Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Taylor Swift released her debut single, Tim McGraw. To understand everything that has come since – the confessional genius, the brand strategy, the carefully constructed persona – this three-minute-and-fifty-two-second country ballad is a good place to start.

As we argue in our edited collection Taylor Swift: Culture, Capital & Critique, Swift is a cultural phenomenon worthy of critical attention – a lens through which we can examine culture and power in contemporary life.

The making of a country superstar

In 2004, 14-year-old Swift and her family relocated from Pennsylvania to Nashville, Tennessee, so she could pursue her dream of country stardom.

During her recent induction as the youngest woman into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Swift said:

it couldn’t have been easy to just pick up and move our entire family … But after it became obvious that this was not even remotely a temporary phase their tween daughter was going through, they uprooted their entire lives to move me to music city.

Swift became the first artist signed to Big Machine Records, an independent label founded by Scott Borchetta, who signed Swift after seeing her perform at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe.

Shortly after, her stockbroker father invested about US$500,000 into the label in 2006, becoming a shareholder.

Swift went to work on her first album, Taylor Swift (2006), with Tim McGraw as the lead single.

Confessional songwriting

Swift has said that when she wrote Tim McGraw, she was dating a boy who was leaving for college. So instead of a breakup song, she wrote a pre-breakup song about her desire to be remembered by her future ex-lover.

The song’s emotional logic is anticipatory grief. This is remarkably mature lyrical instinct; she was already aware of the long shadow cast by first love. She was also taking control of the narrative of her own life through lyrics.

What makes the song even more significant is the form. Swift writes from a confessional “I” that collapses the line between songwriter and subject.

As one of our book chapters (by Faichney) explains, confessional songwriting conveys raw emotion and authenticity through its association with the autobiographical. This has become emblematic of Swift’s oeuvre; the most intimate parts of her life have been immortalised in song.

Tim McGraw exemplifies much of Swift’s early work: songs that nostalgically capture the experience of being young and in love.

It was no accident that this connection felt so immediate and personal. Swift was cultivating it directly through MySpace blogs and personal fan responses. This laid the groundwork for what became one of the most sophisticated parasocial relationships in pop music history.

Borrowed capital: the original brand strategy

It may seem an audacious move for an unknown teenager to borrow the name of country’s number one star, Tim McGraw, as her song title. It was also a clever strategy.

Using the name of an artist with crossover mainstream success on a debut release immediately communicated country music legibility. This gambit of adopted cultural credibility worked.

Swift went on to open for McGraw and Faith Hill on tour. Her single peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and reached number 40 on the Hot 100 – foreshadowing her future success.

This was the first iteration of a repeated pattern in Swift’s career, in which she leverages association as a form of cultural and ideological capital.

As one of us (Whatman) argues in our collection, this approach is also visible in Swift’s relationship with feminism and whiteness.

Her celebrity “girl squad” of the 1989 era – including publicly “feminist” figures such as Mariska Hargitay and Lena Dunham – was borrowed capital of a different kind: a strategically timed visual embodiment of Swift’s public declaration of feminism.

In the Bad Blood music video and on tour, female solidarity is performed as a spectacle. The girl gang didn’t simply express “feminist” politics; it constructed them, producing a palatable, marketable, and overwhelmingly white feminism.

The limits of this strategy became visible in 2023, when Swift collaborated with rapper Ice Spice – the first Black woman to feature on one of her tracks – after she was publicly criticised for her silence on then-boyfriend Matty Healy’s racist comments about the rapper.

The template of the ‘all-American girl’

Tim McGraw also introduced the persona Swift would maintain: that of the relatable “all-American girl”, with her boots, guitar, and wholesome girl-next-door energy. Her beauty and talent might be intimidating, were it not for her approachable awkwardness and down-to-earth sincerity.

Swift had only been in Nashville for two years, yet recorded a song soaked in the iconography of a rural American girlhood she was still, in real terms, auditioning for. The song conjures the image of a country sweetheart, referencing Chevy trucks, sun-soaked fields and eyes like the “Georgia stars”.

While she has long since shed the Southern twang and cowboy boots, this persona has proven durable. It has been updated to something more urban and self-aware: the billionaire auteur who is somehow still the girl next door.

Importantly, this persona has never been neutral; it encodes whiteness and class privilege as an unmarked default. It is a form of girlhood capacious enough to be country or pop, apolitical or activist, and bestie or billionaire, precisely because whiteness and class privilege operate as its invisible foundation.

Swift’s extraordinary success speaks not only to her talent and work ethic, but to the structural conditions that determine whose version of American femininity gets to count.

Twenty years on

Tim McGraw hit the airwaves like a comet. It launched a pop ingenue who would become the most “relatable billionaire in the world” – a blueprint that every debut pop artist has since tried to follow.

Although she once borrowed his name and cultural capital, these days when people think of Tim McGraw, they almost certainly think of Taylor Swift.

Emma Whatman, Senior Tutor in Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne and Eloise Faichney, Lecturer in Media and Communications, School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most people suspect they own too many clothes, but they aren’t sure exactly what the “right amount” is. Recent wardrobe studies, in which researchers literally peek inside peoples’ closets, show the scale of the problem is far greater than most of us imagine.

Sixty years ago, the average person owned about 40 garments.

Today, that number has more than quadrupled, with a recent study revealing these numbers continue to trend upwards. The typical wardrobe now contains an average of 199 major pieces. Even more striking: 25%–50% of these items are languishing in the back of drawers and rails.

Our hidden clothing footprint

Research tells us this is not just a clutter issue — it’s a carbon one. Every garment carries a sizeable environmental footprint long before it reaches a hanger, including from fibre production, spinning, weaving, dyeing, cutting, sewing, packaging and global transport.

A jacket that ends up as fashion waste is more than a label and price tag. It’s the sum of all the resources and emissions that brought it into being.

At the same time, donating excess garments to charities is rarely a solution.

Before you channel your inner Marie Kondo and bag up half your wardrobe, it’s worth knowing that most charities are overwhelmed, and only a small fraction of donated clothing is resold. The rest often ends up in landfill or exported overseas, shifting the problem, rather than solving it.

The real issue isn’t simply how much we buy, but how little we wear what we already own.

Wear counts change everything

One of the clearest findings emerging from sustainability research is that the environmental impact of a garment often depends on how many times it’s worn. In a sense, every additional wear helps “offset” the garment’s carbon footprint.

The European Union has calculated the minimum number of wears needed for different clothing types:

• shirts and blouses: 40 wears

• T shirts: 45 wears

• pants, shorts, dresses, skirts, jumpsuits, leggings: 70 wears

• jumpers, cardigans, hoodies: 85 wears

• jackets and coats: 100 wears.

For many people, these numbers may be far higher than expected – and they shift the sustainability conversation from “buying better” to “wearing more”.

The wardrobe equation

My own recent research has gone further by offering a simple mathematical model to calculate how long it takes to reach these minimum wear counts. The formula is straightforward: wearing frequency × wardrobe volume. The results are eye opening.

Take dresses. The average participant in the study owned 23. So if they wore a dress once a week, it would take nearly 31 years to wear each one 70 times. If they wear dresses five times a week, the timeline drops to six and a half years.

The maths makes the issue clear: there is no universal “right” number of clothes. A sustainable wardrobe depends entirely on how often a person wears what they own, which is influenced by factors such as seasonality, climate, lifestyle, laundry habits and personal style.

The maths also becomes more complicated when you look at the entire wardrobe, rather than a single garment type.

Why a tailored approach is needed

Because of this complexity, it’s difficult to declare a fixed number of garments that constitutes a sustainable wardrobe.

As such, the next phase of my project is the development of an interactive wardrobe calculator – a tool designed to help individuals understand their own clothing use patterns and calculate a personalised sustainable wardrobe size.

The Paris 2030 Agreement to stay below 1.5°C of global warming recommends 85 garments or less would be a responsible target – although imposing strict limits does not take individual wearing patterns into account. People need a practical, tailored approach that reflects their real lives.

What the research makes clear is that sustainability isn’t about owning the perfect number of clothes, or purging half your wardrobe. It’s about understanding the maths behind what you own, how often you wear it, and how those choices shape your environmental impact.

Alicja Kuźmycz, Lecturer, Torrens University Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Have you ever been out at night and seen a streak of light blast across the sky and disappear? Ever wonder where that shooting star came from, or how it got to be in your sky?

As the director of the Peters Observatory at Hamilton College, I have seen many similar streaks across the sky, as I spend late nights at the observatory, and I am here to tell you that what you saw isn’t a star at all. You observed the end of a comet or asteroid’s 4.6-billion-year journey right before your eyes.

Remnants from the early solar system

Roughly 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was in its infancy. A vast ball of gas and dust that would become our solar system was accumulating matter in its center, forming what would eventually become our Sun. It was also condensing dust in smaller patches farther from the center that would merge into the first chunks of materials, called planetesimals.

Asteroids formed from planetesimals in the inner portions of the solar system, near the Sun. This location in the center of the solar system was warm, so the planetesimals were made mostly of the rocks and metals that could withstand the heat. The biggest of these chunks would congeal with others and form the terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The remaining planetesimals that did not form into the terrestrial planets are the asteroids of today, left to orbit the inner portion of the solar system.

Comets formed in the outer parts of the solar system, where it was cold enough that any water, or similar hydrogen-based compounds, took the form of ice. The planetesimals forming in this region were composed of not just rock and metal but these ices as well.

Some of the planetesimals became big enough, fast enough, that they had enough gravitational pull to hold onto large atmospheres composed of the very abundant early solar system gases, such as hydrogen and helium. These planetesimals became the Jovian planets of today: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, the planetesimals that did not form into the Jovian planets were left to travel through the solar system as comets.

Origin of meteors

Asteroids are still abundant in the inner solar system, so inevitably some will collide with Earth. When a chunk of rock enters Earth’s atmosphere, it’s traveling at dozens of miles per second. As it enters, it may create a thunderlike sonic boom in its wake. When it travels through the air faster than the speed of sound, the asteroid produces a shock wave, which can generate that boom.

During its journey through the atmosphere over tens of miles, the asteroid collides with air molecules, and the incredible temperatures and pressure usually vaporize it. That trail of vaporizing particles breaking off the asteroid causes a bright streak of light across the sky called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star.

Comets, though typically found in the outer solar system, can also cause meteors, and even meteor showers. A few comets take long, elliptical paths through the inner solar system every year.

These objects, sometimes called “dirty snowballs” because they are made of dust and ices, tend to slowly melt as they get too close to the Sun, causing the comet to develop a tail of gas and debris left in its wake.

If the path of the comet intersects with Earth’s orbit, the Earth will collide with these debris fields in its yearly orbit around the Sun. As that debris enters the atmosphere, it vaporizes, causing numerous trails of light called meteor showers. Since this happens in the same part of our orbit every year, meteor showers are yearly events. If you find a dark sky, you can see dozens of meteors every hour during these annual meteor showers.

Finding meteorites

The meteors that are large enough to make it through the Earth’s atmosphere and crash into the surface are called meteorites. Meteorites tend to come from asteroids that were originally larger than a football field.

It can be difficult to identify meteorites, because they look just like Earth rocks. Typically, people recover meteorites in geologically unchanging regions, such as deserts or ice fields, where the meteorites stand out against the landscape.

They are often made of stone, nickel and iron and are likely magnetic. Many have irregular or pock-marked shapes, while others have a smooth crust from their time burning up in our atmosphere.

Meteorites are quite rare and important to the study of the early solar system. If you believe you’ve found one, you should verify your rock’s features fit those of a meteorite and then contact local geologists.

Next time you see a meteor in the night sky, remember that you are witnessing the end of its journey, spanning billions of years, as it burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Adam Lark, Associate Professor of Instruction for Physics, Hamilton College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If someone used a large truck to deliver one envelope across the street, what would your reaction be? You would probably say it worked, but it was wasteful. The envelope arrived, but the method made little sense.

In many ways, this mirrors how we often use artificial intelligence (AI) today.

We use powerful AI systems such as ChatGPT to write short messages, polish simple sentences, and answer questions we could handle ourselves with less intensive tools. The outcome is the same. But under the hood, the differences in processing, electricity, and water use are enormous.

One small request will not change the planet. But millions of small and unnecessary requests can add up over time. The question is not whether AI is good or bad. The better question is whether we are using the right amount of AI for the right task.

AI is becoming a utility

AI is quickly becoming an everyday utility, like electricity. But because it feels invisible, we can easily forget every use has a cost.

We know not to leave lights on all day. We also know not to run an air conditioner with windows open. We need a similar mindset for AI.

AI is often described as living in “the cloud”. This makes it sound light, clean, and almost magical. But the cloud is not really a cloud.

It is someone else’s computer. More precisely, it is a large network of data centres filled with servers, chips, cables and cooling systems.

When we interact with AI systems, they do not simply “know” the answers. They run calculations through large computer systems to generate a response. Training large AI models require enormous resources, but daily use adds up too.

Data centres can create significant carbon emissions. They also take up large tracts of land, put pressure on electricity grids and water supplies, and generate electronic waste. The International Energy Agency has projected global electricity use by data centres could roughly double to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030.

How to use AI more sensibly

This makes it important to consider how we can use AI more sensibly – and sustainably.

First, choose the right tool for the task. Not every job needs the most powerful AI model. Sometimes a smaller tool, search engine, calculator, or even your own brain is enough. Ask yourself: is AI adding any value here, or am I using it out of habit?

Second, write clearer prompts. Vague questions often lead to many follow-up prompts. A clear first request can reduce this back and forth. It is like giving a taxi driver the correct address before the trip starts instead of constantly correcting the route along the way.

Third, ask only for what you need. If you need a short list, do not ask for a long report. More words usually mean more computing.

Fourth, be more careful with images, audio, video and other media files. These typically require more computing power than texts.

The role of organisations and governments

Large organisations have an even bigger responsibility. They should not add AI to every product just because it is fashionable. Before adopting AI, they should ask: what problem are we solving? Is AI really needed? If it is, can we use a smaller model?

Governments should also require large data centres to report electricity use, water use, emissions and electronic waste as part of planning approvals.

Australia has released guidelines for data centre developers, but they are voluntary, not law.

New data centres should be planned very carefully, especially in places with limited water or stressed grids. Sustainability labels, like energy ratings on appliances, could help users compare tools by efficiency.

These measures could make sustainability part of normal AI governance, not an afterthought. They could help ensure AI stops being the equivalent of the truck carrying one envelope across the street.

Seyedali Mirjalili, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Business and Hospitality, Torrens University Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s match against the United States was always going to be the toughest of the Socceroos’ three fixtures in their World Cup group, and that proved to be the case. The US has backed up its emphatic opening win against Paraguay with a 2–0 victory that assures the host nation’s passage into the tournament’s knockout phase.

Socceroos coach Tony Popovic’s ultra-defensive formation may have worked effectively against Turkey, but having revealed Australia’s approach, the US appeared tactically superior.

The Americans were not the Turks. The long passes into the centre and speculative shots from outside the box that characterised Turkey’s attack were absent here. Instead, the Americans played with greater composure and variety. Defensively they employed a high press.

Buoyed by a fanatical home crowd and immersed in the celebrity culture surrounding the match in Seattle, the Socceroos were comprehensively outplayed.

There is a saying in soccer: “Never change a winning team.” But Popovic rang the changes. Connor Metcalfe and Nestory Irankunda, heroes in the previous game against Turkey, were dropped from the starting lineup and replaced with A-League duo Matthew Leckie and Nishan Velupillay.

It would be hard to find a coach at the World Cup – or, indeed, in junior soccer – who, in Popovic’s position, would have dropped his two goalscorers from the first game. It made little sense when the team was announced, and assistant coach Paul Okon’s halftime interview did little to explain it.

In the first half, Australia’s defence looked rattled; the occasion had got to them. The team sat far too deep in defence and offered nothing adventurous. Popovic’s strategy of defending in numbers and keeping things tight only works if you do, in fact, keep things tight. After Cameron Burgess’s own goal in the 11th minute, it was effectively game over. The US scored a second shortly before half-time and had the contest in a stranglehold from that moment.

Metcalfe and Irankunda came on at half-time. But while Australia showed more creativity and fight in the second half, they lacked the composure to show a real threat, and ultimately the only statistic on which they finished above their opponents was for the number of yellow cards.

What’s next for the Socceroos?

It’s far from over. Australia needs to regroup and approach the final group-stage match against Paraguay in the knowledge that a draw would be enough to progress to the next round. But playing for a draw can be a dangerous game, so the Socceroos need to remain sufficiently ambitious to pursue victory if the opportunity arises.

Ahead of the Paraguayans’ match against Turkey later today, it is difficult to speculate on precisely what approach Australia should take. Gustavo Alfaro’s Paraguay are similar to Popovic’s Socceroos: a strong defensive, counterattacking team. While the Americans put four goals past them, Paraguay conceded just ten goals in 18 World Cup qualifiers, the best defensive record in the competition.

The problem for the Paraguayans, however, is that they may need to win to have any chance of qualifying. This could benefit the Socceroos.

It is not yet clear whether the three points Australia already has in the bag will be enough to move into the knockout rounds, although it remains a possibility given the expanded tournament format. In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each of the 12 groups will also be joined by the eight third-placed teams with the best records.

A draw against Paraguay would leave Australia with four points – almost certainly enough to secure qualification and potentially even sufficient for second place in the group. So, all is not lost.

US dominating the group

From Australia’s perspective, the ideal scenario is for the US to defeat Turkey in their third and final match, thus continuing to take points off Australia’s rivals for qualification. Meanwhile, if Turkey inflict a second defeat of the group on Paraguay, however, Paraguay would be forced to attack against the Socceroos, potentially creating a situation in which goal difference becomes decisive. Australia may then require not only a positive result but also a superior goal difference to ensure progression to the knockout stages.

The US was simply better than the Socceroos today, exposing the limitations of Australia’s conservative approach. The good news is qualification remains within reach. The bad news is the Socceroos cannot continue to survive on grit alone; they must offer considerably more in attack.

Today was a lost opportunity for Australian football. If the first game against Turkey was a coaching masterclass by Popovic, this one was a disasterclass. When Irankunda and Metcalfe came on at half-time, the game changed – but too little, too late. Both Leckie and Velupillay were substituted. Cristian Volpato came on with roughly half an hour left to play, and made an attacking impact. It is clear he also needs to start against the Paraguayans.

Australia’s goalscoring song for the World Cup is Thunderstruck. We did not hear it today, but it perfectly summed up the Socceroos’ performance. They were thunderstruck in Seattle this morning.

Steve Georgakis, Senior Lecturer of Pedagogy and Sports Studies, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Vodafone Australia suffered a major nationwide outage today that may have affected millions of customers.

Customers of Australia’s third-largest telecommunications company in Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra reported having no service for several hours early this morning.

At roughly 11am, Vodafone, which is owned by TPG Telecom, issued a statement saying it was aware customers were experiencing “intermittent issues” with its network. It said the issue “has been isolated and resolved, and services are now being progressively restored”.

However, many people online were still reporting problems with the network hours later.

What caused the outage?

In its statement, Vodafone said “the disruption was caused by a power outage at one of our network hubs”.

A power outage, though it seems unthinkable in an era when you would expect backup power and batteries to be installed in all key facilities, could cause equipment and systems to go offline, malfunction or fail.

The nationwide nature of the outage suggests the Vodafone network includes a centralised “core network”.

The impact of a fault at a “single point of failure” in a centralised core network could cause a cascading infrastructure and system failure. This would ultimately result in a national outage.

In a decentralised telecommunications network, a failure at one facility would cause the network traffic to be automatically switched through to an alternative facility. This improves the network’s resilience.

Vodafone recommended customers restart their phones to restore the network connection. But according to several online reports, this did not fix the problem.

This incident comes a month after Vodafone launched a major marketing campaign featuring US comedian Ali Wong. The campaign claims the company offers better value and coverage than one of its major competitors, Telstra.

Speaking to The Australian in March about the campaign and Vodafone’s promising future, TPG’s chief marketing officer Bec Darley said:

Any previous network issues no longer exist.

A spokesperson for Vodafone told The Conversation the company is “reviewing this incident and working to strengthen the resilience of our network to help prevent a recurrence”.

Too many national outages

There have been several other major telecommunications outages in recent years. These outages aren’t just an inconvenience. They can disrupt businesses and threaten public safety.

In September 2025, an Optus outage that affected people’s ability to call emergency services was linked to the death of two people.

Vodafone also suffered major network issues in 2021, 2016, 2012, 2011 and 2010.

Making matters worse for Vodafone this time around is the fact its own network status checker failed as well.

The Vodafone spokesperson told The Conversation the status checker page “is supported by some of the systems hosted at the same network hub that was impacted by the power issue, which is why it was temporarily unavailable”.

Much has been said recently about telecommunications companies needing to provide timely and factual information to consumers.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, in its role as the telecommunications regulator, has taken steps to provide stronger consumer protections during telecommunications outages.

For example, in April last year, the authority set new rules to ensure telecommunications customers are better informed during network outages.

The message isn’t getting through

In its most recent update, Australia’s Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reported a 5.7% increase in consumer complaints over the past quarter.

This latest national telecommunications outage will be a major test for federal communications minister Anika Wells as well as the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

An announcement of an independent inquiry should be expected in coming days.

A power outage should not take down a national telecommunications network. The independent inquiry should fully report on Vodafone’s network design and where the single point of failures are.

It should also examine what can be done to improve reliability and resiliency.

It seems the message the federal government and the Australian Communications and Media Authority have been trying to impart to the telcos is not getting through.

Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More than 100 million years ago, a flying reptile called a pterosaur flew over the oceans hunting squid and fish.

Much more recently, one of its wing bones was discovered in Brazil, transformed over the aeons into a fossil made of a complex assemblage of different chemicals and minerals.

And in new research published in iScience, my colleagues and I found that the fossil bone still holds secrets of the creature’s life, including microscopic inner structures of its bones and molecular traces of its biology and diet.

A fossil treasure from Brazil

The fossil comes from the Romualdo Formation in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil, one of the world’s most spectacular fossil deposits. The site has yielded exquisitely preserved fish, turtles, crocodile relatives, and pterosaurs.

Many fossils from the Romualdo Formation are preserved inside rounded rock nodules known as carbonate concretions. These mineral structures form shortly after burial, effectively sealing the remains from the environment. Think of them as natural time capsules.

Our fossil is a hollow wing bone, or phalanx. Pterosaur bones were thin and lightweight to aid flight, so they are rarely preserved in such detail.

Using high-resolution CT scanning, we examined the bone’s interior without breaking it open. The scans revealed layers of minerals with different densities filling the cavity – evidence of a complex sequence of chemical events that preserved the bone. We used several other methods to identify the minerals.

Microbes helped decay – and preservation

The fossil’s exceptional preservation may have begun with decay. As the pterosaur’s body decomposed on the ancient seafloor, microbes broke down tissues and altered sediment chemistry. These changes triggered the rapid formation of phosphate minerals.

One mineral in particular, called fluorapatite, formed within and around the bone, stabilising delicate features before they could be lost. Under the microscope, we could still see microscopic canals that once carried nutrients through living tissue.

Mineral analysis revealed evidence of microbial activity. We detected barite and celestite, minerals associated with sulphur-using bacteria. These microbes drove chemical reactions that helped create the conditions necessary for preservation.

In other words, ancient microbes didn’t just decay the body, they also helped preserve it for science.

A mineral vault for ancient molecules

After early phosphate minerals stabilised the bone, a sequence of calcite layers gradually formed inside and around it. These derived largely from carbon released during the decay of fatty tissue.

First, a thin layer of fine-grained calcite formed along the bone surface, followed by a second, slightly coarser-grained one. Over a longer period of time, larger calcite crystals formed, ultimately filling the bone cavity.

Analysis showed this calcite was low in an isotope called carbon-13, which indicates it partly came from organic carbon sources, such as fatty lipids and residual bone material. In contrast, any remaining organic matter in the bone appears to have relatively high levels of carbon-13.

The multi-layered mineral barrier acted like a geological vault, protecting delicate structures and organic compounds trapped in the bone from chemical degradation for millions of years. This protection allowed molecular traces such as steroid biomarkers and collagen fibre patterns to survive, giving us a rare window into the biology and diet of this ancient flying reptile.

Molecular traces of ancient life

Within this mineralised structure, we detected molecular traces of life called steranes, which are derived from steroidal lipids once present in living cells. To our knowledge, this is the first time steroid biomarkers have been reported from a pterosaur fossil.

Even more exciting, these molecules carry dietary clues. Carbon isotope analysis of cholesterol-derived compounds suggests this pterosaur likely fed on fish or squid-like marine animals, which is what we would expect from the shape of its teeth and skull.

The fossil also preserves microscopic structures resembling collagen fibres, the protein framework that strengthens bone. Although chemically altered over millions of years, the fibre patterns remain visible and resemble those seen in modern birds, which are distant relatives of pterosaurs.

Reading fossils in new ways

Discoveries like this one are transforming how we study fossils. Instead of examining only bone shapes, we can now recover chemical and molecular fingerprints as well.

Understanding how these exceptional fossils form may help identify other specimens capable of preserving ancient biomolecules. More broadly, our findings show that under the right conditions, molecular traces of life can survive for more than 100 million years.

Even after millions upon millions of years, ancient life can still leave behind chemical clues waiting to be discovered. As analytical techniques continue to advance and unusual modes of preservation become better understood, there is increasing potential to recover previously inaccessible information.

In the future, we may even be able to detect ancient DNA fragments or other molecular remnants in exceptionally preserved fossils, including those of dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

Kliti Grice, John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Organic and Isotope Geochemistry, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It was clear that something had gone seriously wrong with the thousand-strong swarm of drones twinkling above Darling Harbour during the Vivid Sydney festival last month. Many suddenly started flying out of formation. Almost 90 fell from the sky and into the dark water below.

Thankfully no one was injured. Yet the drone show failure, which has been blamed on radio interference, highlighted a challenge facing all autonomous aircraft: what happens when things go wrong?

This is an important question, given autonomous air taxis that fly passengers above traffic and autonomous drones that deliver packages across cities could become a familiar sight within the next decade. In the United States, for example, drone delivery company Wing recently announced it is expanding its partnership with Walmart across seven more cities.

These technologies will occasionally experience failures. But an aircraft cannot simply pull over to the side of the road. So safety depends not only on preventing failures but on ensuring aircraft can respond safely when they occur.

Designed to tolerate some failures

Modern autonomous aircraft have a range of features to ensure that no single failure leads to the loss of the aircraft. These include multiple motors, distributed propulsion, backup flight computers and software that can tolerate faults.

But even highly reliable and resilient technologies can and will fail in unexpected ways. A minor software problem, a faulty sensor or a sudden change in conditions may not be serious on their own. But together they can create larger challenges.

Cities create further risk. Changing winds around buildings, interruptions to navigation signals and large numbers of aircraft operating in the same area can all make it harder to manage unexpected events.

In a conventional aircraft, a pilot is responsible for handling emergencies. If a serious problem occurs, they draw on their training and experience to assess the situation, identify a suitable landing site and guide the aircraft to the ground while minimising risk to people nearby.

In the case of autonomous aircraft, that responsibility shifts from the pilot to the aircraft itself. Autonomous systems must be able to recognise a problem, assess the available options and decide what to do next. For example, where is the safest place to land? Could people, vehicles or buildings be put at risk? Can the aircraft safely reach the chosen location?

These are not simply technical questions. They are decisions with real-world consequences. Responding to emergencies is therefore not just a backup procedure. It becomes a fundamental part of how autonomous aircraft operate safely.

A system that must see, decide and act

For an autonomous aircraft to respond safely to an emergency, it must do three things very quickly.

First, it needs to understand its surroundings. It must identify possible landing locations while taking account of people, vehicles, buildings and other hazards. This information may be incomplete or constantly changing.

Next, it must decide which option carries the lowest risk. The safest landing site is not always the closest one, and there may be no perfect solution. Instead, the system must choose the option most likely to minimise harm.

Finally, it must safely guide the aircraft to that location. This can be particularly challenging if the aircraft is already experiencing a fault or operating in difficult weather conditions.

These tasks can’t be treated separately. They must work together as a single safety system, making decisions and responding in real time as events unfold.

Planning for things to go wrong

Much of the current focus in industry and regulation is on preventing failures through rigorous testing, certification and backup systems. This is important, but it is only part of the safety challenge.

There’s far less discussion about what happens after a failure occurs. How quickly can an aircraft identify a safe place to land? Can it continue to operate safely if some of its systems are no longer working as intended?

The most resilient systems are not necessarily those that never experience problems. They are the ones that can recognise emerging issues, adapt to changing circumstances and reduce risk before a situation becomes critical.

In this view, an emergency landing is not a last-minute response. It is a capability that is planned for throughout the flight and ready to be used whenever needed.

Safety is judged on the worst day

Autonomous aircraft have the potential to make transport faster, cleaner and more accessible. But its long-term success will depend on more than technology or economics.

It will depend on whether the public can trust these systems to respond safely when things go wrong.

The recent drone incident at Vivid Sydney festival offers a useful reminder. The failure itself became headlines, but the more important question was how the system responded. The drones did not simply disappear from the sky. Safety procedures were activated and, most importantly, nobody was injured.

As autonomous aircraft become more common over our cities, similar questions will arise. The future of autonomous aircraft will not be decided by how well they perform under normal conditions. It will be decided by how they handle the rare situations that nobody wants, but everyone expects to be planned for.

Luis Mejias, Associate Professor in Aerospace and Autonomous Systems, Queensland University of Technology and Jonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You’re browsing a major online marketplace for a warm winter jacket, when a sponsored listing catches your eye: a black, fleece-lined jacket, prominently priced for sale from A$18.99 each. It’s just what you want. So you click through, ready to grab a bargain.

But when you land on the page, then select a jacket from the drop down menu, the price instantly jumps to $39.99.

It turns out the $18.99 was actually for a different product – a waterproof storage bag – which was inexplicably listed along with three variants of the jacket.

This is a common strategy used by online sellers. The platform’s search algorithm displays the headline image of the jacket, but pairs it with a more attractive price of a different product.

Frustrated? You’re not alone. Across online forums such as Reddit, or deal-hunting sites such as OzBargain, shoppers have long warned others about this type of “multi-variation listing” on popular shopping websites and apps.

It’s not just wasting your time: it can be illegal.

This kind of visual bait-and-switch trick could potentially be misleading conduct under Australian Consumer Law. It may also breach the prohibition on “bait advertising”, applying to ads that promote “sale” prices on products that aren’t available, or available only in very limited quantities.

And a proposed prohibition on unfair trading practices, now before parliament, could soon give Australians even more power to complain.

Why visual tricks like these work

Academic research helps explain why this kind of design is so effective, and also such a problem.

When a price claim and a product image are presented in close proximity, consumers naturally assume that the price applies to the pictured product.

It is a “visual superiority effect” in advertising. Research has shown that visual superiority effect means consumers process images faster and more automatically than text.

When visual and textual elements conflict, consumers rely more heavily on the visual content in forming their judgements, and form less critical thoughts when it comes to the text, such as a product description.

Consumer watchdogs have warned this kind of design tactic is a type of “dark pattern”: tactics used to nudge, manipulate or trick you into spending more money than you’d planned, or provide personal data that’s not needed.

Research has shown nearly all consumers are susceptible to these manipulative tricks under the right conditions.

Is this actually misleading under Australian law?

Let’s go back to the example of the black winter jacket you clicked on thinking it was available from $18.99, only to discover that price was for a different product.

Is this visual bait-and-switch – where a lower price has been paired with a product image it does not apply to – misleading under Australian consumer law?

Yes, it probably is.

Retailers should be warned. The national consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), can prosecute for misleading people with eye-catching headline claims, if those are not true once you look more closely at the detail.

For instance, just over a decade ago the ACCC pursued TPG Internet in court over misleading ads, which led to a $2 million penalty. The ads had prominent headlines about attractive internet prices – with much less prominent terms qualifying the offer.

It went all the way to the High Court, which ruled that if consumers were drawn into what the judges called “the marketing web” by a misleading “dominant message”, it could be enough to be misleading under the Trade Practices Act.

Not all seemingly deceptive ads will necessarily fall within the category of misleading conduct. It can be harder to prove if the qualification to the images or pricing is revealed before the consumer adds the product to their basket.

But Australia’s laws look set to become a bit clearer on this front.

New legislation currently before federal parliament would introduce a prohibition on unfair trading practices that manipulate consumers, or “unreasonably distort” the environment in which a decision is being made to the detriment of the consumer.

That new prohibition is intended to capture “dark pattern” tactics that are “nudging or pressuring consumers into unintended actions”.

How consumer backlash and complaints can help

Research shows that when shoppers feel they have been intentionally misled, the damage to the brand’s reputation can be severe and immediate.

Price confusion doesn’t just cause frustration; it triggers a deep sense of unfairness. That unfairness can translate into action: consumers abandoning their carts, switching to competitors, and complaining to family and friends.

If you come across shopping platforms where there are consistent, manipulative bait-and-switch tactics like this being used, it may be worth asking: is it time to shop somewhere else?

Or, if you’re annoyed enough to take action, take a screenshot and contact the business.

If they don’t stop bait-and-switch sales listings, anyone can make a report to the ACCC about a false or misleading claim. Reports from customers help inform the ACCC’s education, compliance and enforcement work.

The ACCC has named misleading and manipulative pricing practices among its enforcement priorities for this financial year. Anyone selling to Australian customers should be on notice.

Jessica Pallant, Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University; Adrian R. Camilleri, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Technology Sydney, and Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law (consumer protections and credit law), The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bona Sforza was one of the most remarkable women of Renaissance Europe. Born into one of Italy’s leading ruling families and connected to figures such as Lucrezia Borgia through the tangled politics of Italian dynasties, she became queen consort of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania.

More than a royal bride, she brought to Poland the administrative, financial and cultural ideas of Renaissance Italy. She understood how wealth, land and government could be used to strengthen a dynasty.

Although never a reigning monarch, Bona became one of the most politically influential women ever to sit on the Polish throne. Admirers praised her intelligence and determination. Critics condemned her as ambitious, overbearing and dangerously powerful. That tension lies at the heart of her story.

The debate over Bona’s legacy raises a question that still resonates today: why are women who wield power effectively so often judged differently from men who do the same?

Training for greatness

Bona Sforza, born in 1494, was the daughter of the Duke of Milan. She arrived in Poland in 1518 as a royal bride of Sigismund I. Contemporary observers praised her intelligence, learning and virtue, qualities they described as “rare among maidens”.

Bona grew up in Bari, Italy. Her mother, Duchess Isabella of Aragon, ruled the duchy of Bari in her own right. She exercised authority with confidence. Isabella ensured that Bona received a humanist education in languages, history, law, moral philosophy and public speaking, preparing her not simply to marry well, but to govern.

Bona’s tutors shaped her view of the world and of herself. They instilled in her the belief that she was “born to rule”, preparing her to see leadership not as a privilege, but as a responsibility.

Government required judgement, alliances and financial skill.

Bona learned to treat land as a working system of connected parts: fields, forests, tenants, mills, markets, workers and, of course, taxes.

Bona used this knowledge to strengthen the Jagiellon dynasty, the ruling family of Poland and Lithuania. She treated royal lands as productive assets, recovering estates that had been lost, leased or mortgaged by earlier rulers.

By 1555, alongside the lands assigned to her as queen, she controlled the revenues of 15 royal towns and 191 villages.

The result was greater dynastic wealth and greater independence and leverage in the royal house dealings with powerful nobles.

Land reforms

Bona’s reforms focused on making royal lands more productive and their revenues more reliable. She recovered lost Crown property, improved record-keeping, and insisted that surveys and legal decisions be documented and enforced.

She also promoted economic development through new settlements, markets, transport links and local infrastructure. These measures increased trade and created new income for the royal family.

Accused of poisoning rivals

Yet the more successful Bona became, the more criticism she attracted. Male nobles did not simply say they opposed higher taxes or the consolidation of the royal domain. They often framed her authority as unnatural.

One of the powerful courtiers, Krzysztof Szydłowiecki, put it bluntly in 1527: “nothing happens without her will”.

Her success provoked fierce opposition. During the Lwów rebellion of 1537, nobles accused Bona of greed, overreach and wielding too much influence. Some complained that earlier queens had no role in government, but under Bona, “everything happens differently” because she had “as much power as she wishes”.

Queens were expected to be wives, not political actors. Yet powerful men also accumulated land, built networks and influenced government and church appointments without attracting the same criticism.

After her death in 1557, Bona’s reputation darkened. She was accused of poisoning rivals, practising witchcraft, manipulating politics and corrupting government. Some accusations grew from real political conflicts, but others reflected discomfort with a woman who exercised power so effectively.

Her recovery of royal lands threatened powerful nobles. Critics recast her competence as greed, her authority as overreach, and her political skill as dangerous ambition.

Women in leadership face familiar criticism

Like Bona, women leaders today are still often judged by standards that men rarely face.

A United Nations report on corporate leadership found that across 20 advanced economies, women held only 6% of chief executive officer roles, 7% of board chair roles, and 15% of chief financial officer roles.

Women’s access to capital is another parallel. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on women entrepreneurs found that, in 2024, women were about half as likely as men to report borrowing from a bank to start, run or expand a business. A US report on venture capital funding for tech companies shows progress, with female-founded companies raising a record amount. But the debate continues because access to investment remains uneven.

Modern attitudes to women also matter. A Stanford University institute describes the “likeability penalty”: women leaders who appear competent and assertive can be judged as less likeable, while men often receive praise for similar behaviour.

Five centuries later, the pattern remains familiar. Bona’s wealth, discipline and confidence strengthened the monarchy. They also made her a target. They made her easier to attack.

The question her life leaves us with is simple: when women manage power well, do societies recognise leadership, or do they still call it ambition?

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Professor of History, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.