Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ewans, Conjoint Professor, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

Alban Berg’s Wozzeck is arguably the most important opera composed in the first half of the 20th century. It is certainly one of the most powerful, and its emotional impact remains as strong today as when it was first performed in 1925.

The text for the opera is drawn from Woyzeck, a play by German playwright Georg Büchner that is one of the most extraordinary dramas ever written.

Read more: Decoding the music masterpieces: Rossini’s opera, Otello

Büchner died at the age of 23 in 1837. He left several works behind, including fragmentary drafts of his masterpiece – Woyzeck. The play was not published in the posthumous 1850 edition of Büchner’s works, whether because of its occasional obscenity, its incompleteness, or the difficulty involved in deciphering the author’s cramped handwriting.

It eventually appeared in print in 1876. The drama had an enormous influence on the development of modern playwriting (Brecht was one of its warmest admirers), but it was not staged until 1913. The composer Alban Berg attended the first Vienna performances in 1914, and at once decided to make it into an opera, which became Wozzeck. (It was only discovered that the correct name of the hero was Woyzeck after Berg had composed most of the opera from an edition which printed it as Wozzeck).

The torment of the humble fusilier

Woyzeck is the first significant tragedy of “low” life, written in prose and with a common man as the hero. The titular Woyzeck is a fusilier in the army of his city-state (unnamed in the opera).

Nature plays a dominant role in Büchner’s drama. For Büchner, there is only a fragile boundary between the underlying animal aspects of human nature and morality and reasoning. These are only a veneer, easily broken down by passion into a reversion to nature. In Woyzeck, this happens when Marie, Woyzeck’s common-law wife and the mother of his child, allows the army’s Drum Major to take her to bed.

Wozzeck and the Captain (Act I scene 1). Franz Grundheber and Graham Clark in Patrice Chéreau’s production, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. From EuroArts.

A doctor’s research, which involves placing Woyzeck on a diet of only peas, and Marie’s infidelity, push Woyzeck over the thin line between moral reasoning and instinctive, natural action; between sanity and insanity. Woyzeck goes mad. But Woyzeck’s “madness” gives him an insight into the workings of nature which is superior to that of the paranoid Captain whose Batman he is and the megalomaniac Doctor. Woyzeck can see into the abyss.

Having studied medicine and philosophy and lectured in natural history, Büchner possessed a unique combination of a compassionate human vision and scientific detachment. He viewed life as consisting of a sequence of separate pictures, apparently disconnected fragments. So each one of the play’s 27 short scenes presents one episode relevant to the drama of Woyzeck’s relationship with Marie.

This technique, which was revolutionary in the theatre – and indeed rendered Woyzeck unstageable before the 20th century – is reminiscent of German expressionist films created immediately after the first world war, particularly The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Büchner depicts Woyzeck’s descent into madness as the inevitable consequence of his existential terror. He imbues Woyzeck, his tormented, humble Fusilier and the victim of sexual betrayal and the Doctor’s medical experiment, with an extraordinary nobility. The text deploys language of vivid intensity, as Woyzeck struggles to express the visions which drive him to murder and madness.

Visions of terror

These visions are almost beyond expression in words – but not in music. In Act I, scene 2 of Berg’s opera, where Wozzeck is tormented by the apocalyptic power of Nature, the orchestra illuminates and makes real for the audience the terrors which in Büchner’s scene the audience can only imagine.

In the opera, the audience is forced to experience the visions from inside, from the point of view of Wozzeck. Creating that music required a creative leap by the composer, one which is still astonishing even today.

Wozzeck murders Marie (Act III scene 2). Franz Grundheber as Wozzeck, Waltraud Meyer as Marie. Directed by Patrice Chéreau, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. From EuroArts.

The Viennese composer Alban Berg (1885-1935) saw Wozzeck at exactly the right moment in his own compositional development. Berg’s composition teacher Arnold Schoenberg had begun around 1905 to write short pieces within an idiom which abandons the system of keys and key-relations, known as tonality, which is the fundamental basis of 19th-century classical music. Instead, he favoured atonality, a style in which all sounds, even piercing dissonances, are permitted.

In his Three Pieces for Orchestra (1914) Berg was the first composer working in this style to incorporate structural devices that enabled him to compose atonal pieces on a larger scale.

The final March of the Three Pieces, which Berg wrote (prophetically) just before and after the assassination of the Archduke at Sarajevo, begins quietly enough, but rapidly becomes grotesque, terrifying and brutal.

The March from Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra. Live recording from the Munich Philharmonie.

This apocalyptic intensity and musical structure paved the way for Wozzeck. This opera required both extreme emotional intensity, as Berg responded with all his eloquence to the compassion and social protest of Büchner’s text – and a firm musical structure, to create unity among the diverse characters and episodes of the play.

Berg selected 15 of Büchner’s 27 scenes, and divided them into three Acts, each of five scenes. He then chose a musical form for each Act – Five Character Studies (Act 1), a Symphony in five movements (Act 2), and a set of six Inventions (Act 3). Within this overall design, each scene also has its own musical form.

Read more: Decoding the music masterpieces: Rossini’s opera, Otello

Whether individual audience members consciously apprehend them or not, Berg’s chosen forms bring familiar resonances from classical music, and each one has been chosen to illuminate the dramatic and psychological essence of its scene.

The creative tension between overt emotional power and concealed but rigorous control is clear not only in the opera’s formal design, but also in the range of modes of vocal delivery, which extend far beyond those of classical opera. Once again, the pressure towards incoherence is counterbalanced by a minute attendance to volume and phrasing, together with precise notation of every grade of sound, from ordinary speech via pitched but half declaimed words, to full song and on to florid ornamentation.

Nearly a century after Wozzeck was first performed, it maintains a central place in the international repertory today, despite the challenges it presents to designers, directors and performers. Berg’s ability to use his extraordinary music to chart Wozzeck’s descent into madness, and the compassion with which he views his character’s suffering, have ensured its continuing acclaim.

Wozzeck is being staged by Opera Australia in Sydney from January 25 – February 15 2019.

– ref. Decoding the music masterpieces: Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, an apocalyptic descent into madness – http://theconversation.com/decoding-the-music-masterpieces-alban-bergs-wozzeck-an-apocalyptic-descent-into-madness-107896

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

The current US government shutdown began on December 22, and is still going. At 32 days, it is the longest shutdown in US history, beating the previous record of 21 days in a 1995-96 shutdown.

The shutdown was caused by Trump’s demand that $US5.7 billion funding for a southern border wall be included in the budget. When Democrats took control of the US House on January 3, following the November midterm elections, they passed a budget that omitted funding for the border wall; this bill had been passed by the Republican-controlled Senate before the shutdown began. As Trump opposes the budget, the Senate has not taken up the House bill.

Read more: Poll wrap: Labor widens lead in Ipsos; US Democrats gained 40 House seats at midterms

In the FiveThirtyEight poll tracker, Trump’s ratings on December 17, before the shutdown began, were 42.2% approve, 52.4% disapprove, for a net approval of -10.2. Trump’s ratings are currently 40.2% approve, 55.0% disapprove, for a net approval of -14.8. Trump’s approval is his lowest since September 2018, and his disapproval is its highest since February 2018.

CNN analyst Harry Enten says Trump and Republicans are losing the blame game over the shutdown. Polls have Trump and congressional Republicans blamed more for the shutdown than congressional Democrats by at least 20 points.

If Trump were to declare a national emergency to secure wall funding, the public would be opposed by 66-31 according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. Such a declaration would also be challenged in the courts.

Support for the border wall itself increased in the last year, but is still opposed by an average 15-point margin. In a Quinnipiac national poll conducted January 9-13, voters overall opposed the wall 55-43, but Republicans supported it 88-10. Trump’s difficulty is that, while voters overall blame him for the shutdown, he would come under attack from his right-wing base if he was seen as caving on the wall.

On January 19, Trump proposed to temporarily extend two programs that protect some unauthorised immigrants from deportation in exchange for wall funding, but Democrats immediately rejected this deal, and the shutdown continued. Furthermore, Trump angered right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.

The limited polls since Trump’s proposal suggest no change in his ratings. An Emerson national poll, conducted January 20-21, had voters opposed to Trump’s proposal by 55-45.

The Senate will vote on Trump’s proposal and a bill to reopen the government until February 8 without wall funding on Thursday (Friday Melbourne time). Neither bill is expected to win the 60 votes (out of 100) required to advance under Senate rules. Trump could veto legislation that passed both chambers of Congress, and it takes a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a presidential veto.

Analyst Nate Silver says previous shutdowns have had little long-term impact. Republicans were blamed for the October 2013 shutdown, but they performed very well at the November 2014 midterm elections. However, the longer the shutdown lasts, the greater the economic impact. Trump will need the US economy to be strong in 2020 to have a reasonable chance of re-election.

UK Brexit chaos could result in a “no-deal” Brexit

On January 15, the House of Commons rejected UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal by a 432-202 vote; the 230-vote margin is the biggest loss for a government since universal suffrage began. 118 Conservatives rebelled against their party’s position in this vote.

If the Commons cannot agree to something by March 29, the UK will crash out of the European Union without a deal, likely greatly damaging the economy. You can read about why this scenario has become more likely on my personal website.

Australian Essential poll: 53-47 to Labor

In last week’s Australian Essential poll, conducted January 9-13 from a sample of 1,089, Labor led by 53-47, unchanged since mid-December. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (up one), 38% Labor (up two), 10% Greens (down one) and 7% One Nation (steady). Essential has been better for the Coalition since Scott Morrison became PM than Newspoll. This is the first poll of 2019.

Morrison’s net approval was +4, down four points since December. Bill Shorten’s net approval was -12, also down four points. Morrison led Shorten by 42-30 as better PM (40-29 in December).

Far more people thought all types of crime had increased than decreased. By 63-24, voters supported pill testing, though the question had more detail than most voters would be familiar with.

56% thought immigration in the past ten years has been too high, 26% about right and 12% too low. By 67-27, voters agreed with a positive statement about multiculturalism, but they agreed with a negative statement 53-40. By 66-22, voters thought it inappropriate for Fraser Anning to use taxpayer money to attend the far-right rally in Melbourne.

65% said either their home or workplace was connected to the NBN. 51% of those with NBN connections thought it better than their previous service, 30% about the same and 17% worse. By 44-29, voters would disapprove of privatising the NBN when completed in 2020.

Tasmanian federal and state polls

Tasmanian pollster EMRS conducted federal and state polls December 15-17 from a sample of 1,000. In the federal poll, Labor had 40% (37.9% at the 2016 election), the Liberals 33% (35.4%) and the Greens 11% (10.2%). No two party estimate was given, but the primary figures imply a swing of over 2% to Labor in Tasmania, for about a 60-40 split.

In the state poll, the Liberals had 39% (up three since August), Labor 35% (up one) and the Greens 14% (down two). EMRS state polls skew towards the Greens. Labor leader Rebecca White led incumbent Will Hodgman 46-40 as better Premier (46-38 in August).

– ref. Record US government shutdown harms Trump’s ratings, plus Brexit chaos and Australian Essential poll – http://theconversation.com/record-us-government-shutdown-harms-trumps-ratings-plus-brexit-chaos-and-australian-essential-poll-110348

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Wake, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance, UNSW

Review: The Weekend, Sydney Festival

If this year’s Sydney Festival is any indication, the monologue is back. So far, I have seen Adam Lazarus’s Daughter, Joel Bray’s Biladurang, Omar Musa’s Since Ali Died, Tara Beagan’s Deer Woman, and now Henrietta Baird’s The Weekend.

Not that the monologue ever really went away. Indeed, it has a long history in both Western and non-Western performance genres. But critical opinion about solo performance has waxed and waned over the past fifty years.

On the one hand, supporters argue it’s been an important vehicle for artists who have historically been excluded from the theatre to tell their stories. On the other, critics worry the monologue might be part of the memoir boom and a “wider culture of self-discussion and self-exposure”, symptomatic of a self-involved society. Yet these arguments fade into the background when you’re in the hands of a skilled storyteller like Henrietta Baird and a talented performer like Shakira Clanton.

At this year’s Sydney Festival, the monologue is back. Jamie James/Courtesy of Moogahlin

The Weekend begins in relative silence. There is the sound of drumming, slow and steady like water dripping, and little else. The set is similarly stripped back, consisting of little more than a grey floor, two milk crates downstage, and a mirror with three panels upstage.

Clanton steps out from behind the mirror wearing purple tights and a black singlet. Later she’ll don a blue sleeveless hoody. She dances: bending her knees, flicking her hands upwards, and sometimes straightening her limbs like a martial artist. Choreographed by Vicki Van Hout, with whom Baird has previously danced, this section also reminded me of Dalisa Pigram’s martial arts-inflected choreography in her solo show Gudirr Gudirr.

The protagonist, Lara, is a dancer from Sydney working in Cairns for a few weeks. That is, until she receives a phone call from her youngest son Kyle, telling her that he and his brother Charlie are hungry because their dad hasn’t been over for more than two days and there’s no food in the house. Lara immediately gets on a plane. From the moment it lands, she’s on a mission to find her former partner Simon and “give him a growling”, as my mother might say.

In her pursuit across Redfern, Lara meets several women who have been similarly betrayed by him and his drug habits. She also finds they each have a habit of their own. Clanton plays all these women, as well as the two boys and an officious taxi call centre operator, with great skill.

The first woman we meet is Ronnie, a woman in her mid-40s, who is “not Simon’s type”, Lara reassures herself. While at Ronnie’s place she also meets Courtney, a sweet fifteen-year-old who is addicted to heroin. Then Betty arrives, agitated and desperate for some meth.

Shakira Clanton plays a dancer on a mission to find her former partner in The Weekend. Jamie James courtesy of Moogahlin

Lastly, we meet Ronnie’s sister DD. Chaos and comedy ensue but the possibility of tragedy is ever present: as soon as Lara agrees to carry Ronnie’s bum bag, spectators are audibly concerned; when she realises her boys have been by themselves for hours, we share her sweaty panic. Like Lara, we are constantly worried that something, somewhere is going to go horribly wrong.

Baird has a good ear for vernacular speech and her characters speak with both poetry and fury: telling jokes, swearing liberally, and coining phrases such as “she kicks them out before they even get a chance to pick up after themselves”.

She also has an eye for detail, especially fashion, as evidenced by Lara’s descriptions of what each character is wearing. Ronnie has “a big green jumper and track pants on with fluffy slippers. Like she’s still in the same clothes from the 80s”; Courtney is wearing “the shortest shorts. You know those sexy ones with the pockets that hang out the bottom”; and DD is “mutton dressed as lamb. Big hair and little sun dress like she’s a teenager in the 90s!”.

Baird’s characters speak with both poetry and fury. Jamies James/Courtesy of Moogahlin

Most of all, Baird writes with compassion: every character is given a backstory that contextualises their addiction and it’s clear that every one of them is simply doing their best.

This combination of humour and compassion also structures Clanton’s playful but careful performance. Ronnie has a strong, stern voice but speaks of her children with a throaty grief; Betty’s voice is high and her physicality is agitated; Courtney speaks in a slow whisper and with a gentle smile; and DD snaps her fingers, playfully slaps her own arse, and spins on her heels.

Like the rest of the production, the lighting design (Karen Norris) is understated. A string of lights frames each of the mirror’s sections, with different colours conjuring different locations. The lights are green when Lara is in the grimy lift, for instance, and later flash red and blue when the police are nearby. The concrete carpark is suggested through a grey and streaky light.

The sound design (Nick Wales and Rhyan Clapham) is similarly low-key, with the drums continuing through the entire performance. When the music swells with danger, it is all the more effective. These directorial decisions by Liza-Mare Syron allow the script and performer to shine.

The lighting in The Weekend uses colour to conjure different locations. Jamie James/Courtesy of Moogahlin

Perhaps the monologue is back for political reasons, or perhaps it is simply a matter of economics, since solo shows are cheap to produce when compared with other epic festival fare. Or perhaps it indicates that a new generation of writers is emerging: artists often start with semi-autobiographical material before moving onto bigger, more complex pieces. Leah Purcell, for instance, started with Box the Pony in 1997; 20 years later she is about to film her award-winning adaptation of The Drover’s Wife. For this reason, I can’t wait to see what Baird does next.

The Weekend was staged as a work-in-progress in 2017 at the biennial Yellamundie National First Peoples Playwriting Festival, where it was one of the hits of that year, as recorded in Maryrose Casey’s review. Later this week, the 2019 iteration will get underway. If you want a glimpse of what you might be seeing at the Sydney Festival in 2021 – and of the future of Australian theatre more generally – I suggest you get along to listen.

The Weekend is being staged as part of the Sydney Festival until January 23. The script is available to read until the end of January here.

– ref. Henrietta Baird’s The Weekend proves the enduring power of solo performance – http://theconversation.com/henrietta-bairds-the-weekend-proves-the-enduring-power-of-solo-performance-110281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin T. Jones, Lecturer in History, CQUniversity Australia

It is fitting that Scott Morrison represents the federal division of Cook, named after British explorer James Cook. First as treasurer, and now as prime minister, Morrison is committed to a A$50 million plan to celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing at Kurnell on April 29, 1770. He has announced A$6.7million for a replica of the Endeavour to circumnavigate the country (something Cook himself never did).

Cook and his treatment by public memory can be seen as the latest front in an ongoing culture war. It is a debate centred on how Australian history – especially its colonial history – should be understood. Which voices and stories should be included, and excluded, from the dominant narrative?

Morrison frames this is as an extension of the campaigns to change January 26 as Australia Day. In 2018, he lambasted the “indulgent self-loathing” of those who wanted to change the date. He tweeted – incorrectly – that “Our modern Aus nation began on January 26, 1788”. This predates the flag, Constitution, five out of six states, and even the word “Australia”.

But this was never about historical accuracy. Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie claimed – also wrongly – that January 26, 1788, was “when Captain Cook stepped ashore”. He actually died in 1779. But nevertheless, as the man who claimed Australia for Britain, Cook has become a symbol of settler-colonialism with his legacy intertwined with Australia Day.

Morrison is determined that 2020 be a year of government-led celebration of Cook’s exploits. The justification for the anniversary spend is as much ideological as historical. Morrison claimed:

he gets a bit of a bad show from some of those who like to sort of talk down our history.

Explorer James Cook has come to symbolise Australia’s divided view of its history and how it should be celebrated. Shutterstock

The use of public money to cast Cook in a positive light is a continuation of the “history wars” that flared up during the prime ministership of John Howard. He rejected the “black armband” view that saw Australian history as a “disgraceful story”. On balance, Howard insisted, it was one of “heroic achievement”.

For Morrison, Cook is the embodiment of a colonial hero whose reputation has been tarnished by left-wing “activists”. He laments that “it’s very trendy to talk down James Cook and all that sort of stuff”.

Presumably “all that sort of stuff” is a gentle euphemism for dispossession and the destruction of Indigenous cultures.

Read more: Australia’s ‘history wars’ reignite

Debate over Cook’s legacy briefly raged in 2017. Indigenous journalist Stan Grant questioned the plaudit, “discovered this territory 1770”, etched in stone at Cook’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Soon after, “change the date” was spray-painted on the base.

The then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, insisted Grant was “dead wrong”. Using rhetoric that bordered on the ridiculous, Turnbull took to Facebook to describe the graffiti as part of a “totalitarian campaign”. He also dismissed calls to change the date of Australia Day, condemning the “Stalinist exercise of trying to wipe out or obliterate or blank out parts of our history”.

The Morrison government’s decision to punish councils that do not acknowledge January 26, to introduce dress codes at citizenship ceremonies, to refuse to discuss the date of Australia Day, and to spend millions on Cook’s 250th anniversary, all stem from the same culture war.

The Liberal Party’s Twitter page claims it is trying to “protect Australia Day from activists”. But the heavy-handed attempts to cast Cook as some high priest in the church of Australian nationalism stifles debate and skews history. Increasing social unease with traditional colonial narratives is not based on a desire to deny history, but to expand it and to include the perspective of First Nations.

As historian Mark McKenna notes, the communities in Kurnell and Cooktown have worked hard to connect with Indigenous leaders and find new ways to commemorate Cook’s voyage. But crucially, this requires a willingness to accepts history’s nuances and diversity. It requires moving beyond the false dichotomy of utter shame or complete pride in Australia’s history.

Few would dispute that Cook was a brilliant navigator and explorer. But there is also a question of balance. The Captain Cook Society notes that he is commemorated by more than 100 memorials, many in Australia. It is hardly a “Stalinist exercise” to suggest that Cook is already well honoured and that a more worthy project might be a new Indigenous museum.

The original lyrics to Advance Australian Fair boasted that when “gallant Cook from Albion sailed … true British courage bore him on”. Veneration of Cook has been historically tied to British patriotism. As the Sydney Morning Herald noted in 1929, Australia’s great patriotic moments for “all who share British blood” occur in April. It included in this, Cook’s landing, the landing at Gallipoli, St George’s Day, and the birth of Shakespeare.

Our nation has changed.

Cook is no longer the national hero he once was, for the simple reason that Australians no longer see themselves as British, sharing in British achievements. More importantly, since W.E.H. Stanner’s call to end the “great Australian silence” in 1968, Australians have become more aware of the ancient cultures that possessed this land at least as far back as the Pleistocene. Retreating into the lazy “cult of forgetfulness” with a government-promoted, triumphant Cook narrative, narrows a history that has been slowly broadening for decades.

Read more: Friday essay: the ‘great Australian silence’ 50 years on

The anniversary in 2020 of Cook’s voyage can and should be marked. But without genuine consultation with First Nations peoples to find a form and language that offers respect, it will be another exercise in exclusion. If the memorials and events suggest, in former prime minster Tony Abbott’s words, that before the British arrived Australia was “barely settled”, we will know we have failed yet again.

– ref. Rough seas ahead: why the government’s James Cook infatuation may further divide the nation – http://theconversation.com/rough-seas-ahead-why-the-governments-james-cook-infatuation-may-further-divide-the-nation-110275

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Medland, Sexual health physician and senior researcher, UNSW

Australia aims to “virtually eliminate” HIV transmission by 2022, according to the health minister’s new national HIV strategy. This ambitious goal has been made possible by biomedical HIV prevention, a new and highly effective way of preventing HIV using medications.

But new inequalities are emerging between those who can and can’t access these medications because of their Medicare eligibility. These inequalities may undermine the success of HIV elimination in Australia and threaten Australia’s international reputation as a safe place to study, work and live.

PrEP and U=U have revolutionised HIV prevention. PrEP (or pre-exposure prophylaxis) is where someone who is HIV negative takes medication every day to prevent them becoming HIV positive and is close to 100% effective when taken regularly.

U=U (undetectable equals untransmissible) is where someone who is already HIV positive takes medication every day to keep them healthy and reduce the risk of spreading HIV to another person to zero. (The U refers to “undetectable viral load” which means the virus can no longer be detected in the blood.)

Despite high levels of condom use in Australia, the number of people diagnosed with HIV every year, mostly gay and bisexual men, had been gradually increasing. From a low of 722 in 1999, it had crept up to more than 1,000 per year by 2012.

PrEP has been available under Australia’s subsidised Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme since April 2018 and all people living with HIV have been recommended to take treatment since 2015. This has resulted in rapid drops in new HIV diagnoses in 2017 and 2018, particularly new infections in gay men in inner cities. This is great news.

Read more: Weekly Dose: Truvada, the drug that can prevent HIV infection

Access to prevention

The bad news is that while condoms where cheap and available everywhere, to access these medications cheaply in Australia you need a Medicare card. You also need to see a doctor and have regular blood tests.

Australia is inviting more and more people to study, work and live here on temporary visas. Most of these temporary visa holders are not eligible for Medicare. To take PrEP without a Medicare card, you need to import the medication from overseas. To take HIV treatment without a Medicare card, you need to find one of the limited number of public sexual health clinics who have informal arrangements with private pharmaceutical companies to provide medication.

To access the sort of health care Australians take for granted, such as public hospitals and clinics, Medicare ineligible patients are required to pay up-front frees and on occasions even to give contact details in their home country. A young person being asked for their parent’s address and phone number would clearly discourage someone for seeking care for HIV.

My research shows newly arrived Asian-born gay and bisexual men, most of whom are overseas students and are not Medicare eligible, are four times more likely to become HIV positive in the four years after arriving in Australia compared to their local peers. This is despite overall fewer sexual partners and more condom use. Other research shows once they become HIV positive, this group have delayed HIV diagnosis.

Australia grants more than 1.5 million temporary visas every year, including more than 750,000 student visas. These visitors are vital to our economy: overseas students bring in A$30 billion per year; temporary workers provide valuable agricultural labour. While we encourage and benefit from these short-term arrivals, we don’t provide for their health. Although we do require they take out private insurance, as I understand it, it rarely covers the medication for PrEP or HIV treatment.

HIV doesn’t discriminate by visa type. from www.shutterstock.com

It’s in both of our best interests

Why should Australia care if temporary visa holders in Australia could be at increased risk of HIV infection? Compassion alone ought to be enough for us to want to protect vulnerable young people who come to our country full of excitement and hope and to our mutual benefit.

Many will return home to countries where people living with HIV experience bad health outcomes, stigma and discrimination. Some might have wished to eventually immigrate to Australia, a process that becomes more difficult for people with chronic diseases.

But there are other reasons. Just like vaccinations, in a phenomenon called herd immunity, new infections plummet and everybody is protected when there is a high proportion of people taking PrEP and HIV treatment. Like with vaccinations, if parts of the community are not covered, the risk is higher for everyone.

This means if there are more HIV infections in Medicare ineligible temporary visa holders then there will also be more HIV infections in Australian permanent residents and citizens. The virus doesn’t discriminate by visa status.

In public health terms, everybody has the same potential to be exposed to and transmit HIV infection, based on their intimate relationships. It makes no public health sense to only protect those who are eligible for Medicare. The result is that the tens of millions of dollars being spent on biomedical HIV prevention will be less effective.

Read more: Fewer men who have sex with men are using condoms when taking PrEP, and that’s OK

What are the solutions?

Australia has successfully eliminated tuberculosis. All government funded hospitals and clinics are specifically required to provide free of charge any clinical service, test or medication related to TB, irrespective of Medicare eligibility or visa status.

The reasons for this are obvious, as are the benefits to our nation. This could easily be extended to HIV at a moderate cost which would be more than outweighed by the cost savings of fewer HIV infections in Australian citizens and permanent residents.

– ref. Australia will never be HIV-free if access to prevention requires a medicare card – http://theconversation.com/australia-will-never-be-hiv-free-if-access-to-prevention-requires-a-medicare-card-109511

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Blazevich, Professor of Biomechanics, Edith Cowan University

Hard courts are very negative for the body. I know the sport is a business and creating these courts is easier than clay or grass, but I am 100% sure it is wrong. I may have to play more on clay than before, but there aren’t that many options.

So said Rafael Nadal back in 2012 – and several times since – before succumbing to another knee injury in 2018.

Rafa’s right. Evidence has been available for decades to suggest that players have fewer knee problems if they play on clay courts rather than hard surfaces over their careers.

Way back in 1979, German researcher von Salis-Soglio showed that top-ranked tennis players had more leg and back injuries after playing on hard courts than on clay.

But that’s not because hard courts are hard. It’s because they’re not slippery enough.

Read more: Fitness play-off: how tennis stars compare with other athletes

The physics of hard, grass and clay courts

There’s a perception that clay courts are less hard. But anyone who has played on a clay court knows that’s not quite true – they are pretty firm. And it’s easy to do a little experiment to prove it.

A tennis ball bounces higher on a harder court because the court surface compresses less when the ball collides with it. That means less energy is dissipated and the ball bounces up with a lot of energy (largely because of its own elasticity).

That energy dissipation is reflective of the “damping” properties of the surface. If you drop a brand new ball from a height of one metre onto either a clay court or a hard court, it will bounce about 60-65cm high.

On a grass court, the ball may only bounce about 35-40cm. This is because both clay courts and hard courts have a low damping coefficient (a measure of the damping effect when colliding with a ball). Grass courts, on the other hand, typically have a much higher damping coefficient.

Nonetheless, damping may be dramatically reduced on worn areas of grass courts, as is comically demonstrated in this (edited) video.

Djokovic (2015) clearly demonstrates how easily a ball can bounce on a ‘hard’ grass court at Wimbledon.

And tennis players spend a lot of time running on this hard, worn part of the court.

A fraction too much friction

So if clay courts (and some grass courts) are also hard and don’t have a high damping coefficient, why aren’t they also linked with high injury rates?

A study published 31 years ago provides the best answer. Researcher Benno Nigg and a colleague examined injury rates in more than 1,000 tennis players.

They found that painful injuries were five to eight times more likely when playing on high-friction surfaces such as asphalt and some synthetic surfaces than on courts covered with loose sand that allow players to slip and slide.

It was clear that when friction between the shoe and surface was high, so was the injury rate.

Read more: Tennis, running, netball: do I really need a specific shoe for a specific sport?

This is now a well-known phenomenon. If you are running fast and you want to stop quickly, you have to apply a force to the ground. The ground returns that force to you (for the science buffs among you, that is Newton’s third law) to slow you down.

But you can choose to apply a high force for only a short time or you can apply a smaller force over a longer time and get the same result: stopping.

We tend to slide when friction is lower and this increases the time over which the force is produced, and the peak force is lower. The lower force is less likely to cause injury, so this is a good thing. In fact, players also notice they’re less sore after matches, so they recover faster too.

Actually, the effect of surface friction is seen in other common sporting tasks. For example, other researchers showed that injuries are greater in pivoting sports (such as netball or basketball) when surface friction is higher, even when both surfaces (artificial versus wood) were very hard. In this study, the injury rate was double on the artificial surface, which allowed less sliding.

How we choose to move

But there’s another reason for the injury-reduction benefit of lower-friction surfaces. On these courts, we “choose” to move with different, and safer, movement patterns during high-intensity, agility-type tasks such as those in tennis.

A great example is provided in a study looking at people experienced in sports that required side-step “cutting” manoeuvres. Cutting manoeuvres are those that require rapid changes in direction.

When tested on different surfaces, sports people were found to land with their knee straighter and more rotated when running on surfaces with higher friction. This is considered to be a serious risk for knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury during cutting tasks.

So in a nutshell, there are two things that place us at risk of injury when playing on surfaces with high friction: a lack of energy dissipation, plus a difference in how we move (including rapid changes of direction, as occurs in tennis).

Luckily, a lot of effort has been put into improving hard court surfaces.

At this year’s Australian Open you’ll see players sliding quite well on the Plexicushion surface (made from latex, rubber and plastic particles), which is specially designed to allow players to slide.

It’s safer for the players and also fun to watch.

Nadal sliding on clay and Plexicushion at the Australian Open.

Read more: Why so many tennis players go pro even though few ‘make it’

– ref. All that slipping and sliding on tennis courts prevents injuries: a biomechanics expert explains how – http://theconversation.com/all-that-slipping-and-sliding-on-tennis-courts-prevents-injuries-a-biomechanics-expert-explains-how-106938

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Churchill, Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Melbourne

The resignation of Kelly O’Dwyer, Federal Minister for Women, Jobs and Industrial Relations, tells us what we have known for some time: Australia’s parliament is a hostile workplace for women and working mothers.

O’Dwyer’s desire for a bigger family and more quality time with her young children reflects, in some respects, the challenges ordinary working mothers in Australia face everyday. It also highlights yet another example of the difficulties faced by women in politics.

As Liberal senator Linda Reynolds wrote in an opinion piece: O’Dwyer’s resignation “ …is not simply a gender issue. It is a parent issue”.

But for every Tim Hammond (the federal Labor Member for Perth who quit politics last year for family reasons) there is a Kelly O’Dwyer or a Kate Ellis .

Women by and large are still the primary caregivers in this country regardless of whether they are an MP or senator.

Read more: The Liberal Party is failing women miserably compared to other democracies, and needs quotas

Institutionally, Australia’s parliament has made significant progress over the past decade to accommodate parents. Parliament House now has childcare services and a breastfeeding room off to the side of both chambers for new mothers.

Breastfeeding mothers can vote by proxy in the House of Representations. And in 2017, former Greens Senator Larissa Waters became the first federal MP to breastfeed in parliament.

But there is still progress to be made. Parliament remains family-unfriendly. Sitting hours often extend well beyond childcare hours and sitting weeks are often scheduled during school holidays.

Fewer options than other working women

These issues affect all working parents but must surely impact heavily on parliamentarians who have to travel from their electorates to Canberra. Ordinary working mothers often opt for part-time work to manage the demands of work and family. This is because we haven’t quite figured out how to help women and families best manage their competing workloads.

An MP or senator does not have the option of working part-time. While women politicians do take maternity leave, a part-time MP or senator might not meet community expectations about politicians and service. We also know women in part-time work often end up feeling more stressed as they take on more domestic work or end up working outside of their set part-time hours.

But the idea of job sharing seems less remote. Historically, job sharing, which involves two people sharing what is normally a full-time role, has been seen as an alternative way for women to stay in the workforce. Some preliminary research in the UK suggests that might be a viable option for politicians. And evidence shows it works at the highest level of business, so this is perhaps one way parliaments can learn from the business community.

However, like all flexible working arrangements, job sharing cannot be seen as a solution or alternative for women alone – swapping the political sphere for the private. Male politicians with children would need to be encouraged to adopt these arrangements should they ever eventuate. And getting men to take up flexible working arrangements is not always successful as evidenced by policymakers’ attempts to get new dads to take up parental leave.

Read more: Time pressure may be a better way to measure work-life balance

As we enter the next decade, politicians, political parties and the parliament should consider how best to support working mothers (and fathers).

This must begin with a shift in culture. In her resignation speech, former Liberal now Independent, Julia Banks, stated:

equal representation of men and women in this parliament is an urgent imperative which will create a culture change.

Advances towards equal representation are lopsided in the parliament. While Labor is on track to reach equal representation with almost half of its parliamentarians women, the Coalition’s ratio is only one in five. It’s expected with O’Dwyer’s resignation along with recent announcements by other women, female representation in the Liberal and National parties will be proportionally lower than when John Howard left office in 2007.

Regardless of political persuasion, fewer female MPs can only slow progress towards gender equality.

Tim Hammond’s experience is an example of the toll experienced by fathers in federal parliament, but this is still the exception rather than the rule. Greater female representation will help shift cultural ideas about women and working mothers.

But shifts in ideas about working fathers in parliament are needed too. Images of male politicians working with their children at their side is a rarity saved only for election campaigns.

Like ordinary working women, female politicians need not only supportive workplaces but supportive families. Former Queensland premier Anna Bligh relied on her partner and mother for support during her time in office. However, not every female politician has a Greg Withers or a Clarke Gayford, partner of New Zealand prime minster Jacinda Arden, to care for their children while their partner gives a speech to the United Nations.

Ideas from other nations

Jacinda Arden provides one example of greater flexibility for mothers who are parliamentarians. She has broken up her schedule into three-hour slots so she can breastfeed. But not every woman in parliament has as much control over her schedule as a prime minister.

New Zealand is perhaps leading the pack in making parliaments work for parents. Recently, the Speaker of the New Zealand parliament has sought to make it even more family-friendly with a raft of measures, including the installation of highchairs in the cafe and a playground.

Read more: It’s only a baby, right? Prime ministers, women and parenthood

In Europe, things are also progressive with women politicians in the European Parliament – including most famously Italian MEP Licia Ronzulli – taking their children to parliamentary debates and meetings.

In the US, the number of mothers in congress has doubled following the mid-term elections in 2018, which saw a record number of women run for office. Last year, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois became the first senator to have a baby in office, which necessitated changes to allow a baby on the senate floor.

Only ten women have given birth while in Congress and of those, six in the last 11 years.

The presence of children, especially mothers breastfeeding in parliamentary chambers, continues to be worldwide news, suggesting it’s still a novelty. Japanese local government member, Yuka Ogata, has a number of times been forced to leave the assembly as irritation grows around her demanding more family-friendly policies.

At the press conference announcing O’Dwyer’s resignation, the prime minister said he supported:

[…] all women’s choices. I want women to have more choices and all the independence that comes with that.

But choices are always made in the context of individuals’ lives. This is especially true for women who are working mothers. To ensure they make the choice to enter and stay in parliament we must ensure these issues are addressed.

It’s important parliament be made up of working mothers so policies and laws that affect families and in particular working women are informed by those who experience these challenges.

– ref. Australia can do more to attract and keep women in parliament – here are some ideas – http://theconversation.com/australia-can-do-more-to-attract-and-keep-women-in-parliament-here-are-some-ideas-110174

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University

MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), commonly referred to as ecstasy, was manufactured as a potential pharmaceutical early last century. It had some limited use in the 1970s as a therapeutic aid in trauma treatment and in relationship counselling, and more recent studies using MDMA for trauma have shown some promise.

Structurally, MDMA is similar to the stimulant methamphetamine and to the hallucinogen mescaline, and so has both stimulant and mildly hallucinogenic effects.

Most problems with recreational MDMA are acute. Dependence and other long-term problems are quite rare. Less than 1% of all drug treatment presentations are for ongoing problems with MDMA, such as dependence.

Most fatalities from taking ecstasy are a result of a combination of factors, not just the drug itself.

Most of these conditions don’t result in death if they are treated early, but because of the stigma associated with using illicit drugs, sometimes people don’t seek help early enough. Any unusual or unwanted symptoms experienced while taking ecstasy should be treated as soon as they appear.

Read more: Six reasons Australia should pilot ‘pill testing’ party drugs

Contaminants and polydrug use

Most people are under the impression drugs are illegal because they are dangerous, but a drug’s legal status isn’t necessarily related to relative danger. In fact, drugs are much more dangerous because they are unregulated, manufactured by backyard chemists in clandestine laboratories.

Unlike alcohol, which is a highly regulated drug, there’s no way to tell how potent illicit drugs are or what’s in them, unless you test them.

In Australia, what is sold as ecstasy may contain a lot of MDMA or very little. Pills can contain other more dangerous drugs that mimic the effects of MDMA, and benign substances, such as lactose, as filler agents.

A recent report on findings from Australia’s first official pill testing trial at the Groovin’ the Moo music festival last year, found nearly half the pills tested were of low purity. Some 84% of people who had their pills tested thought they had bought MDMA but only 51% actually contained any MDMA.

Some of the more dangerous contaminants found in pills include PMA (paramethoxyamphetamine), which is more toxic at lower doses than ecstasy; N-Ethylpentylone, a cathinone which is a lot more potent than MDMA making it easier to take too much; and NBOMes (N-methoxybenzyl), which is more toxic at lower doses than other hallucinogenic drugs and can cause heart attack, renal failure, and stroke.

Pills have also been detected in UK and NZ with up to three doses of MDMA in a single pill.

Although it’s possible to take too much MDMA and experience severe toxic effects, as with other illicit drugs, most ecstasy-related deaths involve multiple drugs.

Sometimes these drug mixes are unexpected and sometimes people take multiple drugs deliberately. It’s safer for people using ecstasy to limit use of other drugs, including alcohol, to avoid risk of adverse effects.

Read more: While law makers squabble over pill testing, people should test their drugs at home

Heatstroke

Heatstroke or hyperthermia (dangerously high body temperature) is one of the most common issues among people taking MDMA.

MDMA increases body temperature and sweating, and using it is often accompanied by physical activity (such as dancing) in a hot environment (such as a crowded venue or in the summer heat), exacerbating fluid loss. If you don’t have enough fluids your body can’t cool itself properly.

The effect of ecstasy can be exacerbated by consuming alcohol. Alcohol is a diuretic, so it makes you urinate more and increases dehydration. Dehydration increases risk of heatstroke.

Heatstroke can cause brain, heart, kidney and muscle damage, and if left untreated can cause serious complications or death.

If active, people taking MDMA should drink around 500ml (two cups) of water an hour and take regular breaks. Isotonic drinks (such as Powerade and Gatorade) are also OK.

MDMA increases body temperature and sweating, so users have to stay hydrated. from www.shutterstock.com

Water intoxication

People using MDMA can get really thirsty. Some is probably the direct effect of MDMA, some because they’re hot, and some from dehydration.

But if you have too much water the ratio of salts and water in the body becomes unbalanced – basically the level of salt in your body gets too low and your cells start swelling with water. The technical name is hyponatraemia.

MDMA is an anti-diuretic, so it makes you retain water, which can increase risk of water intoxication.

People may feel nausea with vomiting, confusion, severe fatigue, muscle weakness and cramps.

People taking ecstasy need to stay hydrated but only replace what is lost through sweating – around 500ml per hour if active and around 250ml and hour when inactive.

Serotonin syndrome

The main action of MDMA in the brain is an increase in serotonin, which among other things is responsible for regulating pro-social behaviour, empathy and optimism. This is why people who have taken MDMA feel connection with and positivity towards others.

But too much serotonin can result in “serotonin syndrome”. It typically occurs when other drugs that also raise serotonin levels (other stimulants, antidepressants) are taken together with MDMA.

Signs include high body temperature, agitation, confusion, problems controlling muscles, headache and the shakes. People might also experience seizures or loss of consciousness.

It can be fatal if the symptoms are left untreated, so if anyone taking MDMA shows any of these signs they should be treated immediately. It’s safer not to mix different types of drugs, especially if you do not know what’s in them.

Read more: Here’s why doctors are backing pill testing at music festivals across Australia

Other causes

More rarely, fatalities have been reported as a result of other health complications after taking ecstasy, especially if the person has pre-existing risk factors, such as high blood pressure or a heart condition. Complications related to heart failure, liver failure and brain haemorrhage have been reported in people already at high risk of these problems.

The number of people who die from party drugs is relatively low compared to other drugs such as heroin, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. But the media tend to report a higher proportion of these deaths compared to other drugs, increasing the perception of harm. Most of the deaths are not directly from the drug itself but other complications or contaminants.

It’s safest not to take drugs at all, but if you choose to, it’s safer to take a small amount first (like a quarter of a pill) and wait at least an hour to make sure there are no ill effects; drink about 500ml per hour of water if active; and don’t mix drugs, including alcohol.

In the absence of a legal, uncontaminated supply of MDMA, when pill testing becomes available in Australia it will at least help people make informed decisions about drug use and reduce the risk of fatalities and other harms. People often choose not to take their pills, or take smaller amounts, when they discover contaminants.

– ref. How does ecstasy kill? – http://theconversation.com/how-does-ecstasy-kill-109506

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenni Downes, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

A wave of decluttering is sweeping the nation. St Vincent de Paul has reported a 38% increase in donated goods in some areas compared with the same time last year.

However much of this is, frankly, junk. “Donating” broken, shabby or useless items only shifts the cost of sorting and sending it to landfill onto charities, which the National Association of Charitable Recyclers has reported collectively costs A$13 million a year.

So here’s how to make sure your tidying spree doesn’t create a bigger mess for someone else to sort out.

Read more: Time for a Kondo clean-out? Here’s what clutter does to your brain and body

Charities don’t need your trash

Giving your excess to charities to find a new life is a great idea, in principle. But with the rise of fast fashion, fast furniture, and fast electronics, charities are being inundated with goods that are unsaleable or downright rubbish.

It can be tempting to think struggling people should be grateful for any sort of serviceable items, even if they’re old-fashioned, shabby or a bit grubby. But these people have self-respect, and deserve it from us.

Further, most donated items are not actually distributed directly to people in need. Unpublished research by the Institute for Sustainable Futures found major Australian charities often only give 5-10% of donated items directly to clients. Instead, most items are sold through op-shops to raise money to fund their social services. This means donated items need to be attractive enough for people to willingly buy them.

Key donation rules from St Vincent de Paul. Weekend Sunrise

Don’t ‘wish-cycle’

Another way to dodge dealing with our rubbish is “wish-cycling”. Have you ever wondered if something is recyclable, only to decide that if it’s not, then it should be, and proceed to tossing it in the recycling bin? This is wish-cycling: hoping/wishing a tricky item is recyclable, and assuming someone at the other end will either remove it, or devise a way to recycle it.

Unfortunately, this generally isn’t what happens. It can be expensive or impossible for a recycling plant to sort waste streams with that level of detail. Unrecyclable material can contaminate entire batches, meaning whole loads are sent to landfill, not just your unrecylable item.

Read more: Five golden rules to help solve your recycling dilemmas

In other words, pretending our rubbish isn’t rubbish might ease our conscience but ultimately creates more waste.

So what do you do with your stuff?

Professional waste managers will tell you the first step in cutting down on landfill is reduction – not buying so much stuff in the first place. Obviously that ship has sailed if you’re reading this article, but do keep it in mind.

But if you’re getting rid of clutter, which presumably includes items in reasonable condition as well as broken or useless things, you do have a few options.

Before donating anything, ask yourself: what condition is it in? Would you pay money for it? Or give it to a friend? Vinnies has a slogan: If it’s not fit for a mate, don’t donate! If it’s in good shape, by all means donate it to a charity. If you’re not sure, you can call and ask your local charity shop.

(In fact, calling ahead is good practice in general. It lets op shop staff gracefully decline anything they can’t use. The worst thing you can do is take stuff after hours and leave on doorsteps or around full charity bins – this is dumping and is illegal.)

What if you have something your local charity won’t take, but you think someone might want it? Try listing it for free on a classified site like Gumtree, a Facebook freecycling group, or look for local tipshops and upcycling enterprises that could turn your unwanted trash into someone else’s treasure.

If an item is not quite worth reusing, see if you can turn it into something else. Battered shelves can be plant stands; old clothes can become cleaning rags. Almost anything can be a plant pot if you shovel in enough dirt. Pinterest can be a great source of DIY inspiration and there are a raft of books and websites filled with inspiration on repurposing and “upcycling”.

Upcycling: the art of turning your stuff into other, better stuff. Shutterstock

What do you do with the rest?

So, you’ve carefully separated out your quality items to donate, given your excess coathangers to a drycleaner, and turned an old t-shirt into a cushion cover. But what do you do with everything left over?

One option for bulky items such as broken furniture, old appliances and electronics is to use council services such as scheduled or bookable collections and waste dropoff days. Your council website or sites such as Planet Ark’s Recycling Near You can tell you what can be taken where and when.

It’s important to note that aside from certain electrical and metal goods, most items collected from kerbside by your council are sent to landfill. This is something many people don’t understand: nearly 50% of us incorrectly think the majority of collected items are reused, recycled or otherwise salvaged.

Read more: We can’t recycle our way to ‘zero waste’

Few councils have the resources to sift through thousands of tonnes of collected rubbish to salvage reusable items. So if you’re putting it out for collection, you’re mostly still throwing it out – though some items may be grabbed by salvagers before being collected, the proportion is still low. However putting things out on your kerb simply in the hope someone will see and take them (when you haven’t booked a council cleanup) is also considered dumping, and is illegal.

It’s good to think about what we need and don’t need, and reducing clutter has clear benefits. But if you’re really trying to create peace and joy, then think carefully about what to do with your once-but-no-longer wanted items, and don’t dump them on charities or the kerbside.

– ref. So you’ve KonMarie’d your life: here’s how to throw your stuff out – http://theconversation.com/so-youve-konmaried-your-life-heres-how-to-throw-your-stuff-out-109945

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Kaufman, PhD Scholar in Transport, Griffith University

If you’ve been in central Brisbane recently, you will know there is a new visitor in town. Lime e-scooters have popped up all over the CBD and neighbouring suburbs. It’s early days for this new mobility provider, so we can’t say if this is a permanent fixture with certainty, but here’s a transport research team’s view on the Brisbane trial and its implications.

Transport disruption makes life difficult for policymakers and transport agencies. Queensland at first attempted to deter illegal ride-sharing but then legalised Uber and Ola in response to public demand. E-scooter sharing systems might be just as transformative for people’s travel.

You can download an app, sign up quickly and for only a dollar unlock a scooter, hit the accelerator and zip down the street at up to 25km/h. Scooters can be picked up and dropped off on footpaths throughout the central city. They offer low-cost travel and produce low carbon emissions.

Read more: Can e-scooters solve the ‘last mile’ problem? They’ll need to avoid the fate of dockless bikes

Previously, North American cities, such as San Francisco and Washington DC, were inundated with e-scooters. In response, some cities banned e-scooters outright, others used regulations to control the new players.

The trial in Brisbane is helping the city and state see if it works and determine an appropriate regulatory approach. Lime was initially given a “temporary pass in Brisbane”, allowing up to 500 e-scooters. As long as riders wore helmets (either provided by Lime and attached to each scooter, or bring-your-own) and rode them responsibly, there would be no problem.

Kudos to the Queensland transport minister and his department for being the first in Australia to allow a trial and, more recently, for improving the regulation of these operations. Well done also to Brisbane City Council for allowing the trial in the central business district and working with Lime on the roll-out. It was especially helpful that the council’s contract with its bikeshare operator did not prevent e-scooters from competing for riders.

When you take off on one of these e-scooters, it is liberating. If you’ve used a kick scooter before, even as a child, these new versions are relatively intuitive to ride. The electric motor means Brisbane’s hills are suddenly no problem. A trip from our South Bank campus across the river and through the botanic gardens to connect to a downtown meeting took six minutes and cost just over $3.

For only a few dollars, an e-scooter can get you from Brisbane CBD to South Bank in a matter of minutes. Albert Perez/AAP

No other mode of transport would compete in terms of either time or cost for such trips, unless you bring your own bike or e-scooter with you into town. Thousands of residents and tourists are using the e-scooters in Brisbane each day. Our sources tell us over 100,000 users have made over 300,000 trips since the mid-November launch.

There are reports of injuries from falling off the scooters. This highlights a need to take it easy your first few trips, to look for problems on any scooter you hire and to wear your helmet.

So what are the problems?

Our observations this last couple of months suggest user behaviour has changed. Some unruly behaviours we saw in the first few days seem have given way to new social norms.

Parking behaviour is also improving. Riders cannot lock the scooter (and stop paying for it) in locations where it might cause a nuisance, such as on the main green bridges. They are both encouraged to park out of harm’s way and forced to submit a photograph of their parking attempt. Park poorly a few times and Lime will suspend your account.

Lime itself emphasises the need to ride safely and follow the rules.

There are some issues though. The guidance provided to riders about where you can legally ride, whether on the departmental website, news media, the system app or its website, is at times missing, contradictory or just confusing. Fixing that should be easy enough.

Brisbane has not built much bicycle infrastructure in the last five decades, a few notable bridges and riverside paths aside. Nor have we reduced local street speeds to 30km/h, as is now standard European practice. There aren’t obvious safe routes to use when scootering through parts of the central city.

Fixing these issues will be more challenging, but quiet non-polluting e-scooters are clearly preferable to a city centre clogged with cars.

What are the best regulatory options?

Lime has proven these systems work well in Australian cities. But key regulatory questions remain. North American cities are introducing various regulatory systems. These include:

• permits (often awarded via tender)
• maximum fleet sizes
• vehicle regulations – especially maximum speeds
• go/no-go zones
• parking controls
• high fees to pick up and impound scooters that operators fail to collect.

Our city managers have to decide what options they prefer.

Read more: Electric scooters on collision course with pedestrians and lawmakers

We have five suggestions.

1. There is no need for scooters in Australian cities that have more power or go faster than the current Lime scooters. The decision to choose 25km/h seems appropriate at present. Restricting speeds to 10km/h, as previous laws did in Queensland, would be nonsensical.

Based on Brisbane’s trial, a 25km/h speed limit for e-scooters seems about right. Albert Perez/AAP

2. E-scooter systems are likely a natural monopoly, or perhaps duopoly. This is because one needs many scooters from the same operator available across a wide area to ensure efficiency in operations, keep costs low and provide wide coverage for users.

Brisbane City Council is talking of a probable monopoly, awarded via tender. This is the approach used since the city’s first tram operations in the 1880s. If Australian cities do award monopoly rights we hope they adopt Santa Monica’s use of a levy on the operator that is hypothecated towards improving the city’s bike lanes and bike paths, to create more safe riding space.

3. We recommend scooter parking locations be designated in key locations, such as close to Brisbane’s Queen Street mall, difficult as this will be given the competition for space on the city’s narrow streets and footpaths.

4. Cities should enter into meaningful partnerships with scooter companies that include data sharing for research and analysis of overall city transportation. Gold Coast’s MoBike scheme is, without much fanfare, the best-used bicycle-sharing scheme in Australia and an exemplar partnership model.

5. These scooters need to be part of the coming move towards subscription mobility services. Soon we are likely to be offered “mobility as a service” and pay one monthly fee to get public transport plus rideshare, bikeshare and scooter-share trips, some car-sharing and maybe some taxi kilometres. Based on the demand seen in Brisbane, e-scooters should be included in these packages.

This regulatory mix would cover most of the issues raised by others. Get all this right and e-scooters can help create a safer, more sustainable and liveable city with a better set of mobility options.

Read more: For Mobility as a Service (MaaS) to solve our transport woes, some things need to change

– ref. Limes not lemons: lessons from Australia’s first e-scooter sharing trial – http://theconversation.com/limes-not-lemons-lessons-from-australias-first-e-scooter-sharing-trial-108924

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Dehm, Lecturer, La Trobe University

Australian companies dominate African mining. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade counts 175 ASX-listed companies operating in 35 African countries. Professional services company PwC reckons there are more than 200, and that “a golden age of Australia-Africa relations has begun”.

But Australian miners also arguably stand implicated in both human rights and environmental abuses in pursuit of Africa’s mineral wealth.

The Human Rights Law Centre has documented serious human rights abuses in the overseas operations of a number of prominent Australian companies. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has linked Australian mining operations to deaths, destruction and displacement across Africa.

Right now the spotlight is on a bitter dispute between local people in the Xolobeni region on the east coast of South Africa and an Autralian-created mining company that wants to excavate a strip of coastal land, 22 km long and 1.5 km wide, for titanium.

The Xolobeni mine is about 200 km south of Durban in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. www.mineralcommodities.com The proposed mine area is 22 km long and 1.5 km wide. www.mineralcommodities.com

The mining company, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources, was until 2016 a subsidiary of Australian company Mineral Commodities Limited. The local community’s fight against Transworld goes back more than a decade. Last week a “consultation” meeting ended with police firing stun grenades.

In November the mine’s opponents won an important legal battle when the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria) ruled the local community needed to give free and informed consent to the project.

The ruling was based on a specific South African law. But the right of Indigenous peoples to give free, prior and informed consent to projects affecting their lands is also recognised by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Despite the Australian government endorsing the UN declaration – along with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which also covers human rights obligations – there is no real legal obligation for Australian companies operating overseas to abide by such principles.

Conflict and consent

Transworld first sought the right to mine the Xolobeni territory in 2007. Locals formed the Amadiba Crisis Committee to oppose the mine shortly thereafter.

After Transworld filed a new application for mining rights in March 2015, the Amadiba Crisis Committee joined together with other groups and 89 residents to claim their rights to the land according to customary law. They filed their claim in March 2016.

Around the same time the Amadiba Crisis Committee’s chairman, Sikhosiphi Rhadebe, was shot dead at his home. No one has been arrested for his murder, so it’s impossible to say what motivated his killers. But the mine proposal has led to significant conflict within the community.

Read more: How South Africa’s mining industry can change its ways

Some locals believe the mine will benefit them. Those opposed to the mine fear it will force them off their land, disrupt livelihoods based on agriculture and eco-tourism, and harm the community’s whole culture.

They point to the effects of similar strip-mining operations, such as Rio Tinto’s mine near Richards Bay, 400 kilometres north. The South African Human Rights Commission has documented adverse social, economic and ecological impacts across the country.

Under South Africa’s Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, property holders only need to be “consulted” before a mining licence is granted. But Judge Annali Basson ruled in November that customary rights were guaranteed by the Interim Protection of Informal Rights to Law Act 1996.

Read more: Why South African community’s win against mining company matters

This law, designed to protect those discriminated against during the apartheid era, provides that “no person may be deprived of any informal right to land without his or her consent”. On that basis the court ruled a mining right could not be granted unless the community made a communal decision to consent. The the minister for mineral resources is appealing the decision.

Lacklustre accountability

Australian human rights and environmental groups called on Mineral Commodities to drop its plans for Xolobeni back in May 2016. They also called on the Australian government to make companies more accountable for monitoring and enforcing human rights standards in their overseas operations.

The federal government has had a “National Contact Point” for the OECD Guidelines since 2002. But an independent review in 2017 found the initiative “significantly lacking”.

How the National Contact Point handled a submission from representatives of the Xolobeni community in 2013 demonstrates its limitations. It did not accept the complaint under the guidelines because the submission opposed all mining. This meant there was no community interest in a “mediation process that carries with it even the remotest possibility of accommodation between the mining company and local residents”.

In June 2017 the Australian government established an advisory group for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The group quickly recommended developing a national action plan, in line with international standards. But in October the government announced it was “not proceeding with a national action plan at this time”.

We can do better

Other countries are doing more.

France has introduced a “duty of vigilance” law requiring companies ensure their supply chains respect labour and other human rights.

In Switzerland there is a push for a constitutional amendment obliging Swiss companies to incorporate respect for human rights and the environment in all their activities.

Canada is soon to appoint an independent Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise to investigate allegations of human rights abuses linked to Canadian corporate activity overseas.

It’s increasingly recognised on a purely pragmatic level there are legal, reputational and financial risks if companies attempt to operate without community consent. Studies show the huge financial costs of conflicts with Indigenous communities, which can delay projects significantly.

Australia law makers, therefore, can do both local communities overseas and domestic investors at home a favour by putting in place adequate mechanisms to ensure Australian companies cause no harm overseas.

– ref. Dirty deeds: how to stop Australian miners abroad being linked to death and destruction – http://theconversation.com/dirty-deeds-how-to-stop-australian-miners-abroad-being-linked-to-death-and-destruction-109407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julia Kindt, Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney

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

In a time and place that offered few career opportunities for women, the job of the priestess of Apollo at Delphi stands out. Her position was at the centre of one of the most powerful religious institutions of the ancient world. The competing Greek city states had few overarching authorities (political or otherwise), so the significance of her voice should not be underestimated.

Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that the Pythia was at the core what we today call a “knowledge economy”. Her role may well have involved the gathering, re-packaging, and distribution of information, with the ultimate intent of providing sound advice on the trivial and not-so-trivial questions of life in the ancient world.

Jacek Malczewski Pytia, 1917. Wikimedia Commons

The “Pythia” is the official job title. We know of several women by name who, during the long history of this institution (from ca. 800 BCE to AD 390/91), held that role, including Phemonoe and Aristonike. Indeed, at some stage Delphi became so busy that three Pythias were appointed to serve in the role simultaneously.

The oracle was consulted by the movers and shakers of the ancient world on a diverse range of problems. For the Pythia, this meant the opportunity to comment on a variety of issues of public and individual concern: cult matters, warfare, the relationships between existing city-states, and the foundation of new ones.

Numerous personal questions were also put to the oracle on matters of lovesickness, career advice, child birth, and how to get offspring. So, by all standards, this job was demanding yet also diverse and rewarding — a position powerful enough to change the course of history.

Yet right from the beginning, efforts to deprive the priestess of her power prevailed, particularly in older classical scholarship. Surely a woman, especially one in such a paternalistic society as ancient Greece, could not hold that powerful a position?

Some scholars suggested that the Pythia actually babbled unintelligible gibberish and that her words were later put into beautiful, deep, and meaningful hexameter verse — by male priests.

Yet in our ancient sources there is absolutely nothing to suggest that it was anyone other than the Pythia herself who came up with the responses. To the contrary: she is regularly named as the one and only source of the prophecies delivered at Delphi. There is no word of male priests, beyond those in purely administrative and assisting roles.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Hop Lin Jong, a Chinese immigrant in the early days of White Australia

Insult by oracle

The position of the Pythia seemed to have entailed the extraordinary opportunity to speak unwelcome truth to those in power.

A Spartan once approached the oracle with the intention of being confirmed as the wisest man in the world. In response to this question the Pythia named another person who was wiser.

The Greek city of Megara allegedly asked the Pythia in about 700 BCE who were the best of all the Greeks, hoping to be named first. The Pythia mentioned two better cities , concluding with the line, “[Y]ou, o Megarians, [are] neither third nor fourth.” Surely, the Megarians did not see that coming!

Cleisthenes, meanwhile, the famous tyrant of Sicyon, asked whether he should remove the cult of the hero Adrastus from the city. He received an oracle that came straight to the point: “Adrastus is king of Sicyon, and you but a common slayer.”

This kind of reality check and straight talk would certainly have upset those with egos accustomed to flattery and agreement.

The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. Wikimedia Commons

Of course, it is not always possible to tell whether these and other responses of the oracle were authentic or whether the whole incident was part of later historiographic lore. Yet whatever the case: the fact is that it was a woman who was attributed such a sharp, judgemental voice.

And her voice proved extraordinarily unimpeachable. The Greeks thought that it was the god Apollo who conveyed his superior divine knowledge through the mouth of the Pythia, so the priestess herself was largely beyond reproach. While itinerant seers, augurs, and oracle mongers feature in classical literature as corrupt and unreliable, the position of the Pythia seems to have stood above all criticism.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Théroigne de Méricourt, feminist revolutionary

The job and its challenges

John Collier, Priestess of Delphi, 1891. Wikimedia Commons

Being a Pythia was not always easy. Several ancient enquirers sought to influence the kind of answer they hoped to get from the oracle. Subtle manipulation in how the questions were put, not-so-subtle bribery, and even an attempt to force the oracle to deliver responses on a non-auspicious day are all on record – as are complaints about unfathomable responses.

For instance the Greek historian, philosopher, soldier, and horse whisperer Xenophon allegedly enquired at Delphi to which deity he should sacrifice and pray so that the military expedition he was about to join would be a success. He was later reprimanded by the philosopher Socrates for having posed a manipulative question. Socrates felt he should have asked whether it would be a success, rather than how.

Cleisthenes was said to have bribed the Pythia to deliver the same response to all Spartan requests at the oracle, no matter the question: to free Athens from the rule of tyrants.

And after a series of spectacular mishaps based on misread oracles, the Lydian king Croesus complained at the Delphic Oracle about having been misled. The Pythia responded that he himself was to blame for his misfortune: He should have interpreted the Pythia’s word correctly.

We also know of several instances in which the Pythia refused outright to respond to a question that, in one way or another, seemed unreasonable.

Job requirements

Delphic tripod. Paestan red-figured bell-krater, ca. 330 BC. Wikimedia Commons

What did it take to become the Pythia? Was she a local girl from a neighbouring village? Was any kind of training provided to candidates? Or were they thrown in the deep end?

Unfortunately, the ancient sources are silent. The Nobel prize-winning author William Golding in his (posthumously published) last novel The Double Tongue, written from the perspective of a Pythia, sees her as a local girl who was unable to get herself married and so took on that role.

Yet again, this sounds like speculation designed to downplay the position.

The kind of skills required to be successful in the role are easier to reconstruct. The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi served as a marketplace for representatives from all over the ancient Greek world (and beyond) who came for a variety of reasons.

In addition to the oracle, the sanctuary housed regular athletic competitions (the so-called Pythian Games, analogous to the more famous Olympic Games). With its numerous temples and monuments, the site was also a popular tourist destination. All these activities together served to establish a busy hub, where information, news, and gossip of all kinds would have circulated freely.

So perhaps the key to the Pythia’s success was simply to listen closely? There is good evidence to suggest that the fantastic tales of prediction and fulfilment are a matter of the (later) historiographic tradition and that it was mostly quite straightforward questions of everyday life that were put to the Pythia for comment, along the lines suggested by the ancient author Plutarch, who was also a priest at Delphi: Will I win? Shall I marry? Is it a good idea to sail the sea? Shall I take up farming? Shall I go abroad?

If this was indeed the case, it would, more often than not, have been possible to glean the information necessary to answer any particular enquiry from the chatter of those queuing to consult the oracle, to watch or participate in the games, or to take in the monuments. The Pythia may have trailblazed the knowledge economy millennia before the arrival of “big data” and the invention of the internet.

– ref. Hidden women of history: the priestess Pythia at the Delphic Oracle, who spoke truth to power – http://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-the-priestess-pythia-at-the-delphic-oracle-who-spoke-truth-to-power-108401

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

Scott Morrison’s controversial move to install former Labor party president Warren Mundine as Liberal candidate in the ultra-marginal NSW seat of Gilmore has triggered a local implosion.

As members of the Liberal state executive were voting on Tuesday to admit Mundine to their party and nominate him as the candidate for the marginal seat, Grant Schultz, who had been selected by the locals in December, was exiting the party, as were some of his supporters.

South Coast state Liberal MP Shelley Hancock (who is Speaker in the NSW parliament) pointedly observed: “Only recently Scott Morrison was talking about the importance of grassroots processes when preselecting candidates”.

Schultz, son of the blunt-talking former MP, the late Alby Schultz, told the South Coast Register that his dad would be “rolling in his grave in utter disgust and anger” at what had happened.

“He would take the same view of mine that the leadership of Scott Morrison has taken the party to the days of Eddie Obeid and the faceless men of Labor,” said Schultz, who is a local real estate agent. “To turn their backs on the democratic principles of this party is quite frankly extraordinary and without precedent in this party’s history.”

Not quite. Late last year Craig Kelly, who helped bring Malcolm Turnbull down, was protected from his locals who wanted to deselect him. The Prime Minister feared that unless Kelly’s future was guaranteed, the maverick backbencher could defect to the crossbench.

Read more: Turnbull versus Morrison in Liberal crisis over Craig Kelly

Morrison and senior party figures have been in negotiations with Mundine for months, and party research has tested his popularity. Gilmore is currently held by Ann Sudmalis, who last year announced she wouldn’t stand again, alleging branch stacking and bullying against her.

Read more: Morrison tells Liberal organisation to act on bullying after second woman flags she’ll quit

Gilmore stretches along the NSW coast from Kiama in the north to Tuross Head in the south. It takes in popular resort and retirement areas and farming land.

The government’s grip on the seat is wafer-thin – less than 1%. In the present climate, it is likely to be lost to Labor whoever the Liberals put up. With this kerfuffle, and Schultz declaring he will run as an independent, their chances could simply be further diminished.

To complicate the picture, the Nationals are considering whether to enter the race, with local branch members wanting former state minister Katrina Hodgkinson to stand.

Philip Ruddock, president of the NSW party, explained the refusal to accept Schultz in a brief statement. “Mr Schultz nominated against a sitting member who later withdrew and given these circumstance the party has elected to not proceed with the endorsement. The party should be able to consider the best candidate to represent voters, their aspirations and concerns in each community.”

Mundine doesn’t live in the electorate, although he has family connections there. He has been quoted as saying, “I love the place. I feel most comfortable in that area, for me it’s like going home.”

ABC election analyst Antony Green describes Mundine as “a brave choice” (in the Humphrey Appleby sense), pointing out that “it’s the sort of regional seat where personal vote matters.”

In 2001 Mundine ran unsuccessfully in third place on the ALP Senate ticket. Later he failed to get Labor preselection for a lower house seat.

He was ALP national president in 2006-07. But his public profile has come through his role as an Indigenous voice. He was a member of John Howard’s Indigenous advisory council, and chaired that of Tony Abbott, a position he lost under Malcolm Turnbull. (In late November Mundine tweeted “I wish Malcolm Termite would crawl back into his little hole he come from.”)

Mundine left the ALP in 2012 and became increasingly identified with the conservative side of politics. He has also built a media presence on Sky, where he has a program “Mundine Means Business”.

As he weighed his future in recent months, Mundine has been double dating.

In 2018 he joined the Liberal Democrats, and was being considered as a potential Senate candidate for them.

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm says he spoke to Mundine late last year about reports that the Liberals were courting him.

Mundine played down the speculation as media talk, Leyonhjelm says. But he said he had some issues with section 44 of the constitution through his business interests which needed sorting out, and he suggested leaving the discussion about the possible Senate spot until the new year.

That’s where matters lay until last week when the president of the Liberal Democrats received a letter from Mundine resigning from the party. Leyonhjelm wasn’t totally surprised: he’d been watching Mundine’s recent pro-Liberal tweets.

The Prime Minister will appear with Mundine in Gilmore on Wednesday. Morrison on Tuesday wouldn’t be drawn on Mundine’s candidacy. But he said that he’d been “a friend of Warren for some time” and described him as a “top bloke” who had “a lot to offer”.

Be that as it may, this is shaping as a very inauspicious start to the campaign of someone who will carry the tag of a captain’s pick candidate.

– ref. View from The Hill: Morrison’s Gilmore candidate is the man who’s been everywhere – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrisons-gilmore-candidate-is-the-man-whos-been-everywhere-110300

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Harcourt, Professor, University of Waikato

A more equal society with less income disparity is good for well-being.

In their latest book, epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue people living in more equal societies empathise more and worry less about income, possessions and social status.

But income inequalities have been increasing, notably in New Zealand, and research suggests this growing economic gap is associated with a range of social ills and political instability.

Read more: Distress, status wars and immoral behaviour: the psychological impacts of inequality

In our research, we argue that making union membership the default option would help reduce inequality while protecting workers’ rights to opt out.

Unions and inequality

Unions have traditionally played a key role in reducing income disparities. They negotiate higher pay for virtually all workers, but especially the low waged.

In the United States, evidence suggests the union pay premium has been a consistent 10% to 20% since the 1930s, and is as high as 30% to 40% for the lowest paid. Countries that have higher union membership levels and collective bargaining coverage usually have lower income inequality. Those that have declining membership and coverage usually have worsening inequality.

In the US, research suggests the decline in union membership since the 1960s explains up to a third of the growth in male wage inequality since that time.

Read more: What income inequality looks like across Australia

Preferences for union membership

Despite widespread de-unionisation, surveys show roughly half of all workers across richer Anglophone countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, want to be union members but a majority cannot exercise their preference because they belong to a non-union workplace.

Recruitment of members was less of an issue in the past. Unions, once established, could negotiate closed-shop clauses in their collective agreement. Such a clause means an employer agrees to employ only workers who are already members of a particular union or agree to join once employed.

But more recently, governments in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US have increasingly adopted a policy of voluntary unionism, banning the closed-shop clause or declaring it unenforceable. In the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, in the Sorensen and Rasmussen v. Denmark case, declared the closed shop was a breach of the freedom not to associate.

Read more: Unions can’t just rely on promises of favourable laws to regain lost ground

How, then, can employees retain the freedom to choose while reaping the benefits of union membership in reducing inequality? In our research we propose an innovative solution, drawing on insights from behavioural economics, which involves defaulting employees to union membership in workplaces where unions already have some members or a collective agreement. Once employed, employees would be automatically enrolled in the on-site union, but retain the freedom to opt out at least after some time.

Union default and increased membership

Our work indicates a union default would likely increase union membership in four main ways. It would lower the costs of joining, membership would become the norm, inertia would keep workers in the union and they would not want to lose the benefits of unions.

The cost of union membership would be significantly lower because, for the union, it would be solely associated with establishing an initial presence and collective agreement. The cost of recruiting additional members would be effectively zero. For members, enrolment would be automatic.

Once enrolled, employees would be more likely to remain members through inertia. Making decisions can be difficult, especially when the choices are complex. This is certainly true of unions, given the broad range of their services and the difficulties in forecasting whether these services will be needed (for example, in the case of a dismissal). If membership is the default, inertia means workers would stay with the status quo.

A union default would also help to normalise union membership. It would send a clear signal to employees that the state approves of union membership as the right thing to do and that it’s commonplace. Beyond that, a union default would set a reference point for employees’ assessments of gains and losses, with losses typically given more importance in any decision to leave a union.

It’s difficult to predict how much union membership would rise with a union default, but the extensive empirical research on default effects in various contexts would suggest a lot.

– ref. How a default union membership could help reduce income inequality – http://theconversation.com/how-a-default-union-membership-could-help-reduce-income-inequality-110021

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Stevens, Associate Professor in Ocean Physics, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

As New Zealanders are enjoying their days at the beach, unusually warm ocean temperatures look to be a harbinger of another marine heatwave.

Despite the exceptional conditions during last year’s heatwave in the Tasman Sea, this summer’s sea surface temperatures to the north and east of New Zealand are even warmer.

The latest NIWA climate assessment shows that sea surface temperatures in coastal waters around New Zealand are well above average. Marine heatwave conditions are already occurring in parts of the Tasman Sea and the ocean around New Zealand and looking to become the new normal.

Read more: Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage

Changing sea surface temperature anomalies (conditions compared to average) in the oceans around New Zealand during the first two weeks of January – comparing 2009 to 2019. Source: NIWA

What’s in a name

Currently, marine heatwaves are defined as periods that last for five or more days with temperatures warmer than the 90th percentile based on a 30-year historical baseline. Given we are likely to experience many more such events as the oceans continue to warm, it is time to understand and categorise the intensity of marine heat.

The names Hurricane Katrina, tropical cyclone Giselle (which sank the ferry Wahine 50 years ago), tropical cyclone Winston give a malevolent personality to geophysical phenomena. Importantly they get graded into categories, so we can rapidly assess their potential impact.

Read more: Winston strikes Fiji: your guide to cyclone science

An Australian team has developed a classification scheme for marine heatwaves. The team used an approach similar to that used for hurricanes and cyclones – changing conditions can be slotted into to a sequence of categories. At the moment it looks like we are in marine heat wave category one conditions, but potentially entering category two if it continues to warm.

Turning the heat up on marine life

A marine heatwave is potentially devastating for marine ecosystems. It is also an indication that the hidden buffer in the climate system – the fact that the oceans have absorbed 93% of the excess heat – is starting to change. Individual warm seasons have always occurred, but in future there will be more of them and they will keep getting warmer.

The Great Barrier Reef has already been hit hard by a succession of marine heatwave events, bleaching the iconic corals and changing the structure of the ecosystem it supports.

Read more: The 2016 Great Barrier Reef heatwave caused widespread changes to fish populations

Further south, off Tasmania’s east coast, a number of species that normally occur in tropical waters have extended their range further south. A number of fish species, lobster and octopus species have also taken up residence along the Tasmanian coast, displacing some of the species that call this coast home. Mobile species can escape the warmer temperatures, but sedentary plants and animals are hardest hit.

In New Zealand, aquaculture industries will find it more difficult to grow fish or mussels as coastal waters continue to warm. If the same trends seen off Tasmania occur here, areas with substantial kelp canopies will struggle and start to be replaced by species normally seen further north. But the impacts will likely be very variable because the warming will be heavily influenced by wind and ocean currents and different locations will feel changes to a greater or lesser extent.

NIWA’s research vessel Kaharoa has deployed Argo floats in the Southern Ocean and in waters around New Zealand. NIWA, CC BY-ND

Predicting the seasons

As important as it is to identify a marine heatwave at the time, reliable predictions of developing conditions would help fishers, aquaculture companies and local authorities – and in fact anyone living and working around the ocean.

Seasonal forecasting a few months ahead is difficult. It falls between weather and climate predictions. In a collaboration between the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, we are examining how well long-term forecasts of ocean conditions around New Zealand stack up. Early forecasts suggested this summer would not be as warm as last year. But it now looks like this summer will again be very warm in the ocean.

Read more: This summer’s sea temperatures were the hottest on record for Australia: here’s why

One of the important points to keep in mind is that when we are at the beach, we are sampling only the surface temperature. The same is true of satellites – they monitor less than the top millimetre of the ocean.

Sea surface temperatures are several degrees above normal at the moment. But in deeper waters, because of the high heat content of water, even a tenth of a degree is significant. Temperature in the deeper ocean is monitored by a network of moored buoys on and off the continental shelf along the Australian coast. New Zealand has almost nothing that would be comparable.

Measuring temperature in real time

What we can look to, in the absence of moored buoys, is a fleet of ocean robots that monitor temperature in real time. Argo floats drift with ocean currents, sink to two kilometres every ten days and then collect data as they return to the surface.

These data allowed us to identify that the 2017/18 marine heatwave around New Zealand remained shallow. Most of the warmer water was in the upper 30 metres. Looking at the present summer conditions, one Argo robot off New Zealand’s west coast shows it is almost four degrees above normal in the upper 40 metres of the ocean. On the east coast, near the Chatham Islands, another float shows warmed layers to 20 metres deep. To the south, the warming goes deeper, down to almost 80 metres.

Our work using the Australian Bureau of Meteorology forecast model highlights how variable the ocean around New Zealand is. Different issues emerge in different regions, even if they are geographically close.

The research on categories of marine heatwaves shows we will have to keep shifting what we regard as a heat wave as the ocean continues to warm. None of this should come as a surprise. We have known for some time that the world’s oceans are storing most of the additional heat and the impacts of a warming ocean will be serious.

– ref. Coastal seas around New Zealand are heading into a marine heatwave, again – http://theconversation.com/coastal-seas-around-new-zealand-are-heading-into-a-marine-heatwave-again-110028

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Pitt, Professor, Griffith University

Reports that Irukandji jellyfish might be moving south may be panicking people unnecessarily. It’s almost impossible to tell where the tiny jellyfish are along our coast, but that could change with new technology that can “sweep” the ocean for traces of DNA.

Read more: Will venomous Irukandji jellyfish reach south-east Queensland?

Since the Christmas period nearly twice the usual number of people have suffered the excruciating consequences of being stung by Irukandji. The stings are rarely fatal, but can require medical evacuation and hospitalisation.

These reports of southward movement are almost a yearly tradition, often sensational, and accompanied by varying expert opinions about whether climate change is driving these dangerous tropical animals south, towards the lucrative beach tourism destinations of southeast Queensland.

But simply counting the number of Irukandji found, or the number of reported stings, tells us very little about where the species can be found.

A simple question but difficult answer

“Where are Irukandji located, and is that changing?”, might seem like a straightforward question. Unfortunately, finding the answer is not easy. The only definitive way to determine where they are is to catch them – but that poses many challenges.

Irukandji are tiny (most are about 1cm in diameter) and transparent. Along beaches they are usually sampled by a person wading through shallow water towing a fine net. This is often done by lifeguards at beaches in northern Queensland to help manage risk.

Irukandji are also attracted to light, so further offshore they can be concentrated by deploying lights over the sides of boats and then scooped up in nets. The problem is they’re are often very sparsely scattered, even in places we know they regularly occur, such as Queensland’s north. As with any rare species, catching them can confirm their presence, but failure to catch them does not guarantee their absence. Collecting Irukandji in an ocean environment is truly like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

A sense of scale: an Irukandji Jellyfish next to a two dollar coin. Source: WA Department of Parks and Wildlife/AAP

Another method is to infer their presence from hospital records and media reports of Irukandji syndrome, the suite of symptoms caused by their sting, but this method has major pitfalls. There is often a delay of around 30 minutes between the initial sting, which is usually mild, and the onset of Irukandji syndrome. Hence the animal that caused the symptoms is almost never caught and we cannot verify the species responsible.

Indeed, we do not know whether Irukandji are the only marine organisms to cause Irukandji syndrome. For example, the Moreton Bay Fire Jelly, a species of jellyfish related to Irukandji only found in southeast Queensland, and even bluebottles, which in the past couple of weeks have stung more than 10,000 people along Australia’s east coast, have also been suggested to occasionally cause Irukandji-like symptoms.

eDNA to save the day

Emerging technology may be the key to properly mapping Irukandji distribution. All animals shed DNA in large quantities into their environment (for example, skin cells and hair by humans). This DNA is called environmental DNA) (or eDNA) and genetic techniques are now so powerful that they can detect even trace amounts.

In the sea, this means we can determine whether an animal has been in an area by collecting water samples and testing them for the presence of the target species’ DNA. This technology is exciting because it provides a major upgrade in our ability to detect rare species. Moreover, it is relatively simple to train people to collect and process water samples, the results can be available within hours, and the equipment needed to analyse the samples is becoming increasingly affordable.

Read more: The blue bottles are coming, but what exactly are these creatures?

This means an eDNA monitoring program could be easily established in Southeast Queensland to monitor the occurrence and, importantly, changes in the distribution of Irukandji jellyfish. This is because Irukandji leave traces of their genetic code in the water as they swim.

Developing the eDNA technology for use with Irukandji would cost a few hundred thousand dollars – a relatively small price to pay to improve public safety, to provide stakeholders with some control over their ability to detect Irukandji, and to create some certainty around the long-term distribution of these animals.

The authors would like to acknowledge the significant contribution to this article by Professor Mike Kingsford (James Cook University).

– ref. Why we don’t know if Irukandji jellyfish are moving south – http://theconversation.com/why-we-dont-know-if-irukandji-jellyfish-are-moving-south-109653

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University

To demonstrate the failure of the war on drugs, NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann came out this week about about her own drug use:

Since my 20s, I’ve occasionally taken MDMA [ecstasy] at dance parties and music festivals. I know journalists, tradies, lawyers, public servants, doctors, police and yes, politicians (most well into their forties), who have done the same.

When asked by journalists on Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he’d never taken illicit drugs, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he couldn’t rule out using cannabis while at university.

But what about the rest of Australia?

Nearly half have tried drugs

Some 43% of Australians aged 14 years or over have used an illicit drug at least once in their lifetime.

Nearly 16% have used an illicit drug at least once in the last year; around 75% of those use infrequently, between once and 11 times a year.

By far the majority of both lifetime and recent use is of cannabis (around 35% lifetime use), with other drugs such as ecstasy (MDMA) (around 11%), hallucinogens (around 9.5%) and cocaine (around 9%) much less commonly tried. Methamphetamine (including “ice”) is the fifth most commonly used drug at around 6% lifetime use.

Age and gender

The highest rate of lifetime use is among 30-39 year olds (around 55%), closely followed by 40-49 year olds (just under 55%), then 20-29 year olds (49%) and 50-59 year olds (48%).

But recent use (in the past year) is concentrated among 20-29 year olds (28%), dropping off after 30 to 18%.

Read more: Drug use can have social benefits, and acknowledging this could improve rehabilitation

Only 7% of people over 60 and 12% of people over 50 say they have used an illicit drug in the last year.

Most people who try drugs typically do so for a short period in their lives (mostly in their 20s). There is natural attrition over time, probably as people gain more responsibilities, at work and home, which are incompatible with drug use.

Recent illicit drug use among teens has been in decline over the last eight to ten years, and has remained stable among people in their 20s.

In all age groups, men tend to have a higher rate of both lifetime and recent use than women.

Education and occupation

People who have post-school qualifications (such as university and TAFE) have a higher rate of lifetime drug use (47%) than those with no post-school qualifications (34%).

The rate of lifetime cannabis use among people who have post-school qualifications is around 40%, compared to 26% of people with no post-school qualifications.

People in the paid workforce have a higher rate of lifetime drug use (51%) than unemployed people (43%).

Read more: FactCheck Q&A: are rates of drug use 2.5 times higher among unemployed people than employed people?

About 45% of people in paid employment say they have used cannabis in their lifetime, compared to 39% of unemployed people. For ecstasy it’s 15% and 12% respectively.

Illicit drug use is reasonably equally distributed across socioeconomic groups, but the most advantaged tend to have a higher lifetime use (44% compared to 39%) and the more socially disadvantaged have a slightly higher rate of recent use (16% compared to 14%).

This suggests those who are more advantaged are more likely to try drugs but less likely to continue to use them.

There are no recent published analyses of which occupational groups tend to have higher rates of lifetime use. The last analysis was from 2004 data and only looked at use in the last 12 months. That data showed workers in hospitality (32%), construction (24%) and retail (20%) had the highest rate of recent use.

Read more: Here’s why doctors are backing pill testing at music festivals across Australia

– ref. Three Charts on who uses illicit drugs in Australia – http://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-who-uses-illicit-drugs-in-australia-110169

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Kathryn White, PhD Candidate, Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne

Curious Kids is a series for children. Send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au. You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

How is water made? – Clara, age 8, Canberra.

Hi Clara. That’s a really great question. If we could make large quantities of water cheaply, cleanly and safely, it would solve a lot of the world’s problems. Unfortunately, it is not that easy.

Read more: Curious Kids: where do clouds come from and why do they have different shapes?

What is water and where did it come from?

Water is made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. Shutterstock

You’ve probably heard of atoms, the tiniest building blocks of all matter in the Universe. We are all made of atoms stuck together (or, as scientists would say, “bonded”). Atoms bonded together form molecules.

A molecule of pure water is made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. As explained in a previous Curious Kids article, scientists think the water on Earth may have come from melting of water-rich minerals during formation of the planet and icy comets that, billions of years ago, smashed into Earth and melted.

Scientists believe water may have come to us from rocks melting during formation of the Earth and icy comets. Flickr/barnyz Follow, CC BY

Why can’t we just make more?

While making small volumes of pure water in a lab is possible, it’s not practical to “make” large volumes of water by mixing hydrogen and oxygen together. The reaction is expensive, releases lots of energy, and can cause really massive explosions.

While the total volume of water on Earth stays about the same, water continually changes location and state. That means sometimes it is a liquid (like the water we drink), a solid (ice) or a gas (water vapour such as steam).

Scientists call this process of change the hydrologic (water) cycle, which is where water constantly moves around the world by cycling between the air, the ground and the ocean.

Round and round

The cycle begins when water is evaporated from the ocean (or lakes, rivers and wetlands) and enters the atmosphere (the air all around us) as water vapour (gas).

As warm, water-rich air rises, it cools down and can hold less water.

As a result, clouds form. Eventually, the water vapour changes back to liquid water and falls to Earth as rain. Rain that’s not immediately evaporated back into the atmosphere, either flows into the ocean as runoff or, is absorbed into the earth and becomes groundwater – water stored underground in the tiny spaces within rocks

Plants can suck up groundwater with their roots, and push water out through tiny holes in their leaves (this is called transpiration).

Groundwater flows slowly through the earth to the ocean and the cycle begins again.

This is the water cycle. Shutterstock

The hydrologic cycle is sensitive to changes in temperature and pressure, for example if it is hot and windy, more evaporation occurs. Therefore, climate change impacts the hydrologic cycle. Regions that were once wet can become dry (and vice-versa) because clouds drop their rain into the ocean instead of upon the land where it can be collected and used.

Two tiny drops of drinking water

We drink fresh water, but most water on Earth is salty. And the vast majority of available freshwater on Earth is actually hidden underground as groundwater.

In fact, if you imagine all the water on Earth could fit into a one litre milk carton, it would all be ocean water except for only two tablespoons of fresh water.

Of the two tablespoons of freshwater, slightly less than three quarters would be frozen solid into ice and most of the rest would be groundwater.

The freshwater we see and use in rivers, swamps and lakes would only amount to less than two drops of the water in the world.

Therefore, protecting large freshwater sources like groundwater is very important because removing salt from ocean water can cost lots of money and energy.

Most water is salty and is found in the ocean. Flickr/beana_cheese, CC BY

The atmosphere, Earth and ocean are interconnected and things we do in one place can affect the quality of water in other places.

Chemicals poured down the sink or pumped into the atmosphere can eventually end up in the groundwater, which means less available fresh water for us to use.

Although we can’t “make” more water, we can make the best of the water we have by conserving and protecting it.

Read more: Curious Kids: How was the ocean formed? Where did all the water come from?

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:

* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
* Tell us on Facebook

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Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

– ref. Curious Kids: how is water made? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-is-water-made-109434

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lloyd White, Lecturer (Geology), University of Wollongong

Video games have long been criticised for encouraging violence and antisocial behaviour. And parents often express concern that they could have detrimental effects on their child’s learning abilities.

But research has shown that off-the-shelf video games can also aid learning – particularly when it comes to the development of spatial skills.

These issues have arisen once more with the most recent release from Rockstar Games: Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). The game certainly contains a lot of violence, but it might inadvertently aid development of spatial skills – perhaps even more so than other video games.

What are spatial skills and why do we need them?

Spatial skills refer to our ability to rotate and conceptualise 3D objects, and to decipher maps, graphs and diagrams. These are essential skills within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sector.

One spatial skill that is common to several engineering and science disciplines is the ability to visualise a 2D cross-section through a 3D object.

The development of spatial skills is particularly relevant to the field of geoscience. We use these skills every day when we graph and interpret results of various measurements and experiments, and when we create traditional 2D maps.

These skills are also incredibly important when it comes to extrapolating the 3D geometry of rock layers beneath the Earth’s surface. Take for example the below 3D geological model, which was created using Minecraft. This image shows the layers of rock beneath the ground and how these interact with the surface of the landscape.

The British Geological Survey created 3D maps of parts of Britain using the game Minecraft. This example shows how the landscape surface (topography) interacts with layers of rock (light green and purple) beneath the surface. British Geological Survey

My experience teaching undergraduate geology and field-based mapping classes in the UK and Australia has shown me that students really struggle with the higher-level spatial skills. This is not a new problem, but it is perhaps more challenging for today’s students who have grown up navigating using Google Maps rather than a street directory.

Research has shown that our dependence on satellite navigational systems, such as those in our smartphones, is having a long term detrimental impact on spatial awareness and our ability to navigate. So, we need to consider other means to help students develop these skills.

How does RDR2 teach spatial skills?

In RDR2, you play the character of an outlaw in a fictional part of the Western United States in 1899. During the game, the outlaw protagonist struggles to find his place in a society that is increasingly introducing more law and order. The protagonist embarks on numerous missions, which guide the player through a linear story line.

The game also allows and encourages players to freely explore and interact with a virtual open world before, after or between the story line missions.

The virtual world in RDR2 is incredibly detailed because it is derived from 3D laser scans and drone imagery of real-world landscapes.

This complex landscape requires players to navigate using a detailed topographic map. A topographic map is a map with contour lines that show places of equal height. Closely spaced lines indicate a steep slope, and widely spaced lines indicate a gradual slope.

Players constantly use this map to visualise the terrain as they move around, allowing them to navigate and avoid obstacles – like falling off a cliff.

The virtual world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is incredibly realistic as it was built using landscapes found in the real-world. Screenshot/Lloyd White

Moving from place to place in the game can take considerable time because the player typically travels to most places on horseback, or on foot. But players can save time by deviating from roads using the topographic map to plot out a faster route.

This saves time getting from A to B, so players are rewarded for learning to read the map.

Players are also encouraged to look for treasure and seek out unique hunting and fishing locations. Players need to use a series of clues and interpret mud maps to find these special locations. These experiences likely simulate the same thought patterns we use examining and interpreting maps of the real world.

An example of the topographic map used in Red Dead Redemption 2. Players need to use this map to navigate. While the game will suggest a path between two points, this often isn’t the fastest route, or may not even be a possible route. Players can figure this out for themselves by reading the map. Rockstar Games/Lloyd White

Exercising our map reading muscles

While RDR2 is certainly a violent game (rated M15+), I hope parents and players might both appreciate the potential learning benefit relative to other games.

It’s safe to say we should expect future video games to match or better the level of detail within RDR2. This level of realism combined with detailed maps will hopefully help to develop those spatial skills we’re losing by our dependence on location-based technology.

Another potential positive is that the entertainment industry will need to recruit future STEM graduates to help them build factual and increasingly realistic virtual worlds.

– ref. Video games could teach spatial skills lost to a society dependent on devices – http://theconversation.com/video-games-could-teach-spatial-skills-lost-to-a-society-dependent-on-devices-109500

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian National University

Look around the world this week and you see women exercising power and influence everywhere. In the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is wrangling US President Donald Trump over his shutdown of federal government. In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May doggedly pursues Brexit. Yvette Cooper, chair of the British Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee and described by some as the Labour opposition’s “alternative leader”, is bringing forward legislation to try to head off a “hard” Brexit.

In Germany, CDU leader and likely Angela Merkel successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer co-authored a public letter to the British people urging them to remain in the European Union. And from New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wrote a comment piece for the London Telegraph expressing solidarity whichever way Britain goes.

Read more: As she prepares to leave politics, Germany’s Angela Merkel has left her mark at home and abroad

And in Australia? Reportage involving senior women in politics is dominated by Morrison government cabinet minister Kelly O’Dwyer quitting her prime Melbourne seat of Higgins, fellow Liberal Senator Jane Hume ruling out running for it, and speculation about whether or not former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will, like O’Dwyer, quit politics at the forthcoming federal election too. It is a sharp contrast. What is going on?

Read more: View from The Hill: O’Dwyer’s decision turns the spotlight onto Bishop

The UK has already had two female prime ministers in May (since 2016) and Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) – the latter, after Winston Churchill, the most significant British prime minister of the 20th century. This is not to say politics is easy for women in Britain – far from it. Political attacks on May are three-times as likely to be gender-based as those on Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Claims Corbyn called May a “stupid woman” in parliament got traction because of the widely perceived implicit sexism of Corbyn-era Labour, which tends to be overshadowed by controversy over its more blatant antisemitism. Female MPs come under sustained social media attacks of the most violent and reprehensible kind, something Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Jess Phillips have campaigned against prominently again and again.

It is in this climate that Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by white supremacist Thomas Mair during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016.

But while politics is incredibly tough for women in Britain, they hang in and fight on, across the political spectrum. This is because in Britain women’s presence in politics has been normalised. There’s no sending them back to the kitchen. To an extent which should not be necessary, they are battle-hardened. Male opponents know they will not go away.

Equally in the US, women in politics will not be seen off. The pronounced misogyny of President Donald Trump stirred rather than cowed women who stormed the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, creating an all-time high in congresswomen’s numbers.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi prevailed against significant internal challenge and external opposition to be elected Speaker. From this position she is prominently calling Trump’s bluff and, since the government shutdown, bettering him in the rhetorical struggle for decent government.

In New Zealand, women in politics has long been business as usual. Ardern, elected in 2017, is the country’s third woman prime minister after Helen Clark (1999-2008) and Jenny Shipley (1997-1999). One could go on and on, citing the normalisation of women in politics in Sri Lanka, India, Israel, Iceland, Denmark, Pakistan, Indonesia, Canada, Germany and elsewhere.

Women have, often with the help of quotas, been accepted as regulars in political battle in all these places, sometimes rising to the political equivalent of generals and supreme commanders just like the men, many of whom might not like it but know it is an inescapable – and, in fact, reasonable – part of contemporary life.

Read more: Quotas are not pretty but they work – Liberal women should insist on them

The military metaphor is unfortunate, but in this context useful to explain through analogy what is going on by contrast with women in the senior levels of the Morrison government.

May and Pelosi are playing the long game – operating strategically – in pursuit of specific political outcomes irrespective of the extra, gendered-tier of political attack to which they are subject. They do this in the confidence that women in their parties and parliaments are political “regulars”, in the business of politics for good.

In Australia, the presence of women in politics has been normalised other than in the Liberal and National parties. Labor’s Julia Gillard was prime minister from 2010 to 2013. If Labor’s sustained poll lead holds through to election day, Opposition deputy-leader Tanya Plibersek is likely to become deputy prime minister this year. The Greens have been, and before them the Australian Democrats were more often than not, led by women. Australia’s flagship far right-winger, Pauline Hanson, is a woman.

But to be a woman in the Liberal or National parties is still to be a political “irregular” – one of a group of resented interlopers, tiny in number, whom many male colleagues hope can be driven away.

Female LNP leavers manifest this – not just O’Dwyer and, likely, the prominently-snubbed Bishop when her decision finally crystallises – but those like Julia Banks who have left the Liberal Party and gone to the crossbench, and Liberal fellow travellers like Cathy McGowan and Kerryn Phelps who sit as independents alongside her.

It seems the position of women in the Liberal and National parties is too fragile, too brittle, for them to stand and fight like regulars. Rather, like guerillas on the wrong end of the power asymmetry women face within the Morrison government, they are withdrawing from the battlefield. It will be up to others to stand and fight another day.

That fight cannot be won without critical mass. Women in the Liberal and National parties need to embrace quotas and they need to do it now. They will never be numerous enough to achieve the status of “regulars” reached by women in most of the rest of the democratic world otherwise.

– ref. The Liberal Party is failing women miserably compared to other democracies, and needs quotas – http://theconversation.com/the-liberal-party-is-failing-women-miserably-compared-to-other-democracies-and-needs-quotas-110172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Mahady, Gastroenterologist & Clinical Epidemiologist, Senior Lecturer, Monash University

Bowel cancer mostly affects people over the age of 50, but recent evidence suggests it’s on the rise among younger Australians.

Our study, published recently in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, found the incidence of bowel cancer, which includes colon and rectal cancer, has increased by up to 9% in people under 50 from the 1990s until now.

Our research examined all recorded cases of bowel cancer from the past 40 years in Australians aged 20 and over. Previous studies assessing bowel cancer incidence in young Australians have also documented an increase in the younger age group.

Read more: Interactive body map: what really gives you cancer?

Bowel cancer includes cancer of the colon and rectum. Wikimedia Commons

This trend is also being seen internationally. A study from the United States suggests an increase in bowel cancer incidence in people aged 54 and younger. The research shows rectal cancer incidence increased by 3.2% annually from 1974 to 2013 among those aged age 20-29.

Bowel cancers are predicted to be the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia this year. In 2018, Australians have a one in 13 chance of being diagnosed with bowel cancer by their 85th birthday.

Our study also found bowel cancer incidence is falling in older Australians. This is likely, in part, to reflect the efficacy of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, targeted at those aged 50-74. Bowel cancer screening acts to reduce cancer incidence, by detecting and removing precancerous lesions, as well as reducing mortality by detecting existing cancers early.

This is important, as bowel cancer has a good cure rate if discovered early. In 2010 to 2014, a person diagnosed with bowel cancer had a nearly 70% chance of surviving the next five years. Survival is more than 90% for people who have bowel cancer detected at an early stage.

That is why screening is so effective – and we have previously predicted that if coverage rates in the National Bowel Screening Program can be increased to 60%, around 84,000 lives could be saved by 2040. This would represent an extraordinary success. In fact, bowel screening has potential to be one of the greatest public health successes ever achieved in Australia.

Why the increase in young people?

Our study wasn’t designed to identify why bowel cancer is increasing among young people. However, there are some factors that could underpin our findings.

The increase in obesity parallels that of bowel cancer, and large population based studies have linked obesity to increased cancer risk.

Read more: How obesity causes cancer, and may make screening and treatment harder

Unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, such as increased intake of highly processed foods (including meats), have also been associated with increased bowel cancer risk. High quality studies are needed to explore this role further.

Alcohol is also thought to be a contributor to increasing the risk of bowel cancer.

Alcohol is thought to contribute to an increased risk of bowel cancer. from shutterstock.com

So, should we be lowering the screening age in Australia to people under the age of 50?

Evaluating a cancer screening program for the general population requires a careful analysis of the potential benefits, harms, and costs.

A recent Australian study modelled the trade-offs of lowering the screening age to 45. It showed more cancers would be potential for detected. But there would also be more colonoscopy-related harms such as perforation (tearing) in an extremely small proportion of people who require further evaluation after screening.

A lower screening age would also increase the number of colonoscopies to be performed in the overstretched public health system and therefore could have the unintended consequence of lengthening colonoscopy waiting times for people at high risk.

Read more: Needless procedures: when is a colonoscopy necessary?

How to reduce bowel cancer risk

One of the most common symptoms of bowel cancer is rectal bleeding. So if you notice blood when you go to the toilet, see your doctor to have it checked out.

A healthy lifestyle including adequate exercise, avoiding smoking, limiting alcohol intake and eating well, remains most important to reducing cancer risk.

Aspirin may also lower risk of cancer, but should be discussed with your doctor because of the potential for side effects including major bleeding.

Most importantly, we need to ensure eligible Australians participate in the current evidence-based screening program. Only 41% of the population in the target 50-74 age range completed their poo tests in 2015-2016. The test is free, delivered by post and able to be self-administered.

– ref. What’s behind the increase in bowel cancer among younger Australians? – http://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-increase-in-bowel-cancer-among-younger-australians-105484

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elle Bowd, PhD scholar, Australian National University

The 2009 Black Saturday fires burned 437,000 hectares of Victoria, including tens of thousands of hectares of Mountain Ash forest.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of these fires, we are reminded of their legacy by the thousands of tall Mountain ash “skeletons” still standing across the landscape. Most of them are scattered amid a mosaic of regenerating forest, including areas regrowing after logging.

Read more: Comic explainer: forest giants house thousands of animals (so why do we keep cutting them down?)

But while we can track the obvious visible destruction of fire and logging, we know very little about what’s happening beneath the ground.

In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, we investigated how forest soils were impacted by fire and logging. To our surprise, we found it can take up to 80 years for soils to recover.

Logging among the charred remains of Mountain ash after the 2009 fires. David Blair, Author provided

Decades of damage

Soils have crucial roles in forests. They are the basis for almost all terrestrial life and influence plant growth and survival, communities of beneficial fungi and bacteria, and cycles of key nutrients (including storing massive amounts of carbon).

To test the influence of severe and intensive disturbances like fire and logging, we compared key soil measures (such as the nutrients that plants need for growth) in forests with different histories. This included old forests that have been undisturbed since the 1850s, forests burned by major fires in 1939, 1983 and 2009, forests that were clearfell-logged in the 1980s or 2009-10, or salvage-logged in 2009-10 after being burned in the Black Saturday fires.

We found major impacts on forest soils, with pronounced reductions of key soil nutrients like available phosphorus and nitrate.

A shock finding was how long these impacts lasted: at least 80 years after fire, and at least 30 years after clearfell logging (which removes all vegetation in an area using heavy machinery).

However, the effects of disturbance on soils may persist for much longer than 80 years. During a fire, soil temperatures can exceed 500℃, which can result in soil nutrient loss and long-lasting structural changes to the soil.

We found the frequency of fires was also a key factor. For instance, forests that have burned twice since 1850 had significantly lower measures of organic carbon, available phosphorus, sulfur and nitrate, relative to forests that had been burned once.

Sites subject to clearfell logging also had significantly lower levels of organic carbon, nitrate and available phosphorus, relative to unlogged areas. Clearfell logging involves removing all commercially valuable trees from a site – most of which are used to make paper. The debris remaining after logging (tree heads, lateral branches, understorey trees) is then burned and the cut site is aerially sewn with Mountain Ash seed to start the process of regeneration.

Fire is important to natural growth cycles in our forests, but it changes the soil composition. David Lindenmayer, Author provided

Logging compounds the damage

The impacts of logging on forest soils differs from that of fire because of the high-intensity combination of clearing the forest with machinery and post-logging “slash” burning of debris left on the ground. This can expose the forest floor, compact the soil, deplete soil nutrients, and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Predicted future increases in the number, frequency, intensity and extent of fires in Mountain Ash forests, coupled with ongoing logging, will likely result in further declines in soil nutrients in the long term. These kinds of effects on soils matter in Mountain Ash forests because 98.8% of the forest have already been burned or logged and are 80 years old or younger.

To maintain the vital roles that soils play in ecosystems, such as carbon storage and supporting plant growth, land managers must consider the repercussions of current and future disturbances on forest soils when planning how to use or protect land. Indeed, a critical part of long-term sustainable forest management must be to create more undisturbed areas, to conserve soil conditions.

Read more: New modelling on bushfires shows how they really burn through an area

Specifically, clearfell logging should be limited wherever possible, especially in areas that have been subject to previous fire and logging.

Ecologically vital, large old trees in Mountain Ash forests may take over a century to recover from fire or logging. Our new findings indicate that forest soils may take a similar amount of time to recover.

– ref. Forest soil needs decades or centuries to recover from fires and logging – http://theconversation.com/forest-soil-needs-decades-or-centuries-to-recover-from-fires-and-logging-110171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University

This is a longer read at just under 2,000 words. Enjoy!

The beginning of the 2019 school year will be a time of planning and crystal-gazing. Teachers will plan their instructional agenda in a general way. Students will think about another year at school. Parents will reflect on how their children might progress this year.

One group of students who will probably attract less attention are the gifted learners. These students have a capacity for talent, creativity and innovative ideas. They could be our future Einsteins.

They will do this only if we support them to learn in an appropriate way. And yet, there is less likely to be explicit planning and provision throughout 2019 to support these students. They’re more likely to be overlooked or even ignored.

Giftedness in the media

You may have noticed the recent interest in gifted learning and education in the media. Child Genius on SBS provided a glimpse of what the brains of some young students can do.

We can only marvel at their ability to store large amounts of information in memory, spell words correctly they’d probably not heard before and unscramble complex anagrams.

The Insight program on SBS, provided another perspective.

Students identified as gifted explained how they learned and their experiences with formal education. Most accounts pointed to a clear mismatch between how they preferred to learn and how they were taught.

Twice exceptional

The students on the Insight program showed the flipsides of the gifted education story. While some gifted students show high academic success – the academically gifted students, others show lower academic success – the “twice exceptional” students.

Many of the most creative people this world has known are twice exceptional. This includes scientists such as Einstein, artists such as Van Gogh, authors such as Agatha Christie and politicians such as Winston Churchill.

Read more: Intellectually gifted students often have learning disabilities

Their achievements are one reason we’re interested in gifted learning. They have the potential to contribute significantly to our world and change how we live. They’re innovators. They give us the big ideas, possibilities and options. We describe their achievements, discoveries and creations as “talent”.

These talented outcomes are not random, lucky or accidental. Instead, they come from particular ways of knowing their world and thinking about it. A talented footballer sees moves and possibilities their opponents don’t see. They think, plan, and act differently. What they do is more than what the coach has trained them to do.

Understanding gifted learning

One way of understanding gifted learning is to unpack how people respond to new information. Let me first share two anecdotes.

A year three class was learning about beetles. We turned over a rock and saw slater beetles scurrying away. I asked:

Has anyone thought of something I haven’t mentioned?

Marcus, a student in the class, asked:

How many toes does a slater have?

I asked:

Why do you ask that?

Marcus replied:

They are only this long and they’re going very fast. My mini aths coach said that if I wanted to go faster I had to press back with my big toes. They must have pretty big toes to go so quick.

Slater beetles, also known as wood lice, pill bugs or roley poleys. from www.shutterstock.com

He continued with possibilities about how they might breathe and use energy. Marcus’ teacher reported that he often asked “quirky”, unexpected questions and had a much broader general knowledge than his peers. She had not considered the possibility he might be gifted.

Mike was solving year 12 calculus problems when he was six. He has never attended regular school but was home-schooled by his parents, who were not interested in maths. He learned about quadratic and cubic polynomials from the Khan Academy. I asked him if it was possible to draw polynomials of x to the power of 7 or 8. He did this without hesitation, noting he had never been taught to do this.

Gifted students learn in a more advanced way

People learn by converting information to knowledge. They may then elaborate, restructure or reorganise it in various ways. Giftedness is the capacity to learn in more advanced ways.

First, these students learn faster. In a given period they learn more than their regular learning peers. They form a more elaborate and differentiated knowledge of a topic. This helps them interpret more information at a time.

Second, these students are more likely to draw conclusions from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements. They stimulate parts of their knowledge that were not mentioned in the information presented to them and add these inferences to their understanding.

Read more: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

This is called “fluid analogising” or “far transfer”. It involves combining knowledge from the two sources into an interpretation that has the characteristics of an intuitive theory about the information. This is supported by a range of affective and social factors, including high self-efficacy and intrinsic goal setting, motivation and will-power.

Their theories extend the teaching. They’re intuitive in that they’re personal and include possibilities or options the student has not yet tested. Parts of the theory may be incorrect. When given the opportunity to reflect on or field-test them, the student can validate their new knowledge, modify it or reject it.

Marcus and Mike from the earlier anecdotes engaged in these processes. So did Einstein, Churchill, Van Gogh and Christie.

Verbally gifted

A gifted learning profile manifests in multiple ways. Much of the information we’re exposed to is made up of concepts that are linked and sequenced around a topic or theme. It’s formed using agreed conventions. It may be a written narrative, a painting, a conversation or football match. Some students exposed to part of a text infer its topic and subsequent ideas – their intuitive theory about it.

These are the verbally gifted students. In the classroom they infer the direction of the teaching and give the impression of being ahead of it. This is what Mike did when he extended his knowledge beyond what the information taught him. Most of the tasks used in the Child Genius program assessed this. The children used what they knew about spelling patterns to spell unfamiliar words and to unscramble complex anagrams.

Visual-spatially gifted

Other students think about the teaching information in time and space. They use imagery and infer intuitive theories that are more lateral or creative. In the classroom their interpretations are often unexpected and may question the teaching. These are the non-verbally gifted or visual-spatially gifted students.

They frequently do not learn academic or social conventions well and are often twice exceptional. They’re more likely to challenge conventional thinking. Marcus did this when he visualised the slaters with large “beetle toes”.

What we can learn from gifted students

Educators and policy makers can learn from the student voice in the recent media programs. Some of the students on Insight told us their classrooms don’t provide the most appropriate opportunities for them to show what they know or to learn.

The twice exceptional students in the Insight program noted teachers had a limited capacity to recognise and identify the multiple ways students can be gifted. They reminded us some gifted profiles, but not the twice-exceptional profile, are prioritised in regular education.

These students thrive and excel when they have the opportunity to show their advanced interpretations initially in formats they can manage, for example, in visual and physical ways. They can then learn to use more conventional ways such as writing.

Multi-modal forms of communication are important for them. Examples include drawing pictures of their interpretations, acting out their understanding and building models to represent their understanding. The use of diagrams by the the famous physicist Richard Feynman is an example of this.

For students like Mike, adequate formal educational provision simply does not exist. With the development of information communication technology, it would be hoped that in the future adaptive and creative curricula and teaching practices could be developed for those students whose learning trajectories are far from the regular.

As a consequence, we have high levels of disengagement from regular education by some gifted students in the middle to senior secondary years. High ability Australian students under-achieve in both NAPLAN and international testing.

The problem with IQ

Identification using IQ is problematic for some gifted profiles. Some IQ tests assess a narrow band of culturally valued knowledge. They frequently do not assess general learning capacity.

As well, teachers are usually not qualified to interpret IQ assessments. The parents in the Insight program mentioned both the difficulty in having their children identified as gifted and the high costs IQ tests incurred. In Australia, these assessments can cost up to A$475.

An obvious alternative is to equip teachers and schools to identify and assess students’ learning in the classroom for indications of gifted learning and thinking in its multiple forms. To do this, assessment tasks need to assess the quality, maturity and sophistication of the students’ thinking and learning strategies, their capacity to enhance knowledge, and also what students actually know or believe is possible about a topic or an issue.

Read more: Show us your smarts: a very brief history of intelligence testing

Classroom assessments usually don’t assess this. They are designed to test how well students have learned the teaching, not what additional knowledge the students have added to it.

Gifted students benefit from open-ended tasks that permit them to show what they know about a topic or issue. Such tasks include complex problem solving activities or challenges and open-ended assignments. We are now developing tools to assess the quality and sophistication of gifted students’ knowledge and understanding.

Tips for teachers and parents

Over the course of 2019, teachers can look for evidence of gifted learning by encouraging their students to share their intuitive theories about a topic and by completing open-ended tasks in which they extend or apply what they have learned. This can include more complex problem solving.

During reading comprehension, for example, teachers can plan tasks that require higher-level thinking, including analysis, evaluation and synthesis. Teachers need to assess and evaluate students’ learning in terms of the extent to which they elaborate on the teaching information.

Parents are often the first to notice their child learns more rapidly, remembers more, does things in more advanced ways or learns differently from their peers. Most educators have heard a parent say: “I think my child is gifted.” And sometimes the parent is correct.

Parents can use modern technology to record specific instances of high performance by their children, and share these with their child’s teachers. The mobile phone and iPad provide a good opportunity for video-recording a child’s questions during story time, their interpretations of unfamiliar contexts such as a visit to a museum, drawings or inventions the child produces and how they do this, and ways in which they solve problems in their everyday lives. These records can provide useful evidence later for educators and other professionals.

Read more: Explainer: what is differentiation and why is it poorly understood?

Parents also have a key role to play in helping their child understand what it means to learn differently from one’s peers, to value their interpretations and achievements and how they can interact socially with peers who may operate differently.

It is students’ intuitive theories about information that lead to creative, talented outcomes and innovative products. If an education system is to foster creativity and innovation, teachers need to recognise and value these theories and help these students convert them into a talent. Teachers can respond to gifted knowing and learning in its multiple forms if they know what it looks like in the classroom and have appropriate tools to identify it.

– ref. How to identify, understand and teach gifted children – http://theconversation.com/how-to-identify-understand-and-teach-gifted-children-107718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Wallis, Lecturer and Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland

Many people move in the summer months, but not everyone realises that moving starts a process of identity transformation that never really stops.

I first noticed something about place changing a person when I moved to Canada. While Canada and Australia share many similarities, there were still significant differences. The clothes worn were one, and occasionally a phrase would seem unfamiliar. I was teased for saying “queue” instead of “line up”, and “no worries” instead of “no problem”.

When I moved back to Australia, to tropical Cairns, I found myself in a world that moved on “tropical time”. It could hardly have been more different from the fast-paced world of North America. I had to adapt.

Read more: Meet the new seachangers: now it’s younger Australians moving out of the big cities

Identities are created and evolve in places. Places can be physical, geographical areas and can also be places inhabited virtually, including online games, forums and blogs, or in discourse, such as books and magazines. These places continually shape our identities, changing as we live our lives day by day.

When we move to a new house, especially if it’s a big move such as from city to country or from one country to another, the process of moving inevitably changes us. For a start, we are now a newcomer and the “locals” will speak of us that way. That shapes how we are perceived and perhaps even whether and how we are accepted socially. The norms and morés of the new community may influence us in other ways, even prescribing how we are “supposed” to act in the new area.

‘City girls’ and ‘country girls’

In my recent research into how media affect lifestyle migrants in rural Queensland, I looked at how place changes people. Many of the women I spoke to described themselves as a “city girl” or a “country girl”. These women framed their identity in relation to their location.

The women who called themselves a “city girl” often chose activities that took them to places where they felt they could relate more – such as the shops, galleries and other amenities of the city. Their identification with the city resulted in weaker bonds locally and sometimes meant that they chose to return to the city. Certainly, they were less satisfied with country life.

On the other hand, women who identified as a “country girl” engaged in activities accessible in their rural locations, including crafts, cooking, gardening and outdoor activities. Their free time reinforced their emplaced nature and strengthened their ties to their place and the people in it. They adapted to being in the country and were happy with where they lived.

Read more: Imagining your own SeaChange – how media inspire our great escapes

How do you adapt to your new life?

Knowing what to do in certain places is a form of capital, as Pierre Bourdieu outlines. Capital describes the knowledge needed to play the game in a particular place.

There are different types of capital, including cultural, economic and educational. Knowing how to act when working at a major company, for example, is different from knowing how to get on when unemployed. These are different fields, which require different capitals. One requires corporate smarts, the other stipulates smarts in various other areas.

Even if our fields don’t change as dramatically as described above, we still use differing capitals when at work, at home, with friends and as a parent. The way we learn how to act, or adapt, is achieved through the expansion of what’s called habitus.

Ordering coffee is part of many people’s daily ritual, but don’t expect a cafe on every corner outside the city. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

Habitus is the stuff we do without thinking – the beliefs, norms and ways of doing things that are a part of us. If we were in a witness protection program, these are the things that would trip us up and lead the bad guys to us. It’s simple stuff, like ordering coffee a certain way, or bigger things like thinking about the world through a particular framework or liking blue or living in the city.

To expand our habitus, we need to see new ways of doing things and imagine these for ourselves. This could happen by watching TV shows, reading books, travelling to other parts of the world or seeing someone else do something differently. It’s hard to change habitus, because we need to be open to new ideas that permeate our reality and we need to like them enough to decide to adopt them and let them become a part of us.

When we move, we are changing the field we occupy. To adapt to this, we watch how other people play the game and, to fit in, we most likely adopt these ideas within our habitus and change a bit. At the same time, we might influence the people around us, changing them a little bit too. It works dynamically.

So, yes, moving countries or to the country from the city is an identity-altering project, and the more the fields are different, the more we have to adapt.

– ref. How moving house changes you – http://theconversation.com/how-moving-house-changes-you-109225

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter O’Connor, Associate Professor, Business and Management, Queensland University of Technology

We work in a world of increasing ambiguity.

Over the past few decades technological change and globalisation have fundamentally changed the nature of the “average” job. There is greater competition and higher expectations. We face more situations, projects, tasks or objectives that are new, different, unclear or inexact.

To investigate whether Australian workers are equipped to handle this growing ambiguity at work, we studied attitudes towards ambiguity in a sample of more than 800 people.

We found those with positive attitudes towards ambiguity were more creative, better leaders and better overall performers. They reported lower stress levels and higher incomes than those with negative attitudes towards ambiguity.

Our research also revealed something surprising. Younger workers show less capacity to cope with ambiguity than older workers.

It is possible this simply shows ambiguity gets easier with age. Older workers might be more comfortable with ambiguity because they have years of experience and life events to draw from. Indeed, studies show people tend to become more conscientious and emotionally stable as they age, which might improve their capacity to manage ambiguity.

But it is also possible that the ability of younger workers to cope with ambiguity won’t improve with age. Perhaps it is here to stay, a consequence of the progressive removal of ambiguity from personal lives.

Studying attitudes

To explore the consequences of people’s attitudes towards ambiguity, we surveyed 800 workers from a range of industries. Participants responded to a set of 45 statements such as “I get anxious taking on problems that don’t have a definite solution” and “I like engaging with complex work problems”. We asked all participants about their age, experience, income and professional competencies. A subset also rated their colleagues on leadership, creativity and teamwork.

The results showed substantial generational differences in attitudes: 70% of Generation Y respondents (those aged 24 to 37) scored below the average (mean) score on the questionnaire; Generations Z and Y (those aged 18 to 37) were twice as likely as older workers to score in the bottom 10% (those with the most negative attitudes), and about half as likely to score in the top 10% (the most positive attitudes).

Read more: Young people are not after an easy ride, just job security

Our research indicates three traits common to workers who cope well with ambiguity:

• they report remaining calm and composed in the face of ambiguity

• they have a strong desire for challenging work, reporting a strong preference for novelty and risk over routine

• they have skills that enable them to manage uncertainty, reporting being very good at planning, utilising resources and problem-solving.

Among younger workers, our findings point to a paradox. Generations Y and Z express just as much desire for novel, challenging work as older workers. But they lack the skills and confidence required to manage uncertainty when it occurs, and are more likely to become anxious.

These results challenge a common stereotype about younger people: that being “digital natives” means they are equipped with the skills required to adapt and innovate. Our study found strong evidence to the contrary.

Explaining the differences

One theory is that this generational shift relates to parenting styles. Jonathon Haidt and Greg Lukianhoff, authors of The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, argue that overprotective parenting became more prevalent in the 1980s. Just as shielding children from germs has arguably weakened their immune systems, it may be that efforts to shield children from unpredictable environments has resulted in them being less resilient adults.

Although Haidt and Lukianhoff are particularly focused on explaining increasing political correctness in university students who have grown up with social media, their theory raises a compelling possibility. Are younger adults less tolerant of ambiguity because of overly protected childhoods?

Read more: Are our school playgrounds being wrapped in cotton wool?

A second possibility relates to the integration of technology in our personal lives. It is often assumed that technology “disrupts” our life and increases our exposure to ambiguity. But perhaps technology is actually reducing our exposure to ambiguity.

No video game, for example, is purely random. With repetition you can learn its patterns to master the game; and if you make a mistake you can simply restart.

Google Maps, as another example, means we rarely get lost on the road. It eliminates ambiguity regarding fastest route and estimated arrival time. Siri provides us with answers to virtually any question at any time. Shazam allows us to discover the title of songs in seconds. There is even a “pizza counter” app that can advise us on how much pizza to order for a specific number of people based on hunger levels.

It is possible, therefore, that by steadily reducing our exposure to “everyday” ambiguity, technology has compromised our ability to manage uncertainty when it arises.

Training for tolerance

Does this mean younger people are at a permanent disadvantage in increasingly competitive and ambiguous work environments? No. There is good evidence you can purposefully train yourself to better tolerate ambiguity.

One simple method is to increase your exposure to ambiguity. This might include regularly attending new events, meeting new and different people or even travelling abroad. Although travel is worthwhile for its own sake, research shows that living in a foreign country boosts a person’s capacity to creatively navigate ambiguity.

You can also develop those habits and competencies that have been linked to tolerance of ambiguity. Our results indicated that emotional intelligence, assertiveness and creativity are particularly important. These attributes allow you to remain focused and confident when in new situations. Mindfulness and relaxation techniques can enhance emotional intelligence and creativity, while a variety of different practices can help with assertiveness.

Our research has highlighted that greater tolerance of ambiguity leads to greater work satisfaction. So if you want a happier working life, look for ways to see ambiguity as an opportunity.

– ref. As work gets more ambiguous, younger generations may be less equipped for it – http://theconversation.com/as-work-gets-more-ambiguous-younger-generations-may-be-less-equipped-for-it-105674

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Thomas, Emeritus Professor of English, La Trobe University

In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) the marriage ceremony of Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester is spectacularly interrupted by the solicitor Mr Briggs declaring an impediment to the union: the prior marriage of Rochester to Bertha Antoinetta Mason in Spanish-town, Jamaica. Taken then, with others, to see the wife secreted in a third-story windowless room at Thornfield Hall, Jane remembers,

What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing; and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.

Rochester later explains to Jane that Bertha is “bad, mad, and embruted”, of “pigmy intellect” and “giant propensities” toward the “intemperate and unchaste” which “prematurely developed the germs of insanity” passed on in the maternal line.

Wide Sargasso Sea was first published in 1966. Wikimedia

Bertha’s mother is a Creole. In the British Caribbean, Creole meant born in the region. Creole was not of itself a racial descriptor. Distinctions were made between white, coloured and black Creoles.

Author Jean Rhys, a white Creole, took umbrage with Brontë’s stereotypical depiction of Bertha. She was “vexed” by Brontë’s “portrait of the ‘paper tiger’ lunatic, the all wrong creole scenes, and above all by the real cruelty of Mr Rochester”.

In writing what she initially thought of as the story of the first Mrs Rochester, published in 1966 as Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys insists that her character Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester “must be at least plausible with a past” and that she needs to establish:

the reason why Rochester treats her so abominably and feels justified, the reason why he thinks she is mad and why of course she goes mad, even the reason why she tries to set everything on fire, and eventually succeeds.

The Sargasso Sea is part of the Atlantic Ocean north-east of the Caribbean. Cut off from ocean currents, it is relatively becalmed and harbours drifts of sargassum seaweed.

Sargasso seaweed with waves and sandy beach. Wikimedia Commons

In Rhys’s novel, the Sargasso Sea is a symbol of what separates Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester and Edward Fairfax Rochester: disparate colonial and imperial histories and experiences; Rochester’s visceral racism and disdain for the mixing of cultures; his abhorrence and fear of the tropical landscape; and dispossession of Antoinette.

Rhys was born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams in Roseau, Dominica in 1890, and lived as an expatriate in England and Europe from 1907 until her death in 1979. Wide Sargasso Sea was her fifth novel.

Her Welsh father William Rees Williams was a government medical officer who had settled in Dominica in the 1880s; her mother Minna was a white Creole whose family had lived for several generations in Dominica. Rhys’s great-grandfather James Potter Lockhart (1774-1837) had owned enslaved people and plantations. Rhys writes in her autobiography Smile Please that as he “was a slave-owner the Lockharts, even in my day, were never very popular. That’s putting it mildly”.

A prequel to Jane Eyre

Told in three voices — those of white Creole, Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester, the young Englishman she marries, who implicitly reveals his own name to be Edward Fairfax Rochester when he renames her Bertha, and Grace Poole, Bertha’s keeper at Thornfield Hall — Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre.

Alexis Orloff/flickr

Internal evidence in Jane Eyre establishes that Brontë’s Rochester and Bertha marry in 1819 and that Jane Eyre returns to the ruins of Thornfield Hall and Rochester in June 1834. Wide Sargasso Sea, though, is set in the late 1830s and the 1840s.

Rhys’s choice of historical setting enables her to draw on and try to work her way through planter class and Lockhart family mythology about the economic and social impact of the abolition of slavery.

Historian and poet Kamau Brathwaite has described plantation slavery cultures as “race-founded & race-foundered”. Rhys’s ancestors, the Lockharts, kept family secrets about the massive debts owed by James Potter Lockhart. The British government paid financial compensation to slaveowners for the freeing of enslaved people. The monies James Potter Lockhart anticipated receiving were paid to his chief creditor in part payment of debt.

In Jane Eyre, Brontë uses Bertha’s monstrosity to question the morality of British divorce law, which keeps Rochester in a marriage in which coverture treats husband and wife legally as one person.

Rhys, rather, exposes the absence of a Married Women’s Property Act in Britain at the time the novel is set, the vitiating reach of the system of primogeniture by which property was inherited by eldest sons, and too convenient use of the criminalisation of obeah. Obeah comprises healing and spiritual practices which draw on African-Caribbean religiosity.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, the Rochester family and Antoinette’s stepfamily organise an arranged marriage between Edward and Antoinette. The Rochesters do this for a £30,000 dowry that will secure the prosperity of a second son and the Masons for kinship links to a landed English family. The Masons do not make a separate financial settlement on Antoinette, leaving her no means if she abandons the marriage. Rhys’s Rochester finds the arranged marriage unmanning.

Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester in the 1943 film adaptation of Jane Eyre. Wikimedia Commons

Christophine, rumoured to be an obeah woman, has been both a slave and servant of the Cosway and Mason families and is hired when Antoinette and Rochester honeymoon at Granbois, an estate in Dominica. When Christophine confronts Rochester over his ill-treatment of Antoinette, Rochester threatens to report her to the local police if she does not leave immediately.

The Rochester figure thinks of Antoinette, “Creole of pure English descent she may be, but they are not English or European either”. He is tapping into common British ideas at the time of the degeneration of white people in the tropics, ideas still current into the 20th century.

Brontë’s Rochester’s use of the word “intemperate” to describe Bertha marks her Creoleness as a tropical identity. White Creole degeneracy was seen to be an effect of the tropical climate, the physical and social environment, living in close, domestic proximity to non-white people, and the corrupting influence of slave ownership.

Rhys likens phases of her work on Wide Sargasso Sea to making a “complicated” patchwork quilt: unpicking, cutting, repurposing, and stitching of material as part of a new narrative design.

Part of her countering of Brontë’s characterisation of Bertha is the setting up of similarities between Jane and Antoinette: social dislocation after the deaths of fathers; complex patterns of having surrogate mother figures; education at a girls’ school, Lowood in Jane’s case and a convent in Antoinette’s case after her mother Annette, grieving over the death of a son, is institutionalised as insane; and experiencing prophetic dreams, for example.

A West Indian Flower Girl and Two other Free Women of Color. Oil painting by Agostino Brunias. Wikimedia Commons

Rhys draws out the limits of the reliability of Antoinette’s and Rochester’s points of view. In Part One, Antoinette’s memories of childhood, the narrative highlights the narrow reach of her social experience and the ways her colonial values and language are shaped by reliance on the outlooks of her mother and her circle. Rochester finds the tropics and the fragility of European imperial enterprise disorienting and threatening. He fears being engulfed by them, by desire for Antoinette’s exoticism, and by the proximities of cultural and racial difference.

In developing the character of Rochester, Rhys draws not only on Jane Eyre, but also on William Shakespeare’s Othello and Macbeth, and Charles Baudelaire’s Le Revenant.

At 76 and in poor health, Rhys won the W.H. Smith Award for Writers and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for Wide Sargasso Sea. She accepted a CBE in 1978. Rhys insisted that fame and greater financial security from prizes, royalties and writing grants came “too late” in life for her to enjoy fully. At her death Rhys was working on autobiographical vignettes which, edited by Diana Athill, were published in 1979 as Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography.

Adaptations of the novel

Scenes from Wide Sargasso Sea were filmed for Sargasso! A Caribbean Love Story (1990), a University of the West Indies initiative. The 1993 Australian film of Wide Sargasso Sea was directed by John Duigan and produced by Jan Sharp. In 2006 Brendan Maher directed a telemovie of Wide Sargasso Sea for BBC Wales.

BBC 2006, Wide Sargasso Sea telemovie.

Rhys’s re-visioning of a classic has inspired writers from around the world to do the same and literary critics to theorise the dynamic of authors from colonial and ex-colonial cultures writing back to European texts and to examine the intersections of the treatment of ideas of racial, gender, sexual and class identities in women’s writing.

Wide Sargasso Sea has been seen, with John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), as originating neo-Victorian literature. Research on Rhys’s larger body of writing has been reshaping the field of New Modernist Studies.

Since the 1980s, Charlotte Brontë and Jean Rhys have often been made and remade, indeed celebrated in each other’s images. “Wide Sargasso Sea has literally wound its way into … subsequent rewritings of Jane Eyre”, comments critic Armelle Parey.

As examples, artist Paula Rego’s early 21st-century lithograph series Jane Eyre was shaped by her reading of Wide Sargasso Sea and Bertha figures are given humanity and a human voice in David Malouf’s libretto for Michael Berkeley’s chamber opera Jane Eyre (2000) and in Coral Lansbury’s Ringarra (1985), a reworking of Jane Eyre in a contemporary Australian setting.

Confined at Thornfield Hall, Rhys’s Antoinette longs for a favorite red dress which powerfully reminds her of her Caribbean home. Bertha Mason now often appears in red dress on stage, as in Polly Teale’s Jane Eyre (1997), which rapidly became the most performed adaptation of Brontë’s novel around the world and the 2015 National Theatre Live production of Jane Eyre broadcast by satellite to cinemas.

Joseph Taylor as Mr Rochester and Mariana Rodrigues as Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre. The Lowry/flickr

As my account of Rhys’s influence suggests, Wide Sargasso Sea has particularly engaged Australian writers, playwrights, filmmakers, sound artists and composers. Barbara Hanrahan’s narrative about Stella Edenbrough and Moak in The Albatross Muff (1977), for instance, is an allusive reworking of aspects of Antoinette’s relationship with Christophine and features colonial fortune-hunting.

Woman in the Attic (1987), by Gabby Brennan and Polly Croke, directed by Peter Freund, and performed by Whistling in the Theatre at the Anthill Theatre in Melbourne, blends adaptations of both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. Paul Monaghan directed and devised Obeah Night, performed at La Mama, Melbourne, in 1993. A combination of physical theatre, opera and spoken text, it is based on Part Two of Wide Sargasso Sea.

Brian Howard’s opera Wide Sargasso Sea was performed by Chamber Made Opera in Melbourne in 1997, directed by Douglas Horton. Jennifer Livett’s Wild Island (2016) reworks both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea in one of its plotlines.

Most recently Willoh S. Weiland and Halcyon Macleod’s Crawl Me Blood, a sound and video installation, with a music track devised by Felix Cross, was staged in Hobart and Melbourne in 2018. Set in the Caribbean in 2018, the narrative develops motifs from Rhys’s novel to provoke audiences to think about the racialised legacies of colonialism there and in contemporary Australia.

– ref. Guide to the classics: Wide Sargasso Sea – http://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-wide-sargasso-sea-107882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Gurrieri, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University

The controversy over Gillette’s new advertisement focused on toxic masculinity highlights the differences between challenging stereotypes of women and men in advertising.

Viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube, the advert has so far attracted more than 330,000 comments, about 650,000 likes and 1.1 million dislikes. No advertising campaign challenging stereotypes about girls and women has ever been this controversial.

Gillette’s ‘We Believe: the best a man can be’ advertisement.

Read more: Razor burned: Why Gillette’s campaign against toxic masculinity missed the mark

Perhaps that is because those adverts have tended to celebrate an “empowered” view of girls and women. There is even a term to describe this type of advertising with pro-female messages – femvertising – that has its own dedicated awards.

Challenging gender stereotypes of men, on the other hand, is proving less straightforward.

Other campaigns that have explored modern versions of masculinity have taken a similar approach to femvertising. But Gillette’s new advertisement is different. It uncompromisingly confronts problems such as sexism, bullying and harassment associated with toxic masculinity. As a result some perceive it as negative – a denunciation as opposed to a celebration of boys and men.

It exemplifies a significant creative challenge for advertisers at a watershed moment in the movement for gender equality. How do you celebrate masculinity without acknowledging toxic masculinity in this time of #metoo?

Gender stereotypes in advertising

My research examines sexist advertising practice and how this more broadly contributes to gendered inequalities. For example, how advertisements that glorify the violent exploitation of women work to normalise violence against women.

Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana’s 2007 spring/summer advertising campaign was criticised for simulating a gang rape scene. Supplied

Gender stereotypes are another form of sexist advertising practice.

Because advertisements must simply and persuasively communicate a message that can be understood by a relatively broad audience, the industry has long been susceptible to perpetuating stereotypes – oversimplified ideas of the way people should be.

Recall how television program Masterchef promoted its 2013 series as a “battle of the sexes”. The women wore pink and men blue. They trash-talked one another with a litany of stereotypes: “men are more experimental!”, “women can multitask!”.

Critically, most creative work in agencies has historically been led and shaped by men using hypermasculinity as a model for creativity. One study has likened agency cultures to locker rooms – intensely competitive, structured by male bonding and rife with sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. As a result few women have been able to break into and succeed as creatives in advertising.

But this has begun to change, and the industry has started to face up to the problematic way in which advertising has reinforced gender stereotypes. There is increasing resistance to portrayals suggesting a single way to be a man or woman.

Last year the World Federation of Advertisers launched guidelines for progressive gender portrayals in advertising, namely unstereotyping ads, that highlights the importance of diverse teams and gender aware cultures. The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) updated its Code of Ethics to state that gender-stereotypical roles and characteristics, such as a man doing DIY, must not suggest these are always associated with or carried out by that gender.

Gillette’s parent company Procter & Gamble, along with other multinationals heavily invested in gender-based marketing, has joined the Unstereotype Alliance, a United Nations-backed initiative to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes in advertising. Alliance members commit to creating content that depicts people as empowered actors, refraining from objectifying people and portraying progressive and multi-dimensional personalities.

Challenging toxic masculinity

Toxic masculinity refers to norms and ideals of manhood that are both constraining and harmful. It fosters rigid expectations that boys and men should be dominant, aggressive, stoic and devoid of emotion. It is instilled by telling boys to “toughen up” because “boys don’t cry”. It is contemptuous of men “acting like girls”. It is harmful to both men and women.

The director of Gillette’s new advertisement, Australian-born Kim Gehrig, is no stranger to this territory. Her short film You Think You’re a Man explores the cultural expectations of what it means to “be a man” in Australia.

But the backlash against her work for Procter & Gamble highlights the challenge of addressing masculine stereotypes. A core criticism is that it lacks the positivity of femvertising, such as the 2014 #LikeAGirl campaign for Procter & Gamble’s brand Always, which turned a phrase used to insult boys into an empowering message.

The LikeAGirl campaign.

Read more: Gillette ad isn’t anti-men, it’s anti-toxic masculinity – and this should be welcomed

Other brands marketed to male customers have managed to avoid criticism while dumping the toxic stereotypes they have previously peddled.

Unilever’s brand Lynx (also known as Axe) is a good example. It had a history of using sexual objectification in its advertising for men’s personal grooming products. In 2011 the British Advertising Standards Authority banned six of its adverts for being demeaning and offensive.

In 2016 it reformed its image with the #FindYourMagic campaign, which challenged narrow notions of masculinity.

Real men can love kittens: Lynx’s #FindYourMagic campaign challenged masculine stereotypes. Supplied

It followed up in 2017 with its #IsItokforGuys campaign that aired the private struggles men experience with the pressure to “be a man”.

The Australian soft-drink brand Solo, owned by Schweppes, is another example of marketers dropping their reliance on aggressively hyper-masculine stereotypes without backlash. In its recent A Thirsty Worthy Effort campaign, a man is no longer engaging in extreme sports to get an extreme thirst; he’s making a costume for his daughter’s school play.

Uncomfortable dialogue

Lynx celebrated men being themselves and unpacked unhealthy and narrow expressions of masculinity. Solo used humour to celebrate men taking an active role in domestic life. Where Gillette has dared to be different is in how the advertisement speaks to its male audience.

It directly and unflinchingly tells men how they should behave: do not bully, patronise, speak over, humiliate or sexually harass women. It tells men how they should treat one another. It challenges men to hold one another to account and set better role models for the “men of tomorrow”, cautioning that “the actions of the few can taint the reputation of the many”.

It shows the huge creative challenge the #metoo revolution poses to advertisers. How can you celebrate masculinity without addressing the toxic behaviours exposed by #metoo revelations?

Read more: Gillette’s corporate calculation shows just how far the #metoo movement has come

Gillette’s commercial appropriation of #metoo may sit uncomfortably with some, but advertising is often at its most powerful when it captures the zeitgeist.

Encouraging men to call out how others behave around, speak about and treat women is critical in affecting change and advancing gender equality. Gillette’s statement reinforces this: “If we get people to pause, reflect and to challenge themselves and others to ensure that their actions reflect who they really are, then this campaign will be a success”.

Its approach to challenging male stereotypes and expectations has raised an uncomfortable and provoking dialogue. Representing men as vulnerable, kind, empathetic and modest in advertising is imperative if we are to move beyond the limited cultural portrayals that we often see of men. It is a step forward for an industry with a very chequered past.

– ref. Gillette has it right: advertisers can’t just celebrate masculinity and ignore the #metoo movement – http://theconversation.com/gillette-has-it-right-advertisers-cant-just-celebrate-masculinity-and-ignore-the-metoo-movement-110034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Gurrieri, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University

The controversy over Gillette’s new advertisement focused on toxic masculinity highlights the differences between challenging stereotypes of women and men in advertising.

Viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube, the advert has so far attracted more than 330,000 comments, about 650,000 likes and 1.1 million dislikes. No advertising campaign challenging stereotypes about girls and women has ever been this controversial.

Gillette’s ‘We Believe: the best a man can be’ advertisement.

Read more: Razor burned: Why Gillette’s campaign against toxic masculinity missed the mark

Perhaps that is because those adverts have tended to celebrate an “empowered” view of girls and women. There is even a term to describe this type of advertising with pro-female messages – femvertising – that has its own dedicated awards.

Challenging gender stereotypes of men, on the other hand, is proving less straightforward.

Other campaigns that have explored modern versions of masculinity have taken a similar approach to femvertising. But Gillette’s new advertisement is different. It uncompromisingly confronts problems such as sexism, bullying and harassment associated with toxic masculinity. As a result some perceive it as negative – a denunciation as opposed to a celebration of boys and men.

It exemplifies a significant creative challenge for advertisers at a watershed moment in the movement for gender equality. How do you celebrate masculinity without acknowledging toxic masculinity in this time of #metoo?

Gender stereotypes in advertising

My research examines sexist advertising practice and how this more broadly contributes to gendered inequalities. For example, how advertisements that glorify the violent exploitation of women work to normalise violence against women.

Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana’s 2007 spring/summer advertising campaign was criticised for simulating a gang rape scene. Supplied

Gender stereotypes are another form of sexist advertising practice.

Because advertisements must simply and persuasively communicate a message that can be understood by a relatively broad audience, the industry has long been susceptible to perpetuating stereotypes – oversimplified ideas of the way people should be.

Recall how television program Masterchef promoted its 2013 series as a “battle of the sexes”. The women wore pink and men blue. They trash-talked one another with a litany of stereotypes: “men are more experimental!”, “women can multitask!”.

Critically, most creative work in agencies has historically been led and shaped by men using hypermasculinity as a model for creativity. One study has likened agency cultures to locker rooms – intensely competitive, structured by male bonding and rife with sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. As a result few women have been able to break into and succeed as creatives in advertising.

But this has begun to change, and the industry has started to face up to the problematic way in which advertising has reinforced gender stereotypes. There is increasing resistance to portrayals suggesting a single way to be a man or woman.

Last year the World Federation of Advertisers launched guidelines for progressive gender portrayals in advertising, namely unstereotyping ads, that highlights the importance of diverse teams and gender aware cultures. The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) updated its Code of Ethics to state that gender-stereotypical roles and characteristics, such as a man doing DIY, must not suggest these are always associated with or carried out by that gender.

Gillette’s parent company Procter & Gamble, along with other multinationals heavily invested in gender-based marketing, has joined the Unstereotype Alliance, a United Nations-backed initiative to eradicate harmful gender-based stereotypes in advertising. Alliance members commit to creating content that depicts people as empowered actors, refraining from objectifying people and portraying progressive and multi-dimensional personalities.

Challenging toxic masculinity

Toxic masculinity refers to norms and ideals of manhood that are both constraining and harmful. It fosters rigid expectations that boys and men should be dominant, aggressive, stoic and devoid of emotion. It is instilled by telling boys to “toughen up” because “boys don’t cry”. It is contemptuous of men “acting like girls”. It is harmful to both men and women.

The director of Gillette’s new advertisement, Australian-born Kim Gehrig, is no stranger to this territory. Her short film You Think You’re a Man explores the cultural expectations of what it means to “be a man” in Australia.

But the backlash against her work for Procter & Gamble highlights the challenge of addressing masculine stereotypes. A core criticism is that it lacks the positivity of femvertising, such as the 2014 #LikeAGirl campaign for Procter & Gamble’s brand Always, which turned a phrase used to insult boys into an empowering message.

The LikeAGirl campaign.

Read more: Gillette ad isn’t anti-men, it’s anti-toxic masculinity – and this should be welcomed

Other brands marketed to male customers have managed to avoid criticism while dumping the toxic stereotypes they have previously peddled.

Unilever’s brand Lynx (also known as Axe) is a good example. It had a history of using sexual objectification in its advertising for men’s personal grooming products. In 2011 the British Advertising Standards Authority banned six of its adverts for being demeaning and offensive.

In 2016 it reformed its image with the #FindYourMagic campaign, which challenged narrow notions of masculinity.

Real men can love kittens: Lynx’s #FindYourMagic campaign challenged masculine stereotypes. Supplied

It followed up in 2017 with its #IsItokforGuys campaign that aired the private struggles men experience with the pressure to “be a man”.

The Australian soft-drink brand Solo, owned by Schweppes, is another example of marketers dropping their reliance on aggressively hyper-masculine stereotypes without backlash. In its recent A Thirsty Worthy Effort campaign, a man is no longer engaging in extreme sports to get an extreme thirst; he’s making a costume for his daughter’s school play.

Uncomfortable dialogue

Lynx celebrated men being themselves and unpacked unhealthy and narrow expressions of masculinity. Solo used humour to celebrate men taking an active role in domestic life. Where Gillette has dared to be different is in how the advertisement speaks to its male audience.

It directly and unflinchingly tells men how they should behave: do not bully, patronise, speak over, humiliate or sexually harass women. It tells men how they should treat one another. It challenges men to hold one another to account and set better role models for the “men of tomorrow”, cautioning that “the actions of the few can taint the reputation of the many”.

It shows the huge creative challenge the #metoo revolution poses to advertisers. How can you celebrate masculinity without addressing the toxic behaviours exposed by #metoo revelations?

Read more: Gillette’s corporate calculation shows just how far the #metoo movement has come

Gillette’s commercial appropriation of #metoo may sit uncomfortably with some, but advertising is often at its most powerful when it captures the zeitgeist.

Encouraging men to call out how others behave around, speak about and treat women is critical in affecting change and advancing gender equality. Gillette’s statement reinforces this: “If we get people to pause, reflect and to challenge themselves and others to ensure that their actions reflect who they really are, then this campaign will be a success”.

Its approach to challenging male stereotypes and expectations has raised an uncomfortable and provoking dialogue. Representing men as vulnerable, kind, empathetic and modest in advertising is imperative if we are to move beyond the limited cultural portrayals that we often see of men. It is a step forward for an industry with a very chequered past.

– ref. Gillette has it right: celebrations of masculinity can’t just ignore the #metoo movement – http://theconversation.com/gillette-has-it-right-celebrations-of-masculinity-cant-just-ignore-the-metoo-movement-110034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Sander, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Bond Business School, Bond University

Many of us have started the year determined to be more organised: no more drawers full of plastic containers with missing lids, or lone socks.

The decluttering craze is led by Japanese tidying aficionado Marie Kondo, author of a New York Times bestseller and Netflix show Tidying Up.

Charity groups such as St Vincent de Paul are reporting a 38% increase in donations, year on year, as we get rid of the clothes, books and household items that don’t “spark joy” or have a place in our future.

And there is good reason to get on board, whether it’s via the KonMarie method, or just having a good clear-out. Clutter can affect our anxiety levels, sleep, and ability to focus.

It can also make us less productive, triggering coping and avoidance strategies that make us more likely to snack on junk and watch TV shows (including ones about other people decluttering their lives).

Read more: Clean your way to happiness: unpacking the decluttering craze

My own research shows our physical environments significantly influence our cognition, emotions and subsequent behaviours, including our relationships with others.

Why clutter is bad for your brain

Bursting cupboards and piles of paper stacked around the house may seem harmless enough. But research shows disorganisation and clutter have a cumulative effect on our brains.

Our brains like order, and constant visual reminders of disorganisation drain our cognitive resources, reducing our ability to focus.

The visual distraction of clutter increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory.

Look familiar? Phossil/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

In 2011, neuroscience researchers using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and other physiological measurements found clearing clutter from the home and work environment resulted in a better ability to focus and process information, as well as increased productivity.

And your physical and mental health

Clutter can make us feel stressed, anxious and depressed. Research from the United States in 2009, for instance, found the levels of the stress hormone cortisol were higher in mothers whose home environment was cluttered.

Read more: New year’s resolutions: how to get your stress levels in check

A chronically cluttered home environment can lead to a constant low-grade fight or flight response, taxing our resources designed for survival.

We produce more stress hormones when we’re surrounded by clutter. Jason Leung

This response can trigger physical and psychological changes that affect how we fight bugs and digest food, as well as leaving us at greater risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Clutter might also have implications for our relationships with those around us. A 2016 US study, for instance, found background clutter resulted in participants being less able to correctly interpret the emotional expressions on the faces of characters in a movie.

And surprisingly, it doesn’t go away when we finally get to bed. People who sleep in cluttered rooms are more likely to have sleep problems, including difficulty falling asleep and being disturbed during the night.

Could clutter really make us fat?

Multiple studies have found a link between clutter and poor eating choices.

Disorganised and messy environments led participants in one study to eat more snacks, eating twice as many cookies than participants in an organised kitchen environment.

Other research has shown that being in a messy room will make you twice as likely to eat a chocolate bar than an apple.

Sometimes we switch off and avoid looking at or thinking about the clutter and mess. Designologist

Finally, people with extremely cluttered homes are 77% more likely to be overweight.

Tidy homes have been found to be a predictor of physical health. Participants whose houses were cleaner were more active and had better physical health, according to another study.

Hoarding can cause physical pain

Buying more and more things we think we need, and then not getting rid of them, is an actual disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). According to DSM-V, those with hoarding disorder compulsively acquire possessions on an ongoing basis and experience anxiety and mental anguish when they are thrown away.

Read more: When possessions are poor substitutes for people: hoarding disorder and loneliness

A Yale study using fMRI showed that for people who have hoarding tendencies, discarding items can cause actual pain in regions of the brain associated with physical pain. Areas of the brain were activated that are also responsible for the pain you feel when slamming a finger in a door or burning your hand on the stove.

People who suspect they have hoarding disorder can take heart: cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to be an effective treatment.

Tidy house, happy life?

A clean slate. Kari Shea

Participants in Marie Kondo’s Netflix show Tidying Up report that her decluttering method changes their lives for the better. Indeed, her first book was called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Research does indeed show cluttered home environments negatively influence the perception of our homes, and ultimately our satisfaction of life. The study authors note the strong effect is because we define “home” not just as a place to live, but as:

the broader constellation of experiences, meanings, and situations that shape and are actively shaped by a person in the creation of his or her lifeworld.

But it seems clutter isn’t always bad. One study showed messy desks can make us more creative. The findings suggested neat, ordered environments make us more likely to conform to expectations and play it safe, while messy ones move us to break with the norm and look at things in a new way.

Read more: How last night’s fight affects the way couples divide housework

– ref. Time for a Kondo clean-out? Here’s what clutter does to your brain and body – http://theconversation.com/time-for-a-kondo-clean-out-heres-what-clutter-does-to-your-brain-and-body-109947

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Associate Research Professor (Fisheries and River Management), Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University

The recent catastrophic collapse of Darling River fish communities is truly heartbreaking. As fingers continue to be pointed in all directions, two questions bubble to the top of mind: can this system recover? And, if so, how?

From even the darkest hour comes hope. It was wonderful to hear the basin’s various governments speak about developing a “strategy” over recent weeks. And the good news is that one already exists and can guide our actions from here.

Read more: The Darling River is simply not supposed to dry out, even in drought

The Native Fish Strategy

The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray-Darling Basin is a living document. It was developed in 2001 and lays out a plan for helping the basin’s fish communities recover from where they are now, at 10% of pre-European levels (0% in some parts), back to 60% over 50 years.

The strategy is one of the rare documents agreed to by the federal government and all basin states: because it made sense. It was visionary and forward-thinking – contributed to by a multitude of scientists, managers, Indigenous groups and basin communities.

During the first ten years of its life the strategy helped us learn more about our native fish than in any other period. But direct funding ceased in 2012. Since then, implementation of its recommendations has been opportunistic and without central coordination. That said, the strategy is still relevant and the need to resurrect its funding has never been greater.

Read more: Explainer: what causes algal blooms, and how we can stop them

The Native Fish Strategy recognised that native fish are recreationally and culturally valued by all those who live in, and visit, the Murray-Darling Basin. It also acknowledged that most native fish species found there aren’t found anywhere else in the world.

‘Muzza’ the Murray Darling cod, a native species that suffered devastating mass deaths at the start of 2019. AAP Image/Dean Lewins

Most importantly, the strategy describes these fish as important indicators of ecosystem health. That should be a warning to us when considering recent events in the Darling. When fish are stressed, it is because our rivers are stressed. It’s that simple.

How to help our fish

Our native fish are pretty simple creatures, really. They need healthy habitat, more natural water flows, the ability to move around, minimal pests to compete with, and sparing use of active human intervention (including stocking). The first decade of the strategy sought to provide hard data on how a range of different threats impact fish. It also successfully trialled a suite of solutions.

Because of the strategy, we know why aquatic and riparian habitats are crucial for fish. And putting habitat back in the river, through plans like building fish hotels (yes, they are a thing), can help fish recover rapidly. Many decades of clearing the Darling River of logs and minor obstructions has left large stretches smooth and unsuitable for fish to lay eggs, shelter or hide from predators, so reintroducing native plants and natural “snags” is essential for a productive future fishery.

When logs and other natural debris fall into rivers they form ‘snags’, creating pockets of calm water where fish can hide, rest and lay eggs. spelio/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

The current drought, the second in ten years, has added to the need for better water flow regulation. Not to belabour the obvious, but fish need water. Some parts of the Darling main channel have been dry for some time. No water means no fish.

Many wetlands in the Lower Darling have not been watered for more than a decade. For some fish in the Murray-Darling, that is one-third of their life; for others it is longer than their lifetime. Native Fish Strategy research taught us that with the right amount of water, fish will spawn and thrive, but it is important that the water is of high quality, is flowing, and connects fish with their crucial habitat.

Finding the balance

Fish scientists and managers are realists and recognise that there will always be competing uses for water – including irrigation and town supply. But the fact that our fish stocks are so stressed highlights the need to find a balance.

Many people don’t realise that when water is taken for irrigation or drinking, fish are inevitably taken with it.

Work under the Native Fish Strategy demonstrated that anywhere between 100 and 12,000 fish can be abstracted, per day, by a single pump. When extrapolated over the many thousand irrigation pumps and diversion points across the basin, this means millions of fish are lost each year. They are either diverted into water distribution canals, or pumped onto crops and die.

This can be fixed by fitting pumps with off-the-shelf or custom-designed fish screens. Each pump that can be fitted with a screen in the Darling will translate to thousands of fish that will stay in the river. When conditions are right again, screening pumps will be a key to helping fish recover. Presently, no pumps on the Darling are fitted with screens for fish protection.

Read more: How is oxygen ‘sucked out’ of our waterways?

We also know the Darling River is an important fish swimway. There is a famous story among fish scientists of a tagged golden perch which, during 1974 flooding, migrated from Berri in South Australia to the Condamine River in Queensland. It is a stark demonstration that fish in the basin ignore political boundaries. But in non-flood years such a migration is impossible; there are far too many barriers such as weirs and dams.

There is strong evidence that in some years the Lower Darling contributes significantly to fish populations in Victoria and South Australia.

This connectivity is of paramount importance for affected reaches of the Darling. For these reaches to recover, fish need to migrate from elsewhere. The Native Fish Strategy taught us that providing fishways (also known as fish ladders) and fish-friendly regulators with layflat gates helps larvae drift downstream, improving recovery. There is already a blueprint available to connect the Darling: it only needs to be implemented.

This schematic shows fish ladders already installed in some parts of the River Murray to let fish swim by man-made barriers. AAP Image/South Australian Government

What does the Darling’s future look like?

The Native Fish Strategy has provided us with a range of tools to help the Darling River quickly recover. So the future of the Darling depends on what we do now. It is up to us to ensure we leave future generations a river in better condition than it is in now.

Read more: It’s time to restore public trust in the governing of the Murray Darling Basin

This is our Waterloo moment. The scoping work has been done; the strategy already exists; the solutions have already been developed and tested. But all of this is meaningless if it’s not used. The Darling River has sent us a strong message. The question is: will we listen? We bloody well need to.

– ref. A good plan to help Darling River fish recover exists, so let’s get on with it – http://theconversation.com/a-good-plan-to-help-darling-river-fish-recover-exists-so-lets-get-on-with-it-110168

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tess Newton Cain, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Political Science & International Studies, The University of Queensland

January is an odd time for high level visits to the Pacific. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s decision to focus on the region at the start of the year indicates he listened to the criticism of his failure to attend the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Nauru last September.

This visit began and ended with security. The Vanuatu leg of the trip provided a clear illustration that, when it comes to security, what Canberra understands (and wants) does not necessarily line up with the needs of Pacific island countries.

Vanuatu and security

Vanuatu is seeking support for domestic security issues, such as increasing its police force. This is more of a priority than a security treaty with Australia, as Canberra had proposed during the Vanuatu prime minister’s 2018 visit to Australia – it was rejected at the time. Ahead of Morrison’s visit, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Reganvanu, reiterated there was no appetite in his government to enter into an exclusive security agreement with any country.

Vanuatu’s longstanding membership of the Non-Aligned Movement (formed during the Cold War by states who did not wish to be aligned with either of the then superpowers) is part of what informs this position.

Something like the Australia-Solomon Islands security treaty – which envisages rapid deployment of Australian troops (subject to consent by both governments) – would be highly problematic for most people in Vanuatu, a country that places high value on its hard-won independence and sovereignty.

Read more: Morrison’s Vanuatu trip shows the government’s continued focus on militarising the Pacific

Fiji and a thawing of relations

The visit to Fiji was particularly significant given strained relationships between the two governments since the 2006 coup. Some in Australia’s foreign policy community believe the freeze pushed Fiji’s Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, to build relationships with China, Russia, and others to the detriment of Canberra in terms of influence.

That’s why securing the Black Rock redevelopment deal last year – a site that’s to become a regional hub for training of defence and security personnel – is a success for Australia. Having Morrison there to break ground on the project may indicate all is now forgiven on both sides.

However, a visit by the leader of the region’s largest democracy and the apparent credibility it gives to Bainimarama’s government will be a disappointment to those who have ongoing concerns about human rights and democratic governance in Fiji.

The Fiji trip unveiled a Fiji-Australia Vuvale Partnership, touted as elevating the relationship beyond diplomacy. The agreement includes a commitment to annual leaders’ meetings, something that already exists between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Other than that, we have yet to see what it will look like in practice.

Read more: Fiji coup leader gets the democratic approval he wanted

Further to last year’s announcement of the creation of an Office of the Pacific in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Morrison used this trip to announce Ewen McDonald (currently Australia’s High Commissioner to New Zealand) as its head.

McDonald will work on ensuring Australia’s engagement with the Pacific informs the work of all relevant government departments. This will include Fiji’s joining the Pacific Labour Scheme and steering the revisions of import restrictions on kava that were announced in Port Vila. Currently, the maximum amount of kava that can be brought in to Australia is 2kg per adult due to concerns about substance abuse in Australian Indigenous communities.

Broader region

What was said (and just as importantly what wasn’t) during this week’s visit to the region indicates Australia needs to do more listening and learning. For too long, people in the Pacific have felt their voices have not been heard when it comes to how Australia engages in the region.

In Vanuatu, Morrision demonstrated particular tone-deafness on the issue of ease of travel. Across the region, people are frustrated about the difficulties they face in getting visas to visit Australia.

The Australian government announced a frequent traveller visa card on the margins of last year’s APEC summit. This is intended for politicians, sports people and business leaders. But its narrow scope doesn’t cut it as far as people in Vanuatu are concerned. Officials transiting to attend international meetings or families visiting students at Australian universities, for instance, aren’t included.

Read more: For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

Morrison also isn’t listening when it comes to Australian broadcasting to the Pacific. He announced A$17.1 million dollars to fund TV content for broadcast to and in the region. This money is to be funnelled to commercial providers via Free TV Australia, snubbing the established Pacific expertise of the ABC and SBS/NITV. Not to mention their reputation in the region.

This ignores specific representations from the Pacific which have stressed time and again what they want is high quality content to raise the level of public debate about the issues they care about.

Scott Morrison did “show up” though, as he had planned. It’s a first step. Whether Australia-Pacific relationships are now on the right path, we have yet to see.

– ref. Yes, Morrison ‘showed up’ in the Pacific, but what did he actually achieve? – http://theconversation.com/yes-morrison-showed-up-in-the-pacific-but-what-did-he-actually-achieve-109792

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonas Wolff, Research Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University

Curious Kids is a series for children. You can send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au. You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

Why do spiders have hairy legs? – Audrey, age 5, Fitzroy, Melbourne.

Good question, Audrey! Believe it or not, I have studied the hairy legs of spiders for years and can give you some definitive answers on this.

But before we talk about the spider’s fur, think about your very own hairs.

Read more: Curious Kids: If a huge huntsman spider is sucked into a vacuum cleaner, can it crawl out later?

Why do we have hair?

First, there is the hair on your head, which protects you from the sun and rain. Then, there is smaller hair above your eyes – your eyebrows and eye lashes. These prevent dust from entering your eye.

And then have a closer look – you have all that very fine hair on your arms and legs, you can hardly see. What happens when you very, very gently touch this hair or blow at it? It tickles! This very fine body hair helps humans to feel if something is touching you.

It looks like this spider has a beard. Flickr/Thomas Shahan, CC BY

In spiders, it is quite similar. Their body hair helps them to feel if something is touching them. Say you took a paintbrush and gently touched a spider with it (don’t do this without an adult there, of course, because some spiders can be dangerous). This touch will make the spider’s hairs bend. The spider will feel that something big is touching it and probably think “Oh dear, there is something that wants to eat me!” and run off.

Like you, spiders have different types of hairs. But spiders can do much more cool things with their hair then we can with ours (except, maybe that we are superior in styling our hair in a cool fashion).

Spidey senses

Have you ever seen a spider with ears? Well, no (that would actually look funny!) That’s because spiders use hairs on their legs to listen! Sounds unbelievable, but that’s how it is.

Does a spider have a nose? I’ve never seen one, and I have seen lots and lots of spiders. To smell, spiders use hairs.

Does a spider have a tongue? Nope. They use – you guessed it – hairs!

So spiders can feel, listen, smell and taste with their hairy legs. Pretty cool, right?

Spiders can hear, taste and smell with those lovely leg hairs. Flickr/Kai Schreiber, CC BY

Some spiders can also use their hairs to grip onto a very flat surface – this is why you see spiders walking happily across a window, a ceiling or high up on a wall. (This is also how Spiderman does it, by the way).

Actually, not all spiders than can do that. Only the ones that have special Spiderman-hairs on their feet can do it. These Spiderman-hairs are tiny and have even tinier hairs on them – hairs on hairs. Scientists are trying to learn from these spiders and create Spiderman gloves. With such gloves you could climb up a skyscraper like a spider!

Show-off spiders

Spiders can be quite colourful. Do you know peacock spiders? Here is a picture of one:

The bright parts of a peacock spider are due to its colourful hairs. Flickr/Jurgen Otto, CC BY

The peacock spider’s colours come from special hairs on its legs and body and they are used to impress other peacock spider mates and find a partner. The peacock spider boy waves his coloured hairy legs in a funky dance to tell the spider girl, “I am the best guy you’ll ever find”. Such a show-off! Here’s how they look when they dance:

So you see, spiders need hairs for quite a lot of things in their life – and that is why they have hairy legs.

Read more: Curious Kids: What are spider webs made from and how strong are they?

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:

* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
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Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

– ref. Curious Kids: why do spiders have hairy legs? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-spiders-have-hairy-legs-108602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Moffat, ARC DECRA Research Fellow in Archaeological Science, Flinders University

If you bumped into a Homo erectus in the street you might not recognise them as being very different from you. You’d see a certain “human-ness” in the stance, and his or her size and shape might be similar to yours.

But their face would be flatter, with a more obvious brow. And having a conversation would be hard – his or her language skills would be poor (although they could certainly craft a stone tool or light a fire).

Of course this is entirely hypothetical, as Homo erectus is now extinct. This enigmatic human ancestor probably evolved in Africa more than 2 million years ago, although the timing of their disappearance is less clear.

Read more: Stone tools date early humans in North Africa to 2.4 million years ago

Homo erectus was in the news over 2018 thanks to new discoveries in the Philippines and China, which have transformed our understanding of this not too distant family member.

So who was Homo erectus? And could 2019 be the year we learn more about our mysterious ancestor?

Homo erectus skull discovered in 1969 in Sangiran, Indonesia. from www.shutterstock.com

Where and when did they live?

Homo erectus was first discovered in Java, Indonesia and then China – these are the famous “Java Man” and “Peking Man” fossils. Eugène Dubois’ 1891 discovery on Java (originally called Pithecanthropus erectus) was a key piece of evidence in supporting Darwin’s ideas of human evolution.

The recent discovery of stone artefacts in the Loess Plateau of China suggests that a hominin, probably Homo erectus, was living in the region by 2.1 million years ago. This evidence pushes back their presence in Asia back by at least 400,000 years.

Other ancient Homo erectus sites are present in the Caucasus region of Georgia (1.8 million years ago), on Java and in Africa.

Homo erectus is thought to have become mostly extinct following the emergence of modern humans – yet some specimens from Java have been dated (with some controversy) to as recently as 40,000 years ago. If this dating is correct, it suggests that they coexisted with Homo sapiens, although probably only in very small pockets in Indonesia.

The expansion of Homo erectus throughout the globe was the first time that a hominin species had ventured beyond Africa, and occurred 2 million years before modern humans replicated this great feat of exploration. They may have been encouraged to spread so rapidly by the expansion of grassland during this period, driven by climate change. This created more habitats for plant-eating animals and so increased the amount of available prey.

Read more: Rhino fossil rewrites the earliest human history of the Philippines

What did they look like?

Homo erectus was the first of our ancestors to physically resemble modern humans. They were taller and their brain was larger than previous hominin species such as Australopithecus sp. or Homo habilus.

They had a slightly different face to us: it was flatter with more prominent brow ridges.

There are clear differences in the size and shape of the skull in Homo sapiens compared to other human-like species including Homo erectus (schematic). from www.shutterstock.com

The long legs and the fact that they were fully upright meant Homo erectus individuals were efficient walkers and could cover larger ranges than their ancestors.

Their body shape also meant that they could control their temperature and water balance well and so were well suited for living in open forests.

What did they eat?

Homo erectus were probably advanced scavengers who augmented their diet with some predation rather than sophisticated hunters. In fact, they probably occupied a similar ecological niche to hyenas today.

The importance of meat in their diets is still contested, with some researchers considering they were primarily meat eaters and others believing that they had a much broader diet.

Read more: Curious Kids: Where did the first person come from?

How smart where they?

Homo erectus was much smarter than previous hominins, being the first species to use fire and may have been the first to live in hunter-gather groups. They made stone tools in a style called the Acheulian, characterised by distinctive hand axes.

Despite this, their cognitive ability fell a long way short of modern humans. There is currently no evidence that Homo erectus was capable of undertaking modern behaviours such as using language or making art.

The importance of the recent discovery of archaeological material attributed to Homo erectus in the Philippines helps us learn more details about what this species may have been capable of.

Previously, it was widely accepted that Homo erectus was not able to undertake water crossings. This theory fitted with their presence as far as Java, but not across deeper water represented by the Wallace line to travel further east.

A discovery in the Philippines (and possibly in Sulawesi) overturns this, and opens the exciting possibility that Homo erectus may have been more capable sailors than we previously thought.

How are they related to us?

One of the most contentious aspects of Homo erectus is who to include in the species. While many researchers include a wide range of specimens from around the world as Homo erectus, some classify the African and Eurasian specimens as Homo ergaster. Others use the terms Homo erectus senso stricto (ie. in the narrow sense) for the Asian specimens and Homo erectus senso lato (ie. in the broad sense) for all specimens.

This somewhat confusing situation is actually far clearer than the early history of Homo erectus where a wide range of names including Anthropopithecus, Homo leakeyi, Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Meganthropus, and Telanthropus were used. The reason for this complexity is that Homo erectus (whatever you choose to call them) have a comparatively wide range of morphological characteristics making it difficult to decide how much diversity to include within the definition of the species.

What is clear is that Homo erectus sits somewhere on the human lineage as an ancestor to modern humans, serving as a transition from early hominins such as Australopithecus to Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.

Read more: We know why short-statured people of Flores became small – but for the extinct ‘Hobbit’ it’s not so clear

What next for Homo erectus?

No area of archaeology has seen such vibrant change in recent years than how we understand our family tree. New species have been discovered (and debated) and the ages of the earliest examples of various species are constantly being revised. Unfortunately we only have limited fossils to work with and so new specimens and sites can quickly change our understanding of human evolution.

There is no doubt that ancient DNA studies will contribute to resolving this uncertainty – however DNA sequences have not yet been recovered from Homo erectus. We await this eventual discovery with baited breath!

– ref. A snapshot of our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus – http://theconversation.com/a-snapshot-of-our-mysterious-ancestor-homo-erectus-101122

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University

Liberal women must surely be asking why their party is so clear-eyed when facilitating the departure of competent women, and yet so mealy-mouthed about recruiting and promoting them.

Prominent among Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s comments on Kelly O’Dwyer’s retirement to pursue family life, was to say he supported his minister’s decision, and indeed supported all such choices by women.

Such clarity has been conspicuously absent from the Liberal Party’s leadership since its now widely accepted “women” problem came to the fore in 2018 amid claims of bullying, implied career threats, ingrained gender bias, and other generally oafish behaviour.

Even more opaque has been the Liberal Party’s puzzling refusal to broach any corrective action to address a powerful internal preference for men, when selecting candidates in winnable seats. This, despite a miserable return of just 13 female MPs of its 76 in the lower house after the 2016 election.

It is even worse now, and voters are on to it.

Not the first such departure

O’Dwyer is the second female Liberal from Victoria to call it quits in six months after her friend, the talented rookie backbencher Julia Banks, spectacularly called time on the party in the wake of Malcolm Turnbull’s brutal ouster.

Banks went to the cross bench to form a quartet of competent female moderates with past ties or sympathies to the centre-right – Banks, Kerryn Phelps, Rebekha Sharkie, and Cathy McGowan.

There have been other high-profile departures this term also on family grounds with two frontbenchers on the Labor side – former minister Kate Ellis, and rising star Tim Hammond – both bowing out.

That federal politics is hard on families and relationships is hardly news, but the slew of resignations / defections underscores how little has been done to change things.

And poignant, given her portfolio

In any event, O’Dwyer’s retreat is arguably the most pointed given the current debate, her particular government portfolio, her hard-won ministerial seniority, and her party’s woes.

It makes Liberal retention of her previously safe Melbourne seat of Higgins somewhere between problematic and unlikely.

On the social media platform Twitter where cynicism and vitriol flows freely from people hiding behind false identities, her departure has been met with some appallingly personal abuse, exaggerated outrage, and claims she was merely a rat leaving a sinking ship.

It is true that retaining the seat would have been no certainty even with O’Dwyer still as the candidate, especially given Victoria’s recent anti-conservative tendencies in state election races, but with a new candidate, the Liberal jewel is undoubtedly more vulnerable.

Feminists will be aggrieved to see another senior woman go but they might also be quietly disappointed in her stated reasons.

In contradistinction to some of her predecessors, O’Dwyer, did substantive work as minister for women, and unlike some, gave the impression of actually believing in the mission.

She also garnered respect from across the aisle and within the press gallery as a person of warmth and humility – stand-out qualities on Capital Hill.

It is a portfolio she believed in

O’Dwyer created enemies however on her party’s increasingly reactionary right flank by outlining the challenges for women – especially in politics – acknowledging the Liberal Party’s poor image in some quarters.

She was even reputed to have told colleagues they were seen as a bunch of “homophobic, anti-women, climate change deniers”.

Her introduction of a women’s economic security statement last year was another material achievement resisted by some as political correctness.

But in declaring her job’s incompatibility with family life, there was an unmistakable note of resignation, even defeat in O’Dwyer’s “choice”. And coming from the minister most directly involved in remediating that problem for women, her resignation cannot help but reinforce the message that politics may well be no place for women.

Morrison’s superficially virtuous support for the choices for women, was no help either – typical of much conservative sophistry around this whole issue.

Morrison isn’t helping

Masquerading as a pro-choice feminist while endorsing a senior colleague’s decision to give up her career for child-rearing and home duties takes some chutzpah.

An alternative approach might have been to lament her departure as symptomatic of a flawed representational system, acknowledge the failure of politics to renovate its male paradigm, and vow to change the culture in material ways.

It might even be called leadership.

For a government laced with longstanding (if undeclared) quotas for ministerial selection – think ratios in the ministry applied to the number of Libs to Nats, House to Senate, moderates to conservatives, and even between states – the blind spot over women’s under-representation and the philosophical objection to corrective action (quotas) is all the more bizarre.

It is a mark of how far conservative Liberals have drifted from contemporary public attitudes and even their own philosophy that some would countenance re-nationalising of energy assets and building new coal-fired power stations before correcting a clear market imperfection within their own organisation.

Read more: View from The Hill: Julie Bishop will be open to post-politics offers

And with speculation that Julie Bishop could also withdraw from the 2019 field, the situation facing Morrison’s Liberals threatens to deepen.

Through all of this, voters’ views come second.

Not so long ago, Bishop was easily the most popular alternative to Malcolm Turnbull in voter land but such unrivalled public support was good for just 11 votes in the party room.

– ref. Liberals lose yet another high-profile woman, yet still no action on gender – http://theconversation.com/liberals-lose-yet-another-high-profile-woman-yet-still-no-action-on-gender-110158