approval rating

It is 101 days since Joe Biden began his term as US president on January 20. In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, his ratings with all polls are 53.9% approve, 41.4% disapprove (net +12.5%). With polls of likely or registered voters, Biden’s ratings are 53.8% approve, 42.0% disapprove (net +11.8%). For the duration of his presidency, Biden’s approval has been between 53% and 55%.

FiveThirtyEight has ratings of presidents since Harry Truman (president from 1945-53). At this stage of their presidencies, Biden’s net approval is only ahead of Donald Trump and Gerald Ford (who took over after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974).

The US economy, boosted by stimulus payments, appears to be recovering very well from COVID, but attempted illegal immigration has surged since Biden became president. The key question is how Biden’s ratings look at the November 2022 midterms, when the president’s party normally loses seats.

– ref. Liberals likely to retain majority in Tasmania; Biden’s ratings after 100 days – https://theconversation.com/liberals-likely-to-retain-majority-in-tasmania-bidens-ratings-after-100-days-159629

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Wise, Senior Lecturer, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Auckland

Over recent weeks, news reports have indicated some women are experiencing irregularities in their menstrual cycles after receiving a COVID vaccine.

This has included periods arriving early and being heavier than usual, or being absent or late, among other changes.

At this stage, there’s no research evidence to support these anecdotal reports. But it is plausible there might be a link, and it’s worth researching further.

Read more: Period pain is impacting women at school, uni and work. Let’s be open about it

Clinical trials didn’t measure this

In the original trials of the COVID vaccines, the researchers looked for whether the vaccine was effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, comparing it to a placebo injection.

They also looked for any serious complications, such as allergic reactions, and side effects sometimes associated with vaccination, like fever.

But the original studies didn’t report on any changes to menstrual cycles, such as if periods would come early or late, if they would be heavier or lighter, or if they would be more or less painful. This is not particularly surprising — clinical trials don’t commonly measure this outcome.

Unfortunately, without any data, we can’t provide public health information on this potential side effect. So women of reproductive age don’t know what to expect. And if they do notice their next period is different from usual, they can understandably become worried.

It is possible

In theory, a vaccine could affect a woman’s period. A vaccine is meant to induce an immune response in the body, and this immune response could have an impact on the menstrual cycle.

The menstrual cycle is primarily under the control of a complex interplay of hormones released by the brain and acting on the ovaries and in turn, on the uterus.

In the first half of the cycle, which is dependent on the female sex hormone oestrogen, the endometrial lining is starting to build up in the uterus and the follicles (eggs and their surrounding tissue) are maturing in the ovary.

In the middle of the cycle, a surge in a hormone called luteinising hormone acts on the ovary to release an oocyte (egg) from the most mature of the follicles, or ovulation.

Read more: It’s OK to skip your period while on the pill

In the second half of the cycle, which is dependent on another sex hormone called progesterone, the endometrial lining thickens significantly in preparation for a fertilised egg to implant. If pregnancy doesn’t occur, then progesterone falls quickly, leading to a shedding of the lining of the uterus, or menstruation.

The cycle is also mediated in part by the immune system. For example, certain immune cells, such as macrophages, mast cells and neutrophils, are found in the endometrial lining, and involved in the shedding of the lining of the uterus during the menstrual cycle, and rebuilding it for the next cycle.

So it’s possible receiving a vaccine and having the expected immune response could affect the complex interplay between immune cells and signals in the uterus, and lead to the next period being heavier, more painful or longer.

We need studies to explore this

A researcher in Illinois is asking volunteers to participate in an online survey about their experiences with menstruation after receiving a COVID vaccine.

This may help figure out how many women are observing menstrual irregularities after the vaccine. But one problem is there’s no comparison group — namely women who didn’t receive the vaccine.

Further, the data being collected are retrospective, which are limited by recall bias. If you believe menstrual issues are related to the vaccine, you may be more inclined to remember that after the vaccine you had several months ago, you did have a heavier period.

A better way to study this would be to enrol women of reproductive age into a study in advance, get them to track three months of cycles, then give them the vaccine or a placebo injection, and get them to track the following three months.

There are many reasons your period might be irregular

Anything that impacts hormones or your immune system, such as stress, diet, exercise, sleep or illness, could impact your cycle.

In this regard, the vaccine could possibly affect your cycle indirectly too. Some women may be stressed about getting the vaccine, while others will feel relieved at being vaccinated.

The good news is that if you experience disruptions to only one cycle — whatever the reason — there’s likely no need to be concerned. If irregular, painful or heavy periods persist for more than three months, then speak to your doctor.

Read more: We’re gathering data on COVID vaccine side effects in real time. Here’s what you can expect

This is no reason not to get the vaccine

The focus on this issue in the media is a good way to start a public discussion about menstruation. And emerging research is an important means to get more information about what women of reproductive age can expect after the vaccine.

But anecdotal reports of some menstrual irregularities is not a reason to avoid getting the vaccine. Getting infected with COVID-19 is much more likely to interfere with your health, including your menstrual health.

There’s certainly no scientific basis to reports some women have experienced changes to their periods from simply being around people who have been vaccinated.

If you’re eligible to receive a vaccine, then do so. And if you do have a heavier period next month, think of it like a temporary side effect, and try not to worry.

– ref. Could the COVID vaccines affect your period? We don’t know yet — but there’s no cause for concern – https://theconversation.com/could-the-covid-vaccines-affect-your-period-we-dont-know-yet-but-theres-no-cause-for-concern-159912

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.

This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the coronavirus situation in India, where more than 300,000 new cases have been recorded each day this week. The pair dive into what the government is and isn’t doing to support the developing country, and Australian citizens stranded there. The pair also discuss the ‘drums of war’ heard by Secretary of the Home of Affairs Department Mike Pezzullo, and the upcoming budget.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the COVID situation in India, Mike Pezzullo and the upcoming budget – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-covid-situation-in-india-mike-pezzullo-and-the-upcoming-budget-160106

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gail Broadbent, PhD candidate Faculty of Science UNSW, UNSW

Australia’s trucking industry is making moves to go electric. The latest development — a system for using swappable batteries instead of time-consuming recharge stations for long-haul trucks between Sydney and Brisbane — shows how this transition is gathering momentum.

There will be clear socio-economic, environmental and health-related benefits from the switch to electric trucks — for the broader community as well as for the trucking industry and truckies themselves. As electric vehicle researchers, we think swappable batteries could work well for trucking, but are perhaps less suitable for everyday electric cars.

Electric trucking

There are many benefits from electrifying truck transport. Companies such as Woolworths and Ikea have already started to transition to electric delivery vans for the environmental benefits (and a possible boost for their brands).

Many leading truck manufacturers such as Scania, Mercedes Benz and Volvo are proceeding apace with trials and plans to make their trucks electric.

Trucks make up 20% of the vehicles in Australia, and Australia’s transport emissions are still growing.

Australia’s motor vehicles consume more than 33 billion litres of fuel each year. The transport sector was responsible for about 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2019.

Australia spent some A$31 billion in 2019 to import oil, with half used for road transport. This not only affects Australia’s balance of trade, but poses a risk to our freight industry (including supermarket deliveries) if geopolitical instability affects fuel imports (which mainly come from just a few countries).

The trucking company Linfox appears to have understood the advantages that transition to electric trucks can bring to its business, and is one of the early adopters trialling them here in Australia.

Not just trucking companies

Many big companies are making commitments to cut their carbon emissions, such as Fortescue Metals’ target of net zero operational emissions by 2040. Its mining fleet operations account for half of its operational emissions.

Procurement of electric trucks by government and mining fleets could not only help reduce transport emissions but signal to the community that the transition away from more polluting vehicles can be done.

Read more: Net-zero, carbon-neutral, carbon-negative … confused by all the carbon jargon? Then read this

Modernising the fleet is an imperative that we need to prioritise. The business sector can play a key role in the success of the latest Australia Government Technology Investment roadmap.

Innovative solutions such as the truck battery swap system mean that not only big companies but also sole operators can make the change, by converting existing trucks and leasing batteries.

A typical articulated truck uses 53.1 litres of diesel per 100 kilometres. A trip from Brisbane to Sydney could cost more than A$600 in fuel (which you, the consumer, help pay for when you purchase transported goods). Going electric would not only at least halve that cost but reduce maintenance costs and reduce emissions, even if batteries are recharged from the grid.

Read more: Clean, green machines: the truth about electric vehicle emissions

Swap and go?

Swapping out depleted batteries, rather than stopping to recharge, is a great solution for trucks: they make regular trips along major routes with regulated rest stops for drivers, which means you only need battery-swapping stations at key points along the routes.

However, battery swapping for ordinary passenger vehicles may be a different story. It has been tried before, but didn’t take off.

A US-based company called Better Place, founded in 2007, got as far as setting up trial stations (with one even planned for Canberra). But the company collapsed in 2013.

One problem was that car manufacturers would have had to agree to use a common battery platform to enable swapping, and only Renault came on board. Another was that the cost of installing enough battery swap stations to satisfy the wider community was enormous.

Trucks travelling on major transport routes won’t face this problem, so battery-swapping has a better chance of success.

How to go electric

Our ongoing research on policies to foster electric vehicle adoption has found that electric passenger cars are mostly recharged at home. This means we need solutions to help those without off-street parking get access to convenient local rechargers. This will help Australia reduce its balance of trade problems, reduce our health costs, and help the environment.

We just have to hope our government comes on board with suitable regulatory action to help us all go electric. One step might be to follow the US government’s recent announcement that it will electrify its entire fleet of vehicles. This will help car manufacturers, help bring down carbon emissions, help reduce the nation’s health budget and also help everyday people reduce their transport costs, which would be fairer and more sustainable.

– ref. The trucking industry has begun to turn electric — but passenger vehicles will take a little longer – https://theconversation.com/the-trucking-industry-has-begun-to-turn-electric-but-passenger-vehicles-will-take-a-little-longer-160005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi McAlister, Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin University

She published more than 70 novels and sold more than 34 million books translated into 29 languages, making her one of Australia’s most successful and prolific authors. Yet many are not familiar with her name.

Valerie Parv passed away suddenly last weekend, a week before her 70th birthday. She began as an advertising copywriter, and her first books, non-fiction home and garden DIY guides, were published in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, she began to publish in the genre she was most well-known for: romance fiction.

Her first romance novel, Love’s Greatest Gamble, was published by Harlequin Mills & Boon in 1982. This was, as Parv noted, a book which “broke a few moulds at the time”, featuring a widowed single mother heroine dealing with the fallout of her late husband’s PTSD-induced gambling addiction.

Parv went on to write 56 more romances across various Harlequin imprints. With these books, she was primarily working in the genre known as category romance — most frequently associated with Mills & Boon in Australia, and sold in print at discount department stores like Kmart, Big W and Target.

Romance fiction is often derided as formulaic. This is especially true for category romance fiction, as publisher guidelines can dictate things like length, setting and level of sexual content. Parv, however, firmly rejected this notion.

“All fiction has conventions but formula, hardly,” she wrote earlier this month.

“Not when people and their stories are so varied.”

Romance, and aliens

In addition to writing romance, Parv also wrote science fiction novels and a number of non-fiction works. She is the only Australian recipient of the Romantic Times Book Reviews Pioneer award, which honours those who have broken new ground in the development of the romance novel.

Parv was unafraid to experiment, enjoining aspiring authors to “write dangerously” rather than to satisfy the market, and often hybridised genres in her work.

She frequently told an anecdote about her 1987 book The Leopard Tree, which raised the possibility its hero might have arrived by UFO.

While she received pushback on this from the English Harlequin imprint Mills & Boon, the book was published by the American imprint Silhouette, where the book, she would say, “became the poster-child for cutting edge romance for some years afterward”.

Completing her masters degree in 2007, Parv’s thesis was inspired by a question often posed to her by aspiring authors: “where do you get your ideas?”

Read more: What’s next after Bridgerton? 5 romance series ripe for TV adaptation

She explored this question in relation to both her own work and the work of other authors, concluding authors often revisit themes and ideas resonant with their own lives, whether consciously or unconsciously.

In her own work, she observed a consistent preoccupation with characters resolving feelings of alienation, which she linked to the fact her family emigrated from Britain when she was seven, leaving her with a sense of rootlessness.

A writers’ writer

Parv’s professional career is as much a story of community-building as it is the story of an individual author.

An enormous part of her legacy will be her bestselling guides on the craft of writing, including The Art of Romance Writing (1993), Heart and Craft (2009), and, most recently, her part memoir/part writing advice volume 34 Million Books (2020), the title of which is a wink to her own prolific success.

In her writing guides, Parv focused unerringly on practical advice for writing, but also steered away from prescriptivism.

“There’s no one way to write a romance novel, no ‘secret’ that can be applied to every writer and every story,” she wrote in the introduction to Heart and Craft.

Parv was also strongly committed to mentorship. For 20 years, the Valerie Parv Award was run through the Romance Writers of Australia. Winners of the award — fondly referred to by Parv as her “minions” — received a year’s mentorship with Parv.

Nearly all of Parv’s minions have gone on to have works published. Their numbers include several highly successful romance authors, such as Kelly Hunter, Rachel Bailey and Bronwyn Parry.

In 2015, Parv was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant contributions to the arts — both as a prolific author and as a mentor.

‘I believe in romance’

As a genre, romance fiction has never enjoyed an enormous amount of respect from outside its readership. For this reason, Parv — like her highly prolific and successful peer Emma Darcy, who predeceased her by four months — may never be a household name, despite her service to Australian literary culture: a fact of which she was well aware.

Despite this, she never ceased to advocate for the genre in which she made her career, and in which she assisted so many others to do the same.

“I will never send up romance in any form, because I believe in romance,” she commented on the Secrets From The Green Room podcast one month before her death.

“I’ve been in love, and I know how important it is to my life, and how it is to most people’s lives.”

Read more: How to learn about love from Mills & Boon novels

– ref. ‘I believe in romance’: remembering Valerie Parv, the Australian author who sold 34 million books – https://theconversation.com/i-believe-in-romance-remembering-valerie-parv-the-australian-author-who-sold-34-million-books-160084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Henry, Research Officer, CSIRO

Imagine constantly living with mice. Every time you open a cupboard to get linen, clothes or food, mice have been or are still there. When you go to sleep they run across your bed and, in the morning, your first job is to empty traps filled with dead mice. And the stench of dead mice fill the streets.

Even the cats and dogs get sick of mice and stop chasing them.

This is the dystopian reality for many towns as, over recent months, mouse numbers in northern NSW and southern Queensland have risen to plague proportions, devastating summer crops and fodder storages. One farmer told me he’s removing 100 dead mice from his swimming pool each night.

This week, for example, truckloads of sorghum from Southern Queensland farms have been rejected from sale after mouse droppings were discovered. This means loads of grain need to be cleaned before they’re suitable for sale.

No one ever forgets living through a mouse plague.

One of the largely unquantified repercussions of mice is the social and mental health impact on farmers, their families and rural communities — places only just starting to recover from the recent, devastating drought.

I work with scientists and rural communities to reduce the impact of mice. So, with no end to the plague in sight, let’s look at the issue in more detail.

Mice outbreaks in Australia

The earliest accounts of mouse outbreaks in Australia are from the late 1800s, after the house mouse, Mus musculus, was likely introduced in the late 1700s as stowaways with the First Fleet. Similar plagues are uncommon in other countries — even though mice are found worldwide — as favourable climates lead to lots of food and shelter, which sustain high mouse populations in Australia.

Outbreaks like we’re seeing now tend to follow a run of dry years. The house mouse is very well adapted to live in Australian conditions, and they can survive through protracted dry periods and thrive when there’s lots of food and moisture. While often not conspicuous, they’re present in most environments — all the time.

As climatic conditions become favourable for crop production, they’re also favourable for mouse breeding. And mice reproduce alarmingly fast.

They start breeding at six-weeks old and give birth to a litter of six to ten pups every 19 to 21 days after that. After giving birth to one litter, females can immediately fall pregnant with the next litter, meaning there’s no break in the production of offspring.

In good seasons, when the rate of survival is high, the rate of population increase is dramatic. A single pair of mice can give rise to 500 mice in a breeding season. This year, the breeding season has lasted through summer and into autumn, as the weather has been milder with lots of rain.

Desperate times, desperate measures

Mouse outbreaks or plagues occur across the cropping zone — the extensive area where crops are grown in Australia — approximately every five years. However major outbreaks like the one we’re experiencing today are less frequent.

In some towns across the cropping zone, the smell of dead and decomposing mice is becoming a significant problem in shops, rubbish bins and under buildings and homes, where mice that have been baited have gone to die.

And the outbreak is growing. I’m getting reports from farmers of high mouse numbers from other parts of the cropping zone, through southern NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Mice can cause damage during all stages of crop growth, and they don’t limit themselves to cereals. Farmers have reported significant damage in canola, lentils and other pulse crops. Likewise, mice removing freshly sown seed, browsing shoots and feeding on developing heads and seed pods all reduce crop yield.

Mice also cause significant damage to on-farm storages of grain and fodder. Contamination of grain with mouse faeces can lead to grain distributors and export markets rejecting produce (such as with sorghum in Southern Queensland).

Read more: How to know if we’re winning the war on Australia’s fire ant invasion, and what to do if we aren’t

This year has been so bad, farmers say they’re giving up on efforts to control mice with bait, and instead ploughing their summer crops back into the ground. Other desperate measures include burying entire haystacks to protect them from total decimation by mice.

The cotton industry, rarely impacted by mice, has even sought an emergency permit to allow control of mice in cotton crops using zinc phosphide baits, the only approved chemical control measure for mice in broad-scale agriculture in Australia.

So how does this horror end?

The drivers for the end of a mouse outbreak are not well understood. It’s thought a combination of high numbers, food running short and disease leads to mice turning on each other, eating sick and weak animals and offspring, resulting in a dramatic crash in the population. Farmers, in previous outbreaks, have reported mice disappearing almost overnight.

CSIRO, with the support of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, is working on developing a range of new ways to reduce the impact of mice in crop production systems. Key focuses include monitoring populations to make predictions about future outbreaks and developing of better predictive models.

We’re also investigating how current cropping practices influence mouse behaviour and their population dynamics. This will help us assess potential new control strategies, develop more effective baiting procedures, and consider the potential of future genetic control technologies.

Still, the introduced house mouse will be an ongoing problem in Australian farms and rural communities for years to come. We must urgently find ways to reduce the economic and social impact of mice, not only for the sustainable production of crops, but also for the mental well-being of rural communities.

Read more: Shy rodents may be better at surviving eradications, but do they pass those traits to their offspring?

– ref. ‘No one ever forgets living through a mouse plague’: the dystopia facing Australian rural communities, explained by an expert – https://theconversation.com/no-one-ever-forgets-living-through-a-mouse-plague-the-dystopia-facing-australian-rural-communities-explained-by-an-expert-159339

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University

Mummy, why do we have eyebrows? — Alexander, age 3, Brisbane.

What a great, eyebrow-raising question, Alexander!

Eyebrows come in a range of shapes, sizes and colours. They help make our faces unique. But there’s more to eyebrows than meets the eye.

Eyebrows help us express our feelings

Our eyebrows say a lot about how we are feeling. We scrunch our eyebrows when angry, and perk them up when surprised.

Moving our eyebrows can also tell people if we’re happy, confused, sad or upset. These expressions help us communicate. So, eyebrows can tell a story without saying a word.

How quickly we move our eyebrows also matters. When we’re sad, we move our eyebrows slowly. When we’re angry, we move them faster. And when we’re happy, we move them the fastest.

Eyebrows protect your eyes

If you have been running around on a hot day, you might notice some sweating on your forehead. The shape of the bones and skin around the eyebrows helps direct the sweat toward the side of our faces. That stops water from running directly into our eyes.

How our eyebrow hairs are lined up, and the direction they grow in, also help protect our eyes from sweat, as well as from dirt, dust and water.

In fact, when dust lands on our eyebrows, we often blink automatically to get rid of the dust. Even if dust lands on one eyebrow, we can’t help blinking both eyes.

Our eyebrows also shade our eyes from bright lights. The eyebrow hairs stick out from our face, which reduces the amount of sunlight entering our eyes.

And when we’ve had a tiring day, or when we’re asleep, eyebrows help us relax our eyes. They reduce strain on our eye muscles and help us shut our eyelids.

Eyebrows form part of our identity

Whether we have big bushy eyebrows, or styled “brows”, our eyebrows play a big part in making us look unique.

They also help us recognise familiar faces. So if we didn’t have eyebrows, we might not so easily recognise our friends or family.

Looking at eyebrows also helps us know if someone’s a man or a woman. That’s because men tend to have thicker eyebrows closer to the eyes, and women have thinner eyebrows higher above the eyes.

And older people, like our grandparents, can have tired or droopy looking eyebrows. That’s because, as people get older, their eyebrow muscles become worn out and gravity pulls them down.

Read more: Curious Kids: why do older adults get shorter?

Eyebrows can be beautiful

Since ancient Egyptian times, people have linked eyebrows with beauty. Men and women used to paint on dark, arched eyebrows with a black powder to show respect to Egyptian gods. Eyebrows were also thought to give people supernatural powers!

Read more: Friday essay: shaved, shaped and slit – eyebrows through the ages

Even today, people tweak the look of their eyebrows. They can remove hairs by tweezing or waxing. They can even dye their eyebrows or tattoo them.

So, next time you look in the mirror, take a closer look at your eyebrows. They tell others how you’re feeling and help protect your eyes. They also play a big part in what you look like and who you are.

Hello, Curious Kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: why do we have eyebrows? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-we-have-eyebrows-157047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Pryke, Director, Pacific Islands Program, Lowy Institute for International Policy; Centre Associate at the Development Policy Centre, Australian National University

For most of the last year, the Pacific Islands have been remarkably isolated from the devastating effects of the COVID crisis. By walling themselves off early from the outside world, most Pacific nations remain completely COVID free.

Historians will look back on this as a remarkable achievement by Pacific nations, and a great credit to the swift actions taken by their leaders.

While isolation has proven itself to be an effective preventative strategy, it is not a perfect one. Border closures have taken an severe toll on these nations’ fledgling economies.

And even the most robust border and quarantine control systems can break down. In the Pacific, the cracks are now starting to show.

Read more: If Papua New Guinea really is part of Australia’s ‘family’, we’d do well to remember our shared history

Localised outbreaks and lockdowns

The most obvious case is in Papua New Guinea, where caseloads started surging exponentially two months ago.

With a porous land border with Indonesia and weak quarantine controls, it’s remarkable the virus did not get out of control sooner. However, it is now running unchecked in the capital, Port Moresby, and has spread to every province in the country.

The health system came very close to complete breakdown in March, and despite hopeful signs of case numbers stabilising in the capital (now at a much higher level), the country remains in dire need of further assistance.

Fiji was the most successful nation in the region in containing community transmission a year ago. It, too, is now showing cracks in the armour.

In a familiar story, a soldier working at a quarantine facility caught the virus from a traveller who had recently returned from India. Now identified as the new and extremely infectious Indian strain, it has quickly spread.

Much of the country’s main island of Viti Levu is in lockdown as contact tracing is conducted. While Fiji is the most capable country in the region to handle an outbreak, it also comes at a terrible time for the tourism-dependent nation, which is desperate to reopen to the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Over in Vanuatu, the dead body of a Filipino sailor from a visiting cargo vessel that washed ashore on April 11 tested positive for the virus. The vessel is now in Australian waters, with all but one of the 12 sailors on board testing positive for COVID-19.

Getting vaccines is step one

The solution to the Pacific’s imperfect isolation strategy is the same as Australia’s – vaccines.

Given the enormous global demand for vaccines, and the small size and limited bargaining power of Pacific Island nations, there has been a very real threat they would be left at the back of the queue in the vaccine scramble.

However, assertive work by donor nations like Australia and New Zealand, combined with access to the World Health Organisation-led global COVAX facility, has so far meant Pacific nations are not being left out in the cold.

The North Pacific nations of Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau are well on their way to being fully vaccinated courtesy of the United States’ Operation Warp Speed program.

Initial batches of between 4,800-132,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines have also been delivered to Fiji, Nauru, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu via the COVAX initiative.

Australia sent an emergency batch of 8,000 vaccine doses to PNG in March, and is now sending 10,000 locally produced AstraZeneca doses to the region each week. This number is likely to climb as production ramps up and the appetite for AstraZeneca wanes at home.

China is also poised to do its part, offering 200,000 Sinopharm vaccines to PNG and 50,000 to Solomon Islands.

Both PNG and the Solomon Islands are adamant that they will not roll out the vaccine until it receives approval by the WHO, but the presence of Chinese vaccines ups the stakes for the vaccine diplomacy battle now underway in the Pacific.

Read more: China wants to be a friend to the Pacific, but so far, it has failed to match Australia’s COVID-19 response

Logistics are now the big challenge

Just two months ago, the worry for most Pacific nations was getting hold of vaccines. For many, the challenge has now quickly morphed to a larger, and much more challenging, question — how to roll them out.

There are enormous challenges involved with an effective rollout campaign in many countries, especially those with many islands like Kiribati or Solomon Islands or with large populations in remote communities spread across mountains and islands, like PNG.

Pacific leaders and health professionals also face widespread misinformation about vaccines, cultural stigma (many Pacific nations have never run an adult vaccination campaign), and logistical challenges related to cold chain storage and their already-stretched health systems.

Read more: We can no longer ignore the threats facing the Pacific — we need to support more migration to Australia

Illustrating this point, of the 8,000 doses Australia provided to PNG more than a month ago, only 2,900 have been administered. While some nations, like Fiji, have quickly run through their allotted COVAX vaccines, others, such as PNG, run the risk of vaccines expiring before they get into people’s arms.

It will take a much more significant and coordinated effort from Pacific nations, and all of their donor counterparts, to effectively vaccinate the region.

A massive logistics campaign tailored to the needs of each nation must now get underway. NGOs, churches, and the private sector should all be expected to do their part. Alongside this, the Pacific nations need smart and widespread information campaigns to promote the efficacy and importance of the vaccines and help overcome misinformation and stigma.

If more concerted effort is not applied to getting needles into Pacific Islanders’ arms, then at best these countries will be left behind as other economies open up to one another, and at worst quarantine systems will fail and the virus itself will overwhelm their vulnerable systems.

The Pacific region has done extremely well in combating the COVID crisis to date. Let’s not stop now.

– ref. The Pacific went a year without COVID. Now, it’s all under threat – https://theconversation.com/the-pacific-went-a-year-without-covid-now-its-all-under-threat-158963