However, against the backdrop of these successes, women and girls continue to participate in community sport at lower rates than boys and men, a phenomenon known as the “gender play gap”.
What is the ‘gender play gap’?
The gender play gap is the difference between the number of women and girls participating in sport compared to the number of men and boys.
The gap exists from a very young age, with Australian government data showing nearly 30% more boys aged 0–14 participate in club or association sport than girls.
The gap closes to just 2% between the ages of 15–17, but then explodes to 43% for those aged 18–24.
Although the gap grows and shrinks at various points, it is consistently in favour of more men and boys participating in organised sport than women and girls.
Trying to find answers
Together with colleagues at Flinders University, we are currently working with the South Australian government to research how to close this gap.
The first stage found there isn’t enough research attention to this area. Of the 3,000+ studies included in a global literature search, only five focused on increasing rates of sport participation in young women.
We then conducted a large-scale qualitative study which uncovered the following reasons why young women drop out of sport, and often do not re-engage.
1. Sport stops being fun
Social experiences in sport are central to girls’ enjoyment and long-term participation. While friendships keep them engaged, negative team dynamics, exclusion and club politics can push them away.
2. A lack of genuine equality
Although progress in gender equality has been made, young women still struggle to have the same access to facilities and quality coaching as males. Typically, women and girls prefer women coaches who can relate to their experiences, yet women remain underrepresented in these roles.
3. They have too much on their plates
Schoolwork, part-time jobs and social lives compete for young women’s time, and many feel overwhelmed by increasing training commitments and school demands. In addition, girls as young as 13 are promoted to senior-age teams, which adds pressure and can break the social bonds with their peers.
4. They lose competitive opportunities
Although some young women enjoy a more relaxed, social approach to sport, others really value structured training and competition. Many girls end up dropping out because the competitive opportunities for them are not of the same standard as those available to boys. Some sports have fewer games per season for girls, or a shorter finals series than for boys.
How can we close the gap?
Sport participation efforts have typically focused on recruitment of new participants and retention of existing participants.
With so many young women dropping out of sport during adolescence, a renewed focus on re-engaging these previous participants may help to close the gender play gap.
Dropout is often considered a failure and a negative endpoint of a sport participation journey. However, there is a growing sentiment in sport research that transitioning out of sport temporarily may be necessary for some adolescents’ development.
It is okay for anyone to take a break from sport, but the sport needs to make it easier for them to return when they are ready. The key is to make re-engagement easy and appealing.
Re-engagement programs should be distinctly different from those aimed at new participants, and should revolve around the following key areas:
1. Targeted promotion and communication
Often, young women do not return to sport because they’re not aware of available opportunities if they return. Sport organisations should highlight programs that cater to those who want to start playing again, as well as those aimed at new participants.
2. Strengthen social connection
Young women are more likely to return to sport if they feel a sense of belonging and connection and have opportunities to create friendships outside of school. Programs that can foster strong social bonds while maintaining a focus on competition and skill development are most likely to be effective.
3. Champion equity and inclusion
Gender equity must be a priority for all sport organisations, with all genders having equitable access to high-quality training and competition.
4. Future-proofing
To achieve long-term gender equality in sport, organisations must actively future-proof their programs by encouraging women’s and girl’s leadership and providing young women with same-gender role models. By embedding gender equity into policies, coaching pathways and community engagement, sport organisations can create a more sustainable and welcoming environment for young women.
What’s next?
Despite the success of women’s sport in recent years, we have a long way to go to achieve genuine gender equality in sport.
Rather than relying on one-size-fits-all approaches to participation, sport organisations should adopt a targeted approach that may narrow the gender play gap and progress towards a more equitable sport participation landscape.
James Kay receives funding from the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing, South Australia.
Sam Elliott receives funding from the Australian Sports Commission, the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing, the South Australian National Football League, and the MRFF.
Disabled people encounter all kinds of barriers to accessing healthcare – and not simply because some face significant mobility challenges.
Others will see their symptoms not investigated properly because it’s assumed a problem is related to their disability rather than another medical condition. Or they will have decisions made for them rather than with them.
This often means they experience worse – and avoidable – outcomes compared to others. But despite this, health research – which is meant to reduce these disparities – frequently excludes disabled people.
For instance, a 2023 global review of 2,710 clinical trials found 35% reported excluding disabled individuals specifically. Researchers sometimes assume (without a good ethical or scientific reason) that disabled people can’t give consent, don’t meet the study criteria, or will struggle to follow instructions and collaborate.
Even when researchers are more inclusive, their plans can fail to account for the difficulties disabled people face with travel, communication and physical access. All of which makes it harder for them to participate.
This creates a vicious circle. Health research is vital for shaping the policies, treatments and community interventions that underpin modern healthcare. However, for disabled people, who make up one-sixth of the national and global population, too much research does not reflect their experiences and needs.
Beyond clinical and scientific research
The active participation by disabled people in health research is good science, good economics and the right thing to do. When people with lived experience contribute to the design and delivery of health care and research, it means services are used more and fairer outcomes are achieved.
But this is far from the reality in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world. Scientific and clinical research is still often viewed as being more important than research addressing the needs of patients and people, as prioritised by them.
There is increasing interest in public and patient involvement in health services, and to a lesser extent health research. But this is not sufficiently embedded or formalised. Research priorities are still set primarily by clinicians and medical researchers.
Most funding still goes to research investigating the causes, genetics and treatment of health conditions. And while these are important to study, there is still too little research focused on how people can live well with disability.
A recent review of research funding for autism, for example, found the most money and number of grants were awarded to biological research. But a survey of about 500 people from New Zealand’s autistic and autism communities found people wanted more research into their mental health, wellbeing and practical skills development.
If research aims to improve health outcomes for everyone, it must involve all populations – particularly those most at risk of poorer health outcomes.
This extends beyond people with disability to include all marginalised and often excluded communities. But this kind of change will need action at different levels of research, and to be led by researchers themselves. The rules and funding systems must also support a more inclusive approach.
Practical steps to make a difference
Some of the key strategies needed to ensure health research becomes more representative, ethical and effective have been outlined by the Disability Inclusion in Research Collaboration, a global network of researchers:
Making sure disabled people are visible in research grant applications: funding bodies must actively require and reward the inclusion of disabled participants in health research studies.
Including disability perspectives from the very start: disabled people should be involved in formulating research questions, designing studies and advising on accessibility measures.
Ensuring disabled people are research participants whenever possible: researchers must clearly explain and justify any exclusion criteria related to disability, which need to be grounded in legitimate safety or ethical concerns rather than mere assumptions.
Making it routine to report on disability status: research studies should use data to identify, track and report on participants’ disability status, so it is easier to monitor inclusion efforts and outcomes.
By committing to these basic measures, health research can become more representative, ethical and effective. It will also help the research produce insights relevant to a broader range of people, ultimately leading to stronger and fairer healthcare systems.
This is about more than justice for disabled people. It is about ensuring medical research achieves its true purpose: to improve health for everyone.
Rachelle A Martin receives funding from the NZ Health Research Council.
Kaaren Mathias receives funding from the Health Research Council and CURE Kids.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North stands as some of the most visceral and moving television produced in Australia in recent memory.
Marking a new accessibility and confidence to director Justin Kurzel, it reunites him with screenwriter Shaun Grant. Having produced some of the most compelling and confronting cinema on Australia’s darker history, this latest collaboration is no exception.
Their previous features Snowtown (2011), True History of the Kelly Gang (2020) and Nitram (2021) focused on disturbed psychopaths wanting to unleash their fury onto a society they blame for their own wrongs and injustices.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the World War II five episode miniseries, continues their exploration of Australia’s violent past while navigating a new direction in how they depict confused and damaged men.
Trauma of survival
Dorrigo Evans (Jacob Elordi/Ciarán Hinds) is a doctor sent to World War II. Captured during the Battle of Java he is taken as a prisoner of war (POW), where he is forced to lead his Australian soldiers on the building of the Burma-Thailand Railway.
Rather than an executor of violence, he is a pacifist and victim. Ultimately he has to make peace with his own trauma and guilt of survival when many around him perished – some of whom he knowingly sent to their inevitable death to ensure his own survival.
Faithfully adapted from Richard Flanagan’s novel, this production effectively creates interchanging timelines (seamlessly edited by Alexandre de Francesch) including prewar, war and postwar, and then flashes forward to Dorrigo in his mid-70s.
Elordi’s younger depiction of Dorrigo is filled with nuance and subtleties, often exuded through his stillness. This is harmoniously taken up by Hinds, who has to carry the weight of Dorrigo’s trauma and guilt decades later, with a worn and damaged quietness. Hinds is remarkable when faced to confront his celebrity as a war hero, desperate to give the truth over the expected yarns of mateship and heroism.
How do we tell the truth?
The Narrow Road to the Deep North has been scheduled to be released close to ANZAC Day, which always provokes broader conversations around the mythmaking and truth-telling of our war service and human sacrifice.
This production arrives as a thought-provoking essay on how military history continues to be told. Does the public really want accurate accounts, or more stories on mateship and heroism? Such questions filter dramatically across each episode and up to the final shot leaving us with much to consider.
As a war drama, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is almost entirely static. The combat the battalion engages in is eclipsed by the soldiers held as starving and malnourished prisoners, brutally forced in several graphic scenes to continue as slaves on the building of the railway at all costs.
The brutal and endless beating of Darky Gardiner (Thomas Weatherall), who crawls to the latrine full of excrement to drown himself, rather than endure more beating, is horrific but necessary to see the endless torture these skeletal and sick POWs are subjected to.
90,000 Asian civilians and 2,800 Australian prisoners of war died constructing the Burma Railway. Prime
One misleading depiction Grant and Kurzel disappointingly do not amend from Flanagan’s novel is the view that the Burma Railway was constructed almost entirely by the bloody hands of Australian soldiers. In reality more than 90,000 Asian civilians died, and 16,000 POWs from several nations, including 2,800 Australians.
Moving across time
Cinematogropher Sam Chiplin brings a sense of gothic dread. The framing of every shot is masterful.
Odessa Young as Amy, Dorrigo’s true love, is a standout. She gives us someone struggling in a loveless marriage and desiring her husband’s nephew while she watches him sent to war. Her sense of entrapment in the quiet seaside Tasmanian coastal town is quite brilliantly realised.
Elordi’s Dorrigo is filled with nuance and subtleties. Odessa Young as Amy, Dorrigo’s true love, is a standout. Prime
Other performances worthy of mention are the Japanese soldiers tasked with the project of building the leg of the Burma-Thailand Railway. Major Nakamura (Shô Kasamatsu) is compelling as the scared and conflicted guard who ultimately spends his post-war years hiding among the ruins of Shinjuku to avoid capture as a war criminal.
Moving across the scenes and contrasting time frames is the haunting, unsettling and dissonant score by Jed Kurzel. Like the memories and trauma of the past, the music follows the characters across time and space.
Immaculate
Structurally immaculate, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is not defined by its brutal torture of the POWs or comradeship of the starving soldiers (though they are powerful to watch). Instead, it points us towards the quieter visions of characters having to sit alone with their distorted memories.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a deeply compelling contribution to the Australian war genre. Prime
The tonal inspiration may be drawn from earlier literary anti-war novels such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and The Naked and the Dead (1948), but The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a work of its own depth and beauty. It will deserve its place as one of the most compelling contributions to the Australian war genre.
The final moments of cutting between the faces of Elordi and Hinds left me silent and reaching for a reread of Flanagan’s novel.
Contemporary television is rarely this good.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is on Prime from April 18.
Stephen Gaunson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
No one goes into the legal profession thinking it is going to be easy. Long working hours are fairly standard, work is often completed to tight external deadlines, and 24/7 availability to clients is widely understood to be a norm, particularly in commercial and international practice.
But too often, the demands of law can create an unhealthy workplace environment. In 2021, the stress of high workloads, low job control, and risks of secondary trauma led SafeWork NSW to categorise legal work as “high risk” for fatigue hazards – putting it alongside night shift work, emergency services, and fly-in, fly-out roles.
To investigate this problem, we surveyed about 1,900 lawyers across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia in March and April last year.
We asked them about their workplace culture and its impact on wellbeing, about their levels of psychological distress, and whether they had experienced disrespectful behaviours at work.
We also asked whether they intended to leave either their employer or the legal profession in the near future.
Their answers allowed us to identify the type of workplace culture that is harmful to lawyers’ wellbeing. Here’s why fixing this problem matters to us all.
Unhealthy environments
Among the professionals we surveyed, about half found themselves in a workplace culture with negative effects on wellbeing.
A third of this group said their workplaces were characterised by poor working relationships, self-interest and pressure to cut corners or bend rules.
Alarming numbers of lawyers currently want to leave their current employer or quit the profession entirely. Pormezz/Shutterstock
These poorer workplace cultures involved higher levels of psychological distress and more disrespectful behaviours from superiors and coworkers.
They were also characterised by a lack of effective wellbeing supports such as mental health leave arrangements or workload allocation practices.
Long working hours were common. More than half of participants (53%) said they worked more than 40 hours per week and 11% said they put in more than 60 hours.
About a third of the lawyers we surveyed wanted to quit their firm, while 10% planned to leave the profession, within a year.
Society can’t afford to ignore this problem. Lawyer wellbeing can directly affect the quality of legal services and may even lead to disciplinary action against individual lawyers. All of this can undermine public trust and confidence in the justice system.
Workload ‘cannot be sustained’
We invited participants to explain why they intended to leave the profession. Their answers are telling.
One mid-career lawyer at a large firm said:
I am in my 11th year of practice working as a Senior Associate at a top-tier firm. To put it bluntly, the work rate at which I am currently operating, which is required to meet the billable targets and budgets set for us, cannot be sustained for my whole working life – it’s too much.
A small-firm junior lawyer talked of the workload issues described by many:
The pay is not worth the stress. I can’t sleep because I’m constantly worried about deadlines or making mistakes, and I got paid more when I was a bartender. I love the work, but it’s a very tough slog and damaging my own wellbeing – for what?
Our data showed junior lawyers take a lot of the pressure, reflected in higher-than-average levels of psychological distress. Equally concerning was the extent to which senior lawyers with practice management responsibilities also reported above average distress.
Our research also showed the challenges extended beyond private practice and into government, legal aid and corporate “in-house” settings.
As one mid-career legal aid lawyer put it:
Lack of debriefing and supports, lack of formal mentoring and supervision, mental health toll, high workload and poor workplace culture, lack of training and supports to deal with clients in crisis, [mean it’s] not [a] family-friendly profession.
The positives
There was also good news. Three themes stood out in the responses from the 48% who told us they worked in positive workplace cultures. This suggests where support should be targeted.
For nearly two thirds of our sample, having good colleagues was the most important wellbeing support. As one mid-career lawyer put it:
Informal support such as debriefing with colleagues has been most beneficial for me.
Good flexible working and (mental health) leave arrangements came across as the most important practical support employers could provide.
Good workload allocation practices – and a willingness from managers to “reach out to discuss work-life balance” – make a real difference to peoples’ experience.
Support from colleagues was the most important wellbeing support. UM-UMM/Shutterstock
It matters to the rest of us
The legal profession and its regulators have been engaging with the wellbeing problem for a while now. Our findings suggest there is still more to be done.
For the profession as a whole we felt that there was still a need to develop greater understanding of the specific wellbeing needs of both junior lawyers and those managing them, as these are the two groups experiencing the most distress.
Legal regulatory bodies should work to better understand how economic drivers of legal practice, such as high workloads and billing expectations, can have negative consequences for wellbeing, and whether any regulatory levers could lessen these impacts.
The authors would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of Stephen Tang, clinical psychologist, in undertaking data analysis and coauthoring the original report.
This research was supported by the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner (VLSB+C), the Law Society of New South Wales, and the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia. Matched funding for the data analysis was provided by the VLSB+C and industry research seed funding from the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne.
China has placed curbs on exports of rare germanium and gallium which are critical in manufacturing.Shutterstock
In the escalating trade war between the United States and China, one notable exception stood out: 31 critical minerals, including rare earth elements, were strategically exempted from tariffs.
This was not a gesture of goodwill. It was a tacit acknowledgment of the United States’ deep dependence on China for materials essential to its technological competitiveness, clean energy transition and national defence.
Beijing’s response was swift and calculated. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced expanded export controls and a shift in pricing principles. The move reflects China’s long-standing effort to shift rare earth pricing from market supply and demand to pricing based on their strategic value.
The impact was immediate. Rare earth exports from China effectively ground to a halt, as exporters awaited approvals under a new, opaque licensing regime.
The announcement prompted President Trump to issue a new executive order directing a review of national security risks stemming from the US reliance on imported, processed critical minerals.
As global supply chains reel from these disruptions, Australia finds itself in a unique strategic position. As a trusted US ally, it possesses the resources, partnerships and political capital to step into the breach. But can Australia seize this opportunity – or will it come with strings attached?
China’s new playbook
China’s latest restrictions target seven rare earths – such as dysprosium and terbium – crucial for electric vehicles, wind turbines, fighter jets and missile systems.
While stopping short of a full export ban, the policy functions as a chokepoint. It leverages China’s near-total global control of rare earth refining (around 90%) and its monopoly on heavy rare earth processing (98%).
Domestically, China’s rare earth sector is dominated by two state-owned giants which together control nearly 100% of national mining quotas.
These measures have exposed the vulnerability of Western supply chains. The US has only one operational rare earth mine – Mountain Pass in California – and minimal domestic refining capacity. A new processing facility in Texas owned by Australia’s Lynas is under development, but it will take years to establish a self-sufficient supply chain.
Rare earths have become a source of contention in the tariff war. Shutterstock
Europe faces similar challenges. While rare earths are vital to the EU’s green transition, domestic production remains limited. Efforts to diversify through partners like Australia and Canada show promise but are hindered by high production costs and continued reliance on Chinese technology.
China is also working to redefine how rare earths are priced. One proposal would tie the value of key elements like dysprosium to the price of gold, elevating them from industrial inputs to geopolitical assets. Another would settle rare earth transactions in yuan rather than US dollars, advancing Beijing’s broader ambition to internationalise its currency.
For China, this strategy goes beyond economics. It is a deliberate national resource policy comparable to OPEC’s management of oil, designed to link pricing to the strategic significance of critical minerals.
Australia’s window?
Investors
are closely watching Australian producers. Strategic deposits such as Mt Weld in Western Australia have drawn renewed interest from Japan, Europe and the US.
Industry observers argue Australia is better positioned than the US to develop secure supply chains, due to its rich geological endowment and transparent regulatory environment.
To seize this opportunity, the government has begun to act.
Under its Future Made in Australia initiative, the federal government is considering measures such as strategic stockpiling, production tax credits and expanded support for domestic processing. Iluka Resources has secured A$1.65 billion to build a rare earth refinery, due to be operational by 2026.
Emerging projects like Browns Range and Lynas’s Malaysian refinery already serve as alternative nodes in the global rare earth supply chain network.
However, structural barriers remain. The Western allies, including Australia, still lack key processing technologies and have potentially high environmental compliance costs. Lynas’s Texas plant was intended to expand allied capacity but has faced delays due to environmental approvals.
Walking a diplomatic tightrope
Geopolitical tensions add another layer of complexity. Australia’s dual role – as a major upstream supplier to China and a strategic ally of the US – places it on a diplomatic tightrope.
Aligning too closely with the US could invite Chinese retaliation. Appearing overly aligned with China may provoke scrutiny from Washington.
Ownership concerns are also rising. The government has blocked or forced divestment of Chinese stakes in rare earth and lithium companies including Northern Minerals.
Market volatility compounds these challenges. Prices are currently buoyed by geopolitical risk, but have been volatile. Moreover, China’s ability to undercut global prices could erode the competitiveness of Australian exports.
A strategic opportunity – but with strings attached
Australia stands at the centre of a rare strategic inflection point. It is both a beneficiary of China’s retreat and a potential casualty of intensifying great power competition.
In a world where resources confer influence, the question for Australia is not simply whether it has the mineral deposits but whether it has the strategy to match.
If the government can capitalise on this moment – diversifying partnerships, investing in capabilities, and navigating allies and rivals with strategic care – it could emerge as a leader in a more diverse critical minerals landscape.
In the era of mineral geopolitics, possessing the resources is no longer enough. The real test is whether Australia has the foresight and the will to lead.
Marina Yue Zhang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Despite the challenges faced by local democratic activists, Thailand has often been an oasis of relative liberalism compared with neighbouring countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
Westerners, in particular, have been largely welcomed and provided with a measure of protection from harassment by the authorities. Thailand’s economy is extremely dependent on foreign tourism. Many Westerners also work in a variety of industries, including as academics at public and private universities.
That arrangement now seems under pressure. Earlier this month, Paul Chambers, an American political science lecturer at Naresuan University, was arrested on charges of violating the Computer Crimes Act and the lèse-majesté law under Section 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code for allegedly insulting the monarchy.
Chambers’ visa has been revoked and he now faces a potential punishment of 15 years in jail.
The lèse-majesté law has become a common tool for silencing Thai activists. At least 272 people have been charged under the law since pro-democracy protests broke out in 2020, according to rights groups.
Its use against foreigners has, until now, been limited. No foreign academic has ever been charged with it. Because of the law, however, most academics in Thailand usually tread carefully in their critiques of the monarchy.
The decision to charge a foreign academic, therefore, suggests a hardening of views on dissent by conservative forces in the country. It represents a further deterioration in Thailand’s democratic credentials and provides little optimism for reform under the present government.
Thailand’s democratic deficit
Several other recent actions have also sparked concerns about democratic backsliding.
Following a visit by Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to China in February, the government violated domestic and international law by forcibly returning 40 Uyghurs to China.
The Uyghurs had fled China a decade earlier to escape repression in the western Xinjiang region and had been held in detention in Thailand ever since. They now potentially face worse treatment by the Chinese authorities.
Then, in early April, Thailand welcomed the head of the Myanmar junta to a regional summit in Bangkok after a devastating earthquake struck his war-ravaged country.
Min Aung Hlaing has been shunned internationally since the junta launched a coup against the democratically elected government in Myanmar in 2021, sparking a devastating civil war. He has only visited Russia and China since then.
In addition, the military continues to dominate politics in Thailand. After a progressive party, Move Forward, won the 2023 parliamentary elections by committing to amend the lèse-majesté law, the military, the unelected Senate and other conservative forces in the country ignored the will of the people and denied its charismatic leader the prime ministership.
The party was then forcibly dissolved by the Constitutional Court and its leader banned from politics for ten years.
In February, Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission criminally indicted 44 politicians from Move Forward for sponsoring a bill in parliament to reform the lèse-majesté law. They face lifetime bans from politics if they are found guilty of breaching “ethical standards”.
Even the powerful former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who is also the uncle of the current prime minister, is not immune from the lèse-majesté law.
He was indicted last year for allegedly insulting the monarchy almost two decades ago. His case is due to be heard in July.
This continued undermining of democratic norms is chipping away at Thailand’s international reputation. The country is now classified as a “flawed democracy” in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, with its ranking falling two years in a row.
The lèse-majesté law has always represented something of a challenge to academic freedom in Thailand, as well as freedom of speech more generally. Campaigners against the law have paid a heavy price.
The US State Department has provided a statement of support for Chambers, urging the Thai government to “ensure that laws are not used to stifle permitted expression”. However, given the Trump administration’s attacks on US universities at the moment, this demand rings somewhat hollow.
Academic freedom is a hallmark of democracies compared with authoritarian regimes. With the US no longer so concerned with protecting academic freedom at home, there is little stopping flawed democracies around the world from stepping up pressure on academics to toe the line.
The undermining of democracy in the US is already having palpable impacts on democratic regression around the world.
With little international pressure to adhere to democratic norms, the current Thai government has taken a significant and deleterious step in arresting a foreign academic.
In the future, universities in Thailand, as in the US, will find it harder to attract international talent. Universities – and the broader society – in both countries will be worse off for it.
Adam Simpson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This gap in knowledge is concerning. For one, these bees play a crucial role in ecosystems. For another, ground-nesting bee habitats are threatened by land degradation, urbanisation, pesticides and agricultural expansion.
Our recent study addresses this research gap. Published this week in Austral Entomology, it examines the soil type preferences of ground-nesting bees and provides a simple, practical approach to enhancing their habitats.
Lasioglossum (Homalictus) dotatum is a small, ground-nesting bee species native to Australia. It measures approximately 3–4 mm.
Unlike the introduced European honey bee (Apis mellifera), which lives in large, highly organised colonies with complex social structures, L. dotatum exhibits an “apartment living” social structure, with independent nests situated close to one another. This aggregation behaviour indicates certain environmental or habitat features that are necessary for the species to thrive.
This species is widely distributed across mainland Australia. It nests in a range of sandy soil types. Because of this, it offers a valuable opportunity to examine how different environmental conditions shape its nesting preferences.
A key feature of the nests of this species is the presence of small conical mounds of excavated soil, known as tumuli, which surround the entrance. These mounds can resemble small ant hills. As a result, the nests are sometimes mistaken for ant nests, leading to accidental pesticide application and destruction of the bees’ habitats.
Lasioglossum dotatum has also been observed in avocado orchards, a crop of significant economic value in Western Australia.
While it remains uncertain whether L. dotatum is a major crop pollinator, its presence in these orchards suggests it could play a supplementary role in pollination. This potentially makes it an intriguing subject for research exploring native alternatives to honey bees (Apis mellifera) for crop pollination.
Our research focused on understanding the nesting preferences of L. dotatum. The study sought to explore how environmental features, such as soil type and surface cover, influenced where these bees chose to nest.
Specifically, the study tested whether L. dotatum preferred bare sand or rock gravel as a nesting substrate.
The study also examined whether the cleanliness of the sand – whether steam-treated or left untreated — impacted the bees’ nesting decisions.
The study used artificial nesting pots filled with sand from the Swan Coastal Plain, a region known for its sandy soils, to simulate nesting conditions around active bee aggregations. During the summer nesting season of February 2022, researchers monitored how the bees interacted with these artificial nesting sites, using the number of nest entrances (or tumuli) as a measure of nesting activity.
Getting into the gravel
Our study found L. dotatum strongly preferred nesting in pots covered with rock gravel over those with bare sand. This preference likely arises from the benefits provided by rock gravel, such as improved moisture retention, temperature regulation, and protection from predators.
The experimental pots with rock gravel had significantly more nest entrances. This indicated that rock cover helps create a more stable and favourable microhabitat for nesting.
The bees also showed a preference for steam-treated sand, suggesting that factors such as microbial contaminants or organic residues in untreated soil may deter nesting.
Interestingly, when the rock gravel was removed, many nests were found concealed beneath the gravel. This highlights the importance of rock cover in enhancing nest stability and reducing the risk of disturbance.
Lasioglossum dotatum preferred nesting in pots covered with rock gravel over those with bare sand. Freya Marie Jackson, CC BY-NC-ND
A simple, practical approach to conservation
These findings have important implications for native bee conservation, particularly in urban and agricultural areas.
The preference for rock gravel suggests that incorporating this material into urban landscapes could improve nesting conditions for ground-nesting bees such as L. dotatum.
By creating spaces for these ground nesting bees, we can better support these vital pollinators.
As native bees continue to face habitat loss and degradation, these findings provide a simple, practical approach to enhancing their habitats, ultimately contributing to more sustainable pollinator populations in urban and rural settings alike.
Freya Marie Jackson received funding from the Australian Entomological Society (AES) through their “Small Grant Award”, which supported some of this research on native bees. Additionally, she has received a Research and Innovation Seed Grant Award from Murdoch University.
Wei Xu received funding from the Australian Entomological Society (AES) through their “Small Grant Award”, which supported some of this research on native bees. Additionally, he has received a Research and Innovation Seed Grant Award from Murdoch University.
Giles Hardy and Kit Prendergast do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, the driving time between Napier and Wairoa stretched from 90 minutes to over six hours, causing major supply chain delays. Retail prices rose and shoppers faced empty shelves.
Natural hazards such as earthquakes and flooding can wreak havoc on Aotearoa New Zealand’s freight system. These crises can cause extensive road damage, isolating communities and creating disruptions in supply chain operations.
Cyclone Gabrielle was by no means a one-off. The 2021 flooding in Canterbury, for example, forced trucks to travel nearly 900 extra kilometres between Christchurch and Timaru, extending the travel time from two to 13 hours.
Severe weather events, the pandemic and the ongoing dispute about replacing the Cook Strait ferries have made the fragility of the freight system more apparent than ever.
To be fair, natural hazards are beyond our control. But resilience can be increased. Our new research identified the main vulnerabilities in the country’s freight system and analysed the factors leading to post-disaster disruptions and shortages on shelves.
The key to reducing freight disruptions, we found, is embracing and investing in the different ways goods can be moved around the country. In particular, using the thousands of kilometres of coastline offers another way to get items from one region to another.
Rather than relying almost exclusively on the road network to move products, the government should invest in shipping infrastructure. Rachel Moon/Shutterstock
But as they are currently organised, other potentially useful forms of transport such as rail and coastal shipping are not great alternatives. Non-road options run on timetables, for example, resulting in longer transit times.
And unlike road transport, which can move products directly between two points, rail and coastal shipping require multiple points of contact from where the goods are produced through to where they are sold.
As a result, when a disaster hits, alternative road routes are typically used to maintain freight deliveries. The limited alternatives in the road network and the lack of roads that can withstand heavy freight can cause problems for trucking companies. Both travel distances and transit times can increase.
When this happens, more trucks and drivers are needed, but these are already in short supply. The transport industry has been struggling to fill positions, with an estimated shortfall of thousands of drivers across the country.
This is compounded by the shortage of trucks, particularly specialised vehicles such as refrigerated units, which are essential for transporting perishable goods.
NZ’s long coastlines offer options
Government policy has a key role to play in addressing these problems and the lack of resilience in the national infrastructure system. In a country with long coastlines, reducing reliance on road transport and developing coastal shipping should be considered.
By shifting a portion of freight to coastal shipping, the demand for trucks and drivers can be reduced. This would also ensure reliable freight movements between the North and the South Islands when the ferry services are disrupted.
Finally, investing in coastal shipping would create a more flexible and resilient transport system where goods can shift rapidly from road to sea after a disaster.
Achieving this would require infrastructure improvements at our domestic seaports and additional vessels to increase the frequency of service. There would also need to be operational integration between road, rail and sea, with synchronised timetables for shorter transit times.
There will inevitably be another natural disaster that disrupts the freight system, causing delays, empty shelves and increased prices. Diversifying the transport options would increase resilience and keep those goods moving.
Cécile L’Hermitte receives funding from Te Hiranga Rū QuakeCoRE, a Centre for Research Excellence funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University
A judge’s opinion moves the nation closer to a collision between the executive branch and the courts.Xand, iStock / Getty Images Plus
A battle between the Trump administration and federal courts over the deportation of more than 100 immigrants to a prison in El Salvador intensified on April 16, 2025. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg released an opinion saying that he had “probable cause” to hold members of the administration in criminal contempt. That potentially dramatic action was in response to the White House disobeying Boasberg’s March 15 order to halt flights taking those immigrants to El Salvador.
Amy Lieberman, a politics editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Cassandra Burke Robertson, a legal scholar at Case Western Reserve University, to better understand Boasberg’s decision.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg attends a panel discussion in Washington on April 2, 2025. Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images
What exactly did Judge Boasberg do in this memorandum opinion?
Boasberg is saying there is evidence that the Trump administration has not complied with the court’s order to return the deportees, and that it may have intentionally flouted that order. He is making a finding of probable cause, meaning that the court needs to dig a little deeper to find out what happened and why the government, in this case, apparently did not comply with the court order.
If the administration does that, there will not be any further contempt proceedings. Normally, that would be attractive to the government in this position.
If the government chooses not to bring the detainees back into U.S. custody, then the probable cause finding means there is going to be an investigation overseen by the court.
But nobody has been found in contempt, yet.
The next step is taking evidence about what happened, including declarations from government officials. If needed, the court may also order, Boasberg wrote, “hearings with live witness testimony under oath or to depositions conducted by Plaintiffs.” The goal is to find out who ordered what, when and why. Then the court can decide whether someone within the government is responsible for flouting the court order.
Boasberg is giving the administration until April 23 to respond. By that date, the government must either, first, explain the steps it has taken to seek to return the individuals to U.S. custody. Or, second, it can identify the individuals who decided not to halt the transfer of the detainees out of U.S. custody, after the court ruled that they should not be transferred.
If Boasberg holds government officials in contempt, what happens next?
It is definitely not clear who Boasberg would hold in contempt. Part of what Boasberg is doing is figuring out who the relevant decision-makers are and what they might have ordered. The next step is to take discovery on those issues and to make a finding about who is responsible.
With rare exceptions, a contempt case is prosecuted in the same court whose order was violated. Under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a prosecutor is responsible for charging the defendants, once identified, with contempt. Those charges, like any criminal case, would need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Issuing sanctions isn’t something Boasberg can just decide – there is a process.
Normally, a prosecutor in a case like this would be from the Department of Justice. In Boasberg’s opinion, he acknowledged that the Department of Justice might decline to prosecute. Federal rules allow the judge to appoint a different prosecutor if the government declines to prosecute or if “the interest of justice requires the appointment of another attorney.”
One big question is, can the president pardon contempt? Notably, Trump has done so before, when he pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio for defying a court order requiring him to stop his immigration patrols. However, some scholars have argued that such pardons may violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.
What is the punishment for contempt?
The two most common punishments would typically be a term of incarceration, or monetary sanctions. I suspect monetary sanctions are easier to enforce here than jail time.
It is so uncommon to hold any government official in contempt. Usually, the government would very quickly change direction to come into compliance to avoid the risk of any government official being sent to jail or any financial penalties being levied.
There aren’t a lot of cases where a judge has tried to enforce sanctions against a member of the government. In fact, only two federal officials – in 1951 – have ever been incarcerated for contempt, and they only spent a few hours in jail.
The Supreme Court found that the deportees’ case was not supposed to be heard in Boasberg’s court. Does Boasberg still have the authority to hold the government in contempt?
Boasberg had to address this, because the government also raised the issue. Boasberg points out the Supreme Court has historically said that when a party is faced with a court order, it has to comply with that court order until it gets relief on appeal. It cannot just ignore an order it believes a court should not have issued.
Here, the government had an obligation to comply with the order to return the Venezuelan immigrants sent to prison in El Salvador, even as it appealed the case to a higher court. And that is what is the issue here – that it failed to comply.
Have government officials ever been held in contempt of court before, and does this case differ from other cases?
It’s not a rare remedy in general–every year, many litigants are held in contempt and even jailed for refusing to comply with court orders. It’s especially common in child support and custody proceedings.
But it’s very rare for government officials to be held in contempt of court. One was the Arpaio case. Another case involved a Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples and was held in contempt. She spent six days in jail before she was released on the condition that she wouldn’t interfere with her deputies granting the licenses.
There has been talk of the U.S. edging into a constitutional crisis with this development. Does this order show that a crisis is already happening?
Any time the government fails to comply with a court order, I think we risk a constitutional crisis. But I believe that contempt proceedings are a way to show the strength of the Constitution. The contempt power has been around for as long as federal courts in the U.S. have been around, since 1789. This is fundamental to our constitutional system. If a litigant does not obey a court order, courts have power to enforce those orders.
Cassandra Burke Robertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Curnoe’s Map of North America, first created in 1972, is inseparable from his hometown of London, Ont. The work, artist and city offer valuable insights for navigating this new relationship with our nearest neighbour. My recent doctoral dissertation explores the cosmopolitan outlook of London’s artists and arts publishers, both historic and present. This includes their incisive commentary on Canada-U.S. relations.
Test marketing involves localized experience with a concept or product before incurring large-scale expense. A landmark example for London was the development of Wellington Square, North America’s first enclosed shopping centre, in 1961.
A 1967 cover of the London arts publication 20 Cents Magazine satirically celebrated this “test market” status. It also chided the reader: “Are you getting your share of the business, for fair?” Artists of London have long played with the local flavour of their city, and the city has a distinct arts scene.
Distinct arts scene
Curator and author Barry Lord profiled the city in a 1969 Art in America feature entitled “What London, Ontario Has That Everywhere Else Needs.” Lord positioned London as “younger than Montréal, livelier than Toronto, vying with Vancouver in variety and sheer quantity of output [and] in many ways the most important of the four.”
This scene included the burgeoning London Regionalist movement — an art movement of which Curnoe was a feature — and the birth of Canadian Artists’ Representation (now Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens). Lord lauded London artists as “indelibly Canadian, and perhaps among the first global villagers.”
Nationalist with wicked humour
What would Curnoe make of the present dynamic between Canada and its closest neighbour?
Kraehling continues: “Greg would be making a lot of statements, and I think he’d be very passionate. Just knowing his devout patriotism, his interest in the local and his pro-Canadian sentiments, I think that he would be trying to get a movement going.” Rather than anti-American, however, Kraehling describes Curnoe as a nationalist with a wicked sense of humour.
Historian Judith Rodger emphasizes Curnoe’s Map as “tongue-in-cheek” even as it levies sharp social critique. Observing the negotiations between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that would lead to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Curnoe revisited the work through the 1980s and 1990s in lithographs and clay.
Curnoe’s Nihilist Party of Canada (NPC), an absurdist political movement formed in 1963, advertised regularly in 20 Cents magazine. One ad encouraged the reader to “STOP the American takeover of Canada,” and to “Stop Pollution, Stop Killing, Stop Exploitation … Get off your Butt – Do Something! THINK NEGATIVELY.”
The track “Destroy the Nations” opens their 1968 No Record album. It begins with Pratten railing: “Destroy the nations! Destroy America! England is dead! Destroy America! AHHHHHH!” The NSB’s performance is a howl against imperial servitude and corporate greed.
In a city forever mimicking the topography and titles of an older London, and so close to the U.S., Ontario’s Londoners are aware of an implied second-fiddle position. Yet Curnoe volleyed his pro-Canadian attitude at the border, just 200 kilometres south. In one of his bicycle series paintings, Mariposa 10 Speed No. 2 (1973), the words “CLOSE THE 49th PARALLEL ETC.” are emblazoned across Curnoe’s bike’s top tube.
Canada, U.S. markets and fine art
Yet the situation is not entirely insular, nor is it comparable with the “Buy Canadian” encouragement seen at supermarkets, liquor stores and other retail outlets today.
Canada’s art market is, in the words of Mackenzie Sinclair of the Art Dealers Association of Canada, “a fragile ecosystem.” Canada’s GDP (including its art) is deeply integrated with the U.S.: many Canadian artists have American dealers, show in American galleries and use American-made materials.
With ongoing threats of American tariffs and export restrictions, Canadian collectors and galleries are abstaining from American art fairs and seeking stronger connections with European markets. Canada’s only international art fair, Art Toronto, is fostering a special new partnership with Mexican galleries, enacting a version of Curnoe’s Map of North America in real time.
For Quick, this cancellation signals a transnational warning. She notes that The Museum of the Americas is an arm of the Organization of the American States, a regional organization that brings together North and South American governments including Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
The call to cancel, she says, far exceeds a phenomena happening only in the U.S.:
“It is a reminder of what role funding has in liberation politics when it comes to the arts. And as we [Canadians] like to other ourselves from the U.S. it’s just as important to remember we are just as much at risk to nationalism dictating values in the arts.”
Ruth Skinner has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the London Arts Council (LAC).
As Liberal MP Pam Damoff prepares to leave politics, she joins other Canadian women MPs in warning that growing threats and harassment are driving them out of politics.
Their call adds to the voices of other politicians in Australia and the United Kingdom who caution that misogyny and threats of violence, especially on social media, have caused them to refrain from seeking re-election.
Harassment undermines democracy and threatens the equal participation of women in politics. When women politicians don’t seek re-election, we lose key voices advocating for a more equitable future.
Women remain underrepresented in Canadian Parliament. Canada currently ranks 70th out of 190 countries for representation of women in politics. Following the federal election in 2021, women held only 30.9 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons.
Once women politicians are elected, they face more barriers in Parliament. Some of these barriers include family obligations and fewer promotions to high-profile roles.
These findings align with outgoing Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell’s letter to her constituents that cites online threats of sexual violence fuelled by misinformation and disinformation as rationale for not seeking re-election.
The goal of private security is to offer an extra level of protection when the threshold for police protection is not met. Through the program, candidates can get an unarmed guard to watch their surroundings and manage risks.
Which metrics are used to determine if the threshold is met? Private security services should protect all candidates equally. However, the lived experiences and concerns of women politicians are often discounted and not taken seriously.
There are more subtle forms of harassment like sexist microaggressions that threaten women candidates just as much as blatant hate speech. But these subtle microaggressions are often brushed off as not being harassment.
With no single definition or agreed-upon way to measure harassment, I developed a seven-point scale to categorize nuanced forms of online harassment. This scale takes into account more subtle forms of harassment, including social media comments that question the authority of women politicians to explicit hate speech.
I found that 86 per cent of replies to tweets sent to women MPs contained some form of harassment.
We cannot view each incident of harassment such as threatening social media comments, volunteers being screamed at or signs being vandalized as isolated events. Understanding all of these incidents, regardless of their severity, as being connected allows us to track the growing forms and impacts of violence.
Legislation needed
Steps have already been taken at Parliament to fight harassment through Bill C-65, which strengthens federal workplace protections against violence and sexual harassment. But more should be done on the campaign trail.
The Privy Council Office’s new private-sector security service is a start. However, candidates should not be expected to quantify how threats make them feel to receive help. Political parties and the Privy Council Office should proactively offer more support to all candidates.
Social media platforms must take greater responsibility for applying their terms of service to minimize harmful content.
Harassment is used as a barrier to stop women from running for office. This is fundamentally about making sure their voices are heard in our democracy.
Inessa De Angelis receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Province of Ontario.
Walk into any home or workplace today, and you’re likely to find an array of indoor plants. The global market for indoor plants is growing fast – projected to reach more than US$28 billion (A$44 billion) by 2031.
People keep indoor plants inside for a variety of reasons, including as decoration, to clean the air and for stress relief. But my colleagues and I wanted to delve further. What sort of relationships do people have with indoor plants? And what can this tell us about ties between humans and nature?
We surveyed indoor plant owners in Australia, and found many of us form highly meaningful connections with our leafy companions. Some people even consider their plants as family, get anxious about their health and mourn a plant when it dies.
Evidence suggests Egyptians brought plants indoors in the 3rd century BC. The remains of the former city of Pompeii reveal indoor plants used there more than 2,000 years ago, and in medieval England, indoor plants were used in medicine and cooking.
The keeping of indoor plants became widespread across the world in the second half of the 20th century. The practice was particularly popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, likely due to a desire to connect with nature when access to outdoor green spaces was limited.
The benefits of indoor plants go beyond nature connection. Studies show they can increase positive emotions, reduce stress, enhance productivity, and even decrease physical discomfort such as pain.
However, people have varying levels of connection to their plants, as research by my colleagues and I shows.
Why we love indoor plants
We surveyed 115 Australian adults, recruited through social media posts and poster advertisements at the University of South Australia. Participants were roughly 69% female, 30% male and 1% non-binary, and ranged in age from 18 to 69.
On average, participants owned 15 indoor plants. Some owned a single indoor plant and one person owned a whopping 500!
Between them, respondents kept 51 different varieties of house plants. The most common were succulents, devil’s ivy and monstera. They most commonly kept the plants in the living room, kitchen or bedroom.
Across all participants, 11 benefits of having indoor plants were reported.
Half the respondents described the aesthetic appeal of indoor plants. Comments included that indoor plants were “nice to look at”, “soften rooms” and “add colour”. Participants also reported air quality benefits, and that they found indoor plants calming.
Other less commonly reported benefits were that the plants helped the respondents set habits, improved their physical health, provided distraction, relieved fatigue and had a pleasant smell.
4 types of relationships with indoor plants
Our research identified four types of relationships people have with their indoor plants:
1. Highly connected (14% of respondents)
These people typically described a deep personal connection to their plants. Comments included:
They are like my children. (male, 28)
I often water them and take care of them as family members. (female, 26)
Well I cried over my plants leaf getting broken off today, so you could say I’m pretty attached
to her. (female, 21)
I feel terrible if one dies, I feel as though I have let it down and generally bury it in the garden. (female, 34)
2. Engaged (42% of respondents)
These people enjoyed and tended to their plants, but without deep emotional attachment. For example:
Watering them and watching them grow is exciting, I feel proud to keep them alive so long (female, 22)
I get sad when one dies or is looking droopy, I feel happy when they look alive and freshly
watered. (female, 22)
These respondents enjoyed having indoor plants but spent minimal time caring for them and reported minimal emotional connections to them. One participant said:
Feel like indoor plants are fine but through our large windows we can see our outdoor plants and that’s more important to us. (female, 45)
4. No relationship (12%)
Participants who did not have a relationship with their indoor plants said:
Hardly watered it as it’s a succulent. (male, 21)
They are all gifts rather than something I’ve gone out to buy. (male, 21)
(For the remaining 9% of participants, their responses to the question of their relationship with house plants were invalid and not included.)
Our research suggests indoor plants can enrich our lives in ways we are only beginning to understand.
It’s important to note that data for our study were collected in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This context may have influenced our results. For example, some participants may have felt particularly connected to their indoor plants because their access to outdoor green space was curtailed. So, further research is needed in the post-pandemic context.
Brianna Le Busque does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Correspondent is a film every journalist should see.
There are no spoiler alerts. It is based on the globally-publicised jailing in Cairo in 2013 of Australian journalist Peter Greste (played by Richard Roxburgh) and his Al Jazeera English colleagues, Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy (Julian Maroun) and local reporter Baher Mohamed (Rahel Romahn).
Skilfully directed by Kriv Stenders, The Correspondent follows Greste’s 2017 memoir. Roxburgh’s performance as the embattled journalist is breathtaking and career defining. With a tight screenplay by Peter Duncan, the film is a masterclass in political subtlety.
Authenticity in truth telling
At its world premiere at Adelaide Film Festival in October, Greste said The Correspondent “paid huge respect” to his memoir.
The film begins with Greste’s surprise arrest in 2013 by Egyptian authorities at the Marriott hotel in Cairo. This is juxtaposed with historical snippets of the Arab Spring uprising in Tahrir Square in January 2011, which ended the 30-year dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak.
The next president after Mubarak was Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Freedom and Justice Party. This party was affiliated with the Brotherhood, the country’s oldest and largest Islamist organisation.
In June 2013, a militarised coup d’état in Egypt was led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime. Morsi was jailed by the freshly minted President al-Sisi. By December, the Brotherhood was blacklisted and declared a terrorist organisation.
The Correspondent argues the Al Jazeera English journalists were political pawns for the new Egyptian regime. The regime had a problematic relationship with its wealthy neighbour, Qatar, a country that partially funds Al Jazeera and publicly supported the Muslim Brotherhood.
Working from a media bunker in the Marriott because their offices were subject to a series of raids and closed down by local police, the trio were accused of illegally mastering a grand conspiracy against al-Sisi’s authoritarian regime.
Struggle for justice and risky business
Set between the grimy underworld of the Egyptian jail and the endless circus of Egyptian court trials, The Correspondent is a look into the psychological torment of Greste and his colleagues.
Between card playing, sarcastic humour and planned hunger strikes, the ritual reality of cell life sets in. Friendships are tested and forged between the journalists, student activist detainees and prison authorities.
Greste spent decades writing headlines from conflict zones before becoming a headline himself.
A repetitive motif in The Correspondent is Greste’s flashbacks to his BBC
days during 2005 in Mogadishu, Somalia, where his producer Kate Peyton (Yael Stone) was killed outside the Sahafi Hotel. In these flashbacks, we are privy to Greste’s guilt-driven internal monologues.
Roxburgh’s performance as the embattled journalist is breathtaking and career defining. Maslow Entertainment
In three studies, I examined the reportage by the ABC, the BBC and the Al Jazeera network about Greste’s case. Across these publications, the safety of journalists received minimal coverage.
Coverage focused on the innocence of the trio, impact of Greste’s sentencing on his ageing parents and press freedom. All these facets of the story are reflected in The Correspondent.
This month, the International Federation of Journalists said at least 156 journalists and media workers have been killed in the current war in Palestine. In December, the Committee to Protect Journalists put the number at more than 137, “making it the deadliest period for journalists since [the committee] began gathering data in 1992”.
Imprisonment of a Western foreign correspondent often generates international headlines, but most journalists who are imprisoned are local journalists. Foreign correspondents rely on these local journalists, wrote Greste, “when they land in a new, dangerous environment”.
In focusing tightly on Greste, the film omits the story of the local journalists imprisoned at the same time. Maslow Entertainment
Local journalists hold power to account, as Greste describes it in “ways far more dangerous than any of us in more secure environments could possibly imagine”.
In focusing tightly on Greste’s story, The Correspondent fails to shine a light on the dozens of local journalists imprisoned at the same time.
Rarely have so many of us been imprisoned and beaten up, intimidated or murdered in the course of our duties.
The Correspondent is an extraordinary film about human resilience and the importance of global diplomacy in the ongoing fight for press freedom.
The Correspondent is in cinemas from today.
Andrea Jean Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
That asset is a customer database containing sensitive personal information about millions of New Zealanders. So what happens to it matters.
Founded in 1996, some 2.9 million New Zealanders representing 74% of the nation’s households eventually signed up to Flybuys. Members collected points at affiliated retailers which they could then redeem through the Flybuys website.
But over the past decade, partners such as Air New Zealand, Mitre 10 and New World pulled out of the scheme to either join other loyalty programmes or start their own.
In May last year, Loyalty New Zealand announced it was closing Flybuys New Zealand and liquidators were called in to manage the company’s end. Flybuys Australia continues to operate, jointly owned by Coles Group and Wesfarmers (which owns retailers K-mart and Bunnings).
According to the first liquidator’s report from early April, Loyalty New Zealand is solvent. This means it is not bankrupt and can pay all debts in full.
Once creditors are paid, the remaining funds will go to shareholders – Z Energy, BNZ, IAG and Foodstuffs Ventures (NZ), a joint subsidiary of Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island.
However, the report is silent on Flybuys’ customer database. That data likely includes years of shopping histories, behavioural profiles and potentially sensitive demographic or inferred financial information.
When the end of Flybuys was announced, Loyalty New Zealand assured customers and retailers it would manage private data according to the New Zealand Privacy Act. But with the liquidation of the company, it is unclear what will now happen to this information.
While no one has publicly said the information will be sold, there is no assurance it will be deleted either. And the database is arguably Loyalty New Zealand’s most valuable, albeit intangible, asset. Unless liquidators explicitly commit to deletion, the data could potentially be transferred or sold.
Loyalty schemes such as Flybuys can gather a great deal of information on those who sign-up. That information can become a valuable – and potentially tradable – asset. Zamrznuti tonovi/Shutterstock
While privacy laws vary by country, the 23andMe case showed how personal data can make customers vulnerable. Flybuys’ data may not be genetic, but it is similarly rich, detailed and easily re-identifiable when combined with other datasets.
In extreme cases, such data can be used to infer sensitive customer characteristics such as financial stress or health-related behaviours. This could lead to political profiling or surveillance captialism – the collection and commodification of personal data.
New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020 is designed to protect personal information. If data is reused for purposes beyond its original intent, or transferred without proper consent, it may breach the law. But the act does not clearly prohibit the sale of data during a liquidation. Nor is it clear on how the rules could be enforced.
Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 offers even less protection. It allows companies to send personal data overseas if they take “reasonable steps” to ensure recipients follow similar privacy rules. This means Australian Flybuys’ data could be sent to countries such as the United States.
That is especially worrying given the power of US tech giants, which routinely collect, profile and monetise data with little oversight. In the wrong hands, Flybuys’ trove of shopping habits, preferences and behavioural patterns could be repurposed to build invasive consumer profiles without people’s knowledge or control.
Setting a global standard
If Flybuys New Zealand’s data is treated as an asset during the liquidation process, could set a precedent and shape future regulatory standards internationally.
We have seen this before. In November 2022, Deliveroo Australia entered voluntary administration, raising concerns about how it would handle its extensive customer data. Users were told they had six months to download their own information, but there was no clarity on whether the data would then be deleted, retained or sold.
This lack of transparency revealed a gap in Australia’s data protection laws during liquidation. While the ultimate fate of the data remains publicly unknown, experts have suggested it was transferred to Deliveroo’s UK-based parent company.
While Australia’s 1988 Privacy Act requires organisations to handle personal information responsibly, it does not clearly regulate the sale or transfer of data during insolvencies or liquidations. There is a legal grey area which leaves customers and consumers vulnerable, as their data could be treated as a tradable asset without their consent.
The need for ethical stewardship
Customer data accumulation is the product of a relationship built on trust that should end when the company and relationship does. Ethical stewardship demands deletion, not redistribution.
When a company winds down, users should be clearly informed of their options: to retrieve their data, delete it or consent to its transfer. That decision should rest with the member or customer, not be made behind closed doors for potential financial gain.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Injectable medications originally developed for the treatment of diabetes are also effective for weight loss, and have surged in popularity for this purpose around the world.
In Australia, Ozempic is approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, while Wegovy is approved for weight management. Both are formulations of the drug semaglutide, which mimics the action of the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone on GLP-1 receptors in the gut and the brain, helping regulate appetite and making you feel fuller for longer.
However these medications are expensive, and sometimes hard to get. They also come with side effects. For these reasons, people are taking to “microdosing” weight-loss drugs, or using less than the dose recommended by the manufacturer.
But is this effective, and is it safe? As a GP, people are asking me these questions. Here’s what we know – and what we don’t know yet.
However, the term is increasingly being used to describe the use of weight-loss injectables at lower-than-recommended doses.
Three common reasons come up when I ask patients why they microdose weight-loss drugs.
Cost: injectables used for weight loss are not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, so patients must pay for these out-of-pocket. Costs start from A$260 per month and increase from there.
Side-effects: side-effects are common, and can include nausea, vomiting, bowel habit changes and reflux. Lower doses cause fewer side-effects, which is why the recommended dosing schedule starts low and gradually builds up.
A standard dose of semaglutide is 2.4mg, but we start patients on much lower doses (0.25mg) and gradually build up to this by increasing the dose each month. This is because starting at the full dose invariably causes bad side-effects.
Injectables come in an adjustable auto-injector pen which is twisted until the dose counter shows the prescribed dose in milligrams. There’s a click every time the dial is turned. Once the prescribed dose is showing, it’s injected under the skin.
To microdose, patients simply turn the dial fewer times than recommended for the full dose. They estimate a microdose by “counting clicks”, which means they’re turning it according to the clicks they hear rather than until they see the dial showing the correct dose has been reached.
Weight-loss drugs come in an adjustable auto-injector pen. myskin/Shutterstock
Alternatively, they may inject the full recommended dose but do so less often than once per week.
Is it safe?
Using injectables in this way has not been researched, so the safety has not been established. However, it’s unlikely lower doses would lead to higher safety concerns.
In fact, logically, lower doses are likely to mean fewer side-effects.
But these drugs do expire after a few weeks, and microdosing could increase the risk of inadvertently using them after their expiration date. Injecting out-of-date medication can be a significant health risk. For example, it could cause infection if bacteria has started to grow.
The biggest concern around the safety of microdosing is if patients are doing it without the knowledge of their treating team (such as their GP, dietitian and pharmacist).
Because there are no clear guidelines around microdosing, patients should only try it with caution and under medical care. Their team can assist with issues such as accounting for the limited shelf-life of the medication.
Is it effective?
As lower doses than recommended for weight loss have not been tested, we cannot answer this question yet. However, reduced side-effects at lower doses make it likely there are also reduced therapeutic effects.
In my experience there’s a reason patients increase their doses as recommended: they simply don’t lose enough weight on the starting doses.
It’s best to seek advice from your medical team before making any dose changes. AnnaStills/Shutterstock
At the height of semaglutide shortages in 2023, experts from the American Diabetes Association published recommendations around how to prescribe lower doses for patients with diabetes. But these recommendations were for diabetes management, not for patients using the drug for weight loss.
It’s also important to note that for patients using Wegovy to reduce heart attack and stroke risk – which Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration recently approved it for – there’s no evidence that cardiovascular benefits will be achieved at lower-than-recommended doses.
Is there any role for microdosing weight-loss drugs?
There may be a role for microdosing in a few scenarios:
When side-effects are not manageable: when side-effects are intolerable for patients, even on the lowest introductory dose, there may be a role for individualised approaches. But this is best done with clear communication and regular monitoring, so patients are not under-treated.
Supply disruption: if there’s a supply disruption, lowering the dose or lengthening the time between doses may be preferable to ceasing the medication altogether.
Maintenance of weight loss: once therapeutic levels have helped patients achieve their goal weight, lowering the dose may be a helpful longer-term way of keeping them there. We know stopping these drugs altogether results in rebound weight gain. We await evidence for microdosing for weight maintenance.
So what’s the take-home message?
Patients who use injectables as part of their approach to weight loss should be under the care of an experienced team, including a GP, who can monitor their progress and ensure they achieve their weight loss in a safe and sustainable way.
Microdosing weight-loss drugs currently has no clear evidence base, but if a person wants to attempt it, they should do so with the full knowledge of their treating team.
Natasha Yates wishes to thank Dr Terri-Lynne South – a GP, dietician, and the chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ specific interest group in obesity management – for providing feedback and peer review on this article.
Natasha Yates is affiliated with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
The federal election campaign has passed the halfway mark, with politicians zig-zagging across the country to spruik their policies and achievements.
Where politicians choose to visit (and not visit) give us some insight into their electoral priorities and strategy.
Here, six experts analyse how the campaign has looked so far in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.
New South Wales
David Clune, honorary associate, government and international relations, University of Sydney
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s strategy in NSW seems to include a tacit concession Liberal heartland seats won by the Teals in 2022 are unlikely to come back.
Instead, the Liberals are hoping to make inroads into Western Sydney electorates held by Labor. It’s a fast-growing, diverse area where families are struggling to pay the mortgage and household bills, and young people have difficulty renting or buying homes. Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have concentrated their campaigning in this area, both claiming to be the best choice for cost-of-living relief and housing affordability.
Many of these seats are among Labor’s safest. Most would require a two-party preferred swing of 6% or more to be lost. Historically speaking, swings of this size are unlikely, although nevertheless possible.
Labor is putting much effort into “sandbagging” marginal coastal seats. A major issue is Labor’s emphasis on renewables versus the Coalition’s policy of building nuclear power plants, including one in the Hunter Valley.
Dutton’s messaging in the early part of the campaign was confusing, combining pragmatic politics, such as cutting the excise on petrol, with right-wing ideology, such as slashing the public service. The former resonated in the marginals, the latter did not. Albanese, by contrast, stayed on message, releasing a stream of expensive handouts to win the votes of battling Sydneysiders.
A wildcard is the emergence of Muslim lobby groups, The Muslim Vote and Muslim Votes Matter. These were formed to support pro-Palestine candidates in safe Labor seats in Western Sydney where there is a large Muslim population, such as Blaxland and Watson.
One factor that won’t be influential is the state government. Premier Chris Minns leads a Labor administration whose performance has generally been lacklustre, but which is not notably unpopular. Unlike in Victoria, NSW voters seem to have their baseball bats in the closet.
The opinion polls continue to show the trend developing since February of a swing back to Labor in NSW, mirroring the national trend. According to an aggregate of polling data, as at April 15 the Labor two-party preferred vote in NSW was 51.9%, an increase of 1.7% since the March federal budget.
Queensland
Paul Williams, associate professor of politics and journalism, Griffith University
The fact neither Albanese nor Dutton has spent a disproportionate amount of time campaigning in Queensland underscores the view the Sunshine State is not a pathway to The Lodge.
But the fact both leaders have made several visits – Albanese campaigned here four times in 12 days – also indicates neither leader is taking any seat for granted.
Indeed, Albanese has visited normally tough-to-win seats, such as Leichhardt in far north Queensland (held by the Coalition for 26 of the past 29 years), which reveals an emboldened Labor Party. With the retirement of popular Coalition MP Warren Entsch, and held by just 3.44%, Labor thinks Leichhardt is “winnable”, especially after reports the LNP candidate Jeremy Neal had posted questionable comments regarding China and Donald Trump on social media.
If so – and given the growing lead Labor boasts in national polls – the LNP would be also at least a little concerned in Longman (3.1%), Bonner (3.4%), Flynn (3.8%), Forde (4.2%) and Petrie (4.4%).
At least the opposition can placate itself with this week’s Resolve Strategic poll, which indicates it still leads Labor in Queensland by six points after preferences, 53% to 47%. That’s just a one-point swing to Labor since 2022. However, it would be concerned that the LNP’s lead has been slashed ten points from the previous YouGov poll.
But most concerning must surely be a uComms poll in Dutton’s own seat of Dickson, held by a slender 1.7%, which forecast the opposition leader losing to high-profile Labor candidate Ali France, 51.7 to 48.3%. The entry of the Climate 200-backed independent candidate Ellie Smith appears to have disrupted preference flows.
Labor’s own polling indicated a closer contest at 50% each, while the LNP’s polling indicates an easy win for Dutton, 57% to 43%, despite Labor spending A$130,000 on France’s campaign.
An alleged terror plot against Dutton in Brisbane doesn’t appear to have shifted the dial. But voters’ potential to conflate Dutton with Trump may well have, especially given Trump’s tariffs now threaten Queensland beef producers’ $1.4 billion trade with the United States. In the closing weeks, watch as Dutton draws on the new and popular Premier David Crisafulli for electoral succour.
South Australia
Rob Manwaring, associate professor of politics and public policy, Flinders University
Is there a federal election campaign taking place? In South Australia, there is a something of an elusive air about the current festival of democracy, with many voters disengaged. The lack of excitement reflects the fact that only two seats in the state are marginal: Sturt (0.5%) and Boothby (3.3%).
The party campaigns have sparkled and flickered, but not really caught alight. The signature move was Albanese’s early announcement of the $150 million new healthcare centre at Flinders, in the seat of Boothby. For the ALP, this neatly coalesced around Labor’s campaign on Medicare.
Federal Labor also sees its strongest asset in the state in Premier Peter Malinauskas, who was prominent during the recent AFL gather round – the round played entirely in Adelaide and its surrounds.
In a welcome development for the state, Labor’s announcement Adelaide would be put forward to host the next Climate COP conference in 2026 was an interesting flashpoint. Locally, many businesses welcomed the announcement, as it potentially will generate significant footfall and economic activity.
Yet, the Coalition quickly announced they would not support the bid, trying to shift the attention away from climate to cost-of-living issues.
More generally, there is a perception the Coalition has been struggling to build campaign momentum. Notably, in a recent visit by members of the shadow cabinet, energies appear to be focused more on sandbagging the seat of Sturt than on winning Boothy, which Labor holds with a nominal 3.3%.
Other factors also might explain a sense of indifference in South Australia. There have been key developments in state politics, for example, notably the ongoing criminal case against former Liberal leader David Speirs, and independent MP, and former Liberal, Nick McBride, who faces assault charges related to family and domestic violence (to which he’s yet to enter a plea).
Tasmania
Robert Hortle, deputy director of the Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania
The Labor and Liberal campaign strategies started quite differently across Tasmania’s five electorates.
Labor is desperate to defend Lyons and Franklin and hopeful of picking up Braddon (though perhaps overly ambitious, given the 8% margin).
Its candidates have focused on promoting Labor’s big, national-level policies. In the first couple of weeks of the campaign, this meant pushing its flagship healthcare and childcare policies. Following the campaign launches on the weekend, housing is the new flavour.
The Liberal Party – there is no Coalition in Tassie – is focused on winning super marginal Lyons (0.9%) and holding Braddon and Bass. In contrast to Labor, the Liberal campaign was initially defined by lots of community-level funding announcements and Tasmania-specific infrastructure support.
Since the Coalition’s plan to halve the fuel excise was announced, the approach has changed somewhat. Tasmanian Liberal candidates are now swinging in behind this and other national policy pronouncements about – you guessed it – housing.
Both major party candidates have been pretty quiet on the controversial issue of salmon farming. This is surprising given the national spotlight on Braddon’s Macquarie Harbour and the waterways of Franklin. The only exception is Braddon Labor candidate Anne Urquhart’s very vocal support for the salmon industry.
For the Greens, the goal is to build on their 2022 vote share and turn one Senate seat into two, although this is a long shot. They have campaigned hard on issues – mainly salmon farming and native forest logging – where agreement between the Labor and Liberal parties has left space for a dissenting voice.
Although the Greens’ chances of winning any of the lower house seats are slim, they will be hoping these issues help them make further inroads into the declining primary vote share of the major parties.
Victoria
Zareh Ghazarian, senior lecturer in politics, school of social sciences, Monash University
Victoria has several seats that can potentially change hands at this election. As ABC election analyst Antony Green reminds us, the state is home to at least a dozen seats the major parties hold by a margin of 6% or less. Additionally, the independents in Kooyong and Goldstein are also on thin margins (2.2% and 3.3% respectively).
Within this context, the campaign in Victoria has been marked by several visits by the major party leaders. The challenge, however, has been how they have worked with their state counterparts.
State Liberal Leader Brad Battin has fallen short of explicitly supporting the Coalition’s focus on nuclear energy. Instead, he says he’s ready to have an “adult conversation” about the prospect. Coal currently provides more than 60% of electricity in Victoria.
Dutton was, however, happy to campaign alongside Battin and also visited a petrol station with the state leader while in Melbourne.
The Labor Party in Victoria, on the other hand, has been grappling with a drop in support in the polls, with Premier Jacinta Allan’s popularity falling. As a result, there’s been much speculation among political commentators about whether Albanese would want to be campaigning with a leader seemingly struggling to attract support.
In one of the first visits to the state, Albanese did not campaign with Allan. This was even though he had been happy to be with the premiers of South Australia and Western Australia while campaigning there.
According to Albanese, it was the fact that parliament was sitting that made it impossible for Allan to join him on the campaign trail. Both leaders were together at a subsequent visit, but this elicited questions about the impact of Allan’s leadership on Labor’s standing in Victoria.
Western Australia
Narelle Miragliotta, associate professor in politics, Murdoch University
Reports the state’s 16 seats will decide which party grouping will form government has resulted in WA voters being treated to regular visits by the major party leaders, including Labor’s campaign launch.
The campaign context in WA is shaped by its mining economy. Perth is the fastest growing capital in the country, which has led to strong growth in the median housing price and an expensive rental market.
On top of this two potentially divisive issues – the nature positive laws and North West shelf gas expansion – have been defused by federal Labor. The party has backtracked in the case of the former. In the case of the latter, it has merely delayed (not without criticism, however) what is likely to be an eventual approval.
Clearer differences have emerged on future of the WA live sheep trade. But while important to communities directly affected by the phasing out of the practice, the issue does not appear to be capturing the attention of most metropolitan voters.
What might we expect? Labor’s two-party-preferred margin is comfortable in eight of the nine seats it holds. The five Liberal-held seats are on much slimmer margins. Polling suggests little improvement in their state-wide share of the two party preferred vote since 2022.
To the extent the polls portend the outcome, the Liberals’ lack of electoral momentum in WA suggests it will be a struggle to regain the target seats of Curtin and Tangney. Only the outcome in WA’s newest seat, Bullwinkel, remains uncertain.
Paul Williams is a research associate with the TJ Ryan Foundation.
David Clune, Narelle Miragliotta, Rob Manwaring, Robert Hortle, and Zareh Ghazarian do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the run up to the May 3 election, questions are being raised about the value of multiculturalism as a public policy in Australia.
They’ve been prompted by community tensions arising from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the sharp increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes.
Is the erosion of social cohesion a consequence of multiculturalism? Or is multiculturalism the most effective approach to minimising the fissures opening up in the Australian community?
Can Australia still pride itself on being one of the world’s most successful multicultural societies? Or will reinvigorating Australian multiculturalism be one of the great policy challenges for the next government?
Landmark review
It could be argued the election of the Albanese government three years ago was only possible because new multicultural candidates unexpectedly won in marginal electorates.
Yet, the 2022 campaign barely mentioned multicultural policies apart from Labor’s pledge for a Multicultural Framework Review. That pledge was announced the day before the election. It was the first detailed examination of the state of Australia’s multicultural society in 40 years.
Its report last year recommended the existing structures for managing multiculturalism be replaced. A Multicultural Affairs Commission and a standalone Department of Multicultural Affairs should be established.
The existing Australian Multicultural Council was criticised as having “limited influence under Home Affairs”. Its proposed replacement, a renamed Multicultural Community Advisory Council, would be better armed to provide strategic advice. It would also have legislated powers to implement institutional change.
But the government ignored the recommendation. It has persisted with the current Council with a slightly revised membership. Labor hasn’t indicated how it plans to overcome the problem of the Council’s ineffectual influence on multicultural affairs.
The review stressed the importance of bipartisanship and found discrimination and prejudice is “stubbornly common” in Australia.
But bipartisanship has been hard to find. Shadow Citizenship Minister Dan Tehan complained the review failed to deal with antisemitism. Nor did it tackle the strains on social cohesion. He blamed this on pro-Palestine civic action, hate speech and intimidation.
Shifting focus
The review was rapidly overtaken by events, especially public tensions associated with the Israel/Gaza war and local outbreaks of vandalism. Many grassroots initiatives proposed by the review to promote multiculturalism have been supplanted by urgent action to repair community facilities and improve safety.
Two government-appointed envoys against antisemitism and Islamophobia have been crossing the country talking to communities, and testing the capacity of institutions to support their aspirations.
This hive of activity around social cohesion distracts from the limited action on multiculturalism and the persistence and pervasiveness of racism in Australia.
Last month’s federal budget funded increased security and support for multicultural communities. But the government has failed to rework the institutional infrastructure needed to move forward on the deeper issues raised by the review.
Multicultural battleground
There are signs in the first weeks of the campaign that the parties are aware of the issues facing particular communities. However, multiculturalism may struggle to flourish, whoever wins the election.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton launched a preemptive attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), by threatening to sack DEI positions in the Australian Public Service. And he nailed his colours to the mast by declaring he won’t stand in front of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags if he is elected prime minister.
The Coalition may have painted itself into a tight corner after Liberal Senator Dave Sharma declared Islamophobia in Australia was “fictitious”. He contradicted the envoy on Islamophobia and potentially alienated hundreds of thousands of conservative Muslim voters.
Nor has Labor been served well by its initial small target position on multiculturalism and its lethargic implementation of the framework review.
It’s been wedged on the Middle East conflict: pilloried by the Coalition for its perceived weakness on antisemitism, and condemned by the Greens, who accuse it of a morally questionable position on Gaza and Palestinian issues.
Labor also suffered a setback with Senator Fatima Payman’s desertion to the cross bench over its approach to the war in Gaza. This was shadowed by rising hostility from the “Arab street”, which could put some Western Sydney seats at risk.
For its part, the coalition is targeting Teal seats with Jewish communities, while the contest to secure the Chinese-Australian vote could be critical in up to ten seats.
Muliticultralism post election
Multicultural policy cannot be allowed to drift, let alone be degraded. High levels of political alienation in many communities across the country suggest a much more fractured electorate.
It is critical for Australians’ sense of community cohesion, inclusion and social justice that a more robust multicultural strategy be articulated by the major parties. A Multicultural Community Advisory Council with the heft to influence debate must be adopted, as should the recommendation for a legislated Australian Multicultural Commission.
Silence on multicultural policy will not deliver these outcomes. At the moment the sound of that silence is deafening.
This is the ninth article in our special series, Australia’s Policy Challenges. You can read the other articles here
Andrew Jakubowicz was a consultant to the Multicultural Framework Review on research.
Every week, millions of Americans toss their recyclables into a single bin, trusting that their plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard boxes will be given a new life.
But what really happens after the truck picks them up?
Plastics are among the biggest challenges. Only about 9% of the plastic generated in the U.S. actually gets recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some plastic is incinerated to produce energy, but most of the rest ends up in landfills instead.
A breakdown of U.S. recycling by millions of tons shows about two-thirds of all paper and cardboard gets a second life, but only about a third of metal, a quarter of glass and less than 10% of plastics do. Alex Jordan/University of Wisconsin-Stout
So, what makes plastic recycling so difficult? As an engineer whose work focuses on reprocessing plastics, I have been exploring potential solutions.
How does single-stream recycling work?
In cities that use single-stream recycling, consumers put all of their recyclable materials − paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and metal − into a single bin. Once collected, the mixed recyclables are taken to a materials recovery facility, where they are sorted.
First, the mixed recyclables are shredded and crushed into smaller fragments, enabling more effective separation. The mixed fragments pass over rotating screens that remove cardboard and paper, allowing heavier materials, including plastics, metals and glass, to continue along the sorting line.
The basics of a single-stream recycling system in Pennsylvania. Source: Van Dyk Recycling Solutions.
Magnets are used to pick out ferrous metals, such as steel. A magnetic field that produces an electrical current with eddies sends nonferrous metals, such as aluminum, into a separate stream, leaving behind plastics and glass.
The glass fragments are removed from the remaining mix using gravity or vibrating screens.
That leaves plastics as the primary remaining material.
While single-stream recycling is convenient, it has downsides. Contamination, such as food residue, plastic bags and items that can’t be recycled, can degrade the quality of the remaining material, making it more difficult to reuse. That lowers its value.
Having to remove that contamination raises processing costs and can force recovery centers to reject entire batches.
Plastic bags, food residue and items that can’t be recycled can contaminate a recycling stream. City of Greenville, N.C./Flickr
Which plastics typically can’t be recycled?
Each recycling program has rules for which items it will and won’t take. You can check which items can and cannot be recycled for your specific program on your municipal page. Often, that means checking the recycling code stamped on the plastic next to the recycling icon.
These are the toughest plastics to recycle and most likely to be excluded in your local recycling program:
Symbol 3 – Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, found in pipes, shower curtains and some food packaging. It may contain harmful additives such as phthalates and heavy metals. PVC also degrades easily, and melting can release toxic fumes during recycling, contaminating other materials and making it unsafe to process in standard recycling facilities.
Symbol 4 – Low-density polyethylene, or LDPE, is often used in plastic bags and shrink-wrap. Because it’s flexible and lightweight, it’s prone to getting tangled in sorting machinery at recycling plants.
Symbol 6 – Polystyrene, often used in foam cups, takeout containers and packing peanuts. Because it’s lightweight and brittle, it’s difficult to collect and process and easily contaminates recycling streams.
Which plastics to include
That leaves three plastics that can be recycled in many facilities:
Symbol 5 – Polypropylene, PP, used in products such as pill bottles, yogurt cups and plastic utensils.
However, these aren’t accepted in some facilities for reasons I’ll explain.
Taking apart plastics, bead by bead
Some plastics can be chemically recycled or ground up for reprocessing, but not all plastics play well together.
Simple separation methods, such as placing ground-up plastics in water, can easily remove your soda bottle plastic (PET) from the mixture. The ground-up PET sinks in water due to the plastic’s density. However, HDPE, used in milk jugs, and PP, found in yogurt cups, both float, and they can’t be recycled together. So, more advanced and expensive technology, such as infrared spectroscopy, is often required to separate those two materials.
Once separated, the plastic from your soda bottle can be chemically recycled through a process called solvolysis.
It works like this: Plastic materials are formed from polymers. A polymer is a molecule with many repeating units, called monomers. Picture a pearl necklace. The individual pearls are the repeating monomer units. The string that runs through the pearls is the chemical bond that joins the monomer units together. The entire necklace can then be thought of as a single molecule.
During solvolysis, chemists break down that necklace by cutting the string holding the pearls together until they are individual pearls. Then, they string those pearls together again to create new necklaces.
Other chemical recycling methods, such as pyrolysis and gasification, have drawn environmental and health concerns because the plastic is heated, which can release toxic fumes. But chemical recycling also holds the potential to reduce both plastic waste and the need for new plastics, while generating energy.
The problem of yogurt cups and milk jugs
The other two common types of recycled plastics − items such as yogurt cups (PP) and milk jugs (HDPE) − are like oil and water: Each can be recycled through reprocessing, but they don’t mix.
If polyethylene and polypropylene aren’t completely separated during recycling, the resulting mix can be brittle and generally unusable for creating new products.
Chemists are working on solutions that could increase the quality of recycled plastics through mechanical reprocessing, typically done at separate facilities.
One promising mechanical method for recycling mixed plastics is to incorporate a chemical called a compatibilizer. Compatibilizers contain the chemical structure of multiple different polymers in the same molecule. It’s like how lecithin, commonly found in egg yolks, can help mix oil and water to make mayonnaise − part of the lecithin molecule is in the oil phase and part is in the water phase.
In the case of yogurt cups and milk jugs, recently developed block copolymers are able to produce recycled plastic materials with the flexibility of polyethylene and the strength of polypropylene.
Improving recycling
Research like this can make recycled materials more versatile and valuable and move products closer to a goal of a circular economy without waste.
However, improving recycling also requires better recycling habits.
You can help the recycling process by taking a few minutes to wash off food waste, avoiding putting plastic bags in your recycling bin and, importantly, paying attention to what can and cannot be recycled in your area.
Alex Jordan received funding in in the past from TotalEnergies. He has worked on projects to create PP-PE block copolymers.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Patrick Michael Condon, Professor and UBC James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments., University of British Columbia
Racial disparities played a significant role in shaping unequal COVID-19 mortality rates. What is less widely understood is how overcrowded housing conditions were an even deadlier variable.
‘Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality, and Urban Crisis’ by Patrick M. Condon. (UBC Press)
Even less examined is the root cause of this overcrowding. Overcrowding is not just a matter of zoning or population growth, but something more systemic and difficult to confront: the speculative financial forces acting on the land beneath our feet.
Urban land is now assessed by people not for its consumption value for a home but for its ability to hold and increase in cash value — in other words, its “speculative value.”
My recent book, Broken City, paints a picture of how the same market logics that defined the Gilded Age of the late 19th century have quietly returned in our own century, with similarly corrosive consequences for urban life.
Echoes of the Gilded Age
A growing share of average workers’ incomes is being swallowed up by housing costs, often for homes that fail to meet their basic needs. This is not the result of natural scarcity, but mechanical economic processes that inform the price of urban land.
We now find ourselves in circumstances uncomfortably close to those of Victorian England or Gilded Age America, when mass migrations to urban centres were driven by the need for jobs.
A portrait photograph of Henry George, taken after 1885. (Wikimedia Commons)
The demands for the unearned increment, George explained, was only limited by how much a region’s wage-earners and entrepreneurs collectively produced. Almost all of that value eventually went into land price.
Today, we appear to be experiencing the same phenomenon. The social and epidemiological pressures produced by inflated land prices are no longer confined to historically marginalized racial or ethnic groups.
As my book explains, millennials and Gen Xers, who are increasingly working service-sector jobs that dominate today’s economy, especially in countries like Canada and the U.S., are facing housing pressures once reserved only for the poor.
In short, housing precarity has gone mainstream.
Skyrocketing land prices
At the heart of the housing crisis lies a deeper problem: runaway urban land prices are not just a crisis of housing affordability, but a problem of equitable urban design. They are eroding our political capacity to solve many urban problems.
The same inflated land values that burden tenants and aspiring homeowners also restrict what cities can do to address housing and transportation needs, whether through planning, taxation or direct provision.
Urban land prices are spiralling due to the collision of two long-term trends. First, the global economy has shifted from being primarily driven by wages earned through labour to one dominated by returns on assets. Urban land is now the single largest category of fixed capital asset in the world.
Second, this asset-driven economy has widened the gap between wages and home prices, and helped drive the explosion in inequality. Housing has become the primary site where that inequality is expressed.
Public frustration over this yawning gap between stagnant incomes and sky-high housing costs has erupted into political conflict. Many now blame local governments and planning regulations for blocking the supply of new homes. If only we could build more, they argue, prices would fall.
But the evidence tells a different story. Take Vancouver, a city that has tripled its housing stock since the 1960s, largely through infill development. If the supply theory held true, Vancouver should be the most affordable city in North America. Instead, it is the least affordable.
My book offers several solutions and examples for how cities can reclaim land wealth for the common good.
One promising approach lies in tying new housing approvals to affordability requirements. This policy framework — known as inclusionary zoning — requires developers to include a certain number of permanently affordable units as a condition for increased density.
Without such requirements, upzoning — meaning increasing the maximum building size the city authorizes for a parcel — can inflate the value of land, rewarding speculation and driving prices further out of reach.
The path forward is not mysterious. But it does require confronting the truth that the housing crisis is not the result of broken systems — but of a speculative financial systems working exactly as designed.
Patrick Michael Condon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Social media is an evolutionary novelty, like M&M’s, e-cigarettes, fentanyl and H-bombs. Each comes with novel risks to health and well-being that humans are entirely unaccustomed to.(Shutterstock)
Imagine a tribe of uncontacted hunter-gatherers in the deepest Amazon rainforest. Anthropologists airdrop dozens of smartphones loaded with social media apps, with solar chargers, simple instructions in their native language and Wi-Fi just within the tribe. What would happen to their culture and their mental health?
Such an experiment appears fanciful, but a similar one has been unfolding in our world for about 20 years. For the first time in human evolution, everyday social interactions have changed from face-to-face to disembodied experiences, from in-person to digital and from social reality to whatever someone puts online.
Social media is an evolutionary novelty, like M&M’s, e-cigarettes, fentanyl and H-bombs. Each comes with novel risks to health and well-being to which humans are entirely unaccustomed.
What, then, are the risks of seemingly innocuous behaviours such as sharing posts, giving likes, making oneself look good in pictures, and, in general, interacting virtually rather than physically? The short answer is that we don’t know — yet — especially because our big experiment has no control group.
But we can try to find out.
Social media and mental disorders
We recently investigated the question of what mental disorders are associated with high social media use. To do so, we conducted a systematic review — an objective way to find and evaluate all of the relevant literature. We hypothesized that social media use should be higher among people whose psychology, and psychiatric traits and disorders, were more socially mentalistic.
Mentalism refers to within-brain traits like theory of mind, inferring intentions or emotions of others and empathizing. Social media is expected to be mentalistic because it involves disembodied thoughts, feelings and associated images, intended to connect us with other humans. Mentalistic thinking contrasts with the mechanistic cognition of scientists plying their trade of cause and effect in the physical, non-mentalistic world of things.
To test our hypothesis, we scrutinized hundreds of scientific articles, and a curious picture emerged. High social media use was strongly associated with a subset of mentalistic traits and disorders: narcissism, erotomania (the belief that some celebrity loves you), paranoia, body dysmorphia and anorexia.
These traits and disorders seem unrelated, but we noticed they all centrally involve delusions: false beliefs about reality, held despite absent or contradictory evidence. Some delusions can be mental (narcissism, paranoia, and erotomania), or physical (body dysmorphia and anorexia). Some are positively valanced (narcissism and erotomania) and some are negative (paranoia, body dysmorphia and anorexia).
Why, then, was social media associated with delusionality?
Social delusions
Like other mental traits, delusions exist in one’s brain for a reason. What these mental disorders also appear to share, psychologically, is an underdeveloped and fragile sense and construction of the self, which happens during early life through social interactions with family, friends, and others.
If one’s mental and perceived bodily self is underdeveloped in childhood, it can, later, be bolstered, and this commonly happens through social interactions that involve beliefs that, though false, make oneself feel better.
Low self-image and self-esteem can be shored up through admiration or love from outside — with extremes of narcissism or erotomania. Perceived embodiment and body image problems can be enhanced through fictitious beliefs about appearance — with extremes of body dysmorphia and anorexia.
What better way to do any of these things than with social media and the internet, where users can pursue likes and followers to their heart’s content, and present themselves mentally and physically as they wish, using applications designed specifically for that purpose?
Most importantly, social media allows users to delusionally “improve” themselves because it circumvents reality testing: the direct, face-to-face interactions we engage in when physically interacting with other people.
Social media allows one to delusionally ‘improve’ oneself because it circumvents reality testing: the direct, face to face interactions we engage in when physically interacting with other people. (Shutterstock)
Delusion amplification
As we outline in our paper, the processes just described represent a “Delusion Amplification by Social Media” model that can help explain why and how high social media use is linked with a specific subset of mental disorders that involve delusions and an underdeveloped self.
By this model, some people are relatively vulnerable, psychologically, to the negative effects of social media, because they are drawn to it, and because it amplifies and exacerbates their problems. This exacerbation is, of course, not benign or accidental; the goal of many social media companies is, after all, to keep us online, scrolling, striving and seeking hits of social pleasure and self-validation.
What, then, then can be done, aside from cutting the virtual social umbilical cord? First and most crucial is enhanced awareness of our own psychological makeups and how they are affected by specific platforms or apps. The problem with delusions, of course, is lack of awareness that our reality is false — but we can still become more cognizant of the rifts between perceived and actual worlds and what drives them.
Second is more research, to extend the delusion amplification model, and to better determine the psychological and neurological differences between in-person and virtual interactions, and what mental problems they can cause.
If we find that social media really is ruining mental health, as suggested by recent increases in narcissism, body dysmorphia and other disorders among young people, then the research will need to be incorporated into policy, so we can regain control over our social lives, our brains and our social worlds.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For millennia, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. Savannas and forests are often thought of as the cradle of our lineage, but beneath the waves, a habitat exists that has quietly supported humans for over 180,000 years.
Archaeological evidence suggests that early humans migrated along coasts, avoiding desert and tundra. So, as Homo spread from Africa, they inevitably encountered seagrasses – flowering plants evolved to inhabit shallow coastal environments that form undersea meadows teeming with life.
Our recently published research pieces together historical evidence from across the globe, revealing that humans and seagrass meadows have been intertwined for millennia – providing food, fishing grounds, building materials, medicine and more throughout our shared history.
Our earliest known links to seagrass date back around 180,000 years. Tiny seagrass-associated snails were discovered in France at Paleolithic cave sites used by Neanderthals. Too small to be a consequence of food remains, these snails were likely introduced with Posidonia oceanica leaves used for bedding – a type of seagrass found only in the Mediterranean. Neanderthals didn’t just use seagrass to make sleeping comfortable – 120,000 year old evidence suggests they harvested seagrass-associated scallops too.
A bountiful supply of food
Seagrass meadows provide shelter and food for marine life, such as fish, invertebrates, reptiles and marine mammals. Because they inhabit shallow waters close to shore, seagrass meadows have been natural fishing grounds and places where generations have speared, cast nets, set traps and hand-gathered food to survive and thrive.
Long before modern fishing fleets, ancient communities recognised the value of these underwater grasslands. Around 6,000 years ago, the people of eastern Arabia depended on seagrass meadows to hunt rabbitfish – a practice so prevalent here that remnants of their fishing traps are still visible from space.
Seagrass meadows have even been directly harvested as food. Around 12,000 years ago, some of the first human cultures in North America, settling on Isla Cedros off the coast of Baja California, gathered and consumed seeds from Zostera marina, a species commonly called eelgrass. These seeds were milled into a flour and baked into breads and cakes, a process alike to wheat milling today.
Further north, the Indigenous Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, as far back as 10,000 years ago, developed a careful and sustainable way of gathering eelgrass for consumption. By twisting a pole into the seagrass, they pulled up the leaves, and broke them off near the rhizome – the underground stem that is rich in sugary carbohydrates. After removing the roots and outer leaves, they wrapped the youngest leaves around the rhizome, dipping it in oil before eating. Remarkably, this method was later found to promote seagrass health, encouraging new growth and resilience.
Today, seagrass meadows remain a lifeline for coastal communities, particularly across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Here, fishing within seagrass habitats is shown to be more reliable than other coastal habitats and women often sustain their families by gleaning – a fishing practice that involves carefully combing seagrass meadows for edible shells and other marine life. For these communities, seagrass fishing is vital during periods when fishing at sea is not possible, for example, during tropical storms.
When seagrasses returned to the sea around 100 million years ago, they evolved to have specialised leaves to tolerate both saltwater submergence and periods of time exposed to the sun during tidal cycles. This allowed seagrasses to flourish across our coastlines, but also made them useful resources for humans.
Seagrass leaves, once dry, are relatively moist- and rot-proof – properties likely discovered by ancient civilisations when exploring the uses of plants for different purposes. Bronze age civilizations like the Minoans, used seagrass in building construction, reinforcing mudbricks with seagrass. Analysis of these reveal superior thermal properties of seagrass mudbricks compared to bricks made with other plant fibres – they kept buildings warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
These unique properties may have been why early humans used seagrass for bedding and by the 16th century, seagrass-stuffed mattresses were prized for pest resistance, requested even by Pope Julius III.
By the 17th century, Europeans were using seagrass to thatch roofs and insulate their homes. North American colonialists took this knowledge with them, continuing the practice. In the 19th century, commercial harvesting of tens of thousands of tonnes of seagrass began across North America and northern Europe.
In the US, Boston’s Samuel Cabot Company patented an insulation material called Cabot’s “Quilt”, sandwiching dried seagrass leaves between two layers of paper. These quilts were used to insulate buildings across the US, including New York’s Rockefeller Center and the Capitol in Washington DC.
A legacy ecosystem – and a living one
The prevalence of seagrass throughout human civilisation has fostered spiritual and cultural relations with these underwater gardens, manifesting in rituals and historical customs. In Neolithic graves in Denmark, scientists found human remains wrapped in seagrass, representing a close connection with the sea.
We have depended on seagrass for 180,000 years – for food, homes, customs – so investing in their conservation and restoration is not just ecological, it’s deeply human.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Nicole Foster receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Training and mobility actions.
Oscar Serrano receives funding from the Spanish National Research Council
Benjamin Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The US president, Donald Trump, has unleashed a string of controversial policies since returning to the White House that have put his administration at odds with most of the world. He has, at the same time, forged an alliance with one country that is willing to do his bidding abroad.
This country is El Salvador, a tiny central American nation nestled between Guatemala and Honduras. El Salvador has found itself at the forefront of overseeing Trump’s contentious drive to deport undocumented migrants.
In recent months, hundreds of foreign-born men have been deported from the US to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot) mega-prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador. This is part of an agreement between Trump and the self-declared “world’s coolest dictator”, Nayib Bukele.
Such is the warmth between Trump and El Salvador’s leader that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, recently hailed their alliance as “an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere”.
The comment came shortly before Bukele met with Trump at the White House and said he will not return Kilmar Abrego García, a man that the US government admits was mistakenly deported. Bukele referred to the suggestion as “preposterous”.
This is despite a US Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration “facilitate” García’s return. The US government says a court does not have the power to order the release of a person in a foreign prison.
Bukele, the grandson of Palestinian Christian immigrants, is considered something of a maverick. His background is in advertising. Through his business, Obermet, Bukele advertised two election campaigns for the ruling Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the 2000s.
He joined the FMLN as a member in 2012, and was elected as mayor of El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, three years later. Bukele’s relationship with the FMLN soon became strained. After several public spats, he was expelled from the party. This included calling Luis Martínez, the country’s then attorney-general, a “gangster, very corrupt, [and] the worst of the worst”.
Bukele subsequently launched his own political front, Nuevas Ideas. And when the country’s electoral court refused to register the party for the 2019 presidential elections, he ran as the candidate for the right-wing Grand Alliance for National Unity. Bukele won with 53% of the vote and, since then, his political fortunes have been in constant ascent.
While many outside El Salvador see Bukele as a serial human rights abuser, his countrymen consider him a political messiah. His popularity is such that he won an unprecedented second presidential term in 2024 with over 84% of the vote.
The country’s constitution had previously restricted a sitting president from contesting two terms in a row. Bukele’s critics say he circumvented the rules by using his congressional majority to replace Supreme Court judges.
The court later ruled that the president can serve two consecutive terms in office. In the past, Bukele has remarked that restrictions on re-election only exist in developing countries.
Bukele’s popularity stems from having rid his country of gang violence. El Salvador was once known for having the highest per capita homicide rate in the world, with 105 murders per 100,000 people in 2015. But under Bukele’s leadership, it is now considered a haven of peace in an otherwise unstable region.
In 2022, after a spate of gang killings, Bukele declared a state of emergency. The decree curtailed the right to be informed of the reason for arrest and access to a lawyer upon being detained. It also allowed for administrative detention of more than 72 hours.
Tens of thousands of people were rounded up and thrown in jail without trial. El Salvador now has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with roughly 110,000 people in jail. The proportion of its population that is incarcerated is twice that of the next nearest country, Cuba.
Many of the alleged criminals – as well as those deported from the US – are held in Cecot. The prison has been described by activists as “a black hole of human rights”. When Bukele first unveiled the facility, he said prisoners would receive “not one ray of sunlight”.
Bukele’s tough anti-criminal stance has been lauded across Latin America. Many regional leaders have embraced Bukele-style policies to tackle criminal violence in their respective countries. His policies have also clearly been appreciated by Trump.
Bukele and Trump share the same ideological persuasion. Both are conservative right-wing populists. But while there is a deep convergence in their ideology, their alliance is also one of convenience.
Trump wants to rid the US of undocumented migrants from south of the border. El Salvador has, so far, provided a convenient avenue to address his administration’s needs.
And for Bukele, it is financially worthwhile to house deportees from the US. The Bukele and Trump administrations have reportedly signed an agreement that will pay El Salvador US$20,000 (£15,000) per prisoner. This is a significant sum for El Salvador’s economy.
His alliance with Trump will also help him shore up his political position at home and consolidate his image as a “do gooder” in an otherwise violent continent.
Bukele’s security strategy has certainly rid El Salvador of gang violence. However, opening up El Salvador as a destination to address other countries’ criminality sets a bad precedent.
Encouraged by Bukele’s policies, more states could choose to violate human rights and ignore judicial process by simply dumping their own citizens and others in prisons abroad. This is a reality that more courts may soon struggle to prevent.
Amalendu Misra is a recipient of British Academy and Nuffield Foundation fellowships.
It’s hard to imagine now, but people once believed that the bumps on your head could reveal your personality. For one thing, it’s so hard to locate the bumps on your head, let alone the thirty or so bumps the phrenologists said could be discerned. So why was phrenology such an attractive idea for such a long time?
Phrenology was the belief that the brain’s activity could be studied by examining the bumps on the skull, in places where the brain pushed outwards. Phrenologists claimed they could read your personality based on how big different bumps were. Initially, after German physiologist Franz Joseph Gall developed the new doctrine around 1800, it was a subject of serious scientific debate. But it was soon labelled quackery by the academic elite.
But that wasn’t the end of phrenology. In fact, it became more popular in the 19th century, thanks to physician Johann Gaspar Spurzheim who wrote books and gave public lectures in Britain and France – focusing less on skulls and brains, and more on reading the living people. It remained a popular pastime for more than a century, mainly in English-speaking parts of the world but also outside it, for example in China.
Front page of the American Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, 1880. AKaiser/Shutterstock
Part of the appeal of phrenology was that it gave people a vocabulary to understand themselves and others. With urbanisation and a growing middle class, outside rigid class and religious structures, people were curious about new ways to categorise humankind. In the city, you wouldn’t necessarily know everyone nearby or even your neighbours, so your place in society was less determined.
This may have led to more freedom but also to insecurity about what your and everyone else’s place was. Phrenology was a new way of classifying others. But it was not only meant to study others, it was also a way to know yourself, just like diary writing which also gained popularity in this period. With the help of phrenology, people could now see themselves as having an individual self, reflected in the shape of their head.
Those interested could go to a lecture or read a book about phrenology or – if you lived in New York – visit the Phrenological Cabinet, a display of skulls, busts and portraits. If you really wanted to learn something about yourself, you asked a phrenologist for an examination. In the US this would cost you about half a dollar, (US$20 dollars (£15) today). Many popular phrenologists in the UK and the US offered readings. They were often itinerant, setting up shop in hotel rooms or at Brighton Pier in southern England.
After a reading, clients sometimes received a written assessment, but more usually
received a cheaper standardised chart that detailed their characteristics. On it, they received a score for typical phrenological characteristics such as adhesiveness (or friendship), spirituality, benevolence and time (the ability to judge the lapse of time, “essential for musicians”).
The score was based on the phrenologist’s approach. They tended to gauge the size of the bumps in relative size, compared to your other bumps and to other people’s bumps. They claimed that this was a scientific approach, but it gave phrenologists a great deal of freedom in interpretation.
And – surprise surprise – my analysis of about 160 charts between 1840 and 1940 showed that every single person who received a chart scored above average in most if not all traits.
The positive results partly explain the appeal of a visit to the phrenologist. Another explanation, writes history professor Michael Sokal, is the Barnum effect. This is the tendency of people to rate descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored for them as accurate. In fact, they are often so vague and general that they would apply to almost all people.
Many people, for example, would agree with the suggestion that they are of above-average intelligence but also experience anxiety and self-doubt sometimes. And, indeed, in my collections of phrenological charts, the trait that on average gets the lowest score was “self-esteem”. If only you work a bit on your self-esteem, is the implicit message, you can be an even better version of yourself.
Phrenologists were often deterministic when they judged criminals or non-white
people, based on the skulls or busts they had of people from these categories. Their irregular features or skull shapes apparently condemned them to a life in prison or in slavery.
But they took a different approach to the middle-class visitors of their offices. The character trait of “destructiveness”, for example, was seen the trait of a murderer, but for a middle-class individual was usually explained as energy for overcoming difficulties.
According to phrenologists, everyone could play a role in their destiny and people could use their self-knowledge for improvement. Taking time to reflect on the relationship between cause and effect, for example, could slowly increase the size of your “causality” bump, phrenologists said.
According to early 20th-century phrenologist Stephen Tracht, it took three weeks for a child, three years for a young man, and more once you were 45 or 50, to develop a specific part of the brain.
These practices show how in phrenology self-knowledge and self-improvement came to be seen as two sides of the same coin. And while not everyone will have accepted their phrenological assessment as an absolute truth and customers often took only the information from it that they liked, phrenology did become part of people’s vocabulary, and with it the message that with the right tools, they could become a better version of themselves.
Fenneke Sysling received funding from the Dutch Research Council
Our study confirmed that iron deficiency is common among teenage girls, with 38% of participants affected. We also found that risk of iron deficiency was strongly associated with both eating patterns and menstrual blood loss. Girls who reported heavy periods and followed a meat-restricted diet – meaning they were vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian or avoided red meat – had by far the highest risk of developing iron deficiency. We found that nearly 70% of vegans and vegetarians had iron deficiency.
The idea for this study came from the personal experience of one of us, whose teenage daughter struggled with fatigue, low mood and poor stamina. After months of assuming it was stress or excess screen time, blood tests revealed the cause: iron deficiency anaemia. The experience made us wonder whether the issue is more widespread. This sparked a research collaboration that brought together clinical and nutritional expertise.
The study included 475 female high school students from southern Sweden. Participants completed questionnaires about their diet, what supplements they used, as well as their menstrual patterns. They also provided blood samples, which were analysed for haemoglobin and ferritin – the key markers used to assess iron status.
First, the body needs extra iron to keep up with the rapid growth that happens during puberty. Second, menstruation leads to iron loss, with periods often heavy during the first years after menarche (a woman’s first period). Third, diet plays a key role. Many girls also change their eating habits during adolescence, often reducing their intake of red meat or animal products. But even among omnivores, iron intake tends to be too low. It’s not just about what they avoid – it’s that many simply aren’t getting enough iron overall.
Those who avoided animal proteins were at the highest risk of iron deficiency. nadianb/ Shutterstock
While our findings are from Sweden, the issue is not unique to the country. A European school-based study from 2006-2007 found iron deficiency in 26% of girls aged between 12 and 17. Data from the United States also found that around 17% of girls aged 12 to 21 have low iron stores. Study methods may differ, but the trend is consistent: adolescent girls across countries are at risk of iron deficiency – often without knowing it.
Despite how common iron deficiency is, several persistent myths can prevent young people from getting the help they need.
One common belief is that eliminating animal products is inherently healthy, without acknowledging the need to replace the nutrients they supply.
A plant-based diet can absolutely be healthy and sustainable. But when animal sources of iron are removed, it’s essential to include iron-rich plant foods and to combine them with certain foods for better absorption. Without that knowledge, even well-intentioned choices can lead to nutritional gaps.
Another common belief is that low iron would be obvious – that you’d feel if you had it.
In reality, iron deficiency and anaemia often develops slowly and the body adapts over time. Symptoms such as tiredness, poor concentration and low mood can sneak up gradually and become the new normal.
A third misconception is that iron supplements are dangerous or unnecessary.
For those diagnosed with a deficiency, supplements are often essential and safe when used properly. Treatment usually needs to continue for at least three months to restore the body’s iron stores.
Iron intake
So, what can be done? Here are three simple, evidence-based tips for a sustainable iron-rich diet:
Make iron part of your daily routine. Whole grains, legumes and leafy greens (such as spinach, kale and chard) are good plant-based sources of iron. Even in a balanced diet, where a person consumes a maximum of 500g of red meat per week, more than 80% of daily iron intake comes from plant-based sources.
Help your body absorb it. Plant-based iron is often tightly bound to phytic acid and needs help to be released. So it’s important to combine iron-rich meals with enhancers such as vitamin C (citrus fruits, peppers and cruciferous vegetables) or natural acids (citrus juice, vinegar, soy sauce, miso, kimchi or sauerkraut). These enhancers help improve iron absorption. You can also use fermentation to your advantage. Foods such as sourdough bread have gone through processes that reduce phytic acid, making iron more accessible.
With the right knowledge, young people can eat both sustainably and healthily – and avoid iron deficiency and its consequences.
Moa Wolff receives funding from the Southern Health Care Region of Sweden, the Lions Research Fund Skåne, and Regional Funding for Clinical Research (USVE). She has also received an honorarium from Pharmacosmos for giving an educational webinar.
Anna Stubbendorff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Much of the research on sleep inertia focuses on reducing the risk of performance impairment and we are yet to find clear empirical evidence to support the use of any one single reactive countermeasure.
The most promising evidence is for the use of caffeine: taken before a short nap of less than 30 minutes, it has been shown to reduce the effects of sleep inertia. While this is helpful if you need to recover after a rest during the day, heading back to bed for a nap just after waking up isn’t very practical for most of us.
So here are some more practical tips that you can use to help you get out of bed.
Get an alarm clock
If you’re struggling to get out of bed in the morning the first thing to ask is, where is your smart phone? Do you keep it next to the bed as an alarm clock? Make getting an old fashioned alarm clock your priority.
The mere presence of the phone near you as you sleep reduces sleep quality – if it’s nearby, it’s too hard to resist. It’s not just through disruptive notifications (putting it on silent isn’t good enough). Having the phone next to you as you sleep can induce anticipatory anxiety and increase emotional arousal. Just knowing it’s there will keep you at a level of alertness that is not conducive to falling off into a deep sleep.
There’s an additional benefit to keeping the phone out of your room: you are less likely to check it first thing in the morning. There are many reasons to avoid this habit, one of the most compelling centres around the problem of micro-dosing ourselves with dopamine before we even get enough motivation to get out of the bed.
Dopamine plays a central role in motivation and craving. It peaks and troughs throughout our day, dopamine dips are functional because we feel discomfort and that propels us to seek relief. Think cave men and women needing the motivation to leave the safety of the cave to find food, water or a mate. Leaving the cave was high risk, and the push from our dopamine drop discomfort would have been essential to get us up and out.
We forget how much of our brain still works in these ancient ways. Humans still rely on the same system to get out of bed. When we reach for a smartphone, we’re met with rapid, bite-sized dopamine hits – notifications, beautiful people, likes, novel information. These micro-stimuli may blunt the natural dip in dopamine, circumventing the discomfort we need to motivate us to get moving. Instead of experiencing a rise in drive, we feel artificially satisfied, making it easier to stay curled up under the warm covers.
Don’t hit snooze
You’ve got the devices out of your bedroom – but now you need to work on your relationship with your alarm clock. Don’t hit snooze.
Hitting snooze increases the likelihood of dropping back into a deep sleep phase and will induce regular sleep disruptions and unwanted sleep stage transitions. These all increase the impact of sleep inertia and reduce vigour.
If you really struggle to avoid the seductive snooze button, there are alarm clocks available that usually come with wheels that will take themselves out of your reach. A bit of movement to help get you out of bed as a bonus.
Or, think about getting an alarm clock that opens your curtains to let in the morning light. Brief bright light exposure has been shown to improve alertness and energy
Remember when your parents pulled the covers off the bed?
Anyone who had older siblings, or a parent or caregiver involved in getting them out of bed when you were an adolescent will have experienced having the cover pulled off the bed as a last ditch effort to move you along. It turns out that there may have been some wisdom to this method.
Most importantly of all, maybe you are just tired and need to stay in bed. That’s not a moral failing or a collapse of your will power. You might just actually need more rest.
If you’re someone who is genuinely sleep deprived or living with an energy sapping illness or a life event that’s taking all your resources, maybe you need to make space for staying in bed. Critical disability scholar Ellen Samuels writes about “crip time”. Sometimes illness or disability change our relationship with time and we need to go at a different pace. Samuels and other scholars reflect on the paradox of needing to slow down in order to keep up.
So sometimes the problem is the expectation that we force our minds and bodies into unrealistic performances of competency and productivity – and sometimes it’s going to have to be okay to not get out of bed.
Trudy Meehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al., NASA SPitzer/IRAC
Astronomers have long been puzzled by two strange phenomena at the heart of our galaxy. First, the gas in the central molecular zone (CMZ), a dense and chaotic region near the Milky Way’s core, appears to be ionised (meaning it is electrically charged because it has lost electrons) at a surprisingly high rate.
Second, telescopes have detected a mysterious glow of gamma rays with an energy of 511 kilo-electronvolts (keV) (which corresponds to the energy of an electron at rest).
Interestingly, such gamma rays are produced when an electron and its antimatter counterpart (all fundamental charged particles have antimatter versions of themselves that are near identical, but with opposite charge), the positron, collide and annihilate in a flash of light.
The causes of both effects have remained unclear, despite decades of observation. But in a new study, published in Physical Review Letters, we show that both could be linked to one of the most elusive ingredients in the universe: dark matter. In particular, we propose that a new form of dark matter, less massive than the types astronomers typically look for, could be the culprit.
Hidden process
The CMZ spans almost 700 light years and contains some of the most dense molecular gas in the galaxy. Over the years, scientists have found that this region is unusually ionised, meaning the hydrogen molecules there are being split into charged particles (electrons and nuclei) at a much faster rate than expected.
This could be the result of sources such as cosmic rays and star light that bombard the gas. However, these alone don’t seem to be able to account for the observed levels.
The other mystery, the 511keV emission, was first observed in the 1970s, but still has no clearly identified source. Several candidates have been proposed, including supernovas, massive stars, black holes and neutron stars. However, none fully explain the pattern or intensity of the emission.
We asked a simple question: could both phenomena be caused by the same hidden process?
Dark matter makes up around 85% of the matter in the universe, but it does not emit or absorb light. While its gravitational effects are clear, scientists do not yet know what it is made of.
One possibility, often overlooked, is that dark matter particles could be very light, with masses just a few million electronvolts, far lighter than a proton, and still play a cosmic role. These light dark matter candidates are generally called sub-GeV (giga electronvolts) dark matter particles.
Such dark matter particles may interact with their antiparticles. In our work, we studied what would happen if these light dark matter particles come in contact with their own antiparticles in the galactic centre and annihilate each other, producing electrons and positrons.
In the dense gas of the CMZ, these low-energy particles would quickly lose energy and ionise the surrounding hydrogen molecules very efficiently by knocking off their electrons. Because the region is so dense, the particles would not travel far. Instead, they would deposit most of their energy locally, which matches the observed ionisation profile quite well.
Using detailed simulations, we found that this simple process, dark matter particles annihilating into electrons and positrons, can naturally explain the ionisation rates observed in the CMZ.
Even better, the required properties of the dark matter, such as its mass and interaction strength, do not conflict with any known constraints from the early universe. Dark matter of this kind appears to be a serious option.
The positron puzzle
If dark matter is creating positrons in the CMZ, those particles will eventually slow down and eventually annihilate with electrons in the environment, producing gamma-rays at exactly 511keV energy. This would provide a direct link between the ionisation and the mysterious glow.
We found that while dark matter can explain the ionisation, it may also be able to replicate some amount of 511keV radiation as well. This striking finding suggests that the two signals may potentially originate from the same source, light dark matter.
The exact brightness of the 511keV line depends on several factors, including how efficiently positrons form bound states with electrons and where exactly they annihilate though. These details are still uncertain.
A new way to test the invisible
Regardless of whether the 511keV emission and the CMZ ionisation share a common source, the ionisation rate in the CMZ is emerging as a valuable new observation to study dark matter. In particular, it provides a way to test models involving light dark matter particles, which are difficult to detect using traditional laboratory experiments.
Move observations of the Milky Way could help test theories of dark matter. ESO/Y. Beletsky, CC BY-SA
In our study, we showed that the predicted ionisation profile from dark matter is remarkably flat across the CMZ. This is important, because the observed ionisation is indeed spread relatively evenly.
Point sources such as the black hole at the centre of the galaxy or cosmic ray sources like supernovas (exploding stars) cannot easily explain this. But a smoothly distributed dark matter halo can.
Our findings suggest that the centre of the Milky Way may offer new clues about the fundamental nature of dark matter.
Future telescopes with better resolution will be able to provide more information on the spatial distribution and relationships between the 511 keV line and the CMZ ionisation rate. Meanwhile, continued observations of the CMZ may help rule out, or strengthen, the dark matter explanation.
Either way, these strange signals from the heart of the galaxy remind us that the universe is still full of surprises. Sometimes, looking inward, to the dynamic, glowing centre of our own galaxy, reveals the most unexpected hints of what lies beyond.
Shyam Balaji receives funding from the STFC under grant ST/X000753/1. He is affiliated with King’s College London.
The responsible time to deter these threats is right now.
Asymmetric deterrence
Deterrence works when the imposed cost of an action is higher than its expected benefit. That means a hostile power won’t attack Canada if the risks of invasion are higher than the value of seizing our natural resources.
Given that Canada is extremely resource-rich, that’s a challenge.
While the Canadian government can makesmartchoices on military procurement, there is little any Canadian leader can do to transform the Canadian Armed Forces into a superpower army.
Even if Canada redirected every penny of its budget to defence spending, it could not catch up with American, Russian or Chinese military power. Given this asymmetry, is deterrence possible?
Absolutely.
To get there, Canada must take two big steps: first, adopt a “whole-of-society” defence system to protect the homeland; and second, contribute to a democratic nuclear umbrella.
In “whole-of-society” defence, all citizens play a role in national security and emergency response. This approach requires mandatory military service and nationwide civil defence preparations.
Whole-of-society defence not only improves societal resilience, but it also scares away potential invaders.
Many of Canada’s democratic allies have already embraced whole-of-society defence. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland all have mandatory military service and civil defence, and sensiblegunregulations that allow law-abiding citizens to contribute to national security.
Norwegians, Finns and Swedes are peaceful people who have learned to survive next to a dangerous superpower. Canadians must look at their own vulnerabilities and see the logic and wisdom behind the Scandinavian approach.
A democratic nuclear umbrella
Although the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons development, the Trump administration’s utter disdain for democratic allies has prompted a global rethink. Trump has demanded NATO countries stop relying on the U.S. military and spend more on their own defence.
Nuclear weapons acquisition complies with his demand.
Instead of asking the U.K. and France to further stretch their limited arsenals, Canada could step up and contribute to the solution.
Canada is already a nuclear-threshold state with both the know-how and raw materials to develop a nuclear weapon. It would take time and money, but Canada is in a better position to help than most other European countries.
Once across the nuclear threshold, Canada would have a bulletproof defence of its homeland. It could then work with the U.K. and France as an equal and reliable partner, contributing to a democratic nuclear umbrella to protect vulnerable allies.
This would require formal withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but that action doesn’t need to be provocative or unilateral. Canada could co-ordinate its withdrawal with European allies as part of a collective defence of liberal democracies.
In the face of rising tyranny and superpower conquest, Canada can either choose to be a burden on its overstretched French and British allies or a source of renewed safety for its democratic friends.
Defending democracy
Deterrence is hard work, but it is infinitely better than the horrors of invasion.
Mandatory military service and nuclear weapons may be new ideas for Canadians, but other friendly democracies have been using these strategies for decades.
The good news is that successful deterrence means stability and peace, so citizens can relax and carry on with their lives. Canadians want this safety for themselves, and for their allies, too.
The time for Canada to act is now, when threats are foreseeable but not imminent. Waiting until an army amasses at the border is too late.
To deter aggression, Canadians need to step up and be a little more like their Scandinavian, British and French allies. That is the price of continued freedom.
Aisha Ahmad receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Fermentation is a process where microorganisms like bacteria and yeast work together to break down complex carbohydrates and protein into simpler, more digestible forms.
The fermentation process not only extends the shelf life of food but also enhances its nutritional content. During fermentation, beneficial microorganisms produce essential vitamins and minerals.
As nutrition researchers we undertook an in-depth assessment of fermented African foods and their potential to improve human health cost-effectively.
By gaining a deeper understanding of the diverse microbiomes present in various fermented indigenous African foods, we aim to enhance human health through targeted dietary interventions.
Going back in history
Fermentation as a preservation method can be traced back a long way.
Evidence of the alcoholic fermentation of barley into beer and grapes into wine dates back to between 2000 and 4000 BC.
In the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent milk was fermented to create yoghurt and other sweet and savoury fermented milks. White cabbage pickles and fermented olives are very popular in the Middle East.
In India and the Philippines, rice flour was fermented to produce products like noodles.
Africa’s traditions
In Africa, fermented foods hold great cultural significance and health benefits, yet this topic has not been thoroughly researched.
Foods are mostly fermented at home and trends vary by region.
The primary ingredients in African fermented foods are mainly cereals, tubers and milk.
Most of the fermented foods are plants that grow on their own in the wild and are often considered weeds in cropped and cultivated land. These include amaranths, Bidens pilosa, cleome and Corchorus species. The increased availability of African indigenous foods could expand the range of commercially available fermented African foods.
While some products like marula beer have entered the commercial market, the overall consumption of fermented foods among Africans has declined.
This drop is largely due to the widespread availability of refrigeration systems and a growing loss of interest in traditional African foods.
Improving health in Africa
Fermented root plants such as cassava and yam have been shown to decrease creatinine levels, which may indicate enhanced renal function and kidney health. This suggests that the fermentation process not only enriches these root plants with probiotics, but also promotes better physiological responses in the body.
Among the diverse array of fruits native to Africa, baobab and marula are the most popular fermented fruits. Fermenting them enhances their protein and fibre content. Consuming fermented baobab fruits has been shown to reduce the activity of α-amylase, an enzyme that may have implications for regulating blood sugar.
Millet, maize, African rice and sorghum are the most fermented grains in Africa. When these foods are fermented, they can help reduce blood glucose levels, serum triglycerides and cholesterol.
Amahewu is a traditional beverage produced through the fermentation of sorghum or maize, mostly enjoyed in South Africa and Zimbabwe for its tangy flavour and smooth texture.
In Kenya, a similar fermented cereal beverage known as uji is made of millet and flavoured with milk, adding to its rich and nutritious profile.
Ghana boasts its own version called akasa, which is prepared from a combination of sorghum, corn and millet and known for its unique taste and cultural significance.
In Sudan, the beverage referred to as abreh varies in preparation but shares the same essence of fermentation, while in Nigeria, ogi is another fermented cereal paste, from similar small grains like sorghum and millet, which produce a creamy beverage.
Fermenting sorghum and millet provides essential nutrients and supports metabolic health and gut function.
In Nigeria, fermented cereal beverages are widely used to control diarrhoea in young children.
Sour milk is the most fermented food in Africa, celebrated for its rich flavour and numerous health benefits.
During the fermentation process, bacteria convert the milk sugar, called lactose, into lactic acid.
Kulenaoto, a traditional fermented milk drink enjoyed in Kenya, is known for its creamy texture and slightly tangy flavour. South Africa produces sour milk known as amasi. Nigeria and Togo share a common fermented dairy product known as wara, which is made from fermented soybeans and is often served as a snack.
In Ghana, nyamie is a rich, thick yogurt-like product. In Cameroon, pendidam is a unique fermented milk product that is cherished for its distinctive taste and nutritional benefits, making it a staple in many households.
Regular consumption of fermented sour milk can play a significant role in weight management, decreasing visceral (gut) fat, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases.
Moreover, fermented milk offers valuable protection against folate deficiency.
Looking forward
African fermented foods could be the easiest and least expensive way of introducing beneficial microbes to the gastrointestinal tract, replacing expensive pharmaceutical probiotics.
These processes should be encouraged, and younger generations need to be exposed to the benefits of these traditions.
Vanishing plants could be preserved and distributed through seed banks.
The tradition of fermentation should be encouraged at both household and commercial levels to promote overall health.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When Donald Trump launched a trade war on April 2, he produced enormous volatility in stock markets around the world, but since then upheaval in the bond market has forced him to row back on some of his tariffs.
Investors traditionally consider US Treasury bonds to be a safe asset with a guaranteed return and therefore preferable to stocks when the latter are falling in price. However, instead of buying these bonds investors have been selling them, and this produced a rapid fall in their price.
While stock prices have recovered somewhat in Europe and Asia they have continued to fall in the US. But what do US consumers make of all this? Has the shifting of the bond market and economic uncertainty affected voter confidence, and approval, in the US president?
A round up of recent polls suggest US voters expect to see higher prices for goods as a result of the tariffs, with 75% expecting short-term price hikes, and 48% long-term. While 51% like Trump’s trade goals, only 37% approve of his approach. Meanwhile, 91% of Republicans think the president has a clear plan for tariffs and trade, but only 16% of Democrats and 43% of independent voters do. Republican voters are also much more willing to take a longer time to make up their minds about Trump’s trade policy, with 49% saying they will assess it in a year’s time or longer, compared to 36% of independents and 21% of Democrats who are willing to wait that long.
The latest Morning Consult poll on April 14 gives Trump his lowest approval rating yet for his second term, at 45%. A few weeks ago it was clear from the polls that there were massive differences between Democrats and Republicans when it came to approval for Trump’s handling of his job. An Economist/YouGov poll completed on March 18 showed that 6% of Democrats, 90% of Republican and 37% of independents approved of his performance at that time.
A more recent Economist/YouGov poll, completed on April 8 after the trade war began, shows a significant change in the views of independent voters. The Democrat and Republican approval/disapproval ratings are about the same as in the earlier survey by the Economist, but approval among voters who class themselves as independents has fallen by 5% to 32%.
Put simply, the nonaligned voters in America have shifted against Trump over tariffs. This is significant because they are the largest political group in the US, at 37% of electors compared with 34% Democrats and 29% Republicans. Also significant is that, according to Morning Consult, the average voter is more likely to hold positive than negative views about Democrats in Congress, for the first time since the 2024 election, at 47% to 46%.
If this shift continues, and independent voters support Democrat candidates in the 2026 mid-term elections, it means that the Democrats are likely to take control of Congress. This will give them greater opportunity to block presidential initiatives to introduce new bills, which must be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate to became law
If, at some point, the Democratic party wanted to try and impeach Trump they would need far more Congressional votes than they currently have. The Republicans currently have majorities in both Houses. Impeachment requires a simple majority in the House of Representatives, but a two-thirds majority in the Senate, so it is not an easy thing to do.
That said, the point is often made that Trump is a transactional politician and as a result attracts little personal loyalty from many of the people around him, particularly in Congress. However, if his approval ratings started to rapidly deteriorate, and the midterm elections turn into a disaster for their party, some Republicans may be ready to turn on Trump.
Presidential approval and mid terms
We can get an idea of the likelihood of a midterm swing by looking at the relationship between presidential approval and support for the president’s party in all 20 midterm elections since the second world war.
Presidential approval in October and changes in House seats in November midterm elections in the US (1946-2022)
The chart above compares presidential approval ratings in the month prior to elections with seat changes in the president’s party in the House of Representatives. There are 435 members of the House, and they are all up for re-election next year.
It is clear that there is a strong positive relationship between presidential approval and the success of his party in the mid-term elections (correlation = 0.57). In other words when the president is popular his party does well and when he is unpopular it does badly.
Donald Trump did rather badly in the midterm elections in 2018 during his first term of office. On that occasion the Republicans lost 40 House seats, a significantly greater number than the post-war average loss of 23 seats for Republican presidents. The last time the Republicans lost more seats than 2018 was in 1974 after Gerald Ford took over from Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.
Currently, the president’s current approval ratings might suggest that the loss of seats by Republicans is likely to be greater in next year’s midterm elections than it was in 2018. In October 2018 Trump’s approval rating was 41%, whereas it currently stands at 45% (with 52% disapproving) in the Economist/YouGov survey.
However, the current approval rating does not take into account the medium to longer term effects of the economic turmoil and market instability triggered by his policies. Tariffs, in particular, are very likely to increase inflation and slow economic growth both in the US and the rest of the world. This is likely to damage his approval ratings.
In the UK Conservative prime minister Liz Truss spooked the bond market in the autumn of 2022 by proposing large unfunded tax cuts. She was rapidly removed by her party from the job of leader and prime minister. This was followed by a crushing defeat for the party in the 2024 election. The same could happen to the Republicans, although the voters will have to wait until next year to make their presence felt.
Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the Economic & Social Research Council.
Governments around the world have addressed the challenge of increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates by raising the pension age. The UK is no exception. The challenge this creates for governments is the thorny dual issue of rising care costs for the ageing population while fewer taxpayers support the economy.
Between the 1940s and 2010, the UK state pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women. This gender difference reflected long-standing norms about men’s and women’s employment patterns, as well as typical age differences at marriage.
These days, there is more acceptance of an equal age for women and men to receive the state pension. But in the process of levelling the playing field, some women feel they have been penalised by the government. So how did it happen?
The Pensions Act 1995 equalised things, setting out a plan to gradually increase women’s state pension age to 65. But ten years later, an independent Pensions Commission report found that a state pension age fixed at 65 was no longer sustainable or affordable.
Between 2007 and 2014 the law changed three times. This accelerated the equalisation of women’s and men’s state pension age, bringing forward the increase from 65 to 66 by five and a half years to 2020.
Further changes accelerated the increase in the state pension age for both men and women to 67 by 2028. This was eight years earlier than the previous timetable. Another review suggested increasing the state pension age from 67 to 68 in 2039. This would bring it forward by seven years in response to continued gains in life expectancy.
The Waspi campaign
These changes in the state pension age led to a long-running campaign by a group known as the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women. This group claims that women born between April 6 1950 and April 5 1960 have been badly affected by the way the government equalised the state pension ages.
They are campaigning for compensation – but the government has repeatedly refused to pay out the recommended amounts of up to £2,950 per woman. These payment could have cost the government more than £10 billion.
The group’s argument rests on the way the increases in the state pension age were communicated and the amount of notice women were given to plan their finances in retirement. Some women in this cohort were affected by more than one increase in the state pension age.
The Waspi group estimates that about 3.8 million women are affected. Analysis from the House of Commons puts that figure just above 1.5 million women.
Analysis of data from the UK’s largest household panel study, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, shows that the impact of the rise in the state pension age has been positive for older women’s employment rates. But it has been harmful for their wellbeing.
The government’s analysis has also shown that younger women in the 1950-58 birth cohort have stayed in employment for longer.
Studies analysing the Family Resources Survey have shown that the women affected by the increased state pension age have a reduced household income, and this effect is larger for those in lower-income households.
The changes in the state pension age, and their effect on women born in the 1950s, has been the topic of both parliamentary debates and (unsuccessful) legal challenges by women affected by these changes.
In March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found the Department for Work and Pensions had demonstrated maladministration in its communication about the 1995 Pensions Act. This resulted in women losing opportunities to make informed decisions about their future. But it found that this did not result in an injustice or the women suffering direct financial loss.
How the UK state pension age was equalised – and raised
Whatever the outcome of the debate about women born in the 1950s, this topic raises broader issues – and lessons – about social policy. Change in social policies is inevitable. Social structures shift, as do norms and patterns in a population’s health and economic circumstances.
However, introducing change in a way that is both informed by evidence and transparent is vital for ensuring that reforms are acceptable.
Far from always creating “winners and losers”, social policy change can be a tool that demonstrates a collective sense of responsibility and adaptability to changing times.
Gender differences have consistently permeated employment and pensions, and women tend to fare worse than men. More women are working in the UK than ever before and benefit from state, workplace and personal pensions. But gender gaps are persistent across areas that directly affect someone’s ability to have enough money to live comfortably in later life.
Women are still less likely to work and to work full-time than men. And they are more likely to provide informal care within and beyond the household (except from age 75 and over). These realities result in lower earnings and a lower capacity to save for later life.
In the broader context of stubborn financial gender inequalities over lifetimes, the issue of changing the state retirement age for women born in the 1950s is a missed opportunity. The government could play a critical part in evening out gender differences for the Waspi women – and for the millions of others coming up after them.
Jane Falkingham receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Athina Vlachantoni receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Yifan Ge receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
