The red pipefish (Notiocampus ruber) is a rare relative of seahorses and seadragons found only in Australia.

While the species occurs across southern Australia from Western Australia to New South Wales, its incredible camouflage means until now only one person had ever photographed it in the wild.

In Gamay (Botany Bay) it has been observed hiding among feathery red algae, but elsewhere the red pipefish has been recorded on rocky reefs. Its colour and slender body allow it to disappear almost completely against its surroundings.

For decades, scientists have wondered how these elusive creatures carry their eggs. Our new photographs and research, published in the Journal of Fish Biology, finally provide an answer.

A lucky sighting

One of us (Andrew) regularly dives the popular Sydney sites The Leap and The Steps at Kurnell, Gamay (Botany Bay), where he documents seahorses, pygmy pipehorses, seadragons and other related sealife.

Andrew had briefly seen a red pipefish twice before. However, he struck gold when he spotted one at Kurnell in April 2021. He kept tabs on this individual, spotting it almost weekly until January 2022.

During that time it was joined by two more red pipefish. When all three were sighted in November 2021, one was a brooding male carrying eggs on his trunk.

Tails or trunks?

While pipefishes and seahorses are famous for male pregnancy, the family is split by how the males carry their young. Many pipefish – and all seahorses – are “tail brooders”, carrying eggs on the tail in pouches.

Another group of pipefish, the “trunk brooders”, carry eggs exposed directly on the belly. However, scientists have suspected the red pipefish was a tail brooder since 1979 based on the structure of its body. However, without a living male to study the theory remained unproven.

Andrew’s photographs from his November 2021 dives at Kurnell finally provided the proof. They clearly show a male carrying large eggs attached directly to the belly – confirming the species as a trunk-brooder and placing it in an ancient group of pipefishes that lack pouches entirely.

Interestingly, the data suggest this Australian fish may be a long-lost relative of species found as far away as the North Atlantic, despite the vast geographical separation.

Finding such a rare fish in the well-dived waters of Gamay is a reminder that major biological secrets are still hiding in plain sight.

Andrew Trevor-Jones, Technical Officer, Australian Museum and Graham Short, Research Associate, Australian Museum

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Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person and one of the world’s most powerful mining magnates, recently helped finance a deal to acquire a 10% stake in Southern Cross Austereo – the second largest commercial media broadcaster in Australia.

The company owns many major media brands including the Seven Network, West Australian Newspapers and Triple M.

The announcement was followed by an 8% increase in share prices for the company – an uncommon feat in the media industry, which is often overlooked by speculative investors.

The deal – worth about $26m – doesn’t give Rinehart an immediate stake in the company. But she could secure a 9% share if her backed partner, former Seven network executive Bruce McWilliam, defaults on their agreement.

Billionaires and the media

This isn’t the first time Rinehart has forayed into the Australian media industry, having previously owned stakes in Channel 10 and Fairfax.

But what is it that motivates wealthy business people to invest in media companies, especially when they often offer poor returns to investors?

People who own news businesses have the potential to steer the actions of the company towards their own interests. This can include affecting how stories are framed so their political interests are prioritised. They may also set news agendas that emphasise their worldview or prevent them from being critiqued.

Famous examples include the reported decision from the Washington Post to not endorse Kamala Harris for the United States presidency in 2024 after owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, insisted they change their editorial practices just days before the election.

Similarly, Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister and media mogul, was criticised for leveraging his media empire to further his political ambitions.

As such, scholars have argued for decades that media ownership is a critical issue for democracy.

A complicated history of media ownership in Australia

Australia has one of the most concentrated media environments in the world.

Last century, Australia’s media companies were dominated by four family dynasties, some of whom are still household names today: the Murdochs, Packers, Fairfaxes and the lesser-known Symes family.

In the 1980s there was a shift as broadcast licenses became scarce and elite members of the business world began acquiring stakes in media companies. The most famous examples included Kerry Stokes and Alan Bond.

By then, there was serious concern about media ownership and its impacts on democracy and culture.

In 1986, the Hawke government introduced new media ownership reforms designed to curb the influence of media barons.

Paul Keating, when introducing the laws, famously said in his speech to parliament that media proprietors could be “queens of the screen or princes of print, but they couldn’t be both.”

Now Australia’s media industry faces increased financial pressure from international tech companies that have become breadwinners in online advertising.

This has also coincided with a shift in audiences towards digital platforms, away from traditional media such as television, newspapers and radio.

This has led to some small companies closing, and larger companies being acquired at bargain prices.

In 2017, under the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull, Australia began unwinding its media ownership laws in an attempt to allow for greater cross-media ownership. The hope was it would allow for more resilient media firms which might be able to stand up to international tech companies and media conglomerates.

Less than a year later, Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media merged to become the second largest media company after News Corp.

However, by 2021 the regulatory attitudes changed. Somewhat ironically, Turnbull returned to parliament alongside former prime minister Kevin Rudd at the Senate inquiry into media diversity in Australia.

There he said News Corp had turned into a “political party with only one member”.

Since then, little has been done to stop the tide of media concentration in Australia. Earlier this year, a second cross-media amalgamation occurred when Southern Cross Austereo and Seven West Media shareholders agreed to merge.

It was one of the largest media mergers in Australian history, and solidified Southern Cross Austereo as one of the country’s true media giants.

Where does this leave us now?

The involvement of business titans in Australia’s increasingly concentrated media industry is nothing new. But what is concerning is the lack of regulatory action to mitigate ownership and market concentration.

The absence of policy reform might be because the industry is already facing an existential threat from the digital advertising sector. Politicians may also be concerned about attracting the ire of media owners who might seek to use their influence against them.

A diverse media environment is necessary for a thriving democracy and it starts with ownership. Continued investment in public service media such as the ABC and SBS are one way we can ensure Australia has media institutions that cannot be owned by powerful commercial interests.

Other options also include nonprofit businesses and philanthropic models.

These approaches come with their own drawbacks. But most can help solve the compounded issues of concentrated ownership and market instability.

The path forward depends on an intricate set of factors: the financial success of the industry, intelligent policy making and the people who own Australia’s media.

Cameron McTernan, Lecturer of Media and Communication, Adelaide University

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There are many things about Miles Davis to remember as we mark 100 years since his birth. There’s the 1950s and 60s elegance and lyricism, with his Harmon muted trumpet, the tone of which was once said to sound like “a man walking on eggshells”. There’s his badass attitude taking no bull from anyone, with a particular invective for the racism of America. Most of all there is his fearless innovation, always reaching for sounds unheard.

As the late (much lamented) writer and musician Greg Tate wrote: “Miles Davis was a musician you could set your atomic clock to: check in every five years or so and you’d find him a parsec ahead of everyone else.”

But this was a hazardous approach that had a price. In 1969, Davis admitted to jazz journalist Hollie West: “I have to change, it’s like a curse.” Part of that price was the risk of failure, at least by his own exacting standards.

And so, we turn to Kind of Blue (1959). It’s the highest selling jazz record of all time, (multiple times platinum); only it wasn’t quite what he was after. In 1959, a spellbound Davis saw Les Ballet Africaines (the national dance company of Guinea founded in the early 1950s) and found his next direction. In his 1989 autobiography, Miles, he wrote:

I knew I couldn’t do it from just watching them dance because I’m not African, but I loved what they were doing. I didn’t want to copy that, but I got a concept from it.

It was the sound of the “finger piano” (mbira or kalimba), in particular, that inspired him. He set about combining that impression with a love (shared with his new pianist Bill Evans) of composer Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand and Orchestra (1930), and half remembered sounds from his childhood “back in Arkansas, when we were walking home from church and they were playing these bad gospels”.

To chase the sound he was after, Davis employed the emerging “modal” approach. This meant essentially basing his new music on diatonic scales (think the basic seven notes do-re-me … but with the option to make any of them the “home” note) instead of the frenetic chord progressions of bebop. Despite being an important player in bebop, in his autobiography Davis recognised that the music of “Diz and Bird … wasn’t sweet” and “didn’t have harmonic lines that you could easily hum”.

This fusion of apparently disparate elements produced something of a paradox: a completely uncompromising jazz record (all the recordings were first takes), which has proved to be effortlessly accessible. But despite Kind of Blue’s winning lyricism, Davis, in his autobiography, is mildly self-reproachful:

When I tell people that I missed what I was trying to do on Kind of Blue, that I missed getting the exact sound of the African finger piano up in that sound, they just look at me like I’m crazy. Everyone said that record was a masterpiece – and I loved it too – and so they just feel I’m trying to put them on. But that’s what I was trying to do on most of that album, particularly on All Blues and So What. I just missed.

Of course, being Davis, he largely abandoned that approach, so that by 1964 he had a completely new group of young musicians and was reaching for the outer spheres of what was possible with acoustic jazz. This was a trajectory that by 1969, saw him “going electric” with the uncompromising Bitches Brew (1969), also a stunningly successful album. But that is another story.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Richard Worth, Lecturer in music and popular music: composition, orchestration, analysis and popular music history., University of Liverpool

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Sir Donald Bradman needs little introduction.

Cricket – and possibly world sport’s – most dominant figure, “The Don” is known for his staggering batting feats, including a scarcely believable batting average of 99.94, and his leadership of Australia’s 1948 team nicknamed the “Invincibles”.

However, few would know Bradman was a key figure behind cricket’s transformation from time-consuming five-day matches to the chaotic world of one-day and Twenty20 (T20) games that dominate the sport’s calendar, broadcasts and finances today.

And it was all sparked by Melbourne’s oft-criticised weather, some worried bean-counters, and a bright idea.

Sports can change dramatically in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, these moments create immediate shockwaves. Other times, it’s not until much later that their impact become obvious. This is the first story in a rolling series that explores key (and sometimes long forgotten) moments in sports history.

The first one-day international

Domestic one-day matches of between 40 and 60 overs a side had been played in India and England since the 1950s.

These shorter, more dynamic games were aimed at attracting new spectators.

However, they had not been considered for international matches.

The first one-day international (ODI) in 1971 was an accident: an unscheduled match played as a last-minute replacement for a Test abandoned due to heavy rain.

According to Australia’s captain Bill Lawry, the match was conceived by Bradman for financial reasons. Facing heavy financial losses the English and Australian cricket boards agreed to play a game on what would have been the last day of the Test.

Around 46,000 spectators saw Australia win after each side was allotted 40 eight-ball overs.

It was a financial hit, popular with spectators and deemed an “overwhelming success” by the media.

But growth of this format was slow, mainly due to the conservative nature of international boards.

The next ODI did not happen until August 1972, and other countries did not start playing them until 1973.

Remarkably, considering the amateur status of women athletes at the time, the first limited-overs World Cup was a women’s tournament in England in 1973 – two years before the maiden men’s World Cup was played.

One-day cricket’s popularity soon soared, especially after the men’s World Cup in 1975.

Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, launched in 1977, confirmed its place on the international cricketing calendar and played a huge role in the shorter format’s popularity.

The media baron was desperate to showcase cricket on Channel Nine but his TV rights bid was rejected by the Australian Cricket Board. Aggrieved, Packer instead set up a breakaway competition, signing many of the world’s best players.

The new-look competition featured brightly coloured team kits, white balls, games under lights and batters wearing helmets – all of which are still in place today.

How ODIs changed cricket

Test cricket was, and often still is, criticised for being too slow and boring.

The limited number of overs in ODIs increased the speed of the game: batters looked to score more quickly and take more risks, which resulted in more boundaries.

Clive Lloyd, who captained the West Indies to two World Cup wins, called limited-overs cricket the greatest innovation for the sport. He specifically referred to improved standards of fielding and tactical awareness.

ODIs have greatly increased athleticism: batters need to be stronger to hit more boundaries and quicker to ensure they are fast enough when running between wickets.

Fielders need to be faster and more athletic to stop boundaries and extra runs. They also need stronger arms to throw the ball faster.

In 1992, fielding restrictions were introduced for the first 15 overs, only allowing two fielders outside of a 30-yard circle. This promoted early aggressive batting.

These fielding restrictions forced captains to rethink field placements and bowling rotations.

While Australia scored 191 runs to win the first ODI, current teams regularly surpass 300.

Scoring has increased because of power hitting, bigger bats, specific training and better running between wickets.

Boundary ropes introduced for player safety also reduced the distance required to hit a boundary.

Bowlers have had to develop more variations, such as slower balls, to make it harder for them to score runs.

In this shorter format, the importance of all-rounders (players who can bat and bowl competently) has increased greatly.

Wicketkeepers are also expected to be better batters. Former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist had success opening the batting, which gave his team more flexibility to include other batters and all-rounders.

Player uniforms also evolved.

One-day clashes originally used traditional white clothing, but colour uniforms introduced a new dimension for televised cricket. They have been used permanently since the 1992 World Cup.

As the format evolved, player names and then numbers were gradually added to playing tops, making identification easier for commentators and spectators.

Continuing relevance

Limited-overs cricket laid the platform for even shorter formats such as T20s, the Hundred and even ten over games.

Ironically, these innovative formats now threaten the continued relevance of 50-over cricket.

Analysis of more than 340 ODI matches played in Australia between 1985 and 2015 shows average attendances have declined over time. In the 1980s, games in Australia regularly drew crowds of more than 35,000, but in recent years attendance has struggled to regularly reach 25,000 per match.

However, major events like World Cups can still draw large crowds. The 2023 tournament was attended by a record 1.25 million people and made Australian captain Pat Cummins “fall in love with ODI cricket again”.

ODIs have given fans decades of drama and achievement.

Older fans still remember classic games such as Australia’s tied 1999 World Cup semifinal against South Africa, and Michael Bevan’s last-ball four to beat the West Indies on New Year’s Day in 1996.

But 50-over cricket now faces a challenge to stay relevant alongside more exciting and more profitable T20 tournaments.

If ODIs are to keep their place in a busy cricket calendar, they must continue evolving to ensure they maintain player and audience interest.

Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania and Tom Hartley, Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania

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Thanks to the Walt Disney Company, Pocahontas may be the most famous Native American who lived in the 17th century. The animated film version of her early life included her speaking with a willow tree, befriending animals, singing about “the colors of the wind,” and being caught up in an ill-fated romance with Captain John Smith.

The 1995 film created an enduring visual image of Pocahontas, and contained some details drawn from the historical record, though plenty is pure fiction. Smith was, in fact, one of the English colonists who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, soon after its founding in 1607. Pocahontas’ father Wahunsonacock – whom colonists and Disney called Powhatan – was the paramount chief of the Powhatans, who lived in communities along the edges of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Only one portrait of Pocahontas from her lifetime exists – a sharp contrast with the Disney-drawn image most Americans know. And it speaks volumes about how the English saw colonization.

Powerful family

As I describe in my 2026 book, “Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000 to 1680,” Wahunsonacock was the most consequential political figure in early Virginia, the land Powhatans knew as Tsenacommacah. Through personal alliances and shrewd stratagems, he controlled perhaps 30 communities along the shores of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

Pocahontas, also known as Matoaka and Amonute, was probably about 10 or 11 years old when she encountered Smith in late 1607. At that moment he was a captive of her father, who, Smith later wrote, was about to have him killed. Though scholars believe Wahunsonacock was likely putting Smith through a ritual adoption, the colonist claimed Pocahontas saved his life.

In 1613, the English took Pocahontas captive during a conflict known as the first Anglo-Powhatan War. After obtaining his daughter’s freedom in 1614, Wahunsonacock approved her marriage to John Rolfe, who played a leading role in the colony’s tobacco economy, and she converted to Christianity. Sometime between 1615 and 1617 she gave birth to their son, Thomas.

Pocahontas in England

Two years after the marriage, Pocahontas and Rolfe sailed to England, where she played a leading role in her father’s diplomatic mission.

During her stay in London, which included meeting King James I, Pocahontas sat for a portrait by the artist Simon van de Passe. Her clothing and pose echoed portraits of other elite English women of the era. The image emphasizes her tall stovepipe hat, ample lace collar, a dress with detailed embroidery or brocade, and a pearl earring dangling from her left ear.

In addition to her English clothing, Pocahontas holds either a feather fan, common for an upper-class woman at the time, or a quill pen. Since Europeans considered literacy a crucial marker of civilization, either object would highlight English hopes that Indigenous Americans could rapidly embrace the colonists’ culture.

Power of art

The engraving of Pocahontas was not the first image of Native peoples of the mid-Atlantic coastline circulating in England. Illustrations in one widely reprinted book played a crucial role in convincing the English to establish settlements in North America.

In the late 16th century, advocates of English colonization understood that descriptions of North America could make foreign territory more enticing to potential migrants. They wanted to demonstrate to English men and women that they could create profitable economies and coexist with Native peoples.

Some promoters recognized that watercolor images painted in 1585 by the artist John White depicting the Carolina Algonquians of the Outer Banks could perhaps generate interest – and investments. The promoters, who had ties to leading figures in the English court as well as to printers, also saw the benefits of an in-depth study of the region by the young English mathematician and writer Thomas Harriot, “A Briefe and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia.” In 1590, the promoters worked with the Flemish printer Theodor de Bry to produce an illustrated version, which contained engravings based on White’s paintings.

The volume described Carolina Algonquians’ practices and enumerated commodities that could be extracted for profit. Some of the Native Americans depicted in these pages are clad with only a deerskin loincloth. Some of the women wear skirts but not tops.

To Europeans bred on the idea that clothing an entire body was a marker of civilization, these Alqonquians’ appearance was significant. People who colonizers considered “savages” were often depicted nude, like the Tainos whom Christopher Columbus encountered a century earlier. English men and women reading the book about the Algonquians, on the other hand, saw them as a people who would, under the right tutelage, adopt English-style culture – including Protestant Christianity.

“Some religion they have alreadie,” Harriot wrote in “A Briefe and True Report,” “which although it be farre from the truth, yet being as it is, there is hope it may been the easier and sooner reformed.”

To make the point that Native Americans could be converted to European culture, the engravers added depictions of ancient Britons, allegedly based on an old chronicle. Three of these images of Picts depicted them as nude, bearing tattoos more extensive than the Algonquians’. These individuals are also portrayed as more violent: A Pict man holds a head still dripping blood, with another head at his feet, while a Pict woman brandishes spears and a broadsword.

Reality check

When Pocahontas sat for Van de Passe, his portrait did more than create a resemblance of the young woman, who would die the following year, soon after leaving London – felled either by disease or, as a Virginia tribe’s oral history suggests, poison.

Like the images popularized by Harriot’s book, her portrait suggested that Native Americans would soon embrace English ways. Pocahontas herself, as the words on the engraving noted, had become Rebecca Rolfe after her marriage. In his writings, her husband celebrated her conversion to the Anglican faith. The proof of the model of cultural conversion seemed to be on plain view in the portrait.

Pocahontas’ father died in 1618. Four years later, the Powhatans launched a rebellion against English colonists. On March 22, 1622, under the direction of a war captain named Opechancanough, they killed approximately one-fourth of the colonists in Virginia. The English labeled the violence a “barbarous massacre” and launched a war of vengeance, which included a mass poisoning of Powhatans in 1623 – an action that the English at the time knew violated the emerging law of war.

Seeing Pocahontas poised on a chair, wearing an elegant hat and holding a quill pen, the English had assumed that Native Americans would embrace the colonizers’ ways. March 1622 proved them wrong.

This article has been updated to correct the description of the object Pocahontas holds in Simon van de Passe’s engraving.

Peter C. Mancall, Distinguished Professor and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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