The Great Southern Australian Coastal Upwelling System is an upward current of water over vast distances along Australia’s southern coast. It brings nutrients from deeper waters to the surface. This nutrient-rich water supports a rich ecosystem that attracts iconic species like the southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) and blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda).

The environmental importance of the upwelling is one reason the federal government this week declared a much-reduced zone for offshore wind turbines in the region. The zone covers one-fifth of the area originally proposed.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of a research publication that revealed the existence of the large seasonal upwelling system along Australia’s southern coastal shelves. Based on over 20 years of scientific study, we can now answer many critical questions.

How does this upwelling work? How can it be identified? Which marine species benefit from the upwelling? Does the changing climate affect the system?

Where do the nutrients come from?

Sunlight does not reach far into the sea. Only the upper 50 metres of the water column receives enough light to support the microscopic phytoplankton – single-celled organisms that depend on photosynthesis. This is the process of using light energy to make a simple sugar, which phytoplankton and plants use as their food.

As well as light, the process requires a suite of nutrients including nitrogen and phosphorus.

Normally, the sunlight zone of the oceans is low in nitrogen. Waters deeper than 100m contain high levels of it. This deep zone of high nutrient levels is due to the presence of bacteria that decompose sinking particles of dead organic matter.

Upwelling returns nutrient-rich water to the sunlight zone where it fuels rapid phytoplankton growth. Phytoplankton production is the foundation of a productive marine food web. The phytoplankton provides food for zooplankton (tiny floating animals), small fish and, in turn, predators including larger fish, marine mammals and seabirds.

The annual migration patterns of species such as tuna and whales match the timing and location of upwelling events.

What causes the upwelling?

In summer, north-easterly coastal winds cause the upwelling. These winds force near-surface water offshore, which draws up deeper, nutrient-enriched water to replace it in the sunlight zone.

The summer winds also produce a swift coastal current, called an upwelling jet. It flows northward along Tasmania’s west coast and then turns westward along Australia’s southern shelves.

Satellites can detect the areas of colder water brought to the sea surface. Changes in the colour of surface water as a result of phytoplankton blooms can also be detected. This change is due to the presence of chlorophyll-a, the green pigment of phytoplankton.

From satellite data, we know the upwelling occurs along the coast of South Australia and western Victoria. It’s strongest along the southern headland of the Eyre Peninsula and shallower waters of the adjacent Lincoln Shelf, the south-west coast of Kangaroo Island, and the Bonney Coast. The Bonney upwelling, now specifically excluded from the new wind farm zone, was first described in the early 1980s.

Coastal upwelling driven by southerly winds also forms occasionally along Tasmania’s west coast.

Coastal wind events favourable for upwelling occur regularly during summer. However, their timing and intensity is highly variable.

On average, most upwelling events along Australia’s southern shelves occur in February and March. In some years strong upwelling can begin as early as November.

Recent research suggests the overall upwelling intensity has not dramatically changed in the past 20 years. The findings indicate global climate changes of the past 20 years had little or no impact on the ecosystem functioning.

What are the links between upwelling, tuna and whales?

The Great Southern Australian Coastal Upwelling System features two keystone species – the ecosystem depends on them. They are the Australian sardine (Sardinops sagax) and the Australian krill (Nyctiphanes australis), a small, shrimp-like creature that’s common in the seas around Tasmania.

Sardines are the key diet of larger fish, including the southern bluefin tuna, and various marine mammals including the Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea). Phytoplankton and krill are the key food source for baleen whales. They include the blue whales that come to Australia’s southern shelves to feed during the upwelling season.

Unlike phytoplankton and many zooplankton species that live for only weeks to months, krill has a lifespan of several years. It does not reach maturity during a single upwelling season. It’s most likely the coastal upwelling jet transports swarms of mature krill from the waters west of Tasmania north-westward into the upwelling region.

So the whales seem to benefit from two distinct features of the upwelling: its phytoplankton production and the krill load imported by the upwelling jet.

Seasonal phytoplankton blooms along Australia’s southern shelves are much weaker than other large coastal upwelling systems such as the California current. Nonetheless, their timing and location appear to fit perfectly into the annual migration patterns of southern bluefin tuna and blue whales, creating a natural wonder in the southern hemisphere.

Jochen Kaempf, Associate Professor of Natural Sciences (Oceanography), Flinders University

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

If you’re a young person in Australia, you probably know new social media rules are coming in December. If you and your friends are under 16, you might be locked out of the social media spaces you use every day.

Some people call these rules a social media ban for under 16s. Others say it’s not a “ban” – just a delay.

Right now we know the rules will definitely include TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Reddit, X, YouTube, Kick and Twitch. But that list could grow.

We don’t know exactly how the platforms will respond to the new rules, but there are things you can do right now to prepare, protect your digital memories, and stay connected.

Here’s a guide for the changes that are coming.

Download your data

TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and most other platforms offer a “download your data” option. It’s usually buried in the app settings, but it’s powerful.

A data download (sometimes called a “data checkout” or “export”) includes things like:

• photos and videos you’ve uploaded

• messages and comments

• friend lists and interactions

• the platform’s inferences about you (what it thinks you like, who you interact with most, and the sort of content it suggests for you).

Even if you can’t access your account later, these files let you keep a record of your online life: jokes, friendships, cringey early videos, glow-ups, fandom moments, all of it.

You can save it privately as a time capsule. Researchers are also building tools to help you view and make sense of it.

Downloading your archive is a smart move while your accounts are still live. Just make sure you store it somewhere secure. These files can contain incredibly detailed snapshots of your daily life, so you might want to keep them private.

Don’t assume platforms will save anything for you

Some platforms may introduce official ways to export your content when bans begin. Others may move faster and simply block under-age accounts with little warning.

As one example, Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads – has begun to flag accounts they think belong to under-16s. The company has also provided early indications that it will permit data downloads after the new rules comes into effect.

For others the situation is less clear.

Acting now, while you can still log in normally, is the safest way to keep your stuff.

4 ways to stay connected

Losing access to the platform you use every day to talk with friends can feel like losing part of your social world. That’s real, and it’s okay to feel annoyed, worried, or angry about it.

Here are four ways to prepare.

1. Swap phone numbers or handles on non-banned platforms now.

Don’t wait for the “you are not allowed to use this service” message.

2. Set up group chats somewhere stable.

Use iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord, or whatever works for your group and doesn’t rely on age-restricted sign-ups.

3. Keep community ties alive.

Many clubs, fandom spaces, gaming groups and local communities are on multiple sites or platforms (Discord servers, forums, group chats). Get plugged into those spaces.

4. Don’t presume you’ll be able to get around the ban.

Teens who get around the ban are not breaking the law. There is no penalty for teens, or parents who help them, if they do get around the ban and have access to social media under 16.

It’s up to platforms to make these new laws work. Not teens. Not parents.

Do prepare, though. Don’t assume you will be able to get around the ban.

Just using a VPN to pretend your computer is in another country, or a wearing rubber mask to look older in an age-estimating selfie, probably won’t be enough.

A note for adults: take big feelings seriously

Most people recognise the social connections, networks and community enabled by social media are valuable – especially to young people.

For some teens, social media may be their primary community and support group. It’s where their people are.

It will be difficult for some when that community disappears. For some it may be even worse.

The ideal role of trusted adults is to listen, validate and support teens during this time. No matter how older people feel, for young people this may be like losing a large part of their world. For many that will be really hard to cope with.

Services like Headspace and Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) are there to support young people, too.

How to keep your agency in a frustrating situation

A lot of people will find it frustrating that we’re excluding teens, rather than forcing platforms to be built safer and better for everyone. If you feel that way, too, you’re not alone.

But you aren’t powerless.

Saving your data, preparing alternative communication channels, and speaking out if you want to are all ways to:

• own your digital history

• stay connected on your own terms

• make sure youth voices inform how Australia thinks about online life going forward.

You’re allowed to feel annoyed. You’re also allowed to take steps that protect your future self.

If you lose access, you’re not gone – just changing channels

Social media bans for teens will create disruption. But they won’t be the end of your friendships, creativity, identity exploration, or culture.

It just means the map is shifting. You get to make deliberate choices about where you go next.

And whatever happens, the online world isn’t going to stop changing. You’re part of the generation that actually understands that, and that’s a strength, not a weakness.

Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication, Director of QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology and Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

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

On Friday, thousands packed into Melbourne’s Federation Square for a free Amyl and the Sniffers show. Within minutes, fences buckled, the perimeter was breached, and the gig was cancelled over crowd crush fears.

It was gutting for fans – but it’s also the latest episode in a much longer fight over what, or who, Federation Square is really for.

A city that avoided gathering spaces

Melbourne’s uneasy relationship with civic squares goes back to the 1830s, when surveyor Robert Hoddle laid out the city grid without a major central square. This was a deliberate design choice to avoid the open plazas that elsewhere had become magnets for dissent and mass protest.

In the 19th and 20th century there were repeated failed attempts to retrofit a proper city square.

Proposals for a grand Parliament forecourt, for example, were abandoned in 1929 amid fears it would be used for protest.

City Square eventually opened in 1968 as a temporary design after the City of Melbourne acquired the land across from Town Hall. However, by 1997 it was carved up and sold off for the Westin hotel development, with much of its original design features (including a small waterfall) razed.

Federation Square, opened in 2002 on decking above rail yards, meant to fix our critical civic space gap. A publicly owned, privately operated space, the square blurred public place and commercial asset.

A focus on tourism and entertainment resulted in a square that often struggled to draw people in outside of events and beyond its surrounding venues, such as ACMI and NGV Australia.

In 2017, Fed Square’s management accepted a bid from Apple to demolish an existing building to erect their own flagship store within the square. This triggered fierce community backlash.

In response, Heritage Victoria listed Fed Square on the state heritage register – the youngest place ever to be listed. This limited development in the square, effectively putting a stop to the demolition plans.

The Heritage Council recognised the square as “the most important public square in Victoria”.

This flashpoint triggered a state government review into the square’s management, after which Fed Square was incorporated into the new Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation in 2019. This brought a renewed emphasis on cultural programming. The irony, however: it has worked almost too well.

When you truly activate civic space, people show up. The Amyl gig proved relevant, exciting events draw crowds. But even with perfect crowd management, Fed Square – or any of Melbourne’s existing squares – simply couldn’t safely accommodate a crowd that size.

Lessons from Friday night

Fed Square has limited entry points and rigid borders: ideally, civic squares should have porous edges with lots of opportunities for spillover, or surrounding streets that can be closed to absorb crowds.

Melbourne’s rigid grid makes this difficult. As such, much of Melbourne’s public life has long been pushed into edge spaces – laneways, riverbanks, footpaths and markets, the State Library lawn (originally designed as a fenced off ornamental space, now inadvertently our most successful protest space following the removal of the picket fence).

This constraint has bred its own cultural innovation: Melbourne’s famed laneway culture emerged partly from necessity. And these diffuse, in-between spaces are genuinely valuable for everyday public life, not just mass gatherings.

But Friday shows we still need more opportunities for large-scale assembly. Other cities with established grids have managed it: Midtown Manhattan closed parts of Broadway to traffic; Barcelona’s Superilles (superblock) program created pedestrianised networks and new public squares within dense neighbourhoods.

Melbourne needs both large gathering spaces for moments like Friday night, and a diffuse network of everyday public spaces. That means seizing opportunities to create new civic plazas from major transport projects and renewal sites, protecting existing spaces like the State Library lawn and City Square from further privatisation, and challenging car dominance by closing more streets – temporarily or permanently.

If our only response to Friday night is tightening controls at Fed Square without also bolstering this diffuse cultural infrastructure – through planning protections, fairer regulation and investment in small venues (like Amyl and the Sniffers did themselves) – we will have missed the point.

Re-imagining public space

After a vexed history, rooted in a colonial planning logic that wanted to minimise gathering, Fed Square is slowly becoming the vibrant civic space people wanted. But we haven’t built the infrastructure to support that success.

People want to gather, but activating civic space without accommodating for growing demand is setting ourselves up for failure. We can’t just program better events; we need flexible crowd management systems, surrounding streets that can absorb overflow, and more public spaces.

Most importantly, we need to support the entire ecosystem – from Fed Square’s big stages to the small venues that quietly hold up Melbourne’s cultural life every night, and continue to carve out opportunities for public life.

Friday night proved Melburnians are hungry for public gathering. Now we need the civic infrastructure to match that appetite.

Rachel Iampolski, PhD Candidate, Centre for Urban Research RMIT, RMIT University

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

When the Amyl and the Sniffers’ free show at Federation Square was cancelled on Friday night due to safety concerns, the band worked quickly to turn this disappointment around.

Using their performance fee, they placed A$35,000 across the bars of seven prominent grassroots music venues around Melbourne.

Many celebrated the band giving back to spaces that had nurtured them in their infancy, while providing much needed support to a struggling sector.

However, the gesture raises questions as to why these spaces are not already supported. And why are musicians – rather than governments, audiences or the community at large – the ones that need to step in?

Grassroots venues are struggling

Independent, grassroots music venues have been doing it tough. Australia has lost 1,300 venues and stages in the past five years.

Music venues have always been precarious. But inflation and exorbitant insurance costs have made running a venue exceedingly difficult.

Audience behaviours have also changed. Punters today attend more major events at the cost of attendance for smaller venues.

Audiences are also drinking less. This is an existential challenge for these venues, whose primary revenue stream is alcohol sales.

Despite this significant shift in the market, venues appear reluctant to change their business practices.

James Young of Melbourne’s Cherry Bar recently praised the same large arena tours that often draw punters away from grassroots venues for stimulating increased drinking in CBD venues, revealing the priorities of these spaces.

Meanwhile, owners of The Tote and The Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar have decried the lack of government support, while begging punters to come to more shows.

Such responses do not consider the fundamental ways in which the market for live music has changed, or whether live music should be subject to the market at all.

Is a commercial model fit for purpose?

Australian grassroots music venues largely conform to a market-based model of alcohol consumption that cross-subsidises cultural activities like live performances.

Live music may often attract considerable audiences, and young people are spending more on entertainment and leisure – particularly for major concert events. But grassroots music venues often use music as a “loss leader” to promote increased liquor sales.

Such a business model may have been lucrative in the 1980s and 90s. But as audience behaviours have changed, a rethink is needed.

In much of northern Europe and France, there is a strong precedent of nonprofit venues receiving operational subsidies from municipal governments to avoid reliance on alcohol sales.

These models maintain strong public support thanks to disciplined and professional advocacy from the sector. Advocacy has also increased in the United Kingdom through the work of the UK Music Venue Trust.

Having made significant progress on a big ticket levy aimed at supporting grassroots venues, the Music Venue Trust has also encouraged many small venues in the UK to transition to nonprofit corporate structures. As nonprofits, these venues become eligible for greater public funding and tax exemptions.

France’s Scene de Musiques Actuelles (Contemporary Music Venue) model also promotes engagement with disadvantaged communities, facilitating greater accessibility and diversity in return for public subsidies.

This stands in stark contrast to Australia’s alcohol-dependent, market-based approach, which often attracts a homogeneous audience that may not reflect contemporary, multicultural Australia.

Structural reform

Grassroots music venues require structural reform to reduce their reliance on alcohol sales.

Such reform could involve nonprofit structures, such as Lazy Thinking in Dulwich Hill, soon to be incorporated as a registered charity eligible for tax-deductible donations. Charity status also reduces tax obligations on wages and salaries.

Other reforms involve who owns the building itself.

Commercial rents and overheads are exorbitantly expensive. Insecurity of tenure is a recurring problem for venues, such as in the case of The Curtin Hotel in Melbourne and The Crown & Anchor in Adelaide.

In the UK, Music Venue Properties operates as a collectively-owned community benefit society. Through crowd-sourcing shares and donations from passionate live music fans, the organisation is able to purchase the freeholds to grassroots music venues. Through this, they can protect them in perpetuity and offer long-term cultural leases to their operators.

Apart from some additional top-up funding from government, the scheme requires little regulation or intervention to be successful.

Other successful non-government initiatives include voluntary ticket levies, such as in Germany and Wales.

Such community-led reforms are possible in Australia, but require an acknowledgement of the many important non-market roles venues perform and some (literally) sober thinking about how best to support them.

Musicians save the day, again

Amyl’s act of generosity towards seven of Melbourne’s grassroots music venues might have been unprecedented, but it was not surprising. The band is known for their commitment to crowd safety, community spirit and generosity towards fans.

But should the band have been the ones to make it up to the city? Particularly in a chronically underfunded arts and cultural ecosystem that requires musicians to cope with the rising costs of doing the work they love.

Musicians, venues, governments and other industry stakeholders need to work together to ensure that this ecosystem is valued for what happens on stage, rather than just what’s exchanged over the bar.

Sam Whiting, Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in Music Industries and Cultural Economy, RMIT University and Megan Sharp, Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Melbourne

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

In February 1975, a gang of scruffy Sydney rockers released their first two albums: High Voltage and TNT. A year later, songs from both records were repackaged into AC/DC’s first international album, also titled High Voltage.

AC/DC’s sound was forged in suburban garages and sticky-carpet pubs, part of Australia’s mid-70s pub rock explosion. The era saw Australian pub rock find its confidence to break from British and American influences. Cheap venues like pubs made live music accessible, while a growing youth culture wanted songs about their own lives.

Economic struggles and social change gave the music grit and honesty. This mix of independence, energy, and realism turned pub rock into a symbol of Australian identity.

Two figures defined AC/DC’s identity in 1975. Lead singer Bon Scott’s raspy howl turned songs into bawdy stories of lust, luck, and life on the road. Angus Young, in his now-iconic schoolboy uniform, blasted riffs that felt like jolts of live current.

Homegrown rock

AC/DC’s roots were in Scotland. Brothers Malcolm and Angus Young migrated to Sydney in the 1960s, while frontman Bon Scott grew up in Fremantle after emigrating as a child. Together they channelled those migrant, working-class roots into the raw energy that defined pub rock.

Songs like Rock ’n’ Roll Singer spoke directly to working-class kids who saw themselves in the band.

Their songs are built around tight, driving guitar riffs – short, repetitive, and instantly recognisable – that create rhythm and momentum rather than melody. This stripped-back sound, powered by Angus Young’s guitar and Phil Rudd’s steady drumming, makes the music physical and direct.

The vocals are equally dynamic. Scott delivered lyrics with grit and humour, capturing emotion through tone and attitude rather than complexity.

The band came from suburban Australia, but their songs avoided specific local references. Unlike bands tied to national imagery, AC/DC’s identity was built on the myth of rock and roll itself.

Australia’s pop culture in the 1970s was defined largely by imports: Hollywood films, British television, American records. For a homegrown band to make international waves was rare.

AC/DC broke decisively into the American and British markets in the 1970s. Highway to Hell (1979) reached number 17 on the US Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK, earning platinum status and cementing their international fame.

Outsiders and rebels

In Australia, AC/DC’s rise in the mid-1970s was fast, loud and built from the ground up. Formed in 1973, they started playing pubs and quickly earned a reputation for their relentless live shows.

The band’s raw energy, driving rhythm and defiant attitude fit perfectly with the emerging pub rock circuit, a network of working-class venues that became the heart of Australian music culture.

They were promoted heavily by radio stations like 2JJ (later Triple J). Mainstream commercial radio was initially slower to support them. High Voltage and TNT sold strongly, helped by national touring and constant live exposure rather than airplay alone.

In the mid-1970s, AC/DC faced moral and media backlash rather than formal government censorship, though the effect was similar in shaping their rebellious image.

Their lyrics, stage antics and raw sexuality drew criticism from music journalists, radio programmers and conservative commentators, who saw them as crude and offensive.

Some stations refused to play songs like The Jack (1975) because of its sexual innuendo and suggestive lyrics (the titular “jack” is Australian slang for a venereal disease).

Scott’s shirtless performances, drag and swagger on shows like Countdown provoked complaints from parents and conservative groups. Newspapers occasionally branded the band “obscene” or “disgusting”, framing them as bad influences on youth.

A cultural marker

High Voltage is now a cultural marker. The lightning-bolt logo and the sight of Angus sprinting in a school blazer are now shorthand for Australian rock.

It is a testament to their enduring cultural power that, 50 years on, AC/DC stand as the only Australian band to score number one albums in five consecutive decades.

AC/DC’s success defies industry trends. They built one of the world’s biggest fan bases without relying on remixes or collaborations. For decades they resisted digital streaming and still resist greatest hits compilations.

The release of High Voltage in 1975 coincided with broader cultural shifts. Australia was emerging from decades of conservative governments. The newly elected Whitlam government poured A$14 million dollars (worth $122 million today) into the arts, and another 50% on top of that the following year, and established youth radio station 2JJ.

AC/DC were part of a wave of creativity that insisted Australia had something to say, and it didn’t need polishing for overseas approval.

AC/DC’s debut captured a moment when Australian culture stopped waiting for validation and started exporting itself with confidence. AC/DC showed that a band from Australia could storm the global stage. In doing so, they lit the path for a nation’s cultural confidence.

Jo Coghlan, Associate Professor, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England

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

It’s happened to you countless times: You’re waiting for a website to load, only to see a box with a little mountain range where an image should be. It’s the placeholder icon for a “missing image.”

But have you ever wondered why this scene came to be universally adopted?

As a scholar of environmental humanities, I pay attention to how symbols of wilderness appear in everyday life.

The little mountain icon – sometimes with a sun or cloud in the background, other times crossed out or broken – has become the standard symbol, across digital platforms, to signal something missing or something to come. It appears in all sorts of contexts, and the more you look for this icon, the more you’ll see it.

You click on it in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint when you want to add a picture. You can purchase an ironic poster of the icon to put on your wall. The other morning, I even noticed a version of it in my Subaru’s infotainment display as a stand-in for a radio station logo.

So why this particular image of the mountain peaks? And where did it come from?

Arriving at the same solution

The placeholder icon can be thought of as a form of semiotic convergence, or when a symbol ends up meaning the same thing in a variety of contexts. For example, the magnifying glass is widely understood as “search,” while the image of a leaf means “eco-friendly.”

It’s also related to something called “convergent design evolution,” or when organisms or cultures – even if they have little or no contact – settle on a similar shape or solution for something.

In evolutionary biology, you can see convergent design evolution in bats, birds and insects, who all utilize wings but developed them in their own ways. Stilt houses emerged in various cultures across the globe as a way to build durable homes along shorelines and riverbanks. More recently, engineers in different parts of the world designed similar airplane fuselages independent of one another.

For whatever reason, the little mountain just worked across platforms to evoke open-ended meanings: Early web developers needed a simple shorthand way to present that something else should or could be there.

Depending on context, a little mountain might invite a user to insert a picture in a document; it might mean that an image is trying to load, or is being uploaded; or it could mean an image is missing or broken.

Down the rabbit hole on a mountain

But of the millions of possibilities, why a mountain?

In 1994, visual designer Marsh Chamberlain created a graphic featuring three colorful shapes as a stand-in for a missing image or broken link for the web browser Netscape Navigator. The shapes appeared on a piece of paper with a ripped corner. Though the paper with the rip will sometimes now appear with the mountain, it isn’t clear when the square, circle and triangle became a mountain.

Users on Stack Exchange, a forum for developers, suggest that the mountain peak icon may trace back to the “landscape mode” icon on the dials of Japanese SLR cameras. It’s the feature that sets the aperture to maximize the depth of field so that both the foreground and background are in focus.

The landscape scene mode – visible on many digital cameras in the 1990s – was generically represented by two mountain peaks, with the idea that the camera user would intuitively know to use this setting outdoors.

Another insight emerged from the Stack Exchange discussion: The icon bears a resemblance to the Microsoft XP wallpaper called “Bliss.” If you had a PC in the years after 2001, you probably recall the rolling green hills with blue sky and wispy clouds.

The stock photo was taken by National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear. It was then purchased by Bill Gates’ digital licensing company Corbis in 1998. The empty hillside in this picture became iconic through its adoption by Windows XP as its default desktop wallpaper image.

Mountain riddles

“Bliss” became widely understood as the most generic of generic stock photos, in the same way the placeholder icon became universally understood to mean “missing image.” And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they both feature mountains or hills and a sky.

Mountains and skies are mysterious and full of possibilities, even if they remain beyond grasp.

Consider Japanese artist Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mount Fuji,” which were his series of paintings from the 1830s – the most famous of which is probably “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” where a tiny Mount Fuji can be seen in the background. Each painting features the iconic mountain from different perspectives and is full of little details; all possess an ambiance of mystery.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the landscape icon on those Japanese camera dials emerged as a minimalist reference to Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain. From some perspectives, Mount Fuji rises behind a smaller incline. And the Japanese photography company Fujifilm even borrowed the namesake of that mountain for their brand.

The enticing aesthetics of mountains also reminded me of the environmental writer Gary Snyder’s 1965 translation of Han Shan’s “Cold Mountain Poems.” Han Shan – his name literally means “Cold Mountain” – was a Chinese Buddhist poet who lived in the late eighth century. “Shan” translates as “mountain” and is represented by the Chinese character 山, which also resembles a mountain.

Han Shan’s poems, which are little riddles themselves, revel in the bewildering aspects of mountains:

Cold Mountain is a house
Without beams or walls.
The six doors left and right are open
The hall is a blue sky.
The rooms are all vacant and vague.
The east wall beats on the west wall
At the center nothing.

The mystery is the point

I think mountains serve as a universal representation of something unseen and longed for – whether it’s in a poem or on a sluggish internet browser – because people can see a mountain and wonder what might be there.

The placeholder icon does what mountains have done for millennia, serving as what the environmental philosopher Margret Grebowicz describes as an object of desire. To Grebowicz, mountains exist as places to behold, explore and sometimes conquer.

The placeholder icon’s inherent ambiguity is baked into its form: Mountains are often regarded as distant, foreboding places. At the same time, the little peaks appear in all sorts of mundane computing circumstances. The icon could even be a curious sign of how humans can’t help but be “nature-positive,” even when on computers or phones.

This small icon holds so much, and yet it can also paradoxically mean that there is nothing to see at all.

Viewing it this way, an example of semiotic convergence becomes a tiny allegory for digital life writ large: a wilderness of possibilities, with so much just out of reach.

Christopher Schaberg, Director of Public Scholarship, Washington University in St. Louis

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

Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, millions of people have started using large language models to access knowledge. And it’s easy to understand their appeal: Ask a question, get a polished synthesis and move on – it feels like effortless learning.

However, a new paper I co-authored offers experimental evidence that this ease may come at a cost: When people rely on large language models to summarize information on a topic for them, they tend to develop shallower knowledge about it compared to learning through a standard Google search.

Co-author Jin Ho Yun and I, both professors of marketing, reported this finding in a paper based on seven studies with more than 10,000 participants. Most of the studies used the same basic paradigm: Participants were asked to learn about a topic – such as how to grow a vegetable garden – and were randomly assigned to do so by using either an LLM like ChatGPT or the “old-fashioned way,” by navigating links using a standard Google search.

No restrictions were put on how they used the tools; they could search on Google as long as they wanted and could continue to prompt ChatGPT if they felt they wanted more information. Once they completed their research, they were then asked to write advice to a friend on the topic based on what they learned.

The data revealed a consistent pattern: People who learned about a topic through an LLM versus web search felt that they learned less, invested less effort in subsequently writing their advice, and ultimately wrote advice that was shorter, less factual and more generic. In turn, when this advice was presented to an independent sample of readers, who were unaware of which tool had been used to learn about the topic, they found the advice to be less informative, less helpful, and they were less likely to adopt it.

We found these differences to be robust across a variety of contexts. For example, one possible reason LLM users wrote briefer and more generic advice is simply that the LLM results exposed users to less eclectic information than the Google results. To control for this possibility, we conducted an experiment where participants were exposed to an identical set of facts in the results of their Google and ChatGPT searches. Likewise, in another experiment we held constant the search platform – Google – and varied whether participants learned from standard Google results or Google’s AI Overview feature.

The findings confirmed that, even when holding the facts and platform constant, learning from synthesized LLM responses led to shallower knowledge compared to gathering, interpreting and synthesizing information for oneself via standard web links.

Why it matters

Why did the use of LLMs appear to diminish learning? One of the most fundamental principles of skill development is that people learn best when they are actively engaged with the material they are trying to learn.

When we learn about a topic through Google search, we face much more “friction”: We must navigate different web links, read informational sources, and interpret and synthesize them ourselves.

While more challenging, this friction leads to the development of a deeper, more original mental representation of the topic at hand. But with LLMs, this entire process is done on the user’s behalf, transforming learning from a more active to passive process.

What’s next?

To be clear, we do not believe the solution to these issues is to avoid using LLMs, especially given the undeniable benefits they offer in many contexts. Rather, our message is that people simply need to become smarter or more strategic users of LLMs – which starts by understanding the domains wherein LLMs are beneficial versus harmful to their goals.

Need a quick, factual answer to a question? Feel free to use your favorite AI co-pilot. But if your aim is to develop deep and generalizable knowledge in an area, relying on LLM syntheses alone will be less helpful.

As part of my research on the psychology of new technology and new media, I am also interested in whether it’s possible to make LLM learning a more active process. In another experiment we tested this by having participants engage with a specialized GPT model that offered real-time web links alongside its synthesized responses. There, however, we found that once participants received an LLM summary, they weren’t motivated to dig deeper into the original sources. The result was that the participants still developed shallower knowledge compared to those who used standard Google.

Building on this, in my future research I plan to study generative AI tools that impose healthy frictions for learning tasks – specifically, examining which types of guardrails or speed bumps most successfully motivate users to actively learn more beyond easy, synthesized answers. Such tools would seem particularly critical in secondary education, where a major challenge for educators is how best to equip students to develop foundational reading, writing and math skills while also preparing for a real world where LLMs are likely to be an integral part of their daily lives.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Shiri Melumad, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Pennsylvania

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

Spotify is haemorrhaging artists. In the last few months alone a handful of indie bands have exited the streaming platform. If that includes some of your favourite musicians, you may be wondering how best to support them.

Among the artists leaving the platform is indie band Deerhoof. They reacted to the news that Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek had used his venture capital firm to lead a €600 million (£528 million) investment in Helsing, a German defence company specialising in AI. Their statement said: “We don’t want our music killing people.”

This sentiment chimes with the attitudes of the many listeners who cancelled their Spotify subscriptions after the platform ran recruitment ads for ICE, the US’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The exodus reflects a general concern that major tech companies are too cosy with the Trump administration. Spotify’s US$150,000 (£114,000) donation to Trump’s inauguration ceremony was cited by Canadian musician Chad VanGaalen as one of the reasons for his departure from the platform.

But these protests are as much driven by a recognition of ongoing structural problems with music streaming business models as they are with recent events. Music streaming platforms like Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music allocate revenue to artists on a pro-rata basis. This means that artists on each platform are entitled to a proportion of the overall revenue from streaming. This percentage is calculated by identifying the proportion of their streams that represent the total number of streams on the platform.

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There is therefore no direct financial relationship between listeners and the artists that they listen to. This is an opaque structure that fuels musicians’ sense that they are not receiving fair remuneration.

The number of songs on Spotify and similar platforms has grown exponentially in recent years. By Spotify’s own admission, the growth in revenue from music streaming has resulted in a deluge of AI-generated content, with 75 million spam tracks being removed over 12 months in 2024-25.

Despite this success, it can be assumed that many such tracks remain undetected and that there are therefore significant amounts of money being given to fake musicians at the expense of real artists. Spotify’s openness to some AI content, exemplified by the continuing presence of the AI band Velvet Sundown in its catalogue, does not assuage artists’ concerns.

The bundling of different types of content can make the allocation of payments to musicians much more complicated. While Spotify’s music and podcast revenue streams are separate, its audiobooks have been bundled into its premium subscription. The effect of this change in 2024 has been to lower the royalty rate of the songwriters whose music appears on its platform. Around the same time the company decided to remove payments for songs that were streamed less than 1,000 times. This is likely to disproportionately affect artists struggling to get a foothold in the music industry.

Despite all this, overall revenue continues to grow. Spotify claims that the US$10 billion it paid to the music industry in 2024 was the largest ever annual payment by any retailer. Annual rises in the price point of its subscription in the last two years means that its growth will likely sustain. That its latest quarterly figures revealed an operating profit of US$680 million seem to bear this out. This improvement in Spotify’s finances exacerbates musicians’ feeling that they are not getting their fair share.

Where to go next

So where can you go if you decide to leave Spotify? Given that its main competitors also use the pro-rata payment model and offer the same menu of unlimited music, then probably not to them.

Some streamers have experimented with user-centric models of payment whereby listeners pay directly the artists of the songs they stream. This, though, has had limited success, with Deezer capping its scheme to 1,000 streams per person per month, while Tidal ended its own experiment after two years.

There are, though, smaller platforms which deploy user-centric models of payment. Sonstream was popular for a while with independent artists, but at the time of writing its website has only basic functionality.

Resonate is a cooperative with a pay-for-play user-centric model which gives artists and rights-holders 70% of revenue, with the remaining 30% being ploughed back into the business. But the one that appears to come closest to combining an “artists-first approach” with a critical mass of musicians and listeners is Bandcamp. Each time a user purchases something on the platform, 82% of that transaction goes to the artist and/or their label. These payments have amounted to US$1.6 billion to date for not only streamed music, but cassettes, CDs, vinyl records and t-shirts too.

This last observation reflects a wider trend within the music industry and among listeners. That is that the encroachment of algorithms and AI on the curation and listening of music has led many to ditch streaming platforms altogether. This has encouraged artists to be more innovative, with many experimenting with other means of distributing their music, including selling CDs and downloads directly, and setting up their own DIY digital platforms.

For Spotify and other streaming platforms there is then a wider existential question about the extent to which it is possible to construct an economically viable business model that satisfies listeners while ensuring that musicians receive fair remuneration for their creativity.

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Andrew White, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, King's College London

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

A group of friends sit around a table sharing stories and sipping mead. The men sport beards and the women sip from drinking horns – but these aren’t Vikings, they’re modern-day hipsters.

The 21st century has seen a revival of mead, a fermented alcoholic drink made from water and honey. In the past 20 years or so, hundreds of new meaderies have sprung up around the world.

These meaderies often draw on Viking imagery in their branding. Their wares are called things like Odin’s Mead or Viking Blod and their logos include longships, axes, ravens and drinking horns. A few even have their own themed Viking drinking halls. This is part of what might be called the “Viking turn”, the renewed pop culture vogue for the Vikings in the past 20 years, which has made them the stars of a rash of films, TV shows, video games and memes.

Since the rowdy banquet scene in the 1958 film The Vikings, wild, boozy feasting has been a staple of the hyper-masculine pop culture Viking. This theme continues in the 21st century, from the History Channel’s Vikings TV series (2013-present) to games like Skyrim (2011) and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (2020).

But while modern media suggest that Vikings drank mead as often as water, history tells a slightly different story.

Three stories are foundational for the Viking association with mead. The first is the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, which survives in a single manuscript written in Old English and now in the British Library.

The story it tells is set in southern Sweden and Denmark in the early 6th century, so the warrior culture and lifestyle that Beowulf idealises are actually of a period considerably earlier than the Viking age (usually dated from the later 8th century onward). It does share a great deal of its substance with later Viking notions of the good life and so, for good or ill, they have tended to be conflated.

Most of Beowulf’s action plays out around mead-halls – the power centres of lords such as the Danish king Hrothgar, where the leader would entertain his followers with feasts and drinking in return for their support and military service. This relationship, based upon the consumption of food and drink, but inextricably bound up with honour and loyalty, is the basis of the heroic warrior society that is celebrated by the poet. Not surprisingly, therefore, episodes in which mead is drunk are frequent and clearly emotionally loaded.

A second high-profile appearance of mead comes in Norse mythology. At the god Odin’s great hall, Valhöll, the Einherjar – the most heroic and honoured warriors slain in battle – feast and drink. They consume the unending mead that flows from the udders of a goat named Heiðrún who lives on the roof. Norse myth, it should be noted, is sometimes quite odd.

Lastly, another important myth tells of Odin’s theft of the “mead of poetry”. This substance was created by two dwarves from honey and the blood of a being named Kvasir, whom they had murdered. The mead bestows gifts of wisdom and poetic skill upon those who drink it.

The whole myth is long and complicated, but it culminates with Odin swallowing the mead and escaping in the form of an eagle, only to excrete some of it backwards when he is especially hotly pursued.

These are striking and impressive episodes that clearly demonstrate the symbolic and cultural significance of mead in mythology and stories about heroes of the Viking age. But that is far from proof that it was actually consumed on a significant scale in England or Scandinavia.

As far back as the 1970s, the philologist Christine Fell noted that Old English medu, (mead), and compound words derived from it appear far more frequently in strongly emotive and poetic contexts such as Beowulf than in practical ones such as laws or charters.

This contrasts strongly with the pattern of usage of other words for alcohol such as ealu (ale), beor (counter intuitively probably “cider”) or win (wine), which are far more frequently used in a functional and practical way. This led Fell to believe that the concentration on mead in the likes of Beowulf was a “nostalgic fiction”. Mead, she concluded, was a fundamental part of an idealised and backwards-looking imagined heroic world rather than something customarily drunk in the course of everyday life.

In 2007, a PhD candidate at the University of York demonstrated the same point in the Scandinavian sources: mjǫðr (“mead”) is far more common in the corpus of Eddic and skaldic poetry than it is in the saga stories of everyday life. Equally, both the word mjǫðr and compound words derived from it are used far less frequently in the sort of practical and purposeful contexts in which ǫl and mungát (the Old Norse words for ale) are plentiful.

The strong impression in both England and Scandinavia is that, by the time sources like Beowulf were written from the 10th century onward, the plentiful drinking of mead by a lord’s retinue was largely symbolic. It represented the contractual bonds of honour in an idealised warrior society.

This was more a poetic image than a reflection of frequent real-life practice. The standard drink at feasts, let alone at normal everyday household meals, was far more likely to be ale.

Mead was once a highly prized drink – probably the most desirable beverage well before the Viking age, as its honoured place in Valhöll and Hrothgar’s hall suggests. However, honey’s scarcity made mead expensive and hard to source in northern Europe. By the Viking age, exotic Mediterranean wine, mentioned as Odin’s drink in the Grímnismál, may have begun to replace mead as the elite’s preferred choice.

So what, then, for modern mead-drinking Viking enthusiasts? The point is not, of course, that Vikings or any other early medieval people never drank mead – some clearly did, if not perhaps quite so often as is sometimes alleged – but rather that it served more as a symbol of a story-filled heroic neverland. But that is arguably exactly how many of today’s mead-drinkers also use it.

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Simon Trafford, Lecturer in Medieval History, School of Advanced Study, University of London

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

Set in the fictional Yorkshire village of Ramsden in 1916, The Choral inhabits a world where the war is distant – yet its shadow lies over every street. Many of the young men are gone to the front, their names echoing through the church and village hall. Those left behind hover between waiting and pretending that life continues as before.

The film reunites Alan Bennett’s pen and Nicholas Hytner’s direction for their fourth film together (The Madness of King George, The History Boys, The Lady in the Van). Bennett’s eye for endurance and small absurdities, his distinct blend of humour and heartbreak, lends the story a warmth which threatens but never fully falls into sentimentality.

Determined to keep something of the village’s heart intact, the local choir opens its doors to all. The remaining boys – “fodder for the mill, fodder for the front” – join with nervous energy and untested voices. Around them unfold the small dramas of youth: crushes, jealousies, the thrill of being noticed – all under the dark cloud of war.

At times, the film recalls early Downton Abbey: the lightness of routine belying a deeper unease as the order of things begins to tremble. Hytner’s direction keeps the tone measured, his pacing unhurried, the village life unfolding in laughter across fields, flirtation in the lanes, and the faint hum of something approaching.

Ralph Fiennes, in superb form, is characteristically restrained as Dr Guthrie, the new choirmaster whose time in Germany prompts quiet gossip and complicates his loyalties. Dressed in tweed with a pocket watch gleaming, he brings calm authority tinged with sorrow. Alongside the enemy across the Channel, Guthrie sees the human faces behind the rhetoric of war, and thus he is both insider and outsider.

Beneath his composure runs a conviction that compassion itself has become a form of dissent. When Jacob Dudman’s traumatised soldier laments “life’s fucking shit”, Guthrie replies simply: “So, sing.” It becomes the film’s credo: music as both defiance and survival, a way to hold despair at bay. That spirit finds its fullest expression in Mary (Amara Okereke), whose voice lifts through the air with a brilliance that soars towards the transcendent.

Disappointingly, in a story otherwise so attuned to compassion, the film’s portrayal of women feels thin. The women of Ramsden are treated as narrative currency, their sexuality quietly commodified and offered as recompense for men’s suffering. The Choral would struggle to pass even the most forgiving version of the Bechdel test: the few conversations between women are framed by men’s absence or desire.

The film hints at a worldview in which women and sex are treated as rites of passage, experiences the young men are owed before war denies them adulthood. Yet for all the attentiveness to male sorrow, its compassion remains finely tuned to the loss which binds the village, finding moments of truth despite its blind spots.

While the choir scenes are wonderful and the climactic performance is deeply moving, the film is most affecting in its quietest moments. Jubilant farewells at the railway station are almost immediately shadowed by trains bringing home the wounded. The innocence of departure meets the silence of return, and in between lies everything the village will lose.

When a young woman rejects a soldier newly home, Hytner captures the moment with painful clarity: the war has already cut him off from the life he fought to reclaim. The village photographer (Mark Addy) records the last flicker of innocence, freezing faces that might have stepped from the stanzas of Philip Larkin’s poem MCMXIV “grinning as if it were all / An August Bank Holiday lark” – still radiant with a trust in life that history will soon betray.

The Choral is both elegy and celebration: a reminder that even in the quietest corners, song can sound like survival – the fragile note of hope that refuses to fade.

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Laura O'Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

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

Thousands of visitors each year explore the landscapes of the UK’s national parks on foot, through walking, rambling, hiking, mountaineering and, more recently, forest bathing.

Many of the earliest advocates for a national park system were notable walkers. They ranged from Lake District conservationists such as William and Dorothy Wordsworth to the ramblers who staged the Kinder Scout trespass in 1932 to demand greater access to the countryside.

I study the relationship between nature and culture in these national parks. As part of my research, I conduct semi-structured walking interviews with communities in the North York Moors national park to further understandings of this relationship. I am part of a wider research team who work with a diverse range of protected landscapes.

Walking, tied to public access and a growing environmental consciousness, grew as an organised leisure activity over the course of the 20th century alongside the development of ideas to protect the UK countryside. Many walkers, often young, working-class people who were members of rambling and hiking clubs, campaigned for greater access to and further protection of the countryside.

The popularity of walking was affirmed with the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949, which established England’s rights of way network and founded the UK’s national park system.

The North York Moors, in the north-east of England, was designated a national park in 1952, following this Act. The 1950s then saw a new wave of walkers to the park, encouraged by the increasing use of motor cars, the rise of walking clubs and the spread of youth hostels.

The Lyke Wake Walk was created in 1955 by a local farmer and Cambridge graduate called Bill Cowley. It’s a 42-mile crossing of the North York Moors which became a popular charity walk in the 1960s and 1970s. This increase in walkers brought controversy at the time, especially among the farming population, because of the levels of erosion it was causing. At its peak, 10,000 people crossed the moors each year, not always on public rights of way. Challenge walks were very new back then and most of the people attempting it were inexperienced. Two mountain rescue teams were formed as a result of lost and distressed walkers.

Today, it is still a celebrated “challenge” walk undertaken by ramblers and runners. And 2025 marks the 70th anniversary of the first set of ramblers to successfully cross the park.

Walking through modern parks

The national park’s modern history is closely tied to two other long distance footpaths: the Cleveland Way and the Coast to Coast walk. Alec Falconer, one of the founding members of the Middlesbrough Rambling Club campaigned for a long distance walk around the periphery of the North York Moors. Thanks to his work, the Cleveland Way was established in 1969.

This was the country’s second largest trail at the time, following the establishment of the Pennine Way in 1965. Up to 2,000 hikers complete the whole trail each year.

Created by guidebook author Alfred Wainwright, the Coast to Coast walk is one of the UK’s most popular long-distance footpaths and runs across this national park. Some 6,000 people a year walk the trail, which brings many international visitors to the park. Restoration and conservation work is currently ongoing as this walk is upgraded to a national trail.

With the gradual expansion of tourism in the North York Moors since its national park designation in the 1950s and the increasing popularity of these footpaths, more pressure has been put on the landscape through walking. Paths have been eroded in places with the responsibility of maintenance falling upon the national park authority and landowners. A ranger I spoke to during a walking interview as part of my research commented on the condition of a footpath on Fylingdales Moor:

“I know this path very well … this used to be horrendously boggy and the park is doing a damn good job here … you are on the old smugglers trod route.”

Today, walking is one of the most popular activities in the park. Some 6.5 million people in 2024 visited the park for a short or long walk. The park offers an expansive network of public rights of way alongside extensive open access land.

Some paths make use of the park’s industrial heritage, using old rail tracks as walking routes, such as the Cinder Track which is a disused railway and now a footpath and cycle track through the park from Scarborough to Whitby.

Walking in this national park plays a vital role in supporting the wellbeing of nearby urban communities, such as Middlesborough and Scarborough. Residents from disadvantaged backgrounds access the park to improve their physical and mental health and the North York Moors National Park Authority aims to build on this through the growing popularity of NHS programmes which socially prescribe nature-based activities.

As a support worker from the local community told me: “Getting out here in that fresh air. It is relaxation and peacefulness. It brings a different mindset connecting with nature. I get something to take home.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more people have come to appreciate the importance of visiting the national park for health-related reasons. Not only for its extensive heather moorland, the largest in England and Wales, but also for its distinctive coastal villages and other special qualities of the park. Yet many who visit do not realise that the North York Moors landscape is not natural – much of the heather moorland is farmed and managed by private landowners for shooting and farming purposes.

In a time of ecological uncertainty, walking is a vital means of sensing and interpreting a countryside in transition – marked by biodiversity loss, a deepening climate crisis and emerging landscape recovery and rewilding projects that reimagine the relationship between people and land.

Through walking, new creative responses can emerge to address sustainability challenges, including social inequalities, climate and biodiversity emergencies, across the UK’s protected landscapes.

Many of the debates around walking that shaped the original designation of the UK’s national park system remain relevant today – particularly those concerning access and the right to roam, the balance between land conservation, protection and development and approaches to moorland management and land use.

Walking through the moors enable us to engage deeply, respectfully, and reflectively with these ongoing discussions and consider the future of the UK’s uplands.

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Tom Ratcliffe, Lecturer in Sustainability, Tourism and Heritage Management, York St John University

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

Touch is fundamental to how we perceive our own bodies and connect with others. A gentle brush stroke on our body can feel soothing, while a pinch or cut can be painful. We often think of touch as something we feel through our skin, but our eyes also play an important role in shaping what we experience.

One famous example is the rubber hand illusion. When people see a rubber hand being stroked while their own hidden hand is touched in the same way, they can start to feel as if the rubber hand is part of their body. This illusion shows how what we see can change what we feel.

But how does the brain actually do this? In our latest study, we measured brain activity to see how quickly the brain interprets what the eyes see when someone is touched.

We wanted to know how and when the brain works out whether the touch is pleasant or painful, threatening or safe, or whether it’s happening to our own body or someone else’s.

What happens in the brain when we see someone touched

We used electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity from the scalp with millisecond precision while participants watched hundreds of short videos showing different types of touch to a hand. These included soft strokes with a brush, presses with a finger, or sharp contact with a knife.

We then used machine learning to see whether patterns of activity in viewers’ brains could reveal what kind of touch they were seeing.

Within just 60 milliseconds of seeing a touch, the brain distinguished who and what was being touched. For example, it could tell whether the scene showed a hand from a first-person perspective (likely one’s own) or a third-person perspective (likely another’s), and whether it was a left or right hand.

By around 110 milliseconds, sensory information was being processed, such as how the touch might feel on the skin – soft and tingly from a brush stroke or sharp and painful from the tip of a knife.

A little later, around 260 milliseconds, the brain began to register emotional dimensions, such as whether the touch looked soothing, painful, or threatening. These findings show that, in just a fraction of a second, our brain transforms a simple image of touch into a rich sense of who is involved, what it might feel like, and whether it’s comforting or painful.

Why this matters for empathy and social connection

Our findings show that when we see someone being touched, our brains quickly interpret what that touch might feel like. This fits with the idea that the brain briefly “mirrors” what it sees in others, simulating their experience as if it were our own. This rapid, embodied response may form the basis of empathy, a process that helps us to recognise danger and connect socially.

Some people actually feel sensations such as tingling, pressure or pain when they watch others being touched – a phenomenon known as “vicarious touch”. Understanding how the brain instantly decodes observed touch may help explain why seeing an image of injury or pain can make some people physically cringe while others remain unaffected.

Our next step is to explore how these rapid brain responses differ between people who experience vicarious touch and those who do not, which could help explain individual differences in empathy.

In the long run, understanding how the brain sees and interprets touch could help explain problems with empathy, improve therapies that use touch or body awareness, and enhance immersion and social connection in digital environments such as virtual reality.

It reminds us that even seeing touch can help us feel closer to others.

Sophie Smit, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Neuroscience‬, University of Sydney and Tijl Grootswagers, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience, Western Sydney University

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

You might think a honey bee foraging in your garden and a browser window running ChatGPT have nothing in common. But recent scientific research has been seriously considering the possibility that either, or both, might be conscious.

There are many different ways of studying consciousness. One of the most common is to measure how an animal – or artificial intelligence (AI) – acts.

But two new papers on the possibility of consciousness in animals and AI suggest new theories for how to test this – one that strikes a middle ground between sensationalism and knee-jerk scepticism about whether humans are the only conscious beings on Earth.

A fierce debate

Questions around consciousness have long sparked fierce debate.

That’s in part because conscious beings might matter morally in a way that unconscious things don’t. Expanding the sphere of consciousness means expanding our ethical horizons. Even if we can’t be sure something is conscious, we might err on the side of caution by assuming it is – what philosopher Jonathan Birch calls the precautionary principle for sentience.

The recent trend has been one of expansion.

For example, in April 2024 a group of 40 scientists at a conference in New York proposed the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. Subsequently signed by over 500 scientists and philosophers, this declaration says consciousness is realistically possible in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians and fishes) as well as many invertebrates, including cephalopods (octopus and squid), crustaceans (crabs and lobsters) and insects.

In parallel with this, the incredible rise of large language models, such as ChatGPT, has raised the serious possibility that machines may be conscious.

Five years ago, a seemingly ironclad test of whether something was conscious was to see if you could have a conversation with it. Philosopher Susan Schneider suggested if we had an AI that convincingly mused on the metaphysics of consciousness, it may well be conscious.

By those standards, today we would be surrounded by conscious machines. Many have gone so far as to apply the precautionary principle here too: the burgeoning field of AI welfare is devoted to figuring out if and when we must care about machines.

Yet all of these arguments depend, in large part, on surface-level behaviour. But that behaviour can be deceptive. What matters for consciousness is not what you do, but how you do it.

Looking at the machinery of AI

A new paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences that one of us (Colin Klein) coauthored, drawing on previous work, looks to the machinery rather than the behaviour of AI.

It also draws on the cognitive science tradition to identify a plausible list of indicators of consciousness based on the structure of information processing. This means one can draw up a useful list of indicators of consciousness without having to agree on which of the current cognitive theories of consciousness is correct.

Some indicators (such as the need to resolve trade-offs between competing goals in contextually appropriate ways) are shared by many theories. Most other indicators (such as the presence of informational feedback) are only required by one theory but indicative in others.

Importantly, the useful indicators are all structural. They all have to do with how brains and computers process and combine information.

The verdict? No existing AI system (including ChatGPT) is conscious. The appearance of consciousness in large language models is not achieved in a way that is sufficiently similar to us to warrant attribution of conscious states.

Yet at the same time, there is no bar to AI systems – perhaps ones with a very different architecture to today’s systems – becoming conscious.

The lesson? It’s possible for AI to behave as if conscious without being conscious.

Measuring consciousness in insects

Biologists are also turning to mechanisms – how brains work – to recognise consciousness in non-human animals.

In a new paper in Philosophical Transactions B, we propose a neural model for minimal consciousness in insects. This is a model that abstracts away from anatomical detail to focus on the core computations done by simple brains.

Our key insight is to identify the kind of computation our brains perform that gives rise to experience.

This computation solves ancient problems from our evolutionary history that arise from having a mobile, complex body with many senses and conflicting needs.

Importantly, we don’t identify the computation itself – there is science yet to be done. But we show that if you could identify it, you’d have a level playing field to compare humans, invertebrates, and computers.

The same lesson

The problem of consciousness in animals and in computers appear to pull in different directions.

For animals, the question is often how to interpret whether ambiguous behaviour (like a crab tending its wounds) indicates consciousness.

For computers, we have to decide whether apparently unambiguous behaviour (a chatbot musing with you on the purpose of existence) is a true indicator of consciousness or mere roleplay.

Yet as the fields of neuroscience and AI progress, both are converging on the same lesson: when making judgement about whether something is consciousness, how it works is proving more informative than what it does.

Colin Klein, Professor, School of Philosophy, Australian National University and Andrew Barron, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

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

On November 18 and 19 in Nashville, United States, auction house Julien’s will auction more than 450 items from the estate of Florian Schneider, the co-founder of German electronic band Kraftwerk.

It is difficult to overstate Kraftwerk’s profound impact on modern electronic music. They influenced artistic giants from David Bowie to New Order and Run-DMC, and defined what it means to be a musician in the age of machines.

What happens to this archive will affect how we understand a key chapter in music and cultural history.

Kraftwerk’s total artwork

Kraftwerk emerged in the 1960s in Düsseldorf, Germany. The young Schneider and his co-founder, Ralf Hütter, forged a modern, forward-looking aesthetic to counter pervasive post-war shame. Their music offered an answer to how Germany could rebuild a credible cultural identity after the atrocities of the Nazi era.

Rooted in Düsseldorf’s industrial grit, the band built a decades-long practice that both channelled and questioned the era’s technologies and anxieties – folding robots, assembly-line machines, driving, cycling and electronics into a new type of electronic music.

Beyond synthesisers, the Julien’s lot includes multiple vocoders (voice-coding processors that analyse speech and imprint its contours onto a synthesiser for “robot” vocals), outboard gear, studio furniture, posters, clothing and ephemera. It even includes Schneider’s Panasonic Panaracer road bike, seen in Kraftwerk’s Tour de France video.

This breadth matters. Kraftwerk embraced the idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art in which the music, graphic design, outfits and tools belong to a single creative statement.

Public interest vs private trophies

Dispersing the pieces into private hands risks severing the links between the objects and their context. Archivists call this the “archival bond”, where records gain meaning through their relationships. In Kraftwerk’s case, the long-running commitment to Gesamtkunstwerk makes these linkages especially significant.

A spokesperson from the Schneider estate said the auction fulfils Schneider’s wish that his instruments “continue living”, and that they be “played and shared” – not left to gather dust.

That is a worthy goal. The worry is that a public auction is won by the highest bidder. There is no guarantee the winners will keep the items in working order, share them, or document them for future generations.

Money sharpens this concern. The collection has been valued at about US$450,000 (A$688,000), but sales will likely exceed this. Earlier this year, Julien’s David Lynch sale was first valued in the low hundreds of thousands but ultimately realised about US$4.25 million (A$6.8 million).

These prices will determine who has access to these instruments in the future, and items are more likely to become trophies for wealthy collectors than productive components in a working music studio.

Lessons from Orwell and Conan Doyle

History shows scholars and the public have objected when important collections were set to be dispersed.

In recent years, academics protested the sale of George Orwell’s Gollancz papers, which consisted of correspondence between Orwell and his publisher and offered unique insights into ideas that shaped his early novels including A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Inside the Whale (1940). As a result, the material was secured for University College London.

Similarly in 2004, Sherlockian scholar Richard Lancelyn Green led efforts to stop a Christie’s auction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s papers. Some United Kingdom members of parliament even tabled a motion arguing the collection should be kept intact for research. A large portion of the documents were secured by the British Library, who expressed regret the rest had been dispersed.

These examples suggest there is a strong public interest in preserving creators’ archives intact. And that calculus shifts when dealing with papers and correspondences, versus objects that demand specialised maintenance. The kind of knowledge a letter contains is not the same as that embedded in, say, an early vocoder.

The best outcome would be to keep Schneider’s archive intact in a public home, and ideally in conversation with Düsseldorf, where the work and its aesthetic were formed. A museum, library, or university could care for the collection, preserve its order and open it to researchers, artists, students and the public.

Preservation through use

There is a growing trend towards the idea of “preservation through use” for media archives. Like vintage cars that need their engines turned over, electronic instruments benefit from regular playing to keep their circuitry humming.

For artists and researchers, there is knowledge to be acquired through hands-on engagement that can’t be captured by documentation alone.

There are existing models that demonstrate how this can work. Pete Townshend of The Who donated his instrument collection to the University of West London, where it forms the Townshend Studio. Students and artists can play rare synthesisers under supervision.

In Melbourne, the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio at Federation Square offers public access to one of the largest collections of museum-grade electronic instruments in the southern hemisphere. It includes rarities such as an original theremin, built by Léon Theremin, and provides access to all, from those making music for the first time, to established touring artists.

What happens to Florian Schneider’s archive will set a precedent. How should collections like this be handled? How do we preserve digital artefacts, and which parts must stay together?

Given Kraftwerk’s role in electronic music and post-war German culture, there is a strong case for keeping the archive intact. This would help build public knowledge, spark new creativity and honour Schneider’s wishes. Once the items are dispersed, that benefit will be lost.

Prudence Rees-Lee, PhD Candidate, School of Design, RMIT University

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

Aspiring authors in Australia are among those who have been scammed by a global network of publishing houses using cloned websites and AI tools. Some boast testimonials using the images and names of real authors, or listing real books they didn’t publish as their own. Several target the Australian market, trading under names such as Melbourne Book Publisher, Sydney Book Publishing, Aussie Book Publisher and Oz Book Publishers.

I’m a publishing expert, and looking at what happened, I can spot red flags in how these publishers operated and targeted aspiring authors, vulnerable to exploitation in their desire for success.

David Tenenbaum, owner of trusted publishing house Melbourne Books, established in 2000 (and specialising in nonfiction), was the first to sound the alarm. He’d received calls from authors who believed they had been dealing with his business – but had actually been speaking to the similar-sounding Melbourne Book Publisher (which even gave out his ABN).

One of the scammed authors, “Andrea”, an aspiring fantasy romance novelist recovering from cancer, told the Guardian she had a video conference with a publishing executive, “Marcus Hale”, who outlined detailed publishing and promotion plans for her novel, down to getting “a presence on TikTok” and a launch at her local bookshop. She realised what had happened when she called Melbourne Books.

Both Andrea and another Australian author, Peter Ortmueller (who also dealt with Marcus Hale), found Melbourne Book Publisher on Facebook. Ortmueller, who lost A$150 he believed was a first down payment on a publishing package, said he thought it was a traditional publisher. Andrea lost A$88, which she was told would buy her an ABN.

Red flags and AI people

An expert from Deakin University’s Cyber Research and Innovation Centre, Ashish Nanda, identified some red flags about Melbourne Book Publisher, too. They told the Guardian they include “varying logos, claims on its website that it was established in 1999 yet a domain search showed it was only registered last month, and a fake 4.7 star rating on Trustpilot (the company has no reviews)”.

The Meet Our Team page on Melbourne Book Publisher’s site used “AI-created images of immaculately groomed white executives”, as did First Page Press. None of these people are known in Australian publishing circles, the Guardian reported. Some of these websites also list real books, which are for sale on Amazon (most of them self-published).

Other websites, Aussie Book Publisher and Oz Book Publishers, have fake testimonials using the images and names of real authors, like Australian children’s author Katrina Germein, who becomes “Sarah” on Aussie Books’ testimonial page.

A representative of Melbourne Book Publisher initially responded to the Guardian’s questions, but later ceased communication, removed some of their websites and altered elements of others.

The network of publishing houses appears to have international reach, including First Page Press, with offices in London and Melbourne, and BookPublishers.co.nz in New Zealand. The true scale of the operation is unknown.

Do you want self- or ‘traditional’ publishing?

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) recently issued a warning titled: “AI is making publishing scams more sophisticated”. They provided the following advice: “As a general rule, a cold approach from a company offering services to publish or promote your work should be interrogated carefully, especially if they are requesting payment from you.”

But what about aspiring authors who go in search of a publisher? What should they look for so they are not taken in by one of these scams?

To answer this question, it’s necessary to distinguish between traditional publishing and self-publishing. In traditional publishing, all upfront costs are paid by the publishing house. The author is expected to contribute time and energy to the book’s promotion, but does not pay for services like editing and design. Nor does the author pay for printing, or the production of an ebook.

The main income for traditional publishers is book sales, which only come after the initial investment has been made: the publisher assumes all upfront costs. This means traditional publishing is a financially risky business. Most of the books you see in brick-and-mortar bookshops were published by traditional publishers.

Meanwhile, self-publishing includes any publishing activity the author financially contributes to. Many self-publishing companies offer an array of services that can be packaged to suit the author’s needs, including editing, cover design, marketing, ebook production and printing.

Melbourne Book Publisher offered packages ranging from an “Advance Worldwide Plan” for A$1,495 to a “Premium Worldwide Plan” for $1,799.

Terms like “vanity publishing”, “subsidy publishing” and “hybrid publishing” are sometimes used – but these can be hard to distinguish from self-publishing.

There are no generally agreed upon definitions of these terms. For example, some so-called hybrid publishers operate exactly like predatory vanity publishers, while other times the term “hybrid publishing” is used by traditional publishing houses that have a side hustle facilitating a bit of self-publishing activity. Some may require authors to commit to buying a certain number of copies to subsidise the print run.

My top 5 tips for avoiding scammers

My tips to help aspiring authors avoid a publishing scam vary. They depend on what you’re looking for: a traditional publishing arrangement or a self-publishing service. Of course, there is some grey area in between these categories, and there are more or less ethical actors in both.

1: Know what you’re looking for

Are you seeking a traditional publisher or a self-publishing service? If a publishing house asks for any financial contribution at all, this is a self-publishing service, as far as I’m concerned. If what you’re looking for is a traditional publisher, this is your sign to walk away!

2: Ask your bookshop about your publisher

If you’re still unsure whether it’s a traditional publisher or a self-publishing service, ask your local bookshop if they’ve ever stocked any books from that publishing house. If they regularly stock the publisher’s books, it’s a sign that it’s a traditional publisher. Or, if it’s a traditional publisher that also engages in a bit of hybrid publishing, they’re a respected operator who can get your books into bookshops.

3: Check an online registry of dodgy publishers

Perhaps you’re an aspiring author who is open to the idea of working with a self-publishing service. How do you distinguish between the legitimate operations and the scams?

Writer Beware is a website sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association that documents all types of unethical activity in the publishing industry. Searching this website for a company name can be an illuminating exercise.

It’s worth noting, though, that it would not have helped catch out scams like the one perpetrated by Melbourne Book Publisher. The increased availability of AI tools means scam websites can quickly be created with new AI-generated copy and images, making them harder to identify.

4: Evaluate the publisher’s other books

In the case of Melbourne Book Publisher, they claimed to have published books that were actually published by a different company.

Look for bookseller websites that include the publisher’s books and clearly identify the publisher by name. Some bookseller websites allow you to preview a book’s interior. This is an opportunity to evaluate the quality of the publisher’s editorial and design services.

Even better, search for book titles in library catalogues, including the catalogue of the National Library of Australia.

5: Work with someone local

When working with a self-publishing service or even hiring a freelance editor, it can be safer to work with someone local, rather than through a large online agency.

At least with someone local, there is the sense this person’s reputation in the local publishing industry is on the line. You can also check their bona fides by inquiring with other members of your writing community. Melbourne Book Publisher’s executives are not known in the Australian publishing community: this is a red flag.

Some state-based writers’ centres even feature a database of reputable local service providers for the writing and publishing industries.

Per Henningsgaard, Senior Lecturer, Professional Writing and Publishing, Curtin University

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

Pecans, America’s only native major nut, have a storied history in the United States. Today, American trees produce hundreds of million of pounds of pecans – 80% of the world’s pecan crop. Most of that crop stays here. Pecans are used to produce pecan milk, butter and oil, but many of the nuts end up in pecan pies.

Throughout history, pecans have been overlooked, poached, cultivated and improved. As they have spread throughout the United States, they have been eaten raw and in recipes. Pecans have grown more popular over the decades, and you will probably encounter them in some form this holiday season.

I’m an extension specialist in Oklahoma, a state consistently ranked fifth in pecan production, behind Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. I’ll admit that I am not a fan of the taste of pecans, which leaves more for the squirrels, crows and enthusiastic pecan lovers.

The spread of pecans

The pecan is a nut related to the hickory. Actually, though we call them nuts, pecans are actually a type of fruit called a drupe. Drupes have pits, like the peach and cherry.

The pecan nuts that look like little brown footballs are actually the seed that starts inside the pecan fruit – until the fruit ripens and splits open to release the pecan. They are usually the size of your thumb, and you may need a nutcracker to open them. You can eat them raw or as part of a cooked dish.

The pecan derives its name from the Algonquin “pakani,” which means “a nut too hard to crack by hand.” Rich in fat and easy to transport, pecans traveled with Native Americans throughout what is now the southern United States. They were used for food, medicine and trade as early as 8,000 years ago.

Pecans are native to the southern United States, and while they had previously spread along travel and trade routes, the first documented purposeful planting of a pecan tree was in New York in 1722. Three years later, George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, had some planted pecans. Washington loved pecans, and Revolutionary War soldiers said he was constantly eating them.

Meanwhile, no one needed to plant pecans in the South, since they naturally grew along riverbanks and in groves. Pecan trees are alternate bearing: They will have a very large crop one year, followed by one or two very small crops. But because they naturally produced a harvest with no input from farmers, people did not need to actively cultivate them. Locals would harvest nuts for themselves but otherwise ignored the self-sufficient trees.

It wasn’t until the late 1800s that people in the pecan’s native range realized the pecan’s potential worth for income and trade. Harvesting pecans became competitive, and young boys would climb onto precarious tree branches. One girl was lifted by a hot air balloon so she could beat on the upper branches of trees and let them fall to collectors below. Pecan poaching was a problem in natural groves on private property.

Pecan cultivation begins

Even with so obvious a demand, cultivated orchards in the South were still rare into the 1900s. Pecan trees don’t produce nuts for several years after planting, so their future quality is unknown.

To guarantee quality nuts, farmers began using a technique called grafting; they’d join branches from quality trees to another pecan tree’s trunk. The first attempt at grafting pecans was in 1822, but the attempts weren’t very successful.

Grafting pecans became popular after an enslaved man named Antoine who lived on a Louisiana plantation successfully produced large pecans with tender shells by grafting, around 1846. His pecans became the first widely available improved pecan variety.

The variety was named Centennial because it was introduced to the public 30 years later at the Philadelphia Centennial Expedition in 1876, alongside the telephone, Heinz ketchup and the right arm of the Statue of Liberty.

This technique also sped up the production process. To keep pecan quality up and produce consistent annual harvests, today’s pecan growers shake the trees while the nuts are still growing, until about half of the pecans fall off. This reduces the number of nuts so that the tree can put more energy into fewer pecans, which leads to better quality. Shaking also evens out the yield, so that the alternate-bearing characteristic doesn’t create a boom-bust cycle.

US pecan consumption

The French brought praline dessert with them when they immigrated to Louisiana in the early 1700s. A praline is a flat, creamy candy made with nuts, sugar, butter and cream. Their original recipe used almonds, but at the time, the only nut available in America was the pecan, so pecan pralines were born.

During the Civil War and world wars, Americans consumed pecans in large quantities because they were a protein-packed alternative when meat was expensive and scarce. One ounce of pecans has the same amount of protein as 2 ounces of meat.

After the wars, pecan demand declined, resulting in millions of excess pounds at harvest. One effort to increase demand was a national pecan recipe contest in 1924. Over 21,000 submissions came from over 5,000 cooks, with 800 of them published in a book.

Pecan consumption went up with the inclusion of pecans in commercially prepared foods and the start of the mail-order industry in the 1870s, as pecans can be shipped and stored at room temperature. That characteristic also put them on some Apollo missions. Small amounts of pecans contain many vitamins and minerals. They became commonplace in cereals, which touted their health benefits.

In 1938, the federal government published the pamphlet Nuts and How to Use Them, which touted pecans’ nutritional value and came with recipes. Food writers suggested using pecans as shortening because they are composed mostly of fat.

The government even put a price ceiling on pecans to encourage consumption, but consumers weren’t buying them. The government ended up buying the surplus pecans and integrating them into the National School Lunch Program.

While you are sitting around the Thanksgiving table this year, you can discuss one of the biggest controversies in the pecan industry: Are they PEE-cans or puh-KAHNS?

Shelley Mitchell, Senior Extension Specialist in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Oklahoma State University

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

For years, scientists have known that moving our bodies can sharpen our minds. Physical activity boosts blood flow to the brain, enhances neuroplasticity and reduces chronic inflammation. These processes are believed to protect against cognitive decline, including dementia.

Yet despite decades of research, major questions have remained unresolved.

Does exercising at any age help reduce your risk of dementia? Or only when you’re young? And what if you have a higher genetic risk – can exercising still make a difference?

New research from the long-running Framingham Heart Study in the United States, published today, offers some of the clearest answers to date. Their findings support what many clinicians already tell patients: exercise helps.

But the study also offers new insight into the potentially protective effect of staying active at the age of 45 and over – even for those with a certain genetic predisposition to dementia.

What did the study examine?

The new research draws on data from 4,290 participants enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort. This study began in 1948, when researchers recruited more than 5,000 adults aged 30 and over from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, to investigate long-term risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

In 1971, a second generation (more than 5,000 adult children of the original cohort, and their spouses) were enrolled, forming the Offspring cohort. This generation then had regular health and medical assessments every four to eight years.

In the new study, participants self-reported their physical activity. This included incidental activity such as climbing stairs as well as vigorous exercise.

Participants first reported these activities in 1971, and then again over several decades. Based on the age at which each participant was first evaluated, they were grouped into three categories:

• young adulthood (26–44 years): assessed in the late 1970s

• midlife (45–64 years): assessed during the late 1980s and 1990s

• older adulthood (65 years and over): assessed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

To examine how physical activity influences dementia risk, the researchers looked at how many people developed dementia in each age group and at what age they were diagnosed.

Then they considered physical activity patterns within age groups (low, moderate, high) to see if there was any link between how much exercise people did and whether they developed dementia.

They also looked at who had a known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, the APOE ε4 allele.

What did they find?

Over the follow-up period, 13.2% (567) of the 4,290 participants developed dementia, mostly in the older age group.

This is quite high compared with other long-term longitudinal dementia studies and with Australian rates (one in 12 or 8.3% Australians over 65 currently have dementia).

When researchers examined physical activity levels, the pattern was striking. Those with the highest levels of activity in midlife and later life were 41–45% less likely to develop dementia than those who had the lowest levels of activity.

This was the case even after adjusting for demographic factors that increase dementia risk (such as age and education) and other chronic health factors (such as high blood pressure and diabetes).

Interestingly, being physically active during early adulthood did not influence dementia risk.

A key innovation of this study was its examination of the genetic risk factor, the APOE ε4 allele. This analysis suggests something new:

• in midlife, higher physical activity lowered dementia risk only in people who didn’t carry this genetic predisposition

• but in later life, higher physical activity lowered dementia risk in both carriers and non-carriers.

This means for people genetically predisposed to dementia, staying active later in life may still offer meaningful protection.

How significant are these results?

The findings largely reinforce what scientists already know: exercise is good for the brain.

What sets this study apart is its large sample, multi-decade follow-up, and its genetic analysis across different life periods.

The suggestion that midlife activity benefits some individuals differently depending on their genetic risk, while late-life activity benefits nearly everyone, may also add a new layer to public health messaging.

But there were some limitations

Physical activity was largely self-reported in this study, so there is a possibility of recall bias. We also do not know what type of exercise brings the best benefits.

Dementia cases in the youngest age group were rather rare too, so the small sample limits how definitively we can make conclusions about early adulthood.

The cohort is also predominantly of European ancestry and share environmental factors as they come from the same town, so this limits how much we can generalise the findings to more diverse populations.

This is particularly important given global inequities in dementia risk and diagnosis. Knowledge about dementia and risk factors also remains low in ethnically diverse groups, where it is often still seen as a “normal” part of ageing.

What does this mean for us?

The takeaway is refreshingly simple though: move more, at any age. At this stage we know there are more benefits than harm.

Joyce Siette, Associate Professor | Deputy Director, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University

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

Life expectancy in New Zealand has increased dramatically over the past five decades. In 1970, men lived on average to 68. Today, it’s over 80.

These gains reflect major advances in public health and medical technology. But living longer can mean more years with multiple chronic conditions and disabilities, because age is a significant risk factor for most disease.

This demographic shift will reshape healthcare. Future health professionals will need to be aware of the increasingly complex social, technological and ethical challenges of caring for older people.

Ageism, or discrimination based on a person’s age, should be considered as one of these challenges.

Age influences how health concerns are interpreted. In a recent World Health Organization report, nearly 60% of health professionals admitted to making age-based (or ageist) assumptions about their patients’ abilities or needs.

Genuine symptoms are dismissed as part of normal ageing, leading to flawed decisions. There is evidence that older people are also under-treated, raising the risk of disease progression.

Other consequences include missed diagnoses. Inequalities occur where there is limited access to services or inclusion criteria are set to exclude people over 65.

There is the potential for this kind of thinking to creep into health professional education. It shows up in stereotypes that appear in case studies for learning, or in the way programmes are structured and in the kinds of clinical placements that are used.

Why ageism matters in healthcare

Our national nursing programme review in the polytechnic sector looked at New Zealand student nurses’ experiences.

It shows case studies often favoured information about older people with dementia, falls or end of life care. They rarely reflected active ageing or older adults’ resilience and agency.

Health professionals may adopt ageist attitudes from the rest of society. Student nurses begin their training programmes having been subject to both societal and cultural narratives about the role and importance of older people.

Nurse education programmes often communicated underlying beliefs about the complexity of care. Placements in aged residential care were typically scheduled in the first year of nursing, implying the work was basic if new students could do it.

Almost all nursing students were allocated to an aged-care facility where the frailest 7% of older people live. This reinforces a narrative that older adults are a homogeneous population of dependent, vulnerable people.

It misses the opportunity to teach health promotion for people who are older but remain active and independent.

What students saw

Students’ reflections highlighted the realities of aged residential care and the impact of their perceptions. One participant said:

While on placement, I saw how conveyor belt life was for the residents. It broke my heart. Residents had lost their individual identities and all fun was gone. The nurses and healthcare assistant staff were all so busy and didn’t have much time to interact on personal levels with each resident.

Others noted systemic issues:

People [nurses and carers] in aged residential care do not get paid what they are worth. This severely needs to be changed. They work so hard to not get appreciated as much as they deserve. [They are] constantly understaffed making the workload insurmountable and overwhelming.

Some worried about career stigma:

Being a new graduate and working in aged care would make me unemployable in other areas of nursing.

These comments illustrate how education and system design shape the attitudes of the future nursing workforce towards ageing and aged care. They also highlight the crucial role clinical placements have in shaping future career choices.

Tackling ageism starts in education

The programme review and student comments demonstrate how ageism influences learning, from case studies portraying older people as less capable to placements that equate ageing with frailty and funding systems that appear to devalue older people.

Addressing these issues starts with obvious steps, such as more appropriate design of learning materials and using placements that reflect a spectrum of health needs in later life.

For students who have little experience of older people, fostering inter-generational connection and building empathy can be a powerful tool to reduce ageist stereotypes.

But there is one more area to which we should be alert: ageism is in fact an emerging social determinant of health in later life.

There is a high risk that ageism will compound existing health inequities as Māori, Pacific people and rainbow communities grow older

Preparing the future healthcare workforce means recognising the diverse realities of ageing in contemporary New Zealand. If we want healthcare to meet the needs of an ageing population, education must reflect this complexity.

Tackling ageism in healthcare professional education is a critical first step.

Samantha Heath, Senior Lecturer in Nursing , University of Waikato

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

WeChat is best known as China’s all-purpose “super-app”. It is used for everything from messaging and mobile payments to shopping and government services.

As of June 2024, WeChat reported a staggering 1.37 billion active monthly users globally. For many Chinese-speaking diaspora communities – such as in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom – the app is a lifeline to their homeland and communities.

But my new research, published this week in Policy & Internet, shows WeChat has also become a powerful – and largely overlooked – component of China’s policing and public security infrastructure.

In fact, the app is now functioning as a “police app”. It’s a kind a digital toolkit allowing police to collect intelligence, accept crime reports, verify identities and access citizen data through a private platform that is deeply embedded in everyday life.

From a social platform to a policing tool

Public security bureaus in China began creating official WeChat accounts in 2012.

By 2017, more than 50,000 police accounts existed. Many offered far more than simple announcements.

Across provinces in China, police are now using WeChat to:

• operate “internet police stations” where citizens report crimes and disturbances
• collect digital tips, images and clues from users
• run real-time emergency “WeChat alarms”
• verify identities using national ID data
• link WeChat inputs to provincial “police clouds” and population surveillance databases.

In some jurisdictions, WeChat has even become a frontline policing tool.

In Guangzhou city, for example, railway police built a WeChat-based alarm system allowing citizens to send incident details directly to police dispatch. This would then trigger real-time audio and video communication.

In Zhejiang province, officers used WeChat-based facial and ID card scanning to rapidly identify individuals.

In several towns, thousands of “WeChat police groups” were created, pairing residents with local officers and blurring the line between neighbourhood governance and digital surveillance.

These functions go far beyond convenience. They show how a commercial platform has become an extension of the state’s security apparatus.

A patchwork of purposes

My research draws on 53 government procurement documents and additional Chinese-language media reports on two WeChat accounts known as “public security WeChat” and “WeChat policing”. Procurement documents are a great source of data. They are common in research in contexts where information is curated or suppressed.

The research shows how police agencies across China are integrating WeChat directly into their daily operations.

Wealthier provinces such as Fujian and Shanghai invested heavily in integrating WeChat with existing public security systems, enabling hundreds of services through the app.

Fujian province alone aimed to link WeChat with services across ten cities and more than 300 functions.

Other localities treated WeChat as a superficial PR tool. Some accounts offered little more than positive police stories or traffic announcements. Others became “zombie accounts” – created to meet digitisation targets but never properly maintained.

This patchwork reflects broader challenges in China’s digital modernisation. Local agencies face unequal resources, tight performance quotas and limited technical capacity.

For some, deep integration is possible. For others, the use of WeChat is merely symbolic compliance with government modernisation quotas.

Filling a gap for the state

The Chinese government has spent a decade pushing public security agencies to deliver more services online. Yet many local police units lack the expertise or funds to build bespoke digital systems.

WeChat offers a shortcut.

Because it already handles identity verification, payments, location data and messaging for more than a billion users, it can serve as a ready-made platform for police.

Tencent, WeChat’s parent company, has positioned itself strategically. It offers customised WeChat modules to public security departments as a commercial service

The result is a public-private security infrastructure: state needs and corporate incentives moving in the same direction.

Around the world, governments are increasingly partnering with private tech companies for policing and security.

In the United States and Europe, for example, Palantir and similar firms provide predictive policing and data-analysis platforms.

China’s version is different because WeChat is both a consumer platform and a part of the state’s digital infrastructure.

When policing functions are embedded inside an app billions of people rely on for daily life, the boundary between public service and surveillance becomes blurred.

A new future of platform power and state surveillance

For citizens, WeChat-based policing can make bureaucratic processes faster and more convenient.

But it also means everyday digital activities such as sending messages or paying bills and reporting disturbances could feed into a security architecture operated jointly by the state and a private company.

For WeChat, being compliant with the demands of the state will likely be a crucial business survival strategy.

For example, following China’s national crackdown on Tencent and the broader tech sector between 2020 and 2022, Tencent’s founder promised:

Tencent will continue to resonate with the needs of the nation and the times.

As China continues to centralise its digital governance, WeChat’s role in public security is likely to deepen – representing a new future of platform power and state surveillance.

Ausma Bernot, Lecturer in Technology and Crime, Griffith University

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

Aspiring authors in Australia are among those who have been scammed by a global network of publishing houses using cloned websites and AI tools. Some boast testimonials using the images and names of real authors, or listing real books they didn’t publish as their own. Several target the Australian market, trading under names such as Melbourne Book Publisher, Sydney Book Publishing, Aussie Book Publisher and Oz Book Publishers.

I’m a publishing expert, and looking at what happened, I can spot red flags in how these publishers operated and targeted aspiring authors, vulnerable to exploitation in their desire for success.

David Tenenbaum, owner of trusted publishing house Melbourne Books, established in 2000 (and specialising in nonfiction), was the first to sound the alarm. He’d received calls from authors who believed they had been dealing with his business – but had actually been speaking to the similar-sounding Melbourne Book Publisher (which even gave out his ABN).

One of the scammed authors, “Andrea”, an aspiring fantasy romance novelist recovering from cancer, told the Guardian she had a video conference with a publishing executive, “Marcus Hale”, who outlined detailed publishing and promotion plans for her novel, down to getting “a presence on TikTok” and a launch at her local bookshop. She realised what had happened when she called Melbourne Books.

Both Andrea and another Australian author, Peter Ortmueller (who also dealt with Marcus Hale), found Melbourne Book Publisher on Facebook. Ortmueller, who lost A$150 he believed was a first down payment on a publishing package, said he thought it was a traditional publisher. Andrea lost A$88, which she was told would buy her an ABN.

Red flags and AI people

An expert from Deakin University’s Cyber Research and Innovation Centre, Ashish Nanda, identified some red flags about Melbourne Book Publisher, too. They told the Guardian they include “varying logos, claims on its website that it was established in 1999 yet a domain search showed it was only registered last month, and a fake 4.7 star rating on Trustpilot (the company has no reviews)”.

The Meet Our Team page on Melbourne Book Publisher’s site used “AI-created images of immaculately groomed white executives”, as did First Page Press. None of these people are known in Australian publishing circles, the Guardian reported. Some of these websites also list real books, which are for sale on Amazon (most of them self-published).

Other websites, Aussie Book Publisher and Oz Book Publishers, have fake testimonials using the images and names of real authors, like Australian children’s author Katrina Germein, who becomes “Sarah” on Aussie Books’ testimonial page.

A representative of Melbourne Book Publisher initially responded to the Guardian’s questions, but later ceased communication, removed some of their websites and altered elements of others.

The network of publishing houses appears to have international reach, including First Page Press, with offices in London and Melbourne, and BookPublishers.co.nz in New Zealand. The true scale of the operation is unknown.

Do you want self- or ‘traditional’ publishing?

The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) recently issued a warning titled: “AI is making publishing scams more sophisticated”. They provided the following advice: “As a general rule, a cold approach from a company offering services to publish or promote your work should be interrogated carefully, especially if they are requesting payment from you.”

But what about aspiring authors who go in search of a publisher? What should they look for so they are not taken in by one of these scams?

To answer this question, it’s necessary to distinguish between traditional publishing and self-publishing. In traditional publishing, all upfront costs are paid by the publishing house. The author is expected to contribute time and energy to the book’s promotion, but does not pay for services like editing and design. Nor does the author pay for printing, or the production of an ebook.

The main income for traditional publishers is book sales, which only come after the initial investment has been made: the publisher assumes all upfront costs. This means traditional publishing is a financially risky business. Most of the books you see in brick-and-mortar bookshops were published by traditional publishers.

Meanwhile, self-publishing includes any publishing activity the author financially contributes to. Many self-publishing companies offer an array of services that can be packaged to suit the author’s needs, including editing, cover design, marketing, ebook production and printing.

Melbourne Book Publisher offered packages ranging from an “Advance Worldwide Plan” for A$1,495 to a “Premium Worldwide Plan” for $1,799.

Terms like “vanity publishing”, “subsidy publishing” and “hybrid publishing” are sometimes used – but these can be hard to distinguish from self-publishing.

There are no generally agreed upon definitions of these terms. For example, some so-called hybrid publishers operate exactly like predatory vanity publishers, while other times the term “hybrid publishing” is used by traditional publishing houses that have a side hustle facilitating a bit of self-publishing activity. Some may require authors to commit to buying a certain number of copies to subsidise the print run.

My top 5 tips for avoiding scammers

My tips to help aspiring authors avoid a publishing scam vary. They depend on what you’re looking for: a traditional publishing arrangement or a self-publishing service. Of course, there is some grey area in between these categories, and there are more or less ethical actors in both.

1: Know what you’re looking for

Are you seeking a traditional publisher or a self-publishing service? If a publishing house asks for any financial contribution at all, this is a self-publishing service, as far as I’m concerned. If what you’re looking for is a traditional publisher, this is your sign to walk away!

2: Ask your bookshop about your publisher

If you’re still unsure whether it’s a traditional publisher or a self-publishing service, ask your local bookshop if they’ve ever stocked any books from that publishing house. If they regularly stock the publisher’s books, it’s a sign that it’s a traditional publisher. Or, if it’s a traditional publisher that also engages in a bit of hybrid publishing, they’re a respected operator who can get your books into bookshops.

3: Check an online registry of dodgy publishers

Perhaps you’re an aspiring author who is open to the idea of working with a self-publishing service. How do you distinguish between the legitimate operations and the scams?

Writer Beware is a website sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association that documents all types of unethical activity in the publishing industry. Searching this website for a company name can be an illuminating exercise.

It’s worth noting, though, that it would not have helped catch out scams like the one perpetrated by Melbourne Book Publisher. The increased availability of AI tools means scam websites can quickly be created with new AI-generated copy and images, making them harder to identify.

4: Evaluate the publisher’s other books

In the case of Melbourne Book Publisher, they claimed to have published books that were actually published by a different company.

Look for bookseller websites that include the publisher’s books and clearly identify the publisher by name. Some bookseller websites allow you to preview a book’s interior. This is an opportunity to evaluate the quality of the publisher’s editorial and design services.

Even better, search for book titles in library catalogues, including the catalogue of the National Library of Australia.

5: Work with someone local

When working with a self-publishing service or even hiring a freelance editor, it can be safer to work with someone local, rather than through a large online agency.

At least with someone local, there is the sense this person’s reputation in the local publishing industry is on the line. You can also check their bona fides by inquiring with other members of your writing community. Melbourne Book Publisher’s executives are not known in the Australian publishing community: this is a red flag.

Some state-based writers’ centres even feature a database of reputable local service providers for the writing and publishing industries.

Per Henningsgaard, Senior Lecturer, Professional Writing and Publishing, Curtin University

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

Outdated laws mean Indigenous children in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia can currently be denied citizenship on the lands of their ancestors.

The issue came to the fore last month, when the Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand considered an urgent claim, challenging whether the Crown has met Treaty of Waitangi obligations to protect the citizenship rights of Māori children born overseas.

The claimant John Bryers Ruddock is affiliated with Ngāpuhi. He was born in Australia but became a New Zealand citizen by descent through his Māori mother. However, despite their tribal connections, his children are not New Zealand citizens under the current law because they were born in the United States.

The claimants argued that whakapapa (genealogy) is a taonga, a treasured right the Crown must actively safeguard.

The tribunal found the Crown breached the Treaty principles of partnership, active protection, rangatiratanga, good government and equal treatment.

The case highlights how Māori families born offshore face exclusion from New Zealand citizenship, even when genealogical and iwi (tribal) affiliations affirm identity and belonging. The findings suggest that citizenship should be reconsidered in a contemporary context.

New Zealand and Australia currently both define citizenship through narrow, Western concepts of nationhood, determined by birth within a country or descent from a citizen.

But both countries have signed the Australia Aotearoa New Zealand Indigenous Collaboration Arrangement (ICA) five years ago. This provides an opportunity to remedy this ongoing injustice by establishing a new Indigenous citizenship class.

Current laws fail to acknowledge Indigenous ways of understanding belonging, identity and place. For Indigenous peoples, citizenship is not merely a question of legal status. Rather, it is about relationships to land, non-human kin, to community and the ancestral connections that bind generations together.

Existing laws in both countries fail to recognise complexities of dispossession, forced removal and encouragement to move away from tribal lands. As a result, Indigenous children whose parents or grandparents were not born in their ancestral homelands can be refused citizenship.

In the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, if both a parent and child were not born on New Zealand soil, citizenship is not guaranteed. There is also a risk of being classified as overstayers. This is regardless of having confirmed tribal affiliation and rights to land.

Navigating the bureaucratic and financial barriers of citizenship law can be distressing and confusing.

Proposal for an Indigenous citizenship class

Currently it is unclear how the New Zealand government will amend citizenship law based on the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal.

One area that requires urgent focus is how citizenship laws affect those who have enjoyed the status and mobility between Aotearoa and Australia. Since the Trans-Tasman travel arrangement was established in 1973, the movement of people between both nations has been encouraged.

Today, more than 170,000 Māori live in Australia and more than 1,150 Indigenous Australians reside in New Zealand. Thus citizenship law and its provisions impact both countries.

Both countries’ prime ministers have acknowledged Indigenous peoples — Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander — as central to shared national identities and to the enduring friendship between the countries.

The ICA, signed in 2020, further strengthens this relationship. It facilitates partnerships in leadership, entrepreneurship and knowledge-sharing among Indigenous peoples across both nations.

Currently, there are letters addressed to both governments asking if the ICA can form part of the advocacy for an Indigenous citizenship class, ensuring recognition of connection to place and territory.

Contemporary rights for enduring citizenship are underscored by legal precedent. In Love v Commonwealth (2020), the High Court of Australia held that Aboriginal Australians cannot be considered “aliens” under the constitution, even if they are not citizens.

The court recognised that Aboriginal identity is grounded in deep and enduring connection to Country which cannot be severed by the state. This decision affirmed what Indigenous peoples have always understood: that identity, kinship and relationship to land are the true foundations of belonging.

Similarly, Ngāti Porou tribal leader Api Mahuika explored tribal membership, suggesting one’s right to reside in a particular area never ends if genealogical links are established.

A Trans-Tasman Indigenous citizenship class could translate these principles into practice. Such a framework would enable Indigenous peoples to obtain citizenship in either country based on genealogical connection.

It would remove the prohibitive administrative and financial barriers that currently exclude Indigenous children and guarantee their cultural and linguistic rights, including the right for children to be educated.

Crucially, the design and governance of this framework must be co-led by Indigenous groups from both nations, ensuring that the reform reflects Indigenous law and self-determination rather than bureaucratic convenience.

This suggestion would not replace existing citizenship categories but complement them. It extends the principles of partnership, reciprocity and belonging that both nations have committed to. Most importantly, it would affirm that Indigenous children can never be strangers on the lands of their ancestors.

Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have a rare opportunity to lead the contemporary evolution of citizenship law, moving beyond symbolic recognition toward substantive reform that reflects Indigenous law and identity. It would express in law what has always been true in spirit: Indigenous belonging endures, regardless of the borders drawn across ancestral lands.

Sarah-Kay Coulter, Lecturer in Indigenous Studies, The University of Melbourne

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

The resignations of the BBC’s director general and director of news were shocking. Perhaps just as shocking is the US$1 billion legal threat the broadcaster now faces from US president Donald Trump.

The full story of what has happened at the BBC may take months (or years) to emerge. But it’s become evident that a combination of poor editorial judgement and political meddling by longstanding BBC critics contributed to Tim Davie and Deborah Turness’s departures.

That there were editorial mistakes is not in question. The BBC Panorama documentary on Trump spliced together two different parts of Trump’s notorious January 6 2021 speech on Capitol Hill, without making the edit clear.

The programme itself, which was broadcast a few days before the 2024 US presidential election, was arguably carefully balanced, containing an equal number of Trump supporters and detractors. Notably, it did not receive a single complaint at the time of transmission.

It was broadcast a week before the 2024 US presidential election – nearly four years after the speech itself. It wasn’t a programme that was likely to sway anyone’s views of the president, who was impeached for “incitement of insurrection” after January 6. He was later acquitted.

Nevertheless, it was wrong to edit the speech in this way. That error was one of many allegations of institutional bias included in a dossier by Michael Prescott. Until June, Prescott – a former political editor for Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times and longtime PR professional – was an external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.

The report was leaked to the Telegraph, which splashed with selected excerpts alleging that the programme had been “doctored”, and listing other editorial problems that he claimed the BBC had failed to put right.

Political influence

The Telegraph, like much of the British press, has for decades waged an editorial war against the BBC. As a publicly funded, free-to-air broadcaster, which is by some distance the most trusted news provider in the UK, the BBC is a serious challenge to news publishers’ commercial interests. It also offends the political sensibilities of those opposed to public funding interventions more generally.

It was therefore only a matter of time before the Telegraph “exclusive” on BBC bias and the Panorama programme escalated, especially once noticed by the White House. As the crisis gathered steam, one of the many burning questions was: why on earth is the BBC not responding?

It has now been reported – including by the BBC’s media editor Katie Razzall and BBC presenter Nick Robinson – that an apology was drafted by the BBC news team and was ready to be signed off a week ago.

Unfortunately, the BBC board reportedly prevented Turness from putting out the apology, instead opting for a letter to MPs on the media select committee. What followed was a damaging vacuum, with the BBC unable to defend itself or acknowledge its error. As internal arguments raged, it simply issued a bland statement that it would respond in writing to the select committee.

Key to this institutional paralysis and the fallout that followed were the political appointees to the BBC board. When the BBC charter was renewed in 2016, the then Conservative government introduced a new governance structure. The BBC would be governed by a unitary board of 14, including a chair, and four part-time members, each representing one of the UK’s nations. These five were all government appointees.

That boardroom dissent was, it now appears, led by those political appointees, in particular Sir Robbie Gibb. Following time as a BBC executive in charge of political programmes, Gibb was Conservative prime minister Theresa May’s director of communications. He was subsequently involved in the founding of GB News, an avowedly right-wing news channel.

In the words of Prospect magazine and former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, Gibb “does not pretend to be impartial on issues related to British politics or Israel”.

Gibb was appointed to the BBC board by Boris Johnson, reappointed by Rishi Sunak, and his term runs until 2028. It is therefore unsurprising that Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has called for Gibb’s immediate removal from the board and for an end to the practice of political appointments.

The Conversation has reached out to Gibb for comment.

In his letter to the chair of the media select committee on Monday, BBC chairman Samir Shah acknowledged the Panorama mistake and apologised for the news team’s “error of judgement”. He made it clear, however, that Prescott’s report “does not present a full picture of the discussions, decisions and actions that were taken”.

Changes for the future

This peculiar arrangement of political appointments appears to have effectively given partisan appointees a veto over a crucial senior management decision, resulting in the forced departure of the BBC’s two most senior news executives.

While Davey is right that this anomaly needs to be rectified, the whole BBC governance structure is in need of an overhaul. At a time of increasing polarisation and social media misinformation, it is more important than ever that the BBC is protected from political interference.

The next BBC charter, starting from January 2028, offers a perfect opportunity to provide the kind of protective structure that the BBC requires. As part of a campaign to support public service broadcasting in the UK, the British Broadcasting Challenge – a group of academics and media professionals that includes myself and The Conversation’s CEO Chris Waiting – published a report last month calling for a “genuinely independent public appointments process for the chair and trustees, insulated from covert and overt government influence”.

This could be done through a dedicated body set up under the same terms as the wholly independent Press Recognition Panel, with no links to any political party or partisan campaigning group. Such a body could be responsible not just for non-executive BBC appointments (including its chair) but also for the chair of regulator Ofcom and the chair of Channel 4 – both currently in the gift of government.

The Labour government is about to kickstart a debate on the next BBC charter. Lisa Nandy, as the responsible secretary of state, has it in her hands to rectify some of the egregious damage inflicted on the BBC’s reputation by the political meddling of the last few days. Let’s hope that she rises to the challenge.

Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of Westminster

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

State and territory governments have reacted angrily to a letter from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in September asking them to rein in hospital spending.

This comes amid negotiations for the next five-year funding agreement to determine the federal government’s contribution to state-run public hospitals.

The states are angry because hospitals are under intense pressure. Demand is rising, emergency departments are packed, and workers are stressed. More money will be needed as Australians get older and sicker.

But public hospital spending has surged by an average of A$3 billion, or 4.5%, every year for the past decade. The federal government is understandably concerned about such rapid spending growth, some of which may not be good value.

To lighten the load, the federal and state governments should invest in prevention and primary care from GPs and others to prevent people getting sick enough to need to go to hospital.

Governments must also strike a deal to pay for rising costs, and to spend hospital dollars better. Our new Grattan Institute report explains how.

Not all spending is necessary

Some hospitals spend a lot more than others on similar admissions. Those gaps can’t be fully explained by differences between patients (such as being older and sicker), or hospitals (such as being smaller, or more specialised).

Instead, variable practices are partly to blame, such as keeping people in hospital longer, higher rates of infections and falls, using more tests, less efficient workforce roles, or costly local procurement of supplies and services.

We estimate there is $1.2 billion of avoidable cost in the system each year, enough to fund 160,000 extra hospital visits.

Get budgeting back on track

Too often, state budgeting for hospitals is a sham that repeats year after year.

First, hospitals overspend. Then, governments cover the deficit because hospitals are too important to fail. Next, trying to enforce discipline, governments set the next budget unrealistically low. With uncertainty and short-termism baked in, hospitals struggle to plan and invest. Then the cycle repeats.

Even before the COVID pandemic, budgets routinely predicted that hospital funding would fall, which almost never happens. Since 2015-16, actual spending has exceeded state budget funding by an average 6% a year.

It’s a chaotic way to run a vital system. It leaves hospitals without the stability, or the incentive, to invest in productivity.

Breaking the cycle requires predictability and responsibility on both sides. States should set realistic system-wide budgets based on the projected growth in demand and costs.

Consistently well-run hospitals should get three-year budgets so they can plan and invest. In exchange, bailouts should stop, with consequences for boards and CEOs that oversee persistent deficits.

Federal contributions should be predictable and fair too. Since 2017, the federal government has capped its hospital funding growth at 6.5% a year. That means the federal share of growth shrinks when inflation or population growth spikes, leaving states funding the shortfall.

The cap should be redesigned so the federal government automatically shares funding for reasonable increases in demand and cost. But it can also push productivity. The cap should rise along with state populations and need for care, but it should go up a little below the projected rise in costs.

Price for best practice

Public hospital pricing is based on paying the average cost of care for a visit of a standard length. But how a standard length is defined is way out of date.

Australia’s independent pricing authority should develop prices that promote shorter stays, when they’re safe. States should be rewarded with more federal funding if they embrace these changes.

Other countries have made pricing changes to promote safe same-day care. France, Denmark, Germany and Norway pay the same amount for same-day and longer stays for many surgeries. That creates a strong incentive to send eligible patients home sooner.

Australia, by contrast, often pays less for one-day stays.

It’s no wonder same-day joint replacements are common overseas but rare here. In 2022–23, just 0.3% of hip replacements and 0.2% of knee replacements were same-day, whereas comparable countries have climbed to 5, 10, or even 20%. This cuts costs, without compromising patient outcomes.

Fund solutions for stranded patients

Some patients stay in hospital long after they are medically ready to leave, because they are waiting for residential aged care or disability services. Those extra bed days shouldn’t be funded like bed days that are needed for health reasons.

The average National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participant waits 16 days in hospital after being medically ready to leave. State governments report that about 8–10% of public hospital bed days are taken up by people waiting to be discharged somewhere else.

No one likes being in hospital longer than necessary, and every extra day carries the risk of infections or complications. And it’s expensive. The average cost of a hospital visit for a new resident at a residential aged care facility is more than $6,500 higher than for an otherwise identical patient returning home.

Like in England, Sweden and Norway, Australia should impose financial penalties for keeping people stranded in hospital. The federal government is responsible for aged care and the NDIS. It should pay for hospital stays after someone is medically ready to leave, or alternative temporary accommodation arranged by the hospital.

Use purchasing power

Supplies and services are roughly a quarter of hospitals’ operating costs. Bigger contracts mean better deals and less duplicated administration. But many states leave money on the table by letting hospitals buy separately what they could buy together.

Centralised procurement lowers prices and cuts duplication. New South Wales’ HealthShare model shows what’s possible across uniforms, meals, linen, payroll and patient transport. Smaller jurisdictions should piggyback on their bigger neighbour’s buying, and for some specialised technologies, a national approach makes sense.

Spending on temporary doctors and nurses has surged since COVID. Hospitals often end up bidding against one another, driving wages up. States should set maximum daily rates, as Queensland does, or consider an in-house locum agency, like Western Australia’s.

There’s also a clinical dimension to scale: centralising some procedures in high-volume surgical centres is often safer and cheaper. States should steadily consolidate where the evidence supports it, and make sure patients who need help to travel to hospital get it.

Time for a productivity pact

Governments are currently debating the next national health agreement. Recent deals have mostly been about slicing up the funding pie, not making it go further. Now there’s a chance to change that.

With productive prices, and a fairer federal cap, states can give their health systems more certainty and better incentives.

Add tougher, more realistic hospital budgets and savings through scale, and we’ll get more care for every hospital dollar.

Peter Breadon, Program Director, Health and Aged Care, Grattan Institute and Elizabeth Baldwin, Senior Associate, Health Program, Grattan Institute

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

Online gaming giant Roblox has just announced it will start checking users’ ages from early December in an attempt to stop children and teenagers talking with adults.

In what the company has described as a move that sets a “safety gold standard” for the industry, it says it will be the first online gaming or communication platform to require facial age assurance to access chat features for all users.

This requirement comes into effect in Australia just days before the country’s social media age restrictions launch on December 10. It also comes at a time when Roblox – which boasts nearly 380 million active monthly users worldwide – finds itself embroiled in several lawsuits and facing growing public concerns about child grooming and other harms on the platform.

So how exactly will the age requirement work? And will it actually help to keep users – more than half of whom are under 16 – safe?

A global rollout

The age check requirement will be rolled out first in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands in early December. It will be expanded globally in early January.

Roblox will require the checks for all users who want to access chat features.

Age checks will involve either facial age estimation enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) or ID verification. Once the age check is complete, users will then be grouped by age and only allowed to chat with people of similar ages.

Roblox says its age checks (to be run by Persona, a third-party identity verification platform) will be “fast” and “secure”, with the Roblox app using the camera on the user’s device.

Users will take a video selfie and be required to move their face in specific directions, to ensure a real person is being checked, to estimate their age.

Once the video is processed it will be deleted, immediately.

Roblox under fire

At the moment Roblox will not be included in Australia’s social media ban for under 16s. However, the company has come under fire in recent months over concerns about grooming, gambling behaviour, and other potential harms for children on its platform.

In April 2025, a California man was accused of kidnapping and engaging in unlawful sexual conduct with a 10-year-old child he met on Roblox.

This year, several lawsuits have been launched against Roblox.

Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Roblox for “ignoring [American] online safety laws while deceiving parents about the dangers of its platform”.

Separate lawsuits were filed in Kentucky in October, and Louisiana in August, accusing Roblox of harming children.

Florida also filed a criminal subpoena in October alleging Roblox was “a breeding ground for predators”.

Roblox announced in September that it would implement safety measures in Australia “as a result of eSafety’s engagement with the platform”. These measures include:

• making accounts for users under age 16 private by default
• introducing tools to prevent adult users from contacting under 16s, without parental consent
• switching off by default direct chat and “experience chat” within Roblox games, until a user has completed an age check
• not allowing voice chat between adults and children 15 and under.

Unlike many other platforms, Roblox does not encrypt private chats. This enables the company to monitor and moderate the conversations.

Age checks won’t fix other problems

While these measures will likely be welcomed by parents and others concerned for child safety online, they are not foolproof.

There are limitations to age assurance technologies, which can estimate a person to be between one to three years older – or younger – than their actual age.

This means some children may be assigned into an incorrect age grouping. It also means some adults over 18 may be estimated to be under 18, enabling them to chat with younger people.

Parents whose accounts are linked to their child’s account will be able to correct their child’s age. All users over 13 will be able to correct their age by uploading ID into the system, which may raise concerns about data privacy for users.

There may also be people who lack the appropriate ID necessary to make the corrections, which may restrict their access to age-appropriate features on the platform.

Roblox also allows users to be “trusted connections” and chat with age-checked users 13 and older, with whom they have an existing real-world connections. This will be verified via a QR code or phone number. This means parents will need to check these connections carefully and continue to monitor children’s interactions.

While Roblox’s restrictions will limit interactions to users of similar ages, that doesn’t mean many of the other potential harms – such as cyberbullying – won’t occur within a peer group.

There are also other potential harms that young users may encounter that may not involve chat features. These include virtual sexual assault, as highlighted by a recent investigation by Guardian Australia into Roblox.

The eSafety Commissioner will continue to monitor Roblox and other platforms in future, and these may be classed as age-restricted social media under the legislation if warranted. Meanwhile, parents and other carers should review eSafety’s advice about the upcoming ban and steps they can take to keep their kids safe online.

Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

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

WeChat is best known as China’s all-purpose “super-app”. It is used for everything from messaging and mobile payments to shopping and government services.

As of June 2024, WeChat reported a staggering 1.37 billion active monthly users globally. For many Chinese-speaking diaspora communities – such as in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom – the app is a lifeline to their homeland and communities.

But my new research, published this week in Policy & Internet, shows WeChat has also become a powerful – and largely overlooked – component of China’s policing and public security infrastructure.

In fact, the app is now functioning as a “police app”. It’s a kind a digital toolkit allowing police to collect intelligence, accept crime reports, verify identities and access citizen data through a private platform that is deeply embedded in everyday life.

From a social platform to a policing tool

Public security bureaus in China began creating official WeChat accounts in 2012.

By 2017, more than 50,000 police accounts existed. Many offered far more than simple announcements.

Across provinces in China, police are now using WeChat to:

• operate “internet police stations” where citizens report crimes and disturbances
• collect digital tips, images and clues from users
• run real-time emergency “WeChat alarms”
• verify identities using national ID data
• link WeChat inputs to provincial “police clouds” and population surveillance databases.

In some jurisdictions, WeChat has even become a frontline policing tool.

In Guangzhou city, for example, railway police built a WeChat-based alarm system allowing citizens to send incident details directly to police dispatch. This would then trigger real-time audio and video communication.

In Zhejiang province, officers used WeChat-based facial and ID card scanning to rapidly identify individuals.

In several towns, thousands of “WeChat police groups” were created, pairing residents with local officers and blurring the line between neighbourhood governance and digital surveillance.

These functions go far beyond convenience. They show how a commercial platform has become an extension of the state’s security apparatus.

A patchwork of purposes

My research draws on 53 government procurement documents and additional Chinese-language media reports on two WeChat accounts known as “public security WeChat” and “WeChat policing”. Procurement documents are a great source of data. They are common in research in contexts where information is curated or suppressed.

The research shows how police agencies across China are integrating WeChat directly into their daily operations.

Wealthier provinces such as Fujian and Shanghai invested heavily in integrating WeChat with existing public security systems, enabling hundreds of services through the app.

Fujian province alone aimed to link WeChat with services across ten cities and more than 300 functions.

Other localities treated WeChat as a superficial PR tool. Some accounts offered little more than positive police stories or traffic announcements. Others became “zombie accounts” – created to meet digitisation targets but never properly maintained.

This patchwork reflects broader challenges in China’s digital modernisation. Local agencies face unequal resources, tight performance quotas and limited technical capacity.

For some, deep integration is possible. For others, the use of WeChat is merely symbolic compliance with government modernisation quotas.

Filling a gap for the state

The Chinese government has spent a decade pushing public security agencies to deliver more services online. Yet many local police units lack the expertise or funds to build bespoke digital systems.

WeChat offers a shortcut.

Because it already handles identity verification, payments, location data and messaging for more than a billion users, it can serve as a ready-made platform for police.

Tencent, WeChat’s parent company, has positioned itself strategically. It offers customised WeChat modules to public security departments as a commercial service

The result is a public-private security infrastructure: state needs and corporate incentives moving in the same direction.

Around the world, governments are increasingly partnering with private tech companies for policing and security.

In the United States and Europe, for example, Palantir and similar firms provide predictive policing and data-analysis platforms.

China’s version is different because WeChat is both a consumer platform and a part of the state’s digital infrastructure.

When policing functions are embedded inside an app billions of people rely on for daily life, the boundary between public service and surveillance becomes blurred.

A new future of platform power and state surveillance

For citizens, WeChat-based policing can make bureaucratic processes faster and more convenient.

But it also means everyday digital activities such as sending messages or paying bills and reporting disturbances could feed into a security architecture operated jointly by the state and a private company.

For WeChat, being compliant with the demands of the state will likely be a crucial business survival strategy.

For example, following China’s national crackdown on Tencent and the broader tech sector between 2020 and 2022, Tencent’s founder promised:

Tencent will continue to resonate with the needs of the nation and the times.

As China continues to centralise its digital governance, WeChat’s role in public security is likely to deepen – representing a new future of platform power and state surveillance.

Ausma Bernot, Lecturer in Technology and Crime, Griffith University

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

The next time you board a commercial flight and are told how to sit in the brace position for an emergency landing, consider this: did you know that international plane safety testing only requires adult male crash test dummies?

Even with car crashes, male dummies are still used for the majority of crash tests worldwide and in Australia. Bizarrely, until just three years ago, the only supposedly “female” crash test dummies used in car safety tests were just shrunken versions of male dummies.

As a former airline pilot now completing a PhD in aviation safety, I’ve been researching the history of aeroplane and car safety. And I’ve been shocked at how little real-world testing is still being done to keep women safe in the air and on our roads.

The problem with crash test dummies

Crash test dummies, called “anthropomorphic test devices”, were first developed for the military in 1949, then adopted by the automotive industry in the mid-1960s.

One of the most widely used test dummies today for both aeroplanes and cars is the Hybrid III “average” man: 175cm tall, 78kg, first created in 1976. That’s meant to represent a 50th percentile or average-sized man and is even written into US regulations for certification safety testing.

Automotive safety testing does include a “small female” dummy for around 25% of tests. However, the dummy required to be used is not actually shaped like an average biological female.

Supposedly “female” dummies have been made and used over the years, such as the Hybrid HIII-5F.

But at just 149cm tall and 48kg, it’s more like the size of a 12-year-old girl. And this dummy (widely used in car testing, including in Australia) is actually a scaled down version of the widely used average male Hybrid III – with plastic breasts swapped in for its chest.

It was only three years ago that a team of Swedish engineers led by pioneering researcher Astrid Linder finally unveiled the first dummy built to mimic an “average woman” of 162cm and 62kg.

The creation of a new female dummy is a step forward. But using that more accurate “average” female dummy is not yet a legal requirement for car or plane testing.

Women’s higher risk of serious injuries in cars

In cars, women are more likely to be seriously injured in crashes, even at low speeds.

Women sit further forward than men when driving, even if they are the same height. We need to, as we have different limb proportions than men.

In crashes, women are often labelled “out of position drivers” — simply because car designs are based on the average male. Half the world’s population is not sitting wrong; it’s a design flaw.

Startlingly, some car protection systems designed and tested on male dummies have been shown to increase injury severity in women, while decreasing the injury in men.

Aeroplanes are only required to test with male dummies

When it comes to aeroplanes, all research, testing and aircraft certification – including seat and seat belt design, as well as the brace positions to adopt before a crash – use only “average” male dummies, such as the Hybrid III male dummy modified for aviation.

Aeroplanes get safety certified in the country they’re made. The two big global manufacturers are Boeing and Airbus. Boeing planes are assembled and certified in the United States by the Federal Aviation Administration, while parts of Airbus planes are built across Europe, China and Canada, certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

The US and the European Union aviation safety agencies largely harmonise their standards for crash-worthiness and safety testing through international agreements. They follow standards and recommended practices set by global engineering association, SAE International.

Other national authorities, such as Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority, rely on those international safety certification standards, rather than each country re-testing aeroplanes.

The lack of aeroplane safety research for women

As just one example, US regulations for testing emergency landings are very clear about what to use in those safety tests: the average male dummy. There is no requirement to use a female dummy.

Though I have been searching for it, there has been no research on the effect this male-centric focus has on female aeroplane passengers or crew safety.

Despite clear evidence that women experience different — and often more severe — injury outcomes in car crashes, there is no publicly-accessible research on this in aviation.

Women are not simply smaller men

Body proportions, muscle mass and limb length differ between the sexes. Research into injuries from car crashes in the United Kingdom has found men possess 8% greater skeletal mass and a different body mass distribution than women.

Women generally have a smaller height and shoulder width, but a larger hip circumference than men. Female sex hormones lead to more lax ligaments, influencing joint stability.

Physiological differences between women and men matter to safety outcomes.

Such differences need to be considered in better future testing for aeroplanes and cars. One design does not fit all when it comes to safety.

Natasha Heap, Program Director for the Bachelor of Aviation, University of Southern Queensland

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

Australia’s decade-old Indigenous Procurement Policy has been hailed by both sides of politics as a success in Indigenous economic policy.

Started in 2015 as a way to address under-investment in Indigenous businesses when the federal government awards contracts, it’s maintained bipartisan support. In ten years, around 80,000 government contracts worth a combined A$12.6 billion have been awarded to more than 4,400 Indigenous-owned businesses.

But my new research – based on freedom of information requests released by the National Indigenous Australians Agency – shows half of the $7 billion spent in the first eight years of the policy went to just 18 businesses.

It also found contracts have flowed mainly to businesses based in major cities – led by Canberra.

These findings are timely, as the federal government is already scaling up its targets for Indigenous procurement between now and 2030, from 3% to 4% of government contracts.

What my research found

While the National Indigenous Australians Agency reports annual spending under the Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP) at an aggregate level, my new research is the first detailed public analysis of the IPP’s distribution of contracts.

My research, published this month in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, examines all contracts of $10,000 or more awarded to Indigenous businesses under the IPP from 2015–16 to 2022–23. These contracts represent more than 99% of the total value of contracts awarded.

In the first eight years of the IPP, from 2015 to mid-2023:

• 12,800 contracts worth $7 billion were awarded to more than 900 Indigenous firms.

• 6,415 or 50% of these contracts went to just 11 businesses

• $3.5 billion – or 50% of the $7 billion – of these contracts went to just 18 businesses

• 47% of the total value was awarded to businesses of between 50% and 51% Indigenous ownership, with an additional 27% to businesses with unidentified Indigenous ownership status

• 5,272 contracts – or more than 40% of the number – and 30% of the value of contracts ($2.1 billion) were awarded to businesses in Canberra. That’s despite the Australian Capital Territory being home to just 1% of Indigenous Australians.

So a very small number of businesses, concentrated in capital cities and especially Canberra, have thrived under the IPP, compared to the much larger total.

That’s despite the fact that, by 2022, there were close to 14,000 Indigenous businesses across Australia.

Why it matters

The IPP makes up only a relatively small slice of federal government goods and services purchases. But this shift has generated a substantial redirection of economic injection into the Indigenous business sector.

Yet because the scale of economic investment has been so large, it’s easy to lose focus on how this investment has been distributed nationally.

Indigenous business people, communities and politicians have raised questions about how widely the benefits of the IPP have been shared. For instance, as recently as last month, several senators raised concerns about issues of access to the IPP for many Indigenous businesses.

Changes now underway

The first decade of the IPP has shown the potential of public procurement as an investment in the growing Indigenous business sector.

But even the federal government has acknowledged the policy needs to work better.

Earlier this year, the government announced changes aimed at “ensuring that the economic benefits of the IPP are genuinely flowing to First Nations Australians as intended”.

Those changes include new rules to strengthen eligibility criteria to access the IPP, starting from July 2026. They’re also aiming to make it easier to report non-Indigenous firms that fake or exaggerate the Indigenous ownership and management of their business to apply for government contracts – known as “black cladding”.

Measuring success beyond raw numbers

Public procurement is a competitive process. As such, it never going to provide equitable opportunities for all businesses.

However, my new research shows the distribution of IPP contracts was highly concentrated until at least 2022-23, both geographically and in the number of businesses that won half of the contracts. That means other Indigenous businesses missed out on valuable economic opportunities.

As the IPP reforms continue to be made into 2026, it’s crucial the policy moves beyond just reporting the number and value of contracts awarded as its measures of success, to increasingly incorporate more Indigenous-defined measures of success for the IPP.

For example, this could involve introducing a greater focus on ensuring firms outside major cities are also well placed to win procurement contracts. It could also include accurately valuing the social impact of Indigenous businesses in the tender process.

The IPP has shown it has great potential. It’s time to make it work better not just for a federal government based in Canberra, but for Indigenous businesses right across the nation.

Christian Eva, Research Fellow, POLIS: The Centre for Social Research and Policy, Australian National University

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

A new “complete” monthly consumer price index (CPI) will be released next week, and will become Australia’s primary measure of inflation.

This new release will finally bring Australia into line with the other advanced economies in the Group of 20, which all publish inflation data every month. It will make it easier to compare inflation trends with other nations.

For the Reserve Bank of Australia, headline inflation from the complete monthly CPI will become the new target for monetary policy.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been publishing a monthly CPI “indicator” since 2022. But it only had a partial coverage.

The inflation report measures price changes in a fixed “basket” of goods and services each month.

In an updated explanation of the new data published on Tuesday, the bureau said prices of 87% of the CPI basket of goods and services will be updated each month. That’s up from 50% previously.

A quarterly series (an average of the three months) will continue to be published.

What does the new monthly measure mean for our understanding of inflation?

The monthly series will be more volatile

A monthly consumer price index can swing a lot reflecting temporary fluctuations in the volatile prices of goods such as petrol, fruit and vegetables. These get smoothed out somewhat – but not totally removed – in a quarterly index.

The inflation rate based on the new monthly series will therefore be more volatile than that based on the quarterly. We will need to build up some history before we know just how much more volatile. But the experience with the partial monthly measure (and experience in other countries) provides a guide.

The Reserve Bank has commented it “will take time to learn about the properties of the monthly CPI data”.

The Reserve Bank will “initially continue to focus on measures of underlying inflation from the quarterly CPI”. It will forecast the quarterly rather than the monthly CPI.

The monthly index will sometimes give earlier warning of a changing trend in inflation. For example, in mid-2025 the jump from 1.9% in June to 3.0% in August was a warning that inflation was no longer falling.

But it can also give misleading signals. In late 2022, the monthly index showed inflation jumping from 7.4% to 8.4%. But the quarterly index revealed inflation had peaked at 7.8% in the December quarter.

In mid-2023, the monthly index showed inflation picking up from 4.9% in July to 5.6% in September; yet the quarterly index showed inflation was continuing to decline.

In mid-2025 the monthly index showed inflation was down to 1.9%, below the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target band, leading some commentators to expect a run of further interest rate cuts. But we now know (underlying) inflation has been staying stubbornly near the top of the Reserve Bank’s band.

The Melbourne Institute has produced a monthly Australian inflation gauge since 2002. But it isn’t much quoted, perhaps because of the volatility.

Too much information?

Encouraging the media and the public to pay more attention to the monthly index might create the impression there’s more inflation than there is.

Behavioural economics says people are “loss averse”. They pay more attention to bad news (high inflation) than good news (low inflation). The monthly figures mean the media will be reporting inflation news 12 times a year, rather than four.

Media reporting each month might amplify things. When the monthly number is low, this may get less attention. Some commentators might even succumb to the temptation to “annualise” a month’s movement, multiplying by 12. This can present a misleading, or alarming, picture.

Over the longer term, the more volatile annual inflation rate based on the monthly data may be within the 2-3% target band less often than the rate calculated from the quarterly data.

The Reserve Bank’s task of restraining inflationary expectations may therefore become harder with the focus shifting to the new monthly measure.

John Hawkins, Head, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra

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

For many men the gradual thinning of hair is about more than just their appearance. Finasteride, a drug widely prescribed for the treatment of male pattern baldness has been used effectively for many years for this deeply personal problem.

Yet, behind its use are growing concerns about its link to the development of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts.

There is now critical discussion among both users and health-care professionals about the potential hazards associated with its continued use.

So how does the drug work? And what does the evidence say about the risk of developing a mental health problem?

How does finasteride work?

Finasteride is used to treat androgenetic alopecia, also known as male pattern baldness. It works to regrow hair and prevent the further loss of hair.

One of the key causes of pattern baldness is the production of a hormone called dihydrotestosterone which the body makes from testosterone. When it binds to the follicles of hairs, it initiates a process called hair follicle miniaturisation. This is where the growth cycle of the hair becomes progressively shorter, resulting in thinner and weaker hair.

Finasteride works by blocking the enzyme that converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. By blocking the enzyme, dihydrotestosterone concentrations can be reduced by around 60–70% for the majority of men.

Finasteride was first approved in the late 1990s as a prescription-only medicine and is taken as a daily 1 milligram oral tablet. Medications available at a higher 5 mg daily dose are not used for baldness, but as a treatment for non-cancerous prostate enlargement.

This medication is not indicated for women, even though they can also have this type of hair loss.

How can it impact your mental health?

Changes in mental health are not listed as an established side effect in Australian guidance given to health-care professionals.

Based on clinical trials, the most common effects include:

• decreased libido
• erectile dysfunction
• reduced semen production.

The guidance also describes an increased risk of prostate cancer and a potential risk for breast cancer. Yes, men can get breast cancer too.

While initial clinical trials conducted to obtain approval for the drug didn’t demonstrate mental health concerns, monitoring of patients using the drug has since indicated a potential increased risk of depression and suicidal thoughts. But as this is based on patients self-reporting symptoms, according to the guidance there is no definitive link.

However, in May 2025, the European Medicines Agency safety committee stated suicidal thoughts was a confirmed side effect of finasteride. The European Union also advises patients that finasteride can cause a depressed mood and depression.

Similarly, in a warning about compounded finasteride, the United States Food and Drug Administration stated in April 2025 that topical formulations of the drug has similar side effects to the oral version. These include depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

What should you do if it is affecting your mental health?

If you notice changes in your mental health while taking the drug, try not to handle significant mood changes by yourself. If you’re feeling unusually low, anxious or emotionally unstable, check in with a doctor so they can help you figure out whether finasteride is contributing to your mood and what support you may need.

If the symptoms are mild, they may suggest pausing finasteride to see whether things improve, or continuing with additional mental health support. If your symptoms are more severe, stopping the medication and getting prompt medical review may be appropriate.

If you are taking finasteride and are worried about its side effects, it is safe to stop immediately. Most side effects ease once the medication is out of your system, although a small number of people have reported symptoms that persist.

If you do decide to stop, this will mean that your hormone levels will gradually return to baseline and the hair growth seen with the drug will be lost over time.

If finasteride is not the right fit for you, there is another evidence-based alternative.

Topical minoxidil is a first-line treatment that can be used on its own or with other treatments and is available from pharmacies over the counter. It only works while it’s being used and may irritate the scalp, but its effectiveness is well-established and widely recommended.

While depression and anxiety are associated with minoxidil, the incidence is much lower because of their topical application.

There is also a medication called dutasteride. However, as it works in a similar way to finasteride, it may also increase your risk of developing mental health problems. So it is best to avoid dutasteride if finasteride is not suitable for you.

If this story has raised any issues for you, please contact one of the services below:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au

• Suicide Call Back Service (ages 15+): 1300 659 467 or suicidecallbackservice.org.au

Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University and Jasmine Lee, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

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

Australia has made major progress in curbing drink driving. Decades of random breath testing, enforcement and powerful social media campaigns have cut alcohol-related road deaths significantly.

Yet new data show more fatal crashes now involve drugs than alcohol.

So, how has drug driving become so prevalent despite strict laws? Why has deterrence succeeded for alcohol but faltered for drugs? And what policy and behavioural changes can reverse this growing source of road trauma?

National trends

National crash data confirm the changing face of road risk.

Between 2010 and 2023, fatal crashes involving drug driving rose from 7.6% to 16.8% – an increase that makes drug driving the most common risk factor in fatal crashes.

During the same period, crashes linked to drink driving fell from 21.6% to 12%, while those linked to not wearing seat belts dropped from 15.3% to 14.7%.

A breakdown of drivers and motorcyclists shows how drastically the balance has shifted.

Among drivers, the share of fatalities involving an illegal blood alcohol concentration has fallen steadily – from about 30% to 14% between 2008 and 2023.

Among motorcyclists it dropped even further, from 27% to 10%.

Yet over the same period, deaths where drugs were detected surged in both groups – roughly quadrupling for drivers and motorcyclists alike, now accounting for about one in five motorcyclist fatalities.

State-level data

Last year in Queensland, there were 49 road fatalities involving drugs, compared with 42 involving alcohol.

In July 2023, the state expanded roadside screening to include cocaine, with more than 1,400 positive detections since.

In New South Wales, drug driving charges have risen more than 30-fold since 2008. Testing volumes have increased, but so, too, has the percentage of positive results, from roughly 2% to peaks near 18%.

Toxicology records confirm a parallel rise in the proportion of road deaths where drugs are detected compared to alcohol, indicating the trend cannot be explained by the increase in testing volume alone.

In Victoria, about 3% of licensed drivers are tested for drugs each year, targeting cannabis, methamphetamine and MDMA.

South Australia has just announced its testing regime will be expanded to include screening for cocaine.

How does testing work?

Drivers are first screened for alcohol when they are stopped. If no alcohol is detected, police may ask for an oral-fluid test using a saliva swab.

The process detects trace amounts of illicit drugs, not impairment itself.

The swab collects saliva, producing an initial result within minutes. If a test shows a positive reading, a second sample is taken and sent to a laboratory for confirmation.

Unlike alcohol testing, which measures a driver’s blood-alcohol concentration against a defined legal limit, drug testing operates under a zero-tolerance rule.

This means any measurable amount of the targeted drugs – cannabis, methamphetamine, MDMA or cocaine in most states – is an offence.

Roadside drug tests are more complex and costlier than breath tests.

In 2024, Australian police conducted about 10.3 million random breath tests, resulting in roughly 58,000 positive detections – a positive rate of 0.6%.

By contrast, there were only 500,000 roadside drug tests but they yielded more than 52,000 positive results – a tenfold higher detection rate.

Behavioural factors

Recent studies show drug driving has grown mainly for three overlapping reasons:

• perception among drivers they won’t get caught
• perception of weaker social stigma around drug driving
• drug testing remaining far less frequent than alcohol testing.

Many drivers believe they won’t be caught. Exposure to roadside drug testing remains low – in some states, fewer than 2% of licensed motorists are tested in a year.

Meanwhile, some social media users send out “police-location” alerts which can help other drivers avoid enforcement sites.

These factors lower the perceived risk of apprehension.

Recent Australian research also found a stark contrast in how drivers view alcohol and drug impairment.

Participants often described drink driving as more dangerous and socially unacceptable whereas drug driving was often considered less risky and less likely to attract police attention.

Misconceptions and lack of awareness about the impairment effects of drugs may also contribute: drug users often perceive their driving ability as unimpaired.

In reality, the drugs most often detected have very different impairment profiles – but all, in their own ways, increase the risk of a crash.

Stimulants such as methamphetamine or cocaine can make drivers more aggressive and reckless. Cannabis slows reaction time, impairs people’s judgement of time and distance, and reduces coordination, particularly within the first few hours after use.

Using drugs together, or combining them with alcohol, further amplifies impairment.

What can be done?

Australia’s success in curbing drink driving came from the right mix of laws, visibility and social messaging.

Tackling drug driving will require the same balance but adapted to new realities.

Four strategies could make a difference:

Testing strategically. Sheer volume isn’t enough. Enforcement should focus on unpredictable, data-driven deployments – targeting high-risk times, routes and driver groups. Deterrence improves when testing resources are used strategically.

Creating more visibility. Drivers don’t need to be tested to be deterred. Regularly seeing roadside operations can raise the perceived risk of being caught.

Countering evasion networks. Social media platforms and group chats that warn users about testing locations undermine deterrence. Police can counter this by tracking these alerts and rotating testing sites and times.

Reframing the message. Public campaigns must highlight how long impairment lasts, the risks of mixing substances and the illusion of control many drug-using drivers report. Australia’s iconic anti-drink driving slogans – such as “if you drink, then drive, you’re a bloody idiot” – helped build powerful social norms. A new generation of drug driving campaigns will need to do the same.

Milad Haghani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience, The University of Melbourne

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

An increasing number of Australian school students are applying for an early offer to university, before they have their exam results back.

Last Thursday, nearly 16,000 students in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory got an early offer through the University Admissions Centre, after a 3% growth in applications from last year. This follows a 19% increase in applications between 2023 and 2024.

But amid some concerns about the popularity of these schemes – what does it do to students’ motivation for their final exams? – there has been little research into who is doing this and why.

In our new report we survey almost 4,000 Year 12 students about their thoughts on early offers.

How do early offers work?

Many Australian universities allow Year 12 students to apply for an undergraduate place in a wide range of courses before they finish the school year.

Criteria for entry include a combination of Year 11 results or predicted ATAR, a recommendation from school, personal statements or extracurricular activities.

Typically announced from September, the scheme allows students to receive early acceptance into university before undertaking their final exams. There may be conditions students still need to meet, such as receiving certain scores and passing Year 12. But some offers are unconditional.

This is in contrast to the main round of offers, which come out in January, after exams are over and results are released.

Our research

In our new report, we analysed data from the GENERATION study, a national survey of young people conducted by the Australian National University. Students were recruited from all Australian states and school sectors. Here, we report findings from 3,821 young people who were completing Year 12 in 2024.

University aspirations were high among these Year 12 students, with 69% reporting they planned to go to university, either immediately after finishing school or sometime in the future.

In this round of data, we looked at which students were also applying for early offers, and their motivations for doing so.

Who applied?

We surveyed students between May and July of 2024. Overall, 46% of all Year 12 students reported they were either planning to apply, were in the process of applying, or had already applied to a university through an early offer scheme.

There were significant differences between states and territories.

For example, 71% of students in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory reported planning to apply for an early offer, as most universities in these jurisdictions have early offer schemes and there is a centralised application process.

Fewer students applied for early offers in Victoria (37%) and South Australia (25%). This is likely because two of the largest universities in Victoria did not have an early offer scheme in place, and no universities in South Australia have a scheme.

Female students more likely to apply

Female students were more likely to apply than their male peers (60% compared to 44%). Students from private schools were slightly more likely to apply for an early offer than students from government schools (57% compared to 54%).

We also explored whether educationally disadvantaged students were more or less likely to apply for an early offer.

We already know students from an equity group – those from regional/remote areas and disadvantaged schools and those with a disability or from an Indigenous background – are less likely to attend university than the general population. The federal government wants to boost university participation from these underrepresented groups.

Overall, we found the percentage of students who intended to apply for an early offer was lower for equity students (47%) compared to students not in an equity group (59%). However, among students who planned to go to university, the proportions were similar (64% and 69% respectively).

Some students said applying early allowed them to take advantage of equity schemes. As one government school student told us:

Some universities offer equity scholarships for disadvantaged students. I’m a foster kid who left home to escape domestic violence and abuse, so these opportunities are really helpful.

Why are they applying?

Students also reported other reasons for applying for an early offer. This included guaranteeing a place at university. As one student from an ACT government school told us, he wanted to “more effectively plan my future”.

Other students wanted a safety net if other plans did not work out. A Victorian private school student explained, “I want to have as many options as possible for university […].”

Students also told us an early offer could reduce stress in an already stressful year of exams, future planning and decisions. In a previous report, we found 31% of Year 12 students reported significant levels of distress. As one student from a Tasmanian private school told us:

I do get quite anxious and suffer from burnout. [An early offer] gets the stress of applying for uni out of the way early.

Do students slack off?

Some schools have raised concerns students who get an early offer no longer try as hard with their studies for the remainder of Year 12.

While the timing of our survey means we can’t directly test this hypothesis (students were surveyed before getting offers), we did test whether levels of student engagement in Year 11 were associated with planning or applying for an early offer. We had measured the same students’ engagement levels in an earlier survey in 2023.

We found 67% of highly engaged students – those who reported active participation in class and worked hard to meet teacher expectations – wanted to apply for an early offer. This compares to 54% of students rated as low engaged students in Year 11.

So this does not suggest students applying for an early offers scheme intend to slack off. Rather it suggests highly engaged students are planning to apply, perhaps because they want more certainty and to relieve stress.

The next round of our survey (currently being conducted) will give us more insight, as we track the same group through end of school and beyond.

Ben Edwards, Professor, Child and Youth Development and Longitudinal Studies, Australian National University; Jessica Arnup, Research Fellow, Centre for Social Policy Research, Australian National University, and Kate Doery, Research Officer, Centre for Social Policy Research, Australian National University

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

The blue and red boxes with white dots are immediately recognisable as containing Domino’s pizzas. The pizza chain is Australia’s largest and is run as a franchise, with the ASX-listed public company Domino’s Pizza Enterprises holding the Australian master franchise rights.

Industry analysts IBISWorld calculate Domino’s has 4.2% of the fast food and takeaway market in Australia.

But recent reports suggest all is not well with many of the store owners, who are struggling with rising costs and declining profitability.

Troubling reports

The central issue appears to be what the federal government describes in its code of conduct as the “the imbalance of power between franchisors and franchisees”.

The Australian Financial Review has reported troubling claims in two key areas:

• Domino’s appears to have doubled the margin on the key food ingredients it sells to franchisees and increased its advertising levy, according to a letter from store owners represented by the Australian Association of Franchisees. This could reduce their profitability

• Domino’s Australian chief operating officer, Greg Steenson, reportedly encouraged franchisees in a presentation to take advantage of restructuring schemes that allow insolvent companies to continue to trade by negotiating repayment plans with the tax office and other creditors.

In a letter to Domino’s quoted in the report, the franchisees said their earnings have remained flat for 15 years, and have not kept up with inflation.

A long history of disputes

A former franchisee told a parliamentary inquiry into the franchising model the margin squeeze meant

franchisees can be ripped off by [Domino’s Pizza Enterprises] when forced to buy supplies at a higher price than they could get through their wholesalers.

He said the cost of food, labour, rent and other fixed costs had risen, but in 2019 pizzas were still sold at 1990s prices. “Nobody is left to pay for this but the franchisees,” the former owner said.

According to the Financial Review article, the cost of supplies remains a problem for franchisees. Time will tell whether Domino’s proposed 70 cent increase in pizza prices will help.

In response to questions from the Financial Review, Domino’s said the food margin had not “materially changed” in five years, despite volatility in ingredients prices.

Government reviews found the previous regulations had loopholes that did not sufficiently protect franchisees. There have been a string of high-profile disputes involving auto services company Ultra Tune, coffee chain 85 Degrees Coffee, Pizza Hut and others.

Following a 2024 inquiry, changes to the code of conduct were introduced this year.

Advertising costs on the rise

Advertising expenditure comes from what is now known as a “special purpose fund” in the code of conduct. Franchisors need to provide franchisees with disclosure about how the money is spent.

In 2017, the consumer regulator Australian Competition and Consumer Commission fined Domino’s A$18,000 for allegedly slipping on its obligations to advise franchisees about its marketing spend.

Ensuring franchisees have a genuine say in how their increased contribution is spent could help to address any imbalance of power between Domino’s and its franchisees.

Franchisees reportedly now pay 6% of their earnings to Domino’s for marketing and advertising, up from 5.35%. That is in addition to 7% of gross sales paid as royalties, and other costs for email and bookkeeping.

What insolvent means

The insolvency law for small businesses is explained by the Australian Taxation Office as a process that enables financially distressed but viable firms to restructure their existing debts and continue to trade.

The press reports say the franchisees of about 65 Domino’s stores were on repayment plans with the Australian Taxation Office. Many franchisees own two or more outlets.

Under the Corporations legislation, companies on these repayment plans may be trading insolvent, or believe they will become insolvent. Insolvent means they cannot pay their debts when they fall due. If this is the case, a key question that needs to be answered by Domino’s is whether their franchised outlets can become profitable.

In another media report, Domino’s was quoted as saying it disputed the number of stores on repayment plans, adding it was a “significantly smaller” number of franchisees.

The company was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.

What this means for the stores

So what does this mean for Domino’s store owners who may be trading insolvent?

Under the law, the restructuring process allows eligible small business companies:

• to retain control of the business, property and affairs while developing a plan to restructure with the assistance of a small business restructuring practitioner
• to enter into a restructuring plan with creditors.
  

If a company proposes a restructuring plan to its creditors, it is taken to be insolvent. This is a game changer for the franchisee and its creditors.

Franchisees receive protection from creditors who want to enforce rights under existing contracts. A franchisee’s creditors include suppliers, its landlord, employees, the tax office and the franchisor (in this case, Domino’s).

Currently these store owners are protected from any creditors pushing them to pay their debts. The restructuring process gives the store owners some breathing room while the debt negotiations take place.

The imbalance of power persists

Despite government inquiries and reviews, it seems the imbalance of power between the Domino’s franchisees and their franchisor persists.

But Domino’s can’t afford to stay the same. Franchisees need to make a profit. The move to enter restructuring could be a temporary band aid.

Domino’s largest shareholder and executive chairman, Jack Cowin, was appointed in July after the former chief executive left after just seven months. Cowin understands the franchised fast food sector and has pledged to lead a cost reduction program that will improve the profitability of stores.

Jenny Buchan, Emeritus Professor, Business School, UNSW Sydney

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

Once again, the annual shopping extravaganza known as “Black Friday” is nearly upon us, this year falling on November 28. But the sales are already well underway.

What started as a single-day discounted shopping event on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States has blown out to a weeks-long sales festival, in stores and online. And it has spread around much of the world – including to Australia.

It might feel like a great time to try to score a bargain. But this week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) put retailers on notice. The consumer watchdog announced it would be watching out for various kinds of misleading sales conduct that can be used to trick consumers.

If found to be engaging in misleading or deceptive sales conduct, retailers may face heavy financial penalties. But as a consumer, it also pays to understand how these dodgy tactics work, so you can’t be duped this sales season.

Dodgy sales tactics

The ACCC says it is on the lookout for a range of misleading or deceptive sales advertising tactics. Examples include:

• advertising sales as “storewide” when only some items are discounted
• countdown clocks or timers that show a shorter period than the actual sale (to create false urgency)
• fine-print disclaimers that exclude some items from the sale
• “up to X% off” discounts that only apply to a few items (or the “up to” text is not prominently displayed)
• price comparisons of before and after sale discounts that are not accurate (including where the price has gone up in a short period before the discount was applied).

Sadly, there are many examples of allegedly misleading sales conduct occurring at peak shopping periods.

Following a similar sweep of last year’s Black Friday sales, the ACCC recently fined three retailers for allegedly misleading customers by advertising discounts as “storewide” when only some items were on sale.

In 2019, the online marketplace Kogan offered a “tax time” discount of 10% on products that had had their price increased immediately before the promotion (by at least 10% in most cases). It was subsequently fined A$350,000 for misleading conduct in breach of Australian Consumer Law.

Why is the ACCC so strict about this kind of conduct?

These examples of dodgy conduct might seem annoying. But they don’t seem earth-shatteringly bad – such as selling physically dangerous products.

Why is the ACCC so concerned about misleading conduct at Black Friday sale time, and indeed retail pricing more generally?

Shouldn’t consumers just be more careful? The answer lies in the cumulative harms of misleading pricing conduct.

Manipulating consumers through marketing

Sales rely on consumers thinking they are getting a good deal on products they want. And sometimes sales marketing seeks to persuade consumers the deal is better than it really is.

Marketing strategies such as countdown timers, strike-through prices or promoted large percentage discounts are designed to appeal to consumers’ emotions and to rush them into closing off a purchase.

Consumers with heightened emotions or feeling pressure to grab a deal are less likely to make a rational assessment of the real value of the discount being offered to them. This is why truth in sales advertising is so important.

What consumer protection laws are for

We have strong protections against misleading conduct in Australia for good reason. If sellers can trick consumers into buying goods at discounts that are actually illusory, those dishonest sellers gain an advantage over honest sellers selling at a transparent and accurate price.

This risks a market that rewards poor conduct and encourages an overall rush to the bottom.

Australian Consumer Law takes the view that consumers should be able take the advertisements they see at face value. Consumers shouldn’t have to assume they are going to be tricked by sellers.

Such an approach would not conform to the object of enhancing the “welfare of Australians” through “the promotion of competition and fair trading” that underlies Australian Consumer Law.

Stopping a bad deal

If you are considering buying goods at the Black Friday sales, it is a good idea to screenshot the item before it goes on sale. That way you can check if the sale discount is genuine and the item is actually the same as the one you want (not an older or cheaper model).

When shopping at a sale, take time to look at the discount offered. Is it a real discount? Does it justify the spend coming up to the holiday period? Discounts may be marked up in an attractive colour but still not represent good value.

Finally, if you think you have been misled by a pricing strategy, such as a discount that isn’t genuine or a fine-print qualification on the discount that is advertised, you can complain to the ACCC.

Ideally, take screenshots of what was advertised and what you received to support your claim to be treated fairly at sales time.

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.

The period immediately after completing Year 12 can feel unexpectedly anticlimactic.

You have been building up to the end of school for years, then there is the intensity and pressure of exams and festivities of formals and graduation ceremonies. And then suddenly, it’s all over.

Irrespective of how much you enjoyed school, it can be a vulnerable time. The familiar structure of school is gone and the next chapter is murky.

Now, you may face weeks or months of waiting, for exam results or to start study or work. Perhaps there is the (exciting but perhaps terrifying) limbo of a gap year.

Any kind of transition – even a positive one – can be stressful.

You can’t remove the uncertainty. But here are some research-informed strategies to help support you as you navigate the next chapter.

Reflect and debrief

It can be useful to reflect on Year 12. You’ve just completed something major, what did you learn about yourself? This is a life skill that is transferable across a range of contexts and research shows it facilitates self discovery.

Ask yourself what worked, what surprised you, what values or strengths did you discover?

For example, if you’ve applied to do a science degree, but the thing you loved most about Year 12 was your art major work, do you need reconsider your uni preferences? Remember many degrees offer broadening units (units outside your major) which allow you to explore other interests as well.

Make a flexible plan

You may already have a plan for what you do next. Or maybe you don’t. This period is a good time to think through your options, away from the stress and focus of exams.

There are many pathways after school, from TAFE, traineeships, short courses as well as university.

You also don’t need to map out your whole life. You could just include some small, manageable milestones. For example, “this week I’ll research options,” “by the end of the month I’ll have a shortlist of what I want to do next year”.

‘Active’ waiting

Rather than sitting around passively, waiting for “the next stage”, think of something different to do with your time.

This could include some paid work, volunteering or a project – such as starting a new sport, or joining a local community group. There are groups as diverse as tree planting through to visiting your local aged care home.

This is a time where you can explore a field of interest, gaining work, or volunteer experience or developing a new skill like obtaining a barista or responsible service of alcohol licence.

These can also widen your social circle and help you start to see what life outside school looks like.

Maintain some routines

While you need a break after all the work, it’s good for your mental health to continue with some routines.

This includes getting enough sleep and regular exercise.

Monitor wellbeing

Are you OK? This is a stressful time.

Watch for signs of demotivation, persistent anxiety, withdrawal from friends or things you usually like to do, or feeling hopeless. These can be early indicators of mental health strain.

Seek help from a trusted adult or your GP if you are worried – and don’t wait to speak up.

A note for parents

For any parents reading, this can also be a tricky time. Legally, your child may now be an adult or just about to become one.

Research tells us 17- and 18-year-olds do not develop in a linear way. This means they may be ready for some challenges and thrown by others.

So it becomes difficult to know when to provide support and when to pull back and even let young people make their own mistakes. Each young person is different. Some may know exactly what they want and others may need more exploration time. Research shows imposing pressure or controlling too tightly tends to backfire.

For parents it can help to:

• stay emotionally present. Parental warmth and connection remain crucial even as the child seeks independence. So listen and validate uncertainty but resist the urge to “have all the answers”

• understand the role shift. You’re becoming more of an adviser, rather than a director in your child’s life. Ask questions and listen carefully to their answers. Their experience will differ to yours, so try to avoid leaping in with your own stories

• negotiate new boundaries. Maybe you paid their phone bill while they were at school, but this will change once they get a job. Talk this through. Clarity helps avoid resentment

• monitor wellbeing. Is your child overly stressed or depressed? Do they need help from a health professional? If they are transitioning out of youth mental health services, ensure there’s appropriate handover to adult services or a GP.

If this article has raised issues for you or someone you know, contact Kids Helpline (for ages 5–25 and parents): 1800 55 1800 or kidshelpline.com.au.

Sarah Jefferson, Senior Lecturer in Education, Edith Cowan University

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

At the end of November, official schoolies celebrations will begin for the class of 2025. While the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Lorne and Victor Harbour are still popular, young people are also choosing to travel internationally to celebrate the end of school.

Last year, an estimated 8,000 school leavers went to Bali. Fiji, Vanuatu and Thailand are also popular schoolies destinations.

My work focuses on keeping young people safe from harm at large events. Here’s what you should consider before booking an overseas schoolies trip.

Local laws are different

Laws can be very different overseas. In Indonesia, for example, the local drinking age is 21, and this applies to both nationals and foreigners.

Many drugs are prohibited and have severe penalties. What might be considered a minor offence in Australia can have serious legal consequences, including imprisonment in Indonesia.

Knowing and respecting local laws is crucial to ensure you stay safe while celebrating.

Young people can also be targeted for theft and harm, such as drink spiking, by locals, who may view schoolies as wealthy and inexperienced.

Drinking safely

Since schoolies began in Australia in the 1970s, the event has been designed for young people. This has involved efforts to keep the party environment safe as young people celebrate the end of their school years.

Australian schoolies venues are set up with the expectation schoolies will drink and get up to a bit of mischief. So free services have been developed to support school leavers to party, while reducing the risks of harm.

They include chill out zones, giving out lollies, free water and recharge stations.

Overseas, there may not be regulations to protect young people from the harmful consequence of drinking and drinks may not be safe. This includes the risk of methanol spiking, which can be lethal.

If you are drinking overseas, stick to licensed venues, and stick to sealed and labelled drinks. Be cautious about unusually cheap drinks.

Volunteers and police

If you go to schoolies in Australia, there are dedicated teams of volunteers at official events. These volunteers walk around the venue to ensure people are safe. They can help you find your friends, take you to a safe space or stay with you if you are alone.

There are also event personnel to help you get food or drink or recharge your phone and you can talk to them without consequences. If things go wrong, there is medical attention on standby and it is free and confidential. Police are also there to ensure you are safe.

Overseas, language barriers and unfamiliar environments can make it harder to access help and make safer choices. Some venues may have volunteer helpers, but overall, there are no dedicated medical or police teams to help you if you get into trouble.

Wherever you are partying, make a plan beforehand to stick with your friends and look out for each other. Avoid going anywhere alone, especially at night, and always organise a meet up spot in case you do get separated or your phone dies.

Access to consular and medical support

If something goes wrong overseas there may be limited consular support if you have broken local laws – even if you didn’t mean to. Health systems may not offer the same standard of care and medical evacuation can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Even if you have travel insurance, it may not always include coverage for alcohol or drug-related incidents.

There will still be huge parties in Australia

Going overseas is exciting, but schoolies is a recognised rite of passage in Australia – supported by a wide range of services designed to help young people celebrate safely.

Staying at home doesn’t mean missing out, it means celebrating in an environment created for young people, surrounded by friends, safety supports, and familiar systems.

Alison Hutton, Professor of Nursing, Western Sydney University

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

Knowing the age of an animal reveals key information about how long it lives and when it reproduces.

Age is also essential to understanding the health of a population and how well it can cope with threats such as pollution and habitat loss.

But figuring out the age of wild animals is not easy, especially for dolphins.

Until recently, researchers had to slice the teeth of dead dolphins and count growth layers, much like tree rings.

This method becomes more problematic in older animals because teeth wear and the growth layers sit closer together, which can lead to dolphins’ age being underestimated. It is obviously also impossible to extract teeth from living dolphins.

In our new research, we linked DNA markers with known tooth ages of dead dolphins to build the first molecular “epigenetic clock” for common dolphins (Delphinus delphis).

This allows scientists to estimate the age of living common dolphins from just a skin sample, opening a new window onto the lives of these iconic animals.

But this research also raises two key questions: could the limitations of tooth-based ageing affect the accuracy of the clock, and does DNA degradation in dead animals influence the age estimates? Our work addresses both concerns.

How DNA becomes a clock

New DNA-based techniques are transforming how scientists estimate age by reading tiny chemical changes in DNA that change predictably as animals grow older.

Researchers have studied these DNA patterns in hundreds of mammal species and developed epigenetic clocks – reliable tools that estimate age without having to remove teeth or use invasive methods.

While epigenetic clocks are now emerging for dolphins, these DNA changes have only been studied in a few species so far. Until now, no epigenetic clock has existed for common dolphins – one of the world’s most widespread dolphin species.

This is because scientists first need skin samples from animals whose ages are already known to build these clocks.

These reference ages often come from dolphins monitored since birth in the wild or from animals in human care. But for many long-lived species, such long-term records simply don’t exist.

A handful of studies used tooth ages from dead dolphins, but this has historically raised questions about the effect of decomposition, and also whether errors in tooth ageing older animals may affect accuracy of the DNA clocks.

To address these concerns, we analysed 75 common dolphins that had stranded or been accidentally caught in fishing nets in New Zealand. For each animal, we counted growth layers in teeth to determine age and used a skin sample to measure DNA markers at almost 38,000 sites across the genome.

We combined these data to build a model that estimates age from DNA to create an epigenetic clock for common dolphins.

Putting the clock to the test

Our clock can predict age to within about two years, although estimates became less precise in older dolphins.

This brings us back to our key question: is this due to less accurate tooth ageing in older animals, or because DNA breaks down after death?

In our study, the clock tended to underestimate the age of older dolphins. However, if tooth ageing were the problem, we would expect the opposite — that the DNA clock would give older ages than tooth readings.

This makes dental ageing errors unlikely. We also tested whether skin decomposition affected age estimates, and found no effect.

Why then are older dolphins underestimated? This is a biological effect seen in many species. The DNA changes that track age become more gradual later in life, which means the clock has fewer signals to work with.

It’s not caused by teeth or decay, but because ageing slows naturally at the molecular level.

A game changer for dolphin conservation

Our findings address longstanding concerns about whether tooth ages are reliable to calibrate epigenetic clocks. We show the method is genuinely robust, even when using stranded or by-caught dolphins.

This means DNA age clocks can be built for animals whose ages are only known from tooth readings. This is important because for many dolphin species, tooth records from dead animals are the main or only method scientists have to determine an individual’s age.

This molecular clock is a major step forward for conserving common dolphins.

Scientists can now determine age from minimally invasive biopsy samples and, in turn, estimate survival and reproductive rates in free-ranging wild dolphins.

This will help identify how threats such as climate change and fisheries bycatch affect different age groups.

Common dolphins are one of the most widespread dolphin species on Earth and have long been considered abundant. But they face significant human pressures globally and are increasingly vulnerable.

In New Zealand and across Australasia, they are among the most frequently caught dolphins in fisheries bycatch. Experience from other regions such as the Mediterranean Sea shows that even “common” species can decline rapidly under sustained pressures such as overfishing, pollution and habitat degradation.

Being able to accurately estimate age from a small skin sample means scientists can better understand how long common dolphins live, when they reproduce and how many young survive. Such information is critical for protecting populations before they decline.

Evi Hanninger, PhD Candidate in Marine Science, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University; Emma Betty, Research Officer in Cetacean Ecology, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University; Karen A Stockin, Professor of Marine Ecology, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University; Katharina J. Peters, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, and Livia Gerber, Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetics, CSIRO

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

During the 1240s, Richard Fishacre, a Dominican friar at Oxford University, used his knowledge of light and colour to show that the stars and planets are made of the same elements found here on Earth. In so doing he challenged the scientific orthodoxy of his day and pre-empted the methods and discoveries of the 21st-century James Webb space telescope.

Following the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, medieval physics affirmed that the stars and planets were made from a special celestial element – the famous “fifth element” (quinta essentia) or “quintessence”. Unlike the four elements found here on Earth (fire, water, earth and air), this “fifth element” is perfect and unchanging.

Fully transparent, it formed the basis of what were believed to be the nine concentric celestial “spheres” surrounding the Earth, as well as the various stars and planets attached to them. These, it was argued, were merely condensed versions of the “fifth element”, with each of the first seven spheres having its own planet, and the outermost eighth and ninth spheres containing the stars and heaven itself, respectively.

Colour, light and the stars

Lacking access to telescopes and rock samples, Fishacre – the first Dominican friar to teach theology at Oxford University – openly rejected the idea that the stars and planets were made from some special “fifth element”. In his opinion, they consisted of the same four elements found here.

His reason for asserting this position was his understanding of how colour and light behave.

Colour, Fishacre noted, is typically associated with opaque bodies. These, however, are always composite, meaning made up of two or more of the four terrestrial elements. When we look up at the stars and planets, however, we see that the light they emit often has a faint colour. Mars appears red, and Venus yellow, for example. This suggests, of course, that they are composite and thus made “ex quattuor elementis” – “out of the four elements”.

In Fishacre’s opinion the surest proof that the stars and planets were not made of some special “fifth element” came from the Moon. It has a very definite colour, and, crucially, every so often it eclipses the Sun. Were it made from the transparent fifth element – even a highly condensed version of it – then surely the Sun’s light would pass through it, just as it does a pane of glass. This, however, is not the case.

The Moon, Fishacre reasoned, must therefore be made of the same elements found on Earth. And if this was true of the Moon, which is the lowest celestial body, then it must also be true of all the other stars and planets.

A brave move

In arguing this, Fishacre knew that he was risking criticism. “If we posit this position,” he wrote, “then they, that crowd of Aristotelian know-it-alls (scioli aristoteli), will cry out and stone us”.

Sure enough, stones were thrown at Fishacre – and from high places. In 1250, his teaching was denounced at the University of Paris by St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, a Franciscan friar who ridiculed in his lectures those “moderns” like Fishacre who foolishly questioned Aristotle’s teaching on the celestial fifth element.

Contemporary astrophysics has, of course, vindicated Fishacre’s position. The stars and planets are not made of some special fifth element, but rather from many of the same metals and elements found here on our home planet. The James Webb space telescope, for example, recently established that the atmosphere of the Neptune-like exoplanet TOI-421 b, some 244 light years away, contains high quantities of water and sulphur dioxide.

Remarkably, how the James Webb space telescope established this – a process known as transmission spectroscopy – is very similar, at least in principle, to the method which Fishacre employed. It detected subtle variations in the brightness and colour of the light emitted by TOI-421 b which could only be caused by water and sulphur dioxide.

Given how much criticism his claims received, Fishacre would no doubt have been delighted to know that nearly 800 years after his death, contemporary astronomy, just like him, is using light and colour to show that far flung stars and planets are all made from the same elements.

William Crozier, Duns Scotus Assistant Professor of Franciscan Studies, Durham University

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

Today, olive oil is often hailed as helping to protect against disease, but beliefs in its medicinal or even sacred properties date back millennia.

Olive oil was used for healing and purification and associated with important rituals from at least the second millennium BCE, in ways which still influence practices today.

A holy liquid

Mid 2nd millennium BCE texts from the capital of the Hittite empire (in what is now Turkey) describe the anointing of a newborn child and the mother to ward off the dangers of birth.

In ancient Syria the high priestess of the god Baal was initiated with an anointing of “fine oil of the temple”.

Mycenaean Bronze Age tablets from the palace of Pylos in what is now Greece record the making of special scented oil to be offered to the gods.

In the Hebrew scriptures, oil is used to to initiate priests and kings such as David and Solomon, and to sanctify ritual objects.

A preserver of health

Olive oil was used by Greeks and Romans for cleansing and healing.

Oiling while bathing was a vital part of health regimes. No visit to the baths was complete without rubbing your body with oil (in place of soap) and scraping it off with a metal tool called a strigil.

Roman author Pliny the Elder wrote:

There are two liquids that are especially agreeable to the human body: wine inside and oil outside […] but oil is an absolute necessity.

He recommended olive oil as a cure for nettle stings and a base for many medicinal herbs.

Celsus, a Greek medical writer of the second century CE Roman Empire, advised:

If an exhausted person is bordering on a fever, they should immerse themselves […] in warm water to which a little oil has been added and then gently rub the whole body […] with oil.

Another medical writer Soranus says to anoint a newborn with olive oil, as had the Hittites 1,500 years earlier.

A recent study has shown that perfumed oil was used in Greco-Roman offerings to deities, and for the ritual anointing of statues.

Olive oil and Christianity

When Christianity developed in the later Roman Empire, the Greek term Christos was used as a translation of the Hebrew word messiah, meaning “one anointed with sacred oil”. This was the origin of the words Christian and Christ.

Scented and blessed olive oil called a chrism was used for sanctification and purification.

A church council of 381 CE records that:

Those who […] are being saved from the heretics […] are first anointed with holy chrism on the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears […] and then we baptise them.

Such perfumed olive oil was (and indeed still is) used to sanctify liturgical objects such as chalices, in rituals such as the ordination of priests, before baptism, and to anoint the sick.

Churches were lit by a new type of lamp called a polycandelon, which had multiple glass bowls filled with scented olive oil, as well as lamps made in symbolic shapes such as a dove, crown or boat. These symbolised the light of God and contributed a heavenly fragrance.

The oil from saints’ tombs and sacred places was reputed to bring about healing miracles. Reliquaries containing the remains of saints had special holes for oil to be poured in and then dispensed.

This and the scented oil from lamps at martyrs’ shrines was used to anoint the sick.

A ninth century text describes how at Saint Menas’ tomb in Egypt:

a lamp before the grave […] burned day and night and was filled with fragrant oil. And when anyone took of this lamp oil […] and rubbed a sick person with it the sick person was healed.

Pilgrims who visited holy sites collected such oil in flasks, hoping to take home its healing power.

The early Church not only used olive oil, but also produced it.

Sixth century and later monastic and church archives record gifts of olive groves and enslaved workers to ecclesiastical and monastic estates.

This is confirmed by my own recent research into archaeological finds of oil production remains in episcopal complexes, annexes attached to churches, and in monasteries.

Christian symbols appear on the seals of oil transport containers from a fourth century CE shipwreck recently found off the coast of Mallorca.

Their painted inscriptions identify the contents as a special “sweet oil”, perhaps produced at monasteries in southern Spain and marketed for ritual and healing use.

Olive oil today

Ancient uses of olive oil for rituals of initiation, sanctification and healing have a modern legacy.

In 2023, oil for the coronation of Charles III was harvested from groves on the Mount of Olives, processed at local monasteries and blessed by archbishops in Jerusalem.

The anointing ritual continued a tradition derived from early medieval coronations of the first English kings, in turn modelled on that of the ancient King Solomon.

Olive oil is still used in Christian sacraments, the consecration of churches, and anointing of the sick.

Beautiful to taste, touch, see and smell, olive oil has had a special significance in human history. Its uses today have grown from the roots of a long tradition.

Tamara Lewit, Honorary Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne

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

It has been more than 88 years since the world’s most famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart, and her navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared on the second-last leg of their around-the-world flight odyssey.

According to the United States government’s official report of the 16-day search, Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean, short of their objective of Howland Island, on July 2 1937.

The disappearance, which is often labelled as “mysterious”, continues to captivate the world. With no confirmed wreckage found, millions of dollars have been spent on repeated, fruitless searches. And sensational claims of a possible discovery make splashy headlines with alarming regularity.

Interest in Earhart’s case has also been bolstered by United States President Donald Trump who, in September, said he would order his administration to declassify secret government records related to the disappearance.

A cycle of discovery and disappointment

Many expeditions for Earhart have followed a predictable four-step pattern: a dramatic announcement of a new, startling find; “we found Amelia” stories in the press; the evidence is quietly debunked, or the expedition is postponed; the coverage fades from the media cycle until the next “startling find”. And repeat.

In recent months, we have seen extensive media coverage of yet another such planned expedition. The destination is the so-called “Taraia object”, photographed off Nikumaroro Island, Kiribati – some 644km south-west of Earhart’s destination of Howland Island.

The expedition team includes experts from Purdue University, and the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI), headed by ALI’s Executive Director Richard Pettigrew.

It is based on a hypothesis by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) that Nikumaroro Island was the final destination of Earhart and Noonan. However, the US government’s initial search (which included Nikumaroro) turned up no evidence of Earhart, Noonan or the aircraft.

Still, the joint ALI and Purdue team seem hopeful. As Pettigrew told Newsweek:

Everything that we see indicates it’s very possible, perhaps even likely, that this is what remains of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft.

The Conversation reached out to TIGHAR founder Ric Gillespie, who said he does not think the Taraia object is the wreck of Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10E Electra aircraft.

Originally scheduled to launch on November 4, the joint ALI and Purdue expedition was postponed last month due to issues with getting permits from the Kiribati government.

ALI continues to publicly fundraise for it, hoping to reach a target of US$900,000 for “Phase 1” (a site visit). Estimated costs for the proposed Phase 2 (the archaeological excavation) and Phase 3 (the “recovery of the aircraft remains”) are yet to be released.

Before ALI, there was TIGHAR

TIGHAR was founded by as a private non-profit in 1985 by Ric Gillespie, and has been searching for aircraft wrecks, including Earhart’s, since 1989. It has mounted at least five expeditions to Nikumaroro since 2010.

Last year, Gillespie said he was “absolutely certain” Earhart crash-landed and lived as a castaway on Nikumaroro Island. But no definitive evidence has been presented.

The organisation has never recovered a complete aircraft of any type, nor a single verified piece of an historic aircraft. For each search project, it raises funds from members, the public, and other interested parties.

Although Gillespie told The Conversation TIGHAR is currently “not fundraising for Earhart research or expeditions”, the organisation’s website contradicts this.

Dorothy Cochrane, a now-retired curator of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and a long time sceptic of TIGHAR’s work, said in 2016:

He’s (Ric Gillespie) used the same quote unquote evidence over and over again. […] He does this on a routine basis whenever he wants to mount another expedition … It’s his business. It’s his livelihood.

TIGHAR generates income through multiple channels, including various tiers of membership fees, the sale of publications, and general donations. But its website provides little information regarding how funds are allocated to or used within projects.

In response to questions about transparency around how donations are used, Gillespie told The Conversation:

TIGHAR is a recognised educational non-profit foundation. Like any non-profit organisation, we raise money to cover the cost doing our work. All US non-profits are prohibited from “making” money. All money raised is put into the organisation.

Professional heritage and preservation organisations have also raised concerns regarding private bodies searching for, and salvaging, historic wrecks – especially when such organisations only speak of finding and recovery, and not of subsequent preservation or research.

The competing hypotheses

There are several competing views on what happened to Earhart. Some searchers follow the official report’s finding that she crashed and sank close to Howland Island.

In January 2024, much media hype was generated by a sonar image – taken by exploration company Deep Sea Vision – of what some claimed was Earhart’s aircraft. But in November, it was revealed to be a natural rock formation, with far less publicity. Many people will have seen the “discovery”, but not the correction.

The Nauticos Corporation has also been searching for Amelia since 2001, mounting searches in 2002, 2006 and 2017. Each one has come back empty-handed.

Some searchers have also put forward outlandish theories that have all been debunked. These include the claims that Earhart was a spy for then US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, that she crashed in Papua New Guinea, that she was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and that she survived the flight and returned to live anonymously in the US.

Cultural fascination and media myth-making

The global media loves a sensational story: if it bleeds, it leads. But while there’s no fresh blood in the Earhart story, the legacy and modern media have contributed to the proliferation of reports from dubious organisations.

This kind of sensationalism can overshadow critical inquiry, and lead to unsupported claims being remembered long after quiet retractions and scientific rebuttals are published.

At the time of her death, Earhart was among the most famous women in the world. She was a record-breaking pilot, best-selling author, feminist hero and friend of the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She disappeared at the peak of her career, and towards the end of the golden age of aerial exploration.

Even people with no interest in historical aviation or aviation archaeology have heard of her, and want to read about the next expedition to find her. But at what cost?

Each high-tech expedition costs millions of dollars. As yet, not one has produced irrefutable evidence of the wreckage. As searches continue, we must ensure they are supported by ethical funding and evidenced-based reporting.

The story of Earhart’s disappearance persists not just because of what we don’t know, but because of how we choose to keep the myth alive. Perhaps one day we can let her rest in peace.

Natasha Heap, Program Director for the Bachelor of Aviation, University of Southern Queensland

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

Line dancing is enjoying a global resurgence, rising to a level of popularity not seen since Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart topped the charts in 1991.

But it’s no longer just for cowgirls and cowboys. While traditionally associated with country music, line dancing has evolved to include variations of waltz, swing, salsa, disco and rock'n'roll.

This kind of synchronised dance involves people in rows repeating choreographed steps. It doesn’t require a partner, so you can turn up solo and learn on the go. And its popularity is rising among people of all ages.

So, why has line dancing gone viral?

The craze is partly driven by social media users embracing line dancing’s easy-to-follow routines. But a post-COVID pandemic demand for gathering in community has also seen line dancing groups spring up in bars, clubs, community halls and outdoor areas.

It’s also nostalgic and accessible, with an emphasis on fun rather than skill.

While doing research on its health benefits, one of us (Danielle) decided to give line dancing a go. Unable to follow the steps at first, it was a lesson in humility. But a year later, Danielle is still happily pounding the floor each week in her line dancing group – and encouraging others to give this science-backed mood-booster a try.

Our research reviewed 16 studies about line dancing. Here are the health benefits we found.

1. It’s a workout

Line dancing is good exercise: it incorporates coordination and balance with a cardiovascular workout.

The steps can also be adapted to match the dancers’ abilities. Energetic young people might bootscoot and boogie while more mature dancers can shuffle and sway – all to the same tune.

Research has shown regular physical activity help prevent many chronic conditions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and even some cancers.

In older people, line dancing has been shown to improve motor skills, flexibility and gait, reducing fall risk and helping to maintain good overall health.

2. Good for mental health

Our study showed line dancing boosts mental wellbeing, reduces anxiety and depression, and relieves stress.

This is largely due to endorphins, the pain-relieving chemicals the body releases during exercise. They improve mood and can leave dancers feeling elated and full of joy and self-confidence after a session.

But you don’t even have to participate to feel the benefits. There is evidence to suggest watching dancing can stimulate some of the body’s mood-boosting responses and reduce stress.

3. It’s social – but you don’t need a partner

With more than 43% of young people saying they feel persistently lonely, and elder isolation on the rise, finding connection with other people is more important than ever.

Research shows participating in sport – and particularly team activities – is a protective factor against loneliness.

Compared to partnered types of dance such as ballroom, line dancing might seem like a solitary activity. But this actually means people can show up alone and still connect with others, uniting around an activity. People get involved with a community and may even develop friendships.

We found that line dancing can also break down cultural and social barriers and expand social support networks, helping to develop a sense of belonging and unity.

4. A workout for your brain, too

The combination of stomps, backsteps and kicks can be overwhelming at first. But the sense of achievement when you master these steps is worth it.

Studies have shown that, as line dancers become more proficient, their memory and brain function improves.

There is evidence this can help prevent dementia and improve university students’ concentration.

5. Line dancing builds community

Our research found line dancing has benefits beyond the individual.

For example, in one 2008 study researchers interviewed 30 women aged over 60 about their involvement in line dancing. Many said it led them to become more engaged in the community, including volunteering.

But if you’re thinking of getting involved yourself, a word of warning: there may be no turning back. Line dancing can be profoundly addictive and seriously fun.

Danielle Le Lagadec, Senior Lecturer and Head of Course, Graduate Certificate in Nursing, CQUniversity Australia and Catherine Hungerford, Associate Professor and Head of College, Nursing and Midwifery, CQUniversity Australia

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

With record low housing affordability and more Australians destined for lifelong renting, governments are encouraging more “build-to-rent” housing across Australia.

Build-to-rent housing is designed for long-term rental and owned by institutional investors, such as superannuation and pension funds. It’s well-established internationally, already making up 12% of housing in the United States and 5% in the United Kingdom. But it’s relatively new in Australia.

Here, a small but growing commercial build-to-rent sector mostly targets homes for urban professionals, while community housing providers aim to deliver more affordable long-term rental housing. In New South Wales, state-owned developer Landcom is developing build-to-rent housing for essential workers and regional communities.

Last year, the Australian government introduced new legislation and tax breaks to encourage more investment in build-to-rent homes. While still only a small part of the housing market today, there are a growing number of built-to-rent projects.

Our new research, released today, recommends taking advantage of that growth to help renters get a toehold in the housing market – with a model called “build-to-rent-to-own”.

What is build-to-rent-to-own? Has it been done before?

Our proposed build-to-rent-to-own model means residents could build an ownership stake in their build-to-rent development without a deposit or bank loan, potentially for as little as A$10 per week.

Residents wouldn’t own a property title. Instead, they would own shares in the build-to-rent corporate entity. Only residents of a development could purchase shares in it, including residents living in affordable housing tenancies.

Residents participating in a build-to-rent-to-own scheme would receive a dividend. This could be used to offset their rent or buy more shares, with the option to accumulate shares up to the full value of their own home.

Shares would be valued quarterly and could be “cashed out” (sold back to the corporate entity), or passed on as inheritance to family members wanting to live in the development.

This model has similarities to “limited equity” housing cooperatives, which thrive in Northern Europe. This model is not to be confused with rent-to-buy models, which allow renters to buy their unit at a set price through a conventional mortgage when the lease expires.

Build-to-rent-to-own wouldn’t deliver a quick fix for our housing affordability crisis, but could have a real impact in the longer term.

As of 2022, existing build-to-rent developments only made up about 0.2% of the housing market or around 23,000 apartments.

But the sector is growing fast, with around 39,300 apartments worth around A$30 billion now in the pipeline across Australia.

Who could benefit most?

More Australians are finding themselves locked out of the housing market. What if they could build an ownership stake from day one of moving into a build-to-rent development?

Our research identified several types of buyers most likely to benefit from build-to-rent-to-own, including:

• moderate-income households and essential workers, who are increasingly struggling with housing costs and giving up on home ownership

• younger people, even those on good incomes, who can’t rely on the “bank of mum and dad”

• older people preparing for retirement who don’t own a home, or the roughly three-quarters of older homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than they have in superannuation.

Build-to-rent-to-own could particularly help regional communities, facing extra challenges to access home loans and limited downsizing options.

It’s not only residents who could benefit, but the investors and developers delivering build-to-rent. Lifelong tenants are the “holy grail”: reducing turnover costs and increasing long-term risk-adjusted returns.

How to make it happen

To develop this build-to-rent-to-own blueprint, we consulted with investors, housing providers, developers, policymakers and local councils.

We don’t see a need for legal changes, as the model is designed to work within the federal build-to-rent legislation and financial market guidelines.

But more work is still needed to turn our concept into reality, including:

• common national guidelines for a build-to-rent-to-own scheme
• pilots in cities and regions, to test how it could best work for wider rollouts
• and a working group to provide the governance foundations to develop build-to-rent-to-own across Australia and oversee the recommendations above.

Turning build-to-rent-to-own into a reality will require a collaborative effort between governments, investors, community housing providers, developers and community groups. Based on our consultation, we think it could provide a new way to help more Australians finally get a toehold in a tight housing market.

The authors acknowledge the contribution of our colleagues Matthew Daly and Joshua Gilbert to this research.

Caitlin McGee, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney and Gordon Noble, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

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

From village dogs to toy poodles to mastiffs, dogs come in an astonishing array of shapes, colours and sizes. Today there are estimated to be about 700 million dogs living with or around humans.

To many of us, dogs are loyal companions, working partners, and beloved family members – and the histories of our species are deeply woven together. But how did this incredible diversity come to be – and how far back does this relationship with humans go?

Two new studies published today in Science provide some answers. One, led by Allowen Evin from the University of Montpelier, draws on ancient skeletal remains. The other, led by Shao-Jie Zhang from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, draws on the study of DNA from ancient Eastern Eurasian dogs.

Together, these studies suggest the story of dogs and their relationship with humans is older and more complex than once thought.

The origins of modern dog diversity

The study by Evin and her colleagues used 643 dog and wolf skulls spanning the past 50,000 years to address the origins of modern dog diversity.

Her team’s analysis suggests the distinctive “dog-like” skull shape first arose around 11,000 years ago, during the Holocene epoch, the time since the most recent ice age. They also found substantial physical diversity in dog skulls from the same period.

This means the wide range of shapes and sizes dogs have today isn’t solely a product of the intense selective breeding programs that became popular in the last few centuries. Some of that variation emerged millennia earlier.

The team re-analysed the skull shapes of all 17 known dog or wolf skulls from the Late Pleistocene, a geological period from 129,000 to 11,700 years ago. Some skulls were 50,000 years old.

They found all of these Pleistocene skulls were essentially wolf-like in shape, including some previously identified as early dogs.

Importantly, this suggests that while the split between wolves and dogs likely occurred during the Pleistocene, the skull shape of early dogs didn’t start to change until closer to the Holocene – that is, 11,000 years ago. However, some Holocene dog skulls still retained wolf-like features.

This research suggests early dogs were much more diverse than previously thought. This diversity may have laid the groundwork for the extreme variations in size and shape of the dogs we have today.

Travelling companions

Earlier genomic studies have uncovered four major dog lineages that likely originated about 20,000 years ago: Eastern (East Asian and Arctic) and Western (Europe and Near East) dogs.

The origins of these ancient dog lineages are still being untangled. However, studying shifts in the ancestry of dogs through time and between different regions can help us better understand both the origins of dogs and the movement of Neolithic (new stone-age) humans.

The new study by Zhang and his colleagues used 73 ancient dog genomes spanning the last 10,000 years to explore how humans and dogs moved across Eastern Eurasia through time.

Analysis of these ancient dogs identified multiple shifts in the ancestry of dogs in Eastern Eurasia at times that correlate with the movement of specific human groups (hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists). This suggests that as different human cultural groups moved across Eurasia, their dogs often moved with them, carrying their unique genetic signatures.

There was some discrepancy between human and dog population ancestry in some parts of Asia. For example, Eastern hunter-gatherers from Veretye and Botai, who were more closely related to Western Eurasian humans, had largely Eastern (Arctic) dogs rather than the Western dogs observed with other Western Eurasian cultures at the time.

This means dogs may have been a key part of cultural exchange or trade between different human cultures or communities. It may also illustrate complexities in the evolution of dogs that we are yet to understand.

The work by Zhang and his team presents compelling evidence that in Eastern Eurasia thousands of years ago dogs played an indispensable role in human societies as crucial “biocultural packages” that moved with humans. In other words, humans took their companions with them on their journeys (and perhaps traded them), rather than simply acquiring new dogs after moving.

These findings highlight the long-term, complex and intertwined relationship between dogs and humans that spans more than 10,000 years.

The genetic ancestry of dogs can act as a living record of ancient human migrations, trade networks and cultural exchanges. Studies on ancient dogs may also help us understand the environmental factors that contributed to the evolution of dogs, and their relationship with humans.

Reshaping our understanding of dogs

Together, these new studies profoundly reshape our understanding of how dogs became so diverse and how they have related to humans along the way.

Both studies underscore that the incredible diversity in modern dogs is not an entirely recent phenomenon. The genetic and morphological foundations for this variation were laid thousands of years ago, shaped by natural selection, human selection and diverse environments, long before the structured breeding of the past few centuries.

Future studies investigating the physical diversity and ancestry of dogs through time could deepen our understanding of the complex origins and spread of dogs across the globe. Whatever their origins, this research deepens our appreciation for the unique and ancient bond between humans and dogs that was almost as diverse as canines themselves.

Kylie M. Cairns, Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW Sydney and Melanie Fillios, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England

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

On Sunday November 2, people in eastern Victoria witnessed a bright streak across the sky followed by a loud sonic boom that felt like an earthquake. The event was captured by security cameras and mobile phones.

Last month, in South Australia, the SA Museum investigated whether a meteorite had struck a moving car, cracking and scorching its windscreen.

Two months earlier, in August, another fireball lit up central Victoria, prompting scientists and volunteers to search farmland near Ballarat and Bendigo for fragments, though none have yet been found.

So meteorites are more common than you might think. But what should you do if you find one?

How often do meteorites land on Earth?

Every day, Earth is showered with more than 100 tonnes of cosmic dust. Every year, hundreds of meteorites fall somewhere on Earth, but most splash unnoticed into oceans or land in remote wilderness.

Only around ten witnessed falls each year are currently recovered. Australia, with its vast deserts and sparse vegetation, is one of the world’s best places to spot and preserve these rare visitors from space.

To date, more than 78,000 meteorites have been identified worldwide. Most originate from asteroids, with some even traced to Mars or the Moon.

Collecting meteorites on Earth is often described as the cheapest form of space exploration. Scientists now have over five times as much Moon rock from meteorites than was returned by the Apollo missions, and with a greater diversity of rock types, providing insights into parts of the Moon that astronauts never sampled.

Famous Australian meteorites

Australia has produced some of the world’s most notable finds. The Cranbourne meteorites (Victoria, described scientifically from 1854 onward), include massive iron specimens and are among the largest recovered in the country.

The Murchison meteorite (1969, Victoria) contains the oldest minerals to form in our solar system, amino acids – the building blocks of life – and “stardust” that formed in exploding stars billions of years before our Sun existed.

More recently, Bunburra Rockhole (2007, Western Australia) was captured on camera by the Desert Fireball Network. The meteorite’s unusual basaltic composition offers rare insights into the diversity of asteroids.

Today, observation programs such as the Desert Fireball Network track meteors across Australian skies. These help researchers locate and recover new falls such as Murrili (2015, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA), Puli Ilkaringuru (2019, Nullarbor Plain, WA) and Pindarri Punju Puri (2025, Lake Hope, WA) meteorites. Australia’s arid regions, particularly the Nullarbor Plain, preserve meteorites exceptionally well, with more than half of Australia’s known meteorites found there.

What to do if you think you’ve found a meteorite

If you stumble on a dark, unusually heavy rock with a smooth, sometimes glossy or dimpled surface – known as a fusion crust – and it looks different from the surrounding stones, it could be a meteorite. Some of the most unusual meteorites, such as Murchison, are not particularly heavy, so don’t rule your possible meteorite out on weight alone.

If you think you might have found one, follow these steps to preserve its scientific value.

1. Photograph it before touching. Include wide and close-up shots and include something for scale, such a coin.

2. Record GPS coordinates, date and time. Your phone’s location data is fine.

3. Don’t clean it. Avoid washing, scrubbing or polishing to preserve delicate minerals and chemical signatures.

4. Handle carefully. Use gloves and wrap in clean aluminium foil, not plastic.

5. Note everything. Describe the ground type and any features, including nearby rocks.

6. Contact your state or territory museum for advice and identification.

When good intentions go wrong

Unfortunately, not all meteorite finds have been handled with care. Over the years, many have been damaged by well-meaning collectors who soaked them in acid, accelerating corrosion. Some have been scrubbed or hit with a sledge hammer, destroying their fusion crust. Still others were removed them from strewn fields without recording their locations.

Some were even sold or exported illegally, putting them beyond scientific reach. These actions have caused the permanent loss of valuable evidence, sometimes the only clues to a meteorite’s cosmic origin.

Who owns meteorites?

In Australia, meteorite ownership is governed by state and territory laws rather than a single national rule, so it depends on where the meteorite lands.

In WA, all meteorites are state property under the Museum Act, while in SA they belong to the Crown and are managed by the SA Museum. The Northern Territory also declares meteorites Crown property under the Meteorites Act 1987. Finders must report discoveries to the relevant museum. Museums may acknowledge the finder, but the specimens remain part of public collections for research and display.

Other states may allow finders to keep meteorites, though it’s always best to check and report the find to your state museum. Export of meteorites from Australia is regulated at the federal level and permits are required.

These rules ensure meteorites remain accessible for scientific study and for the public to see, contrasting with some other countries where ownership often passes directly to either the finder or private landowner, such as the United Kingdom, United States and some Canadian provinces.

Australia’s skies are still falling – and you can help

Fireballs continue to light up Australian skies each year. By documenting finds carefully, reporting them, and respecting ownership laws, anyone can contribute to planetary science. And sometimes, the next big discovery might literally fall at your feet.

If you’re in Victoria, please contact the Ask Us team at Museums Victoria to have your potential space rock inspected.

Heather Handley, Senior Curator, Geosciences, Museums Victoria Research Institute; Monash University; Dermot Henry, Head of Sciences, Museums Victoria Research Institute, and Oskar Lindenmayer, Collection Manager, Geosciences, Museums Victoria Research Institute

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

In southeast Queensland, roughly 250 kilometres from Brisbane, lies the tiny town of Murgon. Located on Wakka Wakka Country, it’s home to about 2,000 people – and one of the most important fossil sites in the world.

From the 55 million-year-old clays there, palaeontologists have unearthed a range of precious fossils over several decades. These include the world’s oldest fossil songbirds, the only known fossils of salamanders in Australia and the oldest fossil marsupial remains in Australia.

And the site continues to serve up ancient treasures. In a new study, published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, my colleagues and I report the discovery of the oldest crocodilian eggshells ever found in Australia.

These eggshells now serve as the basis for a new eggshell type, Wakkaoolithus godthelpi. They belong to the oldest known member of a now extinct group of crocodiles known as mekosuchines. And they offer a new look into not just their evolution – but also the forest-lined wetlands they lived in.

Tree-climbing crocodiles

Mekosuchines were Australia’s own unique, local branch of the crocodile family. They dominated inland waters of the continent 55 million years ago. They were part of the group of species that includes alligators, true crocodiles, gharials and caiman.

But they represent a much older branch than the saltwater and freshwater crocs found in Australia today. These modern species made their way to the continent much later, as it came into contact with southeast Asia about five million years ago.

In the 1980s, fossil finds began to take off at sites such as Murgon and the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland, and Alcoota in the Northern Territory. Since then, palaeontologists have been able to piece together a good picture of the diversity of mekosuchines. This was much higher than what we see today, with ten extinct genera now accounted for.

These fossil finds preserve a vigorous evolutionary history, and in particular a trend towards land-based hunting by about 33 million years ago.

This diversity includes the likes of Quinkana, a large land-based crocodile with narrow jaws, and dwarf species such as Trilophosuchus which may have been in a position to fill the niche of a tree-climbing hunter – a kind of “drop croc”.

The latter case was originally suggested by palaeontologist Paul Willis on the basis of the unusual musculature at the back of Trilophosuchus’s skull. Although hotly debated, Willis suggested this would allow Trilophosuchus to hold its head aloft and scan through the three dimensional environment of the canopy.

Reading eggshells

The new study, however, takes a look at one of the oldest genera of Mekosuchines, Kambara. It grew up to two metres long and is thought to have fed on fish and softshell turtles.

At Murgon, University of New South Wales researchers led by Henk Godthelp and Michael Archer uncovered fragments of eggshell, a comparatively rare find. Surprisingly little work has been done in the area of analysing crocodile eggshells.

Xavier Panadès I Blas from the Institut Català de Paleontologia at the University of Barcelona took up the challenge to explore the shell’s preserved microstructure with high-resolution microscopy.

What he found was intriguing. The eggshells of Kambara have their own unique micro-structural features, still preserved after 55 million years.

These features differ from what we know of the microstructures that have evolved among modern crocodiles and alligators. However, it will take a lot more work to put things formally into context.

Still, these eggshells may provide a valuable new avenue for understanding how mekosuchines fit into the big picture of evolution that spans Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

A window into an ancient ecosystem

Beyond evolution, these eggshells are an insight into the environment that existed at Murgon 55 million years ago. Crocodile reproduction is intimately tied to their local environment and modern species display a complex mix of nesting strategies in response.

In the case of the eggshell of Kambara, there is little sign of degradation from bacteria.

This suggests the nest may have experienced periods of dryness due to the ephemeral nature of the surrounding wetlands at Murgon.

While mekosuchines enjoyed a much larger range of territories compared to our modern crocodiles, they eventually experienced a considerable contraction as the continent became increasingly arid.

Between this and the decline of large prey, mekosuchines eventually went extinct on the Australian continent.

Michael David Stein, Research Associate, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney

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

Now a suite of bespoke apartments, the 17th century chapel at 8 Basing Street, Notting Hill in London once housed a recording studio.

Following in the clomping footsteps of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, in the northern summer of 1975, ex-Roxy Music member Brian Eno booked the premises at a daily rate of several hundred pounds to record his third solo album.

Eno came to Basing Street with a very sketchy plan. Essentially, the plan was to not have a plan. At first this approach became an ordeal of crooked paths, blind alleys and generalised straw-grasping.

Three months later he emerged with Another Green World, one of the most sublime and influential records ever made.

A transmission from another galaxy

Eno’s first two post-Roxy Music solo albums – 1973’s Here Come the Warm Jets and 1974’s Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) – hinted that he was primed to cut ties with conventional rock methods and sounds.

Even more telling was his 1973 collaboration with Robert Fripp (at the time cast adrift from his own monolithic prog rock outfit, King Crimson). Their album No Pussyfooting featured extraordinary “mirrored room” cover art and two elongated, gently quavering tracks evocative of American minimalist composer Terry Riley.

Even with these omens, Another Green World arrived like a transmission from another galaxy. It seamlessly merged five (sort-of) conventional rock songs with nine highly-distinctive instrumental fragments.

There had never been anything like Fripp’s coruscating “Wimshurst guitar” solo on the typically atypical Eno song, St. Elmo’s Fire. There had never been anything to resemble the sumptuous, stately drift of The Big Ship (used to great effect in the 2015 film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl).

No ostensible rock artist had ever come up with something like the title track, a snippet of tranquillity that became widely recognised as the title theme to the BBC’s Arena documentary series.

Just as unheralded was the sampling of the distant lilt of children’s voices in a playground, as featured on Zawinul/Lava.

A plethora of influences

Much has been made of Eno’s use of “oblique strategies” cards when making Another Green World. Developed with his artist friend Peter Schmidt, the card system works to encourage lateral thinking and overcome cerebral impasses.

But while this proved valuable in dealing with heat-of-the-moment tangles in the studio, there are more crucial contexts in terms of the music’s provenance.

First is the mindboggling range of influences impinging upon Eno around that time. Steve Reich’s manipulated sound collages, African American doo-wop and gospel music, German bands Can and Cluster, Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu, the Velvet Underground, Sly and the Family Stone, Mondrian’s paintings, cybernetics, avant-garde cinema …

The list is virtually endless.

This broad palette fed into the incredible variety of projects Eno was involved with around that time. He had recently established the Obscure Records label, which introduced composers such as Gavin Bryars, Jan Steele and Michael Nyman to wider audiences. He was also on the cusp of what would be momentous liaisons with David Bowie and Talking Heads.

Then there was Eno’s own Obscure release Discreet Music, which came mere weeks after Another Green World and more or less invented the ambient genre. Arriving in the same absurdly fecund final months of 1975 was the Fripp/Eno album Evening Star (featuring An Index of Metals, a sinister epic which anticipated the rise of the noise and dark ambient categories by a decade).

‘One singular vision’

A further key to Another Green World can be found in its creator’s claimed role as a “non-musician”. Just as punk was emerging as a scruffy, do-it-yourself antidote to bloated classic rock, Eno was revelling in his own self-taught status and upending the inevitable career trajectory foisted upon rock and pop stars.

With no interest in fronting a band or being in the spotlight on stage, by 1975 Eno had begun to see making music as analogous to painting. Another Green World reflects this philosophy. Unlike almost all other rock albums from the period, it is a meticulously constructed collection of studio “atmospheres” that could never be duplicated in a live setting.

With reference to Eno’s oeuvre, critic William Doyle says

Another Green World brings together the strands of Eno’s work that came before it while simultaneously laying the groundwork for everything that he created afterwards, in one singular vision.

Music writer Geeta Dayal takes this even further: she argues that listening to the album, one sees “the pathways of all the electronic music that came before or after it, travelling through that record like so many streams”.

Another Green World finds Brian Eno hovering at the intersection of left-field rock and ambient tranquility. It is a masterpiece of tact, introversion and serenity that has only become more relevant in a 2025 world inundated with ostentation, hubris and bluster.

Dean Biron, Teaches in School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology

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

Once again, the annual shopping extravaganza known as “Black Friday” is nearly upon us, this year falling on November 28. But the sales are already well underway.

What started as a single-day discounted shopping event on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States has blown out to a weeks-long sales festival, in stores and online. And it has spread around much of the world – including to Australia.

It might feel like a great time to try to score a bargain. But this week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) put retailers on notice. The consumer watchdog announced it would be watching out for various kinds of misleading sales conduct that can be used to trick consumers.

If found to be engaging in misleading or deceptive sales conduct, retailers may face heavy financial penalties. But as a consumer, it also pays to understand how these dodgy tactics work, so you can’t be duped this sales season.

Dodgy sales tactics

The ACCC says it is on the lookout for a range of misleading or deceptive sales advertising tactics. Examples include:

• advertising sales as “storewide” when only some items are discounted
• countdown clocks or timers that show a shorter period than the actual sale (to create false urgency)
• fine-print disclaimers that exclude some items from the sale
• “up to X% off” discounts that only apply to a few items (or the “up to” text is not prominently displayed)
• price comparisons of before and after sale discounts that are not accurate (including where the price has gone up in a short period before the discount was applied).

Sadly, there are many examples of allegedly misleading sales conduct occurring at peak shopping periods.

Following a similar sweep of last year’s Black Friday sales, the ACCC recently fined three retailers for allegedly misleading customers by advertising discounts as “storewide” when only some items were on sale.

In 2019, the online marketplace Kogan offered a “tax time” discount of 10% on products that had had their price increased immediately before the promotion (by at least 10% in most cases). It was subsequently fined A$350,000 for misleading conduct in breach of Australian Consumer Law.

Why is the ACCC so strict about this kind of conduct?

These examples of dodgy conduct might seem annoying. But they don’t seem earth-shatteringly bad – such as selling physically dangerous products.

Why is the ACCC so concerned about misleading conduct at Black Friday sale time, and indeed retail pricing more generally?

Shouldn’t consumers just be more careful? The answer lies in the cumulative harms of misleading pricing conduct.

Manipulating consumers through marketing

Sales rely on consumers thinking they are getting a good deal on products they want. And sometimes sales marketing seeks to persuade consumers the deal is better than it really is.

Marketing strategies such as countdown timers, strike-through prices or promoted large percentage discounts are designed to appeal to consumers’ emotions and to rush them into closing off a purchase.

Consumers with heightened emotions or feeling pressure to grab a deal are less likely to make a rational assessment of the real value of the discount being offered to them. This is why truth in sales advertising is so important.

What consumer protection laws are for

We have strong protections against misleading conduct in Australia for good reason. If sellers can trick consumers into buying goods at discounts that are actually illusory, those dishonest sellers gain an advantage over honest sellers selling at a transparent and accurate price.

This risks a market that rewards poor conduct and encourages an overall rush to the bottom.

Australian Consumer Law takes the view that consumers should be able take the advertisements they see at face value. Consumers shouldn’t have to assume they are going to be tricked by sellers.

Such an approach would not conform to the object of enhancing the “welfare of Australians” through “the promotion of competition and fair trading” that underlies Australian Consumer Law.

Stopping a bad deal

If you are considering buying goods at the Black Friday sales, it is a good idea to screenshot the item before it goes on sale. That way you can check if the sale discount is genuine and the item is actually the same as the one you want (not an older or cheaper model).

When shopping at a sale, take time to look at the discount offered. Is it a real discount? Does it justify the spend coming up to the holiday period? Discounts may be marked up in an attractive colour but still not represent good value.

Finally, if you think you have been misled by a pricing strategy, such as a discount that isn’t genuine or a fine-print qualification on the discount that is advertised, you can complain to the ACCC.

Ideally, take screenshots of what was advertised and what you received to support your claim to be treated fairly at sales time.

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.

Australia’s regulator has suspended use of a common pesticide used on blueberries, raspberries and blackberries known as dimethoate.

But this year-long suspension isn’t due to any new information about the pesticide itself. Rather, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) says it’s because we’re eating more berries so our potential exposure has increased.

In particular, it says children aged two to six years may be at increased risk of exceeding maximum limits.

Here’s what we know about dimethoate and whether berries are still safe to eat.

What is dimethoate?

Dimethoate is a pesticide that has been used in Australia since 1956. It belongs to a class of pesticides that inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. This prevents the breakdown of a key neurotransmitter (chemical messenger) and so paralyses an insect’s nervous system, killing it.

Mammals, including humans, also have the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, and can be poisoned by this class of pesticide.

So careful regulation of both application of dimethoate and levels of dimethoate residues on food are required so we are not exposed to harmful levels.

The amount of maximum permissible residues depends, in turn, on how much someone is exposed to from their food.

To do this, you need to have estimates of how much residue is on food and how much food we eat.

How much is too much?

The APVMA has a maximum limit for how much dimethoate we should be exposed to from our food. This is known as the acute reference dose (or ARfD), which is 0.02 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

This maximum dose includes a safety factor of ten. In other words, the maximum dose allowed is ten times lower than the lowest dose that has no effect.

This dose was set in 2017. But it is consistent with current World Health Organization limits and Canadian regulations. Australia’s maximum dose is lower than limits from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

So, what’s changed?

But our dietary habits have changed. Australian consumption of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries has increased substantially since the APVMA last assessed dimethoate. Consumption is up 285–962% compared to levels considered for its 2017 assessment.

Eating more berries is a good thing. But this means that current trace levels of dimethoate on berries (0.0033 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day for a toddler) might potentially exceed the maximum limit for children aged two to six years.

The APVMA states:

The level of residues detected are unlikely to pose a serious risk to human health, but has proposed suspension of these specific dimethoate products as a precautionary measure.

What can you do?

Don’t give up on berries. Eating berries is an important part of a balanced diet. And the APVMA is at pains to emphasise the risk of harm is low.

The simplest approach is to wash your berries. You should be washing fruit and vegetables anyway. Washing helps get rid of soil, and potentially harmful microorganisms.

Washing berries will not remove all dimethoate, but can substantially reduce the levels so you can continue to enjoy them and their benefits.

Ian Musgrave, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide

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

A variety of websites now have processes designed to verify the ages of their users. These checks are carried out in several ways. For instance, AI can be used to analyse whether a photo of the person looks old enough for the age threshold on a website.

Asking for photo ID, such as a scan of a person’s driving licence or passport, is another method, along with asking for a verified credit card.

However, the amount of personal data involved in completing age verification comprises a veritable treasure trove for hackers.

Recent incidents have further highlighted the privacy and security concerns around age verification. In October 2025, Discord, a social media and chat platform popular among gamers was hacked, with an unspecified amount of data extracted.

However, the company said it had identified 70,000 users globally who potentially had their photo IDs exposed to the hackers. Discord said the data was accessed through a third-party service provider, although it remains unclear exactly how the breach occurred.

Age verification checks for the UK were brought in by Discord in order to comply with the Online Safety Act. The act required that websites allowing pornography and harmful content introduce age checks by July 25 2025.

In July 2025, the Tea app, which allows women to anonymously share information about the men they date for safety purposes, was also hacked. The app requires a photo selfie and photo ID in order to register. The breach reportedly revealed these photos along with content and messages.

Grave consequences

These breaches highlight issues of compliance with website privacy policies, security practices and general data protection regulations (GDPR) legislation.

When Discord brought in age verification, its support website said it did “not permanently store personal identity documents or your video selfies”. It added: “Images of your identity documents and ID match selfies are deleted directly after your age group is confirmed, and the video selfie used for facial age estimation never leaves your device.”

The consequences of such breaches can be grave. Leaked images of selfies and photo IDs can lead to users facing a range of harms, such as identity theft and fraud. The kind of data that’s hacked also lends itself to particularly sophisticated forms of these crimes, particularly when you consider the availability of deepfake technology and generative AI tools.

In fact, third-party providers have represented a consistent vulnerability to be relentlessly exploited by cybercriminals, as seen in recent breaches of the UK Ministry of Defence, the Co-op supermarket and M&S to name but a few.

The proliferation of age verification checks in recent years is partly a response to new legislation, such as France’s Security and Regulation of the Digital Space law, the European Commission’s Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Acts in the UK and Australia. These all deem checks where users self-declare their age as unfit for purpose. Instead, they require websites to use more effective methods, such as photo ID matching, or credit card checks.

In a recent press release, the UK’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology attempted to address the cybersecurity and privacy concerns arising from such checks. The department’s guidance says that any measures implemented by platforms to confirm a user’s age must be done “without collecting or storing personal data, unless absolutely necessary”.

This reiterates rules from the EU’s GDPR legislation. Further guidance is offered by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office and the regulator, Ofcom.

However, the Tea and Discord breaches highlight regulators’ inability to prevent data retention or enforce data deletion in practice. This is particularly relevant when the third parties are located outside of the UK.

The incidents show that the implementation and use of age verification requires genuine review; further regulation of data handling with enforcement powers – beyond mere guidance. This is a necessity to safeguard privacy, especially when third-party companies are involved.

Mark Tsagas, Senior Lecturer in Law, Cybercrime & AI Ethics, University of East London

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

The great Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai has died, aged 92. Alongside fellow actor Toshiro Mifune (1920–97), Nakadai was, for many, the face of Japanese cinema across the globe.

Starring in more than 100 films, his filmography features numerous outstanding collaborations with many of the most significant directors of Japanese cinema, such as Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita and Kinuya Tanaka.

With his passing, the world loses one of the supreme titans of world cinema.

In tribute, I have chosen five performances as demonstrations of his remarkable career.

Black River (1957)

Nakadai was discovered working as a shop clerk in Tokyo by the young director Masaki Kobayashi. His first role for the director was a small uncredited bit part in The Thick Walled Room (1956), the debut feature for both. In their subsequent pairing, Black River (1957), Nakadai’s star presence would be established.

A love triangle set on the outskirts of a United States Naval Base, Nakadai plays a young yakuza named “Joe”. The film plays against the actor’s handsome and youthful appeal – while his character’s behaviour is abhorrent, the audience is drawn towards his undeniable charisma.

Dressed up in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, casually smoking a cigarette, the performance oozes a contemporary cool. However, his adoption of “American” garb symbolises a casual indifference to the violence and suffering to those around him.

Kobayashi would be Nakadai’s most frequent collaborator. They would go on to make 11 feature films together, featuring classics such as The Human Condition Trilogy (1959–61), Kwaidan (1964) and Samurai Rebellion (1967).

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)

After Black River, Nakadai’s star began to rise. In 1960, he appeared in a major role in Mikio Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.

Directing films since the 1930s, Naruse specialised in female-centred melodramas, exploring the shifting roles of women in Japan’s modernising society. Exploring the life of a widowed bar hostess in post-war Ginza, played by Hideko Takamine, Naruse cast Nakadai as her manager.

Nakadai considered this role his most unique. He said,“I’ve played fiercer characters, or more evil” but this character had a “vagueness” and “certain ruthless” about him.

Nakadai strikes a very difficult balance between the paternalistic and the controlling. He spoke of the difficulty of externalising the character’s hidden “hot blooded” temper, deriving from unspoken romantic feelings.

Yojimbo (1961)

After an uncredited appearance in Seven Samurai (1954), the actor appeared in five other films with director Akira Kurosawa.

The first of these films was Yojimbo (1961). Nakadai played the villain, opposite Kurosawa’s regular leading man Toshiro Mifune. At the time, Mifune was the biggest star in Japan. Nakadai was a generation younger, still an up-and-comer.

Nakadai nearly steals the show as Unosuke, the ruthless gangster who brings a gun to a samurai sword fight.

Kurosawa allows his youthful tempestuousness to shine, bringing a sense of fun to his villainous performance. In one particularly striking moment, Nakadai brims with a maniacal smile as an inn burns behind him in the background.

Throughout the rest of the decade, Nakadai and Mifune would play adversaries again in Sanjuro (1962) and Samurai Rebellion (1967). As such, it is a breath of fresh air to see Nakadai play the morally upright police detective who aids Mifune’s character in Kurosawa’s procedural High and Low (1963).

Harakiri (1962)

Harakiri (1962) is Nakadai’s most defining role, and the one in which he truly asserts his status as a leading man. Critic Wal Khairy said the performance “rivals even the best work by Toshiro Mifune”.

As the wandering samurai, Nakadai enters the manor of a feudal lord requesting to die by seppuku. The physicality of Nakadai’s performance is remarkable as the actor oscillates between an intensely controlled stillness and sudden outbursts movements.

The film received the Special Jury Prize at Cannes and Nakadai won the Best Actor Prize from the Association of Tokyo Film Critics. Its reputation has only increased over time, especially amongst younger audiences on Letterboxd where it is the highest rated film on the app.

Ran (1984)

Kurosawa’s last true master work, Ran (1984) is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, transposed to medieval Japan. Originally, Kurosawa had planned for Mifune to portray Hidetora, the Lear stand-in.

However, after having played the central role in the director’s previous film Kagemusha (1980), Nakadai was cast. It is perhaps his most impressive role.

Only 53 at the time, Nakadai is transformed into a much older man with the help of his wild gray mane and expressionistic make-up inspired by the masks of classical Noh theatre. In Noh, masks are used to refine expressions down to their essence, forcing actors to convey emotions through precisely calibrated movements of the body.

Throughout the film, Nakadai’s facial expression remains relatively stable. Despite what might be thought of as restrictions, Nakadai manages to express a range of emotions through the rest of his body. At once, he appears a frail old man, hunched over and shifting slowly around, and also a commanding figure of fear, bubbling up with contemptuous anger.

Like Lear, Hidetora is a tragic figure with the character’s pride, arrogance, and vanity leading to his downfall.

The film is highly regarded as one of the great war epics featuring some of the most towering battle sequences ever shot on celluloid. However, underneath all the carnage and chaos, the film is held together by Nakadai’s towering performance as a tiny, little man of history.

Kristian Ramsden, PhD Candidate in English, Creative Writing and Film, University of Adelaide

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

Northern Irish hip hop trio Kneecap have been making waves, not just as musicians, but as language activists who rap in both English and their native Irish. In Belfast’s Gaeltacht Quarter, Irish is a living language. It is also a political statement – a form of resistance against British cultural dominance.

Kneecap’s music is having a big impact, particularly on young Irish people. While language study in Northern Ireland is declining overall, the number of students taking Irish at the GCSE level has increased in recent years.

This isn’t an isolated trend. Indigenous communities the world over are working to save and strengthen their own languages. Languages don’t die on their own. They are driven to endangerment by colonialism and assimilation – actively minoritised.

In the modern nation of Australia, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are now under threat. Australia suffers from a bad case of “monolingual mindset” which can blind us to the cultural and social benefits of multilingualism.

About 120 First Nations languages are spoken here today. A dozen traditional and several new languages are still learned by Aboriginal children.

Many other “sleeping” First Nations languages are being revitalised through inspiring work around the country.

Resistance through language and music

Kneecap’s impact shows music can be a powerful force for language revival. Songs are the crown jewels of cultural heritage, and a common way to connect with a treasured heritage language.

They belong to the family and community domains, which are crucial for passing on language. Songs can make language more visible, memorable, and even help it go viral.

From punta-rock in Belize to pop-folk in Chulym (Siberia), communities are using old and new songs to revitalise their languages.

In Australia, song has always been central to language keeping and storytelling. This is felt powerfully among the Yorta Yorta people, including co-author Josef Tye.

Take the song Ngarra Burra Ferra, a Yorta Yorta translation of the African-American spiritual Turn Back Pharoah’s Army. It was introduced in 1887, at the Maloga mission in New South Wales, by the African-American travelling Fisk Jubilee Singers. The song’s theme of escaping enslavement resonated with the Yorta Yorta’s own experiences of colonisation.

Translated by Yorta Yorta Elder Theresa Clements, and transposed by Tye’s great-great Grampa Thomas Shadrach James, Ngarra Burra Ferra became a powerful act of defiance and language preservation. It would go on to feature in the 2012 film The Sapphires.

In the Victorian context, language revitalisation is a key component of resistance to colonial oppression. It also plays a crucial role in implementing our Peoples’ ambitions around Truth Telling and Treaty.

Many Victorians are unaware they’re speaking terms from Indigenous languages every day. The linguistic landscapes of Victoria and Naarm are rich with Indigenous names and words, and should serve as a reminder of the First Peoples of this continent.

Activating languages through song

Many contemporary Australian artists are centring First Nations languages in their music. Earlier acts such Yothu Yindi, Warumpi Band and Saltwater Band paved the way for newer artists including Baker Boy, King Stingray and Electric Fields.

The public’s enthusiastic response suggests a bright future for musicians who look beyond English in their work. Here are five artists leading the way:

Emily Wurramara

A Warnindhilyagwa woman, Wurramara sings blues and roots in Anindilyakwa – the language of Groote Eylandt – and English. Her 2024 album Nara won the ARIA Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album, making Wurramara the first Indigenous woman to win the award. She was also named Artist of the Year at the National Indigenous Music Awards.

Ripple Effect

This all-female rock band from Maningrida (north-central Arnhem Land) sings about country, bush food, local animals and mythological beings in five languages: Ndjébbana, Burarra, Na-kara, Kune and English. Ripple Effect broke new ground in bringing female voices into Maningrida’s already prolific music scene. Their song Ngúddja (“language”) explicitly celebrates Maningrida’s linguistic diversity.

Neil Morris (also known as DRMNGNOW)

A Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung and Wiradjuri yiyirr (“man”), Morris weaves together hip-hop, experimental electronic elements and sound design to explore Indigenous rights and culture in his work as DRMNGNOW. A passionate language advocate, he entwines Yorta Yorta language revitalisation with muluna (“spirit”), Yenbena (“ancestors”) and Woka (“Country”). His latest release Pray is out now.

Aaron Wyatt

Noongar man Wyatt is a violist, composer, conductor and academic, as well as the first Indigenous Australian to conduct a major Australian orchestra. He has conducted works that have been trailblazers of language revitalisation, such as Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse’s opera Wundig Wer Wilura in Noongar and Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s children’s opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, sung partly in Wadawurrung.

Jessie Lloyd

A musician, historian and song-keeper, Lloyd founded the Mission Songs Project to collect songs from the Aboriginal mission era. She recently launched the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Songbook to support schools in bringing Indigenous music into the classroom.

For First Nations languages to thrive in the music scene and beyond, they need support through grassroots initiatives in communities, schools and public life. One such example is an award-winning song project run by Bulman School in the Northern Territory.

This project is revitalising the local Dalabon and Rembarrnga languages, showing music can be a powerful and fun way to keep languages strong.

Where communities are supported to strengthen, use and teach their languages, the benefits for cultural and emotional wellbeing are clear.

Jill Vaughan, Senior Lecturer, Monash University and Josef Noel Tye, Director Indigenous Innovation and Experience Programs, Monash University

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

It’s no secret Australians are big fans of a do-it-yourself (DIY) project. How many other countries have a weekend sausage sizzle at a hardware store embedded in their national mythology?

That DIY attitude may be flowing into the way we save for retirement. Since the early 1990s, it has been compulsory for employers to pay part of their employees’ income into a superannuation account.

Typically, that money is then invested and managed on their behalf for retirement by their chosen super fund. But it doesn’t have to be. Australians can also elect to put their money in a “self-managed super fund” (SMSF) and choose how it’s invested themselves, for their own benefit.

This option comes with far more risk and personal responsibility for compliance. Yet increasingly, people are choosing it: over the year to June, the number of SMSF accounts grew by 6.2% to 653,062, with about 5% of Australian adults now an SMSF member.

SMSFs account for about a quarter – A$1 trillion – of Australia’s $4.3 trillion superannuation sector.

Last week, a review by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) raised serious concerns many financial advisers may be encouraging people to set up an SMSF even though it isn’t in their best interests.

The DIY approach to super

Most SMSFs have one (25%) or two members (68%), but they’re allowed to have up to six.

For some people, the benefits of an SMSF may outweigh those offered through a regular super fund. It can allow them to select from a wider range of investments – choosing exactly where they want to put their money, and how they want to diversify.

It may also allow some people to optimise the amount of tax they have to pay – by selecting more tax effective assets and timing the sale of investments.

Some company directors may be able to benefit from favourable tax arrangements by putting commercial properties into an SMSF – though this is a complex arrangement with strict rules.

Not for everyone

However, there are also many potential pitfalls. First and foremost, though an SMSF gives members control over how their savings are invested, poorly selected investments can result in losses.

All members of an SMSF are equally responsible for ensuring it meets its compliance obligations. This can be complex and expensive. Ongoing costs – such as audit fees and preparing financial statements – can be high.

On top of this, leaving an industry or retail fund could mean losing its included insurance coverage. It can also mean losing access to some compensation schemes and consumer protections.

Advice not up to scratch

In this context, corporate watchdog ASIC set out to understand why some clients were advised to establish an SMSF even though it was not suitable or beneficial for them.

It looked at 100 advice files that had recently been provided to real retail clients by financial advisers. It’s important to note this wasn’t a random sample – they were selected based on red flags that the advice may not have been suitable.

ASIC’s report found in 62 of the 100 files, the financial adviser failed to demonstrate compliance with the “best interests duty” and related obligations. Meeting this duty is a legal requirement. Advisers must provide appropriate advice, that is in the best interests of the client after taking all relevant circumstances into account, prioritising the client’s interests over their own.

Before recommending a financial product to a client, advisers must also conduct a reasonable investigation into the options.

Alarmingly, the review found 27 files – more than a quarter – raised “significant concerns about client detriment”. That is, these clients should not have been advised to set up an SMSF, but had been anyway.

‘Control’ and conflicts of interest

One of the biggest concerns raised in the report related to the way the idea of “control” was being used inappropriately to justify recommending clients set up an SMSF.

Using an SMSF does offer more control over how retirement savings are invested. But ASIC said many advisers weren’t exploring “what control meant” to a particular client.

This includes asking questions such as: does this client have the skills and experience to operate an SMSF? Is this option cost effective, and does it meet the client’s goals?

The report also found many advisers weren’t sufficiently investigating existing products or alternatives for their clients, and in some cases, where there was a conflict of interest, didn’t act in the best interest of clients.

Why this matters

ASIC’s report points out there were still examples of good quality advice about establishing an SMSF. They do not suggest the sample is representative of all SMSF advice.

But a targeted focus on SMSF red flags seems warranted, with significant interest from Australians on lower incomes: in the June quarter this year, 47% of new members entering into an SMSF had taxable incomes under $100,000.

Relatively low incomes don’t necessarily mean an SMSF was established inappropriately.

However, they do raise questions about whether other options (often lower cost, lower risk) are being properly explored and offered to clients seeking advice.

Di Johnson, Senior Lecturer, Finance and Financial Planning, Griffith University

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

For people living in metro areas, a broken hot water system or washing machine is a nuisance. But it can usually be sorted by a phone call for a same-day repair or a quick trip to the hardware store.

In remote communities, the same repair is slowed by distance and lack of services, often taking weeks or months to fix. When families can’t easily wash themselves or their clothes, the risk of infections, including skin infections, rises.

Compared with non-Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people are 2.3 times more likely to be hospitalised and 1.7 times more likely to die from illnesses linked to poor environmental conditions.

Illnesses such as acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease – often driven by untreated skin sores and sore throats – remain common in remote communities. These diseases were once widespread among all Australian children, but have largely disappeared elsewhere thanks to improvements in housing and services.

There’s been plenty of public discussion about remote housing but the voices of people living with these conditions is usually missing.

To inform this discussion, we yarned with more than 200 people over four years about housing, infrastructure and the services they rely on to stay healthy across nine communities in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Our results are published in Health & Place.

Long waits for repairs

People told us they had no choice but to live in homes too small for their families. This pushed plumbing, hot water and laundries past breaking point.

Once broken, they were unable to be repaired until the next service trip, often months later. Many told us they relied on relatives or neighbours while their own taps, showers or washers sat waiting for repair.

People told us they knew the environment was making them sick when basic services failed, but they were limited in what they could do about it.

Local Aboriginal environmental health teams – praised by community and able to handle small jobs – were constrained by narrow remits, funding limits and bureaucracy.

Those living in public housing also faced a convoluted process in order to achieve repairs.

One local woman taught herself to fix a broken industrial washing machine behind the art centre so Elders and mums could wash their clothes and linen. When we asked why, she said:

It was for the old ladies. I wanted to help make sure they felt clean.

She has run this unofficial community laundromat for a decade.

What’s causing this?

People framed inadequate housing maintenance and household “environmental health” in remote Aboriginal communities as the cumulative result of successive state and federal policies that have failed to deliver.

Decades of policy fragmentation have normalised substandard environmental health in the home. None of this was new to the people living it. Their stories have been consistently ignored.

These housing and inadequate environmental conditions sit within a longer history of colonisation: dispossession, mission and pastoral control, and later public housing regimes that centralised asset ownership and decision-making away from Aboriginal communities.

When families can’t access secure land and home ownership, they become dependent on government housing systems, with limited ability to assert their rights. Economic exclusion compounds this: distance, wet-season logistics and chronic under-investment drive high costs and long delays.

Homes have often been built without genuine community consultation, leaving dwellings that don’t fit local family structures, climate or daily life.

Closing the Gap commits all governments to improve housing. To get there, however, consultation is needed with remote Aboriginal communities themselves, as well as policymakers and experts, including those in preventive health. This should happen before any build or upgrade.

Too often consultation is skipped or rushed to save time and costs, resulting in houses that fail their residents and requiring frequent repair.

What’s the solution?

Addressing these inequities requires clear, measurable standards and accountable delivery:

• decision-making rights for residents and local communities

• locally based maintenance with guaranteed response times and transparent reporting

• sustained funding for new builds, maintenance and remediation

• community-led housing design that tackles structural crowding and the realities of remoteness and climate change.

Most importantly, there should be increased reliance on local service providers operating in these regions. These teams already have community trust and should be the first call, not the last.

As well as housing, health care should also be co-designed with communities to include a strong focus on prevention, primary health care, community engagement and capacity-building for local health services. This also requires greater funding and support.

Ultimately, listening to communities is the most important way forward. The culture and uniqueness of remote Aboriginal communities thrive despite challenges, but people shouldn’t have to contend with conditions that wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere in Australia.

As a local Elder emphasised during our conversations:

You need to be healthy, kids need to be healthy. We don’t want them to get sick, they’re the future, the future of our communities.

Stephanie Enkel, Postdoctoral Researcher, The Kids Research Institute Australia; Asha Bowen, Team Lead, Healthy Skin and ARF Prevention, The Kids Research Institute Australia; Hannah M.M. Thomas, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Skin Health, The Kids Research Institute Australia, and Rachel Burgess, Social Scientist and Aboriginal Senior Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute Australia

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

Bacteria are rapidly emerging as a new class of “living medicines” used to kill cancer cells.

We’re still a long way from a “cure” for cancer.

But one day we could have programmable, self-navigating bacteria that find tumours, release treatment only where needed, then vanish without a trace.

Here’s where the science is up to.

Current treatments aren’t perfect

Many tumours are hard to treat. Sometimes, treatments cannot penetrate them. Other times, tumours can “fight back” by suppressing certain parts of the immune system, reducing the impact of treatments. Or tumours can develop resistance to treatments.

Using bacteria could overcome these obstacles.

More than a century ago, surgeons noticed some people with cancer who developed bacterial infections unexpectedly went into remission. That is, their cancer signs or symptoms decreased or disappeared.

Now we’re learning what could explain this. Broadly speaking, bacteria can activate the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells.

In fact, this approach is already used in the clinic. Bacteria are now the treatment of choice worldwide for certain cases of bladder cancer. When doctors deliver a weakened version of Mycobacterium bovis directly into the bladder through a catheter, the body’s immune response destroys the cancer.

Why bacteria?

Certain bacteria have an unusual talent. They can naturally find and grow inside solid tumours – ones that grow in organs and tissues – but leave healthy tissue relatively untouched.

Solid tumours are perfect homes for these bacteria as they contain lots of nutrients from dead cells, are low in oxygen (an environment these bacteria prefer), and typically have reduced immune function, so cannot defend themselves against the bacteria.

All this suggests possible careers for these bacteria as delivery couriers to carry targeted, anti-tumour therapies.

Over the past 30 years or so, more than 500 research papers, 70 clinical trials and 24 startup companies have focused on bacterial cancer therapy, with growth accelerating sharply in the past five years.

Most bacterial cancer therapies in clinical trials today target solid tumours, including pancreatic, lung, and head and neck cancers, which are the kinds that often resist conventional treatments.

Bacteria could deliver cancer vaccines

Cancer vaccines work by presenting a cancer’s unique molecular “fingerprints”, known as tumour antigens, to the immune system so it can hunt down and eliminate tumour cells displaying those antigens.

Bacteria can serve as couriers for these anti-cancer vaccines. Using genetic engineering, the genetic instructions (or DNA) in bacteria that might make us unwell can be removed and replaced with DNA for immune-stimulating tumour antigens.

Listeria monocytogenes is the main character in more than 30 cancer vaccine clinical trials. Unfortunately, most of these trials did not show that these treatments work better than current ones.

The challenge is teaching the immune system to recognise cancer’s telltale antigens strongly enough to remember them, without pushing the body into dangerous overdrive.

Bacteria could boost existing cancer therapies

Nearly half of current clinical trials using bacteria in cancer therapies pair bacteria with immunotherapies or chemotherapy as part of personalised treatment plans to enhance the body’s attack on cancer.

Various approaches have finished phase 2 clinical trials. These include using immunotherapy combined with modified Listeria to activate the immune system for recurrent cervical cancer.

Another trial used modified Salmonella in people with advanced pancreatic cancer alongside chemotherapy to increase survival.

Bacteria could be ‘bugs as drugs’

Arming bacteria with a drug means they could destroy the tumour from the inside, creating “bugs as drugs”.

For this, we need precise genetic control over how bacteria behave. Researchers can already reprogram bacteria to sense, compute and respond to molecular signals around the tumour.

Researchers can also engineer bacteria to self-destruct after delivering a drug, secrete immune-boosting molecules, or activate other therapies on command.

Researchers are building “multi-function” strains that combine several treatment strategies at once.

Probiotic species used in humans for many years are also candidates, including Escherichia coli Nissle, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. These can be engineered to produce cancer-killing molecules or alter the environment around the tumour.

How close are we, really?

While early human trials have shown this approach is generally safe, finding the right dose remains a delicate balance.

Bacteria are also living entities that can evolve in unpredictable ways, and their use in humans demands strict safety controls. Even strains modified for safety can cause infection or trigger excessive inflammation.

So scientists are developing “biocontainment” strategies – engineered safeguards that prevent bacterial spread beyond tumours or triggers them to self-destruct after treatment.

If we can overcome these issues, such “living medicines” would still need to successfully complete clinical trials and receive regulatory approval before being commonly used in the clinic.

If so, this could mark a profound shift in how we treat cancer, from static drugs to adaptive biological systems.

Josephine Wright, Senior Research Fellow,, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute and Susan Woods, Associate Professor, GESA Bushell Research Fellow, University of Adelaide and Principal Research Fellow, Precision Cancer Medicine, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute

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

Former tennis star Monica Seles recently revealed she is living with the rare disease myasthenia gravis, which affects 12 in 100,000 people globally.

Seles explained her first symptoms appeared suddenly around three years ago. She began experiencing double vision and weakness in her arms and legs. This made everyday activities, such as drying her hair, a challenge.

So what is this condition?

Myasthenia gravis is a chronic autoimmune disorder, where your own immune system disrupts the communication between nerves and skeletal muscle.

In healthy people, nerve cells send a chemical messenger called acetylcholine. This tells muscles to contract by binding to its receptor.

In myasthenia gravis, antibodies block or destroy these receptors, so the signal is weakened or lost.

The result is muscle weakness that worsens with activity and improves with rest. This is called “fatigueability”.

What are the symptoms?

Muscle weakness can affect everyday functions such as walking, speaking, breathing and swallowing.

Symptoms, which can appear suddenly, may also affect the eyes, causing drooping eyelids and double vision.

In some cases, weakness of the muscles makes it difficult to breathe or can result in choking on food or water. This is called a “myasthenic crisis” and requires hospitalisation and sometimes life support.

In our research interviews, a young woman in her 30s living with myasthenia gravis described what it feels like to experience a crisis:

My speech slows, and I sound like I’m drunk, even though I’m fighting to breathe. Sometimes I can’t talk at all. Having my mum there to advocate for me has been life-saving, because I can’t explain what’s happening. Staying calm helps me cope.

Another man in his 70s explained just how suddenly the disease can appear:

It came on at my 70th birthday party. I developed ocular MG [a form of myasthenia gravis affecting the eyes] in the middle of my speech, and my grown children thought I was having a stroke. They rushed me to hospital – and that’s how it all began.

What causes it and who does it affect?

It’s unclear what causes the disease but it’s not thought to be hereditary.

There is some evidence it is more likely to occur with other autoimmune conditions such as autoimmune thyroid disease, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis but the evidence remains incomplete.

Myasthenia gravis can appear at any age. Early onset is more common in women (often before 40), while men are more likely to develop myasthenia gravis later in life.

How is it diagnosed?

Despite its serious impact, myasthenia gravis remains under-recognised and is difficult to diagnose. The diagnosis is “clinical”, which requires a doctor with experience in myasthenia gravis to make a judgement, based on the information available.

A handful of tests are available to support the diagnosis: blood tests for antibodies, nerve conduction studies and needle electromyography, which record the electrical activity of nerves and muscles. But these are far from perfect in establishing the diagnosis.

How is it treated?

There is currently no cure for myasthenia gravis, but a range of treatments can help manage symptoms. These include:

• oral medicines called anticholinesterase inhibitors, which temporarily improve communication between nerves and muscles

• immunosuppressant medications, which are generally taken by mouth. These dampen the immune system and reduce its attack

• plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), which is a blood product. These are resource-intensive therapies that remove or block the harmful antibodies. These treatments require hospital admission for at least half a day to administer via an intravenous drip

• in some patients, surgery is performed to remove the thymus gland, which is located in the chest between the lungs. This plays a key role in the abnormal immune response in people with myasthenia gravis.

While most treatments are subsidised through the health system, access remains a challenge for some people. Plasma exchange and IVIg are not available in all hospitals, for example, meaning patients in regional areas may face long travel distances or delays in receiving urgent care.

What is the long-term outlook?

While myasthenic crises are life-threatening, the evidence so far suggests the disease won’t have a significant impact on life expectancy for most people. Treatments aim to reduce disease activity rather than offering a complete cure.

People with myasthenia gravis can have very different journeys with their disease. Some may need frequent hospital admissions, and around 10% have a form of disease which is difficult to treat.

Others may experience minimal symptoms requiring little to no treatment.

Many find their symptoms are unpredictable. As a woman in her 60s, who has had myasthenia gravis for ten years, told us:

I think you just get used to managing – to finding your own rhythm in all the uncertainty.

Gozde Aydin, Research Fellow, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University and Yong Lin Wang, Neurologist and Phd Candidate, Monash University

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

There have been at least three watershed moments in how humans access information.

One came with the invention of the printing press in 1440, which revolutionised the spread of knowledge. Another came in 1998, when the launch of Google changed how we search for and retrieve information.

The third happened in late 2022, with the introduction of generative artificial intelligence (AI). This technology can not only answer our questions, it can help us generate new content and propose solutions to real-life problems. Generative AI teaches itself even when we are not using it.

Unlike past technological shifts, which unfolded over decades or even centuries, this one is happening in just a few years.

While parents may be hearing about AI in their work or in the news, they may not realise it is also being introduced into their child’s classrooms.

As part of our new book published this week, we outline the questions parents should be asking their schools about AI.

What’s the difference between AI and generative AI?

You’ve likely encountered AI in everyday life – when your web browser remembers your preferences, your GPS suggests a faster route, or your bank flags unusual spending. These systems analyse data and make predictions based on patterns.

Generative AI goes a step further. It doesn’t just analyse, it creates. Ask it to plan a summer barbecue, and it can generate a menu, write a shopping list, design invitations, compile a playlist, or even compose an original party song. It adapts to your needs in real time, whether you’re catering to vegans or entertaining toddlers.

Our research

In our book, The Future of Schooling in a GenAI World, we investigate what generative AI means for schools.

We sought the views of more than 350 experts via surveys, interviews and international forums. We spoke to developers inventing AI, academics and business leaders who understand the implications of it, and school leaders who are adopting it. We asked participants to tell us the implications of AI for schooling.

We found generative AI is already being used in primary and secondary schools in Australia and around the world to personalise learning. It helps teachers develop study guides on key content, tutors young people at their own pace, creates lesson plans, and varies assessments depending on the student.

As generative AI tools “remember” prior interactions, they can come back to where the student left off the day before and prompt for repetition or jump ahead – similar to a private tutor.

But with these opportunities come risks. This includes an over-reliance on technology, rather than independent thinking (called “cognitive offloading”). It is also easy for students to cheat.

The technology can also be biased and inaccurate, and can threaten our privacy. In the process, there are fears it could dehumanise education.

What should parents be asking?

In our book, we pose key questions parents should be asking themselves, their children, and their schools to ensure generative AI is being used safely to enhance learning and teaching.

1. What is the school’s plan for adopting AI learning tools and resources? Schools should at least have a framework in place, but in our research, we found some do not have any formal planning.

2. How are we already using AI in the classroom? Is it just being used by teachers or are students also using in their daily work?

3. How are we planning to use AI in the foreseeable future?

4. What is an example of how using AI could benefit my child’s learning? Could it be used to focus on a particular part of the curriculum (for example, science and technology), or to focus on an area where a child needs extra work (such as multiplication)?

5. How is the school safeguarding student identity and other private data?

6. How is the school instructing students about the pros and cons of AI and its appropriate use and potential misuse? This means students are learning how to be thoughtful, responsible users of AI.

7. How can AI learning tools help my child who has an identified special need?

8. What AI tools do you recommend we have at home to support learning? Will my child need a new laptop or special software, or will we need this at home?

You could also suggest the school hosts a workshop for parents and carers to learn how to use AI tools and to address any AI concerns.

Where is all this heading?

We don’t yet know, and the pace of the change is so fast even the experts we talked to are having difficulty staying up with the latest iterations of the tools.

But we do know schools and teachers will remain essential to our society. What will change is the kind of schools we need and the role of teachers in leading them.

For parents and our educators, the challenge is to keep the HI — our human intelligence — in front of the AI.

John Fischetti, Professor, Leadership and School Transformation, School of Education, University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle; Kylie Shaw, Dean of Graduate Research (Education), University of Newcastle; Phuong Quyen Vo, Researcher, University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle, and Scott Imig, Associate professor, Educational Leadership and Management, University of Newcastle

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

In 1931, geologist Robert Shippee and US Navy Lieutenant George R. Johnson led one of the first aerial photography expeditions in South America. They captured stunning photographs of landscapes across the Andes, including some peculiar “pockmarks” in the Pisco Valley of southern Peru.

These “pockmarks” make up the mysterious archaeological site of Monte Sierpe. Stretching 1.5 kilometres and consisting of approximately 5,200 precisely aligned holes, Monte Sierpe translates as “serpent mountain” in Spanish, but the site is also known as the Band of Holes.

The purpose of Monte Sierpe has baffled researchers and members of the public alike, but new archaeological research carried out by an international team has uncovered evidence for a new interpretation.

As we explain in a new study, published today in Antiquity, Monte Sierpe, which dates to at least 700 years ago, may have functioned as an Indigenous system of accounting and exchange centuries before the European invasion.

Drone mapping and sediment analyses

We used a drone to map Monte Sierpe. Analyses of aerial imagery revealed that the site has a “segmented” organisation, composed of around 60 sections (or blocks) of holes, some of which are separated by empty spaces.

We also found numerical patterns in layout. For example, one section has nine consecutive rows with eight holes each. Another section has at least 12 rows that alternate between counts of seven and eight holes. These patterns hint at an underlying intention in the organisation of Monte Sierpe.

Our team analysed sediment samples collected from several holes across Monte Sierpe. We identified ancient pollens of maize (corn), one of the most important staple crops in the Andes, and of Typha (bulrush) and willow, which have been traditionally used to make baskets and mats.

These unexpected findings indicate that people deposited plants in the holes, perhaps using woven baskets or bundles for transport.

Parallels with a record-keeping device

To our surprise, we discovered that the organization of Monte Sierpe is similar to the structure of at least one Inca knotted-string device used for detailed record-keeping (khipu) that was recovered near Pisco.

Monte Sierpe’s 60 distinct sections of holes parallel the approximately 80 groups of cords documented in this local khipu.

This crucial discovery suggests Monte Sierpe may have played a significant role in Indigenous accounting practices.

A new model

Our results provide little support for alternative theories connecting Monte Sierpe to defence, water collection, or fog capture.

There is no evidence of fortification or weapons at Monte Sierpe.

The Band of Holes does look somewhat like the pits used for grape cultivation in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, but rainwater is effectively non-existent at these elevations (440–700 metres) in the Pisco Valley.

The site is located in an area of ephemeral fog oases (patches of dense fog that persist for up to a week), so it could have captured moisture. However, the resulting water would not be enough to grow crops, especially maize. Groundwater is not available on Monte Sierpe’s slope.

Instead, we hypothesise that Monte Sierpe initially served as a barter marketplace before being turned into a large-scale accounting device under the Inca Empire (1400–1532 AD) for collecting tribute from local communities.

The Andes is one of the few world regions where large-scale societies, such as the Inca Empire, developed, but there is no strong evidence of pre-Hispanic currencies or writing systems. How did Andean societies exchange resources and administer large numbers of people without currency or writing?

Monte Sierpe may offer answers.

Barter marketplace

Barter marketplaces are built around a shared understanding among participants about how the value of one type of good compares to the value of another.

We envision the holes at Monte Sierpe as potential units of exchange. Depositing goods in the holes could have been a way of publicly displaying information about the quantity of goods available as well as the quantity of goods required for a fair exchange.

For example, a certain number of holes containing maize would have been equivalent to a certain number of holes containing another type of good, such as cotton or coca.

Accounting device

Across the Andes, the Inca reorganised communities into new groups that were expected to take “turns” paying a labour tax or its equivalent in tribute.

In our model, each section at Monte Sierpe could have been linked to a particular social group for the payment of tax. Numerical patterns in layout and variation in the number of holes across sections may reflect differences in tribute levels, or the number of taxpayers from specific villages and towns.

In a sense, Monte Sierpe may have functioned as a large “spreadsheet” for the Inca Empire.

While our model remains tentative, our research brings us closer to unravelling the purpose behind one of the most enigmatic archaeological sites in the Andes.

Jacob L. Bongers, Tom Austen Brown Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney and Charles Stanish, Exec. Director, Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment; Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida

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

The resignations of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness over dishonest editing of a speech in 2021 by US President Donald Trump raise several disturbing questions.

These concern the effectiveness and integrity of the BBC’s internal editorial procedures for investigating complaints, and the pressure being brought to bear on the BBC by conservative political and media forces in the United Kingdom.

The Trump controversy originated from the editing of a BBC Panorama documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” It went to air a week before the 2024 US presidential election, and contained replays of sections of the speech Trump had made to his supporters just before the insurrection in Washington on 6 January 2021.

In the speech, Trump said at one point: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer our brave senators and congressmen and women.” Fifty minutes later, in the same speech, he said: “I’ll be with you. And we fight. Fight like hell.”

According to the BBC’s own account, these two quotes were spliced together to read: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol […] and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The effect was to give the impression Trump was egging on his supporters to violence.

At that time, a journalist called Michael Prescott was working as an independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee. According to The Guardian, Prescott’s appointment to this role had been pushed by a BBC board member, Robbie Gibb, who had been communications chief for the former Conservative prime minister Theresa May and had also helped set up the right-wing broadcaster GB News.

Prescott left the BBC in June 2025, but during his time there he wrote a letter to the BBC board drawing their attention to what he saw as problems of “serious and systemic” editorial bias within the broadcaster. The dishonest editing of the Trump speech was one example he gave to support his case.

He wrote that when these lapses had been brought to the attention of editorial managers, they “refused to accept there had been a breach of standards”.

That letter came into the possession of London’s Daily Telegraph, a conservative newspaper. On November 3 it published a story based on it, under the headline: “Exclusive: BBC doctored Trump speech, internal report reveals”. The sub-heading read: “Corporation edited footage in Panorama programme to make it seem president was encouraging Capitol riot, according to whistleblower dossier”.

It is not known who the whistleblower was.

The Trump White House was on to this immediately, a press secretary describing the BBC as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine”. Trump himself posted on his Truth Social platform that “very dishonest people” had “tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election”, adding: “On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for democracy!”

News Corporation’s British streaming service TalkTV predicted Trump will sue the BBC. As yet there have been no developments of that kind.

The Prescott revelations come only three weeks after the BBC reported that the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom had found another BBC documentary, this time about the war in Gaza, had committed a “serious breach” of broadcasting rules by failing to tell its audience that the documentary’s narrator was the son of the Hamas minister for agriculture.

Ofcom concluded that the program, called “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone” was materially misleading by failing to disclose that family link.

These are egregious errors, and the journalists who made them should be called to account. But the resignation of the director-general and the CEO of news is so disproportionate a response that it raises questions about what pressures were brought to bear on them and by whom.

The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail ran hard for a week on the Trump story, and this generated pressure from the House of Commons culture committee to extract explanations from the BBC.

Politically, the timing was certainly inconvenient. The BBC is about to begin negotiations with the government over its future funding, and perhaps a calculation was made that these might proceed more fruitfully with a new director-general and head of news after a procession of controversies over the past couple of years.

On top of that was the Trump factor. Were there diplomatic pressures on the British government from the White House to see that some trophy scalps were taken?

Davie and Turness have each said that mistakes had been made, that the buck stopped with them, and that they were resigning on principle. Perhaps so, but the sources of pressure – the White House, the House of Commons, the conservative media – are such as to invite a closer scrutiny of the reasons for their departure.

They also seemed unable to respond effectively to the week-long onslaught from The Telegraph and Mail, either by defending their journalists or admitting mistakes had been made and that they had taken remedial steps.

It is also a reminder to public broadcasters like Australia’s ABC, that in the current political climate they are high-priority targets for right-wing media and politicians. The ABC has had its crisis with the Antoinette Lattouf case, which cost it more than $2.5 million for its management’s failure to stand up for its journalists against external pressure.

Fortunately it coincided with the planned departures of the chair and managing director, giving it the opportunity of a fresh start. The BBC is about to get a similar opportunity. Clearly it needs to more effectively enforce its editorial standards but it also needs to stand up for its people when they are unfairly targeted.

Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

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