Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Borland, Professor of Economics, University of Melbourne

Incentives, the Freakonomics author Steven Levitt once quipped, are the “cornerstone of modern life”. To this I would add: only if the incentive is big enough.

In Australia at present there is considerable support for increasing the JobSeeker unemployment payment by a significant amount to make up for decades in which it has fallen relative to wages and other payments.

Opponents say an increase might adversely affect incentives to search for and take up paid work.

I have reviewed this claim in recent research and find even a substantial increase in JobSeeker wouldn’t be big enough to make a difference.

If JobSeeker was to climb A$125 per week from $282.85 to $407.85, it would still be only a little more than half the national minimum wage.

The increase would leave JobSeeker recipients at the very bottom of the distribution of earnings of full-time adult workers – the bottom percentile. This means 99 out of every 100 full-time jobs would pay more.

Read more: Top economists want JobSeeker boosted by $100+ per week and tied to wages

A higher JobSeeker payment of $125 per week could also preserve a significant financial incentive for recipients to take on extra days of paid work.

Under the current income test, the marginal gain from working an extra day at the minimum wage would range from $93 (for the first day) to $34 (third day).

Under a better income test the gain could be smoothed across the week.

The real-life experiment

We have just had a real-life experiment that has told us what happens to incentives to shift into paid work when JobSeeker is nearly doubled.

The payment was almost doubled between March and September 2020, being boosted by a coronavirus supplement of $275 per week.

JobSeeker vs age pension

If getting the doubled payment meaningfully reduced incentives to take up paid work, JobSeeker recipients would be less likely to move from unemployment into employment than before, and job vacancies would take longer to fill.

Neither happened while JobSeeker was doubled.

Compared to the previous years of 2017, 2018 and 2019 the flow from unemployment into employment collapsed in April when the onset of COVID-19 cost 607,000 people their jobs.

But in the following months, while JobSeeker remained doubled, the proportion of unemployed people who transitioned into employment returned to previous monthly benchmarks.

Flows from unemployment to employment

Second, there is no evidence of a rise in the vacancy rate, as would be expected if the increased JobSeeker payment was having a major impact on incentives to work.

The vacancy rate fell between February and April as would be expected, and then regained some losses, but at no point climbed higher than before the collapse, even with higher JobSeeker payments.

More JobSeeker might help

Searching for jobs takes time and costs money. More income from JobSeeker means less financial stress and more “bandwidth” to commit to job search, and more resources such as the ability to pay for transport to and clothing for interviews.

Read more: ‘If JobSeeker was cut, the unemployed would be picking fruit’? Why that’s not true

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development made this point a decade ago in its review of Australia.

It said Newstart (the old name for JobSeeker) had fallen to the point where questions could be asked about its “effectiveness in providing sufficient support for those experiencing a job loss, or enabling someone to look for a suitable job.”

– ref. New finding: boosting JobSeeker wouldn’t keep Australians away from paid work – https://theconversation.com/new-finding-boosting-jobseeker-wouldnt-keep-australians-away-from-paid-work-150454

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roland Sussex, Professor Emeritus, The University of Queensland

Language is like archaeology. It lays down evidence for following generations to excavate and write PhD theses about. Layers of the stuff. And such has been the language of the year of COVID.

Not surprisingly, COVID has spawned an efflorescence of words and expressions. And these will certainly be dug up for analysis by our descendants.

In Australia we have a characteristic way of repurposing words, and we have applied it to COVID. Isolation became “iso”, which was crowned (joke: corona is Latin for crown) Word of the Year, or WOTY, by the Australian National Dictionary.

And coronavirus became “rona”, the Macquarie Dictionary’s COVID WOTY for 2020, announced today.

The Macquarie has departed from its usual practice (as has the Oxford English Dictionary) and anointed not one but two WOTYs (should that be WOTIES?): one to honour the way COVID has dominated our world, thinking and language this year; and another across-the-board WOTY as well. Their latter choice was “doomscrolling”, the practice of continuing to read news online or on social media when you know there’s nothing new in the news, and it’s all miserable.

Read more: ‘Iso’, ‘boomer remover’ and ‘quarantini’: how coronavirus is changing our language

Short, not necessarily sweet

Iso and rona are diminutives or hypocoristics. I have a database of over 6,000 of these in Australian English. These are derived forms of words that express an emotional overtone, usually amiable and solidaristic (“barbie” for barbecue; “servo” for service station), sometimes pejorative (“commo” for communist, “drongo” for well, an idiot).

But my personal nomination for the 2020 WOTY is “quazza” for quarantine. I predicted its birth and was fulfilled when it duly appeared.

Quazza follows a pattern in Australian English where R becomes Z: Terry gives “Tezza”, Barry gives “Bazza”, and quarantine yields “quazza”. Which is a long way from the Italian word quarantina, a reference to the 40-day period ships had to anchor off Italy in days gone by to prove there was no plague on board.

These diminutives serve an important purpose. They de-demonise threatening words. Without reducing the level of the words’ threat, the diminutives imply: this is something we can get our minds around and manage.

And gradually, with some temporary reversals, that is what we have done, and much more effectively than most other countries. Though whether the diminutives have medical force is not yet proven.

Getting the message

Of course, there’s more to the influence of language under COVID than diminutives. In terms of public health and communication, three key agencies have driven our handling of the pandemic: scientists, policymakers and the public.

In Australia, the passage of information and action between these three entities has worked rather well. Science has transmitted reliable and helpful analyses of coronavirus and COVID-19 to policymakers. They informed our understanding of specific pandemic terms like “incubation” and “reinfection”.

State and federal governments have issued action guidelines with terms like “COVID safe”. And the public has created their own shorthand like the diminutives described above to make it all a bit friendlier.

Read more: We’re not all in this together. Messages about social distancing need the right cultural fit

Australians have accessed the science through the media and the internet, and have generally acted responsibly.

The key mechanism for communicating along the three axes between science, policymakers and the public involves messaging. Words matter in this context. What is needed is simple, direct, transparent and plausible language. Translations for multilingual communities are also vital.

Australian authorities have used words effectively and fairly consistently (though not always). The words and terms have fallen within four broad lexical categories:

1. isolation — lockdown, isolation, quarantine

2. distance — social distancing, venue capacity

3. hygiene — handwashing, sanitiser (or “hand sanny” in Australian slang), masks

3. social — COVID safe, flatten the curve, stop the spread, WFH (work from home).

The British messaging was much less effective, moving from “Protect the NHS” (National Health Service) to “Stay alert” without specifying what people should be alert to.

Read more: Coronavirus anti-vaxxers: one in six British people would refuse a vaccine – here’s how to change their minds

Going the distance

Unfortunately, many countries took up the phrase “social distancing”, when what was needed was “physical distancing”, continuing social interaction as an important part of maintaining well being. The World Health Organisation agrees.

Next time — and there certainly will be a next time — we need to be better prepared.

There will be new vocabulary to describe, and perhaps to help tame, potential new threats. The messaging may be very similar, and we will know, from our experience with COVID-19 in 2020, how best to stop “covidiots” from acting “coronacrazy”.

Read more: How COVID-19 is changing the English language

– ref. ‘Rona’, ‘iso’, ‘quazza’ — words of the year speak to our Australian take on COVID – https://theconversation.com/rona-iso-quazza-words-of-the-year-speak-to-our-australian-take-on-covid-150949

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

Australia’s aged-care system is in sore need of transformation. This is becoming increasingly clear. If the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety — whose interim report was titled Neglect — was not enough to demonstrate the need for change, the tragic impact of COVID-19 on residential care has tipped it over the edge.

Many older Australians say they are not getting the care and support they need. Families complain of unchecked neglect and abuse. Many aged-care providers are saying the sector’s services are underfunded. Care staff say they are overworked and underpaid. And many older Australians are waiting more than a year to get the home care package they need.

At its core, Australia’s aged care is a Soviet-style, centrally planned and rationed system that controls availability of home care packages and beds from Canberra. It focuses on the transactional relationships between government and providers, rather than on delivering for the vulnerable older Australians it is meant to support.

The royal commission’s findings have prised open a window for reform. Before it slams shut again, we need to reshape the aged-care system to put the rights of older Australians at its heart.

Last month, Grattan Institute published a report that argued a reformed system should be based on enhancing the rights of older Australians.

Today, we release a second report detailing what this actually means in practice. It sets out a new rights-based system design with a new funding and governance model.

The report identifies three key changes needed to create a rights-based system that would empower older Australians to get the support they need to be independent and engaged in the community for as long as possible.

1. Tailor services to people’s needs

Currently, the aged-care system is capped, meaning the government supports only a certain number of people in home care and residential care at a given time. This means many older Australians are left without the support they need. As a result, some people end up in residential care when home care would have been better for them and, potentially, cheaper for taxpayers too.

We believe older Australians who need support should have universal access to care. Just like Medicare, access to aged care should be based on need, not on people’s capacity to pay.

Under our proposed model, funding for aged care would match a person’s individual care needs. This should be documented in individual support plans, which then form a contract about the care that person should receive. This would cater for people’s diverse care needs and allow more people to receive care at home.

But this universality should only cover necessary care services, such as nursing. Non-care services, such as cleaning or gardening, should be means-tested.

Read more: So you’re thinking of going into a nursing home? Here’s what you’ll have to pay for

2. Bring the system to the local level

Older Australians should receive face-to-face help to obtain a range of high-quality service options.

Instead of a poorly regulated and fragmented system with accountability far away in Canberra, 30 regionally based independent “system managers” across the country should be made responsible for the care of older Australians in a defined geographic area.

They should be the local gateway for older people into the aged-care system and provide a “one-stop shop” for all older people who need care – helping them develop their support plans and negotiate access to services.

They should manage the local service system in their region, and only accredit service providers dedicated to the rights of older Australians. A “national system steward”, like an independent Australian Aged Care Commission, would hold the regional bodies to account and ensure equity and performance across the whole system.

3. Enhance the voice of older Australians

Rather than viewing older Australians as passive recipients of care, we should empower and encourage them to raise issues and engage socially in the community.

Community representative committees in each region should be established that are connected to a national body. Working with regional system managers, they should enhance the independence of older people through social participation programs, promoting healthy ageing, and better integrating the aged-care system with health care and other non-aged-care services.

Funding is vital

These three measures on their own won’t be enough. A raft of fundamental changes will be needed to fix the system, and nothing will improve unless the federal government spends more on aged care.

We estimate our proposed changes will require an extra A$7 billion per year – a 35% increase on current spending. And even more will be needed as the population continues to age.

Significant reform is also needed to ensure better pay and support for staff. In residential care, regulations should mandate minimum carer-to-resident ratios and 24-hour nursing supervision.

Aged care also needs to be more accountable and transparent. We recommend a public reporting system to monitor the quality of care.

Read more: Older Australians deserve more than the aged care royal commission’s COVID-19 report delivers

Of course, creating a new aged-care system will take time. We propose that our model be phased in over three years, beginning with a trial in the smaller states of South Australia and Tasmania, and with emergency funding measures to immediately lift the quality of residential care.

Australia cannot let this window for change close without demanding a better support system that upholds the rights of older Australians.

– ref. 3 ways to transform our ‘Soviet-style’ aged-care mess into a system that puts older Australians first – https://theconversation.com/3-ways-to-transform-our-soviet-style-aged-care-mess-into-a-system-that-puts-older-australians-first-151025

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

The government is getting itself onto very sticky paper in the developing row over revoking the citation awarded to the Special Operations Task Group that served in Afghanistan because of alleged atrocities committed by a number of its members.

Announcing the findings of the Brereton inquiry, the Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Campbell, was crystal clear.

He’d accepted the report’s recommendation “and will write to the Governor-General requesting he revoke the Meritorious Unit Citation for Special Operations Task Groups who served in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013”.

The rationale was that “units live and fight as a team. The report acknowledges, therefore, that there is also a collective responsibility for what is alleged to have happened,” he said.

It should be noted this citation is distinct from honours and awards made to individual soldiers, which will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The planned revocation generated an immediate backlash from some of those who’d served, and their supporters, with a petition gaining many thousands of signatures.

Now, the future of the citation is up in the air.

The Defence Department told Sunday’s ABC Insiders program: “Defence is preparing a comprehensive implementation plan to action the Inspector-General’s recommendations, with the oversight of the Minister for Defence through the recently established Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel. Relevant agencies are being consulted, and advice will be provided to Government.

“It is important to note that this will take time due to the complexity of the issues outlined in the report. Final decisions on this advice will be a matter for Government.

“Any further action on the Meritorious Unit Citation, including any recommendation to the Governor-General, will be considered as part of the implementation plan.”

So when Campbell said he had accepted the Brereton recommendations in general, and the citation one in particular, it apparently did not mean quite what it seemed. The government appears to be leaving its options open to override the CDF.

Scott Morrison is highly sensitive to issues concerning the military – those serving and veterans.

Last week, asked on 2GB whether he supported the removal of the citation from some 3000 troops Morrison said: “Well, I’m waiting for General Campbell to be able to finalise his set of recommendations about what he proposes to do. And I know this is a very sensitive and controversial issue. It’s complex.”

So what are the factors in this complexity?

One: The Brereton report was unequivocal. “Although many members of the Special Operations Task Group demonstrated great courage and commitment, and although it had considerable achievements, what is now known must disentitle the unit as a whole to eligibility for recognition for sustained outstanding service.”

Justice Brereton was not unmindful of the proper behaviour of many of the soldiers. But he made the point that revocation was being recommended “as an effective demonstration of the collective responsibility and accountability of the Special Operations Task Group as a whole for those events”.

Two: Campbell was in no professional or moral doubt what he should do.

Three: The government is feeling it may not be worth the public fight and the angst to have the citation quashed.

Its removal would have costs.

But so would heading off its removal.

It would be a repudiation of the judgement of the independent inquiry.

It would also be over-ruling the professional judgement from the government’s principal military adviser and the holder of a senior statutory office. Would Campbell go along with that, or would he feel he should consider his position?

One interesting bit of speculation is whether the Governor-General, David Hurley, a former chief of the defence force himself, might offer the prime minister some informal counsel along the way.

– ref. View from The Hill: How will ADF chief react if government insists Special Operations Task Group should keep citation? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-how-will-adf-chief-react-if-government-insists-special-operations-task-group-should-keep-citation-151075

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Once about as high as the pension, the JobSeeker (Newstart) unemployment payment has fallen shockingly low compared to living standards.

It’s now only two thirds of the pension, just 40% of the full-time minimum wage and half way below the poverty line.

JobSeeker has fallen relative to other payments because while the pension and wages have climbed faster than prices, JobSeeker (previously called Newstart) has increased only in line with prices since 1991.

In an apparent acknowledgement that JobSeeker had fallen too low, the government roughly doubled it during the coronavirus crisis, introducing a supplement to enable people to “meet the costs of their groceries and other bills”.

But that supplement is being wound down, from A$225 per week to $125 on September 25, and again to $75 on January 1, before expiring on March 31.

After March, the single rate of JobSeeker (including the $4.40 per week energy allowance) will drop back to about $287.25 per week.

JobSeeker vs age pension

Ahead of a decision about any permanent increase expected early next year, The Conversation and the Economic Society of Australia asked 45 of Australia’s leading economists where they thought JobSeeker should settle.

Only four think it should revert to $287.25 per week.

All but eight want a substantial increase. More than half (24 out of 45) want an increase of at least $100 per week.

The results suggest the economists would be dissatisfied with a decision to merely increase JobSeeker by $75 per week in line with the supplement that is due to expire at the end of March.

The 45 members of the society’s 57-member panel who responded include Australia’s preeminent experts in the fields of microeconomics, macroeconomics economic modelling, labour markets and public policy.

Among them are former and current government advisers, a former member of the Reserve Bank board and a former member of the Fair Work Commission’s minimum wage panel.

Read more: Top economists back boosts to JobSeeker and social housing over tax cuts in pre-budget poll

Many want an increase of about $150 a week to bring JobSeeker close to the age pension and 50% of median income.

Curtin University’s Harry Bloch asked (rhetorically) whether unemployed people had “lower needs than those on the aged pension”.

Labour market specialist Sue Richardson said keeping payments so low that people lost dignity and hope and suffered material deprivation hurt not only the people who were unemployed, but also the thousands of children who grew up in their households.

A scant incentive to shirk

She knew of no evidence that suggested a low rate of JobSeeker increased the likelihood of an unemployed person getting a job.

Jeff Borland said even if JobSeeker was increased by $125 per week, those on it would still earn less than all but 1% of full-time adult workers and would face plenty of remaining financial incentives to get paid work.

In research to be published in The Conversation on Monday he examines a real-life experiment: the temporary near-doubling on JobSeeker between March and September, and finds it played no role in creating unfilled vacancies.

Read more: ‘If JobSeeker was cut, the unemployed would be picking fruit’? Why that’s not true

Emeritus Professor Margaret Nowak said JobSeeker had been driven to the point where it denied unemployed Australians the shelter, food and transport they needed to find work.

Former Liberal party leader John Hewson described the failure to adjust JobSeeker for three decades as “immoral”, and a national disgrace driven by “little more than prejudice”.

Going forward, there was overwhelming agreement among those surveyed that once JobSeeker was restored to an acceptable level, it should be linked to wages (in line with the pension) rather than increase with prices as before.

Two thirds of those surveyed want JobSeeker increase in line with wages, and of those who do not, several want the pension to increase more slowly in order to ensure the two move in sync.

Gigi Foster and Geoffrey Kingston propose a half-way house – increases in both the pension and JobSeeker halfway between increases in the consumer price index and wages.

Wages determine living standards

Others suggest practical measures to make JobSeeker better at getting Australians into jobs. Beth Webster suggests reducing the rate at which JobSeeker cuts out with hours worked to encourage part-time workers to take on more hours.

Tony Makin suggests a relocation allowance to help people take on jobs distant from their current place of residence.

Read more: Winding back JobKeeper and JobSeeker will push 740,000 Australians into poverty

None of the economists surveyed expressed concern about the budgetary cost of restoring the relative position of JobSeeker, estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Office to be $4.8 billion per year for an increase of $95 per week.

Several expressed a desire to put the issue behind them, increasing JobSeeker to a reasonable proportion of the pension or median wage and leaving it there so that, in the words of Saul Eslake, “this issue never arises again”.

Individual responses

– ref. Top economists want JobSeeker boosted by $100+ per week and tied to wages – https://theconversation.com/top-economists-want-jobseeker-boosted-by-100-per-week-and-tied-to-wages-150364

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abas Mirzaei, Senior Lecturer – Branding, Macquarie University

The makers of Coon cheese will no doubt have paid close attention to the publicity surrounding Nestle’s rebadging of its Red Skins and Chicos confectionary brands.

While the change of Chicos to Cheekies was uncontroversial, the change of Red Skins to Red Ripper – a name given decades to Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo – was widely mocked.

The perils of rebranding helps explain the length of deliberations by Canadian-owned Saputo Dairy Australia, which has controlled the Coon brand since 2015. It announced in July it would “retire” the name, in the wake of increasing activism about brand names considered to have racist connotations.

“We are working to develop a new brand name that will honour the brand-affinity felt by our valued consumers while aligning with current attitudes and perspectives,” it said at the time.

Saputo reaffirmed this month it would change the name, but was still “working on the new brand development and look forward to revealing it to our customers and consumers once completed”.

That change can’t come soon enough for Indigenous activist Stephen Hagan, who has lobbied for Coon’s retirement from the Australian market for more than two decades.

But the Nestle experience explains why the Coon deliberations are taking so long.

A well-known brand identity is hugely valuable in the food market. It’s how shoppers find and choose things in supermarkets that stock as many as 40,000 more products than they did 50 years ago. Re-establishing a brand, with a new identity, is expensive and risks losing market share.

How Coon cheese got its name

Previous owners of the Coon brand, Kraft and Dairy Farmers, resisted demands for a name change on the grounds the association with an American racial slur for African Americans was mere coincidence, with the cheese being named after its American creator Edward William Coon, who patented his method for making it – known as “Cooning” – in the 1926.

Australian dairy manufacturers began making cheese using Coon’s methods in the mid-1930s. In keeping with a common branding strategy at the time, the cheese was marketed using the name of its creator.

It is not known if that decision was made with knowledge the word had by then been in use in the US as a derogatory term for African Americans for a century.

In any event, the brand lived on in the Australian market. Coon is now the leading brand in the hard/cheddar cheese category, with a 9% market share (followed by Bega with 7.7%).

That share has been built over decades. Research shows strong brand loyalty in the cheese market, particularly for cheddar and sliced cheese. Coon’s owners will therefore be carefully weighing how to rebrand Coon to minimise the risk of shoppers failing to recognise it by another name and opting for another well-known brand.

Brands on the run

Given all this, it is reasonable to assume the retirement of Coon is being done under some duress.

But social media, woke activism and the internationalisation of the Black Lives Matter movement has changed the landscape, putting pressure on companies to retire all brand names associated with historic racial stereotypes.

Read more: Brands backing Black Lives Matter: it might be a marketing ploy, but it also shows leadership

Those brands include Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes butter (dropping its logo featuring a native American woman), Eskimo Pie ice-cream (now Edy’s Pie), and US Conagra Foods’ Mrs Butterworth’s brand of syrups, packaged in bottles the shape of a “matronly” woman.

The biggest brand to fall is the “Aunt Jemima” brand of pancake mixes, syrups and breakfast foods. In June, Quaker Foods North America (owned by PepsiCo) announced it would finally retire in use since 1889 and named after a character from 19th century minstrel shows.

Like Coon’s owners, Aunt Jemima’s owners are still deliberating on how to rebrand.

Should it, for example, attempt to replace the Aunt Jemima visual identity with another character (or characters) better representing people of colour? Or will it simply “deracialise” the brand. After all, while removing stereotypical black faces from brands achieves one objective of the Black Lives Matter movement, removing all black faces isn’t necessarily a step forward in promoting diversity.

But that would be an extremely difficult feat to pull off.

It’s more likely Quaker Foods will emulate the approach taken by US multinational Mars, which in September announced the end of Uncle Ben’s, a rice brand launched in 1946 named after an African American rice farmer whose logo features a bow-tied “Chicago chef and waiter named Frank Brown”. Mars has opted to rebadge as “Ben’s Original” and drop the face.

The gravity of the deliberation over Aunt Jemima’s is exemplified by the sales boost for a competitor in the syrup market, Michele Foods, founded by African American woman Michele Hoskins. She told Forbes that July sales of her company’s syrups – based on a recipe handed down to her from her great great grandmother, America Washington, a freed slave – were 78% higher than the year before.

The Michele’s brand features Hoskins herself on the label. But as she told Forbes: “People want authentic products.”

Read more: Where ‘woke’ came from and why marketers should think twice before jumping on the social activism bandwagon

Maintaining brand continuity

Whatever Saputo decides is the next name for Coon, its intention will be to quell criticism without dramatically changing brand identity.

It will seek to do what Nestle clearly sought to do with renaming its Red Skins and Chicos confectionery. It will want to change the name as little as possible and retain continuity with brand colours and styling.

Note the new branding for Red Rippers looks almost identical to Red Skins (and the same with Chicos to Cheekies). So long as supermarkets stock these products in the same place on the shelves, customer confusion should be minimised.

Moon cheese, perhaps?

– ref. Coon’s rebranding dilemma: polishing a brand name to stay out of controversy – https://theconversation.com/coons-rebranding-dilemma-polishing-a-brand-name-to-stay-out-of-controversy-150456

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learning & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

As restrictions ease around the country and the prospect of travel beckons, many of us will be planning road trips for the holiday season.

To ensure your trip is memorable in the best rather than the worst way, here are some things you and your fellow travellers can do to reduce the risk of becoming infected with, or spreading, COVID on your trip.

Before you go

1. Check for any travel or other COVID-specific restrictions or rules in the areas you will be travelling through or to, before you go. These can change rapidly and may include restrictions on how far you can travel, how many people per square metre are allowed in public spaces, and whether you need border passes or to wear a mask. Each state or territory has its own health department or government COVID website you can check.

2. Don’t take COVID with you. If anyone in your group has COVID-like symptoms, however mild, it is important to be tested and cleared for COVID before leaving. Common symptoms may include fever or chills, muscle aches, sore throat, cough, runny nose, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, and vomiting or diarrhoea.

3. Pack masks, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitiser. The two most likely ways of catching COVID are inhaling viral particles an infected person sheds when they cough, sneeze, laugh, talk or breathe; and ingesting particles by touching contaminated objects and then touching your face or food. Masks (and social distancing) can help reduce the former risk, while avoiding touching your face, frequent hand hygiene and cleaning surfaces can reduce the latter. So pack masks, wipes and hand sanitiser. Hand sanitiser should contain at least 60% alcohol.

4. Pack your own pillows and linen. We know people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can shed virus onto linen and pillows (and other surfaces), even when asymptomatic. We also know respiratory viruses can penetrate pillow covers and get into the microfibre stuffing. So you might want to consider bringing your own pillows and linen.

On your trip

5. Use disinfectant wipes to clean high-touch surfaces in your hire car. These would include door and window handles or buttons, light switches, seat adjuster controls, radio controls, the steering wheel, glove box button, gear/drive and handbrake levers, rear-view mirrors and mirror controls.

6. How about singing in the car? The more vigorous the activity, the greater the opportunity to release droplets and aerosols and the further these will travel. So, laughing and singing will release more of these than talking, and talking will release more than breathing. However, if you are travelling in a family group, or with your housemates, then you have been in close contact with one another at home and the additional risk would be low.

Read more: This video shows just how easily COVID-19 could spread when people sing together

7. Maintain social distancing at service stations. Leave at least 1.5 metres between you and the next person while paying for fuel, ordering food and when using the bathroom. Make sure you wash or sanitise your hands after touching surfaces such as petrol pumps, door handles, bathroom taps, and before getting back in your car.

8. Pay with cards rather than cash to avoid touching money. Many people can handle bills and coins over a long duration of time, providing many opportunities to transfer disease-causing microbes from one person to the next. Using contactless payment also helps maintain social distancing.

9. It’s safer to eat outdoors than indoors if stopping for a snack or lunch. That’s because large volumes of air dilute the density of viral particles in the air. Evidence from a study of COVID clusters in Japan suggests the chance of transmitting COVID is more than 18 times higher inside than outside.

Read more: How to stay safe in restaurants and cafes

When you arrive

10. Is your hotel or rented accommodation COVID-safe? Ask the accommodation provider what steps they have taken to make the place less conducive to spreading COVID. For example, have they introduced extra cleaning or disinfection?

11. Use disinfectant wipes in rented accommodation to clean high-touch surfaces such as door handles, light switches, cupboard handles, taps and toilet flush buttons. You can also put dishes and cutlery through the dishwasher on a hot cycle. This is because the virus can remain viable (able to cause infection) on surfaces for many days.

Following these simple steps can help to keep your trip memorable in the best possible way. Happy holidays!

– ref. Planning a road trip in a pandemic? 11 tips for before you leave, on the road and when you arrive – https://theconversation.com/planning-a-road-trip-in-a-pandemic-11-tips-for-before-you-leave-on-the-road-and-when-you-arrive-149620

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra

The “team of rivals” was the term historian Doris Kearns Goodwin used to describe US President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. It included three men who had run against Lincoln for the Republican nomination for president in 1860: William Seward (secretary of state), Salmon Chase (treasury secretary) and Edward Bates (attorney general).

Appointing these strong-willed figures could have been disastrous were it not for Lincoln’s personal qualities.

Goodwin describes how Lincoln was willing to acknowledge when policies failed and change direction. He gathered facts on which to base decisions. He sought compromise but took full responsibility for his decisions, respected his colleagues and set an example of dignity. (In all these, he sounds like the antithesis of Donald Trump.)

President-elect Joe Biden has taken a different approach to filling out his cabinet so far. Aside from choosing Kamala Harris as his vice president, he’s looked past his main Democratic rivals for the nomination — Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders — and appointed mainly technical experts with relevant experience and an international outlook.

Biden may have seen these more technocratic appointments as fitting with his less partisan style. It also sends a signal to the world that the US wants to reengage.

In Biden’s words, the US is “ready to lead the world, not retreat from it”. And as Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the new UN ambassador put it, “multilateralism is back”.

Team of talent

Biden may not have filled his cabinet with rivals, but he has also not surrounded himself with clones or an “echo chamber”. He made clear he wanted his cabinet to

tell me what I need to know, not what I want to know.

As secretary of state, he has appointed Antony Blinken. A francophone internationalist, Blinken served as former President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser and deputy secretary of state.

Read more: From ‘America first’ to ‘America together’: who is Antony Blinken, Biden’s pick for secretary of state?

He once made a charming appearance on Sesame Street, telling Grover about the United Nations and refugees. He commented

we all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem at first like we have much in common.

The message is a long way from “America first” and the disdain for the rest of the world shown by the Trump administration.

Advocates of free trade and climate change action

As treasury secretary, Biden has appointed Janet Yellen. She was chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014–18 and currently heads the American Economic Association. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz recalled her as one of his brightest students.

It is quite an achievement to be the most famous economist in a family that includes a Nobel Prize winner (her husband George Akerlof).

An advocate of free trade and expert in labour markets, she understands the damage that Trump’s trade wars, especially with China, have done to working Americans.

Being chair of the Federal Reserve also gave Yellen an important role in international organisations, such as the Bank for International Settlements.

Read more: Vital Signs: Janet Yellen, the very model of a modern Madam Secretary

John Kerry has been appointed to the new post of climate envoy. He is globally respected as a former secretary of state, and ran unsuccessfully for president himself in 2004.

His appointment signals that the Biden administration recognises the importance of recommitting the US to climate action. Most significantly, Kerry was highly influential in the final week of negotiations of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and signed it for the US the following year with his granddaughter on his lap.

And following four years of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, Biden has selected a Cuban-born immigrant, Alejandro Mayorkas, to lead the Department of Homeland Security. After his nomination, Mayorkas spoke of his desire

to advance our proud history as a country of welcome.

Potential roadblocks in the Senate

Biden has assembled a team with an international outlook that will re-commit the US to supporting international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, and treaties like the Paris Agreement. He will seek to reform rather than just impede the World Trade Organisation.

Read more: What a Biden presidency means for world trade and allies like Australia

But there’s one significant hurdle still looming. If the Democrats can’t gain control of the Senate by winning the two run-off elections in Georgia in early January, the Republican-led chamber will likely aim to block Biden’s aims of resuming a constructive global role.

For example, Biden will be able to issue an executive order to rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day as president. But major reforms to cut greenhouse gas emissions or his proposed $2 trillion clean energy plan would face opposition in a Republican-controlled Senate.

Optimists have compared Biden to former President Lyndon Johnson (also known as LBJ), who may be able to use his decades of legislative experience to achieve more change than was possible for John F. Kennedy or Obama.

Ron Klain, recently announced as Biden’s chief of staff, once put it well:

LBJ might not have been the wokest, coolest, hippest Democrat, but he’s the person who got the most actual progressive social justice legislation done since FDR […] he knew how to make the Senate work.

The rest of the world will hope Klain is right and that the Senate does not block the program of this promising new cabinet.

Read more: Winning the presidency won’t be enough: Biden needs the Senate too

– ref. Biden’s cabinet picks are globally respected, but one obstacle remains for the US to ‘lead the world’ again – https://theconversation.com/bidens-cabinet-picks-are-globally-respected-but-one-obstacle-remains-for-the-us-to-lead-the-world-again-150935

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Professor of International Health, Burnet Institute

Today Victoria satisfied a common definition of elimination for COVID-19, recording its 28th consecutive day of zero new cases. While there is no international definition of elimination, two average incubation periods without community transmission is widely accepted as local elimination, especially in a geographically isolated country like Australia.

It’s a remarkable achievement following a severe second wave which peaked at daily new case rates of around 700 in early August. But elimination is not eradication, and we can expect the virus to return at some point, as has happened in several countries that previously boasted minimal or no community transmission.

So how did Victoria get here, and what can it do to keep numbers as low as possible?

Elimination is not eradication

There’s no universal definition of elimination. As applied to other infectious diseases such as polio and measles, it means a prolonged period of zero local transmission in a country or region. For measles, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is very exacting and demands no community transmission for 36 months.

With more than 500,000 new daily COVID cases being reported globally, preventing new local transmission in Victoria will depend on the state building a virus-proof defence.

Several countries have shown the virus can return after a long period of minimal local transmission. The most pertinent example is New Zealand, which experienced 102 consecutive days of zero community transmission before a cluster cropped up in Auckland on August 11. Israel, South Korea, Vietnam and Hong Kong have also experienced reemergence of the virus following significant periods of minimal community transmission. And this month, we witnessed a cluster in suburban Adelaide that originated in a quarantine hotel, after South Australia had experienced many months of no community transmission.

Read more: Of all the places that have seen off a second coronavirus wave, only Vietnam and Hong Kong have done as well as Victorians

Indeed elimination doesn’t mean the virus is completely gone. For example, Australia eliminated local transmission of polio in 1972. But it wasn’t until 30 years later, in 2002, that the WHO declared Australia polio-free.

Almost 20 years after that declaration, we still can’t say we’ve eradicated polio because eradication refers to the global removal of a human pathogen; only smallpox has achieved that status. One strain of the polio virus continues to circulate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2007, a 22-year-old student from Pakistan was diagnosed with polio at Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne’s East.

So, how did we get to zero?

Since the grim height of Victoria’s second wave in July and August, several coordinated interventions have eventually borne fruit. One of the most important was the strengthening of the test-trace-isolate-support system. While details are emerging during the parliamentary inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine system, some of the features of this strengthening are known:

• decentralisation through regional hubs and metropolitan public health units

• increased engagement and involvement of communities, through programs aimed at public housing estates and local initiatives led by GPs and community health centres

• adoption of “upstream” contact tracing, identifying contacts of index cases before they developed symptoms as well as after developing symptoms. In both groups, contacts of contacts were identified. This led to the rapid control of clusters such as those in Kilmore and Shepparton.

Other important initiatives included the joint federal-state Victorian Aged Care Response Centre, which eventually managed the explosive outbreaks in residential aged care facilities, and more effective infection prevention and control in health-care settings.

And there were the containment measures that kept people from intermingling. Stage 3 restrictions were reimposed on July 8, limiting the reasons people could leave home. A study published in early August found these restrictions averted between 9,000 and 37,000 cases. From July 23, masks were mandatory at all times outside the home. On August 2, stage 4 restrictions and a night curfew effectively shut down Melbourne. From then on, the number of new cases steadily declined.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Victoria’s response was to maintain a strong health focus amid a chorus of criticism, much of it from Canberra or the Sydney-based media, pushing the “economy first” mantra. In fact, data show countries that managed to protect the health of their citizens have generally protected their economy more effectively.

Read more: Data from 45 countries show containing COVID vs saving the economy is a false dichotomy

How can we stay where we are?

The first requirement is an effective quarantine system for returned travellers. With cases surging globally, the proportion of travellers who are infected will increase significantly from the 0.7% reported between March and August. This will require arrangements that employ well-trained and adequately paid workers who are regularly monitored by infection control and occupational health and safety experts. The advance contact tracing, which will identify the close contacts of staff before they might test positive for the virus, announced by Premier Daniel Andrews would be a useful adjunct as long as confidentiality is assured.

Crucially, experienced teams of contact tracers must be on standby. They need to maintain the rigorous standards developed over the past few months and engage in simulation exercises that test their capacities. They must retain a focus on community trust and avoid the vilification of individuals that marred the South Australian response.

What’s more, the state must sustain proven containment measures such as physical distancing, hand hygiene, masks indoors, and getting tested if you have symptoms.

Australia is an almost COVID-free oasis, surrounded by a tsunami of virus. Maintaining this status for the next six months or so, while at the same time opening up, will be a huge challenge. Recent responses in Victoria, NSW and SA suggest we are up to it.

And as the story of the sharp-eyed doctor in Adelaide showed us — when she tested a patient in the emergency room who’d initially felt “weak” but had very few COVID symptoms, alerting authorities to the previously silent spread of the virus — to maintain elimination we’re also going to need a little luck.

Read more: South Australia’s 6-day lockdown shows we need to take hotel quarantine more seriously

– ref. Victoria may have eliminated COVID-19, but eradication is a distant dream – https://theconversation.com/victoria-may-have-eliminated-covid-19-but-eradication-is-a-distant-dream-150736

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

Will there ever be dinosaurs again? — Anonymous

What an interesting question! Well, technically dinosaurs are still here in the form of birds. Just like you’re a direct descendant of your grandparents, birds are the only remaining direct descendants of dinosaurs.

But I suppose what you’re really asking is whether dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops could ever exist again. Although that would be fascinating, the answer is almost definitely no.

While there’s only one generation between you and your grandparents – that is, your parents – there are many millions of generations between today’s birds and their ancient dinosaurs ancestors.

This is why today’s birds look, sound and behave so differently to the prehistoric beasts that once roamed Earth.

Animals evolve to change, but can’t choose how

To understand this, we have to understand “evolution”. This is a process that explains how every living thing (including humans) evolved from past living things over millions, or even billions, of years.

Different animals evolve their own differences to help them survive in the world. For example, 66 million years ago, birds survived the catastrophic event that killed all other dinosaurs and marked the end of the Mesozoic era.

After this, a blanket of ash wrapped around the world, cooling it and blocking out the sunlight plants need to survive. Plant-eating animals would have struggled to stay alive.

But birds did, perhaps because they were small even then. They likely ate seeds and insects and took shelter in small spaces. And being able to fly would have helped them explore far and wide for food and shelter.

That said, if the conditions that came after the dinosaur extinction event returned today, no modern animal would evolve back into a dinosaur. This is because animals today have a very different evolutionary past to dinosaurs.

They evolved to have features that help them survive in today’s world, rather than a prehistoric one. And these features limit the ways they can evolve in the future.

Which came first, the chicken or the dinosaur?

For an animal to be an actual “dinosaur”, it must belong to a group of animals known by scientists as Dinosauria. These all descended from a common ancestor shared by Triceratops and modern birds.

Other than birds, Dinosauria doesn’t include any living creature. So for a dinosaur to re-evolve in the future, it would have to come from a bird.

Dinosauria’s extinct members included sauropods, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, ornithopods, ceratopsians and non-bird theropods. Modern birds evolved from a small group of theropods. However, since so much time has passed, this link is limited.

Specifically, birds have a very different collection of “genes”. These are the same built-in “rules” your parents passed down to you that decide, for example, what colour your eyes will be.

The more generations that pass between an ancestor and their descendant, the more different their genes will be.

Even if it could happen, what would this take?

Think of how much a bird would need to change to look like Tyrannosaurus rex or Triceratops. A lot.

Dinosaurs had long tails with bones all along them. Birds’ tails are stumpy and have been for more than 100 million years. It’s unlikely this would ever be reversed.

Also, modern birds walk on their back legs only and (in most cases) have four toes and three “fingers” in their wings.

Compare that with Triceratops, which walked on all four limbs, had five fingers on its front feet (the inner three of which were weight-bearing) and four toes on its back feet.

It may not be impossible for birds to gain two more fingers to have five like Triceratops; some people with a condition called “polydactyly” have more than five fingers, but this is very rare.

There aren’t really any situations where an extra finger (or one less) would be necessary for a bird’s survival. Thus, there’s little to no chance birds will evolve to change in this way.

Even if birds did eventually start to walk on all four limbs (legs and wings), they wouldn’t move the same way a Triceratops did because the purpose of a bird’s wings is very different to that of a Triceratops’s legs.

Dinosaurs are history

We know from fossil discoveries that Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus had scaly skin covering most of their bodies. Most modern birds have scaly feet, but none are scaly all over.

It’s hard to imagine what would force any bird to naturally replace its feathers with scales. Birds need feathers to fly, to save energy (by staying warm) and to put on special displays to attract mates.

Triceratops did have a “beak” at the front of its mouth, but this evolved completely separately to the beaks of birds and had two extra bones — something no living animal has.

What’s more, behind its beak and jaws, Triceratops had rows of teeth. While some birds such as geese have spiky beaks. No bird in the past 66 million years has ever had teeth.

Considering these huge differences, it’s really unlikely birds will ever evolve to look more like their extinct dinosaur relatives. And no extinct dinosaur will ever come back to life either — except maybe in movies!

– ref. Curious Kids: could dinosaurs evolve back into existence? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-could-dinosaurs-evolve-back-into-existence-148623

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esme Franken, Lecturer in Management, Edith Cowan University

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian, who last week carried on working for up to two hours while awaiting the results of a rapid COVID test, wasn’t the first Australian to “soldier on” in the face of health concerns and a big day at work.

And she almost certainly won’t be the last, despite the COVID pandemic making it clearer than ever before it’s important to take time off if you’re sick or self-isolating.

Soldiering on — also known as “sickness presenteeism” — is alive and well even in 2020. Many people, from state premiers to minimum-wage workers, feel they have no choice but to show up and carry on. Those with precarious employment may feel as if their entire job hinges on it.

If a pandemic won’t get workers to call in sick, then what will? What we need is for managers and leaders (state premiers included) to model responsible behaviour, and foster a healthy workplace culture in which soldiering on isn’t celebrated as heroic.

A 2016 report by Pathology Awareness Australia estimated the economic costs of workers turning up sick or putting in unnecessary extra hours at more than A$34 billion a year, due to productivity loss and the spread of infection to coworkers.

Since the advent of COVID, it has become a significant public health issue too. Cases have been traced to workers spreading the virus at work, including abattoirs and health-care facilities.

Presenteeism is found throughout the employment spectrum, but is more prevalent among “essential” workers, such as those in health care, who typically report feeling “socially obligated” to attend work.

Read more: Presenteeism: A new word for working when sick

A 2019 survey of 6,387 women in the public sector found 90% had gone to work while sick in the preceding 12 months. The main reasons included workload pressures (52%), and the perception they weren’t sick enough to stay home (54%).

But why is sickness presenteeism still a thing in 2020? The sad fact is that even amid a pandemic, workers in essential services such as aged care and teaching report feeling pressured by their managers to turn up to work.

Another reason is the broader socioeconomic issue of job insecurity. Workers on temporary or casual contracts may not have sick pay entitlements at all, or feel their job is at risk if they are absent. Coupled with the workload pressures typical of precarious work, these people face an almost impossible dilemma when sick or self-isolating.

How workplaces can help

The onus is on businesses and organisations to ensure a safe working environment. This means establishing clear expectations and protocols regarding staying home when unwell, and should also include the opportunity for remote working when workers feel well enough to work but may still be infectious. Workplaces should also provide appropriate personal protective equipment, hand hygiene, and social distancing measures.

Organisations should offer medical and well-being support and care to employees at risk of suffering most under sickness presenteeism, such as essential workers and those in precarious employment.

More broadly, managers and organisations should understand that tacitly encouraging people to come to work while unwell impairs organisational performance. Leaders should not preside over a culture in which overwork and “always being on duty” are lionised. Instead, they should communicate that it’s OK not to come to work if you’re not well, and that it’s important to take a sick day if you’re sick.

A crucial element of this is to prepare contingency plans for absences, so employees know that work can still be done without them and their absence won’t be disastrous.

Read more: ‘Far too many’ Victorians are going to work while sick. Far too many have no choice

It should go without saying that you shouldn’t have to go to work when you’re sick (or self-isolating, which is the 2020 twist on a sick day). Many of us — especially those on the COVID frontline — may identify very strongly with our job, and view going to work as crucially important. But amid a pandemic, following health guidelines is paramount.

Unfortunately, the pressure to turn up to work regardless of illness comes from a range of sources: unsympathetic bosses, unfair employment conditions, or a personal reluctance to change your schedule. But as the backlash against Gladys Berejiklian proved, it’s rarely a wise move to soldier on.

– ref. Taking proper sick leave has never been more crucial. So why are people still ‘soldiering on’ at work? – https://theconversation.com/taking-proper-sick-leave-has-never-been-more-crucial-so-why-are-people-still-soldiering-on-at-work-150931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tootoooleaava Dr. Fanaafi Aiono-Le Tagaloa, Law Lecturer and Convenor of Pacific Engagement, University of Waikato

Within minutes of news that crew members of the cargo ship Fesco Askold had tested positive for COVID-19, a social media storm broke across Samoa. COVID-free until then, the island nation’s anxiety was understandable. More so when you consider its history.

Memories of the deadly 2019 measles outbreak were still fresh. But more distant events resonated just as much. Next to images of the cargo ship in the harbour, people were posting pictures of the Talune, the infamous “ship of death” that brought the Spanish influenza virus to Samoa in 1918, devastating the population.

The Fesco Askold had docked in Apia, Samoa, on November 7, before sailing to Pago Pago in American Samoa, where the crew apparently tested positive. Panic increased when a hoax email claimed a school child was a direct contact of a port worker and all parents should immediately collect their children.

The government later corrected the arrival date of the cargo ship in Apia to November 8. None of the crew had left the ship and there was no contact between them and Samoan harbour pilots. Offloaded containers had been sterilised.

The crisis passed, but within weeks another positive COVID-19 test was reported in a quarantined sailor who had arrived in Samoa on a repatriation flight from New Zealand on November 13.

When further tests showed negative results, swabs were sent to Wellington for more analysis. When these were inconclusive, blood samples were sent, with results still pending.

Meanwhile, a chartered flight from the US was due to arrive in Samoa with up to half of the 300 passengers returning sailors. The flight was postponed this week. Two more repatriation flights from New Zealand scheduled for early December are still to be confirmed.

The influenza and measles tragedies

Both New Zealand and Samoa are highly sensitive to the risks of disease spreading. The Talune was quarantined in Fiji in 1918, but no such precautions were taken in Samoa, then under New Zealand administration. Infected passengers were allowed to disembark. Over a fifth of the Samoan population died as a result.

In 2002, the then New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, made a formal apology in person to the people of Samoa for the grievous error of a past government. But in 2019 a measles epidemic that began in New Zealand rocked Samoa, killing 83, nearly all young children. Official inaction by New Zealand was blamed for the tragedy.

Read more: Buying and distributing a COVID-19 vaccine will involve hard ethical and practical choices

While Aotearoa New Zealand has done well controlling COVID-19, Samoa is not nearly as well resourced. Health facilities and expert staff are stretched at best. Furthermore, there are many existing health problems, making the population particularly vulnerable to the virus.

Pictures from other countries of mass graves being prepared for COVID-19 victims trigger traumatic memories in Samoa. Many were buried in this way in 1918 — and even more recently after the devastating 2009 tsunami.

My own family was not spared in what is known as the great Faamai — plague — of 1918. One of my great grandfathers and one of my great, great grandfathers died — two generations in one event.

For Samoans, as for all Pasifika people and Māori, a mass grave is particularly soul-destroying. To be buried without identification and acknowledgement of who the dead are, and their many familial connections, goes against custom and culture.

Samoans mark every rite of passage from the womb to the tomb. This is the basis of our communal structure, embedded in the customs and practices of the Faamatai — more commonly known as the Faa-Samoa or “the Samoan way”.

The lasting effects of 1918

The impact of the 1918 epidemic is also still felt in the laws and political systems of Samoa. In the Land and Titles Court, for example, people represent themselves in an inquisitorial forum reflecting Samoa’s history as a German colony from 1900-1914.

Since 1918, it is not unusual to hear (or read in written petitions) a heartbreaking phrase: Ua tuua ia tama lenei aiga — in our family only the children remained.

For many Samoan families the tragedy resulted in the loss of matai (chiefly) titles and the customary lands owned by those names. The fight by later generations to reclaim their heritage has, rightly or wrongly, given the court its contemporary power, influence and value.

Read more: New cyclone forecasts: why impacts should be the focus of hazardous weather warnings

Right now, Samoans are preparing for a general election in April 2021. The government’s handling of the pandemic is likely to play a major part in campaigning and voting. As a recent Newsline Samoa opinion column was headlined: COVID-19 is a Deadly Virus Not an Election Winner.

Given the current situation and the country’s history, the panic of November 9 was to be expected. Prayers and pleas that this latest plague will pass over Samoa and spare its people are still on the lips of every Samoan, whether they live there or elsewhere.

They know their country could not withstand the ravages of COVID-19 should it reach their shores. In Samoa, 1918 is not a distant memory.

– ref. Devastated by disease in the past, Samoa is on high alert after recent coronavirus scares – https://theconversation.com/devastated-by-disease-in-the-past-samoa-is-on-high-alert-after-recent-coronavirus-scares-150940

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie University

They may have been around for hundreds of millions of years — long before trees — but today sharks and rays are are among the most threatened animals in the world, largely because of overfishing and habitat loss.

Climate change adds another overarching stressor to the mix. So how will sharks cope as the ocean heats up?

Our new research looked at Port Jackson sharks to find out. We found individual sharks adapt in different ways, depending where they came from.

Port Jackson sharks from cooler waters in the Great Australian Bight found it harder to cope with rising temperatures than those living in the warmer water from Jervis Bay in New South Wales.

This is important because it goes against the general assumption that species in warmer, tropical waters are at the greatest risk of climate change. It also illustrates that we shouldn’t assume all populations in one species respond to climate change in the same way, as it can lead to over- or underestimating their sensitivity.

But before we explore this further, let’s look at what exactly sharks will be exposed to in the coming years.

An existential threat

In Australia, the grim reality of climate change is already upon us: we’re seeing intense marine heat waves and coral bleaching events, the disappearance of entire kelp forests, mangrove forest dieback and the continent-wide shifting of marine life.

The southeast of Australia is a global change hotspot, with water temperatures rising at three to four times the global average. In addition to rising water temperatures, oceans are becoming more acidic and the amount of oxygen is declining.

Any one of these factors is cause for concern, but all three may also be acting together.

One may argue sharks have been around for millions of years and survived multiple climate catastrophes, including several global mass extinctions events.

To that, we say life in the anthropocene is characterised by changes in temperature and levels of carbon dioxide on a scale not seen for more than three million years.

Read more: We’ve just discovered two new shark species – but they may already be threatened by fishing

Rapid climate change represents an existential threat to all life on Earth and sharks can’t evolve fast enough to keep up because they tend to be long-lived with low reproductive output (they don’t have many pups). The time between generations is just too long to respond via natural selection.

Dealing with rising temperatures

When it comes to dealing with rising water temperature, sharks have two options: they can change their physiology to adapt, or move towards the poles to cooler waters.

Moving to cooler waters is one of the more obvious responses to climate change, while subtle impacts on physiology, as we studied, have largely been ignored to date. However, they can have big impacts on individual, and ultimately species, distributions and survival.

We collected Port Jackson sharks from cold water around Adelaide and warm water in Jervis Bay. After increasing temperatures by 3℃, we studied their thermal limits (how much heat the sharks could take before losing equilibrium), swimming activity and their resting metabolic rate.

While all populations could adjust their thermal limits, their metabolic rate and swimming activity depended on where the sharks were originally collected from.

Read more: Photos from the field: these magnificent whales are adapting to warming water, but how much can they take?

With a rise in water temperature of just 3℃, the energy required to survive is more than twice that of current day temperatures for the Port Jackson sharks in Adelaide.

The massive shift in energy demand we observed in the Adelaide sharks means they have to prioritise survival (coping mechanisms) over other processes, such as growth and reproduction. This is consistent with several other shark species that have slower growth when exposed to warmer waters, including epaulette sharks and bonnethead sharks.

On the other hand, a 3℃ temperature rise hardly affected the energy demands of the Port Jackson sharks from Jervis Bay at all.

Threatening the whole ecosystem

Discovering what drives responses to heat is important for identifying broader patterns. For example, the decreased sensitivity of the Jervis Bay sharks likely reflects the thermal history of the region.

Read more: Sharks: one in four habitats in remote open ocean threatened by longline fishing

Australia’s southeastern coastline is warmed by the East Australian Current, which varies in strength both throughout the year and from year to year. With each generation exposed to these naturally variable conditions, populations along this coastline have likely become more tolerant to heat.

Populations in the Great Australian Bight, in contrast, don’t experience such variability, which may make them more susceptible to climate change.

So why is this important? When sharks change their behaviour it affects the whole ecosystem.

The implications range from shifts in fish stocks to conservation management, such as where marine reserves are assigned.

Sharks and rays generally rank at the top or in the middle of the food chain, and
have critical ecosystem functions.

Port Jackson sharks, for example, are predators of urchins, and urchins feed on kelp forests — a rich habitat for hundreds of marine species. If the number of sharks decline in a region and the number of urchins increase, then it could lead to the loss of kelp forests.

What’s next?

There’s little research dedicated to understanding how individuals from different populations within species respond to climate change.

We need more of this kind of research, because it can help identify hidden resilience within species, and also highlight populations at greatest risk. We have seen this in action in coral bleaching events in different parts of Australia, for example.

We also need a better handle on how a wide range of species will respond to a changing climate. This will help us understand how communities and ecosystems might fragment, as each ecosystem component responds to warming in different ways and at different speeds.

Steps need to be taken to address these holes in our knowledge base if we’re to prepare for what follows.

Read more: One-fifth of ecosystems in danger of collapse – here’s what that might look like

– ref. How will sharks respond to climate change? It might depend on where they grew up – https://theconversation.com/how-will-sharks-respond-to-climate-change-it-might-depend-on-where-they-grew-up-150460

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yu Tao, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Western Australia

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, about two in every five international students enrolled in Australian higher education institutions were from mainland China. These Chinese students brought in more than $A10 billion a year. During the pandemic, Australian universities have struggled to retain and recruit international students.

The first returning students are due to fly out under a pilot scheme this weekend, arriving in Darwin on Monday. But numbers are very limited due to quarantine requirements.

Read more: COVID to halve international student numbers in Australia by mid-2021 – it’s not just unis that will feel their loss

It’s essential to recruit and retain international students to sustain and develop Australian higher education. The loss of international student fee revenue has prompted universities to make large job cuts. Many are expected to downsize. Some might collapse.

Competition calls for proactive measures

Pilot schemes to bring back small numbers of international students to Darwin, Adelaide and Canberra were announced months ago. However, with priority being given to quarantining returning Australians, the students’ return was delayed.

Australian universities also have other challenges to overcome.

The unravelling relations between Australia and China, if not managed well, may cast a dark shadow over educational exchanges.

Besides, Australia’s pilot plans are small in scale and slow in pace compared to its competitors. British universities such as Queens University Belfast and the University of Manchester have chartered flights to bring students from China back to campus. Canada re-opened its border to all international students on October 20.

Read more: Coronavirus: how likely are international university students to choose Australia over the UK, US and Canada?

The Australian government and higher education sector must be more proactive to remain competitive in international education. Based on my experience as a teacher and researcher of Chinese international students, five approaches are worth considering.

Treat those who are here better

Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, a majority of Australia’s international students remain onshore. The most direct and probably most efficient measure to attract more of these students is to treat those who are already here better.

Universities also have professional and moral obligations to look after students who could not return home to their loved ones. Many are far away from their support networks and unfamiliar with support arrangements in Australia.

Australia is very different from their home country in language, culture, values, governance and politics. COVID amplified the culture shocks and psychological pressures.

Despite being unable to travel due to border closures, international students know and often compare how different countries are treating them. Their opinions, based on first-hand experience, can influence decisions on studying abroad by friends and relatives back home as well as members of their social networks.

Read more: 4 out of 5 international students are still in Australia – how we treat them will have consequences

According to my Chinese international students onshore, fee reductions, personalised care, Chinese-language support services and internship and work opportunities are among the best ways to win them over.

Integrate all students in virtual communities

It’s unlikely students now in China will be allowed to enter Australia en masse any time soon. Many universities continue educating these students through remote teaching and learning activities. However, as one Chinese international student said, her friend in China who attends classes on Zoom “constantly feels lost” due to the “lack of personal experiences [of Australia]”.

Universities need to do much more than providing extra study materials to download. To keep offshore students engaged, universities must ensure they remain full members of the class despite their physical absence. Ways to do this include deliberately mixing them with onshore students for peer mentoring and collective assignments.

Research shows local students are much more likely to engage with international students when they can learn from them. And creating opportunities for international students to share their knowledge can empower them.

Read more: Our unis do need international students and must choose between the high and low roads

Help with cross-border travel

Remote education, if well designed, can keep some offshore students enrolled. However, as Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner points out, teaching online is “a stopgap, not a solution”, because students don’t “have the full experience”.

And students’ inability to travel is a source of pressure and anxiety.

Considering that both Australia and China have largely controlled the virus, the time is ripe for planning a “travel bubble”. Making travel between the countries easier could win the favour of many Chinese students.

Send the right signals

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “go home” message to international students in early April was widely regarded as selfish and unsympathetic in Chinese social media. The damaging effect of such remarks can outweigh other messages of solidarity with these students.

Read more: ‘I love Australia’: 3 things international students want Australians to know

The government’s decision in August to revoke the visas of two leading Australian studies experts from China also shocked many Chinese-born academics and students in Australia. The lack of information, beyond citing security concerns, left room for speculation about whether broader anti-China politics was involved.

Chinese students will only enrol in Australian universities if they and their parents consider the country safe and comfortable to study and live. For Australia to remain a desired study destination, the government needs to send clear and consistent signals.

Embrace Australia’s multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is one of Australia’s finest achievements. Unfortunately, the pandemic has surfaced a degree of exclusion and racism towards temporary visa holders, including international students. Anti-Chinese incidents prompted the Chinese government to warn in June against studying in Australia.

Some Chinese students defended Australia as a safe and desirable study destination. Still, many reported they would consider their government’s warning.

Read more: Students in China heed their government’s warnings against studying in Australia

Chinese-born communities, including international students, have greatly enriched the diversity of Australian society. Yet many policymakers and educators have long framed the need to engage with Asia and China along utilitarian lines such as creating jobs or bringing in money.

These discourses may unintentionally create a status of otherness for Australia’s Chinese-born communities. Many of my students have told me they believe the universities see them as cash cows. They, in turn, consider themselves more as customers than learners.

To get ahead in the increasingly competitive global education market, Australia should integrate international students more meaningfully into its society. Ultimately, making these students feel proud of their contribution to Australian multiculturalism is probably the most sustainable way to strengthen their bonds with their host country.

– ref. 5 ways Australia can get ahead in attracting and retaining Chinese international students – https://theconversation.com/5-ways-australia-can-get-ahead-in-attracting-and-retaining-chinese-international-students-148444

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amelia Thorpe, Associate Professor in Law, UNSW

Five food-delivery cyclists have died on Australian roads in the past three months, four in Sydney. Most commentary has focused on the harsh employment conditions that force people to take risks they shouldn’t have to. These problems should of course be fixed, but cycling in general is too dangerous in our cities.

Read more: Three Charts on the rise in cycling injuries and deaths in Australia

We need to look not just at labour laws but at the laws that shape our streets: things like road rules, planning requirements and engineering standards. Food delivery is a compelling example because it shows cycling is the most efficient way to get around the city.

Despite the efforts of supposedly business-minded people like shock jock Alan Jones and New South Wales’ former roads minister, Duncan Gay (who infamously ripped up infrastructure including a cycleway along College Road in central Sydney and a rainbow crossing on Oxford Street in Surry Hills), businesses have worked out bikes are the best way to move around the city.

Bikes are fastest for distances up to 5km, even for beginners. For more experienced cyclists and during peak hour, bikes are faster for trips of 10km and often even more.

Cycling has wider benefits too. Swapping cars for bikes can reduce the tens of billions of dollars lost in traffic congestion, the many gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and the health impacts of sedentary lifestyles. Even after accidents are taken into account, the health benefits of cycling far outweigh the costs.

Read more: Cycle, walk, drive or train? Weighing up the healthiest (and safest) ways to get around the city

Cycling can also help to improve equity and social inclusion, since the burdens of car-centric development are suffered most by people who are already vulnerable. They include the largely migrant food-delivery workforce.

Food-delivery cyclists are not the only people dying in car crashes. Worldwide, traffic accidents cause more than 1.35 million deaths every year and are the leading killer of children.

Blaming the victims

Instead of focusing on the dangers created by cars and trucks, however, NSW Transport and Roads Minister Andrew Constance this week blamed the victim:

If people are riding around, particularly at night, they have an obligation to make sure they are wearing high-visibility jackets. They’ve obviously got to have the requisite lighting in terms of the bike. They themselves should obviously be putting protective and high-vis clothes on.

Before this week, news stories about food-delivery cyclists were mostly negative. Just last month, police announced a crackdown on delivery cyclists riding on footpaths.

Fears about cyclists injuring pedestrians receive a lot of attention, yet car driving kills three times more people per kilometre than cycling. The danger created by trucks is more than ten times greater per kilometre (and vastly greater overall).

Read more: Cars, bicycles and the fatal myth of equal reciprocity

Rules give priority to cars

Of course, we have all seen cyclists doing risky things. But the issue is less about individual behaviour and more about the regulatory environment. In Sydney and many other places, a plethora of state and federal rules and regulations give priority to cars in our cities.

Planning rules entrench the dominance of cars by mandating the provision of car parking (despite its significant impact on housing affordability). Engineering standards support high-speed travel.

Road rules and policing practices also enforce the dominance of cars on streets. An example is penalising pedestrians who step onto or cross the road within 20 metres of a zebra crossing. In contrast, sanctions for dangerous driving are weak and poorly enforced, and cycling is left out of driver education.

Infrastructure is a problem too

Lopsided budget allocations and infrastructure make the situation worse. Even projects supposedly aimed at pedestrians and cyclists often benefit cars far more. An example is overpasses that increase walking and cycling distances, while giving cars a smooth, lights-free ride.

Read more: Cycling and walking can help drive Australia’s recovery – but not with less than 2% of transport budgets

The challenge is particularly acute in older areas, where streets were not designed for high car use. Calls for bike lanes, widened footpaths and other infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists are often refused on the grounds of lack of space. But why do cars get what little space there is?

The site of Sunday’s death is a clear example. The intersection where the cyclist was killed by an excavator-carrying truck is not a highway but a relatively narrow street with houses and a school. Should large trucks really be driving on streets like this?

Read more: Physical distancing is here for a while – over 100 experts call for more safe walking and cycling space

Law reform is overdue

Internationally, there is a growing recognition that legal reform is needed to improve safety, and in turn to achieve both individual and national benefits. The Dutch approach has long been celebrated, both for the high quality of cycling infrastructure and the high level of liability for car drivers. The Swedish Vision Zero has also been influential, with cities around the world introducing laws and policies to eliminate deaths in traffic.

Read more: Cars overwhelmingly cause bike collisions, and the law should reflect that

Even in the US, where car culture is deeply entrenched, many cities are adopting complete streets legislation. These laws require streets to be planned, designed, operated and maintained to enable safe, convenient and comfortable access for users of all ages and abilities, regardless of their transport mode.

In Australia, councils like the City of Sydney are taking very positive actions to support cycling, but this alone is not enough. To save the lives of delivery riders – and everyone else – we need legal reforms at the state and federal levels.

– ref. Delivery rider deaths highlight need to make streets safer for everyone – https://theconversation.com/delivery-rider-deaths-highlight-need-to-make-streets-safer-for-everyone-150752

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

It is widely tipped that US president-elect Joe Biden will nominate Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary – one of the most important posts in any administration.

She will make for a terrific Treasury Secretary, bringing with her a wealth of experience and a lot of IQ points. Her appointment also signals what kind of president Biden is likely to be.

Yellen (born August 13, 1946) comes with impeccable credentials. She received her PhD in economics from Yale under Nobel-prize-winning economist James Tobin. She was on the faculty at Harvard and for a long time at the University of California, Berkeley. She was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Bill Clinton and went on to be president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

President Barack Obama nominated her in 2010 to be vice-chair of the US Federal Reserve. In 2013 she succeeded Ben Bernanke to become the Fed’s 15th chair.

With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, she is the very model of a modern policy maker.

A centrist and experienced administrator

Yellen is in many ways a traditional centre-left economist. Her academic work focused mainly on imperfections in labour markets and how unemployment can arise.

One of her best-known papers concerns how workers will put in less effort if they think they are being paid below what they consider to be a “fair” wage.

As chair of the Federal Reserve, given the tough position the US economy was in, Yellen used monetary policy in a conventional and aggressive way – much like her more conservative successor Jerome Powell has done.

But she also championed tougher financial regulation and emphasised that economic inequality was not merely an intrinsic concern but could be a drag on economic growth.

Though Yellen is in every way an excellent choice to head the US Department of the Treasury, Biden had other options.

He was under pressure to nominate someone much further to the left. Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of Biden’s rivals for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, reportedly wanted the job herself – although to her credit she has praised Yellen as “an outstanding choice” in recent days.

Yellen may believe in tougher financial regulation, but Warren would have been more than that; she has called the business of Wall Street “legalised looting”, indicated her desire to destroy the entire private equity industry, and to impose a wealth tax of 6% a year – enough to destroy capital accumulation, if not capitalism itself.

All of this signals that Biden, in eschewing the more radical Warren, is (a) not crazy, and (b) planning to run a centrist administration.

Read more: Vital Signs: talk of a US wealth tax is about symbolism as much as it is about economics

The importance of the Treasury Secretary

It is hard for Australians to understand just how important the role of Treasury Secretary is in the US government. Yes, the role of Australia’s federal treasurer is regarded as second only to the Prime Minister, but that is in the context of cabinet government with an expenditure review committee.

By contrast, the US Treasury Secretary (with the support of the US president) wields almost unfettered economic authority.

That might be a blessing and a curse for Yellen, for she will take office with the US in the worst economic shape since the Great Depression.

From day one the whole Biden administration, Yellen included, will face huge challenges.

First, it must get the COVID-19 pandemic – now running rampant – under control. As any amount of international evidence has shown, one can’t have a functioning economy during a pandemic.

Read more: Data from 45 countries show containing COVID vs saving the economy is a false dichotomy

Pandemic control itself will not be Yellen’s job. But what will be immediately important, and within her purview, is getting Congress to pass a stimulus package to boost the US economy while the virus is brought under control through various measures – perhaps even including the rollout of a vaccine.

That will be no easy task. Republicans in “red” states that have set aside so-called “rainy-day funds” feel loathe to fund what they basically see as a bailout to Democratic “blue” states who haven’t done the same. Senator Mitt Romney made exactly this point when talking to CNN podcast host and former Obama advisor David Axelrod last week.

Beyond the immediate coronavirus response, Yellen will also face big challenges – perhaps the most vexing ones of all.

Economic problems beyond the pandemic

Prior to COVID-19, the US economy was in a low-growth, low-inflation funk. Something former treasury secretary Larry Summers has famously referred to as “secular stagnation”.

This is where Janet Yellen, labour economist, may be just the person to be in charge of the treasury.

What economists and policy makers alike still don’t understand is why the speed limit of the US (and other advanced) economies seems to have dropped. Why is it unemployment needs to be close to 3% to get wage growth moving in the US? Why is inflation persistently low even in the face of very loose monetary policy?

This is also where Janet Yellen, former Fed chair, may also be the perfect person to be in charge. Thinking hard about how very low interest rates and fiscal policy interact in a practical way is a deeply important issue.

Plenty of smart people are working on that problem, but there is something unique about a former Fed chair and current Treasury Secretary marshalling an effort to provide a better understanding of this interaction.

When Biden officially announces (and the Senate confirms) Yellen’s appointment, we can look forward to one of the great economic policy makers of our time helping to deal with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

– ref. Vital Signs: Janet Yellen, the very model of a modern Madam Secretary – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-janet-yellen-the-very-model-of-a-modern-madam-secretary-150836

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Paterson, ARC Future Fellow, University of Western Australia

Two new Australian museums are emerging from old ones as the year draws to a close.

The new Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney assembles rich collections from across the campus, and the WA Museum Boola Bardip (Noongar for “Many Stories”) has opened in Perth. Museums remain relevant in a globalised world where stories of objects and collecting connect people, institutions, places and ideas.

Our Collecting the West Project, in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum, the State Library of WA, the Art Gallery of WA and the British Museum, explores the history of collecting in WA since the late 1600s.

We are tracing the role of collecting in histories of empire, exploration and colonisation; the relations between natural history and ethnographic collecting; the role of state instrumentalities and private individuals; and the networks between them.

Here, we highlight five objects, some displayed in Boola Bardip’s Treasures Gallery, to reveal how they can provide us with insights into history, values, emotions and power.

1. Everything was contemporary once — Corona Smoking Bucket, 2020

On March 26 2020, the WA government suspended tourist operations on Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) to support the government response to the pandemic. Australian citizens aboard the Vasco de Gama cruise ship were directed to be quarantined on the island from Monday March 30.

Whadjuk monitors Ben Ugle and Brendan Moore were on the island to support conservation works at the heritage site — a prison that once held Aboriginal people from all over WA, where many died.

The two Whadjuk men chose to perform a smoking ceremony for the island’s transition to pandemic quarantine facility. Smoking ceremonies are often conducted to cleanse a place spiritually, such as after a death, to welcome people, and as a sign of respect to people including past elders.

A metal tin was found for the smoking ceremony — given the unplanned nature of the event, the only suitable vessel they could find was a Corona beer bucket. Seeing the irony in the serendipitous use of this object, the “Corona Smoking Bucket” was collected for The Wadjemup Museum on Rottnest Island in March 2020.

Like many objects, this bucket symbolises several histories: the fact of its collection, the impact of a global pandemic at a local level, growing recognition of Indigenous cultural practices and the connection between an Indigenous smoking ceremony and the island’s dark history of Aboriginal incarceration (circa 1838-1931).

These histories compete also with the island’s later use — as the site of decades of annual school leavers’ celebrations, reflected in the presence of the Corona bucket.

Read more: Indigenous medicine – a fusion of ritual and remedy

2. Collections carry emotions — Shell, Shark Bay, 1820

This watercolour and ink drawing of a beautiful shell — the Volute ethiopienne — was drawn from a specimen brought back from Shark Bay in 1820 as part of the French Freycinet expedition. It can now be found in the State Library of Western Australia.

Shells from WA were prized for their beauty, part of the Enlightenment’s love affair with discovering the diversity of the natural world.

Aboriginal people have long valued shells for ornamentation and exchange. Shells were also attractive items for some of the earliest European explorers of the WA coast.

In 1697, for instance, Willem de Vlamingh, a Dutch sea captain working for the Dutch East India Company, collected a number of shells from Shark Bay, including a nautilus and a conch. He failed to find the shipwreck he was searching for, but helped to chart the coast. The English explorer William Dampier arrived in 1699 and some of the shells he collected in Shark Bay ended up in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

French explorers followed. Nicolas Baudin’s expedition took a considerable number of shells back to Paris, where they can now be seen at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle.

In his journal of the Baudin expedition, the naturalist François Peron described a mussel he found on the shore:

Of all the species of mussels known so far, the one that I discovered [in Shark Bay] is incontestably the most beautiful. Stripped of its marine coating, it shines with the most vivid colours of the prism and precious stones; it is dazzling, if I may say so.

Read more: Friday essay: the voyage of Nicolas Baudin and ‘art in the service of science’

3. Mokare’s place — Spear-thrower, King George Sound, (Albany), c.1831

This spear-thrower was collected by Alexander Collie, the government resident at King George Sound between 1831-33, who formed a close friendship with Menang Noongar man Mokare.

Such historic objects remind us that many collections of plants and objects were formed with the expert assistance of Aboriginal people who knew the land intimately.

The spear-thrower also highlights how objects can embody moments of unexpected friendships, such as the close relationship that developed between Collie and Mokare. Mokare lived with Collie in his hut in the settlement of Albany in 1831, and when near death, Collie asked to be buried beside his friend.

Collie had worked as a naval surgeon and sent objects he collected back to the Royal Navy’s Haslar Hospital Naval Museum at Portsmouth, to assist in naval education. In 1855 the admiralty disbanded the museum, depositing the spear-thrower and other objects in the British Museum.

In 2016-2017, the spear-thrower, along with other objects collected by Collie, returned to Albany to be displayed in the Yurlmun exhibition, which focused on the meaning of these collections to Menang Noongar people today. Despite these objects being only a temporary loan from the British Museum (where they are now in storage), the Menang people viewed their arrival as a “return home to country”.

The objects collected by Collie point to the role of the Royal Navy as a key network of colonisation; the agency of individual Aboriginal people in processes of colonial collection and the potential of these collections to highlight not only the role played by Indigenous people such as Mokare but also the cultural knowledge contained in the objects themselves.

A much earlier collection of weapons, also from Albany, hints at the complexity of collecting practices undertaken within colonial contexts. A Royal Navy surveying expedition, captained by Phillip Parker King, visited King George Sound in December 1821. The crew were engaged with the Menang people in a prolonged and intimate trading exchange for two weeks. In exchange for ships’ biscuit, the crew collected:

one hundred spears, thirty throwing sticks, forty hammers, one hundred and fifty knives and a few hand-clubs.

By contrast, at Hanover Bay on today’s Kimberley coast, a few months earlier, a cache of Worrorra weapons and artefacts were taken as a retaliatory theft for the spearing of the crew’s surgeon.

The crew members related this theft in their journals with the language of revenge: “taking possession of”, “riches”, “spoil”, “prize” and “treasure”, where they took pleasure in “capturing” an Aboriginal “depot”.

These collecting moments reveal different kinds of intimacies — of friendships and violence, trade and exchange — that occurred during early coastal encounters. They also explain why there is no early material from WA in Western Australian collections — most went to Britain as a result of these imperial networks.

4. Colonialism never dies — Wooden dish, Broome, pre 1892

This small wooden bowl carries a history that hints at the role of colonial state instrumentalities in collecting. It is part of a large collection at the WA Museum known as the Phillips Collection.

George Braithwaite Phillips was the commissioner of police between 1887-1890. His family was amongst the first colonists to emigrate to the Swan River Colony (now Perth), coming from Barbados, where they owned sugar plantations.

Phillips had been a high profile civil servant and the commandant of the Western Australian Military Forces. From those positions he was able to commandeer a large network of policemen throughout the colony to collect both Aboriginal material culture and human remains.

Many of the Aboriginal objects collected by police, though not the ancestral human remains, were displayed at International Exhibitions in Paris, Glasgow and Melbourne.

Read more: The violent collectors who gathered Indigenous artefacts for the Queensland Museum

The collection, which included this bowl from Broome, made by Yawuru people, helped form the new Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery in 1894. (The bowl can now be seen at WA Museum Boola Bardip.)

Bernard Woodward, the museum’s first director, continued to ask Phillips for help in sourcing both ethnographic objects and human remains, many of them destined to be exchanged for natural history specimens and ethnographic material from other parts of the world.

So, this bowl is a powerful object. It speaks to Aboriginal cultural practices, the police as active agents of colonisation, and the complex terrain of colonial encounters and their aftermath that form part of the museum’s own inheritance — now slowly being addressed in consultation with relevant communities.

5. Collections are commodities — Red figure hydria, 350-320BC

This red figure vase (circa 350-320BC), probably from Bari — then a Greek colony — was, according to the museum’s first art and craft register, given by Professor E H Giglioli in 1902. Giglioli (1845-1909) was the Director of the Museo Zoologico in Florence — a zoologist and anthropologist remembered as the father of Italian science.

He visited Australia in 1867, writing a book on Australian Aboriginal people. Giglioli understood the uniqueness of WA’s flora and fauna, seeking valuable specimens with which to build his own collection and to trade for other specimens from elsewhere in the world.

Giglioli sent Roman and Etruscan antiquities he acquired in Italy to Perth in exchange for natural history specimens, human remains and ethnographic material.

Collections circulated through collecting institutions, often exchanged or bartered. Giglioli exchanged the WA material with the Smithsonian Museum.

In Australia, antiquities from Europe had their own rarity value. Widely understood as the foundation of Western culture and aesthetics, antiquities were hard to come by in colonial society.

In 1904, Woodward wrote:

it is of paramount importance that the local craftsmen should have good examples to study, in order that they may successfully compete with their fellows in the older centres of civilisation.

The notion of civilisation was especially important in a young nation. Colonial societies, wanting to demonstrate their rightful place amongst civilised societies, often purchased copies of originals.

So it is not surprising Woodward wanted to exchange Western Australian natural history and ethnographic specimens for objects representing the high end of European artistic production or material representing the birth of European civilisation.

This was part of his effort to educate Western Australians into what they thought was the best that Western civilisation offered.

While this was a way for museums around the world to build their collections, it also involved practices that are totally discredited today and which many find deeply distressing. It is important to know about this history and address its legacies. 

The collections made by early explorers and settlers, sometimes in collaboration with Indigenous peoples, are important for their role in the development of knowledge about WA, opening up areas of scientific discovery and knowledge about First Peoples, the richness of the state’s flora and fauna and our shared historical experiences.

They are also tangible symbols of colonialism and its legacy today.

– ref. Friday essay: 5 museum objects that tell a story of colonialism and its legacy – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-5-museum-objects-that-tell-a-story-of-colonialism-and-its-legacy-150642

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

The government’s provision of a RAAF plane for Mathias Cormann’s barnstorming campaign to become OECD secretary-general has stirred predictable outrage, especially when linked to the understandable emotion around the (unrelated) struggle of Australians trying to return home.

But the reaction is, in my view, not justified.

The post is a significant one. If Cormann lands the job – it’s a very tough contest – this would be useful for Australia, especially as the world crawls out of the COVID hole (although he’d be appointed as an individual, rather than Australia’s representative).

The OECD, with 37 members, mostly developed countries, is an intergovernmental body that is, in the words of a former director, Adrian Blundell-Wignall, “the only place where government officials sit down to discuss common problems at the working level in a shifting dynamic world”.

Yes, Cormann could have travelled commercially, but it would have been difficult in the age of COVID. A Zoom campaign would have been possible, but probably not have given him the best chance of success.

Read more: Simon Birmingham to become finance minister and Senate leader as Australia nominates Cormann for OECD

So the government is easing his path, making available staff for his campaign as well as the plane. And the prime minister is lobbying anyone of significance he speaks to. Scott Morrison was in Joe Biden’s ear about Cormann in his phone call congratulating the president-elect, and in the ear of the Japanese prime minister during their meeting.

But in the battle for votes Cormann, with plenty of qualifications (long-term former finance minister, multilingual) is carrying a big handicap. Australia is seen as a laggard on climate policy, and his own credentials on the issues go against him.

Way back in 2009 when he resigned from Malcolm Turnbull’s shadow ministry, climate change was at the heart of it. He and two other frontbenchers who were quitting said in a joint statement: “We are opposed to the passage of Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme prior to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and before any similar action by our major trading partners. Consequently, we are unable to support the Leader of the Opposition’s decision to support the passage of these bills.”

Only too aware of the problem he has, Cormann is taking on as much of a green tinge as he can to assist him in his campaign.

In his “vision statement” for the job, Cormann says, “Climate policy responses will increasingly need to factor into long-term planning,” and “we must get to zero net emissions as soon as possible”.

The Australian Greens are lobbying OECD countries not to support Cormann.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has written to them saying the organisation “requires a leader with a clear commitment to addressing the climate crisis”, but Cormann’s “record on climate change has been to block action at every turn”.

While Cormann works to convince the OECD he’d be in tune on climate policies Morrison, driven by his own political needs, is slowly repositioning his government on the issue. Morrison knows he’ll be operating in changed circumstances in the next year, and he’s manoeuvring to adapt to them.

Tony Abbott once famously described himself as a “weathervane” on climate policy. Morrison is a genuine weathervane on many things. And, as he looks towards 2021, he is aware Australia risks being severely buffeted unless it is seen to be more credible in its climate policy.

Biden’s appointment this week of John Kerry, former secretary of state and former presidential candidate, as the US climate envoy underscores the importance the new administration is putting on the issue. Kerry calls it “the biggest challenge of this generation and those that will follow”.

Morrison has already sought to find common ground with Biden by stressing, when they spoke, their mutual interest in elevating the role of technology in reducing emissions.

In an address this month Morrison told business leaders the government’s “ambition” was to avoid using Australia’s Kyoto carryover credits (gained by exceeding previous targets) in meeting its Paris targets. The potential use of these credits has been widely criticised.

He flagged he’d have “more to say about this before the end of the year as we update our emissions projections”. This suggests he knows these figures will point to a likely positive story on the carryovers.

Morrison has already pivoted from coal. It seems only yesterday that, when treasurer, he brandished a lump of coal in the House of Representatives – but for him it’s a lifetime ago. Former resources minister Matt Canavan, from the Nationals, is still spruiking the case for building coal-fired power stations, but he’s baying at the moon. Experts don’t expect the feasibility study for a Queensland coal-fired project to return a positive result.

As he’s moved away from coal, Morrison has talked up gas excessively, inviting a mixture of condemnation and scepticism. But in practice gas is likely to settle into a relatively modest place to help the transition to renewables.

Read more: Mathias Cormann wants to lead the OECD. The choice it makes will be pivotal

In terms of symbols and intentions, the major test for Morrison has become whether he signs Australia up to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

You can see this target as meaning everything and not that much.

Not that much because, even acknowledging the need for long-term planning, 30 years is a time-frame in which anything can happen and a government making promises today knows it won’t be around for the reckoning.

But the target means everything because, in the current international and domestic context, accepting it would demonstrate good faith and serious intent. It would bring Australia into line with the majority of countries and – significantly – with all Australian states and territories.

How can it be that the federal government is out of step with every other Australian government? It seems ridiculous.

Morrison is crab-walking towards the target. “Looking beyond 2030 we want to reach net zero emissions as quickly as possible and to achieve this through technology, not higher taxes,” he said in his business speech.

The question is whether, pushed by international forces and the approach of an election, Morrison will adopt the target ahead of the Glasgow climate conference late next year.

Liberal backbencher and former diplomat Dave Sharma wrote this week: “Australia will work closely with Britain to make the next global climate change conference, COP26, a major step forward in dealing with climate change.”

To do that, Australia will need to accept the 2050 target. British PM Boris Johnson has already stressed to Morrison “the importance of setting ambitious targets to cut emissions and reach net zero”.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: A Biden presidency would put pressure on Scott Morrison over climate change

In his nomination speech this week, Kerry said: “At the global meeting in Glasgow one year from now, all nations must raise ambition together or we will all fail together. And failure is not an option.”

If Australia is not to be an outlier at Glasgow, Morrison has less than a year to move from a commitment to reach net zero “as quickly as possible” to Australia doing it “by 2050”. For him, it’s not a large step; within the Coalition it’s very slippery ground.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Will Morrison adopt 2050 target before Glasgow climate conference? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-will-morrison-adopt-2050-target-before-glasgow-climate-conference-150959

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tambri Housen, Epidemiologist | Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University

“Test, trace and isolate” has become the catch cry of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s recognised as an essential strategy for containing the spread of the virus.

The “trace” part, of course, refers to contact tracing — the process of identifying people who may have come into contact with an infected person, so we can prevent further transmission of the virus.

Contact tracing can only be successful if three things happen:

1. the contact tracer asks the right questions

2. the person who has tested positive provides detailed and accurate information on whom they’ve had contact with

3. every person identified as a close contact can be reached and quarantines as requested.

So what can you expect if a contact tracer calls you?

Read more: Explainer: what is contact tracing and how does it help limit the coronavirus spread?

The contact tracer’s puzzle

If you’ve tested positive for COVID-19, a public health officer will call to interview you. The contact tracer is interested in two specific time periods.

The first piece of the contact-tracing puzzle is the time from two days before you developed your first symptoms until the time you began your isolation. This is known as the “infectious period”.

If you didn’t develop symptoms, you will be asked about the two days prior to your test and the period after you were tested until you began isolating.

Contact tracers are interested in the infectious period because this is when someone who has tested positive is most likely to infect others.

Contact tracers will ask you to recall everywhere you went during your infectious period, whom you were with, what type of contact you had with each person, and for how long.

For example, if you went to the pub for dinner you’re likely to be asked:

• where did you sit?

• who was with you?

• how long were you at the pub for?

• did the staff serve at the table or did you order at the bar?

• did you go to the bathroom?

• was there social distancing?

• did you talk to anyone else (other than the people you were with)?

There might be more questions too.

Based on all this information, contact tracers will determine who meets the definition of a close contact and therefore needs to be called, asked to quarantine, and followed up to check if they develop symptoms.

Read more: How long are you infectious when you have coronavirus?

The second piece of the puzzle is the “incubation period”. Experts believe the incubation period for COVID-19 is up to 14 days. This means if you’re going to develop COVID symptoms, it’s likely to happen within 14 days of you being exposed to the virus.

So, if you test positive, contact tracers will also ask you where you’ve been and whom you were with for the 14 days before you developed symptoms.

For contact tracers this information is essential. It can be the difference between being able to stop the spread or seeing many more people become infected with the virus.

When two or more people who have tested positive for COVID-19 report being at the same place at the same time, this leads to a more in-depth epidemiological investigation, and can help identify other people who may have also been exposed to the virus at this place and time.

Essentially, the first piece of the puzzle is about ascertaining to whom you might have spread the virus, whereas the second is more concerned with whom you might have picked it up from.

What if I can’t remember?

Many of us can’t remember what we did two days ago, let alone every day for 14 days. Contact tracers may use a variety of tools to help you remember where you were and what you were doing.

They may ask you to look up your bank statements to recall where you used your debit or credit card (they won’t ask to see this, but it can help jog your memory). They may also ask you to check your text messages, social media posts and photos you’ve taken on your phone as a way of helping you remember.

What about my right to privacy?

It’s not usual to be asked about where you were every minute of every day. On top of dealing with the diagnosis of COVID-19, this can be a confronting experience. It can feel like an invasion of privacy and it might feel threatening.

Some people may be involved in things they don’t want others, including people close to them, to know about. For example, a teenager may not want their parents to find out they were somewhere they shouldn’t have been; an adult having an affair or taking part in an illegal activity may want to keep their movements private.

There are many reasons people may not feel comfortable disclosing their exact movements at every moment of the day to a stranger on the phone.

However, if you are in this position, to keep your loved ones and community safe, it’s essential you answer the contact tracer’s questions honestly and to the very best of your ability.

Contact tracers are not there to judge you, report you or get you into trouble. They’re bound by the Privacy Act 1988, which sets out that health information can only be used for the primary purpose for which it is collected. So information collected through contact tracing can only be used for contact tracing.

Ensuring confidence in the process

It’s important to understand there may be many reasons why people make decisions to disclose or not disclose particular things.

Last week, authorities made judgemental statements and revealed the gender, nationality and place of work of the person in South Australia who tested positive for COVID-19 and didn’t fully disclose their movements. This “blame game”, which spread to the media and onto social media, is not OK.

We need to build a culture of trust so people feel comfortable disclosing personal and private information, knowing they won’t be judged or punished as a result. This is how we’ll get the best results from contact tracing.

Read more: Hating on the Woodville Pizza guy won’t fix a problem that was entirely foreseeable

– ref. What can you expect if you get a call from a COVID contact tracer? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-you-expect-if-you-get-a-call-from-a-covid-contact-tracer-150742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s release from an Iranian prison after more than two years’ detention is certainly a welcome development.

However, the circumstances raise some uncomfortable questions for Australian and Western diplomats related to Iran’s penchant for using hostage-taking as a bargaining chip for the release of its own citizens detained abroad for suspected or proven crimes, including terrorism.

There seems little doubt Moore-Gilbert was released as part of a prisoner exchange. Iranian state media has shown pictures of the academic with Australian embassy officials in Tehran, juxtaposed with film of three Iranian men being welcomed by Iranian officials, apparently at Tehran’s airport.

The Iranian media says she was exchanged for an Iranian “economic activist” and two Iranian citizens, who had been detained “abroad on trumped-up charges”. The report does not name the men.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given a carefully worded statement in response to questions about a prisoner swap.

If other people have been released in other places, they are the decisions of the sovereign governments. There are no people who have been held in Australia who have been released.

That may be true as far as Australia is concerned. But a report by The New York Times, quoting Iranian social media channels associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), identifies the three Iranians as Saeed Moradi, Mohammad Khazaei and Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh.

The three had been detained in Thailand since 2012 on charges of planning to plant bombs in Bangkok and assassinate Israeli diplomats there. One of those men had reportedly lost his legs when a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely.

Read more: I kept silent to protect my colleague and friend, Kylie Moore-Gilbert. But Australia’s quiet diplomatic approach is not working

In a similar context, the release last year of two Australians being held in Iran, Jolie King and Mark Firkin, coincided with an Iranian research student at the University of Queensland, Reza Dehbashi Kivi, being permitted by Australian officials to return to his home country.

Dehbashi Kivi had allegedly been seeking to export radar equipment for detecting stealth planes in contravention of US sanctions. The ABC reported at the time the US was seeking his extradition.

Quiet diplomacy usually works best

The Australian government is depicting Moore-Gilbert’s release as a win for quiet diplomacy in assisting Australians arrested abroad.

There is no doubt a calm and measured approach is the most effective way of resolving knotty consular cases – even when the charges levelled against our citizens seem highly doubtful, as was the case with Moore-Gilbert.

This approach worked with the release of journalist Peter Greste from detention in Egypt in 2015, although there is no evidence of any prisoner exchange or other quid pro quo in that case.

In the Moore-Gilbert case, the apparent prisoner exchange would have required the agreement of the Thai government, and possibly clearing the arrangement with Israel as well, given the Iranians held in Thailand had reportedly been plotting attacks against Israeli interests. Quite an effort for “quiet diplomacy”.

Australians travelling abroad are constantly reminded they are subject to the laws of the country they are visiting. If an Australian is detained abroad, the most consular officials can usually do is ensure that person is treated fairly and humanely in accordance with local laws.

Thumping the table and making demands, even if the charges seem totally outrageous, is usually totally counter-productive.

A fraught relationship

The situation for Australians who get into trouble in Iran is particularly fraught. Australia’s relations with Iran are tense at normal times. The Iranian security authorities see Australia as close not only to the US, but to Israel, and are therefore suspicious of Australians.

If an Australian is a dual-Iranian national, Iranian law treats him or her as an Iranian citizen, further complicating the task of consular officials when individuals are detained.

Read more: The Australian government needs to step up its fight to free Kylie Moore-Gilbert from prison in Iran

Iran has reason to be particularly suspicious of US and Israeli hostility at the moment.

In July, there were reports of a series of explosions at sites linked Iran’s missile and nuclear programs.

Media reports suggested Israel was responsible. Israel has a history of unattributed attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, including use of the Stuxnet computer virus, which US officials have confirmed was developed in partnership with the US.

Moreover, under the Trump administration, the US has had a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran’s economy, which has drastically curtailed Iran’s oil exports. Israel’s Defence Forces have also been instructed to prepare for the possibility Trump may order a military strike against Iran in the final days of his presidency, according to Axios.

Other Westerners still being detained

Complicating Australia’s relationship with Iran even further are the different power centres in Iran.

Iran’s IRGC has the power to overrule all civilian authorities, including President Hassan Rouhani. It was significant that Moore-Gilbert was arrested when seeking to leave Iran after attending an academic conference to which she had been formally invited. This implied official approval to enter and leave the country.

Read more: Infographic: what is the conflict between the US and Iran about and how is Australia now involved?

Diplomatic and consular officials in Tehran must also deal with the Iranian Foreign Ministry in cases involving detained foreigners. The foreign ministry is often powerless in cases in which the IRGC has an interest.

So Moore-Gilbert’s release at this time is remarkably fortuitous, particularly as Iran currently holds more than 10 Westerners or dual-national citizens captive.

However, if it is confirmed that the deal is a direct prisoner exchange, criticism here and among our allies that Australia has aided and abetted Iran’s hostage taking strategy is bound to grow.

– ref. Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been released. But will a prisoner swap with Australia encourage more hostage-taking by Iran? – https://theconversation.com/kylie-moore-gilbert-has-been-released-but-will-a-prisoner-swap-with-australia-encourage-more-hostage-taking-by-iran-150942

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antony Burnham, Research Fellow, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University

Earth is the only planet we know contains life. Is our planet special? Scientists over the years have mulled over what factors are essential for, or beneficial to, life. The answers will help us identify other potentially inhabited planets elsewhere in the galaxy.

To understand what conditions were like in Earth’s early years, our research tried to recreate the chemical balance of the boiling magma ocean that covered the planet billions of years ago, and conducted experiments to see what kind of atmosphere it would have produced. Working with colleagues in France and the United States, we found Earth’s first atmosphere was likely a thick, inhospitable soup of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, much like what we see on Venus today.

Read more: If there is life on Venus, how could it have got there? Origin of life experts explain

How Earth got its first atmosphere

A rocky planet like Earth is born through a process called “accretion”, in which initially small particles clump together under the pull of gravity to form larger and larger bodies. The smaller bodies, called “planetesimals”, look like asteroids, and the next size up are “planetary embryos”. There may have been many planetary embryos in the early Solar System, but the only one that still survives is Mars, which is not a fully fledged planet like Earth or Venus.

The late stages of accretion involve giant impacts that release enormous amounts of energy. We think the last impact in Earth’s accretion involved a Mars-sized embryo hitting the growing Earth, spinning off our Moon, and melting most or all of what was left.

The impact would have left Earth covered in a global sea of molten rock called a “magma ocean”. The magma ocean would have leaked hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen gases, to form Earth’s first atmosphere.

What the first atmosphere was like

We wanted to know exactly what kind of atmosphere this would have been, and how it would have changed as it, and the magma ocean beneath, cooled down. The crucial thing to understand is what was happening with the element oxygen, because it controls how the other elements combine.

If there was little oxygen around, the atmosphere would have been rich in hydrogen (H₂), ammonia (NH₃) and carbon monoxide (CO) gases. With abundant oxygen, it would have been made of a much friendlier mix of gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), water vapour (H₂O) and molecular nitrogen (N₂).

Read more: The rise and fall of oxygen

So we needed to work out the chemistry of oxygen in the magma ocean. The key was to determine how much oxygen was chemically bonded to the element iron. If there’s a lot of oxygen, it bonds to iron in a 3:2 ratio, but if there is less oxygen we see a 1:1 ratio. The actual ratio may vary between these extremes.

When the magma ocean eventually cooled down, it became Earth’s mantle (the layer of rock beneath the planet’s crust). So we made the assumption that the oxygen-iron bonding ratios in the magma ocean would have been the same as they are in the mantle today.

We have plenty of samples of the mantle, some brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions and others by tectonic processes. From these, we could work out how to put together a matching mix of chemicals in the laboratory.

In the lab

We determined this atmosphere was composed of CO₂ and H₂O. Nitrogen would have been in its elemental form (N₂) rather than the toxic gas ammonia (NH₃).

But what would have happened when the magma ocean cooled down? It seems the early Earth cooled enough for the water vapour to condense out of the atmosphere, forming oceans of liquid water like we see today. This would have left an atmosphere with 97% CO₂ and 3% N₂, at a total pressure roughly 70 times today’s atmospheric pressure. Talk about a greenhouse effect! But the Sun was less than three-quarters as bright then as it is now.

How Earth avoided the fate of Venus

This ratio of CO₂ to N₂ is strikingly like the present atmosphere on Venus. So why did Venus, but not Earth, retain the hellishly hot and toxic environment we observe today?

The answer is that Venus was too close to the Sun. It simply never cooled down enough to form water oceans. Instead, the H₂O in the atmosphere stayed as water vapour and was slowly but inexorably lost to space.

On the early Earth, the water oceans instead slowly but steadily drew down CO₂ from the atmosphere by reaction with rock – a reaction known to science for the past 70 years as the “Urey reaction”, after the Nobel prizewinner who discovered it – and reducing atmospheric pressure to what we observe today.

So, although both planets started out almost identically, it is their different distances from the Sun that put them on divergent paths. Earth became more conducive to life while Venus became increasingly inhospitable.

Read more: Ancient minerals on Earth can help explain the early solar system

– ref. Ancient Earth had a thick, toxic atmosphere like Venus – until it cooled off and became liveable – https://theconversation.com/ancient-earth-had-a-thick-toxic-atmosphere-like-venus-until-it-cooled-off-and-became-liveable-150934

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernadette McCabe, Professor and Principal Scientist, University of Southern Queensland

Biomethane technology is no longer on the backburner in Australia after an announcement this week that gas from Sydney’s Malabar wastewater plant will be used to power up to 24,000 homes.

Biomethane, also known as renewable natural gas, is produced when bacteria break down organic material such as human waste.

The demonstration project is the first of its kind in Australia. But many may soon follow: New South Wales’ gas pipelines are reportedly close to more than 30,000 terajoules (TJs) of potential biogas, enough to supply 1.4 million homes.

Critics say the project will do little to dent Australia’s greenhouse emissions. But if deployed at scale, gas captured from wastewater can help decarbonise our gas grid and bolster energy supplies. The trial represents the chance to demonstrate an internationally proven technology on Australian soil.

What’s the project all about?

Biomethane is a clean form of biogas. Biogas is about 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other contaminants. Turning biogas into biomethane requires technology that scrubs out the contaminants – a process called upgrading.

The resulting biomethane is 98% methane. While methane produces CO₂ when burned at the point of use, biomethane is considered “zero emissions” – it does not add to greenhouse gas emissions. This is because:

• it captures methane produced from anaerobic digestion, in which microorganisms break down organic material. This methane would otherwise have been released to the atmosphere

• it is used in place of fossil fuels, displacing those CO₂ emissions.

Biomethane can also produce negative emissions if the CO₂ produced from upgrading it is used in other processes, such as industry and manufacturing.

Biomethane is indistinguishable from natural gas, so can be used in existing gas infrastructure.

Read more: Biogas: smells like a solution to our energy and waste problems

The Malabar project, in southeast Sydney, is a joint venture between gas infrastructure giant Jemena and utility company Sydney Water. The A$13.8 million trial is partly funded by the federal government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Sydney Water, which runs the Malabar wastewater plant, will install gas-purifying equipment at the site. Biogas produced from sewage sludge will be cleaned and upgraded – removing contaminants such as CO₂ – then injected into Jemena’s gas pipelines.

Sydney Water will initially supply 95TJ of biomethane a year from early 2022, equivalent to the gas demand of about 13,300 homes. Production is expected to scale up to 200TJ a year.

Biomethane: the benefits and challenges for Australia

A report by the International Energy Agency earlier this year said biogas and biomethane could cover 20% of global natural gas demand while reducing greenhouse emissions.

As well as creating zero-emissions energy from wastewater, biomethane can be produced from waste created by agriculture and food production, and from methane released at landfill sites.

The industry is a potential economic opportunity for regional areas, and would generate skilled jobs in planning, engineering, operating and maintenance of biogas and biomethane plants.

Methane emitted from organic waste at facilities such as Malabar is 28 times more potent than CO₂. So using it to replace fossil-fuel natural gas is a win for the environment.

Read more: Emissions of methane – a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide – are rising dangerously

It’s also a win for Jemena, and all energy users. Many of Jemena’s gas customers, such as the City of Sydney, want to decarbonise their existing energy supplies. Some say they will stop using gas if renewable alternatives are not found. Jemena calculates losing these customers would lose it A$2.1 million each year by 2050, and ultimately, lead to higher costs for remaining customers.

The challenge for Australia will be the large scale roll out of biomethane. Historically, this phase has been a costly exercise for renewable technologies entering the market.

The global picture

Worldwide, the top biomethane-producers include Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and the United States.

The international market for biomethane is growing. Global clean energy policies, such as the European Green Deal, will help create extra demand for biomethane. The largest opportunities lie in the Asia-Pacific region, where natural gas consumption and imports have grown rapidly in recent years.

Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world on biomethane use. But more broadly, it does have a biogas sector, comprising than 240 plants associated with landfill gas power units and wastewater treatment.

In Australia, biogas is already used to produce electricity and heat. The step to grid injection is sensible, given the logistics of injecting biomethane into existing gas infrastructure works well overseas. But the industry needs government support.

Last year, a landmark report into biogas opportunities for Australia put potential production at 103 terawatt hours. This is equivalent to almost 9% of Australia’s total energy consumption, and comparable to current biogas production in Germany.

A clean way to a gas-led recovery

While the scale of the Malabar project will only reduce emissions in a small way initially, the trial will bring renewable gas into the Australia’s renewable energy family. Industry group Bioenergy Australia is now working to ensure gas standards and specifications are understood, to safeguard its smooth and safe introduction into the energy mix.

The Morrison government has been spruiking a gas-led recovery from the COVID-19 recession, which it says would make energy more affordable for families and businesses and support jobs. Using greenhouse gases produced by wastewater in Australia’s biggest city is an important – and green – first step.

Read more: ‘A dose of reality’: Morrison government’s new $1.9 billion techno-fix for climate change is a small step

– ref. Not just hot air: turning Sydney’s wastewater into green gas could be a climate boon – https://theconversation.com/not-just-hot-air-turning-sydneys-wastewater-into-green-gas-could-be-a-climate-boon-150672

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Guido Governatori, Software Systems Research Group Leader, Data61

Can computers read and apply legal rules? It’s an idea that’s gaining momentum, as it promises to make laws more accessible to the public and easier to follow. But it raises a host of legal, technical and ethical questions.

The OECD recently published a white paper on “Rules as Code” efforts around the world. The Australian Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology will be accepting submissions on the subject until 11 December 2020.

Machines cannot read and respond to rules that are expressed in human language. To make rules machine-readable and actionable, the interpretation of the rules must also be coded. Determining how best to code law is important as we venture deeper into a digital future.

Decades in the making

The coding of legal rules is not entirely new. Over the past five decades, artificial intelligence and law researchers have produced a range of formally coded versions of tax and other laws.

In 1986 UK computer scientists Bob Kowalski and Marek Sergot, for example, coded the British Nationality Act. More familiar examples of the results of such work would include guiding instruments and tools provided by the Australian Tax Office to assist taxpayers.

Read more: Smart contracts – smart or dumb?

Over the past decade Data61, the data science arm of the CSIRO, has developed a way to re-imagine regulation as an open platform, based on digital logic. This platform makes it easier to develop software that can automatically check whether the processes of a business or other organisation comply with relevant rules. For example, this could be used to check whether a new company needs to apply for any permits, and if so how to do it.

What is ‘Rules as Code’?

Coding legal rules is often complex. Rules written in human language are not drafted with coding in mind. Vague, broad rules may be difficult to interpret and to apply to specific cases.

The coding process is painstaking and resource-intensive. Law and technology experts must grapple with each rule in sets of rules that are often very large.

In response, government projects in New Zealand and New South Wales (both closely linked to Australian digital government expert Pia Andrews) and in France, Canada and other countries have tried a different approach: “Rules as Code”. This means that drafters and coders develop legal rules together, producing a human-language text as well as an official coded version.

The recent OECD report contends that Rules as Code “could allow businesses to consume machine-consumable versions directly from government, reducing the need for individual interpretation and translation”. Further, technical capacity to translate human-readable rules into machine-consumable ones:

may eliminate (or, substantially minimise) the need for multidisciplinary cooperation and learning, thereby reducing the need for different types of experts to adjust their ways of working to improve the overall rule quality.

Loss of flexibility

While Rules as Code may hold efficiency benefits, it may also lead to a loss of flexibility in how laws are interpreted. Interpretation of law is carried out by various stakeholders, the courts being the final authority.

Coding makes it easy to apply the rules to cases that the rule-makers addressed, as well as ones they may have foreseen even if they didn’t address them explicitly. However, the coded version produced during drafting may be too rigid to respond appropriately and fairly to unforeseen cases.

Read more: People are using artificial intelligence to help sort out their divorce. Would you?

Rules as Code raises a number of thorny legal issues. Would it be constitutional when applied to complex laws, or would it be viewed as appropriating, undermining or limiting the role of courts to interpret the law? How authoritative is the drafter and coder’s view of the meaning of the new law?

If a Rules-as-Code tool informed by an incorrect interpretation provides wrong information how will the mistake be identified and who will be liable? A possible example would be a tool that erroneously advises a user they are ineligible for a welfare payment.

Understanding the risks

Excitement about the potential of Rules as Code should be balanced by a deep understanding of the structural risks. Rules as Code assumes the law, regulations and the role of government remain the same as they were in the 20th century.

However, technology is transforming law and empowering people and other entities. Colin Rule, a global leader in online dispute resolution, recently asserted this will have a significant impact on the future of justice.

Citizens use technology in almost every area of their lives, and they have the fundamental right to use, interpret and respond to rules in a way that is consistent with the law (that is, with what a court would hold). This is true whether or not it agrees with the government’s own interpretation built into code.

Read more: From robodebt to racism: what can go wrong when governments let algorithms make the decisions

Regulatory computer systems that implement a single “authoritative” or “official” view of the relevant rules can undermine the rules themselves, human freedoms, and democracy.

The long-standing approach to coding law and the new Rules-as-Code approach both provide important building blocks for digital law in the future. But neither approach can successfully navigate the legal challenges and demands while producing coded law at the scale required to support general AI solutions.

How to make it work

A better approach would be to build AI solutions that can interpret and code legal rules with sophistication and transparency, advancing the objectives of the rules while supporting the complex rights of individuals. This is a future vision that requires, among others, the development of mechanisms to determine when to interact with human regulators and domain experts, as well as institutions that would ensure the integrity of the outcomes.

A range of expert knowledge – not only legal, but also ethical, economic, financial, medical, psychological, and so on – is essential to correctly determine how this can be achieved.

Australia should support broad, collaborative, multi-disciplinary, public-private research partnerships into legal technologies or “lawtech”. This would harness our existing knowledge and capacity in AI and Rules as Code. By combining the right expertise and resources we can enable Australia to embrace the future opportunities and properly address the challenges of coding law.

– ref. ‘Rules as Code’ will let computers apply laws and regulations. But over-rigid interpretations would undermine our freedoms – https://theconversation.com/rules-as-code-will-let-computers-apply-laws-and-regulations-but-over-rigid-interpretations-would-undermine-our-freedoms-149992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Willsteed, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee

Two years ago, on a warm Broadbeach night strolling back to our hotel, my teenage daughter gathered up what we were thinking in eight words: “That was the best night of my life”.

We had travelled south from Brisbane to see show number 141 of a 143-date world tour of David Byrne’s American Utopia.

It takes a lot to prise us loose from our suburban setting, but memories of Talking Heads’ first Australian tour came back into focus and gave me a nudge.

The Festival Hall show in the winter of 1979 had been sharp and groovy. A gaggle of us walked the two blocks back to their hotel with the band. I followed Byrne into the lift, where we suffered in pained silence until his floor. I was too shy to speak.

Back in the bar with the rest of the band, bottles of red wine and my silly, punky buddies I was probably loquacious as hell.

The Byrne on stage in Broadbeach was 40 years older but no less energetic or committed. The energy was different — smoother and more focused than the frenetic twitch of the 70s — but the commitment was clear.

This show was a transformation. A new way of looking at live music.

Redefining performance

A bare stage. An oblong light illuminates Byrne on a basic wooden chair, his hands flat on a wooden table framing a human brain.

The music delicately builds as he lifts the brain and sings:

Here is a region of abundant detail, here is a region that is seldom used.

Thin cables raise mounds of chains gathered on the floor. A set has been created: three walls of shimmering metal curtain.

Spike Lee filmed five shows at the Hudson Theatre in New York in order to create David Byrne’s American Utopia. The result is stunning.

The breadth of the show — the shape and swing of it — are captured in shots from the audience’s perspective. Precise overhead shots of the stage provide neat patterns of light and movement. But, edited by Adam Gough, it is the feeling of being onstage with the performers, the close-ups and crane shots, which bring this remarkable story home.

Byrne and his band come and go through the walls, barefoot, in matching grey suits and shirts. After the opening of Here, the band are slowly revealed through slices of the Byrne/Talking Heads catalogue. Beautiful versions of Don’t Worry About the Government, This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) and then I Zimbra, when the whole band finally appears onstage.

There are five drummer/percussionists, guitar, bass and keyboards, two wonderful singers and Byrne. All are “untethered” as he describes it later – wireless mics and marching band rigs allow them to be anywhere, redefining the idea of what a band onstage looks like.

There are some songs, like The Bullet or One Fine Day, which have a slow, almost static quality, but mostly the movement is constant. Annie-B Parsons’ choroeography is delightfully appropriate to Byrne’s style, and as intrinsic to the film as the music.

Somewhere around the middle of the film, he is thrown into the spotlight — a floppy man, a rag doll — for Once In A Lifetime. People on stage sway and swoop, sometimes chaotic, sometimes ordered and symmetrical.

The constant movement is mesmerising, often with Byrne at the centre and the players snaking and skipping around him.

Connections

As in Johnathon Demme’s 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, Byrne has much to say.

He carefully illustrates the importance of voting, asking people to register at the table in the foyer. He tells the story of Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate, and of Hugo Ball’s poem Gadji beri bimba which became I Zimbra. He remembers Janelle Monáe singing Hell You Talmbout at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017 before performing his own powerful version.

Lee makes this moment bigger and stronger by cutting in pictures of the names being spoken: relatives holding up the faces of their murdered sons and daughters on an empty stage.

But what resonates most with me, maybe because it feels so personal, is the thread which begins with the brain in Here. We start life with a myriad connections between the hemispheres, discarded as we grow and we make choices on our way.

As the show comes to a close, Byrne proposes these connections, seemingly lost, can be reconstructed in our relationships with others; that music and performing are his way of rebuilding those potent connections with which we are born.

American Utopia had a profound effect on audiences around the world. The movie honours that love. Lee has created a live performance film that can sit up there happily with the best of the genre.

And then the chains rise and disappear, leaving black walls and the band onstage singing the beautiful a capella introduction to Road to Nowhere. Then the instruments kick in and they slide off the stage and around the theatre, making the connection between performer and audience as real as it can be.

The song finishes, Byrne hooting and high-fiving the audience, and looking genuinely happy as he exits the stage door on his bicycle, heading off into the chilly New York night.

My kid was right. That was the best night of my life.

American Utopia is in Australian cinemas from today.

– ref. Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia is a film honouring the love of the live performance – https://theconversation.com/review-david-byrnes-american-utopia-is-a-film-honouring-the-love-of-the-live-performance-149977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorothy Ann Lee, Stewart Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity College, University of Divinity, University of Divinity

Almost three years on from same-sex marriage becoming legal in Australia, the issue is threatening to break up the Anglican Church in this country.

This is the gravest threat to the church’s unity in its more than 200-year history. For the three million-plus Australians who identify as Anglican, it could mean at the least sharp disagreement and at worst, damaging disunity.

Same-sex blessings approved

Long-simmering tensions within the church have come to a head with a recent judgement that supports the right of clergy to bless civil marriages, regardless of sexual orientation.

Last year, the dioceses of Wangaratta and Newcastle approved services for marriage blessings. Wangaratta diocese, once conservative, has become more progressive, while Newcastle has long had progressive stance.

Their new services are just for blessings of couples married in civil ceremonies, not actual church marriages.

Nevertheless, the services sparked fierce opposition from the fundamentalist Diocese of Sydney. During the same-sex marriage debate in 2017, Sydney Diocese gave $1 million to the “No” campaign, because Sydney and its conservative allies condemn same-sex relationships as sinful and bound for hell-fire.

Church’s court weighs in

Given the disagreement, the blessing services were immediately referred to the church’s highest court, the Appellate Tribunal, to see if they conformed to the basic principles of the national church’s constitution.

On November 11, the court ruled by a majority of five to one in favour of same-sex blessings. The one person who opposed the majority view was a lawyer from the Sydney Diocese, and whose minority view is included in the tribunal’s report.

Read more: How the Anglican Church has hardened its stance against same-sex marriage

The bishops of all the Australian dioceses then held rapid virtual meetings to review the tribunal decision, and it was expected they would decree no blessings should go ahead in the interests of church unity.

At this point, those in favour of the blessings, including Equal Voices Anglican, feared progressive bishops would give in to a conservative push to do nothing until the next meeting of the General Synod. The synod, the church’s national “parliament”, is not scheduled to meet until mid next year. But given the pandemic, even that timing is uncertain.

A statement issued by the bishops on November 20 acknowledges “there is not a common mind” on same-sex issues among them. This is a significant comment, as this group has traditionally agreed in formal statements — however artificial — in the interests of church unity.

While the bishops say the General Synod will be able to address the issues, they have nevertheless urged clergy to consider carefully “whether or how to bless those married according to the Marriage Act” (which allows for same-sex marriage). In other words, the Australian bishops have officially recognised these blessings can now go ahead.

But disagreement continues

This will not be the end of heated disagreement. The Sydney Diocese will not easily give in on this issue. On same-sex relationships, they base their stance on a few contested Bible texts.

Most biblical scholars, however, see those texts as referring to predatory forms of sexual behaviour rather than loving monogamous relationships. They claim there is nothing in the Christian scriptures condemning same-sex marriage.

Other Anglican churches have split

The dispute is very real. There have already been splits in Anglican churches around the world over this issue. Whole dioceses and individual parishes have broken away from national churches to form conservative enclaves in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.

Last year, Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies told Anglican supporters of same-sex marriage they should leave the church. Other Anglicans accused him of trying to force a split.

An amicable agreement might yet be possible across the Australian church, because there is already considerable diversity among the dioceses on numerous issues, such as women as priests and bishops, the submission of wives to husbands, and the remarriage of divorced persons.

But same-sex issues might well prove to be the Rubicon, because they have become an international Anglican issue in the era of the internet. This can be seen from the “Jerusalem Declaration” from the first meeting of the influential Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008.

We acknowledge […] the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.

Once some clergy go ahead and bless some same-sex marriages, the Sydney Diocese might push for some form of division in the Anglican Church in the coming months. The crucial issue will be what form it would take.

Would progressives have to abandon the church?

The Sydney Diocese is by far the largest diocese in Australia, and would not countenance being part of an offshoot church. It would want to establish itself as the “true” Anglican Church in this country, laying claim to the name and status. It would draw other conservative dioceses into its boundaries, and possibly even parishes and individuals from within progressive dioceses.

Read more: Same-sex marriage is legal, so why have churches been so slow to embrace it?

Progressive dioceses might be forced to abandon the national church structure, and be left impoverished. The battle over this issue, and who owns the name and church property, could well tie up lawyers and civil courts for years to come.

Such a split would also further diminish Anglicanism as a voice for justice and equality in Australian society.

However, such a split is not inevitable. Church leaders across the board will have to work hard in the coming months to find a way to prevent it, while allowing conservative and progressive forms of Anglicanism to flourish side-by-side, with mutual respect.

The decisions the leaders make in 2021 will be the most critical they have ever faced.

– ref. Is the Anglican Church about to split? It is facing the gravest threat to its unity in more than 200 years – https://theconversation.com/is-the-anglican-church-about-to-split-it-is-facing-the-gravest-threat-to-its-unity-in-more-than-200-years-150365

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smerdon, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

The new Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit has received rave reviews around the world. Surprisingly for a chess-themed show, it received a warm reception by the global chess community, which is usually highly critical of portrayals of tournament chess in film.

The experiences of star character Beth Harmon loosely correlate to those of Bobby Fischer, a US chess prodigy and arguably the most talented player in history. Fischer rose to fame in the 1950s, becoming the youngest ever US Champion at age 14 and breaking the record for the youngest international grandmaster one year later.

His meteoric rise ignited an explosion of popularity in the Western world for the historically Soviet-dominated game. Fischer’s victory in the World Chess Championship in 1972 against the Russian-born Boris Spassky came in the midst of the Cold War and captured the attention of the general population around the world.

This famous match is emulated in the final episode of The Queen’s Gambit, in which the American Harmon plays her own Soviet nemesis in Russia.

But chess in Australia during the 1960s, the period of The Queen’s Gambit, was a far cry from the popularity of the game in the US.

Read more: Checkmate: top chess players live longer

Chess in Australia in the 1950s and ‘60s

Australia had no recognised chess grandmasters at the time. Its geographic isolation presented logistical and financial obstacles to chess improvement.

It proved almost prohibitively difficult for Australian players to acquire chess learning materials and travel abroad to tournaments.

The chess scene was largely dominated by two men, Gary Koshnitsky and Cecil Purdy. Koshnitsky was born in Kishinev, in what’s now Moldova but was then part of the Russian Empire. He emigrated to Australia as a child, where he went on to become Australian champion.

Purdy was born in Egypt but his family eventually moved to Australia, and he taught himself chess as a teen. He won the inaugural World Correspondence Chess Championship, in which individual moves were sent and received by post in the early 1950s, and earned titles of international chess master and international grandmaster of correspondence play during the same decade. (He collapsed while playing a chess tournament in 1979 and died that day. Reportedly, his last words were about his final game: “I have a win, but it will take some time.”)

Purdy and Koshnitsky wrote a book titled Chess Made Easy. It was hugely popular worldwide, selling 600,000 copies in Australia alone.

Australia’s first grandmasters

Things started to pick up in the 1970s and ’80s, primarily in Melbourne, where the third-largest chess library in the world, the MV Anderson Collection at the State Library of Victoria, was hosted. It was, and still is, enormously helpful as a place for chess players to acquire knowledge and meet other players.

The Melbourne chess scene helped develop Australia’s first two chess grandmasters, Ian Rogers and Darryl Johansen.

The title of grandmaster is awarded by the world chess federation (also known as Fédération Internationale des Échecs or FIDE). To earn it, a player must achieve three grandmaster “norms” (based on an outstanding performance in an international chess tournament), each of which typically requires beating several players of master level in a single event.

For Rogers and Johansen, this meant living out of suitcases in Europe for periods of the 1980s and giving up the option of a regular job and steady income to pursue their chess careers.

Their sacrifices blazed a trail for other Australian chess players to follow. There was substantial growth in the chess community and particularly in the development of the junior ranks during the 1990s.

Another significant factor was the introduction of “chess in schools” businesses in the late 1990s. Coupled with the formation of a national competition for schools, this led to a dramatic increase in the number of Australian children learning chess, a trend that continues today.

A tipping point for Australian chess

Despite these developments, it was still some time before an Australian player was again able to break into the grandmaster ranks.

When one of us (David Smerdon) achieved a grandmaster norm in 2006, it ended a drought of 25 years.

This coincided with a tipping point for Australian chess. By 2009, the number of Australian grandmasters had doubled from two to four, and by 2020 it had risen to ten.

In recent years, a number of individual and team achievements paint a promising picture for the future. At the 2016 chess Olympiad in Azerbaijan, an Australian earned a draw against the reigning World Champion for the first time.

And in October this year, the Australian team sensationally won the Asian Nations Cup, beating top seed India (ranked fourth in the world) in the final.

The championship was held online due to COVID restrictions; chess has been one of the few sports largely unscathed by the pandemic, and in fact has significantly increased its membership during 2020.

Queens and Kings

The steep increase in popularity of internet chess has helped level the playing field for traditionally less prominent chess nations in Australia, Asia and Africa.

This is personified in another success of chess on the screen: the 2016 film Queen of Katwe. It tells the true story of a 10 year old Ugandan girl, Phiona Mutesi, who learned chess in the slums of Kampala. Mutesi would eventually go on to represent her country at the 2010 chess Olympiad in Siberia, and has proved an inspiration for chess-playing girls in Uganda and other African nations.

Not all the elements in The Queen’s Gambit reflect reality. No female player worldwide has ever contested the chess World Championship, and only one has been ranked in the world’s top ten.

Men dominate participation rates as well: only 15% of the players with international chess ratings are female.

Many hope the unexpected success of the Netflix series may spark a boom for women’s chess not unlike Fischer’s impact on chess in the West.

Though women’s chess in Australia is still waiting for its own tipping point, there are promising signs. In 2017, a Queensland woman, Heather Richards, achieved the first victory by an Australian female over a grandmaster since the turn of the century (unfortunately, the victim was one of us – David Smerdon).

Hopefully, it is only a matter of time before we see the emergence of our own Australian Beth Harmon or our own Queen of Queensland.

Read more: Most people think playing chess makes you ‘smarter’, but the evidence isn’t clear on that

– ref. The Queens(land) gambit: a brief history of chess in Australia – https://theconversation.com/the-queens-land-gambit-a-brief-history-of-chess-in-australia-150638

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel McMillan, Program Director, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Menzies Health Institute, Griffith University

Early in the pandemic, many researchers feared people who contracted COVID could be reinfected very quickly. This was because several early studies showed antibodies seemed to wane after the first few months post-infection.

It was also partly because normal human coronaviruses, which are one cause of common colds and are cousins of SARS-CoV-2, do not generate long-lasting immunity, so we can get reinfected with them after 12 months.

But new preliminary research suggests key parts of the immune system can remember SARS-CoV-2 for at least eight or nine months, and possibly for years.

Immune memory

When a country is invaded by an enemy, it rallies its forces, fights the war and hopefully repels the invaders. While the enemy has disappeared back to their own territory, a smart country sets up watchers to look for any signs of a new invasion. These lookouts know what the enemy looks like and are familiar with their uniform and how they travel.

Our immune system is exactly the same. Whenever we fight a bacterial or viral infection we leave behind certain cells that remember exactly what this invader looks like. These are called memory cells and their job, in the event of another “invasion”, is to warn our immune system early and ensure the right sort of response is mounted. It means we don’t have to start all over again to make a new response, and so reinfection is either eliminated or the time to recovery is much reduced.

This long-lived memory response can last a lifetime for some viruses such as measles.

Read more: Explainer: how does the immune system learn?

But how long for COVID?

We have two main parts of our adaptive immune response: B cells and T cells. Both of these cells can generate “memory”.

We’ll talk about B cells first. They make antibodies, which latch onto and destroy disease-causing agents such as viruses and bacteria.

A team of researchers from Australia, led by Menno van Zelm at Monash University, published a preliminary study last week showing the body can generate memory B cells specific to SARS-CoV-2. The research showed these cells last at least eight months, and likely even longer. This means these memory B cells could still rapidly produce antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 eight months post-infection, if the person were to be exposed to the virus again (although this work has not yet been peer-reviewed so should be treated with caution).

Other researchers from the United States showed memory B cells lasted at least six months, in a preliminary study also released last week.

Read more: What you need to know about how coronavirus is changing science

While the researchers from Australia saw a drop in circulating antibodies against the virus after two months in the blood of the 25 patients they looked at, they found memory B cells against two important parts of the virus: the spike protein (what most vaccines are designed to target) and the “nucleocapsid”, another structural protein of the virus.

They say this should give long-lasting immunity.

But we can’t directly prove this, because that would involve reinfecting patients, which would be unethical. So to study this further, we have to rely on natural reinfections.

There have been just 26 confirmed cases of reinfection reported worldwide so far, according to a COVID reinfection tracker by Dutch news agency BNO News (although the true tally is likely higher). With 60 million people infected globally so far, reinfection therefore seems to be a very rare event.

What about T cells? These are cells that bind directly to infected human cells within the body and destroy them. All infected cells smuggle out bits of the invading pathogen onto their surface, as a kind of “SOS” signal that allows T cells to find the hidden enemy.

Researchers from the University of Oxford published a study in September showing memory T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2. This means certain T cells could remember how to respond to virus-infected cells, long after the initial infection was cleared —although there was no data on how long this may last.

A more recent study, published as a preliminary report last week from researchers in China and Germany, answers this question.

They studied patients from Wuhan, where the first reported COVID cases occurred, and who therefore have the oldest immune responses. They showed T cell memory responses were still present nine months after infection.

So what does this all mean going forward?

It would seem SARS-CoV-2 is not like its normal common cold coronavirus cousins. People’s immune responses to common cold coronaviruses typically don’t last very long, meaning we typically get reinfected by 12 months.

But it’s clear people’s immune systems can “remember” and respond to SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, more severe coronavirus infections SARS and MERS appear to elicit longer-lasting responses up to three years.

So, people who’ve been naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 can expect reinfection to be rare. If it does occur it will probably result in very mild disease, but otherwise they should be fully protected for at least eight or nine months after their first infection.

But we still don’t know what would happen if someone was re-exposed after this timeline — only time will tell.

– ref. New research suggests immunity to COVID is better than we first thought – https://theconversation.com/new-research-suggests-immunity-to-covid-is-better-than-we-first-thought-150645