NewzIntel.com

Category: Academic Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canada’s federal election doesn’t seem like it’s about climate change, but it actually is

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mark Winfield, Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Canada

    A defining feature of the ongoing federal election campaign has been the apparent marginalization of the environment and climate change as top-of-mind issues due to threats by the United States against Canadian sovereignty, security and trade.

    But how Canada responds to U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions will also have profound implications for its future greenhouse gas emissions and its economy.

    The current federal election is very different from those held in 2015, 2019 and 2021. In those elections, the environment and climate were central issues. Each time, more than 60 per cent of Canadian voters chose parties (Liberal, NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green) that advocated for strong climate action, including some form of carbon pricing.



    Read more:
    Canada’s federal election made big strides for climate and the environment

    The increasing evidence of the consequences of a changing climate had placed the environment and climate change among the leading issues in the minds of Canadians for nearly two decades. The political landscape has shifted dramatically since then.

    The role of inflation

    Although Trump’s second presidency is often cited as the trigger point for a decline of the environment as a top-of-mind concern for Canadians, the slide actually began a year earlier, in the fall of 2023.

    Despite the record wildfire season that summer, the impact of inflation, triggered in large part by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, moved economic concerns to the forefront of the public’s mind. Government stimulus programs needed to counter the impacts of the pandemic contributed to inflationary pressures, prompting the Bank of Canada to hike interest rates in response, adding to Canadians’ economic distress.

    Amid high inflation and high interest rates, the Liberal government’s climate strategies — especially consumer carbon pricing — became an easy political target, particularly for a Conservative opposition with little apparent concern for the climate challenge.

    But even though climate change is no longer top of mind for Canadians, it remains a significant embedded concern, with as many as 70 per cent of Canadians believing climate change is real and caused by human activity. And perhaps surprisingly, despite the criticism levelled at the consumer carbon tax, between 60 and 70 per cent of non-Conservative leaning voters (those intending to cast their ballots for Liberal, NDP, Bloc and Green candidates) continue to support the concept of carbon pricing.

    Focus on fossil fuels

    Despite this, many political and business leaders have responded to Trump’s actions by focusing on natural resource exports, especially fossil fuels and critical minerals, to bolster the Canadian economy.

    This has been accompanied by calls to further streamline environmental review and approval processes for resource extraction and export projects like pipelines, and to expand their subsidization by taxpayers.

    Discussions about the climate implications of these initiatives have been noticeably absent. So have conversations about the long-term economic viability and desirability of expanding Canada’s dependency on resource commodity exports to increasingly uncertain global markets.

    On fossil fuels, the International Energy Agency and others are predicting that global consumption will peak within the next decade. This will reflect the falling costs of renewable energy, improving energy productivity and the imperative of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century.

    The peak will likely happen before any new major export infrastructure can be built in Canada, regardless of what review and approval requirements they might be subjected to.

    In a world of declining fossil fuel consumption, Canada — increasingly reliant on high-cost and high-carbon production like oilsands crude and fracked and liquified natural gas — seems more likely to be among the earliest producers to fall than among the last standing. Public investments in new export infrastructure look like dubious propositions in this scenario.



    Read more:
    Coal in Alberta: Neither public outrage nor waning global demand seem to matter to Danielle Smith

    International markets for critical minerals are likely to remain in deep flux as the pace of technological development in renewable energy and energy storage accelerates to reduce or avoid dependency on costly and difficult-to-access materials.

    Mining operations also continue to have substantial environmental impacts with significant implications for reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

    Backwards approach

    All of this means there must be continued meaningful scrutiny of projects in terms of their implications for climate change, environmental sustainability and reconciliation, as well as their economic viability and potential legacy costs for taxpayers — not a further streamlining of review processes.

    Falling back on fossil fuels in response to Trump is a fundamentally backwards approach. It ignores the implications of the climate challenge. As recently noted by at least one Canadian business leader, it also overlooks the need to not just diversify Canada’s markets, but to diversify Canadian products as well.

    Canada must design and implement strategies that transform its industries from producers of low-value raw materials into producers of higher-value products and services for a world that must decarbonize and advance sustainability.

    As a coalition of Canadian mayors recently pointed out, climate change remains a real threat to Canadians and their communities. It’s not going away regardless of what Trump’s executive orders might say.

    As they campaign to lead the country, the situation requires more substantive responses from Canada’s would-be prime ministers than Canadians are getting right now.

    Mark Winfield receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Canada’s federal election doesn’t seem like it’s about climate change, but it actually is – https://theconversation.com/canadas-federal-election-doesnt-seem-like-its-about-climate-change-but-it-actually-is-254458

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Ethiopia’s 2026 elections: without reforms, the vote may not be free or fair

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Bizuneh Yimenu, Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Queen’s University Belfast

    Ethiopia is due to hold elections in 2026. But will they be free and fair?

    Since 1995, Ethiopia has held elections every five years, except for the 2021 election, delayed by COVID-19. The incumbent party has consistently secured over 95% of national parliament seats, except for 2005, when the opposition won about 32%. In 2021, the ruling Prosperity Party won 96.8% of the seats.

    I specialise in Ethiopian politics and federalism, and recently published a paper on the country’s electoral landscape. In my study, I examined elections under the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which ruled from 1991 to 2019, and its successor, the Prosperity Party.

    My aim was to see whether Ethiopia was moving towards political pluralism, where diverse voices are represented in government decision-making, or if it remained authoritarian.

    I conclude that the government still tends to suppress, detain and eliminate the opposition. I identified three main reasons for this.

    • Despite changes in leadership and ruling parties, state repression, vote-rigging and political exclusion have been common features in the country’s elections since 1995.

    • Ethiopia suffers from an uneven electoral playing field. Some regions experience contests while the ruling party tightly controls others.

    • Ethiopia’s first-past-the-post electoral system has excluded significant opposition voices from parliament. This allows the ruling party to dominate both federal and regional legislative seats.

    The way the electoral system works means that Ethiopia’s parliament is a one-party house, where other voices are drowned out.

    My research highlights the fact that elections can be both “free” and “unfair”. Citizens technically have the right to vote. But an unbalanced electoral system and an uneven playing field ensure that ruling parties retain power.

    The 2026 elections provide an opportunity for reforms that ensure greater political inclusion.

    How elections are run

    Ethiopia has held six rounds of elections since 1995. Despite some variations, the same patterns of electoral control persist. The ruling Prosperity Party has sustained and adapted authoritarian strategies to maintain dominance.

    The party still uses many of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s tactics, including harassing, detaining and eliminating political adversaries.

    It also has some new ways of looking for support, like selectively addressing regional grievances.

    Regional differences

    Opposition parties in different regions have faced varying degrees of repression. Electoral control has been strategic, rather than uniform.

    Unlike previous studies that broadly assess Ethiopia’s authoritarian past, my research zooms in on regional variations in electoral competition. I show that repression is not uniform but strategically applied based on political calculations. This adds a new dimension to discussions on African elections. It shows that ruling parties can finetune control tactics to target specific threats.

    In an ethnically diverse federal state like Ethiopia, an electoral system that promotes broad representation is essential for stability and inclusive governance.

    First-past-the-post system

    The current winner-takes-all system fosters a political monopoly. It sidelines critical perspectives and erodes trust in democratic processes.

    In the 2021 election, opposition parties performed better in ethnically diverse regions, such as the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples. However, these parties were heavily suppressed in political strongholds like Oromia and Somali regions. The first-past-the-post system has consistently led to one-party dominance, even when opposition parties gained significant public support.

    For example, in 2005, opposition parties secured around 38% of the vote but ended up with far fewer parliamentary seats than their vote share justified.

    In 2021, the Prosperity Party won 96.8% of federal parliament seats, despite getting 90% of the total vote. In Addis Ababa, opposition groups such as Balderas and Ezema received 32% of the vote but won no seats in parliament. This is because the system gives all the seats to the party with the highest votes in each constituency. It doesn’t even matter if opposition parties collectively get a substantial vote.

    In Oromia and Somali regions, major opposition parties like the Oromo Liberation Front and the Ogaden National Liberation Front withdrew from fielding candidates due to repression. As a result, the ruling party was the sole option for two-thirds of federal seats and three-fourths of regional seats.

    A way forward

    So, what can be done? My research suggests three steps.

    First, moving towards a proportional representation system would help balance the political competition. Proportional representation means that if a party gets 20% of the vote, it receives 20% of the seats.

    About 130 countries, including South Africa, Namibia and Sierra Leone, use this system. Multi-party representation has led to more stable and inclusive governance. Fewer than 55 countries use first-past-the-post.

    Second, the government must guarantee that opposition parties can operate freely in all regions, not just in areas where they pose little threat. All parties should have an equal chance to compete.

    Third, independent electoral bodies and international observers need greater access to ensure fair play. Strengthening Ethiopia’s electoral board and making sure it’s impartial will foster public trust in elections.



    Read more:
    Ethiopia’s civil war: what’s behind the Amhara rebellion?

    Ethiopia’s democracy is at a tipping point. If the country continues with its current system, it risks further political alienation and instability. By embracing electoral reform, Ethiopia could move towards a more peaceful, inclusive, democratic and representative future.

    Bizuneh Yimenu 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.

    – ref. Ethiopia’s 2026 elections: without reforms, the vote may not be free or fair – https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-2026-elections-without-reforms-the-vote-may-not-be-free-or-fair-253161

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: South Africans don’t donate enough blood – technology can help drive the numbers

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Relebohiseng Matubatuba, Lecturer in Marketing, University of the Witwatersrand

    The shortage of blood for medical use is a global challenge. South Africa is not exempt. Blood collection organisations such as the South African National Blood Service struggle to meet the demand for blood products, because of insufficient blood donations and the scarcity of loyal blood donors.

    Blood collection organisations rely on the goodwill of a few individuals who voluntarily donate blood. To maintain a sustainable supply of blood, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that at least 1% of a country’s population donate blood. In South Africa the donation rate is below this.

    There are two blood collection organisations in South Africa – the Western Cape Blood Service operates exclusively in the Western Cape province while the South African National Blood Service, operates in the other eight provinces of the country.

    To increase the numbers, the country’s blood donation organisations have focused on the recruitment of new donors and awareness initiatives, using research findings that look at what motivates, and what deters, people from donating blood. But little focus has been put on the behaviour of those who already donate.



    Read more:
    Blood donation saves lives but few South Africans are regular donors

    I have conducted research in a bid to fill this gap. In a recent paper I examined factors influencing consumers’ intention to donate blood. In addition, in my recently completed PhD, I looked at the retention of existing blood donors and what drives their donation behaviour.

    The research suggests that blood collection organisations need to shift focus from acquiring new blood donors to building relationships with existing blood donors. Existing donors are an important cohort because they are reliable, and have higher donation eligibility and lower recruitment costs.

    The aim should be to drive loyalty.

    I considered the use of technology to encourage people to donate blood regularly. I concluded from my findings that blood collection organisations should customise appeals to various types of donors. They need to appeal to people in a personalised way if they want to drive loyalty.

    The drivers

    To understand what drives donor loyalty, it was important to understand why people donate blood.

    As part of my research, 658 blood donors completed the survey and I conducted interviews with 18 blood donors. The interviews revealed various reasons for donating blood. These included:

    • Awareness of the importance of donating blood

    As one participant in my research put it:

    I’ve been in and out of hospital for my kids and for my wife when she was pregnant. If I don’t donate, where are they going to get that blood from?

    • Contribution to society – saving or changing someone’s life

    This was articulated by one person:

    I’m past the point of only going for a reward, but I actually want to go, because I want to save someone’s life and do good in the community.

    • Moral responsibility

    As one participant put it:

    When I don’t donate blood, I feel bad because, as a universal donor, I could potentially be saving lives as my blood is not limited, as opposed to other groups.

    • Health-related benefits, like free health checks and the requirement to live a healthy lifestyle

    • Incentives

    The gifts make me feel appreciated. It makes me want to donate more and more.

    Beyond just donating blood, some donors also expressed that they shared their blood donation experiences with their friends, family, co-workers and on their social media platforms to encourage others to donate.

    The use of technology

    Findings from my PhD show that donors would like personalised communication from the blood collection organisations. This should include:

    • sharing information about blood donation achievements specific to them (the donor)

    • checking up on the donors who are not donating as they used to or may have stopped donating

    • following up on deferred donors to encourage them to return for a checkup and subsequent donation. Deferred donors are those who were unable to donate during a donation drive because they didn’t meet the donation requirements (for example they had low iron levels).

    • reminding donors of their upcoming donations.

    Others shared that they would like more interactive communication beyond being told that they have saved three lives after donating blood. This could include sharing specific information about the impact of the donors donation – “your donation helped a cancer patient recover” – and stories to make their contribution more tangible.

    What needs to be done

    Research has shown that digital technologies have been used successfully to foster customer engagement, enhance customer experiences and satisfaction, facilitate communication and information-sharing, and offer opportunities to shape and influence behaviour. To achieve this, donor organisations have large amounts of donor data and other data (big data) which they can use to gain insights that can be used in the following ways.

    Firstly, they should analyse donor data to identify patterns and segment donors based on factors such as how long an individual has been donating, donation frequency, blood type, location, and preferred communication channels.

    This information can be used to tailor communication and engagement strategies to specific donor groups. Donors follow different donor paths over time and cannot be viewed as a single segment.

    Secondly, organisations should monitor donation trends over time. This will help to understand seasonal fluctuations, identify peak donation periods, and anticipate potential donor needs. These insights can be used to plan targeted recruitment campaigns and allocate resources.



    Read more:
    Explainer: what are blood groups and why do they matter?

    Thirdly, organisations should consider personalised communication. This could include:

    • Targeted nudging: timely and relevant communication, like reminders for upcoming donation appointments, personalised thank-you messages, information about the donation they have made or invitations to special donor events.

    • Multi-channel engagement: reaching donors through their preferred communication channels, such as email, SMS, or social media.

    • Loyalty programmes: rewarding frequent donors with exclusive merchandise, discounts or special recognition, based on individual donor preferences and donation history.

    • Gamification: using game-like elements to make communication and the donation process more engaging and fun, using challenges, leaderboards and badges to motivate donors and foster a sense of community.

    • Predictive analytics: using data history and past events to establish donor patterns and predicts future outcomes. This data can be used to identify donors who might lapse and reach out to them with personalised communication.

    Relebohiseng Matubatuba 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.

    – ref. South Africans don’t donate enough blood – technology can help drive the numbers – https://theconversation.com/south-africans-dont-donate-enough-blood-technology-can-help-drive-the-numbers-251827

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The Stolen Girl: Disney+ drama is an intriguing companion piece to Netflix’s Adolescence

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Moseley, Co-founder of the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research, University of Warwick

    From the opening moments of the new Disney+ series The Stolen Girl, you could be forgiven for thinking that you’ve happened upon a Scandi-noir crime drama.

    From the air, we follow a dark Volvo estate driving a dusty road through a tree-lined mountainous landscape. The palette is cool and desaturated, the music underpinned by a distorted electronic buzz. After the sound of a zip, light picks out the face of a child who seems to have been transported in the cramped and claustrophobic boot of the Volvo, that emblem of (Scandinavian) family road safety. “Who are you?” the child asks.

    Unlike Scandi-noir, however, there is no elevated title sequence and the five-episode thriller is set between the north of England and the south of France. We cut to the latter rapidly, to a brightly lit balcony, from which Elisa Blix (Denise Gough), private jet flight crew and the mother of the eponymous girl, looks out at the Côte D’Azur.

    In the first episode, Elisa and her husband, criminal lawyer Fred (Jim Sturgess) realise that their eldest child, Lucia, has been kidnapped while on a hastily arranged sleepover at a new school friend’s house.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    A number of stylistic motifs contribute to the sense of unease which pervades The Stolen Girl. The camera peers around corners into dark, claustrophobic spaces. It creeps along the ground, or tracks slowly towards buildings. In the opening sequence, for example, it drifts through lush, dark foliage towards stone steps, offering a glimpse of a doorway at their apex.

    The significance of this repeated shot doesn’t become clear until near the end of the series. Similarly, motifs from the elaborate décor of the Blixes’ “perfect” home are disturbingly echoed later in the setting of the French villa. As the drama proceeds, flashbacks and memories provide the opportunity to reassess and reinterpret, for the characters and the viewer.

    The Stolen Girl trailer.

    The Stolen Girl is meticulously constructed to unsettle and intrigue the viewer, from sound design and imagery to narrative organisation.

    For the most part, we discover and interpret clues along with another main character – doggedly persistent journalist Selma Desai (Ambika Mod). Her grasp of social media and pop psychology leads her to solve the case ahead of the detectives working it.

    I found myself having light-bulb moments with, and occasionally just before, Selma – an effective and carefully designed immersion technique which, along with frequent reversals and twists, keeps us guessing until near the very end. It’s clever, and satisfying for the attentive viewer as the whole-series release in the UK makes it easily bingeable and easy to pick up clues.

    The series was adapted for television by Catherine Moulton from Alex Dahl’s 2020 novel Playdate. It centres on two mothers and a female journalist, with a young female victim at the centre. This makes it a fascinating companion piece to the much-discussed recent Netflix drama Adolescence, which has been critiqued for its focus on the young male perpetrator and his family.



    Read more:
    Adolescence in schools: TV show’s portrayal of one boyhood may do more harm than good when used as a teaching tool

    There are very clear references to the Madeleine McCann case in The Stolen Girl. Not just in the similarly posed “victim ID” photo of Lucia, but also in the persistent blame directed at her mother Elisa. Described as a “jet-set mum-fluencer”, her decision in a harried moment between work and home facilitated the abduction of her daughter. “She spent half her childhood with me while you were up in the air”, claims her mother-in-law.

    The drama unfolds and the mystery is revealed through a highly screen-literate pastiche of gothic, noir and horror tropes. Central characters are narrated through a costume story told in shirts: tucked in, tied at the waist, over-sized, striped, floral and tailored. The mise-en-scène of The Stolen Girl is simultaneously presented as aspirational (I spotted a number of well-known fancy brands) and carefully crafted to present an unreliable façade, as the perfect life of the white middle-class family at the series’ centre is systematically unpicked.

    As it unravels, a nexus of trauma, infidelity, financial insecurity, lies and secrets are revealed. Like Adolescence, the programme identifies social media as a factor in facilitating crime, but also, through Selma, as an instrument of solving it.

    Rachel Moseley 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.

    – ref. The Stolen Girl: Disney+ drama is an intriguing companion piece to Netflix’s Adolescence – https://theconversation.com/the-stolen-girl-disney-drama-is-an-intriguing-companion-piece-to-netflixs-adolescence-254513

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why you should think twice before wearing outdoor shoes indoors

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Manal Mohammed, Senior Lecturer, Medical Microbiology, University of Westminster

    Wearing outdoor shoes indoors can bring in more than just a bit of dirt and blades of grass. Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

    My mother has always had one unbreakable rule: no outdoor shoes inside the house. It didn’t matter who you were – family member, neighbour, or guest – you had to take them off before crossing the threshold. As a child, I thought it was just one of her many quirks. But as I’ve grown older (and wiser), I’ve come to understand that this wasn’t about obsessive tidiness. It was about health, safety and keeping our living space hygienic.

    Removing shoes indoors may seem like a cultural custom or a personal preference. But mounting scientific evidence suggests it’s a smart – and even vital – habit that protects us from invisible, yet serious, health threats.

    Cleanliness is often associated with visible dirt. But when it comes to shoes, what’s lurking beneath the surface is often microscopic and far more dangerous than a little mud or dried grass. Outdoor shoes carry bacteria, allergens and toxic chemicals – many of which are linked to serious health concerns.

    Consider where your shoes go each day: public toilets, pavements, hospital corridors and lawns treated with chemicals such as weed killers and insecticides to control weeds and pests. According to a University of Arizona study, a whopping 96% of shoes tested positive for coliform bacteria, which is commonly found in faecal matter. Disturbingly, 27% carried E. coli, a bacterium linked to various infections – some of them life-threatening.

    While some strains of E. coli are harmless, others produce Shiga toxin, which can cause bloody diarrhoea and lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially fatal condition involving kidney failure. Children under five are especially at risk due to their still-developing immune systems and frequent hand-to-mouth activity.

    But E. coli isn’t the only germ hitching a ride into your living room. Shoes also pick up Clostridium difficile, a bacterium known for causing painful, sometimes severe diarrhea and Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA, a drug-resistant “superbug” that can cause deep skin infections, pneumonia, or even deadly bloodstream infections.

    Not just germs

    The health risks extend beyond bacteria. Shoes also act as carriers for chemicals and allergens. Studies have shown that outdoor footwear can bring in pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals like lead – all of which pose serious health risks, particularly to young children and pets.

    Lead exposure, often from urban dust or soil, is especially harmful to children, as it can impair brain development and cause lifelong cognitive issues. Additionally, allergens like pollen can cling to your soles, aggravating allergies and respiratory issues inside what should be a safe haven.

    Even more alarming, asphalt sealants used on driveways and roads contain carcinogenic compounds. A US study found that these chemicals can be tracked indoors and linger in household dust – sometimes at levels 37 times higher than outdoor levels.

    And who spends the most time closest to the ground? Children and pets. Kids crawl, play and often put their hands in their mouths. Pets lick their paws after walking on these contaminated surfaces. Wearing outdoor shoes indoors can unintentionally increase their exposure to harmful substances.

    Clean floors, healthy home

    Given the evidence, my mother’s rule doesn’t sound so unreasonable anymore. In fact, it might be one of the simplest and most effective public health measures you can adopt at home. By removing your shoes at the door, you’re not just preventing dirt from staining your carpet – you’re significantly reducing your family’s exposure to harmful microbes and chemicals.

    And it’s not difficult to do. Consider designating a shoe-free area by the entrance or maybe provide a shoe rack or basket and even a few pairs of comfy indoor slippers for guests. Asking someone to remove their shoes may feel awkward at first – but it’s easy to overlook how something as routine as walking into your house could carry such hidden risks.

    But when you realise the sheer volume of bacteria and toxic chemicals that cling to your soles, it becomes clear: wearing outdoor shoes indoors is like inviting the streets – and everything on them – into your most intimate living spaces.

    So, next time you come home, take a moment to slip off your shoes. Your floors – and your health – will thank you. As my mother always said, “Clean house, clear conscience”. Turns out, she was right all along.

    Manal Mohammed 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.

    – ref. Why you should think twice before wearing outdoor shoes indoors – https://theconversation.com/why-you-should-think-twice-before-wearing-outdoor-shoes-indoors-254427

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Mysterious objects from other stars are passing through our solar system. Scientists are planning missions to study them up close

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Billy Bryan, Research Leader, RAND Europe

    NASA/ESA/STScI

    In late 2017, a mysterious object tore through our solar system at breakneck speed. Astronomers scrambled to observe the fast moving body using the world’s most powerful telescopes. It was found to be one quarter mile (400m) long and very elongated – perhaps 10 times as long as it was wide. Researchers named it ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “scout”.

    ‘Oumuamua was later confirmed to be the first object from another star known to have visited our solar system. While these interstellar objects (ISO) originate around a star, they end up as cosmic nomads, wandering through space. They are essentially planetary shrapnel, having been blasted out of their parent star systems by catastrophic events, such as giant collisions between planetary objects.

    Astronomers say that ‘Oumuamua could have been travelling through the Milky Way for hundreds of millions of years before its encounter with our solar system. Just two years after this unexpected visit, a second ISO – the Borisov Comet – was spotted, this time by an amateur astronomer in Crimea. These celestial interlopers have given us tantalising glimpses of material from far beyond our solar system.

    But what if we could do more than just watch them fly by?

    Studying ISOs up close would offer scientists the rare opportunity to learn more about far off star systems, which are too distant to send missions to.

    There may be over 10 septillion (or ten with 24 zeros) ISOs in the Milky Way
    alone. But if there are so many of them, why have we only seen two? Put simply, we cannot accurately predict when they will arrive. Large ISOs like ‘Oumuamua, that are more easily detected, do not seem to visit the solar system that often and they travel incredibly fast.

    Ground- and space-based telescopes struggle to respond quickly to incoming ISOs, meaning that we are mostly looking at them after they pass through our cosmic neighbourhood. However, innovative space missions could get us closer to objects like ‘Oumuamua, by using breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) to guide spacecraft safely to future visitors. Getting closer means we can get a better understanding of their composition, geology, and activity – gaining insights into the conditions around other stars.

    Emerging technologies being used to approach space debris could help to approach
    other unpredictable objects, transforming these fleeting encounters into profound
    scientific opportunities. So how do we get close? Speeding past Earth at an average of 32.14 km/s, ISOs give us less than a year for our spacecraft to try and intercept them after detection. Catching up is not impossible – for example, it could be done via gravitational slingshot manoeuvres. However, it is difficult, costly and would take years to execute.

    The good news is that the first wave of ISO-hunting missions is already in motion:
    Nasa’s mission concept is called Bridge and the European Space Agency (Esa) has a mission called Comet Interceptor. Once an incoming ISO is identified, Bridge would
    depart Earth to intercept it. However, launching from Earth currently requires a 30-day launch window after detection, which would cost valuable time.

    The Comet Interceptor mission is scheduled to launch in 2029.
    ESA / Work performed by ATG under contract to ESA, CC BY-SA

    Comet Interceptor is scheduled for launch in 2029 and comprises a larger spacecraft and two smaller robotic probes. Once launched, it will lie in wait a million miles from Earth, waiting to ambush a long period comet (slower comets that come from further away) – or potentially an ISO. Placing spacecraft in a “storage orbit” allows for rapid deployment when a suitable ISO is detected.

    Another proposal from the Institute for Interstellar Studies, Project Lyra, assessed the feasibility of chasing down ‘Oumuamua, which has already sped far beyond Neptune’s orbit. They found that it would be possible in theory to catch up with the object, but that this would also be very technically challenging.

    The fast and the curious

    These missions are a start, but, as described, their biggest limitation is speed. To chase down ISOs like ‘Oumuamua, we’ll need to move a lot faster – and think smarter.

    Future missions may rely on cutting-edge AI and related fields such as deep learning – which seeks to emulate the decision making power of the human brain – to identify and respond to incoming objects in real time. Researchers are already testing small spacecraft that operate in coordinated “swarms”, allowing them to image targets from multiple angles and adapt mid-flight.

    At the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile, a 10-year survey of the night sky is due to begin soon. This astronomical survey is expected to find dozens of ISOs each year. Simulations suggest we may be on the cusp of a detection boom.

    Any spacecraft would need to reach high speeds once an object is spotted and
    ensure that its energy source doesn’t degrade, potentially after years waiting in
    “storage orbit”. A number of missions have already utilised a form of propulsion called a solar sail.

    These use sunlight on the lightweight, reflective sail to push the spacecraft through space. This would dispense with the need for heavy fuel tanks. The next generation of solar sail spacecraft could use lasers on the sails to reach even higher speeds, which would offer a nimble and low cost solution compared to other futuristic fuels, such as nuclear propulsion.

    The Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile should discover more interstellar objects.
    RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/Y. AlSayyad

    A spacecraft approaching an ISO will also need to withstand high temperatures and possibly erosion from dust being ejected from the object as it moves. While traditional shielding materials can protect spacecraft, they add weight and may slow them down.

    To address this, researchers are exploring novel technologies for lightweight, more durable and resistant materials, such as advanced carbon fibres. Some could even be 3D printed. They are also looking at innovative uses of traditional materials such as cork and ceramics.

    A suite of different approaches is needed that involve ground-based telescopes and space based missions, working together to anticipate, chase down and observe ISOs.

    New technology could allow the spacecraft itself to identify and predict the trajectories of incoming objects. However, potential cuts to space science in the US, including to observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope, threaten such progress.

    Emerging technologies must be embraced to make an approach and rendezvous with an ISO a real possibility. Otherwise, we will be left scrabbling, taking pictures from afar as yet another cosmic wanderer speeds away.

    Billy Bryan works on projects at RAND Europe that are funded by the UK Space Agency and DG DEFIS. He is affiliated with RAND Europe’s Space Hub and is lead of the civil space theme, the University of Sussex Students’ Union as a Trustee, and Rocket Science Ltd. as an advisor.

    Chris Carter works on projects at RAND Europe that are funded by the UK Space Agency and DG DEFIS. He is affiliated with RAND Europe’s Space Hub and is a researcher in the civil space theme.

    Theodora (Teddy) Ogden is a Senior Analyst at RAND Europe, where she works on defence and security issues in space. She was previously a fellow at Arizona State University, and before that was briefly at Nato.

    – ref. Mysterious objects from other stars are passing through our solar system. Scientists are planning missions to study them up close – https://theconversation.com/mysterious-objects-from-other-stars-are-passing-through-our-solar-system-scientists-are-planning-missions-to-study-them-up-close-254404

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Animal abuse often signals human abuse — should therapists be allowed to report it?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Laleh Dadgardoust, Course Instructor at Glendon Campus at York University, Research Assistant, PAWSitive Connections Lab, University of Saskatchewan

    Imagine being a therapist and sitting across from a client who casually admits to kicking their dog. They kick until the dog stops barking.

    As a therapist, you are bound by a sacred code of confidentiality, a cornerstone of your profession. But the session ends, and the client walks out. And sitting alone now, you can’t help but think about the suffering dog.

    What if the reported abuse is a warning sign of worse to come? You want to report the abuse, but the law ties your hands.

    This is the tightrope therapists walk. They are caught between protecting privacy and preventing harm, with laws that do not fully address the complexities of the situation.

    The sacred shield of confidentiality

    The principle of confidentiality has deep roots that date back to the Hippocratic Oath: “What I may see or hear in the course of treatment, I will keep secret.” This oath reflects the imperative role confidentiality has played in medical and clinical practices.

    In modern times, health information laws such as HIPAA in the United States and PHIPA in Canada reinforce this principle. It requires therapists to protect client information unless there is a clear risk of harm to the client or others, particularly vulnerable groups like children.

    These protections foster openness, allowing clients to share their most personal thoughts without fear of judgment or exposure.

    However, there is a critical gap in the law: animal cruelty is not covered by the current confidentiality limitations.

    Unlike child abuse, which requires mandatory reporting, animal abuse leaves therapists unable to report without client consent. This creates a difficult dilemma, where therapists are torn between their duty to maintain client confidentiality and their ethical responsibility to stop ongoing cruelty towards animals.

    The emotional toll on therapists

    This legal gap places a toll that can lead to emotional struggles known as moral injury.

    Moral injury occurs when individuals witness actions against their deepest values or feel powerless to prevent harm. In clinical settings, this often emerges when policies prevent clinicians from acting ethically — whether protecting the vulnerable, or stopping cruelty they’re aware of.

    For some therapists, hearing disclosure of animal abuse and not being able to make a report can cause profound stress. Research has linked moral injury to negative mental health outcomes, such as intense feelings of guilt and shame, symptoms of depression and job dissatisfaction and retention issues.

    Animal abuse is connected to human violence

    Historically, animal cruelty has been treated as separate from other types of violence. However, animal abuse is often not an isolated behaviour.

    In fact, advocates have described animal abuse as “the tip of the iceberg.” And researchers have shown that animal abuse and violence towards people are often interconnected.

    How animals are treated within a family offers valuable insight into family dynamics and signals broader issues.

    One study commissioned by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals in 1997 found that 70 per cent of people charged with animal cruelty had a history of other violent behaviours, including homicide.

    Other studies show how animal abuse is linked to interpersonal violence including bullying, delinquency, intimate partner violence, family violence and adult violent crimes.

    Also, a history of animal cruelty during childhood is found to be linked to antisocial personality disorder and perpetration of interpersonal violence in adulthood.

    Rethinking confidentiality in an evolving world

    Confidentiality is paramount because it improves therapy outcomes and serves the public.

    As the practice of therapy continues to grow and evolve, principles like confidentiality deserve renewed attention. While protecting client privacy remains essential, changing social contexts call for a deeper look at how this principle is applied in practice.

    Given the strong link between animal abuse and other forms of violence, it’s difficult to justify not reporting animal abuse. Failing to report animal abuse could result in missed opportunities to prevent further harm to society.

    Therapists are obliged to protect their clients’ confidentiality, but what if their role also evolved to include reporting animal abuse, a recognized early indicator of escalating violence?

    Addressing the complex nature of violence requires education and collaboration. The National Link Coalition, an education and advocacy non-profit based in the U.S., for instance, trains professionals globally to recognize the link between animal cruelty, domestic violence, child abuse and elder abuse, advocating for prevention.

    A more holistic view of violence prevention requires changes to how animal abuse is viewed and reported, ensuring that therapy is aligned with its core mission: promoting well-being.

    And a change would also spare therapists the moral injury of being torn between law and ethics. So making this change would benefit the animals, the therapists and the safety of all.

    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.

    – ref. Animal abuse often signals human abuse — should therapists be allowed to report it? – https://theconversation.com/animal-abuse-often-signals-human-abuse-should-therapists-be-allowed-to-report-it-253400

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: On stage but out of the spotlight − the quiet struggle of being an opening act

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jeff Apruzzese, Professor of Music Industry, Drexel University

    Getting heard has never been easier. Being recognized and staying relevant is the real challenge. PeopleImages/E+ via Getty Images

    I grew up playing in a lot of different bands, and my bandmates and I always held onto the belief that if we could just open for a more established act, it would pave the way to more success.

    When I started playing in the indie pop band Passion Pit – a group known for its shimmering synths, energetic live shows and breakout hits like Sleepyhead and Take a Walk – we began gaining traction and soon had the chance to open for the British band Muse, in what would be our first arena shows.

    Until then, we’d been headlining 3,000-capacity venues. Our label, management and booking team made it clear that this next step – playing in front of massive audiences – would catapult us to megastardom.

    Reality was different. After playing our own packed shows where fans cheered and called for encores, we suddenly found ourselves in 15,000-capacity arenas, where it seemed like everyone was ignoring us: chatting among themselves, still getting to their seats or waiting in line for food and drinks.

    It was a wake-up call. The transition from being a headliner at a smaller music venue to opener for a major act didn’t feel like a step forward. It felt like starting over.

    Years later, as an academic studying the music industry, I found myself returning to this question: Does opening for a major act help an artist’s career?

    There’s an assumption that it’s a golden ticket. But I’d seen plenty of openers, some incredibly talented, disappear from the spotlight soon after a tour ended. If touring is supposed to be a stepping stone to long-term success, why do so many promising acts fade into obscurity?

    These questions became the basis for my most recent study. I wanted to see whether these high-profile opportunities deliver any benefits for a singer or band, or if they were more like a sugar high, providing little more than a brief boost in exposure.

    It’s harder to stick out from the crowd

    Popular music is a US$28.6-billion global industry, and music consumption, according to a 2025 report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, is at an all-time high. People around the world now spend an average of 20.7 hours per week listening to music on radio, streaming platforms, vinyl, CDs and social media.

    The ease of listening to and recording music presents both an opportunity and a challenge for aspiring artists.

    On one hand, streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music have removed traditional gatekeepers, making it easier than ever to release music and reach a global audience. But these platforms have also saturated listeners with content, and discovery is dictated more by algorithms rather than by word-of-mouth buzz, local touring circuits or traditional artist development.

    Social media, especially TikTok, can launch an unknown act into viral stardom within days. However, the attention span of digital audiences is fleeting. Most people consume music passively – often through playlists they didn’t curate and might not even remember.

    In other words, getting heard has never been easier. Being recognized and staying relevant? That’s the real challenge.

    For artists trying to break through, it’s no longer a question of choosing between touring or posting content. It’s about doing both, constantly, at a high level.

    Josh Ross performs as the opener for country superstar Jelly Roll in Edmonton on March 13, 2025.
    Ron Palmer/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

    Fleeting benefits

    But while headlining tours are often seen as a marker of success, many emerging acts first step onto national stages as openers – raising the question, does opening for a major artist actually lead to meaningful career growth?

    In my study, I analyzed the touring and streaming data of 57 opening acts on major U.S. tours in 2022 and 2023. For this project, “major” referred to nationally promoted, ticketed tours at venues with capacities of 2,000 or more, such as Harry Styles’ “Love On Tour,” Paramore’s spring arena run and Mitski’s “Laurel Hell Tour.” These tours drew large, dedicated fanbases – offering opening artists significant exposure.

    Using platforms such as Pollstar, Songkick and Chartmetric, I tracked each artist’s listenership across Spotify four weeks before the tour, during the tour and four weeks after the tour. I also conducted surveys with 500 fans to better understand how people were discovering and engaging with openers.

    The results were revealing. Most opening acts saw a streaming bump during the tour – usually between 18% and 20%, with some surging up to 200%.

    But that momentum rarely held. Within weeks, streams often dropped by 6% to 10%, or returned to their pre-tour levels entirely. While a few artists managed to hold onto new listeners, most saw the gains quickly fade. And even when audiences enjoyed an opener’s set, their interest withered: They may have checked out a song or two after the show, but few became regular listeners.

    These findings challenge the long-standing narrative that opening for a major artist is a surefire path to career growth. Exposure helps, but it’s not enough on its own. Without a clear post-tour strategy, that attention quickly fades.

    Rapper Rapsody performs as an opener for Lauryn Hill on Oct. 19, 2023, in New York City.
    Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images

    Algorithms can’t generate loyalty

    I’m not trying to discourage aspiring bands from going on tour. Far from it. Touring remains a crucial part of building a fan base.

    In a landscape defined by passive consumption, there’s still something powerful about the shared experience of live music. A performance can create an emotional connection that a stream simply can’t.

    Today, discovery often starts with a playlist. Someone hears a song and maybe adds it to their rotation. But they rarely click to learn more about the artist. Listeners follow the playlist, not the person behind the music. Many acts land on major playlists and go on to generate tens of thousands of streams. Others will even go viral on social media. And they still can’t sell more than 25 tickets to a local show.

    Live performances offer something different. A great set can turn a casual listener into a true fan. I’ve heard countless people say a particular show changed the way they experienced that artist’s music, that it left a lasting impression and forged a bond with the singer or group.

    That kind of loyalty doesn’t come from an algorithm. It comes from being in the room. And with more than 100,000 tracks uploaded to streaming services each day, artists need to use every tool they can to stand out.

    Cutting through the noise

    In an era when streaming revenue is notoriously slim, touring has become one of the few reliable sources of income for working artists. The top artists in 2017 earned 80% of their income from touring, 15% from recorded music and 5% from publishing fees.

    Even though touring is far from a guarantee – especially if you’re not the headliner, as my research shows – it’s still one of the few ways left to cut through the noise. In the survey I ran for my study, 68% of concertgoers said they discovered at least one new artist through an opener, and 39% said the opener influenced their ticket purchase.

    And there are success stories – instances where opening slots have helped launch lasting careers.

    Billie Eilish opened for Florence + The Machine early on in her career, using that visibility to build a massive following. Taylor Swift, in particular, has a reputation for picking future stars: Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan all opened for her before becoming major names.

    Billie Eilish’s tour with Florence + the Machine in 2018 helped catapult the young singer to stardom.
    Jeff Hahne/Getty Images

    These examples are outliers, of course. For most openers, visibility comes quickly but fades just as fast.

    Today’s artists need more than one big moment. There needs to be some sort of plan, whether it’s releasing new content, crafting a strong identity or figuring out ways for new fans to stay engaged after the show ends.

    Because at the end of the day, it’s not about being seen once. It’s all about being remembered.

    Jeff Apruzzese 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.

    – ref. On stage but out of the spotlight − the quiet struggle of being an opening act – https://theconversation.com/on-stage-but-out-of-the-spotlight-the-quiet-struggle-of-being-an-opening-act-252350

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Beggar thy neighbor, harm thyself: Tariffs like Trump’s come with pitfalls, history shows

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Bedassa Tadesse, Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth

    Feeling tariff whiplash? You’re not alone. On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs – a 10% levy on nearly all U.S. imports, along with targeted duties aimed at punishing countries he accuses of exploiting American markets. Just a week later, on April 9, his administration abruptly paused much of the plan for 90 days, leaving markets and allies scrambling for clarity.

    The proposed tariffs were pitched as a way to revive U.S. manufacturing, reclaim jobs and counter what Trump considers unfair trade practices. But they immediately rattled the financial markets and raised alarms among economists and America’s global partners. Critics across the political spectrum revived a familiar warning: “beggar-thy-neighbor.”

    History shows that such policies rarely succeed. In today’s interconnected world, they’re more likely to provoke swift, precise and painful retaliation.

    What is the ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ strategy?

    The phrase comes from economic history and refers to protectionist measures – tariffs, import restrictions or currency manipulation – designed to boost one country’s economy at the expense of its trading partners. Think of it like cleaning your yard by dumping the trash into your neighbor’s property: It looks tidy on your side until they respond.

    This approach starkly contrasts with the principles laid out by Adam Smith. In “The Wealth of Nations,” he argued that trade is not a zero-sum game. Specialization and open markets, he observed, create mutual benefit – a rising tide that lifts all boats. Trump’s tariffs disregard this logic.

    And history backs Smith. In the 1930s, the U.S. adopted a similar strategy to the one Trump is experimenting with through the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties to protect domestic jobs. The result was a wave of global retaliation that choked international trade and worsened the Great Depression.

    A case in point: Lesotho

    As an example, consider the 50% tariff the United States imposed on imports from Lesotho, a small landlocked African nation. The measure took effect at midnight on April 3 but was reportedly subject to the 90-day pause starting midday April 4.

    The tariff rate was calculated by taking the U.S. trade deficit with Lesotho – US$234.5 million in 2024 – dividing that by the total value of Lesotho’s exports to the U.S., or $237.3 million, and dividing that by two.

    The 50% tariff would have a negligible effect on the U.S. economy – after all, out of the $3.3 trillion the U.S. imported in 2024, only a tiny fraction came from Lesotho. But for Lesotho, a nation that relies heavily on garment exports and preferential U.S. market access, the consequences would be severe. Using the same tariff logic across all partners, big or small, overlooks basic economic realities: differences in scale, trade capacity and vulnerability. It epitomizes beggar-thy-neighbor thinking: offloading domestic frustrations onto weaker economies for short-term political optics.

    Lesotho is just one example. Even countries that import more from the U.S. than they export, such as Australia and the U.K., haven’t been spared. This “scoreboard” mentality – treating trade deficits as losses and surpluses as wins – risks reducing the complexity of global commerce to a tit-for-tat game.

    The return of a familiar — and risky — playbook

    Such thinking has consequences. During Trump’s first term, China retaliated against U.S. tariffs by slashing imports of American soybeans and pork. As a result, those exports plummeted from $14 billion in 2017 to just $3 billion in 2018, hitting politically sensitive states like Iowa hard. The European Union responded to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs by threatening to target bourbon from Kentucky and motorcycles from Wisconsin – iconic products from the home states of former GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. Canada and the European Union have shown a willingness to use similar tactics this time around.

    This isn’t new. In 2002, President George W. Bush imposed tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel, prompting the European Union to threaten retaliatory tariffs targeting products such as Florida citrus and Carolina textiles made in key swing states. Facing domestic political pressure and a World Trade Organization ruling against the measure, Bush reversed course within 21 months.

    A decade earlier, the Clinton administration endured a long-running trade dispute with the EU known as the “banana wars,” in which European regulators structured import rules that disadvantaged U.S.-backed Latin American banana exporters in favor of former European colonies.

    During the Obama years, the U.S. increased visa fees that disproportionately impacted India’s technology services sector. India responded by delaying approvals for American drugmakers and large retail investments.

    Not all forms of trade retaliation grab headlines. Many are subtle, slow and bureaucratic – but no less damaging. Customs officials can delay paperwork or may impose arbitrary inspection or labeling requirements. Approval for U.S. pharmaceuticals, tech products or chemicals can be stalled for vague procedural reasons. Public procurement rules can be quietly rewritten to exclude U.S. companies.

    While these tactics rarely draw public attention, their cumulative cost is real: missed delivery deadlines, lost contracts and rising operational costs. Over time, American businesses may shift operations abroad – not because of labor costs or regulation at home, but to escape the slow drip of bureaucratic punishment they experience elsewhere.

    Tariffs in a connected economy

    Supporters of tariffs often argue that they protect domestic industries and create jobs. In theory, they might. But in practice, recent history shows they are more likely to invite retaliation, raise prices and disrupt supply chains.

    Modern manufacturing is deeply interconnected. A product may involve assembling components from a dozen countries, moving back and forth across borders. Tariffs hurt foreign suppliers and American manufacturers, workers and consumers.

    More strategically damaging, they erode U.S. influence. Allies grow weary of unpredictable trade moves, and rivals, including China and Russia, step in to forge deeper partnerships. Countries may reduce their exposure to the U.S. dollar, sell off Treasury bonds, or align with regional blocs like the BRICS group – led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – not out of ideology, but necessity.

    In short, the U.S. weakens its own strategic hand. The long-term cost isn’t just economic – it’s geopolitical.

    Rather than resorting to beggar-thy-neighbor tactics, the U.S. could secure its future by investing in what truly drives long-term strength: smart workforce development, breakthrough innovation and savvy partnerships with allies. This approach would tackle trade imbalances through skillful diplomacy instead of brute force, while building resilience at home by equipping American workers and companies to thrive – not by scapegoating others.

    History makes a clear case: Ditching the obsession with bilateral trade deficits and focusing instead on value creation pays off. The U.S. can source components from around the world and elevate them through unmatched design, innovation and manufacturing excellence. That’s the heartbeat of real economic might.

    Bedassa Tadesse 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.

    – ref. Beggar thy neighbor, harm thyself: Tariffs like Trump’s come with pitfalls, history shows – https://theconversation.com/beggar-thy-neighbor-harm-thyself-tariffs-like-trumps-come-with-pitfalls-history-shows-254141

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Educators find creative work-arounds to new laws that restrict what they can teach

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Riley Drake, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stout

    Some educators are chafing under new laws that limit what and how they can teach. VectorMine/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    An onslaught of executive orders from President Donald Trump aim to restrict how and what educators can teach America’s children.

    Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has attempted to bar teachers from discussing racism and sexism in K-12 schools and order all schools that receive federal funding to recognize only two gender identities – male and female – potentially barring teachers from acknowledging the existence of nonbinary, gender queer and transgender people, including among their students.

    Educators say the orders are having a chilling effect in classrooms, with some teachers censoring themselves by minimizing dialogue about race, gender and other topics. Other educators, however, are finding ways to resist what they see as federal intrusion into the classroom.

    In March 2025, Sarah Inama, a sixth grade history teacher in Meridian, Idaho, refused to remove a classroom poster reading “Everyone is Welcome” when school district officials claimed the message was too controversial.

    “There are only two opinions on this sign. Everyone is welcome here or not everyone is welcome here,” Inama said in a March 2025 interview with Today.com.

    I am a scholar and former elementary school counselor. My research explores how educators act alongside young people and community organizers to challenge laws, policies and ways of controlling society that they see as harmful in schools.

    In my studies, I’ve encountered some educators who have found clever ways to support their students and have difficult conversations without violating executive orders or the law.

    Modeling transformative justice

    The Trump administration’s restrictive federal orders for schools are new, but some U.S. states have been limiting what educators can tell their students for several years. And educators in those places have found quiet, creative ways to push back.

    In 2022 I led a study of how educators in one Midwestern state were teaching social emotional learning – that is, the attitudes, skills and knowledge to develop healthy relationships and manage their emotions.

    The state – research ethics prohibit me from precisely identifying it – had recently passed legislation that prevented teachers from openly discussing the harms of racism, slavery, colonialism and gender violence in the U.S. Critics felt the law not only erased Black and Indigenous history but also banned truth-telling and accountability.

    One second grade teacher I observed in my study felt it was essential that her students learn to tell the truth, even in uncomfortable situations, and take accountability for their actions. She partnered with local community organizers to practice transformative justice in her classroom.

    Transformative justice seeks to address the root causes of people’s harmful behavior rather than merely punishing it. When communities can get to the core of the conditions that caused the harm, this theory holds, they can better address it.

    Rather than craft a lesson plan that might run up against the state’s restrictive new laws, the teacher in my study demonstrated the values of truth-telling and accountability in her approach to everyday conflicts.

    For example, one day after afternoon recess, two students refused to come back inside. The teacher waited patiently, and when eventually they returned to the classroom, she asked them what had been bothering them. The students said they were mad their classmates hadn’t allowed them to play a specific character in a game at recess.

    The teacher invited the rest of the class to discuss the incident. They acknowledged that those students had been excluded. Together, the class brainstormed ways to better include everyone next time. The upset students calmed down and listened actively, then began chiming in with their own ideas about solving the problem constructively.

    When schoolyard games go wrong, teachers can model different ways to resolve conflict.
    Peter Cade/Stone via Getty Images

    Finally, the teacher asked the class to reflect on how she had handled the situation.

    “What would have happened if I had called the principal on the students who wouldn’t come inside?” she asked.

    “They would have gotten in trouble!” the students said.

    “Yes, and would that have solved anything?” the teacher responded.

    “No, it would have made things worse,” one student remarked.

    In her actions and words, this teacher taught her students that punishment isn’t the only or best way to deal with conflict. And she showed them that when people tell the truth and take responsibility for their actions, they have an opportunity to build connections and repair relationships.

    In doing so, my research finds this teacher challenged her state’s policy of silencing certain conversations. Other educators in this study found other ways to challenge the law, including one who invited community organizers into her classroom to support immigrant students in learning about their rights.

    Solidarity with LGBTQ students

    I led another study in 2023 and 2024 following legislation in Iowa and other states banning books and restricting classroom discussion about gender identity and sexual orientation. In it, I documented how one middle school counselor supported student activists who’d been retaliated against after leading a school walkout protesting the state’s anti-LGBTQ bill.

    The student activists had been taunted by their peers during the walkout. Some had Pride flags torn from their hands and stomped on. Money the students had been collecting to donate to an LGBTQ organization was stolen.

    “I wish we didn’t have to be quiet to be safe,” one of the students told the counselor when debriefing after the incident.

    The counselor arranged a meeting with the school principal to share how their peers had hurt them and how disconnected it made them feel from their school. When administrators did only minimal follow-up afterward, the counselor partnered with a community arts organization outside school to create LGBTQ-affirming spaces for students to make art together.

    In my assessment, her actions demonstrated that people can come together to care for one another and showed that LGBTQ young people matter. First as an educator and then as a community member, she delivered a meaningful message to the students through showing rather than telling.

    Sometimes art can deliver a message as clearly as words.
    VeeStudio89/E+ via Getty Images

    Resistance in the classroom

    These are just a few examples of the many creative ways I’ve documented that educators from Iowa, Michigan, Indiana and Florida and other states are trying to offset the impacts of recent restrictions on what teachers can say and what topics curricula can address.

    Educators in the U.S. have long found ways to resist laws they feel are unjust.

    In the 1940s, a Black teacher named Madeline Morgan fought alongside hundreds of other Black women teachers and parents for Chicago Public Schools to include Black history in its curriculum. The curriculum she created later became a model for districts across the U.S. to teach Black history.

    Septima Clark is another Black educator who fought racism through teaching. After she was fired from her teaching position in South Carolina due to her connections with the NAACP, she dedicated her life to teaching, organizing and training civil rights activists in defiance of laws that attempted to keep her out of the classroom.

    Collaborating with others, today’s educators are finding creative ways to ensure that their classrooms demonstrate justice, in actions if not in words.

    Riley Drake 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.

    – ref. Educators find creative work-arounds to new laws that restrict what they can teach – https://theconversation.com/educators-find-creative-work-arounds-to-new-laws-that-restrict-what-they-can-teach-254033

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Volcanic ash is a silent killer, more so than lava: What Alaska needs to know with Mount Spurr likely to erupt

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By David Kitchen, Associate Professor of Geology, University of Richmond

    One of two main craters on Alaska’s Mount Spurr, shown in 1991. Earthquake activity suggests the volcano is close to erupting again in 2025. R.G. McGimsey/Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey, CC BY

    Volcanoes inspire awe with spectacular eruptions and incandescent rivers of lava, but often their deadliest hazard is what quietly falls from the sky.

    When a large volcano erupts, as Mount Spurr appears close to doing about 80 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, it can release enormous volumes of ash. Fine ash can infiltrate the lungs of people and animals who breathe it in, poison crops and disrupt aquatic life. Thick deposits of ash can collapse roofs, cripple utilities and disrupt transport networks.

    Ash may lack the visual impact of flowing lava, but as a geologist who studies disasters, I’m aware that ash travels farther, lasts longer and leaves deep scars.

    Ash buried cars and buildings after the 1984 eruption of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea.
    Volcano Hazards Program, U.S. Geological Survey

    Volcanic ash: What it is, and why it matters

    Volcanic ash forms when viscous magma – molten rock from deep beneath Earth’s surface – erupts, exploding into shards of rock, mineral and glass carried in a near-supersonic stream of hot gas.

    Towering clouds of ash rise several miles into the atmosphere, where the ash is captured by high-altitude winds that can carry it hundreds or even thousands of miles.

    As the volcanic ash settles back to Earth, it accumulates in layers that typically decrease in thickness with distance from the eruption source. Near the vent, the ash may be several feet deep, but communities farther away may see only a dusting.

    When Mount Spurr erupted in 1992, a dark column of ash and gas shot into the atmosphere from the volcano’s Crater Peak vent. Wind patterns determine where the ash will fall.
    U.S. Geological Survey

    Breathing danger: Health risks from ash

    Breathing volcanic ash can irritate the throat and lungs, trigger asthma attacks and aggravate chronic respiratory conditions such as COPD.

    The finest particles pose the greatest risk because they can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause death by asphyxiation in the worst cases. Mild, short-term symptoms often resolve with rest. However, the long-term consequences of ash exposure can include silicosis, a lung disease and a possible cause of cancer.

    The danger increases in dry regions where fallen ash can be kicked up into the air again by wind or human activity.

    Risks to pets and livestock

    Humans aren’t the only ones at risk. Animals experience similar respiratory symptoms to humans.

    Domestic pets can develop respiratory distress, eye inflammation and paw irritation from exposure to ash.

    Ash covers sheep in Argentina after the 2011 Puyehue volcanic eruption in Chile.
    Federico Grosso/U.S. Geological Survey

    Livestock face greater dangers. If grazing animals eat volcanic ash, it can damage their teeth, block their intestines and poison them.

    During the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland, farmers were advised to shelter sheep and cattle because the ash contained fluoride concentrations above the recognized safety threshold of 400 parts per million. Animals that remained exposed became sick and some died.

    Harm to crops, soil and water

    Soil and crops can also be damaged. Volcanic ash alters the acidity of soil and introduces harmful elements such as arsenic and sulfur into the environment.

    While the ash can add nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus that enhance fertility, the immediate impact is mostly harmful.

    Ash can smother crops, block sunlight and clog the tiny stomata, or pores, in leaves that allow plants to exchange gases with the atmosphere. It can also introduce toxins that render food unmarketable. Vegetables, fruit trees and vines are particularly vulnerable, but even sturdy cereals and grasses can die if ash remains on leaves or poisons emerging shoots.

    Following the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, vast tracts of farmland in central Luzon in the Philippines were rendered unproductive for years due to acidic ash and buried topsoil. If multiple ashfalls occur in a growing season, crop failure becomes a near certainty. It was the cause of a historic famine that followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.

    Ash from a 1953 eruption of Mount Spurr included very fine grains, like powder. The ash cloud reached about 70,000 feet high and left Anchorage under a blanket of ash up to a quarter-inch deep, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report at the time.
    James St. John via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
    Electron microscope images of ash show how sharp the shards are. The top left image of shards from Mount Etna in 2002 is 1 mm across. Top right is an ash particle from Mount St. Helens magnified 200 times. The shards in the lower images are less than 0.064 mm.
    Volcano Hazards Program, U.S. Geological Survey

    Ash can also contaminate surface water by introducing toxins and increasing the water’s acidity. The toxins can leach into groundwater, contaminating wells. Fine ash particles can also settle in waterways and smother aquatic plants and animals. During the 2008 Chaitén eruption in Chile, ash contamination led to widespread fish deaths in the Río Blanco.

    Ash can ground airplanes, gum up infrastructure

    Ash clouds are extremely dangerous to aircraft. The glassy ash particles melt when sucked into jet turbines, clog fuel systems and can stall engines in midair.

    In 1982, British Airways Flight 9 lost power in all four engines after flying through an ash cloud. A similar incident occurred in 1989 to KLM Flight 867 over Alaska. In 2010, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull eruption grounded more than 100,000 flights across Europe, disrupting travel for over 10 million passengers and costing the global economy billions of dollars.

    Volcanic ash can also wreak havoc on infrastructure by clogging water supplies, short-circuiting electrical systems and collapsing roofs under its weight. It can disrupt transportation, communication, rescue and power networks, as the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines dramatically demonstrated.

    What to do during ashfall

    During an ashfall event, the most effective strategy to stay safe is to stay indoors as much as possible and avoid inhaling ash particles.

    Anyone who must go outside should wear a properly fitted N95 or P2 mask. Cloth masks provide little protection against fine ash. Rainwater tanks, troughs and open wells should be covered and monitored for contamination. Livestock should be moved to clean pastures or given uncontaminated fodder.

    The challenges Alaska is facing if Mount Spurr erupts.

    To reduce structural damage, ash should be cleared from roofs and gutters promptly, especially before rainfall.

    Older adults, children and people who are sick are at greatest risk, particularly those living in poorly ventilated homes. Rural communities that are dependent on agriculture and livestock are disproportionately affected by ashfall, as are low-income people who lack access to clean water, protective masks or safe shelter.

    Communities can stay informed about ash risks through official alerts, including those from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers, which monitor ash dispersion and issue timely warnings. The International Volcanic Health Hazard Network also offers guidelines on personal protection, emergency planning and ash cleanup.

    The long tail of ash

    Volcanic ash may fall quietly, but its effects are widespread, persistent and potentially deadly. It poses a chronic threat to health, agriculture, infrastructure and aquatic systems.

    Recognizing the risk is a crucial first step to protecting lives. Effective planning and public awareness can further help reduce the damage.

    David Kitchen 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.

    – ref. Volcanic ash is a silent killer, more so than lava: What Alaska needs to know with Mount Spurr likely to erupt – https://theconversation.com/volcanic-ash-is-a-silent-killer-more-so-than-lava-what-alaska-needs-to-know-with-mount-spurr-likely-to-erupt-254461

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 25 years of Everglades restoration has improved drinking water for millions in Florida, but a new risk is rising

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Kominoski, Professor of Biological Sciences, Florida International University

    The Everglades has often been referred to as a vast river of grass. National Park Service/B.Call via Flickr

    Do you know where your drinking water comes from?

    In South Florida, drinking water comes from the Everglades, a vast landscape of wetlands that has long filtered the water relied on by millions of people.

    But as the Everglades has shrunk over the past century, the region’s water supply and water quality have become increasingly threatened, including by harmful algal blooms fueled by agriculture runoff. Now, the water supply faces another rising challenge: saltwater intrusion.

    Waterways cut through the Everglades.
    South Florida Water Management District/Flickr, CC BY-ND

    Protecting South Florida’s water hinges on restoring the Everglades. That’s why, 25 years ago, the federal government and universities launched the world’s largest ecosystem restoration effort ever attempted.

    I’m involved in this work as an ecosystem ecologist. The risks I see suggest continuing to restore the Everglades is more crucial today than ever.

    What happened to the Everglades?

    The Florida Everglades is a broad mosaic of fresh water, sawgrass marshes, cypress domes and tree islands, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows all connected by water.

    But it is half its original size. In the early 1900s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began installing canals and levees to control flooding in the Everglades, which allowed people to build farms and communities along its edges. The Tamiami Trail became the first road across the Everglades in 1928. It connected Tampa to Miami, but the road and canals cut off or diverted some of the natural water flow in South Florida.

    Maps show how the Everglades changed over time. Source: USGS.

    Since then, Florida’s economy, agriculture and population have exploded – and with them has come a nutrient pollution problem in the Everglades.

    The major crop, sugarcane, is grown in a region south of Lake Okeechobee covering 1,100 square miles that’s known as the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nearly 80 tons of phosphorus fertilizer from federally subsidized farm fields runs off into the Everglades wetlands each year. And that has become a water quality concern. Drinking water with elevated nitrogen is linked to human health problems, and elevated phosphorus and associated algal blooms can cause microbes to accumulate toxins such as mercury.

    Healthy wetlands can filter out those nutrients and other pollutants, cleaning the water.

    Some of the ways the Everglades filters water contaminated with phosphorus.
    South Florida Water Management District

    Rain falling in the Everglades percolates through the porous limestone and recharges the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies drinking water for 1 in 3 Floridians.

    But wetlands need time and space to function properly, and the damage from farm pollution has harmed that natural filtering system.

    By the 1990s, Everglades wetlands and the wildlife they support hit a critical stress level from elevated concentrations of phosphorus, a nutrient in fertilizer that washes off farm fields and fuels the growth of toxic algal blooms and invasive species that can choke out native plant populations.

    The changes led to seagrass die-offs and widespread invasion of sawgrass marshes by cattail and harmful algal blooms. Degraded wetlands can themselves become pollution sources that can contaminate surface water and groundwater quality by decreasing oxygen in the water, which can harm aquatic life, and releasing chemicals and nutrients as they decay.

    A vast restoration campaign

    Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000 to support reducing phosphorus concentrations by recreating large wetlands areas to remove excess nutrients and reestablishing more of the natural water depth to bolster native populations.

    That restoration effort is making progress in reconnecting wetlands to natural water flows by rehydrating large areas that were cut off. Phosphorus levels are lower in many wetlands that now remain hydrated longer, and in these wetlands fresh water is recharging the aquifer, helping sustain the drinking water supply.

    However, delays in critically important components of that work have left some wetlands in degraded conditions for longer than expected, especially in regions near and downstream of the Everglades Agricultural Area, where phosphorus concentrations remain stubbornly high.

    An algal bloom spreads in Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, at the heart of the Everglades.
    Nicholas Aumen/USGS

    South Florida continues to experience harmful algal blooms from phosphorus reaching rivers and the coast, resulting in fish kills and the deaths of manatees. Red tide can shut down fishing and keep beach-going tourists away, harming local economies. This pollution is estimated to have cost Florida’s economy US$2.7 billion in 2018.

    The unexpected risk: Saltwater

    An unforeseen threat has also started to creep into the Everglades: saltwater.

    As sea level rises, saltwater reaches further inland, both in rivers and underground through the porous limestone beneath South Florida. Saltwater intrusion also occurs when wells draw down aquifers to provide water for drinking or irrigation. That saltwater is causing parts of the Everglades marshes, often referred to as a river of grass, to collapse into open water.

    Saltwater intrusion into South Miami and how Everglades restoration can help. Source: Emily Northrop and Rachael Johnson, University of Miami.
    The red line shows how far saltwater had intruded into aquifers beneath Fort Lauderdale as of 2019.
    South Florida Water Management District

    The loss of these freshwater marshes reduces the capacity of the Everglades to remove phosphorus from the water. And that means more nutrients flowing downstream, contaminating aquifers and causing harmful algal blooms to form in coastal waters.

    Scientists have learned that marsh plants need freshwater pulses during the wet season, from April to November, to avoid saltwater intrusion.

    For example, saltwater intruded about one mile inland between 2009 and 2019 in parts of the Fort Lauderdale area. More fresh water is needed to push the saltwater back out to sea.

    However, the restoration effort was never intended to combat saltwater intrusion.

    Reasons for optimism

    Despite the continuing challenges, I am optimistic because of how scientists, policymakers and communities are working together to protect the Everglades and drinking water.

    I lead part of that restoration work through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research program. The effort started at Florida International University on May 1, 2000, the same year the Everglades restoration plan was authorized by Congress.

    Our research was used to set the levels of nutrients allowable to still protect the region’s water supplies, and we have been working for 25 years to reduce saltwater intrusion and phosphorus pollution to ensure drinking water for South Florida remains both fresh and clean. We continually use our research to inform water managers and policymakers of the best practices to reduce saltwater intrusion and pollution.

    A roseate spoonbill hunts for dinner in Everglades National Park.
    National Park Service, R. Cammauf, via Flickr

    As saltwater intrusion continues to threaten South Florida’s freshwater aquifer, Everglades restoration and protection will be increasingly important.

    Everyone in the region can help.

    By rehabilitating degraded wetlands, allowing for more fresh water to flow throughout the Everglades ecosystems, reducing the use of fresh water on lawns and crops, and reusing municipal water for outdoor needs, South Florida can keep its drinking water safe for generations of future residents and visitors. This is something that everyone can contribute to.

    Mangroves along Turner River in the Everglades.
    Chauncey Davis/Flickr, CC BY

    Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Miami’s renowned conservationist who helped establish the Everglades National Park, often said, “The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet.”

    John Kominoski works for Florida International University. He receives funding from federal agencies, such as the National Park Service and the National Science Foundation.

    – ref. 25 years of Everglades restoration has improved drinking water for millions in Florida, but a new risk is rising – https://theconversation.com/25-years-of-everglades-restoration-has-improved-drinking-water-for-millions-in-florida-but-a-new-risk-is-rising-253167

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Preventive care may no longer be free in 2026 because of HIV stigma − unless the Trump administration successfully defends the ACA

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristefer Stojanovski, Assistant Professor of Social, Behavioral and Population Sciences, Tulane University

    Americans may lose free coverage for cancer and blood pressure screenings, HIV prevention medication and other essential services. Halfpoint Images/Moment via Getty Images

    Many Americans were relieved when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act in place following the law’s third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision permitted widely supported policies to continue, such as ensuring health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, allowing coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan, and removing annual and lifetime benefit limits.

    But millions are still at risk of losing access to lifesaving medicine and preventive services, following the Supreme Court’s decision to hear another case – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. v. Braidwood – that has been working its way through lower courts for several years.

    Interestingly, the Trump administration has chosen to build upon the same argument the Biden administration used to defend the law.

    HIV stigma and preventive care

    The case the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in April 2025 was filed by Braidwood Management, a Christian for-profit corporation owned by Steven Hotze, a Texas physician and Republican activist who has previously filed multiple lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act.

    Braidwood and its co-plaintiffs, a group of conservative Christian employers, objected to providing their 70 employees free access to preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a medicine that prevents HIV infection. Hotze claimed that PrEP “facilitates and encourages homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman,” without citing scientific evidence to support this. He and his plaintiffs argue that religious beliefs prevent them from providing PrEP under their insurance plans.

    The AIDS epidemic has been claiming lives for decades.

    Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s, the disease has been politicized and stigmatized. Because it had predominantly affected men who had sex with men, AIDS was initially called gay-related immune deficiency, making people reluctant to be associated with the disease. It was only after a teenage boy from Indiana named Ryan White contracted HIV from a blood transfusion to treat his hemophilia, along with public statements from high-profile celebrities such as Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson about their HIV status, that social attitudes began to shift with more education about AIDS.

    Yet, the same stigma is still at play in the Braidwood case and other recent policy decisions. In 2023, for example, Tennessee officials declined US$9 million in federal funding for HIV prevention. Those federal funds focused on groups most affected by HIV, including men who have sex with men, heterosexual Black women and people who inject drugs.

    Tennessee has since transitioned to using state dollars for HIV prevention, with a focus on first responders, pregnant women and sex trafficking survivors, groups that aren’t major at-risk populations. Researchers have found that this pivot will be a less efficient use of funds, costing $1 million per life-year saved versus $68,600 when focusing on the most at-risk populations.

    Preventive care and the Affordable Care Act

    The ongoing stigma and politicization of HIV/AIDS may not only hamper the national goal of ending the HIV epidemic but also lead to less or no preventive care for many people.

    Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to offer full coverage of preventive services endorsed by one of three federal groups: the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or the Health Resources and Services Administration. For example, the CARES Act, which allocated emergency funding in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, used this provision to ensure COVID-19 vaccines would be free for many Americans.

    For a preventive service to be covered by this provision, it requires an A or B rating from the Preventive Services Task Force, an independent body of experts trained in research methods, statistics and medicine that evaluates the rigor and quality of available scientific evidence, with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Vaccinations require a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while women’s health services require approval from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

    PrEP received an A rating in June 2019, given its near 100% effectiveness. This paved the way for it to be covered at no cost for millions of people.

    PrEP is a key tool to helping the U.S. reach its goal of substantially reducing new HIV infections by 2030.
    AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

    Over 150 million Americans with private health insurance are able to benefit from free preventive care through the Affordable Care Act, with around 60% using at least one free preventive service each year.

    The consequences of losing these benefits would likely be an increase in the number of people getting and dying from preventable diseases. Raising the cost barrier for PrEP, for example, would disproportionately harm younger patients, people of color and those with lower incomes. It will also increase the cost of HIV prevention.

    As public health researchers who study sexual health and health insurance, we believe that prevention and health equity in the U.S. stand to take a big step backward, depending on the outcome of the Braidwood case.

    Future of preventive care lies with Supreme Court

    The most recent ruling in Braidwood – made by a lower court in 2023 – focuses on the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that certain governmental positions require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, while other positions have a lower bar.

    District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that because the Preventive Services Task Force is an independent volunteer panel and not made up of officers of the U.S. government, it does not have appropriate authority to make decisions about what preventive care should be free, unlike the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or Health Resources and Services Administration. O’Connor also ruled that being forced to cover PrEP violated the religious freedom of the plaintiffs.

    O’Connor invalidated all of the task force’s recommendations since the Affordable Care Act was passed in March 2010, returning the power to insurers and employers to decide which, if any, preventive care would remain free to their patients. A few of the recommendations affected by his ruling besides PrEP include blood pressure, diabetes, lung and skin cancer screenings, along with medications to lower cholesterol and reduce breast cancer risk.

    The Trump administration filed a brief continuing the argument from the Biden administration that because the Preventive Services Task Force is overseen by the secretary of Health and Human Services, there is appropriate oversight of the task force and its decision-making by a Senate-confirmed officer. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for April 21, 2025.

    The Affordable Care Act has faced many legal challenges over the years.
    AP Photo/Alex Brandon

    Insurance contracts are typically defined by calendar year, so if the Supreme Court rules against the government, people would likely see changes starting in 2026. Importantly, these services will likely still need to be covered by health insurance plans as essential health benefits through a separate provision of the ACA − they just won’t be free anymore.

    There were concerns that the Supreme Court could take the ruling even further, endangering the free coverage of contraception and other preventive care that wasn’t covered by the lower court ruling. The Trump administration’s support for the case may make this less likely by leaning into the authority of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary to support or override recommendations made by the Preventive Services Task Force and the other bodies.

    However, this could also mean the secretary of HHS can more directly control the task force’s recommendations, potentially determining whether PrEP, contraception and other services are available at no cost to patients. Building more political authority into the process − as well as partisan differences in support for LGBTQ+ health − belies the original intent of having nonpartisan medical experts make decisions about preventive care coverage. Legal experts we have spoken to caution that this approach may be more about preserving powers for the executive branch rather than actually protecting preventive care.

    All of this is happening in the context of massive layoffs at HHS. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which supports the Preventive Services Task Force, was not spared from the recent cuts. It is unclear how all of this will affect the task force’s ability to continue its work, separate from the outcome of Braidwood.

    One way or another, the end to this yearslong case is nearing, with important implications for America’s ability to reach its goals in fighting cancer, diabetes and the HIV epidemic.

    Portions of this article originally appeared in previous articles published on Sept. 7, 2021, Dec. 1, 2021, Sept. 13, 2022, and April 7, 2023.

    Paul Shafer receives research funding from the National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Department of Veterans Affairs. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of these agencies or the United States government.

    Kristefer Stojanovski 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.

    – ref. Preventive care may no longer be free in 2026 because of HIV stigma − unless the Trump administration successfully defends the ACA – https://theconversation.com/preventive-care-may-no-longer-be-free-in-2026-because-of-hiv-stigma-unless-the-trump-administration-successfully-defends-the-aca-250011

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How bird flu differs from seasonal flu − an infectious disease researcher explains

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Hanna D. Paton, PhD Candidate in Immunology, University of Iowa

    There is currently no bird flu vaccine for people. Digicomphoto/ Science Photo Library via Getty Images

    The flu sickens millions of people in the U.S. every year, and the past year has been particularly tough. Although infections are trending downward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the winter of 2024-2025 a “high severity” season with the highest hospitalization rate in 15 years.

    Since early 2024, a different kind of flu called bird flu, formally known as avian influenza, has been spreading in birds as well as in cattle. The current bird flu outbreak has infected 70 Americans and caused two deaths as of April 8, 2025. Public health and infectious disease experts say the risk to people is currently low, but they have expressed concern that this strain of the bird flu virus may mutate to spread between people.

    As a doctoral candidate in immunology, I study how pathogens that make us sick interact with our immune system. The viruses that cause seasonal flu and bird flu are distinct but still closely related. Understanding their similarities and differences can help people protect themselves and their loved ones.

    What is influenza?

    The flu has long been a threat to public health. The first recorded influenza pandemic occurred in 1518, but references to illnesses possibly caused by influenza stretch back as as early as 412 B.C., to a treatise called Of the Epidemics by the Greek physician Hippocrates.

    Today, the World Health Organization estimates that the flu infects 1 billion people every year. Of these, 3 million to 5 million infections cause severe illness, and hundreds of thousands are fatal.

    Influenza is part of a large family of viruses called orthomyxoviruses. This family contains several subtypes of influenza, referred to as A, B, C and D, which differ in their genetic makeup and in the types of infections they cause. Influenza A and B pose the largest threat to humans and can cause severe disease. Influenza C causes mild disease, and influenza D is not known to infect people. Since the turn of the 20th century, influenza A has caused four pandemics. Influenza B has never caused a pandemic.

    A notice from Oct. 18, 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic, about protecting yourself from infection.
    Illustrated Current News/National Library of Medicine, CC BY

    An influenza A strain called H1N1 caused the famous 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed about 50 million people worldwide. A related H1N1 virus was responsible for the most recent influenza A pandemic in 2009, commonly referred to as the swine flu pandemic. In that case, scientists believe multiple different types of influenza A virus mixed their genetic information to produce a new and especially virulent strain of the virus that infected more than 60 million people in the U.S. from April 12, 2009, to April 10, 2010, and caused huge losses to the agriculture and travel industries.

    Both swine and avian influenza are strains of influenza A. Just as swine flu strains tend to infect pigs, avian flu strains tend to infect birds. But the potential for influenza A viruses that typically infect animals to cause pandemics in humans like the swine flu pandemic is why experts are concerned about the current avian influenza outbreak.

    Seasonal flu versus bird flu

    Different strains of influenza A and influenza B emerge each year from about October to May as seasonal flu. The CDC collects and analyzes data from public health and clinical labs to determine which strains are circulating through the population and in what proportions. For example, recent data shows that H1N1 and H3N2, both influenza A viruses, were responsible for the vast majority of cases this season. Standard tests for influenza generally determine whether illness is caused by an A or B strain, but not which strain specifically.

    Officials at the Food and Drug Administration use this information to make strain recommendations for the following season’s influenza vaccine. Although the meeting at which FDA advisers were to decide the makeup of the 2026 flu vaccine was unexpectedly canceled in late February, the FDA still released its strain recommendations to manufacturers.

    The recommendations do not include H5N1, the influenza A strain that causes avian flu. The number of strains that can be added into seasonal influenza vaccines is limited. Because cases of people infected with H5N1 are minimal, population-level vaccination is not currently necessary. As such, seasonal flu vaccines are not designed to protect against avian influenza. No commercially available human vaccines currently exist for avian influenza viruses.

    How do people get bird flu?

    Although H5N1 mainly infects birds, it occasionally infects people, too. Human cases, first reported in 1997 in Hong Kong, have primarily occurred in poultry farm workers or others who have interacted closely with infected birds.

    Initially identified in China in 1996, the first major outbreak of H5 family avian flu occurred in North America in 2014-2015. This 2014 outbreak was caused by the H5N8 strain, a close relative of H5N1. The first H5N1 outbreak in North America began in 2021 when infected birds carried the virus across the ocean. It then ripped through poultry farms across the continent.

    The H5N1 strain of influenza A generally infects birds but has infected people, too.
    NIAID and CDC/flickr, CC BY

    In March 2024, epidemiologists identified H5N1 infections in cows on dairy farms. This is the first time that bird flu was reported to infect cows. Then, on April 1, 2024, health officials in Texas reported the first case of a person catching bird flu from infected cattle. This was the first time transmission of bird flu between mammals was documented.

    As of March 21, 2025, there have been 988 human cases of H5N1 worldwide since 1997, about half of which resulted in death. The current outbreak in the U.S. accounts for 70 of those infections and one death. Importantly, there have been no reports of H5N1 spreading directly from one person to another.

    Since avian flu is an influenza A strain, it would show up as positive on a standard rapid flu test. However, there is no evidence so far that avian flu is significantly contributing to current influenza cases. Specific testing is required to confirm that a person has avian flu. This testing is not done unless there is reason to believe the person was exposed to sick birds or other sources of infection.

    How might avian flu become more dangerous?

    As viruses replicate within the cells of their host, their genetic information can get copied incorrectly. Some of these genetic mutations cause no immediate differences, while others alter some key viral characteristics.

    Influenza viruses mutate in a special way called reassortment, which occurs when multiple strains infect the same cell and trade pieces of their genome with one another, potentially creating new, unique strains. This process prolongs the time the virus can inhabit a host before an infection is cleared. Even a slight change in a strain of influenza can result in the immune system’s inability to recognize the virus. As a result, this process forces our immune systems to build new defenses instead of using immunity from previous infections.

    Reassortment can also change how harmful strains are to their host and can even enable a strain to infect a different species of host. For example, strains that typically infect pigs or birds may acquire the ability to infect people. Influenza A can infect many different types of animals, including cattle, birds, pigs and horses. This means there are many strains that can intermingle to create novel strains that people’s immune systems have not encountered before – and are therefore not primed to fight.

    It is possible for this type of transformation to also occur in H5N1. The CDC monitors which strains of flu are circulating in order prepare for that possibility. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a surveillance system for monitoring potential threats for spillover from birds and other animals, although this capacity may be at risk due to staff cuts in the department.

    These systems are critical to ensure that public health officials have the most up-to-date information on the threat that H5N1 poses to public health and can take action as early as possible when a threat is evident.

    Hanna D. Paton 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.

    – ref. How bird flu differs from seasonal flu − an infectious disease researcher explains – https://theconversation.com/how-bird-flu-differs-from-seasonal-flu-an-infectious-disease-researcher-explains-248407

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A need for chaos powers some Americans’ support for Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the US government

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Dannagal G. Young, Professor of Communication and Political Science, University of Delaware

    There’s a sizable group of Americans who agree with the phrase ‘I think society should be burned to the ground.’ Anton Petrus-Moment/Getty Images

    A video of a Las Vegas Tesla dealership that had been set on fire by anti-Elon Musk protesters was posted on March 18, 2025, by an account on X called EndWokeness.

    The next day Musk replied to the post, “Some people just want to watch the world burn,” an iconic line from the 2008 Batman film “The Dark Knight.” Alfred, the Wayne family’s faithful butler, says the line to Bruce Wayne – Batman – to describe the motivations behind the Joker’s chaotic acts of violence.

    Musk – and Alfred – was right. Some people do, in fact, say they think that society should be burned to the ground. It’s part of a psychological measure political psychologists created called “need for chaos.”

    New data from the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware suggests that those people – the ones who want society to burn – are the ones with more, not less, trust in Musk. They also report more trust in the Department of Government Efficiency, the government entity Musk advises, which the Trump administration claims it created to cut government waste and fraud.

    Yet, critics point out that Musk and DOGE’s seemingly indiscriminate approach to spending cuts risks damaging the infrastructure necessary for American innovation.

    This desire to watch the world burn doesn’t come out of nowhere.

    Fear of losing status

    Somewhat like the Joker, whose perpetual sense of victimhood – “You wanna know how I got these scars?” – drove his need for chaos and destruction, people can develop a need for chaos in response to a sense that they are losing.

    When political psychologists introduced this concept of “need for chaos” in 2021, they described it not as a psychological trait, but as a character adaptation that occurs when some people experience a cultural and political situation that makes them feel like they are losing status and power. For some people, this feeling triggers a desire to “burn it all down” – “it” being society, institutions, the world – maybe to rebuild it all anew, or maybe just to see it all destroyed.

    Only a small percentage of the U.S. population – less than 15% – tends to score high in need for chaos. But even so, understanding this minority is important to gaining insight into this political moment.

    For example, people who score high in need for chaos exhibit greater support for political violence and a willingness to knowingly share hostile and false information online. And in our data, those higher in need for chaos report holding more trust in Musk, DOGE and Trump than people who score lower in the need for chaos measure.

    Who wants to burn it down

    We are political psychologists who study the link between psychological traits and political beliefs. Last month, the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication ran a national survey that we designed to understand where the public stands on various political issues and how those beliefs relate to psychological traits, including need for chaos.

    In our national study of 1,600 Americans conducted between Feb. 27-March 5, 2025, by YouGov, we asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

    • “I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over”

    • “I think society should be burned to the ground”

    • “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions; we need to tear them down and start over”

    • “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on”

    Similar to prior work by author Kevin Arceneaux and his colleagues, our data shows that a very small number – fewer than 20% of the sample – agrees strongly or agrees somewhat with each item.

    However, looking at need for chaos among groups of varying ages, education levels and media habits, we find the highest need for chaos scores among people under age 40, those with less education, and those who pay the least attention to politics.

    Burning it down through government policy

    Our new data also shows that while people highest in need for chaos report having more trust in Musk, DOGE, and President Trump, these chaos-seeking folks report having less trust in “people in general,” journalists or the federal government. These findings hold even when statistically accounting for other factors, among them party, race, gender, education and ideology.

    Musk’s penchant for wielding chainsaws as a symbol of DOGE’s work provides some insight into why chaos seekers may like what they see in Musk.

    It’s not clear exactly what Musk’s aim is with his work at DOGE, as he eliminates the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government workers.

    What is clear, however, is that by many accounts, the mass firings and the gutting of agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Institute for Peace, are sowing chaos. And a significant portion of Americans want just that.

    Dannagal G. Young receives funding from the Center for Political Communication Research Fund at the University of Delaware

    Kevin Arceneaux 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.

    – ref. A need for chaos powers some Americans’ support for Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the US government – https://theconversation.com/a-need-for-chaos-powers-some-americans-support-for-elon-musk-taking-a-chainsaw-to-the-us-government-253420

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Boat Race row is just the latest example of a century of academic dispute over teacher education

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Oliver Mumford, PhD Candidate in History of Education, Liverpool Hope University

    When the men’s and women’s boats took to the water for the 2025 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, a few students who would have hoped to be part of the crews were missing.

    Matt Heywood, Molly Foxell and Kate Crowley, all of Cambridge, did not take part after a complaint from Oxford University Boat Club over their eligibility was upheld by an independent panel. All three students are studying at Cambridge for PGCEs, a teacher training qualification. Oxford University Boat Club had argued that a PGCE “is a diploma … not a degree”.

    The decision seems to reflect a specific ideal of the university as a place of scholarly focus unencumbered by more practical vocational qualifications. It’s also far from a new attitude towards teacher education as an academic discipline.

    My ongoing PhD research into the history of teacher training shows that for a century, teacher education has maintained a complex and often conflicting relationship with the ivory and red brick towers of higher education.

    This has been reinforced by over a century of numerous gender- and class-based prejudices. Teaching has historically been, and continues to be, a female-dominant profession.

    Significantly, training colleges and university education departments were one of the few places where women could partake in intellectual and professional development, an opportunity which linked them to transnational, and colonial networks.

    Formalising teacher training

    From the 1840s, Christian residential colleges of varying denominations had come to dominate the training of teachers. These primarily provided courses of around two years for mostly female non-graduates.

    From the 1890s, English universities began their own involvement with professional teacher education. The university training departments offered a one-year postgraduate certificate course following three years of degree study – today the PGCE.

    In the complex mix of training colleges and university education departments, formalised teacher training occupied an uneasy position. It was not considered a “pure” subject like history or mathematics. It was also distinct from the traditionally male “applied” subjects, like medicine, engineering and law.

    In 1925, the Burnham report on teacher training considered the desirable balance between the intellectual and professional development of teachers. The majority opinion of the report considered teacher training as primarily vocational. It cautioned against undergraduate degrees for most trainee teachers.

    But it did lead to the establishment of a system whereby students were certified as teachers by a board of examiners drawn from universities and training colleges. This was the beginning of a set teaching qualification and brought teacher training into a closer relationship with universities.

    In 1944, another report contemplated the relationship between universities and teacher training. The members of the report committee held a range of views. Sir Arnold McNair, chancellor of the University of Liverpool, who chaired the report, feared vocational qualifications such as teaching could erode the purpose of universities. He was concerned that universities would become institutions of training, not education.

    But others thought differently. The report claimed that bringing together these two teacher training institutions – the colleges and universities – would improve the standard of teaching and the profession. Following the McNair report, institutes of education were established in the main universities of England and Wales alongside area training organisations. In this closer relationship, universities often assumed the senior positions.

    Teacher education in universities

    By the 1960s, a still closer relationship was forming between universities and teacher training, from both academic and administrative perspectives. University staff played greater roles teaching in teacher training colleges, for instance. An undergraduate teaching degree programme, the BEd, was introduced.

    Teaching became increasingly professionalised. From the 1970s, teacher training was transformed into an all-graduate profession, and later systematically dismantled. Many of the teacher training colleges faced closure, amalgamation or incorporation to polytechnics and universities. But dissenting opinions around the level of education – as opposed to vocational training – teachers should receive remained.

    Teaching became a graduate profession.
    Yuganov Konstantin/Shutterstock

    The preface to Cambridge academic Sheila Lawlor’s 1990 pamphlet, titled Teachers mistaught, bemoaned the rise of education as a subject and its presence in, rather than an adjunct to, higher education. In the pamphlet, Lawlor called for graduates to learn to be teachers “on the job”.

    The debate on the position of teacher training has remained remarkably consistent – unlike other subjects with vocational elements.

    Business schools feature courses taught and directed by companies. Business courses include vocational industry placements and are designed with employment in mind. But they do not so readily have their academic status or place in a university called into question. As this year’s Boat Race shows, the question over the value of vocational and academic education in teacher training is still very much alive.

    Oliver Mumford receives funding from Liverpool Hope University (Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship). He is the 2025 Ruth Watts Fellow with the History of Education Society UK.

    – ref. Boat Race row is just the latest example of a century of academic dispute over teacher education – https://theconversation.com/boat-race-row-is-just-the-latest-example-of-a-century-of-academic-dispute-over-teacher-education-254250

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump has shown he will backtrack on tariffs. What does that say about how to wage a trade war?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Antonio Navas, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Sheffield

    Countries can target products that they can produce themselves or source from other partners. darksoul72/Shutterstock

    Amid Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war with China, the world has been left in no doubt. Consistent with his campaign messaging, and going against the overwhelming majority of economists’ advice, it’s clear that the US president still loves tariffs. He is ready to use them as a bargaining tool – and also to change them on a whim.

    Countries responded to the tariffs announced on “liberation day” in different ways – before Trump backtracked and announced a 90-day pause. But China – which was not granted the pause – refused to back down. It hit back with extra tariffs of its own on US imports, affecting mainly agricultural goods.

    Before Trump announced the delay, the EU had also shown it was prepared to hit back (before climbing down itself in response to the pause). Meanwhile Canada had initially retaliated angrily with tariffs and consumer boycotts.

    This contrasts with the muted response of the UK government, despite the tariff on steel clearly affecting its economy. “Cool heads” are one thing. But knowing what we do now about how easily Trump changes his mind on this matter, is the UK following the right course of action?

    Economists have long studied the impact of trade wars and find no good news for the countries involved. Studies suggest that trade wars end up in high tariffs that are damaging to consumers in both of the nations involved.

    Recent studies of the 2018 US-China trade war, initiated by Trump, document that US citizens have suffered significantly since that time. The tariff was mostly passed on to US consumers, resulting in higher prices and less choice for shoppers. These offset any gains in government revenue and competitive advantage for domestic producers.

    Other evidence suggests that there was a significant decline in Chinese economic activity in sectors for which the US tariffs were introduced, such as solar panels and washing machines.

    So there’s clearly a lot to lose for both sides. Imposing tariffs on foreign goods may damage a nation’s own consumers. If that country is thinking of counterattacking with retaliatory tariffs, then it must consider what its ultimate goals are. It must also think of the price it is prepared to pay.

    Consider the next move

    Among the potential goals, two stand out. First, to convince the country initiating the trade war to drop its tariffs. And second, to avoid tariffs from other countries in future.

    An effective tariff retaliation should target selected goods. This minimises the negative impacts in the domestic economy and maximises the harm to the foreign economy. It can be achieved by targeting goods that have easy substitutes in the domestic economy – an example might be scotch whisky as a substitute for bourbon in the UK.

    And they should target products that are supported by powerful lobbies in the rival country. That could be, for example, sugar or soybeans in the US. When their sectors are hit, these lobby groups can flex their muscles to press governments for change or demand subsidies to cover their losses.

    But there can also be complicating factors – governments should be aware of global value chains and interlinked production between countries when targeting goods.

    Studies published after the first Trump administration found that in response to Trump’s 2018 tariffs, countries retaliated by targeting goods that could easily be substituted in their economies and which would hurt Trump’s voter base.

    This appears to mirror what the EU outlined in its now-paused retaliation plans, by slapping tariffs on key exports from states that voted for Trump in 2024. These products included soybeans, tobacco and steel. The bloc has also been considering new taxes against big US tech firms.

    This retaliatory strategy should increase pressure on the country that initiated the trade war to drop their initial tariffs. In theory, at least.

    The first US-China trade war, which resulted in five waves of tariffs and subsequent retaliations, concluded with a trade deal in January 2020. Under the deal, the US cut some of the tariffs and China committed to increase US imports by US$200 billion (£151 billion) over the next two years.

    It is difficult to say whether retaliatory tariffs played a role in the de-escalation of US-China tensions. But US businesses and consumers could indeed have felt the pain from tariffs on Chinese goods. This may have influenced the US’s willingness to negotiate.

    In a parallel trade war over US steel and aluminium in 2018, the EU imposed retaliatory tariffs on iconic US goods such as jeans and Harley-Davidson motorbikes. This led to the renegotiation of some of the tariffs in 2021. The tariffs were eventually paused under president Joe Biden’s administration.

    Trade wars harm both sides and negotiations should be the first tool to use when disputes arise. Given how unpredictable Trump is on this matter, the UK’s response of not rushing into retaliation seems like a sensible approach. But at the same time, it should keep the threat of tariffs on the table for any future negotiations. With Trump, all countries should remember to expect the unexpected.

    Antonio Navas 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.

    – ref. Trump has shown he will backtrack on tariffs. What does that say about how to wage a trade war? – https://theconversation.com/trump-has-shown-he-will-backtrack-on-tariffs-what-does-that-say-about-how-to-wage-a-trade-war-254265

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: First UK birth after womb transplant is a medical breakthrough – but raises important ethical questions

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Donovan, Lecturer in Law, University of Sheffield

    Costs and who will get access to the treatment are key questions that will need to be answered. Antonio Marca/ Shutterstock

    A baby girl named Amy Isabel has become the first child in the UK to be born to a mother who has had a womb transplant. Amy is one of around 65 children worldwide born as a result of pioneering research into the procedure.

    This breakthrough provides hope for many of the estimated 15,000 UK women with uterine factor infertility – which means they are unable to have children naturally due to problems with their womb, or because they were born without one. Previously, adoption and surrogacy were their only reproductive options. This latest success could some day make womb transplantation another option for these patients.

    However, before this new treatment is offered more widely, complex questions will need to be answered about how it will be resourced, how wombs will be procured and who will get access to the treatment.

    The cost of a transplant

    The first birth by a mother following a womb transplant happened in Sweden in 2014. Since then, the number of womb transplant programmes being established globally has greatly increased.

    The past 12 years have seen significant advances in the field. These include live births following a womb transplant from a deceased donor and the expansion of donor and recipient acceptance criteria. We’ve also seen the introduction of robotic-assisted surgery, which has made it possible to perform donor retrieval surgery in a faster, less invasive and more precise way.

    While most transplant centres only offer the procedure as part of research trials, several now offer it in clinic – including in the UK.

    The UK’s womb-transplant programme is currently funded by charitable donations from Womb Transplant UK, who currently only have plans to fund up to 15 living donor procedures. The procedure is expensive – costing the charity an estimated £25,000-£30,000. And it appears that this amount only covers the cost of the transplant, despite the fact that many other costs need to be factored in – such as IVF treatment, medications and follow-up care.

    At present, prospective recipients normally bear the costs of the IVF treatment needed themselves. To be eligible for the transplant, women must have first produced and stored at least five embryos. IVF is necessary as the transplanted uterus will not be connected to the patient’s ovaries. This means that pregnancy through sexual intercourse is not possible. But before womb transplants can become routinely available within the NHS, commissioners will have to decide whether this treatment should be publicly funded – and under what circumstances.

    On the face of it, public funding seems justified in the interests of patient autonomy and well-being. There are many psychological harms associated with infertility – such as depression, anxiety, stress and diminished quality of life. These harms must be taken seriously.

    However, NHS resources are constrained – and there is already a “postcode lottery” of unequal access to IVF, with people in certain areas of England being less able to access NHS treatment. So there’s a risk that similar inequalities will arise for womb transplants if the procedure is NHS-funded.

    Who gets priority?

    If womb transplants are ever to become a routine procedure in the UK, difficult decisions will also need to be made about organ allocation policies.

    According to the law in England, adults are considered to have agreed to become organ donors when they die unless they have opted out or are in an excluded group (such as those lacking mental capacity). However, this “deemed consent” only applies to commonly transplanted organs and tissues such as skin, hearts and lungs. It doesn’t apply to novel or rare transplants, which would include wombs. The NHS organ donor register also excludes the womb. Family members would therefore need to give explicit consent to the donation of their relative’s womb after death.

    Living organ donors in the UK are able to specify a named recipient (such as a family member). Deceased donors can also request for directed allocation to a specific person. But this is only permitted so long as the offer to donate is unconditional and certain criteria are met, such as the recipient being able to receive the organ and being in need of a transplant.

    More generally, since organs and tissues are scarce resources, complex policies are currently used to ensure fair and transparent allocation. Clinical need also guides allocation so that the sickest patients are prioritised for a transplant.

    However, the same logic cannot apply to womb transplants. This is because absolute uterine factor infertility does not come in degrees. All women with the condition have a 0% chance of becoming pregnant.

    As such, considerations that normally play no role in allocating life-saving organs could be explored in the context of womb transplantation. For instance, priority might be given to those who are childless. Age may also be relevant, especially given that the fertility treatment needed to create embryos is only funded by the NHS if a woman is below a certain age. The age limit varies by region, but can be as low as 35 in some places.

    Policy decisions will also be needed about whether wombs are included in donor registers to increase their supply. Even if they are, people may prove less willing to donate reproductive organs than lifesaving organs and tissues. These decisions could also have knock-on effects on public trust in transplantation and organ-donation willingness more widely. And the inclusion of novel and rare organs could lead to more blanket opt-outs from organ donation altogether.

    Next steps

    Given the relative novelty and experimental nature of the procedure, there has not yet been a comprehensive roll-out of womb transplants as a mainstream fertility treatment anywhere in the world. In the UK, we’re not even at the beginning of that journey. Before that happens, womb transplants would need to be demonstrably cost-effective relative to other NHS-funded fertility treatments.

    Nevertheless, there’s an opportunity here for the UK to become a world leader in creating and applying equitable access policies for womb transplants. To do this well, it will be necessary to carefully consider the clinical and health economic data, the ethical and legal issues, and the views of all those affected – especially those with uterine factor infertility.

    Laura O’Donovan has previously collaborated with members of the Womb Transplant UK research team.

    Nicola J. Williams currently receives funding from The Wellcome Trust (grant number: 222858_Z_21_Z) and previously held a Leverhulme ECR fellowship (grant number: ECF-2018-113). She is currently chair of the Special Interest Group: Ethics and Law for the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology and has previously collaborated with members of Womb Transplant UK.

    Stephen Wilkinson currently receives funding from Wellcome (grant number: 222858_Z_21_Z). He has previously collaborated with members of Womb Transplant UK. He is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB) but this article is a personal view and unrelated to his NCoB role.

    – ref. First UK birth after womb transplant is a medical breakthrough – but raises important ethical questions – https://theconversation.com/first-uk-birth-after-womb-transplant-is-a-medical-breakthrough-but-raises-important-ethical-questions-254154

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How mine water could warm up the UK’s forgotten coal towns

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jingyi Li, Research Associate, Geothermal Energy and Climate Change, University of Manchester

    Historic coal mining in north-east England. Jingyi Li, CC BY-NC-ND

    The Ukraine war sent shockwaves through global energy markets, driving up prices and leaving households across the UK struggling with soaring energy bills. But beneath the ground, in disused coal mines, lies a hidden resource – warm water. This underused geothermal source could be transformed into affordable, low-carbon heating for homes and businesses, especially in regions hardest hit economically by the decline of coal.

    Across the UK, around 25% of the population lives above disused coal mines. This underground warmth could be harnessed by pumping naturally warm water to the surface and using heat pumps to raise its temperature for heating. This could lower energy bills and cut emissions by about the same as removing 44,000 cars from the roads annually, according to our calculations. Despite this promise, mine-water heating remains largely underutilised across the UK, as deployment has lagged far behind, leaving most of the resource untapped.

    Although flagship projects like the one in Gateshead, operational since 2023, demonstrate the feasibility of mine-water heating in the UK, they remain the exception. Deployment has been especially slow even in high-potential areas like south Wales. Meanwhile, the mine-water heating scheme at Seaham Garden Village, near Sunderland, has only recently kicked off construction after a prolonged delay since its initial planning in 2019.

    Our new research shows that despite growing interest, projects across the UK continue to be stalled by funding gaps, regulatory hurdles and a shortage of skilled workers. Without immediate action, these former coal-mining communities are at risk of falling further behind as the country moves towards cleaner energy for net zero, widening the gap between wealthier and disadvantaged regions.

    The solution is simple but not easy: sufficient and accessible funding schemes especially for those undeserved communities, streamlined regulations and support from fossil fuel companies, whose engineering expertise can be applied to mine water heating. Technology could transform a forgotten coal legacy into a sustainable future for communities in need.

    Coal production history v today’s mining village.
    Jingyi Li, CC BY-NC-ND

    The UK has a vast network of abandoned coal mines, especially in north-east England, which once produced 14% of the nation’s coal. However, around a quarter of the population in this region lives below the poverty line today.

    Many households in the north east experience fuel poverty at rates higher than the national average, with energy bills that are often higher than in most other parts of England. Mine-water heating could help address this burden, but to make a meaningful difference, both the number and scale of schemes must be increased nationwide.

    Gateshead mine water heat scheme.
    Jingyi Li, CC BY-NC-ND

    However, current government funding schemes, like the heat networks delivery unit, only cover about 33% of capital costs according to our interviewee, leaving local authorities and developers to find the rest. This competitive model disadvantages poorer areas that need the most support. Without solid financial backing, many projects will never get off the ground.

    The Coal Authority has played a key role in piloting early mine water schemes, but industry feedback points to a need for faster, more transparent deployment pathways. Developers face regulatory uncertainty in accessing mine-water heat from the Coal Authority, citing delays and procedural complexity as barriers to investment.

    Ambiguities in the regulatory framework for accessing this form of geothermal heat create delays and add to the financial burden for developers. The expertise required, such as drilling and pipework, is common in the UK’s longstanding oil and gas industry, but our research found that the current small-to-medium scale and uncertain future of mine water heating sector make it difficult to attract these skilled workers.

    Learning from the past

    Often the simplest and most reliable designs are the most effective. William Reid Clanny, a 19th-century inventor, made mine-safety lamps more sophisticated but ultimately delicate and impractical – his design required manual air pumping, used fragile glass that broke easily underground, and was too heavy for regular use. The same principle applies to mine-water heating. Straightforward, direct policies can cut through red tape to get projects up and running without unnecessary bureaucratic complications.

    Simple safety lamps like these were used by UK miners.
    Image Seeker/Shutterstock

    For mine-water heating to work on a larger scale, funding must be easier to access, especially for regions hardest hit by the decline of coal. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero could allocate funds specifically for these areas, giving them a fair chance to develop projects without having to compete with wealthier regions.

    New rules should clearly set a timeline for gaining the permission to access and exploit the underground heat. This would give developers confidence and attract investment. The US and New Zealand show how clear rules can boost interest in renewables.

    To overcome the skills shortage, the Indian government introduced a corporate social responsibility law whereby companies are required to invest a portion of their profits into local projects. Applying this approach in the UK could encourage fossil fuel companies to fund training and support local green initiatives. It could also provide opportunities for laid-off workers unable to find similar high-paying jobs abroad and training for local workers in former mining communities.

    Mine water isn’t just a low-carbon heating source, it’s a chance to deliver justice to communities long left behind. But achieving this will require decisive action from policymakers. Unlocking this hidden resource can help power the UK’s green transition.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Cathy Hollis receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council. She is affiliated with and President of the International Association of Sedimentology, a not-for-profit, non-political scientific society.

    Alejandro Gallego Schmid and Jingyi Li 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.

    – ref. How mine water could warm up the UK’s forgotten coal towns – https://theconversation.com/how-mine-water-could-warm-up-the-uks-forgotten-coal-towns-241834

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Birth of India: ‘biggest experiment’ with democracy was a huge gamble. Happily the people have made it work – here’s how

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tripurdaman Singh, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

    The birth of Indian democracy is the stuff of legend. It was a moment of such staggering idealism and exuberance, a leap of faith so audacious, that the famous jurist and scholar Kenneth Wheare termed it “the biggest liberal experiment in democratic government” that the world had seen.

    At its centre lay the country’s new constitution. That document, with its fabled chapter of fundamental rights, transformed in one stroke what had been the world’s largest colony into the world’s largest democracy.

    Think about the origins of this constitution. It promised freedom to a fifth of humanity. It embodied the enfranchisement of the world’s largest electorate and the conversion of colonial subjects into rights-bearing citizens.

    This very exuberance has often been used to direct attention to its functional shortcomings. But today, 75 years on with Narendra Modi at the helm and the country classified in 2024 as an “electoral autocracy” by the V-Vdem (Varieties of Democracy) institute, it has also become a powerful tool to highlight Indian democracy’s contemporary problems.

    India’s notoriously fractured opposition was able to assemble a coalition to take on Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general election. It did so by appealing to the liberal vision underpinning the constitution. But have things really changed so much since the constitution’s adoption in 1950?



    Read more:
    Moments of hope: how Indians keep pushing back against the hollowing out of democracy

    Democracy in decline? The risk and rise of authoritarianism

    Democracy is under pressure around the world in 2025. But is this part of a larger historical cycle or does it signal a deeper, more fundamental shift? Join us for a free event in central London on May 8 to discuss these important questions. Come for a panel discussion and stay for food, drinks and conversation.
    Get tickets here

    Unlike its American counterpart, India’s constitution is not animated by the impulse to limit political power and secure public freedom. It is dominated by the idea of enabling political power for the aim of social and economic reform.

    It aimed to create a state explicitly committed to achieving what India founders believed to be social, economic and political justice. As the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru put it, they were freeing India “through a new constitution to feed the starving people and clothe the naked masses”.

    This is partly explained by the circumstances of independent India’s birth. This was marked by violence, the upheaval of partition and a fear of balkanisation if the country became fragmented by religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities.

    Added to this were the pressures of establishing political sovereignty. And this upheaval crashed against an uneducated and destitute population with no experience of democracy and deep-seated social divisions.

    But the larger truth is that, for independent India’s leaders, civil liberties were always eclipsed by what they saw as the more important concerns of destitution and social discrimination. They felt the urgency to secure the new state through which these concerns were to be addressed.

    This required substantial restrictions of civic freedoms and the licensing of coercive state power. From the outset, the constitution enshrined centralisation and executive supremacy.

    It retained the “bureaucratic authoritarianism” of its British colonial predecessor, by placing authority in the hands of appointed bureaucrats rather than elected officials.

    It also gave the centre power over the states, enabling it to create and dismember provinces at will, and it gave the executive power over the legislature. The government can dictate when parliament is summoned or prorogued and can rule by executive decree in its absence.

    It also gave the state power over the citizen. Almost every fundamental right guaranteed in part III of the constitution is qualified on nebulous grounds such as public order, the security of the state or social harmony.

    Soaring rhetoric about freedom masked the reality that the constitution concentrated power to an unprecedented degree and enabled a vast armoury of coercive laws. As Somnath Lahiri, member of the constituent assembly for Bengal and the leader of the Communist Party of India remarked sarcastically in a debate in April 1947, the provisions for fundamental rights seemed to have “been framed from the point of view of a police constable”.

    The Preventive Detention Act, the first piece of legislation passed in the new democratic republic in February 1950, allowed the government to preemptively jail anyone without a trial and without recourse to judicial review.

    It’s ample testament to the fact that the constitution was never intended as a bulwark in the service of liberal individualism – whatever the framers might have said at the time.

    Diluting liberalism

    Since the constitution’s adoption there have been more than 106 amendments and additions. These have further diluted the constitution’s liberal intentions and eroded even the limited system of checks and balances.

    The tenth schedule – or “anti-defection law” – added in 1985 is one egregious example. It forces individual legislators to vote according to party diktats on pain of disqualification.

    This has cemented the grip of party bosses on legislative parties, disempowered individual legislators and degraded parliamentary oversight. Since the threat of backbench rebellions has become negligible, majoritarianism has become entrenched.

    Concentration of power and its use by the executive are, by design, baked into India’s constitutional order and institutional structure, which has always been inhospitable terrain for any rights and freedoms beyond voting and elections. Anti-democratic tendencies operate through constitutional means, hindering the establishment of the principles of legality and legislative primacy.

    Given this situation, it is hardly surprising that almost all governments in India have used the powers they have been granted for these very purposes.

    Nehru’s rule saw a first amendment which drastically curtailed freedom of speech. It also introduced a special schedule in the constitution to protect unconstitutional legislation from judicial review, and draconian legislation such as the laws to enable preventive detention.

    Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution for 21 months from 1975 to 1977 in a state of emergency, when her leadership came under threat. Her government forcibly sterilised thousands as part of a botched population control programme. Yet everything was duly legal and constitutional.

    Modi’s growing authoritarianism, his attacks on opposition media and those who oppose him in the judiciary, then, are less a departure from the norm than a confirmation of it. The real story lies elsewhere.

    It is not the constitution or the legislature that is the most important issue here. It has actually been the disinclination of India’s voters to deliver parliamentary majorities too often that has constituted the major check on executive power.

    For 25 years between 1989 and 2014, voters delivered split mandates and coalition governments, which diluted and dispersed political power. Unsurprisingly, this caused the country’s democracy indices to rise. These actually peaked in the 2000s when the ruling coalitions comprised upwards of a dozen parties. But the underlying problems remained the same.

    When the voters, contrary to all expectations, elected yet another coalition to office in 2024, they understood what the country’s liberal intelligentsia has consistently failed to grasp. It is not the celebrated constitution, but the Indian voters themselves that have, over the years, doggedly held authoritarianism at bay. Only time will tell how long they will continue to do this.

    Tripurdaman Singh receives funding from the British Academy and from Fonds National Suisse. He is currently affiliated to the Geneva Graduate Institute, where I am an Ambizione Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.

    – ref. Birth of India: ‘biggest experiment’ with democracy was a huge gamble. Happily the people have made it work – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/birth-of-india-biggest-experiment-with-democracy-was-a-huge-gamble-happily-the-people-have-made-it-work-heres-how-252564

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: When dogs return to nature – just how domesticated are our pooches really?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jacqueline Boyd, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Nottingham Trent University

    Photobox.ks/Shutterstock

    It’s hard to imagine a beloved pet dog surviving in the world. But reports of a 4 kg miniature dachshund looking well 500 days after she escaped during a family holiday is raising questions about how dependent our dogs really are on their humans. Our loyal pooches may be less domesticated than we like to think.

    In November 2023, Valerie, a black and tan dachshund, went on holiday with her family. They visited Kanagaroo island off the south Australian coast, an area famous for its wildlife, including koalas and sea lions. During the holiday, Valerie vanished from her family’s campsite.

    Initially there were local sightings of Valerie, wearing her little pink collar, but she refused to be caught and gradually, reported sightings slowed. Her owners were shocked she had survived even one night alone because she was a pampered dog who “never left” their side.

    Now, well over a year since she went missing, Valerie has been sighted again still apparently choosing to be wild and free. A local wildlife rescue organisation is trying to track and catch Valerie with cameras and traps to return the plucky pooch home.

    Dependent dogs?

    Dogs and humans have lived together for more than 15,000 years, longer than any other domesticated animal. During that time, dogs have changed considerably from their early ancestors both physically and behaviourally. This is a result of human preferences and selection for particular characteristics, such as flat faces as seen in pugs, or working ability.

    The close relationship we typically have with dogs as friends and family members makes it easy to view them as dependent upon us.

    The reality however, is probably a little less “Lassie come home” and more “the call of the wild”.

    Not all dogs are pets

    The global dog population is estimated to be around 500 million. The majority of these dogs live on the edges of human society as feral, pariah or street dogs and are often viewed as pests rather than cuddly companions. These dogs largely exist on human-derived food sources including waste and faecal matter, but otherwise generally live successfully, independent of human care and management.

    Dogs evolved as highly efficient scavengers, eating a mixed diet. Many of those traits remain in our canine companions. Pet dog behaviour we often label problematic, including counter-surfing and poop eating, stems from their scavenging characteristics.

    This means that even dogs living lives of luxury can survive in extreme situations. This might help to explain Valerie’s apparent independence on Kangaroo Island, where she is presumed to be living on roadkill, carrion and natural fresh water.

    The abundant wildlife on the island, such as birds and small rodents, might partly account for Valerie’s success, especially as dachshunds were developed as hunting dogs, shaped for squeezing into animal burrows. Even highly domesticated dogs have been known to hunt independently and cooperatively with each other. One report from the 1990s, describes a pack of dogs hunting humans in Newfoundland, Canada, after they were abandoned on a remote island.

    The dogs of Chernobyl also reveal their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. A population of dogs survives in the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was destroyed in a catastrophic incident in 1986. These dogs probably originate from strays or once-loved family pets who were released immediately following the accident and have diverged to two separate breeding populations. Notably, the dogs of Chernobyl appear to be surviving and breeding successfully, without direct human intervention.

    Homeward bound

    Despite the evidence suggesting that Valerie and her canine cousins might have impressive survival skills, this can create challenges for other animals.

    Dogs can be problematic in many ecosystems causing damage and spreading disease. This applies to our beloved pets as well as stray and free-living dogs. Cases of domestic dogs interbreeding with local wildlife,, including foxes and endangered species, are concerning for conservationists.

    So efforts to return Valerie back home are important for the island wildlife too.

    When dogs go missing, the vast majority return home quickly and safely. Occasionally stories of faithful dogs finding their family hit the headlines, but these stories are the exception to the norm and many lost pets sadly never return to their original home.

    Part of responsible canine caregiving is ensuring that dogs wear identification, and are microchipped, so that if found, they can be quickly returned home. Combining this with essential skills such as recall can go a long way to keeping your dog safe.

    Should the worst happen and your dog does go missing, seek professional advice from local dog wardens, walkers and vets. Many lost dogs will quickly enter survival mode, making even the most human-oriented dog wary of people, including their family members. This means experienced advice is essential.

    Valerie the valiant dachshund gives us a fascinating insight to the survival capabilities and behavioural adaptability of our domestic dogs. Hopefully it won’t be too long before she is safely returned to her home comforts.

    Jacqueline Boyd is affiliated with The Kennel Club (UK) through membership and as advisor to the Health Advisory Group. Jacqueline is a full member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT #01583) and she also writes, consults and coaches on canine matters on an independent basis, in addition to her academic affiliation at Nottingham Trent University.

    – ref. When dogs return to nature – just how domesticated are our pooches really? – https://theconversation.com/when-dogs-return-to-nature-just-how-domesticated-are-our-pooches-really-253265

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Does Russia have military interest in Indonesia? Here’s what we know – and why Australia would be concerned

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Associate Professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

    A news report that Russia has sought to base long-range aircraft in Indonesia caught Australia’s political leaders by surprise during an already hectic election campaign.

    The military publication Janes reported on Tuesday that Russia had requested permission for its aircraft to be based at the Manuhua Air Force Base in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua.

    The base is just 1,300 kilometres away from Darwin.

    Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles issued a statement denying the report, saying his Indonesian counterpart assured him there would be no Russian planes based in Indonesia. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was seeking “further clarification” with Jakarta about the Janes report.

    Janes is a respected outlet when it comes to defence news, so it’s likely the Russians did float the idea, even if it might have been done at lower levels.

    Why would Russia be cosying up to Indonesia?

    Since Prabowo Subianto came to power as Indonesia’s new president last October, Moscow and Jakarta have sought to deepen their military ties. In fact, the two countries conducted their first-ever joint naval exercises a month after Prabowo took office.

    But this isn’t a totally new strategy by Moscow, which has tried on numerous occasions to pivot to Asia to give itself more economic heft and leverage in the region.

    The Kremlin is also cognisant that Europe won’t be a friend for the foreseeable future. As such, it’s even more pressing for Russia to establish itself as a player in the Indo-Pacific region – and with that comes a miltary and security presence.

    About ten years ago, for instance, the Russian regime secured an agreement with Vietnam to allow its air force to refuel their aircraft at a former US base in the country. Russia also had interest in reestablishing a submarine base in Vietnam and has sold submarines to the country.

    In addition, Moscow has sought to sell defence technology and fighter jets to Indonesia for some time, seeing it as a potentially lucrative market for Russian arms. Beyond defence, the bilateral relationship has also focused on energy and education.

    These attempts to deepen Moscow-Jakarta ties form part of a targeted Russian campaign to boost its relationships with a number of Southeast Asian nations.

    What about the timing?

    If the Janes report is accurate, the timing of the purported approach from Russia would be interesting. The report said it came after a meeting between Sergei Shoigu (recently demoted from Russia’s defence minister to an inferior role as secretary of the Russian Security Council) and Indonesia’s defence minister in February of this year.

    At the time, the United States was distracted by the first chaotic weeks of US President Donald Trump’s second term in office.

    So, if Russia did make such a request, it would be highly opportunistic, especially given Jakarta has been keen to deepen ties with Moscow.

    It is also noteworthy that Indonesia recently joined the BRICS, the group of rapidly emerging economies that also includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Russia, among others.



    Read more:
    Indonesia’s BRICS agenda: 2 reasons Prabowo’s foreign policy contrasts with Jokowi’s

    How concerned should Australia be?

    Even though both Canberra and Jakarta dismissed the report, there was good reason for Australia to be concerned.

    Russia’s long-range aviation assets, notably the venerable Tu-95, which is used for reconnaissance as well as strategic bombing, can easily travel over 10,000 kilometres.

    From a base in Indonesia, this would give the Russian air force the ability to conduct ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaisance) missions during Australian military exercises, gather data on military installations in the Northern Territory (which also host US Marines), and even conduct surveillance on US military activities in Guam.

    Equally, given the closeness of ties between Beijing and Moscow, any Russian intelligence that was gathered could be shared with China.

    The reported Russian military interest in Indonesia will also have irritated Australian foreign policy makers, especially since Canberra has invested significant diplomatic capital in boosting Australia-Indonesia ties.

    Fortunately, the closeness of the relationship, which includes recently upgraded defence ties, will also have allowed for some plain speaking from Australian interlocutors.

    They will doubtless have pointed out that agreeing to any such Kremlin request would cast significant doubt on Indonesian claims about non-alignment. It would also be viewed unfavourably by other regional actors, who have no interest in seeing an enhanced Russian military presence in the region.

    The assurance from Jakarta that no Russian planes would be based in Indonesia is therefore a positive development.

    But ultimately the reported Russian request is another example of the messy and fragmented world we now live in.

    It highlights the reality that Australia will sometimes have to do business with partners who have friends we don’t like. Under those conditions, being firm on issues that threaten our national interests – like the prospective basing of military assets by a hostile power close to our shores – becomes all the more important.

    Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Atlantic Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute and various Australian government departments and agencies.

    – ref. Does Russia have military interest in Indonesia? Here’s what we know – and why Australia would be concerned – https://theconversation.com/does-russia-have-military-interest-in-indonesia-heres-what-we-know-and-why-australia-would-be-concerned-254601

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election Diary: for a few hours, it seemed possible the Russians might be coming

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    For a few hours on Tuesday afternoon, it seemed just possible the Russians might be sending their planes to a base very near us.

    A claim on the military and intelligence site Janes that said the Russians were seeking to base several long range aircraft in Papua, a province of Indonesia, caused a massive flurry on the election trail.

    It gave heart to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton that national security might be brought into play as an election issue.

    Dutton was quick to recall how in 2022 the Labor opposition jumped on the Morrison government for apparently being caught by surprise at what was going on in the Pacific, when a security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands turned into a campaign issue.

    Had the Albanese government been caught unawares?

    The Janes report said: “Jakarta has received an official request from Moscow, seeking permission for Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft to be based at a facility in Indonesia’s easternmost province.

    “Separate sources from the Indonesian government have confirmed with Janes that the request was received by the office of Minister of Defence Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin following his meeting with Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu in February 2025.

    “In the request, Russia seeks to base several long-range aircraft at the Manuhua Air Force Base, which shares a runway with the Frans Kaisiepo Airport, documents that have been presented to Janes reveal.

    “The airbase is situated in Biak Numfor in the Indonesian province of Papua, and it is home to the Indonesian Air Force’s Aviation Squadron 27, which operates a fleet of CN235 surveillance aircraft.”

    The government sought urgent clarification, while Dutton – now struggling in the polls – sought to score a quick political point without waiting for confirmation. Both government and opposition agreed on one thing, however: nobody wanted to see the Russians get such a foothold.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “We are seeking further information, we obviously do not want to see Russian influence in our region, very clearly.”

    “We have a good relationship with our friends in Indonesia, and we’re seeking further clarification.”

    Dutton said it would be “a catastrophic failure of diplomatic relations if Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese didn’t have forewarning” about such a Russian move before it was made public.

    “This is a very, very troubling development. The prime minister and the foreign affairs minister should have the depth of relationship with Indonesia to have had forewarning of this,” Dutton said.

    “My message to President Putin is that he’s not welcome in our neighbourhood. We don’t share any values with President Putin, and we do not want a presence, a military presence, from Russia in our region, which would be destabilising for south-east Asia.”

    Late Tuesday, the air went out of the balloon.

    In a statement Defence Minister Richard Marles said, “I have spoken to my counterpart, HE Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin the Minister for Defence, and he has said to me in the clearest possible terms, reports of the prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are simply not true”.

    Earlier Marles said that last year Australia signed a defence cooperation agreement with Indonesia, “which really is the deepest level defence agreement we’ve ever had with Indonesia”.

    “We are seeing increasing cooperation between Australia and Indonesia at a defence level.”

    Michelle Grattan 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.

    – ref. Election Diary: for a few hours, it seemed possible the Russians might be coming – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-for-a-few-hours-it-seemed-possible-the-russians-might-be-coming-254604

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: A weird phrase is plaguing scientific papers – and we traced it back to a glitch in AI training data

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron J. Snoswell, Research Fellow in AI Accountability, Queensland University of Technology

    Google Deepmind / Unsplash

    Earlier this year, scientists discovered a peculiar term appearing in published papers: “vegetative electron microscopy”.

    This phrase, which sounds technical but is actually nonsense, has become a “digital fossil” – an error preserved and reinforced in artificial intelligence (AI) systems that is nearly impossible to remove from our knowledge repositories.

    Like biological fossils trapped in rock, these digital artefacts may become permanent fixtures in our information ecosystem.

    The case of vegetative electron microscopy offers a troubling glimpse into how AI systems can perpetuate and amplify errors throughout our collective knowledge.

    A bad scan and an error in translation

    Vegetative electron microscopy appears to have originated through a remarkable coincidence of unrelated errors.

    First, two papers from the 1950s, published in the journal Bacteriological Reviews, were scanned and digitised.

    However, the digitising process erroneously combined “vegetative” from one column of text with “electron” from another. As a result, the phantom term was created.

    Excerpts from scanned papers show how incorrectly parsed column breaks lead to the term ‘vegetative electron micro…’ being introduced.
    Bacteriological Reviews

    Decades later, “vegetative electron microscopy” turned up in some Iranian scientific papers. In 2017 and 2019, two papers used the term in English captions and abstracts.

    This appears to be due to a translation error. In Farsi, the words for “vegetative” and “scanning” differ by only a single dot.

    Screenshot from Google Translate showing the similarity of the Farsi terms for ‘vegetative’ and ‘scanning’.
    Google Translate

    An error on the rise

    The upshot? As of today, “vegetative electron microscopy” appears in 22 papers, according to Google Scholar. One was the subject of a contested retraction from a Springer Nature journal, and Elsevier issued a correction for another.

    The term also appears in news articles discussing subsequent integrity investigations.

    Vegetative electron microscopy began to appear more frequently in the 2020s. To find out why, we had to peer inside modern AI models – and do some archaeological digging through the vast layers of data they were trained on.

    Empirical evidence of AI contamination

    The large language models behind modern AI chatbots such as ChatGPT are “trained” on huge amounts of text to predict the likely next word in a sequence. The exact contents of a model’s training data are often a closely guarded secret.

    To test whether a model “knew” about vegetative electron microscopy, we input snippets of the original papers to find out if the model would complete them with the nonsense term or more sensible alternatives.

    The results were revealing. OpenAI’s GPT-3 consistently completed phrases with “vegetative electron microscopy”. Earlier models such as GPT-2 and BERT did not. This pattern helped us isolate when and where the contamination occurred.

    We also found the error persists in later models including GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5. This suggests the nonsense term may now be permanently embedded in AI knowledge bases.

    Screenshot of a command line program showing the term ‘vegetative electron microscopy’ being generated by GPT-3.5 (specifically, the model gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct). The top 17 most likely completions of the provided text are ‘vegetative electron microscopy’, and these suggestions are 2.2 times more likely than the next most likely prediction.
    OpenAI

    By comparing what we know about the training datasets of different models, we identified the CommonCrawl dataset of scraped internet pages as the most likely vector where AI models first learned this term.

    The scale problem

    Finding errors of this sort is not easy. Fixing them may be almost impossible.

    One reason is scale. The CommonCrawl dataset, for example, is millions of gigabytes in size. For most researchers outside large tech companies, the computing resources required to work at this scale are inaccessible.

    Another reason is a lack of transparency in commercial AI models. OpenAI and many other developers refuse to provide precise details about the training data for their models. Research efforts to reverse engineer some of these datasets have also been stymied by copyright takedowns.

    When errors are found, there is no easy fix. Simple keyword filtering could deal with specific terms such as vegetative electron microscopy. However, it would also eliminate legitimate references (such as this article).

    More fundamentally, the case raises an unsettling question. How many other nonsensical terms exist in AI systems, waiting to be discovered?

    Implications for science and publishing

    This “digital fossil” also raises important questions about knowledge integrity as AI-assisted research and writing become more common.

    Publishers have responded inconsistently when notified of papers including vegetative electron microscopy. Some have retracted affected papers, while others defended them. Elsevier notably attempted to justify the term’s validity before eventually issuing a correction.

    We do not yet know if other such quirks plague large language models, but it is highly likely. Either way, the use of AI systems has already created problems for the peer-review process.

    For instance, observers have noted the rise of “tortured phrases” used to evade automated integrity software, such as “counterfeit consciousness” instead of “artificial intelligence”. Additionally, phrases such as “I am an AI language model” have been found in other retracted papers.

    Some automatic screening tools such as Problematic Paper Screener now flag vegetative electron microscopy as a warning sign of possible AI-generated content. However, such approaches can only address known errors, not undiscovered ones.

    Living with digital fossils

    The rise of AI creates opportunities for errors to become permanently embedded in our knowledge systems, through processes no single actor controls. This presents challenges for tech companies, researchers, and publishers alike.

    Tech companies must be more transparent about training data and methods. Researchers must find new ways to evaluate information in the face of AI-generated convincing nonsense. Scientific publishers must improve their peer review processes to spot both human and AI-generated errors.

    Digital fossils reveal not just the technical challenge of monitoring massive datasets, but the fundamental challenge of maintaining reliable knowledge in systems where errors can become self-perpetuating.

    Aaron J. Snoswell receives funding from the Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project “Generative AI and the future of academic writing and publishing” (DP250100074) and has previously received research funding from OpenAI.

    Kevin Witzenberger receives funding from the Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project “Generative AI and the future of academic writing and publishing” (DP250100074)

    Rayane El Masri 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.

    – ref. A weird phrase is plaguing scientific papers – and we traced it back to a glitch in AI training data – https://theconversation.com/a-weird-phrase-is-plaguing-scientific-papers-and-we-traced-it-back-to-a-glitch-in-ai-training-data-254463

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Labor surges to 7-point lead in Resolve poll, and has sizeable leads in two other national polls

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

    The significant turn-around in the federal polls ahead of the 2025 federal election, with the momentum now moving firmly in Labor’s direction.

    A national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted April 9–13 from a sample of 1,642, gave Labor a 53.5–46.5 lead, a 3.5-point gain for Labor since the previous Resolve poll that was conducted after the March 25 budget. In late February, the Coalition had led by 55–45 in Resolve, so this is a big turnaround for Labor.

    Primary votes were 34% Coalition (down three), 31% Labor (up two), 13% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (down one), 12% independents (up three) and 5% others (steady).

    Independents were probably offered as an option everywhere. Future Resolve polls are likely to account for the declaration of nominations on Friday by giving voters in each seat a full ballot readout. Only viable independents will attract significant support, so the overall independent vote will drop.

    The preferencing method isn’t stated, but Resolve has used respondent preferences for its headline in its previous polls. By 2022 election preference flows, this poll would be about 53.5–46.5 to Labor, so it’s likely there was no difference between the two methods.

    Anthony Albanese’s net approval surged 12 points to +1, with 45% saying he was doing a good job and 44% a poor job. Albanese had suffered negative double digit ratings for more than a year. Peter Dutton’s net approval slumped eight points to -18. Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 46–30 (42–33 previously).

    Now 68% believed Donald Trump’s election was bad for Australia, up from 60% in the post-budget poll that was taken before the stock market slump that followed Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement on April 2.

    On Trump’s influence on the election, 33% said it made them less likely to vote for the Coalition while 14% said more likely (35–15 with uncommitted voters). When this question was asked of Labor, it was 22% more likely to vote Labor and 21% less likely (24–24 with uncommitted).

    The Liberals continued to lead Labor on economic management by 36–31 (36–29 previously). On keeping the cost of living low, Labor and the Liberals were tied at 30–30 (31–27 to the Liberals previously). The last time the Liberals didn’t lead on cost of living was in October 2023.

    Two other national polls also had Labor gaining, with Labor now leading by 50–45 including undecided in Essential, and by 54.5–45.5 in Morgan. Here is the poll graph.

    With Labor’s two-party vote between 52% and 54.5% in the five most recent national polls (YouGov, Newspoll, Essential, Morgan and Resolve), they would be very likely to win a majority in the House of Representatives if the election results reflect this polling.

    Single-member systems are not proportional. If Labor wins the national two-party vote by about 53–47, they will win a large majority of the seats in two-party terms against the Coalition. While Labor would lose some of their two-party win seats to Greens and independents, they would still win enough seats for a clear House majority.

    Does the Coalition have any chance?

    The current polls were taken after a period of stock market turmoil following Trump’s tariffs announcement. If there are no more major stock market slumps before the May 3 election, perhaps the Coalition can recover. Or Albanese could perform badly in Wednesday night’s ABC debate with Dutton. In-person early voting begins next Tuesday, so there’s less time left for recovery before many votes are cast.

    The current polls all used respondent preferences for their headline, but there was no difference between respondent and 2022 election flows. Previously, polls were showing a difference of about one point in the Coalition’s favour. The Trump effect has increased Labor’s share of respondent preferences.

    The Coalition’s main chance is that the polls are overstating Labor. In 2022, Labor’s primary vote was overstated, but preference flows were better for Labor than expected, causing cancellation of errors. In 2019, the polls suggested Labor would win by 51.5–48.5, but they lost by that margin.

    In the US, polls have understated Trump in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections. I don’t believe that we should expect the polls are overstating Labor just because they overstated them in 2019 and 2022. But this is the Coalition’s best hope of an unexpected good result on election night.

    Essential poll: Labor gains five-point lead

    A national Essential poll, conducted April 9–13 from a sample of 2,254 (double the normal sample), gave Labor a 50–45 lead including undecided by respondent preferences (a 48–47 Labor lead in the post-budget Essential poll). This is Labor’s biggest lead in Essential since October 2023. If the undecided were excluded, Labor would lead by 53–47 according to The Guardian’s poll report.

    Primary votes were 32% Coalition (down two), 31% Labor (up one), 13% Greens (up one), 9% One Nation (steady), 2% Trumpet of Patriots (steady), 9% for all Others (up one) and 4% undecided (down one). By 2022 election flows, this would give Labor about a 53–47 lead.

    Albanese’s net approval was down one to -3 (47% disapprove, 44% approve), while Dutton’s net approval was down three to -9, his worst in Essential since May 2023. Albanese was trusted over Dutton on addressing cost of living by 34–28. By 50–33, voters thought the country was on the wrong track (52–32 previously).

    By 49–18, voters wanted Australia’s annual immigration intake to decrease, with 33% wanting it to stay about the same. By 81–19, voters said they don’t pay for news via subscriptions or donations. On where they get information about news and current events, 54% selected commercial media, 24% public broadcasters, 14% social media influencers and 7% podcasters.

    Morgan poll: Labor gains nine-point lead

    A national Morgan poll, conducted April 7–13 from a sample of 1,708, gave Labor a 54.5–45.5 lead by headline respondent preferences, a one-point gain for Labor since the March 31 to April 4 Morgan poll.

    Primary votes were 33.5% Coalition (up 0.5), 32% Labor (down 0.5), 14.5% Greens (up one), 6% One Nation (steady), 1% Trumpet of Patriots (down 0.5), 10% independents (up one) and 3% others (down 1.5). By 2022 election flows, this gave Labor an unchanged 54.5–45.5 lead.

    By 48.5–34.5, voters thought the country was going in the wrong direction (52–33 previously). This is the smallest lead for wrong direction since September 2023. Morgan’s consumer confidence index was down 2.6 points to 84.2.

    Adrian Beaumont 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.

    – ref. Labor surges to 7-point lead in Resolve poll, and has sizeable leads in two other national polls – https://theconversation.com/labor-surges-to-7-point-lead-in-resolve-poll-and-has-sizeable-leads-in-two-other-national-polls-254516

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Renting a home in Australia means handing over too much sensitive info. It’s a national security risk

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Moataz ElQadi, Adjunct Researcher, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University

    Daria Nipot/Shutterstock

    Our personal information is more valuable than ever. The most recent government cyber threat report warns that foreign state actors have an “enduring interest” in obtaining sensitive and personally identifiable information about Australians.

    In recent weeks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese noted “there is a cyber attack in Australia roughly every six minutes. This is a regular issue.”

    In some situations, it can be difficult to protect our info even when we’re aware of the risks. Notably, in Australia many rental providers and their agents collect, store and disclose excessive personal information on potential tenants. Sometimes, they collect more info than what’s needed to get a government security clearance.

    With about one-third of Australian households being renters, the handling of renters’ data is a major concern for Australia’s information security.

    So what information are real estate agents collecting, and how can we mitigate the risks?

    Steep competition for rentals

    For several years now, Australia has faced a rental crisis. Low vacancy rates – below 1% in some capital cities – not only drive up rental prices, but can result in “bidding wars” over rentals.

    With renters competing for housing, rental providers are empowered to command larger rent increases. They also require potential tenants to provide extensive personal information.

    For tenants, sharing – or oversharing – of personal information in the hope of securing a home might seem acceptable.

    However, the collection and handling of this information raises serious security concerns. If Australians’ sensitive personal data falls into the hands of cyber criminals, or foreign agents, this has security implications for the entire nation.

    What info are renters asked for?

    Potential tenants need to provide information to the satisfaction of the real estate agent and their client, the rental provider. This information is increasingly collected online via rental application websites where the form questions are controlled by real estate agents.

    The websites themselves are subject to the Australian Privacy Act 1988, but the data is handed over to real estate agents and owners.

    The rental application websites seem to recognise that this information is extensive: one rental application website started selling a privacy service where they vouch for the applicant instead of sharing their information with the real estate agents.

    In some cases, the requested data matches or even exceeds the requirements for a government security clearance. The Australian Government Security Vetting Agency (AGSVA) has a clear public privacy statement. It explains how data is collected and handled and used only for the assessment of a security clearance. Rental providers don’t necessarily follow the same stringent rules.

    Information collected by some rental application forms may include five or more years of address history. Others request five or more years of employment history. In addition, financial information such as payslips and bank statements are also required.

    Other sensitive – and irrelevant – information includes vehicle registration numbers and pet names.

    Potential tenants are also usually asked to attach personal identification documents including passports, driver licences and Medicare cards. They may be asked to list up to two personal and one business references.

    A rental agent may require five years of employment history.
    Author provided

    If any of this information falls into the wrong hands, it easily exposes the person to social engineering, personalised scams or identity and account theft.

    Who can access the info?

    The names of family members and pet names are a common – albeit unsafe – choice of password. The rental application forms collect both. In Australia, research by Telstra and YouGov found that 20% of Australians used pets’ names as passwords, and 17% used their birth dates.

    Pet names may be required on rental applications. This can give away some people’s passwords.
    Author provided

    If a rental provider, or their agent, shares applicant information with others, it can be a security breach. This makes the storage, handling and sharing of this information by private rental providers a major concern.

    Rental agency agreements commonly state that personal information can be disclosed to “any person who maintains any record, listing or database of defaults by tenants.” This policy, which a tenant has to accept, is already loose.

    More importantly, after the information is sent to the owner of the rental property, there is no visibility as to who that is, or what they do with the information.

    Example of a privacy agreement on a rental application form.
    Author provided

    Too much info to rent a home

    Having to share extensive personal information is more than an inconvenience for renters – it’s a serious security concern. The government should put explicit limits on personal information requested by rental providers.

    One technological solution to this problem could be “access tokens” provided by banks. People in Australia are protected by the Consumer Data Right. This allows consumers to authorise a data holder, such as a bank, to share data with an accredited recipient.

    Australian banks are held to strict information security requirements. They already handle highly sensitive data, such as client identity, income sources and other financial information.

    If real estate agents require proof of this info to vet potential rental applicants, they could request it through an authorisation token with the applicant’s bank. This way, proof of identity and financial status could be shared without having to disclose actual sensitive personal information, limiting the cyber security risk.

    In the meantime, rental providers and their agents should request the least possible amount of personal information – it’s the responsible thing to do.

    The article gives the example of the Consumer Data Right, a government standard managed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Moataz ElQadi worked previously for the ACCC, in a different team.

    – ref. Renting a home in Australia means handing over too much sensitive info. It’s a national security risk – https://theconversation.com/renting-a-home-in-australia-means-handing-over-too-much-sensitive-info-its-a-national-security-risk-254293

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What’s the difference between Easter egg chocolate and regular chocolate?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Murray, Senior Lecturer, nutrition, Swinburne University of Technology

    Stefanie Mohr Photography/Shutterstock

    With Easter around the corner, you’ll have seen chocolate Easter eggs on supermarket shelves. Maybe you’ve bought some already.

    But is there a difference between Easter chocolate and the everyday kind? Does Easter chocolate really taste better, as some people say?

    As we’ll see, any difference is less about the ingredients and more about how we experience the chocolate when we eat it.

    What do they contain?

    When we compared the ingredients and nutrients of Easter egg chocolate and regular chocolate from the same company, we found no major differences.

    Cadbury Dairy Milk hollow easter egg and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate block both contain per 100 gram:

    • about 2,200 kilojoules of energy

    • 7g protein

    • 31g fat

    • 55g sugar

    Both products have a minimum 24% milk solids. The egg has a marginally higher percentage of cocoa solids (28%) than the block (27%).

    So if they contain pretty much the same ingredients, what else is going on?

    It’s more about the taste, texture and smell

    The difference between Easter chocolate and regular chocolate is more about how we experience the flavour of chocolate – via taste, texture and smell.

    Taste is the recognition of simple ingredients dissolving in saliva and entering the taste pores on our tongue. In the case of chocolate, we perceive the taste as sweet (sugar), fatty (cocoa butter) and potentially bitter (caffeine and other cocoa-based compounds).

    However, texture and smell make us most likely to tell the difference between Easter and regular chocolate.

    The mouth is incredibly sensitive to the texture of foods. We perceive multiple physical qualities of a food, which we call “mouthfeel”.

    Smoothness, creaminess and mouthcoating (for example, an oily feeling) are important components of chocolate’s mouthfeel.

    Consumers also expect round-shaped chocolate to be creamier than angular-shape chocolate.

    So even before we’ve taken a bite, we perceive a chocolate egg will be creamier than a block. These expectations can shape how we experience the flavour of chocolate.

    However, if the chocolate egg is not as creamy as expected, this can be disappointing.

    But it tastes so good!
    ibragimova/Shutterstock

    The temperature at which chocolate is made and stored also impacts its texture. Sometimes chocolate gets a whitish haze on its surface called chocolate bloom. This is when the fat and sugar separate from each other, forming fat or sugar crystals.

    It is safe to eat chocolate with bloom, but it may taste less creamy or more gritty than chocolate without bloom.

    Because the demand is so high during Easter, chocolate manufacturers sometimes use rapid-cooling techniques to produce hollow Easter eggs at a faster rate. This may make them more susceptible to chocolate bloom. Cheaper Easter chocolates using these rapid procedures may have a different texture than chocolate made the traditional way.

    Finally, smell contributes the most to how we perceive flavour in foods. When chocolate starts to melt in our mouth, aromas are released. These aromas make their way through the back of the nose where we smell the complex scents and notes of chocolate. Depending on the chocolate, this could include fruity, earthy, buttery or floral aromas.

    The shape of chocolate

    We’ve already heard the shape of chocolate influences how creamy we think it is. But the shape of chocolate also influences other aspects of our eating experience.

    Easter chocolate in the shape of an egg or an animal provides a large contact area inside the mouth meaning it will melt faster than a block. This impacts how quickly aroma compounds are released from the chocolate.

    Biting into hollow chocolate, such as eggs and animals, may also require more time to chew and swallow. This results in Easter chocolate spending longer in our mouths with a greater release of aromas. This means we perceive a greater intensity or diversity of flavours compared to eating small squares.

    Biting into hollow chocolate means a greater release of aromas.
    wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

    Are you a sucker or a chewer?

    How someone eats chocolate can also change its flavour. One study categorised people who ate chocolate as “suckers” or “chewers”.

    Chewers tend to swallow chocolate more quickly and may perceive it to have a weaker flavour because of the shorter time for aromas to be released.

    So how a person eats Easter chocolate may also impact whether they prefer it over regular chocolate.

    Easter is only once a year

    Last of all, eating Easter eggs (and hunting for them) are often part of a shared family ritual. This can make Easter chocolate seem special. No wonder we enjoy the whole Easter egg experience.

    So whether you are a sucker or a chewer, Easter is a great time to slow down and celebrate with loved ones. Enjoy and savour your Easter chocolate in moderation, egg-shaped or otherwise.

    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.

    – ref. What’s the difference between Easter egg chocolate and regular chocolate? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-easter-egg-chocolate-and-regular-chocolate-252026

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Social media is the new election battleground. Is embracing influencers smart, risky or both?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Grantham, Lecturer in Communication, Griffith University

    From Abbie Chatfield and Hannah Ferguson to Ozzy Man, influencers have never been more central to an Australian election campaign.

    Much has been made of the increasingly common site of politicians on TikTok or Instagram reels. Some political groups don’t like it, as don’t some in traditional media.

    But in the first election in which Millennials and Gen Z voters will outnumber Baby Boomers, it’s an inevitable, politically necessary change – though not without its pitfalls.

    A messy scene

    Politics in the social media sphere is already starting to get messy.

    A few weeks ago, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) investigated whether influencer content promoting political messages constitutes electoral advertising.

    The findings suggest it does not, but the AEC has proceeded to ask that this content is accompanied with authorisations.

    Late last week, Independent MP Allegra Spender admitted to commissioning influencer content through a talent agency.

    This doesn’t seem to breach electoral rules, but the lines are being blurred, particularly given the content included glowing remarks about Spender and only suggested they were created “in collaboration”, not as a paid advertisement. This has since been fixed.

    The scrutiny reveals growing discomfort around this emerging form of political communication – including from politicians themselves.

    As influencer Chatfield said:

    there’s this like moral panic about influencers in politics as well, this whole idea influencers can’t be trusted with something as serious and as high brow as politics.

    But is that the case, especially if money has changed hands?

    A politicised sphere

    In what is perhaps a sign of the globally uncertain times, influencing is more political than ever.

    Look at the recent clash involving Holly MacAlpine, who is mounting a legal challenge to the Liberal Party’s social media strategy. She accused them of deliberately editing a clip of her supporting The Greens to make it look like she was instead criticising the party. Last night she launched a crowdfunding campaign for legal representation that reached its goal amount within hours.

    Influencers are becoming more than messengers. They are political actors in their own right.

    In response, TikTok has adjusted its algorithm to recognise political content at the point of upload. The content is now being held for review prior to going live.

    It’s also running an election safety campaign alongside the AEC.

    However, at the time of writing, these guidelines don’t appear on all content that discusses politics or elections. It doesn’t appear to be attached to Australian political content in the same way this style of guideline was used during other events, like COVID.

    Politics with personality

    All this matters because younger generations don’t get their political information from newspapers or nightly news bulletins.

    Instead, they turn to short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, where politics is often delivered with humour, personality, and authenticity (real or perceived).

    The algorithms that drive these platforms reward familiarity and engagement. When a well-known face appears on screen, users linger, boosting the reach of that post. Political messages, even subtle ones, can travel far beyond the original audience.

    Influencers have a lot to contribute to political discourse, particularly in podcasts, but the way they formulate and deliver messages varies widely.

    Some are not explicitly aligned with a political party, while others are transparent about where their preferences sit. How much they affect the election campaign heavily depends on their specific niche and how that relates to broader election commentary.

    Glenn James, host of the Money Money Money podcast and a figure in the personal finance space was recently invited to the budget lock-up. He asked questions about student debt.

    His content sits at the intersection of finance and policy, making it particularly powerful in an election where cost-of-living pressures and education debt are key issues for younger voters.

    It’s an example that not all political influence on social media is overtly partisan. Sometimes, it’s about asking the right questions.

    Reaching eyeballs

    Perhaps influencers’ most significant contribution is not just persuasive power, but reach.

    Their ability to cut through and capture attention is unmatched in today’s fragmented media landscape. In the past, audiences followed specific news outlets aligned with their values.

    Now, thanks to TikTok’s “For You” Page and Instagram Reels’ algorithmic curation, users are increasingly exposed to political content from creators they don’t necessarily follow and would not otherwise encounter.

    Another example is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent use of “delulu with no solulu” (delusional with no solution) in parliament following a dare from podcast Happy Hour with Lucy and Nikki.

    Even though it made no sense to a portion of the population, it gained significant momentum and was trending across platforms.

    Adopting the blueprint

    Influencers aren’t journalists, and most aren’t claiming to be. They’re generally upfront about the fact they’re not wedded to journalistic standards of impartiality, objectivity and holding the powerful to account.

    So in an attempt to ensure traditional media reporting is also noticed by social media users, media outlets are using similar techniques, albeit through a journalistic lens.

    From playing to the algorithm to providing behind the scenes content from the campaign trail, traditional media are solidifying their place in this election commentary and getting noticed.

    It’s a new playing field in political campaigning. But whether it meaningfully shifts voter behaviour, or just adds to the already overwhelmed digital chatter, remains to be seen.

    Susan Grantham 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.

    – ref. Social media is the new election battleground. Is embracing influencers smart, risky or both? – https://theconversation.com/social-media-is-the-new-election-battleground-is-embracing-influencers-smart-risky-or-both-253537

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump’s tariffs rollercoaster is really about Republican unity

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lester Munson, Non-Resident Fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

    After announcing Liberation Day – stiff “retaliatory” tariffs on every country and penguin-inhabited island in the world – US President Donald Trump rescinded the vast majority of tariffs eight days later when stock and bond markets crashed.

    He followed that with more exemptions for phones, computers and computer chips two days later. Ten percent tariffs remain across the board, along with rates up to 145% on China.

    Is Trump aligned with previous Reagan on tariffs?

    As with anything related to Trump, perceptions overwhelm reality. Trump’s showmanship – call him a carnival barker if you must – obfuscates what is really happening.

    Trump is seen as a protectionist and a populist. By comparison, former president Ronald Reagan was seen as a principled free trader and more ideologically conservative. Both images are misleading.

    Reagan slapped tariffs on cars, steel, lumber, computers, computer chips, motorcycles, machine tools, even clothes pins. The great guru of free markets, Milton Friedman, is reported to have said that the Reagan administration has been “making Smoot-Hawley look positively benign.” (Smoot-Hawley was an infamous tariff law enacted in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression.)

    Reagan went back and forth on tariffs, even attacking them in a radio address when Japan tried to impose them. At the end of the day, his record on the issue was as mixed as that of any American president.

    Trump’s politics, if not his showmanship, look a lot more like traditional Republican approaches in the cold light of day. The showmanship – provocative statements, grand exaggerations, outright falsehoods and even stand-up-comic-like aspects – is purposeful.

    Keeping Republicans united

    The main goal of Trump’s tariff showmanship, largely unreported in the press, is keeping congressional Republicans unified as he pushes his domestic policy agenda of lower taxes, budget cuts, expanded energy production and tougher immigration policies.

    Congressional Republicans have been working for months on legislating this agenda through the complex budget reconciliation process. This legislative process is difficult and involves passing budget resolutions through the Senate and the House on a specific schedule. This process is required because it allows for a path around the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate. With only 53 Republican senators and a Democratic Party that is committed to resisting Trump on almost every policy choice, Trump needs the reconciliation process to work this year.

    In one sense, all of Trump’s activities since his inauguration – the “waste”-cutting DOGE, spending cuts, ending foreign aid programs, laying off federal workers – have given him the political space with congressional Republicans, particularly fiscal conservatives, to advance his legislative agenda. It is important to know that Congressional Republicans have been ungovernable for quite some time.

    Over the past ten years, there have been five Republican Speakers of the House – John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Patrick McHenry (acting) and now Mike Johnson. This unprecedented turnover is caused by a virtually unmanageable Republican coalition of mainstream business-oriented conservatives and the fiscal hawks who generally populate the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus is more than willing to vote against other Republicans – indeed they are proud of it. Because of this, speaker after speaker has had to reach out to Democrats for votes to pass legislation, ultimately dooming their time in the position.

    Trump has managed to keep this ungovernable group of House Republicans united, and this may be his true political gift.

    To achieve this, he has engaged in a comprehensive campaign of maximum pressure on just about everything: Canada, Greenland, NATO, Europe, China, Ukraine, American universities, federal workers, illegal immigrants, big law firms and even paper straws.

    Congressional Republicans, in appreciation of this shock and awe campaign, have stayed united. This means Trump’s legislative agenda can move forward.

    With his global tariff plan, Trump saw Republicans beginning to defect. In one Senate vote in April, four Republicans sided with Democrats against tariffs on Canada. Senator Ted Cruz warned that Republicans might lose the 2026 election because of tariffs. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the oldest senator and one of the most conservative, indicated he would support bringing tariff authority back to Congress and away from the president.

    Trump can read a room as well as anyone. When he saw Republican unity was at risk because of his tariff plan, he quickly pivoted to a much more moderate version. While Trump’s grandiosity is often highly criticised, it is that quality that gives him the ability to keep his party together, and therefore to govern.

    Sparking panic among Democrats

    The other major effect of Trump’s tariffs strategy is to sow discord among his opponents.

    Democrats, who want to criticise Trump but know their own party has often endorsed tariffs in the past, are reeling. Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she understood Trump’s “motivation behind the tariffs” and even agreed with Trump that we “need to make more stuff in America”. She was immediately criticised by fellow Democrats.

    Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, tried a slightly more aggressive anti-Trump approach. He said:

    Tariffs, when properly utilized, have a role to play in trying to make sure that you have a competitive environment for our workers and our businesses. That’s not what’s going on right now. This is a reckless economic sledgehammer that Donald Trump and compliant Republicans in the Congress are taking to the economy, and the American people are being hurt enough.

    This response won’t help Democrats climb out of their deep hole of unpopularity, measured last month at an historic low.

    Lester Munson receives funding from the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

    – ref. Trump’s tariffs rollercoaster is really about Republican unity – https://theconversation.com/trumps-tariffs-rollercoaster-is-really-about-republican-unity-254471

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why the Mormon church is on an expansion project, with 2 secretive new temples planned for Australia

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brenton Griffin, Casual Lecturer and Tutor in History, Indigenous Studies, and Politics, Flinders University

    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will build 15 new temples in countries across the world, including one in Liverpool, New South Wales.

    This follows a similar announcement last year of plans to build a second temple for Queensland, in South Brisbane.

    The two new structures – together with existing temples in Sydney (1984), Adelaide (2000), Melbourne (2000), Perth (2001) and Brisbane (2003) – will bring the total number of Australian temples to seven.

    In a nation with fewer than 160,000 practising Mormons, these new buildings seek to increase the legitimacy and visibility of the church.

    The Melbourne temple was erected in 2000, as was the temple in Adelaide.
    Wikimedia

    The significance of temples

    There are currently at least 200 completed Mormon temples around the globe, with an additional 182 under construction or announced.

    Temples have a different purpose and scope to Mormon chapels, which are far more common: Australia has about 190 Mormon chapels.

    Chapels are used for weekly sacrament (or communion) and weekly sermons. They are open to visitors, and often hold cultural events, extra church activities and family history centres.

    Temples, on the other hand, represent the blending of the divine and temporal. According to the Mormon worldview and doctrines, they are the world’s most sacred structures.

    Each temple is emblazoned with the phrase “The House of the Lord, Holiness to the Lord”. This isn’t just symbolic. Mormons believe each temple is literally the house of God, in which his presence may be felt.

    Given the gravity of this belief, these spaces are reserved for those who have been deemed worthy to enter by Mormon leaders.

    Inside the House of the Lord

    The church itself maintains that temples are “sacred, not secret”. It has long worked to dispel speculation over what happens within temple bounds.

    One way it does this is through “open houses”, in which a newly-built temple may be toured by anyone for a brief period. Once the open house has ended and the temple has been “dedicated” by a church leader – a process that includes blessing the building and those who will use it – it becomes entirely closed to the public.

    Within the temples, the most sacred rituals and knowledge of “the gospel” are imparted upon faithful members. Rituals can be performed for both living people and deceased ancestors. They must never be conducted – or even discussed – outside the sacred temple space.

    One of these rituals is baptism and confirmation for the dead by proxy (baptisms for the living are conducted in chapels or other spaces). This provides the deceased individuals “ordinances” that are necessary for salvation, which they did not receive during life.

    These baptisms have been controversial at times, with ordinances performed on individuals who were not direct ancestors of Latter-day Saints, including Holocaust victims and historical figures such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Even prominent Australians such as Ned Kelly, Malcolm Fraser, Neville Bonner and Truganini have allegedly appeared as “baptised” in Mormon records.

    Other temple ceremonies, conducted for both the dead and living, include washing and anointing with oil, “endowment” and “sealing”.

    The rituals are accompanied by various stages of knowledge progression for attendees. As with the rituals, temple knowledge is not to be discussed outside.

    Local opposition

    The air of secrecy and exclusivity surrounding Mormon temples has resulted in a flood of negative attention from Australian media, other religious institutions and society at large. News reports from as far back as the early 20th century sought to expose “Mormon temple secrets”.

    The first temple, built in Sydney in 1984, was widely protested by community groups and organisations. The building had to be modified by the church before it was eventually approved. A similar situation transpired in Brisbane in the early 2000s.

    In other cities, such as Adelaide and Melbourne, temples were not directly protested, but were still critiqued for their lavishness, with the average Australian temple costing around A$8 million in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

    Given the cost of living crisis, and contention over the place of religion in contemporary Australia, the two proposed temples will likely also face criticism.

    Reputational management

    The church’s reputation in Australia has become ever more complicated over the past 20 years, not least due to several controversies.

    In 2022 and 2023, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported the church was allegedly abusing tax laws, to the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars. This was addressed, but not confirmed or denied, in the November 2022 Senate Estimates by Australian Tax Office Assistant Commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn, after questioning by Greens Senator David Shoebridge. Accusations of tax evasion have also been made in New Zealand and the United States.

    Other controversies relate to LGBTQIA+ discrimination, the church’s influence in Australian and global politics, and allegations resulting from the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

    The new Australian temples will be completed under a pall of critiques and accusations around church finances and other controversies. And while they might be briefly open to the public, their doors will just as quickly shut – adding more fuel to the speculation.

    Brenton Griffin was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but is no longer a practising member of the church. His current research is focused on the religion’s place in Australian and New Zealand popular culture, politics, and society from the nineteenth century to present.

    – ref. Why the Mormon church is on an expansion project, with 2 secretive new temples planned for Australia – https://theconversation.com/why-the-mormon-church-is-on-an-expansion-project-with-2-secretive-new-temples-planned-for-australia-254217

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –