A liver condition that many people have never heard of may affect around one in six women of childbearing age worldwide. A 2025 global analysis estimated that 15.8% of women aged 15 to 49 were living with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) in 2021.

Imagine Lisa, 31, arriving for her first pregnancy appointment. Five years earlier, routine blood tests had shown mildly raised liver enzymes, markers that can indicate liver damage. Further tests found excess fat in her liver. Because she also has obesity and type 2 diabetes, and other possible causes have been ruled out, her findings fit the diagnostic criteria for MASLD.

MASLD is the new name for what was previously called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD. It describes excess fat in the liver alongside at least one metabolic risk factor, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity or abnormal levels of fats in the blood.

Now that Lisa is pregnant, she has a simple question: what does this diagnosis mean for her and her baby?

The evidence is still developing. Pregnancy-specific research and guidance on MASLD remain much less extensive than the evidence available for the condition in the wider adult population.

The issue is becoming increasingly relevant. Between 2010 and 2021, the estimated global prevalence of MASLD among women aged 15 to 49 increased by almost 14%, with prevalence rising with age within this group.

The timing is notable. In May 2026, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution recognising steatotic liver disease, the wider group of liver conditions that includes MASLD, as a growing global health challenge. It calls for better prevention, diagnosis and integration of liver disease into strategies addressing long-term conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Pregnancy itself causes substantial changes in how the body handles glucose and fats, including a gradual reduction in sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that helps move glucose from the blood into cells.

Evidence suggests that women with MASLD have higher rates of several pregnancy complications. An in-depth review of 22 studies involving 13,641 women with NAFLD found higher odds of gestational diabetes, high blood pressure during pregnancy, pre-eclampsia and preterm birth, meaning birth before 37 weeks. Most of these studies used the older NAFLD terminology.

Interpreting these findings is complicated because MASLD often occurs alongside obesity and other metabolic conditions that can themselves influence pregnancy outcomes. Earlier studies were also often small or unable to examine the severity of liver disease separately.

Using nationwide Swedish healthcare data, we and our colleagues studied 240 births to 162 women with biopsy-confirmed MASLD and compared them with 1,140 matched births to women without known MASLD.

One finding stood out. Preterm birth occurred in 16.7% of pregnancies among women with MASLD, compared with 4.7% in the comparison group. After accounting for other measured factors, the odds indicated a 3.4 higher risk of preterm birth.

The association remained when women with MASLD were compared with women who were overweight or had obesity but no known MASLD, and when researchers compared pregnancies within families to reduce the influence of shared genetic and environmental factors. This strengthens the evidence that MASLD may play a role, but the study was observational and therefore cannot prove that MASLD caused the premature births.

Having more advanced MASLD, including fibrosis, which means scarring of the liver, did not appear to further increase the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes in the Swedish study. However, the numbers of women with more severe disease were small and the statistical uncertainty was substantial.

Women with MASLD also had higher odds of caesarean delivery. But that difference was no longer clear when they were compared with women who were overweight or had obesity without known MASLD, suggesting that body weight or related factors could account for much of the association.

What about the children?

The evidence is more limited. In another Swedish nationwide study, 239 children born to mothers with biopsy-confirmed MASLD had a higher rate of serious infections requiring hospital care than 1,131 comparison children. Across follow-up, their adjusted rate was about 1.8 times higher, with the strongest association during the first year of life, when it was about three times higher. Again, this was an observational finding and does not establish that maternal MASLD caused the infections.

There is some reassuring evidence too. The same Swedish cohort has so far shown no clear evidence of increased cancer or death through early adulthood. Another study found no statistically clear increase in autoimmune diseases, conditions in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues.

These apparently reassuring findings also require caution. The studies contained only 239 children exposed to maternal MASLD and relatively few cases of cancer, death or autoimmune disease, so larger studies with longer follow-up are needed.

For women like Lisa, these uncertainties affect real conversations about pregnancy, monitoring and risk. As MASLD becomes increasingly common among women of childbearing age, doctors are likely to encounter it more often in pregnancy. Better evidence is needed to tell women what the diagnosis means for them and for their children.

Carole Marxer, Postdoctoral Researcher in Gastrointestinal Epidemiology, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet and Jonas F. Ludvigsson, Professor, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet

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

Russian mathematician Yurii Nesterov was recently awarded the Gauss Prize for outstanding mathematical contributions for his “groundbreaking work” on optimisation. The award cited his work on gradient descent methods – and in particular, the “efficiency gains [they] provide to AI technologies”.

Everyone using large language model (LLM) chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini – for any purpose – depends on Nesterov’s methods. They may speak like humans and be personified with names, but under the bonnet, LLMs are computer programs that work via optimisation of billions of parameters known as neural networks for their similarity to how brains function.

These pure mathematical systems are powered in part by gradient descent algorithms, or variants of them. Their development represents one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of the 21st century.

But where does the knowledge that underpins this technology come from – and who should be allowed to own it?

Why gradient descent is key to AI systems

If you were standing in a mountain range and wanted to get to the bottom of a valley as fast as possible, you’d take steps downhill until you got there. Fundamentally, this is how gradient descent methods work.

For a given task with a set of parameters – such as how well an LLM can predict the next word in a sentence – the idea is that gradient descent provides a way to get to the best prediction, the point of minimum error, taking as few steps as possible. In our example, this point represents the most likely next word in the sentence.

Nesterov’s contribution has been finding optimal ways to achieve this. One of his key insights is using momentum to help you get to the bottom of the valley faster – known as the Nesterov Accelerated Gradient method (here’s a deeper explanation of the mathematics involved).

This work has made huge-scale optimisation feasible at workable speeds – thus underpinning the rapid development of LLMs, and AI systems more generally, over the last few years.

This technology is affecting more and more aspects of life. At home, AI agents are being touted as ways to manage busy households. In medicine, the first AI-assisted brain surgery was recently performed in a London hospital. In mathematics, AI-generated proofs claim to have solved a number of longstanding problems, with some referring to the AI agents as “collaborators” in this work.

All of this leads to big business. The race for AI dominance is built on massive capital and research and development expenditure, to develop the technology and supporting infrastructure required to support this global industrial revolution.

While in the west, private AI companies are bearing a sizeable part of this burden (without, in most cases, seeing any profits), the role of publicly funded research is and will remain critical to their business models.

In the US, obligated federal government spending on AI increased from US$675 million to US$7.2 billion (£5.3bn) between 2024 and 2026 – an increase of almost 1,000%.

There has already been considerable debate – and some high-profile legal cases – regarding the ethics of AI companies training their models on the back catalogue of human creativity, only to rent the results back to us. Far less scrutinised is the question of AI companies developing technology using knowledge that only exists due to sustained public investment over many decades, via academics such as Nesterov.

The fact that big tech companies use complex international tax strategies to limit their tax liabilities adds to the sense that their aggressive defence of intellectual property rights is out of kilter with the publicly funded research that plays a key role in its development.

Technology built on public knowledge

In most cases, academics work in publicly funded institutions on research grants that are largely funded by governments, whether through the Horizon Europe programme, the US National Science Foundation, or UK Research and Innovation. All of these bodies are ultimately funded by the taxpayer.

None of the rapid development in AI exists in a vacuum. It is built on decades of pioneering, blue-skies work on optimisation and neural networks, done by academics and largely funded by taxpayers at a time when the real-world application was still a distant dream.

Legal arguments around COVID vaccine patents are one example of how the private sector has tried to deny this public sector involvement – and a related share in any profits. So where is the public sector in this debate?

The EU is taking steps to secure control of its digital infrastructure, with a renewed focus on sovereignty in digital services. In the UK and elsewhere, a growing number of open-access mandates should mean that knowledge created by public funding stays public. While it can be used freely for commercial purposes, successful businesses would then theoretically pay back into the system via general taxation.

However, such knowledge flows beyond national borders. Efforts to capture value for reinvestment into the AI research landscape will be made harder by the fact that the tech companies’ business models depend on lobbying governments hard to avoid regulation. Any efforts to make them pay more for upstream public research and development are likely to be strongly resisted.

In the case of Nesterov and his fast gradient methods, this foundational work has been done in European institutions – yet the AI companies dominating the market are overwhelmingly based in the US or China. It rankles when access to these models is then restricted by foreign companies and governments.

James David Pickering, Assistant Professor in Physical Chemistry, School of Chemistry, University of Leicester

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

Avid runners are often chasing speed. Whether that’s improving their 5K or shaving seconds off their marathon time to nail a personal best. The idea that exercise should involve pushing further, harder or faster has long been embedded in fitness culture.

But against this backdrop, some people have adopted the almost counter-cultural belief that the key to fitness is to take things slow.

The growing popularity of the “slow jogging” trend online counters a lot of what we’ve been taught about fitness. Rather than striving for speed, the slow jogging trend encourages people to take short steps and move at a pace slow enough to comfortably hold a conversation.

To some people, this might look too easy to count as exercise. But exercise does not have to be intense to improve health.

The slow jogging trend was originally developed by a Japanese researcher named Hiroaki Tanaka. According to the researcher, jogging at “niko-niko pace” (which translates to “smiling pace”) could be a more enjoyable way to improve cardiovascular fitness. The trend eventually caught on in South Korea before going viral online, where it is now being adopted by people all around the world.

While there’s little research specifically on slow jogging, there is extensive evidence showing that low-intensity and moderate-intensity aerobic activities can improve health, fitness and wellbeing.

The fact that an activity looks easy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ineffective. This is because exercise intensity is relative. A pace that feels effortless for an experienced runner may feel moderately challenging for someone who has been largely inactive. For that person, slow jogging can still provide a meaningful stimulus to the cardiovascular system and help improve aerobic fitness over time.

It’s for this reason that slow jogging may particularly be beneficial for people who don’t exercise very often or who have perhaps never tried jogging before.

The World Health Organization recommends that adults get between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week. More recent guidelines also emphasise a simpler message: some activity is better than none, more is generally better than less, and sedentary time should be reduced.

This message reflects growing evidence that inactivity itself is a health risk. Long periods of sitting have been associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and premature death. Researchers now recognise that health is influenced not only by how much exercise we do, but also by how much we move throughout the day.

This is where slow jogging may be particularly useful.

One of the most consistent findings in exercise science is that some of the largest health gains occur when people move from doing almost nothing to doing something. For someone who is largely sedentary, gradually introducing regular bouts of activity can improve cardiorespiratory fitness, help regulate blood sugar, lower blood pressure and reduce future risk of heart disease and stroke.

Slow jogging offers a relatively accessible way to achieve this. Compared with joining a gym, participating in organised sport or signing up for a running event, the barrier to entry is low. The pace is manageable and can easily be adapted to people of different ages, fitness levels and abilities.

But the benefits of slow jogging may extend beyond simply helping inactive people exercise more.

Many of the videos shared online show people slow jogging in groups. This social aspect may be important. One of the strongest predictors of long-term participation in physical activity is whether people enjoy the activity enough to keep doing it. Exercise performed with friends, family members or community groups can promote social connection, enjoyment and a sense of belonging, all of which can support long-term adherence.

The mental health benefits may be important too. Regular physical activity is associated with reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, improved mood and greater overall wellbeing. Activities that combine movement with social interaction may offer benefits that extend beyond physical fitness alone.

Fitness boost

Slow jogging may even have a role for people who already exercise regularly.

Although it’s unlikely to replace more challenging workouts for those pursuing specific fitness goals, endurance athletes who want to improve their aerobic fitness and even their race times may benefit from slowing down.

This is because slow jogging may overlap with what runners often call “zone 2 pace” – a running pace which raises your heart rate but is still slow enough to hold a conversation.

This lower intensity running can help runners more effectively build their aerobic base (their foundational fitness level and how effectively the body can use oxygen during long runs), and can also help the body learn to burn more fat for energy during exercise.

For active people, slow jogging could therefore serve as an easier option on days when high-intensity training is neither necessary nor desirable.

Seen in this light, the appeal of slow jogging becomes easier to understand. Its value may not lie in being a revolutionary new form of exercise. Rather, it reflects a growing recognition that health does not need to be extreme to be beneficial. Sometimes the biggest challenge is simply finding a form of movement that people enjoy enough to do consistently.

Stephen Garland, Senior Lecturer, Sports Physiology, Malmö University

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

September is traditionally the time of year when many young people go to university or college, often leaving parents and carers facing an “empty nest”. But an empty nest doesn’t just mean a quiet home. Sometimes for the older generation there are also difficult questions about the next phase of their life.

The term “empty nest” was popularised by US author and activist Dorothy Canfield Fisher in her 1914 book Mothers and Children. It described the emotional challenges mothers experienced when their children left home. By the 1970s, the concept of “empty nest syndrome”, had developed. This referred to more severe symptoms including depression, loneliness and loss of self-confidence.

In recent years, with living costs and house prices increasing relative to wages, this transition in family lives has become extended. Many young people are struggling to establish independent households. This leaves the timeframe of the transition to “empty nester” more uncertain for their parents or carers.

Much of the focus is on mothers, but celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay captured the impact on fathers too. Ramsay described becoming so distressed when his son left home that he not only put on his son’s underwear, he then sat alone on his bed.

Yet there appears to be a taboo about this complex experience within the social sciences. It is surprisingly under-researched and little mentioned, despite having broad implications for home, personal life, wellbeing and an ageing society.

Recent research by one of us (Denise) is one of the only UK studies ever to examine the empty nest experience. It explored how social factors, including living arrangements, relationship status and previous life events, can intersect with the emotional and social consequences of children leaving home. Using a life-course perspective (which looks at the significant factors that shape an individual’s life from birth to old age), the study considered how the transition can affect wellbeing, particularly among people aged 60 and over.

Findings were mixed, with some participants viewing the transition positively. These people saw it as an opportunity for new experiences and personal growth. Others, particularly those who were single, widowed or living alone, experienced significant loneliness, distress and a reduced sense of purpose.

For those who struggled, the loss was not simply about having fewer people in the house. Participants described missing the day-to-day rhythm of family life, including the conversations, routines and responsibilities associated with active parenting. This silence and emptiness contributed to a profound sense of loss. Others described a loss of identity following years of defining themselves through their role as an active parent, leading them to seek medical and therapeutic help.

One of the clearest findings was the relationship between companionship and wellbeing. Those in the study who had a partner or close companions living nearby were considerably less likely to experience the negative consequences of the empty nest. By contrast, those who were single, widowed or living alone appeared particularly vulnerable to distress and potential empty nest syndrome.

The study also highlighted the lack of social recognition around the empty nest transition. Unlike bereavement or retirement, the departure of an adult child doesn’t usually come with any formal public rituals or acknowledgement of the loss. Parents and carers may feel they have lost an important part of their lives. But at the same time, they may believe they don’t have “permission” to mourn that loss, because their child’s departure is considered a normal and a positive milestone.

Some participants in the study used the empty nest transition as a springboard to pursue forgotten hobbies, career ambitions, travel or rekindle friendships. However, these positive experiences were more common in heterosexual marriages, suggesting that the ability to turn loss into opportunity is shaped by social and relationship circumstances.

Why this matters

Recognition of the empty nest is increasingly important as family structures and patterns of later life change. Data from the Office for National Statistics show that divorce among older adults has increased over recent decades. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of men aged 65 and over divorcing increased by 23%. It was even higher for women, with an increase of 38% – contributing to the emergence of terms such as “grey divorce” and “silver splitters”.

Single-parent families are becoming more common, while older people who divorce or are widowed may be more likely to live alone once their children leave home.

At the same time, people are living longer. Someone aged 65 in the UK can now expect to live for around 20 years beyond retirement. This provides a longer period in which they can renegotiate their identity and family roles, providing they can guard against loneliness.

The research suggests that we need to pay greater attention to the empty nest as a significant life-course transition, as well as the health and social care implications it brings. For some parents and carers, a child leaving home will be an exciting opportunity for freedom, exploration and personal growth. For others, the research shows it can intensify loneliness and undermine their sense of purpose and identity.

As loneliness and social isolation are associated with poorer physical and mental health, our plan is to carry out more research that spans family lives, home and wellbeing in order to develop forms of support for navigating this transition. While the empty nest may be inevitable, feeling empty in its aftermath is not.

Denise Turner, Professor of Social Work, University of Hertfordshire and Katie Walsh, Reader in Human Geography, University of Sussex

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

What if much of what we thought we knew about women’s health and fitness was suddenly called into question?

Researchers in many fields of science, including my area of exercise physiology, are facing this scenario, after generations of research that either left out women participants altogether or significantly reduced their numbers in countless experiments.

These practices have continued to inform, perhaps mistakenly, our understanding of issues ranging from athletic performance to the benefits of exercise, where we have been left to presume it was OK to generalize results from testing men as if they applied to women and men equally.

These are not just old studies from back in the day when women were routinely excluded from many arenas. These are also studies from the past 20 years, when many people thought research was finally catching up.

Why women were left out of research studies

Leaving women out of scientific studies has largely been the result of uncertainty over how to account for potential fluctuations related to menstruation or hormonal birth control.

Not knowing how or whether these factors might affect, for example, muscle function, researchers simply included fewer women in their research, or didn’t include them at all, based on assumptions that turned out to be incorrect.

It’s hardly the first time. We look back to the times before women were allowed to complete in the Olympics, for example, when women were discouraged from participating in sports because it might damage their bodies or have negative outcomes for reproduction.

A particular piece of modern research broke the logjam in my field: the finding that menstrual cycles typically do not have significant impact on blood vessel function, nor are there meaningful muscle and performance differences between women who are using hormonal birth control and those who are not.

Those results helped us to move past a 1995 study that had found the opposite, and which researchers in my area had typically cited as the reason for excluding women, because the variables just seemed too complex and impractical to resolve. I was certainly one of them.

Questioning the assumption

In 2018, our new look into the validity of this reasoning came, as so many fresh ideas do, from students — graduate students Ninette Shenouda and Stacey Priest — who were curious about these bedrock assumptions, so we decided to look more deeply into them.

We took all the variables we study in our work, such as the health of blood vessels and the heart in exercise, and measured whether they were affected by the time of the menstrual cycle or the oral contraceptive cycle. It turned out there were no significant day-to-day differences.

Similar findings have now been made in several other areas of exercise physiology, including the impact of menstrual cycle phase on the responses to resistance exercise training.

We’d been leaving women out for no reason, and no one had bothered to check and see if that was justified. I was the dean of science at my university at the time, and it took a student to show me the way — a reminder that many perspectives make better science.

This new opening has left us facing a major knowledge gap, since we don’t know the areas where men and women are very similar, or where they may be very different.

I think about our colleagues in medicine and what they learned once they questioned some assumptions around heart attack research, for example. For far too long, we didn’t know that symptoms and outcomes can vary widely between women and men. Now that they are aware of these differences, they are improving the ways in which we care for women — and men too.

What else is out there waiting to be discovered?

Filling in blanks

For researchers, this problem is also an opportunity to know more and to discover helpful information that can improve the way we all live.

Today, we and increasing numbers of our colleagues at other institutions are catching up, filling in huge blanks in the scientific record and developing new information that everyone can rely on.

Some of it is revealing significant differences between women and men. Some of it is affirming areas where there are no significant differences. All of it is vital new knowledge.

Now that we’re addressing the barriers to the inclusion of women in research studies, we can start to broaden our work. We can compare women participants across the spectrum of the lifespan, for example.

I encourage everyone across other fields of science to do the same. Look at the measures you’re studying and see what you may have been missing.

Science has always changed and evolved as new evidence has become available. With this valuable new information in hand, it’s time to learn more — for everyone’s sake.

Maureen MacDonald, Professor of Kinesiology and Provost and Vice President Academic, McMaster University

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

Western Australian author Hamish Kelly has struggled with reading for almost two decades. In his first of two books, he describes his experience of learning to read:

The letters in words were confusing and words often looked the same […] Each year it got harder. Reading got harder and maths got twice as hard, as maths has lots of reading as well […] By year 5, I was down on myself. I felt stupid and dumb!! My Mum, Dad, and teachers told me I wasn’t, but I still felt that I was. There [were] other challenges […] like anxiety and loss of confidence.

What Hamish is describing is reading anxiety. This involves excessive worries and apprehensions about reading activities.

In the last eight years, there has been a five-fold increase in studies of reading anxiety, as we learn more about this educational challenge.

One of the things we are trying to work out is if reading difficulties cause reading anxiety or if reading anxiety causes reading difficulties.

A new longitudinal study provides some clues.

What causes what?

The results of this study, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, support the former idea – that reading ability can cause reading anxiety.

This study tested 499 Bulgarian children’s reading ability eight times between grades 1 and 8. Most of these children (294) were also tested for their reading anxiety in grade 8.

The researchers also considered other factors such as socioeconomic status, working memory (the ability to temporarily hold and manipulate information) and IQ scores.

The study found children’s reading in grade 1, as well as their reading gains between grades 1 and 3, and between grades 6 and 8, predicted reading anxiety in grade 8. This suggests problems with reading at any time in primary school might cause reading anxiety in children.

This findings align with a study from Finland, published earlier this year.

Here, researchers found poorer reading skills in grade 1 students predicted higher reading anxiety in grade 2.

Why this is an issue for students?

Together, these findings support the idea that reading ability and reading anxiety may form a vicious cycle.

For many students – such as Hamish – this cycle begins when they start struggling with learning to read and can see they are behind their peers. This triggers the belief they are bad reader (or a poor reading self-concept) which makes them worry about reading, particularly in front of other people (reading anxiety).

To avoid these anxious feelings, they start to avoid reading the best they can – perhaps by school refusal or by not paying attention during reading classes (reading disengagment).

This reduces their reading learning, which further harms their reading self-concept, anxiety levels and reading engagement.

So a vicious cycle is created that maintains difficulties with both reading ability and reading anxiety.

How many students are affected?

A limitation of the Bulgarian study is it did not explore how many children with reading difficulties have reading anxiety. In fact, very few studies do. Two exceptions – both Australian studies – have estimated around 50% of children with reading challenges have reading anxiety.

Given about one-third of Australian students do not meet basic standards in literacy – as measured by NAPLAN testing – this suggests a significant number would also would struggle with reading anxiety.

What does this all mean for teachers, families and friends?

The authors of the Bulgarian study noted they did not measure the impact that teachers, families, and peers may have on reading anxiety.

This is important because other research suggests support from these networks may help “break” or moderate the relationship between reading ability and reading anxiety.

For example, teachers, families, and friends can help by adopting a neurodiversity approach that promotes awareness of, and respect for, differences between students’ ability to learn all cognitive skills. This includes reading.

This might mean parents and grandparents do not make a fuss if a child is not learning to read as quickly as their siblings or friends (and avoid comparisons such as, “Max could read when he was in kindy!”). Instead, make a fuss about something a child is good at (for example, “Wow – you are definitely the best cook/swimmer/artist in the family!”).

They can also encourage students who have reading challenges to develop a “growth mindset”. This focuses on progress and the development of competence rather than absolute levels of achievement. For example, celebrating how a child can reliably read simple sentences when they could only read standalone words six months ago, rather than whether they are “reading at Year 1 level”.

Both approaches can help support a student’s confidence, which can help their reading anxiety and reading disengagement. The more they read, they better they become, the more they will enjoy and engage with reading. And then in turn, the more they will read and the more they will improve.

Genevieve McArthur, Professor at the Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy, Australian Catholic University

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

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett has called for a national “conversation” about the link between Australians’ use of illicit drugs and organised crime violence.

Barrett’s call comes after recent murders in Sydney linked to organised crime included two cases of mistaken identity in one week.

Writing in The Nightly, Barrett said: “The conversation needs to be collectively louder about the dangers of illicit drug use and linking it to the organised crime violence in our communities and the impact it is having on our national security.

"Australians take too many illicit drugs, and it is absurd how much money users are willing to pay for them.” We should “refuse to normalise illict drug use”.

Barrett said at this year’s Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group Annual Principals Meeting (that includes Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada), many participants said it was hard to get the public’s attention on the dangers of illicit drug use.

“However, I believe Australians may now be open to having this conversation because of the shocking shootings, including mistaken identity shootings, linked to organised crime in NSW,” Barrett wrote.

“It is important to note that this is not a NSW problem — it is an Australian problem, and mistaken murders at the hands of organised crime gangs have also happened in other states.”

The New South Wales government announced after the two recent mistaken identity killings that it would bring in life sentences for people planning gang-related murders, and adult time for youths who committed these crimes. The gangs have been employing young people to carry out murders, which has increased the risk of mistaken identify crimes.

The state government will introduce the new measures into parliament this week and expects to have them through by October.

Barrett wrote that most criminal gangs operating in Australia “will be drawn to products that make them obscene profits.

"Many of the crime gangs responsible for cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin trafficking are also responsible for illicit tobacco importations.”

In the criminal gig economy, onshore and offshore crime gangs are tasking out their criminal reprisals to Australian youth, some just in their early teens. This new pipeline of young offenders has little impulse control and can be even more reckless than other older criminals".

She also pointed to how “organised crime can use AI to help evade law enforcement detection”.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

The federal government recently announced a suite of new laws designed to address harmful content on digital platforms.

Following campaigning organised by activist Chanel Contos’ youth-led organisation Teach us Consent, the government has pledged to create an opt-out model that would allow users to return their feeds to a timeline-based setting.

The proposal forms part of broader digital duty of care legislation. It aims to place greater responsibility on tech companies to protect users from abusive and harmful content.

The proposed laws have been broadly celebrated as a win, particularly in light of growing evidence about the harms associated with manosphere content. These harms are being seen in Australian schools as well as in concerning attitudes and beliefs about gender roles, women and violence among Australian adolescents.

But while there’s no doubt allowing people to opt out of algorithms would help, the technology itself only partially explains why the manosphere is appealing in the first place.

The theme that unites all the manosphere’s disparate content is misogyny. As important as social media regulation is, no amount of it will meaningfully address the manosphere unless we also do the hard work of dismantling the misogyny that underpins it.

Chicken or egg?

As awareness of the manosphere has increased, so too has its use as a single and isolated explanation for the rise in misogynistic behaviour among boys and men.

But the manosphere did not create misogyny. It just capitalised on it.

Misogyny has been a historical feature of many societies for thousands of years, built into institutions such as legal systems, medicine and education.

The fact it continues today, despite our efforts to work towards gender equality, means we are missing part of the equation when it comes to preventing its spread.

Not just victims of the algorithm

Accountability for men and boys subscribing to misogyny and sexist beliefs often goes unmentioned in this conversation.

Instead, explanations such as poor mental health, loneliness and unmet needs have become more acceptable, even when the evidence for these connections is not clear.

While these are all worthy of attention, they do not account for the historical and ongoing presence of misogyny among some boys and men.

Nor, given poor mental health and loneliness are slightly higher among women than men, do they explain why boys and men are more likely to hold misogynist beliefs and significantly more likely to commit sexual violence than girls and women.

Grievances related to the economy, job prospects and other future concerns are actively promoted by manosphere creators as justifiable reasons for misogyny. While grievance can make something feel true, it does not make it reality.

It’s essential we also examine why hate and violence against women and girls remains an appealing choice, and hold men and boys to account when they make that choice or engage with those views. They are not just passive victims of tech companies’ algorithms.

Regulation of harmful content will not comprehensively prevent violence against girls and women, nor will it give them the support to recover and heal from these gendered harms.

Will people use the off switch?

This new legislation follows the Australian government’s previous intervention in online harms.

Social media age restrictions introduced in December last year placed the responsibility on platforms to ensure children aged under 16 were not account users on their platforms.

Early assessment of the effectiveness of the ban has found that circumvention tactics are common among young users. There has been little evidence of a reduction in use by children under 16.

This gives us some evidence that if users want to access content regulators have determined is harmful to them, they will find ways.

For the men and boys engaging with the manosphere, it’s therefore unlikely they’ll choose to opt out of the algorithm at all.

So what do we do?

If we want to dismantle misogynistic ideas, restricting the circulation of harmful content is a start, but it’s only one part of the solution.

We need to intervene before these ideas take hold, preferably in early childhood education.

We know high-quality, sustained education can shift the attitudes and beliefs that underpin violence against women. This needs to be holistic and ongoing – one-off lessons and short-term campaigns don’t work.

In Australia, Respectful Relationships Education, implemented across the whole school, is the best prevention measure we have.

But, we need the government to resource schools to do this work properly. This means providing the time, training and specialist support required.

Because misogyny also drives domestic and family violence, we need more resources for parents escaping violent partners. This includes “all-of-family” programs that have a joint focus on perpetrator accountability and victim-survivor recovery and healing.

It’s both unfair and unrealistic to expect traumatised parents, most of whom are single mothers, to manage their children’s recovery as well as their own while resources to support them remain so dramatically underfunded.

This makes the current policy action concerning. Regulation and education are complementary, not competing, approaches. We need both measures that reduce the amplification of manosphere content and sustained investment in helping young people critically understand the content they consume.

Only then will we start to tackle the misogyny fuelling the manosphere, and thereby reckon with the manosphere itself.

Stephanie Wescott, Lecturer, Monash University; Jane Gilmore, PhD Candidate, Monash University, and Naomi Pfitzner, Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Hub and Senior Lecturer in Criminology Monash University, Monash University

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

Countries like Australia have long struggled to tax the global tech giants. Now, a new approach could significantly increase tax collected from multinationals such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

These companies earn significant revenue from Australian consumers. However, much of the profit is ultimately recognised overseas. Traditional tax rules have not kept pace with the way global businesses operate.

Over the last decade, Australia has introduced several laws targeting multinational tax avoidance and profit shifting. These laws focus on where profits are made, where they are shifted to, and where they are ultimately taxed. They are designed to prevent multinationals from shifting profits earned through sales to Australian consumers to an offshore location.

These measures have made it harder for multinationals to reduce their tax in Australia. But they don’t deal with all the ways profits are shifted offshore.

A new ruling by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) takes a different approach.

Rather than focusing on the flow of profits offshore, it focuses on the character of cross-border payments for software made to overseas entities in the same corporate group. The ruling says some of these payments can be treated as royalties – and therefore taxed in Australia.

The scale of the problem

The scale of the Australian operations of US tech giants can be seen in the ATO’s latest corporate tax transparency data. It shows that Apple, Microsoft and Amazon were among the largest tech groups operating in Australia by total income reported.

Taken together, these three groups reported almost A$30 billion in total income for the 2023-24 income year, while their combined tax payable was about $478 million.

Imagine an Australian consumer pays $100 for a software subscription supplied by a global tech giant. An Australian subsidiary of the tech group may sit behind the transaction and receive the consumer’s $100 payment. It then pays $80 to an overseas member of the group for the right to distribute or use the software in Australia. Ignoring other costs, the profit is $20 for Australian tax purposes.

The new tax ruling potentially changes the tax consequences of the $80 payment. It says this payment may have a copyright or intellectual property element, meaning some or all of it could be considered to be a royalty payment. This matters because royalties paid to overseas companies can be subject to Australian royalty withholding tax.

Across the major tech firms, these extra taxes could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

US Treasury and trade groups object

The US Treasury has already raised objections during a five-year consultation process. Earlier drafts of the ruling were released in 2021 and 2024.

The US Treasury in 2024 urged the ATO to either withdraw the draft ruling or revise it to conform with international tax conventions.

The US position is clear. It argues these payments are not royalties and should be treated as business profits, making them taxable in the US. It views the Australian approach as a departure from international tax norms.

Significantly, different approaches to the same payment also create the risk of double taxation. If Australia treats the payment as an Australian-source royalty but the US does not accept this position, the US tech company may not be able to obtain a tax credit and may be taxed twice.

The Washington-based National Foreign Trade Council responded this week:

We are extremely concerned that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has decided to double down on its unprincipled approach to routine business transactions. This guidance continues to run counter to international tax norms, including unilaterally reinterpreting the US-Australia Tax Treaty.

The White House has also warned its trading partners against levying new taxes on its tech sector.

Is the ATO right?

Tech giants and the US may not agree with the ATO’s position, but its stance has merit.

Traditional rules for taxing royalties were developed decades before software was downloaded over the internet or accessed from the cloud. Modern software distribution can involve much more than simply buying a product overseas and selling it in Australia.

The ATO argues that it must go beyond the label placed on the arrangement and consider what rights are actually granted under the arrangement. This includes the grant of the right to reproduce software. Importantly, the ATO does not argue that every payment for software is a royalty.

The ATO’s position is effectively that the tax treatment of software payments should reflect the reality of modern transactions – and the way intellectual property is used and distributed in a digital business model.

Where to now?

The ATO says the ruling clarifies its views and provides certainty about the tax consequences of software payment arrangements. However, it recognises that ultimately, the rules may need to be clarified in the courts.

The views expressed in the ruling have to some extent already been tested in the courts. In a split decision in Australia’s High Court last year, the court ruled that transactions between PepsiCo and Schweppes were for beverage concentrate and did not include a royalty for the use of PepsiCo’s intellectual property.

Given the significant amounts of tax at stake – along with the strident US opposition – further litigation seems inevitable.

Kerrie Sadiq, Professor of Taxation, QUT Business School, and ARC Future Fellow, Queensland University of Technology

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

You’re likely familiar with the idea of a circadian rhythm – your body’s 24-hour cycle that governs sleep and wakefulness.

It turns out that resting heart rate also follows mysterious, long rhythms that run independently of the outside world. Resting heart rate is measured by how many beats per minute your heart makes while you’re calm and inactive. This measure is linked to stress, fatigue and fitness.

Our new study, published in EBioMedicine, looked at years of smartwatch data from hundreds of young adults, and found that for 70% of the participants, their resting heart rate followed a slow rhythm.

These rhythms had distinct weekly, monthly, or even ten-week cycles, where the number of heart beats per minute would rise and fall in a defined pattern within that period.

Identifying these cycles expands what we know about human biological time and could be used to improve individuals’ health.

Our many internal clocks

Human biological time refers to our bodies’ systems for measuring time, separate from a clock or calendar. Our different inner timing becomes more obvious when we move across time zones or experience jetlag.

Biological time is set by internal “clocks” in the brain and other organs, which govern bodily functions – from hunger to hormone levels. Similar clocks are found across most living organisms and interact with the outside environment such as sunlight, moonlight, and tidal or seasonal cycles.

The circadian (24-hour) rhythm is the most well known, but longer cycles – called infradian or “slower than daily” – are also observed in nature. The female reproductive cycle is an example of an infradian rhythm, as are migration or hibernation patterns in some animals.

Previous research has considered how infradian rhythms impact disease symptoms, including epileptic seizures, heart attacks and psychiatric episodes. Tracking these cycles could help forecast high-risk periods or be used to target therapies. As part of the international My Seizure Gauge consortium, our team developed digital health tools to track seizure cycles, with clinical trials currently underway.

Now, people’s increasing use of smartwatches is turbocharging research into human rhythms and how we measure them at scale.

What did we discover?

Detecting infradian rhythms requires years of data, because everyone’s cycle is unique, and the pattern takes a long time to repeat. This makes them more difficult to measure than circadian rhythms, which are similar for everyone and repeat every day.

Heart rate cycles, common in males and females, represent a new type of infradian rhythm that cannot yet be explained by science, but nevertheless affects our wellbeing.

For this study, we used data collected by the NetHealth project at the University of Notre Dame, United States. With the help of smartwatches, it tracked about 600 college students for between two and four years.

Our study analysed people’s daily resting heart rate over time using a technique called spectral analysis. You can think of this like splitting light into a rainbow, where each colour represents a different cycle (red cycles are slower; violet cycles are faster). The aim is to identify each person’s dominant “colour”.

Most people in the study (369 out of 525 participants) did have a dominant resting heart rate rhythm, ranging from weekly to yearly cycles. Across their cycle, resting heart rate changed by as much as 15 beats per minute from the peak to the trough.

Although everyone had their own rhythm, three groups emerged with cycles centred in either a weekly (13% of people), monthly (37%), or longer “multi-month” (50%) range.

Synchronising with our environment

Some findings were consistent with what we already know about heart rate trends. Yearly cycles tended to align to seasons (lower resting heart rates in summer) and weekly cycles tended to align to weekends.

Females’ monthly heart-rate cycles were often aligned to their menstrual periods. However, 20% of the monthly heart rate cycle group were male, suggesting even monthly cycles can’t be simply explained by reproductive hormones.

These findings matter for women’s health, highlighting that monthly symptoms don’t necessarily relate directly to menstrual cycles. To properly identify and treat the cause of cyclic symptoms (which could include seizures, psychiatric episodes or heart palpitations) it’s important to consider the effect of infradian rhythms beyond the reproductive system.

More broadly, the evidence points to calendar cycles acting as a “nudge” rather than the cause of heart rate rhythms. Because biological rhythms are designed to synchronise with our environment, heart rate cycles probably lock onto certain cues, such as light levels, or weekly schedules, to help the body keep time.

Likewise, individuals from the same friendship groups also tended to show more similar heart rate cycles. But even without these environmental or social cues, internal mechanisms continue to synchronise our body to a slow rhythm.

The unexpected diversity of cycles, including multi-month rhythms centred at ten weeks and six months, challenges the idea of human biology having a fixed baseline.

The study opens crucial questions about what else might be changing alongside our slowly oscillating heart rates. At our lab, we’re investigating how people’s mood, stress and disease risk are affected by infradian rhythms. If you’re a smartwatch user, you can even upload your own data to find out if your heart has a hidden rhythm.

Philippa Karoly, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne

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