When Earth first formed, it was too hot to retain ice. This means all the water on our planet must have originated from extraterrestrial sources. Studies of ancient terrestrial rocks suggest liquid water existed on Earth as early as 100 million years after the Sun’s formation–practically “immediately” on an astrophysical timescale. This water, now over 4.5 billion years old, has been perpetually renewed through Earth’s water cycle. My research team has recently proposed a new theory to explain how water first arrived on Earth.
A mystery billions of years in the making
Astrophysicists have been grappling with the question of how water arrived on our young planet for decades. One of the earliest hypotheses suggested that Earth’s water was a direct byproduct of the planet’s formation, released via magma during volcanic eruptions, in which most of the emitted gas is water vapor.
However, this hypothesis evolved in the 1990s following analysis of Earth’s water composition and the discovery of the potential role of icy comets, pointing to an extraterrestrial origin. Comets, which are mixtures of ice and rock formed in the distant reaches of the solar system, are sometimes ejected toward the Sun. When warmed by the Sun, they develop striking tails of dust and gas that are visible from Earth. Asteroids, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, were also proposed as potential progenitors of Earth’s water.
The study of cometary and asteroid rocks via meteorites–small fragments of these bodies that have fallen to Earth–has provided key insights. By analyzing the D/H ratio–the proportion of heavy hydrogen (deuterium) to standard hydrogen–scientists found that Earth’s water more closely matches that of “carbonaceous” asteroids, which bear traces of past water. This shifted the focus of research toward these asteroids.
The asteroid belt lies between Mars and Jupiter, while the Kuiper Belt extends beyond Neptune. Pline/Wikipedia, CC BY
Recent studies have centered on identifying the celestial mechanisms that could have delivered these water-rich asteroids to the dry surface of early Earth. Numerous theories have emerged to explain the “perturbation” of planetesimals–large, icy bodies in the asteroid and Kuiper belts. These scenarios propose gravitational interactions that dislodged these objects, sending them hurtling toward Earth. Such events would have required a complex “gravitational billiards” process, suggesting a tumultuous history of the solar system.
While it is evident that planetary formation involved significant upheavals and impacts, it is possible that Earth’s water delivery occurred in a more natural and less dramatic manner.
A simpler hypothesis
I started with the assumption that asteroids emerge icy from their formation cocoon, also known as the protoplanetary disk. This cocoon is a massive, hydrogen-rich disk filled with dust, where planets and initial belts form. It envelops the entire nascent planetary system. Once this protective cocoon dissipates–after a few million years–the asteroids warm up, causing their ice to melt or, more precisely, to sublimate. In space, where pressure is nearly zero, the water remains in vapor form after this process.
A disk of water vapour is then superimposed on the asteroid belt orbiting the Sun. As the ice sublimates, the disk fills with vapor, which spreads inward toward the Sun due to complex dynamic processes. Along the way, this vapor disk encounters the inner planets, immersing them in a kind of “bath”. In a way, the disk “waters” the terrestrial planets: Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury. Most of this water capture occurred 20 to 30 million years after the Sun’s formation, during a period when the Sun’s luminosity increased dramatically over a brief period of time, increasing the degassing rate of asteroids.
Step-by-step illustration of a new model for water distribution on the inner planets of the solar system, including Earth. Five million years after the Sun’s birth, asteroids in the main belt release water vapor due to solar energy. This vapor gradually spreads into the inner solar system, eventually enveloping the planets, which capture part of it to form oceans between 10 and 100 million years later. Sylvain Cnudde/Observatoire de Paris — PSL/LESIA, Fourni par l’auteur
Once water is captured by a planet’s gravitational pull, many processes can occur. On Earth, however, a protective mechanism ensures the total mass of water has remained relatively constant from the end of the capture period until today. If water rises too high into the atmosphere, it condenses into clouds, which eventually return to the surface as rain–a process known as the water cycle.
The quantities of water on Earth, both past and present, are well documented. Our model, which begins with the degassing of ice from the original asteroid belt, successfully accounts for the amount of water needed to form oceans, rivers and lakes, and even the water buried deep within Earth’s mantle. Precise measurements of the D/H ratio of water in the oceans also align with our model. Moreover, the model explains the quantities of water present in the past on other planets–and even on the Moon.
You might wonder how I arrived at this new theory. It stems from recent observations, particularly those made with ALMA, a radio telescope array of over 60 antennae located in Chile, on a plateau five kilometres above sea level. Observations of extrasolar systems with belts similar to the Kuiper Belt reveal that planetesimals in these belts sublimate carbon monoxide (CO). For belts closer to their star, such as the asteroid belt, CO is too volatile to be present, and water is more likely to be released.
Building the model
It was from these findings that the initial idea for the theory began to take shape. Moreover, recent data from the Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx missions, which explored asteroids similar to those that might have contributed to the formation of the initial water vapor disk, provided key confirmation. These missions, along with long-standing observations from ground-based telescopes, revealed substantial amounts of hydrated minerals on these asteroids–minerals that can only form through contact with water. This supports the premise that these asteroids were initially icy, even though most have since lost their ice (except for larger bodies like Ceres).
With the foundation of the model in place, the next step was to develop a numerical simulation to track the degassing of ice, the dispersion of water vapor, and its eventual capture by planets. During these simulations, it quickly became clear that the model could account for Earth’s water supply. Additional research on past water quantities for Mars and other terrestrial planets confirmed the model’s applicability to them as well. It all fit, and the results were ready for publication!
As researchers, it’s not enough to design a model that works and seems to explain everything. The theory must be tested on a larger scale. While it’s now impossible to detect the initial water vapor disk that “watered” the terrestrial planets, we can look to extrasolar systems with young asteroid belts to see if such water vapor disks exist. According to our calculations, these disks, though faint, should be detectable with ALMA. Our team has just secured time on ALMA to investigate specific systems for evidence of them.
We may be at the dawn of a new era in understanding the origins of Earth’s water.
Quentin Kral ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Evan Easton-Calabria, Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, and Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
The city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was taken over by the M23 rebel group in January 2025. This was a tragic escalation of a decades-long conflict that’s led to mass displacement and deaths.
Goma, a city of two million, hasn’t just been overtaken by rebels. It’s also just 12 miles (19km) from one of the most dangerous active volcanoes in the world: Mount Nyiragongo.
Mount Nyiragongo can have lava flows of more than 60 miles (96km) per hour. This is far faster than any human can run. When it last erupted in 2021, thousands of families were displaced and at least 250 people died. An earlier eruption in 2002 left 13% of the city covered in lava.
The DRC illustrates how millions of people in fragile, violent and conflict-affected parts of the world are at risk of both human-made and natural disasters. A changing climate makes people even more vulnerable to hazardous events. When these disasters interact, they can multiply and increase negative impacts.
For example, if Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the near future – some research suggests it is likely to do so before the end of 2027 – and there is active conflict at the time, will anyone trust early warning messages? Or feel safe enough to flee on roads where civilians have already been attacked?
These are some of the questions and scenarios that people working in disaster risk reduction grapple with. Situations like those in the DRC inspired a new UN handbook on early warning systems and early action in fragile, conflict-affected and violent contexts.
I was the lead drafter of the UN handbook and had the opportunity to interview dozens of humanitarians. I also spoke to meteorologists, disaster risk reduction experts and government officials to learn how they help build and use early warning systems in fragile, conflict-affected and violent contexts.
Here is what I learned:
early warning systems – hazard monitoring, forecasting and prediction, disaster risk assessment, communication, preparedness and early action to help people avoid harm – must be provided as a basic service for all, even in conflict zones
for early warning systems to be inclusive and effective, they must be trusted by affected communities
early warning systems in the places that most need them are drastically underfunded by governments and international actors – and require long-term collaboration and investment
early warnings and the early action they enable are a critical tool that can minimise suffering.
What this work has made clear is that, first, early warning systems and early action must be available for everyone. Early warnings are the result of a chain of information. This goes from the systems that monitor and forecast weather conditions or hazards to the experts who analyse them to the actors who share this information.
Early warnings come in many forms. It could be an alert on your phone when a flash flood or other hazard is predicted, or an evacuation message before a volcanic eruption.
The UN secretary-general has called for Early Warnings for All by 2027. This is an initiative for everyone on Earth to be covered by early warning systems. However, countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence like the DRC lag far behind in receiving investments needed to prepare for current and future risks.
Second, early warning systems need to be trusted by affected communities, which means co-producing messages and actions with communities and community leaders. Doing so would help take into account the nuanced dynamics in complex contexts.
In many countries where people experience fragility, conflict and violence, systems of authority have been eroded. In fact, governments may be a party to a conflict, increasing mistrust over any warning messages received. The Red Cross has a new handbook that helps practitioners navigating these and other tensions. Involving communities and community leaders helps with identifying existing early warning mechanisms that can be used for hazards, understanding risks related to conflict or violence, and developing action plans.
Conflict and peacebuilding experts within civil society and government, and even conflict actors, should be engaged in developing early warning systems. This helps reduce the risk of misunderstandings and misinformation, and ensures that conflict dynamics are taken into account.
Third, in the places where it’s most needed, early warning systems face funding gaps and limitations. Fewer than 50% of countries classified as least developed, and only a third of small island developing states, have multi-hazard early warning systems (meaning the alarm can be sounded for different hazards, ranging from heatwaves to flooding). Nineteen of the top 25 most climate-vulnerable states are affected by fragility, conflict and violence. All of them are least developed countries, and few have adequate early warning systems.
This illustrates the scale of vulnerability in these areas.
Near Goma, the Virunga Supersite monitors and researches Mount Nyiragongo and other hazards in the densely populated region. The Supersite, supported by several organisations, has helped build collaboration between the Goma Volcano Observatory and global institutes studying and monitoring volcanic hazards.
This is good practice, but the work is routinely hampered by a lack of access due to conflict. The staff also face a variety of risks, including intimidation, violence and kidnapping.
More collaboration to monitor hazards and generate early warnings and early action is needed. The World Meteorological Organization’s ongoing work with the DRC government to improve early warning systems in the country exemplifies a valuable partnership that can save lives. This is all the more important following recent pauses in US humanitarian funding as resources for post-disaster responses will likely be more limited. There is also an urgent need to address the broader conflict that has plagued regions including the eastern DRC for decades.
Looking ahead
The knowledge and resources available to predict and mitigate the impacts of disasters before they take place need to be fully utilised. This is especially important in areas like eastern DRC where an existing humanitarian disaster could evolve into an even larger catastrophe if a volcanic eruption were to occur.
Early warnings and the early action they enable can reduce suffering, save lives and minimise the cost of disaster response. They are needed in the places already experiencing disasters, too.
Evan Easton-Calabria was a consultant for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By David Jeffery-Schwikkard, PhD Candidate (Theology and Religious Studies), King’s College London
In most of the world, countries with religious populations are more likely to have governments that support religion through laws and policies. These laws might include religious education, funding for religious institutions, and laws based on religious values. Not so in sub-Saharan Africa.
These findings unsettle many common misconceptions about the role of religion in politics. The Conversation Africa asked him a few questions.
How prevalent is religion in countries in sub-Saharan Africa?
A population is normally considered very religious if most people say religion is “very important” in their lives or report attending religious services at least once a week.
In surveys conducted between 2007 and 2018 by the Pew Research Centre, 46% of respondents outside sub-Saharan Africa said religion was very important in their lives. Within sub-Saharan Africa, the average is nearly twice that: 89%. Ethiopia and Senegal are among the most religious countries in the world. In both cases, 98% of people said religion was very important. Of the 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for which Pew has data, Botswana (71%) and South Africa (75%) are the least religious. Yet even these countries are far above the global average.
What does this matter for how states are run?
Generally, countries with religious populations have states that provide a lot of support to religion. This is what you would expect, since religious citizens probably want more state support for their religions.
What this means, though, is that commentators often assume that religious citizens are a threat to secular states. This then shapes how analysts make sense of public displays of religion. One example of this is in South Africa, where many people assumed that former president Jacob Zuma, who often used religious rhetoric, would pursue religious laws and policies.
These assumptions are especially common in analyses of religion and politics in Africa. Yet, while it is easy to identify laws or policies in sub-Saharan Africa that are religious, one can easily overlook the fact that having some of these laws is not unusual globally. In other words, having some pro-religion laws and policies doesn’t necessarily mean that countries are governed by religious beliefs.
Thus one might focus on Ghana’s support for Hajj, while forgetting that the UK reserves seats in the House of Lords for the Church of England, and that Germany collects taxes on behalf of churches. Yet the UK and Germany are rarely seen as religious states. Some level of state support for religion does not mean that a country is governed by religious beliefs.
Why are African countries different?
Contrary to the global trend, countries in sub-Saharan Africa provide very little state support to religion – less than half the global average. This is as measured by the Religion and State Project at Bar Ilan University, based on the number of different types of support provided, such as reserving political positions for religious leaders or funding religious schools.
One of the most popular explanations for the scant support for religion is that states in sub-Saharan Africa lack the necessary financial and administrative capacity. These states, the argument goes, would provide more support if only they had more money and were better able to implement their policies.
However, data from the World Bank shows that this is not the case: overall, there is no relationship between state capacity and support for religion.
A more plausible explanation is that religious actors in these countries tend to lack moral authority. Moral authority, as theorised by American political scientist Anna Grzymala-Busse, is the extent to which people see religious actors as defenders of the nation.
Several factors are conducive to moral authority. These include whether people share the same ethnicity or religion, whether religious actors have control over education, and whether they have sided with the “right side” in moments of national crisis.
Can you give an example?
Consider Rwanda and Mozambique.
Until 1994, the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda enjoyed moral prestige. The church controlled a significant share of the education system and had supported the independence movement against Belgium. Most Rwandans were Catholic. And indeed, the church maintained a very close relationship with the state after independence in 1962.
Yet this moral authority was forfeited after the church was seen to be complicit in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, which claimed about 800,000 lives. Today, the government keeps a careful distance from religion, despite 90% of Rwandans reporting that religion is very important in their lives.
Mozambique provides a contrast to Rwanda, yet with similar outcomes. The Roman Catholic Church denounced the liberation movement’s struggle against Portugal. The country has no religious or ethnic majority. At independence, formal education was scarce.
There was therefore little reason for Mozambicans to see the church as a defender of the nation. On the contrary, religious institutions were persecuted after independence. Like Rwanda, Mozambique provides extremely little state support for religion, despite being one of the most religious countries internationally.
These factors – religious diversity, limited enrolment in schools controlled by religious organisations, and moments of political crisis in which those organisations can misstep – make it less likely that religious actors are held by citizens as integral to national identity. And while sub-Saharan Africa is extremely varied, common historical influences, such as the legacies of colonialism, may make these factors more likely.
What can we learn from this?
Clearly, we need to be more careful in how we interpret the role of religion in politics. While it might be tempting to see religious fervour as a threat to secular democracy, it is not necessarily so. A politician might use religious rhetoric, but this does not mean that it will translate into religious laws. Equally, some state support for religion is not unusual globally. Analyses of single policies need to keep this in mind.
This research also upends the way many people normally think about secularism. Many people in Europe have become less religious. Consequently, European states are offered as models of secularism. However, this has it backwards.
Despite their electorates being less religious, European states are more involved in religion than their counterparts in sub-Saharan African. If secularism is the separation of religion and the state, then countries in sub-Saharan Africa – which maintain a secular state despite widespread religion – are in fact the exemplar.
David Jeffery-Schwikkard 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By E. Andrew Taylor, Associate Professor and Director of Arts Management, American University
Former Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter walks by The Reach, a major expansion of the performing arts center completed during her tenure.AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
President Donald Trump dismissed half the appointed trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ board on Feb. 12, 2025. The remaining board members, most of whom he had recently appointed, then voted to make Trump the center’s chair. The board also fired Deborah Rutter, who had served as the center’s president since 2014 and already planned to step down seven months later.
The Conversation U.S. asked E. Andrew Taylor, an arts management scholar, to explain how the Kennedy Center operates and sum up the significance of Trump’s unprecedented interference with its operations.
Why is the government involved in the Kennedy Center?
The Kennedy Center, a unique cultural enterprise located along the Potomac River in Washington, has a complex ownership and operating structure. The campus includes three large performance halls, two midsize theaters and many smaller venues and public spaces that host musical, theatrical and dance performances, lectures, exhibits and other special events. In form and function, it looks a lot like other major metropolitan performing arts centers, such as New York City’s Lincoln Center. But its structure is different.
The Kennedy Center is part of the federal government. Officially, it’s a bureau under the Smithsonian Institution.
The center opened in 1971, with a world premiere of composer Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass.” President Richard M. Nixon did not attend after the FBI warned him of possible anti-war messages encoded in the Latin text that might be designed to embarrass him.
“As the nation’s cultural center, and a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, we are a leader for the arts across America and around the world, reaching and connecting with artists, inspiring and educating communities. We welcome all to create, experience, learn about, and engage with the arts.”
Why does the Kennedy Center have a nonprofit board?
Private funds, largely derived from ticket sales, individual donors, foundations and corporations, cover the performances, productions and other programs.
Those private funds cover more than three-quarters of the Kennedy Center’s budget. Its 2023 annual report explained that its US$286 million in revenue included $152 million from ticket sales, services and fees, $85 million from donations and $45 million from the federal government, with the rest derived from income from its endowment and other sources.
In accordance with this public-private mix of revenue, the center’s governance has always been a hybrid, with the structure of a nonprofit board but with political appointees.
The Kennedy Center’s board is authorized by its legislation to solicit and accept private donations, enter into contracts, maintain its halls and grounds, and appoint and oversee professional leadership. For the most part, it has the same responsibilities as any nonprofit board.
There’s a big exception, however.
While most nonprofit boards recruit, elect and develop their own membership, the Kennedy Center board consists of government appointees. About two dozen trustees serve by virtue of their government office, such as the librarian of Congress, the secretary of state, the mayor of Washington and the speaker and the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives;.
Up to 36 more are appointed by the president, each serving staggered six-year terms so that they don’t all expire at the same time.
Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles performs Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ with the National Symphony Orchestra in February 2025 at the Kennedy Center’s sold-out Concert Hall.
Is the board supposed to be nonpartisan?
The six-year terms reflect a goal of establishing a largely nonpartisan governing board, since presidents usually appoint board members aligned with their own party. Until now, that balance has been the norm. But that outcome wasn’t mandated when Congress passed legislation establishing the Kennedy Center.
Having a politically balanced board has historically helped the Kennedy Center raise money and attract world-class artists. For example, the 2025 season, as of mid-February, will or has included Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, jazz pianist Kenny Barron, soprano Renée Fleming, author David Sedaris, comedian Sarah Silverman and touring productions of “Parade” and “Les Misérables.”
Its in-house productions are often classic works, such as “La Bohème” and Beethoven’s symphonies. Many of the center’s theatrical productions have gone on to Broadway and national tours, including “42nd Street,” “Noises Off” and revivals of “The King and I,” “Annie” and “Spamalot.”
I’m concerned that many longtime or potential future donors may not want to contribute to a cause that has suddenly become subject to partisan leadership.
Members of the public may balk at attending events at a politically charged venue, especially with so many other performing arts options in and around Washington, reducing ticket sales.
What does the Kennedy Center chair do?
Board chairs are in charge of the governing board, expending considerable energy, attention, effort, political muscle and often personal wealth to ensure that the organization can thrive.
The Kennedy Center’s prior chairs have not been figureheads. Rather, they have been actively engaged in fundraising, strategic planning and public advocacy. The legislation that chartered the center requires that its chair and secretary “shall be well qualified by experience and training to perform the duties of their respective offices.”
David Rubenstein, the board chair ousted by this upheaval, has given the Kennedy Center at least US$111 million, making him the center’s biggest donor ever. The philanthropist spearheaded fundraising for its first major expansion, securing significant support from private corporations and foundations.
Former Kennedy Center Chair David Rubenstein speaks at an event at the performing arts venue in 2022. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
Has anything like this happened before?
No U.S. president has served as a member of the Kennedy Center board before, let alone its chair.
Presidents do often appoint their friends and allies to government boards and commissions, and often remove appointees of previous administrations. President Joe Biden, for example, removed Sean Spicer – a former Trump press secretary and White House communications director – from the Naval Academy advisory board.
But that board is leading a strictly governmental body, not a public-private hybrid so dependent on private funding. And the speed and scale of this purge are unprecedented.
What are the potential consequences?
All big, multi-venue metropolitan performing arts centers are extraordinarily complex and difficult to manage.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is particularly so. It hosts approximately 2,200 performances that draw more than 2 million visitors each year, with an in-house symphony and opera company. It produces the Kennedy Center Honors, which celebrate exceptional American artists with an annual gala, performance and television broadcast, and the Mark Twain Prize, which honors one accomplished American comedic actor, author or performer each year.
The Kennedy Center hosts an annual event honoring a wide range of performers and other leaders in the arts.
It’s also a national hub for arts education that serves 2.1 million students and teachers across all 50 states, doubling as an open campus: It offers daily free performances of everything from classical chamber music and ballet to jazz and rock bands.
Even under the best possible conditions, this is a lot to handle.
Successful arts nonprofits benefit from a governing board whose members have expertise in the arts, business and philanthropy, are loyal to the mission above themselves, and rigorously follow the law. Beyond those basics, ideal conditions also include having enthusiastic audiences, passionate donors, eager and exceptional artistic collaborators, and creative and administrative teams that are supported and empowered to do their difficult work.
With Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center board, this national cultural center has now, essentially, turned into a branch of the White House. In my view, that’s a disturbing turn of events in a nation that celebrates free and creative expression. It’s also disruptive to a complex, mission-driven enterprise that demands care, loyalty and obedience from its governing board.
E. Andrew Taylor directs American University’s Arts Management Program. Some of its alumni and students have worked as staff and fellows for The Kennedy Center.
Why is water different colors in different places? – Gina T., age 12, Portland, Maine
What do you picture when you think of water? An icy, refreshing drink? A crystal-blue ocean stretching to the horizon? A lake reflecting majestic mountains? Or a small pond that looks dark and murky?
You would probably be more excited to swim in some of these waters than in others. And the ones that seem cleanest would probably be the most appealing. Whether or not you realize it, you are applying concepts in physics, biology and chemistry to decide whether you should leap in.
The color of water offers information about what’s in it. As an engineer who studies water resources, I think about how I can use the color of water to help people understand how polluted lakes and beaches are, and whether they are safe for swimming and fishing.
Light and the color of water
Drinking water normally looks clear, but ponds, rivers and oceans are filled with floating particles. They may be tiny fragments of dirt, rock, plant material or other substances.
These particles are often carried into the water during storms. Any rainfall that hits the ground and doesn’t go into the soil becomes runoff, flowing downhill until it reaches an open body of water and picking up loose materials along the way.
Particles in water interact with radiation from the Sun shining on the water’s surface. The particles can either absorb this radiation or reflect it in a different direction – a process known as scattering. What we see with our eyes is the fraction of radiation that is scattered back out of the water’s surface. It strongly affects how water looks to us, including its color.
Visible light forms just a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes all types of electromagnetic radiation. Within the visible range, different wavelengths of light produce different colors. Ali Damouh/Science Photo Library, via Getty Images
Depending on the properties of the particles in our water sample, they will absorb and scatter radiation at different wavelengths. The light’s wavelength determines the color we see with our eyes.
Cleaner, more pure water backscatters light in the blue range, which makes it look blue. One famous example is Crater Lake in Oregon, which lies in a volcanic crater and is fed by rain and snow, without any streams to carry sediment into it.
Deep waters like Crater Lake look dark blue, but shallow waters that are very clear, such as those around many Caribbean islands, can appear light blue or turquoise. This happens because light reflects off the white, sandy bottom.
When water contains a lot of plant material, chlorophyll – a pigment plants make in their leaves – will absorb blue light and backscatter green light. This often happens in areas that contain a lot of runoff from highly developed areas, such as Lake Okeechobee in Florida. The runoff contains fertilizer from farms and lawns, which is made of nutrients that cause plant growth in the water.
Finally, some water contains a lot of material called color-dissolved organic matter – often from decomposing organisms and plants, and also human or animal waste. This can happen in forested areas with lots of animal life, or in heavily populated areas that release wastewater into streams and rivers. This material mostly absorbs radiation and backscatters very little light across the spectrum, so it makes the water look very dark.
Bad blooms
Scientists expect water in nature to contains sediments, chlorophyll and organic matter. These substances help to sustain all living organisms in the water, from tiny microbes to fish that we eat. But too much of a good thing can become a problem.
For example, when water contains a lot of nutrients and heats up on bright sunny days, plant growth in the water can get out of control. Sometimes it causes harmful algal blooms – plumes of toxic algae that can make people very sick if they swim in the water or eat fish that came from it.
When water bodies become so polluted that they threaten fish and plants, or humans who drink the water, state and federal laws require governments to clean them up. The color of water can help guide these efforts.
Engineering professor Courtney Di Vittorio and her students collect water samples from High Rock Lake in North Carolina to assess its water quality.
My students and I collect water samples at High Rock Lake, a popular spot for swimming, boating and fishing in central North Carolina. Because of high chlorophyll levels, algal blooms are occurring there more often. Residents and visitors are worried that these blooms will become harmful.
Using satellite photos of the lake and our sampling data, we can produce water quality maps. State officials use the maps to track chlorophyll levels and see how they change in space and time. This information can help them warn the public when there are algal blooms and develop new rules to make the water cleaner.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Courtney Di Vittorio receives funding from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office Environmental Enhancement Grant Program (award WFU021PRE1) to collect data at High Rock Lake, NC. She is affiliated with the Yadkin Riverkeepers, an environmental advocacy not-for-profit group, and the North Carolina Lake Management Society.
It’s extremely easy to get sunburned while you’re skiing and snowboarding in the mountains, but have you ever wondered why?
While it’s true that you’re slightly closer to the Sun when you’re high in the mountains, that isn’t the reason.
If you go up 1 mile (1.6 km), about the elevation from Denver to the peaks of resorts such as Vail or Copper Mountain, you’re less than 1 millionth of a percent closer to the Sun – that’s nothing. Since the Earth’s orbit is an ellipse and not a circle, the planet is about 1.7% closer to the Sun in early January compared with its annual average. This means skiers get about 3.3% more Sun in January than average for the year – so, not much more.
Being 1 mile higher up does mean the atmosphere is thinner, so there are fewer particles to block the ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburns.
But the big reason your skin is more likely to burn has to do with all that fresh powder that skiers and snowboarders crave, especially on perfect, blue-sky days. I’m a snow scientist at Colorado State University and an avid skier. There are many ways that snow conditions affect how much your skin will burn.
Fresh snow is very reflective
When you’re out in the snow, a lot of the solar radiation your skin receives is reflected from the snow itself. The amount of radiation reflected is known as albedo.
Fresh powder snow can have an albedo of almost 95%, meaning it reflects almost all of the Sun’s radiation that hits it. It’s much more reflective than older snow, which becomes less shiny. Fresh snow has a lot of surfaces to reflect the Sun’s rays. As snow ages, the snow crystal becomes more round and there are fewer surfaces to reflect light.
Fresh snow has lots of planes to reflect the Sun’s rays, more so than older snow. Steven Fassnacht/Colorado State University, CC BY Older snow isn’t as reflective as it melts and the grains become rounder. Steven Fassnacht/Colorado State University, CC BY
Having lots of fresh snow increases albedo because the Sun penetrates into the powder, reflecting off the small, newly fallen crystals. Think about starting a car after 6 inches of fresh snow fell. Some light still makes its way through the snow-covered windshield.
A lot of people want to ski on what are known as bluebird days, when there is deep, fresh powder under a clear blue sky following a big snow dump. However, this provides the perfect conditions to burn from two directions: lots of Sun coming down from above and high albedo reflecting it back to your face from below. Clouds block sunlight, with only about one-third of the Sun’s radiation making it through a fully overcast sky.
Which side of the mountain also matters
Where you are on the mountain also makes a difference.
The slope and the direction that the slope faces, called aspect, also influences the intensity of the Sun on a surface. North-facing slopes in the Northern Hemisphere get less direct sunlight in the winter, when the Sun is farther south in the sky, so they stay cooler.
Ironton Park, near Ouray, Colo., on a clear blue day in February 2025. Steven Fassnacht/Colorado State University, CC BY
A lot of the runs at Northern Hemisphere ski resorts face north, so the snow melts slower. The snow also varies from the top of the mountain to the base. There is more snow up high, and the snow melts slower there, so the albedo is higher at the top of the mountain than at the base.
How to reduce the risk of sunburn
To avoid sunburns, skiers and snowboarders need to take all of those characteristics into account.
Because solar radiation is reflecting back up, people out in the snow should put sunscreen on the bottom of their noses, around their ears and on their chins, as well as the usual places.
Most sunscreen also needs to be reapplied every two hours, particularly if you’re likely to sweat it off, wipe it off, or wear it off while playing on the slopes. However, surveys show that few people remember to do this. Wearing clothing with UV protection to cover as much skin as possible can also help.
These methods can help protect your skin from burning and the risks of cancer and premature aging that come with it. Snow lovers need to remember that they face higher sunburn risks on the slopes than they might be accustomed to.
Steven R. Fassnacht 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.
Prince Karim Aga Khan, who died on Feb. 4, 2025, served as the religious leader of Ismaili Muslims around the world since being appointed as the 49th hereditary imam in 1957. He came to be known around the world for his enormous work on global development issues and other philanthropic work.
As a scholar of Muslim philanthropy, I have long been impressed by the philanthropic and civic engagement of the Ismailis.
Ismaili religious beliefs
Following the death of the Prophet in A.D. 632, differences emerged over who should have both political and spiritual control over the Muslim community. A majority chose Abu Bakr, one of the Prophet’s closest companions, while a minority put their faith in his son-in-law and cousin, Ali. Those Muslims who put their faith in Abu Bakr came to be called Sunni, and those who believed in Ali came to be known as Shiite.
Like other Shiite sects, Ismailis believe that Ali should have been selected as the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. They also believe that he should have been followed by Ali’s two sons – the grandsons of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.
The key difference among other Shiites and Ismailis lies in their lineage of imams. While they agree with the first six imams, Ismailis believe that Imam Ismail ibn Jafar was the rightful person to be the seventh imam, while the majority of Shiites, known as Twelvers, believe that Imam Musa al-Kazim, Ismail’s younger brother, was the true successor. They both agree that Ali was the first imam and on the next five imams, who are direct descendant of Ali and Fatima.
The Ismaili sect split into two branches in 1094. Aga Khan was the leader of the Nizari branch, which believes in a living imam or leader. The second branch – Musta’lian Tayyibi Ismailis – believes that its 21st imam went into “concealment”; in his physical absence, a vicegerent or “da’i mutlaq” acts as an authority on his behalf.
Like all Muslims, Ismailis believe that God sent his revelation to the Prophet Muhammad through Archangel Gabriel. However, they differ on other interpretations of the faith. According to the Ismailis, for example, the Quran conveys allegorical messages from God, and it is not the literal word of God. They also believe Muhammad to be the living embodiment of the Quran. Ismailis are strongly encouraged to pray three times a day, but it is not required.
Ismailis believe in metaphorical, rather than literal, fasting. Ismailis believe that the esoteric meaning of fasting involves a fasting of the soul, whereby they attempt to purify the soul simply by avoiding sinful acts and doing good deeds.
In terms of “Zakat,” or charity – the third pillar of Islam, which Muslims are required to follow – Ismailis differ in two ways. They give it to the leader of their faith, Aga Khan, and believe that they have to give 12.5% of their income versus 2.5%.
Pluralism and its embrace
Ismaili history has a strong connection to pluralism – part of their philosophy of embracing difference. The Fatimid Empire that ruled over parts of North Africa and the Middle East from 909 to 1171 is said to have been a “golden age of Ismaili thought.”
It was a pluralistic community, in which Shiite and Sunni Muslims, as well as Christian and Jewish communities, worked together for the success of the flourishing empire, under the rule of the Ismaili imams.
In the modern period, Ismailis have sought to further pluralism within their own communities by arguing that pluralism goes beyond tolerance and requires people to actively engage across differences and actively embrace difference as a strength. For example, Eboo Patel, an Ismaili American, has established the nonprofit Interfaith America as a way to further pluralism among faith communities.
Some 53 nurses and 98 midwives from Ghazanfar Institute of Health Sciences, supported by The Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, and the United States Agency for International Development, attend a graduation ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 29, 2009. Massoud Hossaini AFP via Getty Images
The network supports health care, housing, education and rural economic development in underprivileged areas. The foundation is one of nine agencies of the network that focuses on philanthropy. The Aga Khan Development Network has hospitals serving the poor in several parts of the world. The Aga Khan Medical University in Karachi, Pakistan, is considered to be a leading medical school globally.
While previous imams or leaders also led charity and development projects, the Aga Khan was the first to create a formal, global philanthropic foundation.
The Aga Khan Foundation operates in countries with Ismaili populations or historical connections to the Ismaili community, such as Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mozambique, Pakistan, Portugal, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania and Uganda. The foundation also has offices in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, focusing primarily on raising funds and advocating for the foundation.
Shariq Siddiqui 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.
National Institutes of Health indirect costs, which are under the knife, go toward managing laboratories and facilities. Fei Yang/Moment via Getty Images
Proposed cuts to the federal agencies that fund scientific research could undercut America’s global competitiveness, with negative impacts on the economy and the ability to attract and train the next generation of researchers.
I’m an astronomer, and I have been a senior administrator at the University of Arizona’s College of Science. Because of these roles, I’m invested in the future of scientific research in the United States. I’m worried funding cuts could mean a decline in the amount and quality of research published – and that some potential discoveries won’t get made.
The endless frontier
A substantial part of U.S. prosperity after World War II was due to the country’s investment in science and technology.
In this report, Bush argued that scientific research was essential to the country’s economic well-being and security. His advocacy led to the founding of the National Science Foundation and science policy as we know it today. He argued that a centralized approach to science funding would efficiently distribute resources to scientists doing research at universities.
The National Science Foundation awards funding to many research projects and early career scientists. Pictured are astronomers from the LIGO collaboration, which won a Nobel Prize. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Since 1945, advances in science and technology have driven 85% of American economic growth. Science and innovation are the engines of prosperity, where research generates new technologies, innovations and solutions that improve the quality of life and drive economic development.
This causal relationship, where scientific research leads to innovations and inventions that promote economic growth, is true around the world.
The importance of basic research
Investment in research and development has tripled since 1990, but that growth has been funded by the business sector for applied research, while federal investment in basic research has stagnated. The distinction matters, because basic research, which is purely exploratory research, has enormous downstream benefits.
Quantum computing is a prime example. Quantum computing originated 40 years ago, based on the fundamental physics of quantum mechanics. It has matured only in the past few years to the point where quantum computers can solve some problems faster than classical computers.
Basic research into quantum physics has allowed quantum computing to develop and advance. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Worldwide, basic research pays for itself and has more impact on economic growth than applied research. This is because basic research expands the shared knowledge base that innovators can draw on.
For example, a biotech advocacy firm calculated that every dollar of funding to the National Institutes of Health generates US$2.46 in economic activity, which is why a recent cut of $9 billion to its funding is so disturbing.
The American public also values science. In an era of declining trust in public institutions, more than 3 in 4 Americans say research investment is creating employment opportunities, and a similar percentage are confident that scientists act in the public’s best interests.
Science superpower slipping
By some metrics, American science is preeminent. Researchers working in America have won over 40% of the science Nobel Prizes – three times more than people from any other country. American research universities are magnets for scientific talent, and the United States spends more on research and development than any other country.
But there is intense competition to be a science superpower, and several metrics suggest the United States is slipping. Research and development spending as a percentage of GDP has fallen from a high of 1.9% in 1964 to 0.7% in 2021. Worldwide, the United States ranked 12th for this metric in 2021, behind South Korea and European countries.
Metrics for research quality tell a similar story. In 2020, China overtook the United States in having the largest share of the top 1% most-cited papers.
China also leads the world in the number of patents, and it has been outspending the U.S. on research in the past few decades. Switzerland and Sweden eclipse the United States in terms of science and technology innovation. This definition of innovation goes beyond research in labs and the number of scientific papers published to include improvements to outcomes in the form of new goods or new services.
Among American educators and workers in technical fields, 3 in 4 think the United States has already lost the competition for global leadership.
Threats to science funding
Against this backdrop, threats made in the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term to science funding are ominous.
Trump’s first wave of executive orders caused chaos at science agencies as they struggled to interpret the directives. Much of the anxiety involved excising language and programs relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
The new administration has proposed deeper cuts. The National Science Foundation has been told to prepare for the loss of half of its staff and two-thirds of its funding. Other federal science agencies are facing similar threats of layoffs and funding cuts.
The impact
Congress already failed to deliver on its 2022 commitment to increase research funding, and federal funding for science agencies is at a 25-year low.
As the president’s proposals reach Congress for approval or negotiation, they will test the traditionally bipartisan support science has held. If Congress cuts budgets further, I believe the impact on job creation, the training of young scientists and the health of the economy will be substantial.
Deep cuts to agencies that account for a small fraction – just over 1% – of federal spending will not put a dent in the soaring budget deficit, but they could irreparably harm one of the nation’s most valuable enterprises.
Chris Impey has received funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has justified his early election call on the need to respond to United States President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports.
While the threat of tariffs on all Canadian imports has been paused — although Trump has since slapped levies on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. — Ontario voters need to reflect more than ever on the province’s circumstances and the performance of its government as they prepare to head to the polls next week.
Several defining features of this model have emerged over the past six and a half years under Ford’s rule.
Unaffordable proposals
First, issues that require long-term perspectives on environmental, social and economic costs — like climate change — have tended to be disregarded. To the extent that the government has provided any sort of long-term vision, it has been focused on grandiose infrastructure projects.
That includes a proposal to bury the Highway 401 highway in Toronto — an undertaking with a potential cost of anywhere between $60 and over $200 billion. But even that expense would pale in comparison to a recent proposal for a 10,000-megawatt nuclear power plant near Wesleyville, between Toronto and Kingston.
The costs for the project based on recent experiences in the U.S., could easily top the $200 billion mark as well.
The Ford government’s drive to “get it done” has also, at times, invoked a near-Trumpian disdain for democratic norms and limits on executive authority. This has been illustrated by, among other things, the first invocation of the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Ontario history.
Power has been increasingly concentrated in the premier’s office. Provisions for public participation, transparency and accountability under the guise of eliminating red tape in decision-making processes have been systemically eliminated.
Another defining issue is the Ford government’s approach to managing the province’s finances, with even the consistently pro-business Fraser Institute raising concerns.
The disregard of financial responsibility has perhaps been most powerfully demonstrated by issuing of $200 rebates to Ontario residents. These are expected to cost to the provincial treasury more than $3 billion.
Fewer revenue streams
The Ford government has also displayed a willingness to eliminate billions a year in stable, long-term revenue streams, like vehicle licencing fees and fuel taxes. Major long-term costs and liabilities have been embedded at the same time, especially in relation to questionable infrastructure projects.
A final feature of the government’s market populist governance model has been an approach to decision-making based on connections, access and political whim rather than evidence or analysis.
This pattern was perhaps most evident during the $8.3 billion Greenbelt land removal scandal involving well-connected developers. But the same pattern extends to the energy, for-profit health and resource extraction sectors as well.
The province’s major opposition parties ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 election on the basis of platforms emphasizing adherence to what had been thought to be core principles in Ontario politics — moderation, managerial competence, and basic democratic values.
Opposition parties
This time, all three have turned to more populist themes.
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie promises even more tax cuts than Ford. The NDP proposes to remove tolls from the 407 highway at an unknown cost to the provincial treasury and other programs.
Even the Green Party, which has previously drawn praise for the content and imagination of its platforms, has picked up on populist themes, with an emphasis on affordability and a Ford-topping promise — and likely an even more ambitious — to build two million new homes.
Vulnerabilities for the Ford government abound. Recent polling suggests that despite the apparently strong Conservative lead, Ford himself is deeply unpopular, particularly among women voters. Sixty per cent of Ontario residents think the province is on the “wrong track.”
The early election call itself is widely seen as costly, unjustified and opportunistic. The distraction of the election may well have weakened the province’s immediate capacity to deal with the Trump administration.
Questions and investigations around the Greenbelt land removal scandal and the government’s relationship with the land-development industry continue to close in on the premier’s office amid an ongoing RCMP investigation.
Crises around housing, education, health care and electricity continue to deepen.
Ontario’s Bill 23 eliminated or weakened many housing development regulations, including site plan controls, which kept the natural environment safe from the negative effects of poorly controlled development. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Still disengaged?
In calling an early election, the Ford government has provided Ontario voters with an unexpected opportunity to reflect on its record, and the potential paths forward for the province.
Hopefully Ontario voters will engage more deeply with these questions than they did in the 2022 election, which had the lowest voter turnout in the province’s history.
Three years ago, the government emerged with an overwhelming majority in the legislature on the basis of the ballots of less than 18 per cent of the province’s eligible voters. The stakes are far too high in 2025 for a repeat of that level of disengagement.
Mark Winfield receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This chapter summarizes the contents of the author’s contribution to three new volumes on Ontario politics (The Politics of Ontario, 2nd ed,( UTP 2024); Ontario Since Confederation: A Reader (UTP 2025); and Against the People (Fernwood 2025)
On November 5, 2024, as millions of Americans headed to the polls, billionaire Elon Musk posted a video on his social media platform X depicting a caravan of Amish individuals travelling via horse and buggy to vote for Donald Trump. The following day, in response to a post expressing gratitude to the Amish for their contribution to Trump’s victory, Musk wrote: “The Amish may very well save America! Thank goodness for them. And let’s keep the government out of their lives.” Musk’s tweets underscore the growing prominence of religion in US politics and the Republican party’s efforts to integrate the Amish into its electorate.
The Amish and their vote in US history
The Amish are a Protestant religious community rooted in early European Anabaptist movements. They accept technological advancements selectively, adhering to a distinct way of life marked by simple living, plain dress and a focus on community, distinguishing between what strengthens their social bonds and what might compromise their spiritual path. The Amish are a tiny minority in the US: in 2022, there were approximately 373,620 individuals in a population of around 330 million–slightly more than one in 1,000 Americans. They are predominantly concentrated in the election swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, which partly explains Republicans’ interest in courting their support.
Traditionally, the Amish mainly abstain from voting unless they feel compelled to protect their religious freedoms, preserve their way of life or address critical moral issues. Historically, such instances of electoral participation have occurred only three times.
The first instance dates back to the 1896 presidential election, when the Republican nominee, William McKinley, campaigned on a platform centred on industrial corporate interests. These interests diverged significantly from those of the Amish, who aligned instead with Democrat William Bryan’s policies advocating for small farmers and the defense of rural America.
Amish political engagement resurfaced during the 1960 presidential election, which featured Republican Richard Nixon vs Democrat John F. Kennedy. The Amish viewed Kennedy as an ally of the Catholic church, an institution they viewed as intolerant. Consequently, they supported Nixon, a Quaker, whom they saw as a defender of a Protestant America.
The most recent instances of notable Amish participation occurred amid the presidential election campaigns of Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. This phenomenon, dubbed “Bush Fever,” saw unprecedented Amish voter turnout. In 2000, 1,342 out of 2,134 registered Amish voters in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania–which has one of the largest Amish communities in the US–cast ballots, achieving a turnout rate of 63%. By 2004, Amish voter registration had increased by 169%, with 21% of eligible adults being registered. This mobilization was spearheaded by Chet Beiler, the son of Amish parents who left the community when he was three. Leveraging his heritage and fluency in Pennsylvania German, a traditional language spoken in many Amish communities, Beiler developed a voter registration strategy targeting the Amish to support Bush’s re-election campaign.
The religious factor in US politics
To understand the Republican party’s interest in the Amish, one must examine the increasing centrality of religion in US politics. This phenomenon persists despite a growing number of Americans identifying as non-religious or less religious.
In the US political context, religion extends beyond faith to encompass cultural identity and social cohesion. Scholars often describe this phenomenon as “Christianism,” a form of nationalism that is bound together by a belonging to Christianity and that emerges, as a form of reaction, within the culture wars. Consequently, a political platform emphasizing Christian principles and rural values has the potential to galvanize segments of the electorate. This dynamic is exemplified by Musk’s tweets about the Amish. Within some parts of the Republican electorate, the Amish are perceived as “guardians of lost values,” embodying a vision of an untainted rural America defined by traditional family structures and an agrarian work ethic. This narrative has been further amplified by Amish PAC, a political action committee established in Virginia in 2016 to rally support for Trump through religiously framed identity politics that advocate for traditional values and oppose abortion rights.
The influence of religion within the Republican party is further underscored by the ascendancy of the Christian right, a political movement that emerged in the late 1970s. Though not a monolithic entity, it is composed of individuals–primarily evangelical Christians–seeking to shape US politics based on a conservative interpretation of biblical principles and societal values.
Legislation and the Amish
Some Republicans have advocated for legislation favourable to the Amish, such as former US representative Bob Gibbs, who won election in the Amish-dominated congressional district of Holmes County, Ohio. In December 2021, Gibbs introduced legislation to allow people with specific religious beliefs such as the Amish, who view photography as a form of idolatry, to be exempt from a requirement of possessing identification documents featuring their photographs “to purchase a firearm from a federally licensed firearms dealer.” In the same month, Gibbs also proposed another bill to benefit the Amish, which would have allowed them to opt out of social security and Medicare wage deductions if they were employed by non-Amish-owned companies.
Earlier in 2021, the conservative-majority Supreme Court resolved a longstanding dispute between the Amish of Lenawee County, Michigan and local authorities, ruling in favour of the Amish. The issue at the heart of the case concerned wastewater management. Following their religious principles, the Amish typically avoid using modern inventions such as septic systems, and the Amish in Lenawee County used a management method considered noncompliant by health officials. This case followed similar ones involving other Amish communities in Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Legal disputes such as these could be leading the Amish to form a more positive view of the Republican party and Trump, both for their advocacy of “less government” and for positioning themselves as defenders of religious freedom.
The Amish and the 2024 presidential election
According to the online news source Anabaptist World, media reports suggested that the 2024 presidential election saw a surge in voter registrations among the Amish in Pennsylvania, allegedly contributing to Trump’s victory in the state. The alleged surge was reportedly driven by a reaction to federal legal actions against an Amish farmer accused of selling raw dairy products across state lines, which resulted in cases of Escherichia (E.) coli.
However, official data from Lancaster County–where the principal Amish settlement in Pennsylvania is located–challenge claims of a massive Amish turnout. The increase in Trump’s vote share in the state, from 48.84% in 2020 to 50.37% in 2024, primarily occurred in urban and suburban areas. For example, by the time the Associated Press declared that Trump had won Pennsylvania, his vote share in Philadelphia had improved by three percentage points. Key suburban counties such as Bucks, Monroe and Northampton, which former president Joe Biden won in 2020, had swung in his favour. And the Republican had also performed better in the Philadelphia-area suburbs of Delaware and Chester counties. These regions, with few Amish residents, experienced substantial shifts, while districts with larger Amish populations saw only modest gains for Trump.
While the Amish did not become a significant component of Trump’s electoral coalition, voters in some Amish communities may have grown more sympathetic to his candidacy. More importantly, members of the religious group serve as a potent symbol of mobilization and propaganda for the Republican party amid the intensifying polarization of US politics.
Daniele Curci ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Militaries that have taken power in Africa’s Sahel region – notably Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – have put pressure on western mining firms for a fairer distribution of revenue from the lucrative mining sector.
Gold is one of the resources at the heart of these tensions. West Africa has been a renowned gold mining hub for centuries, dating back to the ancient Ghana empire, which earned its reputation as the “Land of Gold” because of its abundant reserves and thriving trade networks. The region remains a global leader in gold production. As of 2024, west Africa contributed approximately 10.8% of the world’s total gold output.
But why is there so much gold in this region? The Conversation Africa asked geologist Raymond Kazapoe to explain.
How is gold formed?
The simple answer here is that we are not certain. However, scientists have some ideas.
Gold, like all elements, formed through high energy reactions that occurred in various cosmic and space environments some 13 billion years ago, when the universe started to form.
However, gold deposits – or the concentration of gold in large volumes within rock formations – are believed to occur through various processes, explained by two theories.
The first theory – described by geologist Richard J. Goldfarb – argues that large amounts of gold were deposited in certain areas when continents were expanding and changing shape, around 3 billion years ago. This happened when smaller landmasses, or islands, collided and stuck to larger continents, a process called accretionary tectonics. During these collisions, mineral-rich fluids moved through the Earth’s crust, depositing gold in certain areas.
A newer, complementary theory by planetary scientist Andrew Tomkins explains the formation of some much younger gold deposits during the Phanerozoic period (approximately 650 million years ago). It suggests that as the Earth’s oceans became richer in oxygen during the Phanerozoic period, gold got trapped within another mineral known as pyrite (often called fool’s gold) as microscopic particles. Later, geological processes – like continental growth (accretion) and heat or pressure changes (metamorphism) released this gold – forming deposits that could be mined.
Where in west Africa is gold found and what are its sources?
Most gold production and reserves in west Africa are found within the west African craton. This is one of the world’s oldest geological formations, consisting of ancient, continental crust that has remained largely unchanged for billions of years.
The craton underlies much of west Africa, spanning parts of Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania. In fact, most west African countries that have significant gold deposits have close to 50% of their landmass on the craton. Notably, between 35% and 45% of Ghana, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire’s territory sits on it – which is why these areas receive so much attention from gold prospectors.
Gold deposits were formed within west Africa’s craton rocks during a major tectonic event, known as the Eburnean Orogeny, 2.2 billion to 2.08 billion years ago. This event was accompanied by the temperature, pressure and tectonic conditions which promote gold mineralisation events. Most of the gold resources in the west African craton are found within ancient geological formations formed by volcanic and tectonic processes about 2.3 billion to 2.05 billion years ago. These are known as the Rhyacian Birimian granitoid-greenstone belts.
These gold-bearing belts in Ghana and Mali are by far the most endowed when compared with other countries in the region. Ghana and Mali currently, cumulatively account for over 57% of the combined past production and resources of the entire west Africa sub-region.
Ghana is thought to be home to 1,000 metric tonnes of gold. The country produces 90 metric tonnes each year – or 7% of global production. Gold production in Mali reached around 67.7 tonnes in 2023. Mali has an estimated 800 tons of gold deposits.
By comparison, the world’s two largest gold producers are China (which mined approximately 370 metric tonnes of gold in 2023) and Australia (which had an output of around 310 metric tonnes in 2023).
What are some of the modern exploration tools used to find gold?
Gold was traditionally found by panning in riverbeds, where miners swirled sediment in water to separate the heavy gold particles, or by digging shallow pits to extract gold-rich ores. Over time, methods have evolved to include geochemical exploration techniques, advanced geophysical surveys, and chemical extraction techniques, like cyanide leaching.
Geological mapping techniques are always evolving, and at the moment, there is a lot of interest in combining remote sensing data with cutting-edge data analytics methods, like machine learning. By combining these two methods, geologists can get around some of the problems caused by traditional methods, like the reliance on subjective judgement to create reliable maps and the need to spend money prospecting in areas with low chances of success.
In recent years, deep learning computer techniques have made significant progress. They examine various geological data-sets to reduce uncertainty and increase the chances of finding gold mineralisation through advanced artificial intelligence techniques. These methods have proved highly beneficial in identifying specific features and discovering new mineral deposits when applied to remote sensing data.
Another method, which I’ve researched and which could serve as a complementary gold exploration tool, is the use of stable isotopes. Stable isotopes are elements – like carbon, hydrogen and oxygen – that do not decay over time. Some are responsible for helping to carry gold, in fluids, through rocks to form the deposits. As the gold-bearing fluids interact with the rocks, they transfer the stable isotopes to the rocks, thereby imbuing them with their unique signature. The thinking here is to identify the signature and then use it as a proxy for finding gold, since gold itself is hard to identify directly.
Advancements in analytical techniques have reduced the cost, volume, and time involved. This makes it a viable alternative to geochemical approaches – the most widely used and relatively efficient method.
Raymond Kazapoe receives funding from the African Union and Pan African University to carry out some of the research referenced in this article
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eva Cheuk-Yin Li, Lecturer in Sociology (Media & Cultural Studies Team), Lancaster University
While dramas about male same-sex romance (known as “boys’ love”, or BL) have been popular in Asia since 2010, “girls’ love” (GL) dramas are only now seeing a meteoric rise in popularity – and they are coming out of Thailand.
On January 23 2025, Thailand became the first country in south-east Asia to legalise same-sex marriage. Although the country is often imagined as a “gay paradise”, Thai society remains largely conservative and homophobia is still commonplace. Against this social backdrop, the rise of LGBTQ+ storytelling is intriguing – perhaps revealing the emergence of more tolerant and progressive attitudes.
In Thailand, these BL and GL dramas are known as series “Y”, an industry estimated to be worth 3 billion baht (approximately £72 million) in 2024. Thailand’s GL dramas now reshaping sapphic storytelling and bringing it to the mainstream.
Besides the central romance plotline, GL stories often explore pertinent issues such as family expectations and societal pressure, coming-out struggles, and age and class differences. Adding depth to the narrative, these issues chime with young queer audiences seeking more realistic, relatable experiences.
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A hub for BL series since the mid-2010s, Thailand only produced its first full-length GL series in 2022. Despite investor doubts, the producer of a then-small production house financed a pioneering series called Gap, telling the story of an office romance between a royal-descendant CEO and a junior member of staff.
Airing on domestic TV and later uncut on YouTube with multilingual subtitles, Gap amassed over 850 million views by January 2025, proving a global appetite for queer women-oriented stories. By February 2025, more than 20 GL series had aired, with at least 30 more in production.
Trailer of Gap (2022), Thailand’s first full-length GL series.
Series like Blank, 23.5, The Secret of Us, Affair, and The Loyal Pin illustrate the genre’s growing popularity, with uncut versions available on platforms like YouTube and Netflix, complete with subtitles in various languages such as English, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish.
Thailand’s GL dramas have adopted successful practices from their BL counterparts: adapting novels, scouting and training actors, incorporating product placement, hosting fan events and appearing on variety shows. One notable practice is the making of khu-jin (imagined couple), where celebrities perform same-sex intimate moments on stage or social media to serve fans’ fantasies.
“Shipping” culture – the practice of imagining or supporting a romantic relationship between fictional or real individuals – is pivotal to GL’s success. The two Gap leads, Freen Sarocha and Becky Armstrong have created the “FreenBecky” ship, and each have more than four million Instagram followers. Actresses of other “ships” such as LingOrm, EngLot, and FayeYoko, command similarly devoted followings. Their fan meetings across Asia regularly draw tens of thousands, blending fiction and reality to create an immersive fan ecosystem.
Celebrating Girls Love
As we discussed in our recent research, Thai GL series also emphasises joy and resilience, unlike the tragic endings often seen in western LGBTQ+ narratives. US-produced content has been criticised for the “bury your gays trope”, where LGBTQ+ characters are frequently killed off in tragic or unnecessary ways.
Another objection is “dead lesbian syndrome”, where lesbian and bisexual characters are even more likely to be killed on screen. Notorious examples include Killing Eve and The 100.
In contrast, Thai GL stories celebrate love and acceptance, despite the challenges experienced by protagonists. Series like Gap, The Secret of Us, and Mate feature grand wedding finales with the blessing of parents and friends, portraying queer love overcoming obstacles and thriving.
Although many GL series have male directors, love scenes are respectful, focusing on sensuality and desire rather than being graphic and exploitative. This contrasts with films such as Blue is the Warmest Colour, in which love scenes were criticised as being exploitative, and where actresses have reported problematic practices during filming.
Opportunities and challenges
From their inception, Thai GL dramas have aired locally but have quickly been made available on streaming platforms with multilingual subtitles for a global audience. Social media platforms amplify their reach, with production houses curating trends and fostering interactive fan experiences.
Recognising the potential for cultural export, the Thai government has partnered with BL and GL production companies to promote Thai culture and products. It is unusual for governments to embrace queer culture as a vehicle for soft power, which highlights the growing cultural and economic significance of these series. Though this development has sparked concerns over the intentions behind such support, it signals a future where queer narratives hold global, cultural and political relevance.
Despite its success, GL entertainment faces challenges. Many series are still adaptations of novels, limiting thematic diversity. While themes like schoolyard dramas and sweet romances such as Love Senior, Unlock Your Love, and Us prevail, some series are pushing boundaries with themes like disability (Pluto), supernatural power (Reverse 4 You), and crime (Petrichor).
GL romances provide a vital space for queer women’s stories, connecting audiences across borders through global visibility and fan culture. Most remarkably, this shift isn’t coming from Hollywood.
As the genre evolves, it holds the potential to continue redefining representation and amplifying underrepresented voices. It’s not just reshaping how queer women’s stories are told and viewed globally, it’s proving to be commercially viable and culturally transformative.
In the face of rising global reactionary politics and growing hatred against the LGBTQ+ community following Trump’s re-election, Thai GL series offers not only a safe escape and fantasy, but also a sense of solidarity through their worldwide fandom.
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.
Picture a primordial Earth: a world of muted browns, greys and greens. Fast forward to today, and Earth teems with a kaleidoscope of colours. From the stunning feathers of male peacocks to the vivid blooms of flowers, the story of how Earth became colourful is one of evolution. But how and why did this explosion of colour happen? Recent research is giving us clues into this part of Earth’s narrative.
The journey towards a colourful world began with the evolution of vision, which initially developed to distinguish light from dark over 600 million years ago. This ability probably arose in early organisms, like single-celled bacteria, enabling them to detect changes in their environment, such as the direction of sunlight. Over time, more sophisticated visual systems evolved and allowed organisms to perceive a broader spectrum of light.
For example, trichromatic vision – the ability to detect three distinct wavelengths such as red, green and blue – originated approximately 500-550 million years ago. This coincided with the “Cambrian explosion” (about 541 million years ago), which marked a rapid diversification of life, including the development of advanced sensory systems like vision.
The first animals with trichromatic vision were arthropods (a group of invertebrates that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans). Trichromatic vision emerged 420-500 million years ago in vertebrates. This adaptation helped ancient animals to navigate their environments and detect predators or prey in ways that monochromatic vision could not.
Fossil evidence from trilobites, extinct marine arthropods that roamed the seas over 500 million years ago, suggests they had compound eyes. This means eyes with multiple small lenses, each capturing a fraction of the visual field, which combine to form a mosaic image. These eyes could detect multiple wavelengths, providing an evolutionary advantage in dim marine environments by enhancing the animal’s visibility and motion detection.
Boyd’s forest dragon blends in with its habitat. Jonathan Goldenberg, CC BY-NC-ND
The stage was set: organisms could see a colourful world before they became colourful themselves.
The first burst of conspicuous colour came from plants. Early plants began producing colourful fruits and flowers, such as red, yellow, orange, blue and purple, to attract animals to help plants with seed dispersal and pollination.
Analytical models based on present-day plant variation suggest that colourful fruits, which appeared roughly 300-377 million years ago, co-evolved with seed-dispersing animals, such as early relatives of mammals. Flowers and their pollinators emerged later, around 140-250 million years ago. These innovations marked a turning point in Earth’s palette.
The rise of flowering plants (angiosperms) in the Cretaceous period, over 100 million years ago, brought an explosion of colour, as flowers evolved brighter and more vibrant hues than seeds to attract pollinators like bees, butterflies and birds.
Conspicuous colouration in animals emerged less than 140 million years ago. Before, animals were mostly muted browns and greys. This timeline suggests that colour evolution was not inevitable, shaped instead by ecological and evolutionary factors, which could have led to different outcomes under different circumstances.
Vibrant colours often evolved as a kind of signalling to attract mates, deter predators, or establish dominance. Sexual selection probably played a strong role in driving these changes.
Dinosaurs provide some of the most striking evidence of early animal colouration.
Fossilised melanosomes (pigment-containing cell structures called organelles) in feathered dinosaurs like Anchiornisreveal a vivid red plumage.
These feathers probably served display purposes, signalling fitness to mates or intimidating rivals. Similarly, the fossilised scales of a green and black ten million-year-old snake fossil suggest early use of colour for signalling or camouflage.
This snake, a juveline Bornean keeled green pit viper comes in a variety of colours. Jonathan Goldenberg, CC BY-NC-ND
The evolution of colour is not always straightforward. Take poison frogs, for instance. These small amphibians display striking hues of blue, yellow, or red, not to attract mates but to warn predators of their toxicity, a phenomenon known as aposematism.
But some of their close relatives, equally toxic, blend into their environments. So why evolve bright warning signals when camouflage could also deter predators? The answer lies in the local predator community and the cost of producing colour. In regions where predators learn to associate vibrant colours with toxicity, conspicuous coloration is an effective survival strategy. In other contexts, blending in may work.
Clownfish lure other fish to anemone with their bright colours. Jonathan Goldenberg, CC BY-NC-ND
Unlike many mammals, which have dichromatic vision and see fewer colours, most primates including humans have trichromatic vision, enabling us to perceive a broader range of hues, including reds. This probably helped our ancestors locate fruit in forests and likely played a role in social signalling. We see flowers differently from pollinators like bees, which can detect ultraviolet patterns invisible to us, highlighting how colour is tailored to a species’ ecological needs.
A world still changing
Earth’s palette isn’t static. Climate change, habitat loss, and human influence are altering the selective pressures on colouration, potentially reshaping the visual landscape of the future. For example, some fish species exposed to polluted waters are losing their vibrant colours, as toxins disrupt pigment production or visual communication.
As we look to the past, the story of Earth’s colours is one of gradual transformation punctuated by bursts of innovation. From the ancient seas where trilobites first saw the world in colour to the dazzling displays of modern birds and flowers, life on Earth has been painting its canvas for over half a billion years.
What will the next chapter of this vibrant story hold?
Jonathan Goldenberg receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101126636.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of Portsmouth
The US public’s commitment to sending its sons and daughters to war has declined in recent years. Polls suggest that US involvement in modern conflicts is more likely to be viewed as mistaken than in the early and middle parts of the 20th century. Today, around 47% of Americans consider the Iraq war a mistake, and 43% feel the same about the war in Afghanistan.
Recent announcements by the US president, Donald Trump, about the possibility of using US forces as part of his Gaza strategy is unlikely to improve those figures.
On February 4, Trump proposed that the US effectively take control of the Gaza Strip and rebuild the area into what he has called the riviera of the Middle East.
When he was asked at a press conference whether he would be willing to use US troops to secure the region, Trump answered that “as far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that piece that we’re going to develop it”.
Trump walked back on that initial claim of the use of military personnel just days later, stating that the US military force would be unnecessary. “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” adding that “No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!” But others have suggested a US military presence would have to be involved.
Putting US troops on the ground would fly in the face of current American public opinion. In a survey taken on February 12, only a quarter of those polled supported the prospect of US troops being sent to the region, and just over half (52%) of Republicans disapproved of the plan.
Less than 25% of Americans supported the US taking ownership of the Gaza Strip, while 62% showed opposition to it. Less than half (46%) of Republican voters polled expressed support while only 10% of Democrats showed any kind of enthusiasm for the initiative, according to the poll.
Of those polled, the majority said they opposed all of Trump’s plans to expand US-controlled territory, whether that was the Panama Canal, Greenland, Canada, or Gaza.
The lack of support from the US public in deploying troops overseas has been constant since the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 – and the American public appears to be questioning US military involvement in world affairs more generally.
In a poll taken by foreign policy thinktank Defense Priorities in February 2024, 56% of respondents were “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that the presence of US troops in Syria could escalate into a broader conflict in the region. Of those that opposed a US military presence in Syria, 66% felt that it was a waste of resources.
And just last September, a Pew Research Center poll revealed that 75% of those polled were worried about the Israel-Hamas conflict expanding in the region and US troops becoming more directly involved.
Recruitment ad for the US Marines.
This lack of public support for US military involvement abroad, as well as the poor recent record of recruitment into the military, may be informing Trump’s negotiations in both Gaza, and over the Ukraine war.
While the US public shows high levels of respect for those who serve in the military, around 80% of American teenagers are not interested in military service, while 55% of adults and 67% of parents are not likely to recommend it as a career to teenagers.
The US has tried numerous recent initiatives, including offering substantial bonuses to entice recruits to join up, but without much success. The army, navy and air force all failed to reach their target recruitment numbers in 2023.
This week Trump opened early discussions with Vladimir Putin, and latterly Kyiv, over proposals for a Ukraine peace deal. In a meeting with European defense ministers in Brussels on February 12, the new US defense secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out the participation of US troops in any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, although in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on February 13 vice-president JD Vance did not rule out using the military.
Hegseth also said that the US was planning to pull back from its role in European security, sparking high levels of concern from many European leaders.
Some Republican senators have not been particularly supportive of Trump’s Ukraine proposals, especially those that have backed Ukraine over the last three years.
In an interview, Senate armed services chair, Roger Wicker, said that “there are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys. They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.” Republican Senator Mike Rounds joined Wicker in demanding that: “Russia be recognised for the aggressor that they are.”
There’s a similar level of concern on Trump’s Gaza plan – even from Trump’s close allies in the party. Rand Paul, the libertarian senator for Kentucky, suggested this idea flew in the face of Trump’s foreign policy proposals espoused during the campaign.
“I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers’ blood,” he wrote on X.
It is unlikely that the majority of Republican voters would be supportive of Trump’s Gaza initiative (or sending troops to Ukraine). This is partly because of the demands that it would make on the federal government – but also because of the necessity of using armed forces to implement it.
Trump’s recent controversial executive orders have barely damaged his early job approval ratings. But the deployment of armed forces to Gaza or Ukraine runs counter to a long-term significant decline in public support for US overseas military intervention and that might be a step too far for many voters.
Dafydd Townley 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aimee Grant, Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow, Swansea University
New research looks at the experiences of autistic women during pregnancy and childbirth.Zhuravlev Andrey/Shutterstock
Childbirth is often described as one of life’s most profound experiences, but for many, it can be fraught with anxiety, pain and trauma.
Autism is a lifelong neurotype, which affects around 3% of people. It is linked to differences in communication and sensory processing.
Women have historically been underdiganosed with autism, diagnosed at an older age and misdiagnosed. This may explain why very little research has been conducted on the experiences of autistic women during pregnancy and childbirth – an oversight we have aimed to address in our new research.
There are issues affecting maternity services across the nations of the UK. Last year, almost half of maternity services in England were rated as “needing improvement” or “inadequate” by England’s health service regulator, the Care Quality Commission. They also noted that communication with women – especially those from marginalised groups – could lead to fear, anxiety and having a negative birth experience.
Following reviews of baby deaths in Scotland, inspections of maternity services are underway, with units given no prior notice. Likewise, following the death of a baby, an independent review of maternity services in Northern Ireland recommended widespread changes and additional funding to make services safe. While a review of maternity services in Wales reported that services are generally good and safe, issues have been identified in some health boards.
In a medical context, “informed consent” means that a person understands what will happen during a test or treatment, and that they are aware that they can say “no” to having it. We know that in English maternity units, there are sometimes issues with women not being given the information needed for them to give informed consent.
What we found
Our research aimed to understand barriers to good maternity care for autistic people. We asked 193 autistic people from across the UK who had been pregnant to tell us what happened during their care in an online survey. It’s important to note that half of our participants weren’t aware they were autistic when they gave birth.
Most participants told us they felt they had to “mask”, or act as though they weren’t autistic, to try to get better maternity care. Despite this, more than half said they felt they weren’t listened to by maternity staff. Almost half also said they felt staff misunderstood them and that they were unsupported.
Worryingly, more than a third didn’t understand explanations from healthcare professions about their examinations and treatments. Nearly half said they weren’t given the choice to say no to having examinations, including vaginal examinations. This means that many of our participants weren’t able to give informed consent to the treatment they received.
Another concerning issue was that some participants’ pain during childbirth was untreated. And ten people told us that they could tell they were on the verge of giving birth, but were not believed by maternity staff.
When sharing their stories, most of our participants felt that staff didn’t understand autistic people, including how they communicate and experience pain. While autistic people feel pain at the same level as non-autistic people, they often show it differently, including having fewer outward signs of pain.
Our participants also acknowledged there were issues in how maternity systems are designed, with staff appearing to have too much work to understand the needs of the individual pregnant person and change the care they give accordingly.
Altogether we found that autistic people’s needs were not met during maternity care, with lack of consent, breached trust and safety issues common. Many of the issues we asked participants about are known to be linked to birth trauma. Our study provides initial support for a hypothesis that rates of birth trauma may be higher in autistic people.
Also, autistic women are at much greater risk of sexual assault compared to non-autistic peers, with one study reporting nine in ten had been victims. Research shows that sexual abuse survivors can be re-traumatised during birth.
Participants told us that they did not have their questions about pregnancy and birth answered by maternity staff, and that this caused anxiety. So, we have worked with the autistic organisations Autistic Parents UK and Autistic UK alongside autistic maternity professionals and parents to create 114 short videos to answer their questions. They are available in English and Welsh, and are already being used by some NHS trusts.
UK maternity services urgently need to become more autism-friendly. Things that may help include seeing the same midwife every time and having longer appointments, so that all questions can be answered.
It’s also important for maternity staff to receive training in how to best support autistic people, which has been developed by autistic people. This is already available in England but not in the other UK nations. That should be introduced as a matter of urgency.
Aimee Grant receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council and the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute. She is a non-executive director of Disability Wales.
Kathryn Williams receives funding for her PhD from the Economic and Social Research Council. She is a Director of Autistic UK CIC.
Catrin Griffiths 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aimee Ambrose, Professor of Energy Policy, Member of Fuel Poverty Evidence and Trustee of the Fuel Poverty Research Network, Sheffield Hallam University
How we keep warm at home accounts for 17% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. The UK cannot reach net zero emissions, and end its contribution to climate change, without ending its reliance on natural gas as the dominant source of heating.
As elsewhere in Europe, heat pumps (which use electricity to draw heat out of the air or ground and circulate it indoors) are regarded as the best way to reduce carbon emissions. But are people ready to ditch their gas boilers?
My colleagues and I spent three years researching what people need, want and expect from their heating systems by asking 300 people in eight settlements across the UK, Finland, Sweden and Romania about their experiences of trying to keep warm at home. These memories ranged from as early as 1945 to the present day.
Among the four countries we studied, the uptake of heat pumps is most sluggish in the UK and Romania. In Sweden, heat pumps are an established technology, used to heat homes outside of dense urban areas that tend to be served by heat networks, where a boiler is shared by multiple dwellings and heat pumped to each home through pipes.
Successive oil crises accelerated the roll-out of electric heating in Sweden during the 1970s. Our participants credited widespread trust in the Swedish government at the time for the successful adoption of heat pumps.
Relatively low trust in the government makes it more difficult to increase heat pump uptake in the UK, a problem shared by Romania, where, low trust in the government follows decades of communist rule during which energy could be cut off to maintain supply to industries.
When coal was king and stoves were guilt-free
We found that there were strong attachments to high-carbon fuels in many of the communities we studied – even where people were committed to a future with low-carbon energy.
In former coalfields, such as Rotherham in south Yorkshire and Jiu Valley in south-west Romania, people spoke wistfully of the coal industry which provided jobs, housing and plentiful fuel for heating and cooking, except during industrial disputes. The coal fire was where most of our participants let their minds linger.
The subsequent move to natural gas heating for most UK households, which started in the 1960s, failed to evoke the same enthusiasm. People did acknowledge the benefits of being able to heat the whole home evenly with gas central heating and remembered feeling glad to no longer have to clean out the grate, but this was a less remarkable era in home heating. Participants talked about it in less detail, for less time and with less enthusiasm.
Many of our Finnish participants, despite having heat pumps or connection to a district heating network, wanted to continue burning wood at home. This treasured practice brought a sense of wellbeing. The intense pleasure of the fireside created a sense of homeliness and enabled cultural traditions such as cooking on a wood fire, plus the multi-sensory experience of a wood-fired sauna.
Some participants worried about being considered an “environmental criminal” for driving a diesel car, but regarded burning wood as more socially acceptable. Outside of cities, plots of woodland are inherited in some families. Gathering firewood was a ritual many enjoyed and didn’t want to give up.
More affluent participants in the UK also valued their wood burning stoves – a growing trend essentially borrowed from Scandinavian neighbours. Those we interviewed in Sweden also prized their wood burners but usually only in the homes or cabins where they holidayed.
Thermal delight
In 1979, US architect Lisa Heschong’s concept of “thermal delight” held that building designers were forgetting the importance of enabling pleasure through heat. Our research participants had not forgotten, however, and confirmed that we seek the most joyous route to warming our bodies.
While the necessary speed of the net zero transition entails a clean sweep that substitutes fossil-fuelled heating for low-carbon, electric alternatives, our research shows that this may be unappealing to many households.
The people we met wanted heating options to reflect different needs and preferences. Our participants valued central heating for bringing their houses to a consistent temperature, but this did not preclude a desire for the radiant heat of the log burner on some days. They also wanted the option of plugging in a portable, electric heater when they only needed to heat one room.
They enjoyed the contrast between the intense warmth of the fireside and a cool bedroom and many regarded an even heat throughout the home as “uninviting” – something that met their needs but not their desires. The experience of different eras of home heating had taught them the value of flexibility and variety, which makes a “clean sweep” to electric heating unattractive.
These findings do not mean that heat pumps are doomed. Indeed, heat pumps have a lot to offer in terms of reducing heating emissions. What we found does indicate a need for multiple ways to heat the home within scenarios for reaching net zero emissions.
The transition from coal to gas heating is within living memory in the UK. AstroStar/Shutterstock
Partly, this calls for innovation in home heating technology. There is really no place for burning solid fuels in a net zero future, but a concerted effort between heating researchers, designers and technologists could create a beautiful heat source that acts as a focal point, and offers something akin to the multi-sensory joy of the fireside.
The findings also indicate the need to change how heating transitions are talked about by the government and energy companies. Away from an implacable duty to switch heating sources and the need for efficiency, and towards the joy and abundance of a heat source that (in the case of heat pumps) offers four times the heat output for the same energy input as a gas boiler.
The best way to sell the low-carbon heating transition is locally, where the kinds of attachments and allegiances to heat that we have uncovered are best appreciated and understood. Local authorities are typically best placed to do that.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Aimee Ambrose receives funding from The Collaboration for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe (CHANSE) and The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daphne Rena Idiz, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto
Overly expository dialogue, repeating plot points and lots of voice-overs to narrate action help distracted viewers along.(Shutterstock)
Netflix knows we’re on our phones while we watch TV. Recent articles discuss Netflix’s or streamers’ requests for creatives to produce content optimized for casual viewing, meaning intentionally scripted for distracted viewers.
I first encountered the concept of “second-screen shows” — created with distracted viewing in mind — in 2022.
At the time, I was doing interviews with producers, showrunners, screenwriters and directors who had worked on European Netflix originals (due to confidentiality, they have been given pseudonyms here). Two of my interviewees described what they saw as very unusual feedback coming from Netflix executives: make a show that the audience can follow without looking at the screen.
Recipe for a ‘second-screen show’
So, how exactly do you make a second-screen show?
One of my interviewees, Eleven, said that Netflix explicitly labels certain series “second-screen shows” and develops them as such. Another, Tokyo, shared their experience encountering similar directives:
“[Netflix] basically said, ‘What you need to know about your audience here is that they will watch the show, perhaps on their mobile phone, or on a second or third screen while doing something else and talking to their friends, so you need to both show and tell, you need to say much more than you would normally say. […] You need your audience to understand what’s going on, even if they’re not looking at the screen.’”
These series are designed around the viewing behaviours of their target audience, described by my interviewees as “younger” and “young adult” viewers.
As Eleven explained, a Netflix executive would talk about how “in this show, we have to make sure that the points come through, even though kids are watching TikTok while they watch it.”
Because Netflix knows a certain target audience will be “second-screening” these series, the streamer wants the show’s writing to facilitate this practice. Concretely, this means overly expository dialogue, repeating plot points and adding lots of voice-overs to narrate the action and help the distracted viewer follow along.
Other sources cite examples where screenwriters were told to have characters announce what they’re doing and make the show less distracting from the viewer’s “primary screen” (their phone).
Eleven joked about how if a character was sad, Netflix would ask to include a line of dialogue for the character saying, “I’m sad” with tears streaming down their face, while rain pours, and mournful violins play in the background.
Here, the golden rule of screenwriting “show, don’t tell,” is cast aside for “show and tell” (and tell again). Joking aside, they reflected: “It saddens me, on behalf of great storytelling traditions.”
The revival of casual viewing
But are second-screen shows really the final nail in the coffin for prestige TV? The idea of casual or background viewing is not new.
There is a long history of content targeting the distracted viewer. (Shutterstock)
From soap operas to sitcoms to reality TV, there is a long history of content targeting the distracted viewer.
Sometimes we’re just tired and need an easy watch. But these types of series are a far cry from the era of HBO-style Netflix, hyping itself as the home of quality TV, a place where showrunners could find unprecedented creative freedom.
There is still a time and place for complex storytelling. But data suggests
that over half of viewers in many national markets — including in India, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, the United States, Britain and Denmark — are periodically checking their phones while watching TV. And Netflix is creating shows that enable this ritual.
‘Cult’ of data
Netflix’s strategy has always hinged on a granular understanding of its users. Netflix collects a huge amount of data on its subscribers and their viewing behaviors: what they’re watching, how, when, where and on what device. This information is used by teams of data scientists to not only improve Netflix’s personalization but also to help with decisions about what content to develop and how.
Yet research suggests Netflix has really cultivated the “myth of big data,” flip-flopping over the years about how much data influences the creative process of Netflix productions.
Geralt, another producer I interviewed, described how “whenever you talk to the algorithm people and the data people at Netflix, it feels like a cult. They talk about the algorithm like it’s a god, like ‘Well the algorithm tells us…’”
One part of the content strategy
With that said, it’s critical to take blanket statements about Netflix’s operations with a grain of salt.
Recent articles about “second screen” productions focused on the U.S. context, and my research did not seek to determine how many Netflix productions are made this way.
Second-screen shows, it seems, are one part of this strategy.
Outlook for storytellers
It’s clear that viewing behaviours are driving changes in storytelling. But for screenwriters today, second-screen shows are only a symptom of bigger problems.
Between a shrinking drama market and the competition for attention from platforms like YouTube and TikTok, streamers are investing a lot less in content than they used to. They’re also much more risk-averse with these investments.
Even before now, producing for streamers brought its own set of challenges.
Writer advocates with the 2023 TV writers strikes highlighted how streaming introduced new and exciting formats for TV writing, but also a new kind of precarity. And concerns continue to loom around how AI might impact creativity, career sustainability and IP rights.
Last year, the Canadian Media Producers Association joined production organizations around the world in issuing a call for streaming regulation that underscores independence, IP rights and fair remuneration.
The next time you’re watching a Netflix show and feel the urge to scroll during another repetitive voice-over, the question is: Are some shows written like this because the audience is disengaged, or is the audience disengaged because shows are written like this?
Daphne Rena Idiz 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.
But something else is often overlooked: Canada should also learn from the EU how to cope with the monumental challenges ahead. Europe is not only less vulnerable than Canada due to its geographic position and economic power, it’s also more resilient.
Three goals
Unlike “Team Canada,” “Europe United” has already crafted a multi-pronged policy framework to encounter the risks arising from a fundamentally changing geopolitical environment over the long term. The EU also has a more robust institutional framework for intergovernmental co-operation.
Under the leadership of President Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission has launched a cascade of relatively coherent policies aimed at facilitating three broad goals: decarbonization, economic sovereignty and national security.
These policy initiatives have been continuously updated, fine-tuned and aligned with each other. They have created an umbrella that enables the EU and its member states to simultaneously promote the green transition, strengthen the internal market and domestic industries as well as reduce economic and security risks.
But Canada has lost the ability to plan strategically for the long term and now responds to every crisis in a reactive, punctuated manner. In doing so, Canadian officials address symptoms without tackling root causes.
EU architecture
The institutional architecture of the EU also furnishes governments with more capacity to collaborate. In all federal systems, most policies are largely shared, which is why intergovernmental co-ordination is important to buttress and consolidate such innovations.
Notably, the Council of the European Union plays a key role for co-ordinating and negotiating policies, in addition to its function as the main decision-making body (together with the European Parliament).
It is composed of ministers of the EU member states. Accordingly, it works in different configurations, depending on the portfolio. The head of governments themselves meet regularly through a separate institution, the European Council.
In Canada, by contrast, federal intergovernmental institutions are fragile or don’t even exist, even though they’re comparatively strong on the municipal level.
Widespread tariffs against Canada may be on hold until March, but there is no way back. As Canadians experience their very own “Zeitenwende” — the end of an era — in the wake of Trump’s desire to absorb Canada into the U.S., the country’s leaders should draw two lessons from the EU.
More than 40 years ago, the Macdonald Commission paved the way for a major transformative shift in Canadian policy-making, including free trade with the U.S. But since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, it has become increasingly clear that this model of socioeconomic development is outdated.
Yet the model has never been replaced. Unlike the EU, Canadians have comforted themselves with patchwork policies instead of crafting a new, all-encompassing approach.
The challenges the EU and Canada face are similar, but Canada needs to find its own response. Forging a new model will require mobilizing and aligning key sectors like trade, infrastructure and industrial policy in a coherent manner.
On the institutional level, Canada must — finally — institutionalize Team Canada. It’s a positive development that First Ministers’ Conference meetings have resumed, but an ad hoc approach to intergovernmental collaboration is no longer sufficient.
Team Canada may work under pressure when facing a short-term threat. Without a stronger institutional foundation, however, Canada won’t be able to consolidate a new national policy over the long term.
The EU has accomplished a remarkable resurgence, despite all remaining difficulties. Rather than chasing the idea of joining the EU, Canada should use the European example as a road map for enhancing its policy and governance capacities.
Jörg Broschek receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Marshia Akbar, Director of the BMO Newcomer Workforce Integration Lab and Research Lead on Labour Migration at the CERC Migration and Integration Program at TMU, Toronto Metropolitan University
Canada’s labour market struggles are not caused by the number of newcomers, but by systemic issues such as underemployment and skills-job mismatches.(Shutterstock)
Such changes are aimed to avoid competition with local unemployed Canadians at a time of rising unemployment. However, these changes may eventually intensify dysfunctions in the Canadian labour market.
With an overall unemployment rate of 6.6 per cent and a youth unemployment rate of 13.6 per cent alongside a worsening housing crisis, these policies reflect growing pressures.
However, blaming newcomers — particularly international students and their spouses — for job shortages overlooks deeper structural issues in the labour market. Canada’s labour market struggles are not caused by the number of newcomers, but by systemic issues such as underemployment and skills-job mismatches.
Unemployment and underemployment
While rising unemployment is affecting everyone, newcomers have been hit especially hard. In 2024, the unemployment rate for immigrants hit 11 per cent — more than double the 5.6 per cent rate for Canadian-born workers.
Underemployment is also a persistent issue for immigrants. In 2021, only 44 per cent of immigrants who had arrived in Canada within the previous decade were employed in jobs matching their education level, compared to 64 per cent of Canadian-born workers aged 25 to 34.
The over-education rate — the proportion of university graduates working in jobs for which they are over-qualified despite holding a bachelor’s degree or higher — was 26.7 per cent for immigrants, more than double the 10.9 per cent rate for Canadian-born workers in 2021.
Approximately two thirds of recent immigrants held a degree from a foreign institution. The over-education rate for these immigrants was 24 per cent higher than that of younger Canadian-born workers.
Under-employment experienced by many newcomers is largely driven by employers favouring Canadian experience — despite such preferences being illegal in Ontario — and relying on referral networks, which often disadvantage newcomers.
Ultimately, hiring managers tend to choose the less risky option, as a bad hire can reflect poorly on them. An exceptional hire, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily bring them equivalent rewards.
International experience is undervalued
International graduates with Canadian degrees generally achieve better labour market outcomes than those educated entirely overseas, experiencing higher earnings and improved job matches.
Although many international students (277,400 in 2018) gain Canadian work experience during their studies and develop soft skills — often in low-paying, customer-facing roles such as accommodation and food services, retail, hospitality or tourism — this experience is often dismissed as irrelevant to professional roles.
This creates a paradox: employers require Canadian experience for entry-level positions in their field, yet without prior experience, graduates struggle to get hired in the first place.
Canada’s long-term competitiveness is hindered not by immigration, but by systemic labour market discrimination and inefficiencies that prevent skilled newcomers from fully contributing to the economy.
Eliminating biases related to Canadian work experience and soft skills is key to ensuring newcomers can find fair work. The lack of recognition of foreign talent has a detrimental effect on the Canadian economy by under-utilizing valuable human capital.
For international students, enhanced career services at educational institutions are critical. Strengthening partnerships between universities, colleges and employers can expand internships, co-op placements and mentorship programs, providing students with relevant Canadian work experience before graduation.
Such collaboration is also key to implementing employer education initiatives that address misconceptions about hiring international graduates and highlight their contributions to the workforce.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also play a role in reducing hiring biases and improving job matching for new immigrants and international graduates. Our recent report, which gathered insight from civil society, the private sector and academia, highlights the following AI-driven solutions:
Tools like Toronto Metropolitan University’s AI resume builder, Mogul AI, and Knockri can help match skills to roles, neutralize hiring bias and promote equity.
Wage subsidies and AI tools can encourage equitable hiring, while AI-powered programs can help human resources recognize and reduce biases.
Harnessing AI-driven solutions, alongside policy reforms and stronger employer engagement, can help break down hiring barriers so Canada can fully benefit from the skills and expertise of its immigrant workforce.
Marshia Akbar receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Anna Triandafyllidou receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Tri-Agency of Research Councils, Canada and Horizon Europe framework program of the European Commission.
An aerial view of Shark Island and the town of Lüderitz in Namibia. (Black Court Studios)
In September 2025, Namibia will host the Global African Hydrogen Summit. The Namibian government has ambitions to turn the country into a leading producer of green hydrogen for export to markets in Europe and elsewhere. However, the lands and waters now regarded as being essential to Europe’s energy transition are tied to traumatic memories of colonial violence; especially the ocean, which is the final resting place for thousands of Namibians.
As countries around the world transition to renewable energy, an inconspicuous peninsula in Namibia known as Shark Island is positioned to play a key role in the production of so-called “green” hydrogen, which is a proposed alternative to fossil fuels.
However, the peninsula and its waters are at risk of being compromised by proposed port expansions to support the transportation of green hydrogen. Shark Island, near the town of Lüderitz, is now a campsite for tourists.
But Shark Island is also called Death Island, and it was a concentration camp and a site of genocide during German colonial rule from 1884 to 1915. The concentration camp has since been destroyed, leaving little evidence of the violence that occurred there. However, recent international investigations highlight what many Namibians have known and worked on for generations.
During the genocide, those who were not immediately killed were sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to perform manual labour, such as working on railways and harbours. This occurred across Namibia, including on the coast: in Swakopmund and Lüderitz alone, more than 1,550 Nama died.
The research agency Forensic Architecture has digitally reconstructed the camps and identified evidence of burial places. On Shark Island, they demonstrate that the port expansion “poses further imminent risk to the site.”
Attention has been given to the land-based component of green hydrogen projects including the multinational joint venture, Hyphen Energy. But the ocean, which Namibia’s development projects also interact with, is often overlooked as a space of memory, justice and relations. This is in part due to colonial and apartheid histories that erased or excluded people from the coasts and oceans.
During colonial rule, German colonizers incarcerated Namibians offshore aboard ships. They also threw the bodies of those who had died in the concentration camp into the ocean. The local saying “the sea will take you” highlights how the ocean is involuntarily tied to memories of death and trauma.
Namibians have not forgotten the violence that occurred on the land and at sea. Local groups are restoring grave sites and establishing memorials. The discussion of recognition, justice and equitable rights and access to the coast and ocean are important for Namibia’s communities and the decedents of those killed during the genocide.
Waves of energy colonialism
Green hydrogen has a central role in global decarbonization ambitions. Namibia is considered an “export production site” for Europe’s future hydrogen economy. This is due to its solar and wind potential, and access to the ocean.
Hydrogen can only be produced in Namibia if the infrastructure exists to enable it. For example, hydrogen requires the industrial and transportation infrastructure to get it to international markets. To meet these demands, the Namibian Ports Authroity is proposing port expansions in the city of Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, where expansion could have implications for Shark Island and its waters.
Campaigners in Namibia are demanding the government and industry halt the expansion plans on Shark Island, and meaningfully engage with reconciliation. Among them is the Windhoek-based Black Court Studio, where Natache Iilonga, co-author of this article, is the creative director.
These proposed developments signal the continued European dominance in Namibia’s blue and green economy projects. They enable energy colonialism, where the push for green energy continues colonial injustices. European countries and industry perpetuate ecological, social and cultural harm to satisfy their own climate change agendas.
Projects and partnerships between Namibia and European countries like Germany are emblematic of (neo)colonial power relations. While these projects propose to foster co-operation, they also continue to dispossess communities from their lands and waters, and erase environmental and cultural relations.
Through “development assistance,” the German government and non-governmental organizations continue to influence economic projects in Namibia, while avoiding discussion of meaningful reparations for colonial crimes.
The land and ocean are not merely passive witnesses to colonial violence. Black Court Studio incorporates the ocean as a dynamic participant in the conversation about these violent histories, and justice and healing. Through community exercises and counter-mapping, the studio explores people’s socio-cultural relations with the ocean.
Together, the studio’s interventions are beginning to resituate previously erased and forgotten connections with Shark Island. This work also highlights cultural and spiritual relations with the ocean that persist despite this dispossession.
Namibia’s ocean and coasts are not empty spaces to be exploited for the benefit of Europe’s energy future. A deeper understanding of histories, and present day connections, provide lessons for meaningful reconciliation.
Natache Iilonga is a practicing architect with Iilonga Architects Inc and the co-founder of Black Court Studios Namibia.
Rosanna Carver 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.
A spontaneous memorial of flowers in St Petersburg, Russia, on the day of Alexei Navalny’s death, February 16 2024.Aleksey Dushutin/Shutterstock
This is the best day of the past five months for me … This is my home … I am not afraid of anything and I urge you not to be afraid of anything either.
These were Alexei Navalny’s words after landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on January 17 2021. Russia’s leading opposition figure had spent the past months recovering in Germany from an attempt on his life by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Minutes after making his comments, Navalny was detained at border control. And he would remain behind bars until his death on February 16 2024, in the remote “Polar Wolf” penal colony within the Arctic Circle.
“Why did he return to Russia?” That’s the question I’m asked about Navalny most frequently. Wasn’t it a mistake to return to certain imprisonment, when he could have maintained his opposition to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, from abroad?
But Navalny’s decision to return didn’t surprise me. I’ve researched and written about him extensively, including co-authoring Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?, the first English-language, book-length account of his life and political activities. Defying the Kremlin by returning was a signature move, reflecting both his obstinacy and bravery. He wanted to make sure his supporters and activists in Russia did not feel abandoned, risking their lives while he lived a cushy life in exile.
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Besides, Navalny wasn’t returning to certain imprisonment. A close ally of his, Vladimir Ashurkov, told me in May 2022 that his “incarceration in Russia was not a certainty. It was a probability, a scenario – but it wasn’t like he was walking into a certain long-term prison term.”
Also, Navalny hadn’t chosen to leave Russia in the first place. He was unconscious when taken by plane from Omsk to Berlin for treatment following his poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok in August 2020. Navalny had been consistent in saying he was a Russian politician who needed to remain in Russia to be effective.
In a subsequent interview, conducted in a forest on the outskirts of the German capital as he slowly recovered, Navalny said: “In people’s minds, if you leave the country, that means you’ve surrendered.”
Video: ACF.
Outrage, detention and death
Two days after Navalny’s final return to Russia, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) – the organisation he established in 2011 – published its biggest ever investigation. The YouTube video exploring “Putin’s palace” on the Black Sea coast achieved an extraordinary 100 million views within ten days. By the start of February 2021, polling suggested it had been watched by more than a quarter of all adults in Russia.
Outrage at Navalny’s detention, combined with this Putin investigation, got people on to the streets. On January 23 2021, 160,000 people turned out across Russia in events that did not have prior approval from the authorities. More than 40% of the participants said they were taking part in a protest for the first time.
But the Russian authorities were determined to also make it their last time. Law enforcement mounted an awesome display of strength, detaining protesters and sometimes beating them. The number of participants at protests on January 31 and February 2 declined sharply as a result.
Between Navalny’s return to Russia in January 2021 and his death in February 2024, aged 47, he faced criminal case after criminal case, adding years and years to his time in prison and increasing the severity of his detention. By the time of his death, he was in the harshest type of prison in the Russian penitentiary system – a “special regime” colony – and was frequently sent to a punishment cell.
The obvious intent was to demoralise Navalny, his team and supporters – making an example of him to spread fear among anyone else who might consider mounting a challenge to the Kremlin. But Navalny fought back, as described in his posthumously published memoir, Patriot. He made legal challenges against his jailers. He went on hunger strike. And he formed a union for his fellow prisoners.
He also used his court appearances to make clear his political views, including following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, declaring: “I am against this war. I consider it immoral, fratricidal, and criminal.”
Navalny’s final public appearance was via video link. He was in good spirits, with his trademark optimism and humour still on display. Tongue firmly in cheek, he asked the judge for financial help:
Your Honour, I will send you my personal account number so that you can use your huge salary as a federal judge to ‘warm up’ my personal account, because I am running out of money.
Navalny died the following day. According to the prison authorities, he collapsed after a short walk and lost consciousness. Although the Russian authorities claimed he had died of natural causes, documents published in September 2024 by The Insider – a Russia-focused, Latvia-based independent investigative website – suggest Navalny may have been poisoned.
A mourner adds her tribute to Alexei Navalny’s grave in Moscow after his burial on March 1 2024. Aleksey Dushutin/Shutterstock
Whether or not Putin directly ordered his death, Russia’s president bears responsibility – for leading a system that tried to assassinate Navalny in August 2020, and for allowing his imprisonment following Navalny’s return to Russia in conditions designed to crush him.
Commenting in March 2024, Putin stated that, just days before Navalny’s death, he had agreed for his most vocal opponent to be included in a prisoner swap – on condition the opposition figure never returned to Russia. “But, unfortunately,” Putin added, “what happened, happened.”
‘No one will forget’
Putin is afraid of Alexei, even after he killed him.
Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, wrote these words on January 10 2025 after reading a curious letter. His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, had written to Rosfinmonitoring – a Russian state body – with a request for her son’s name to be removed from their list of “extremists and terrorists” now he was no longer alive.
The official response was straight from Kafka. Navalny’s name could not be removed as it had been added following the initiation of a criminal case against him. Even though he was dead, Rosfinmonitoring had not been informed about a termination of the case “in accordance with the procedure established by law”, so his name would have to remain.
This appears to be yet another instance of the Russian state exercising cruelty behind the veil of bureaucratic legality – such as when the prison authorities initially refused to release Navalny’s body to his mother after his death.
“Putin is doing this to scare you,” Yulia continued. “He wants you to be afraid to even mention Alexei, and gradually to forget his name. But no one will forget.”
Alexei Navalny and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, at a protest rally in Moscow, May 2012. Dmitry Laudin/Shutterstock
Today, Navalny’s family and team continue his work outside of Russia – and are fighting to keep his name alive back home. But the odds are against them. Polling suggests the share of Russians who say they know nothing about Navalny or his activities roughly doubled to 30% between his return in January 2021 and his death three years later.
Navalny fought against an autocratic system – and paid the price with his life. Given the very real fears Russians may have of voicing support for a man still labelled an extremist by the Putin regime, it’s not easy to assess what people there really think of him and his legacy. But we will also never know how popular Navalny would have been in the “normal” political system he fought for.
What made Navalny the force he was?
Navalny didn’t mean for the humble yellow rubber duck to become such a potent symbol of resistance.
In March 2017, the ACF published its latest investigation into elite corruption, this time focusing on then-prime minister (and former president), Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny’s team members had become masters of producing slick videos that enabled their message to reach a broad audience. A week after posting, the film had racked up over 7 million views on YouTube – an extraordinary number at that time.
The film included shocking details of Medvedev’s alleged avarice, including yachts and luxury properties. In the centre of a large pond in one of these properties was a duck house, footage of which was captured by the ACF using a drone.
Video: ACF.
Such luxuries jarred with many people’s view of Medvedev as being a bit different to Putin and his cronies. As Navalny wrote in his memoir, Medvedev had previously seemed “harmless and incongruous”. (At the time, Medvedev’s spokeswoman said it was “pointless” to comment on the ACF investigation, suggesting the report was a “propaganda attack from an opposition figure and a convict”.)
But people were angry, and the report triggered mass street protests across Russia. They carried yellow ducks and trainers, a second unintended symbol from the film given Medvedev’s penchant for them.
Another reason why so many people came out to protest on March 26 2017 was the organising work carried out by Navalny’s movement.
The previous December, Navalny had announced his intention to run in the 2018 presidential election. As part of the campaign, he and his team created a network of regional headquarters to bring together supporters and train activists across Russia. Although the authorities had rejected Navalny’s efforts to register an official political party, this regional network functioned in much the same way, gathering like-minded people in support of an electoral candidate. And this infrastructure helped get people out on the streets.
The Kremlin saw this as a clear threat. According to a December 2020 investigation by Bellingcat, CNN, Der Spiegel and The Insider, the FSB assassination squad implicated in the Novichok poisoning of Navalny had started trailing him in January 2017 – one month after he announced his run for the presidency.
At the protests against Medvedev, the authorities’ growing intolerance of Navalny was also on display – he was detained, fined and sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment.
The Medvedev investigation was far from the beginning of Navalny’s story as a thorn in the Kremlin’s side. But this episode brings together all of the elements that made Navalny the force he was: anti-corruption activism, protest mobilisation, attempts to run as a “normal” politician in a system rigged against him, and savvy use of social media to raise his profile in all of these domains.
Courting controversy
In Patriot, Navalny writes that he always “felt sure a broad coalition was needed to fight Putin”. Yet over the years, his attempts to form that coalition led to some of the most controversial points of his political career.
In a 2007 video, Navalny referred to himself as a “certified nationalist”, advocating for the deportation of illegal immigrants, albeit without using violence and distancing himself from neo-Nazism. In the video, he says: “We have the right to be Russians in Russia, and we’ll defend that right.”
Although alienating some, Navalny was attempting to present a more acceptable face of nationalism, and he hoped to build a bridge between nationalists and liberals in taking on the Kremlin’s burgeoning authoritarianism.
But the prominence of nationalism in Navalny’s political identity varied markedly over time, probably reflecting his shifting estimations of which platform could attract the largest support within Russia. By the time of his thwarted run in the 2018 presidential election, nationalist talking points were all but absent from his rhetoric.
However, some of these former comments and positions continue to influence how people view him. For example, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Navalny tried to take a pragmatic stance. While acknowledging Russia’s flouting of international law, he said that Crimea was “now part of the Russian Federation” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.
Many Ukrainians take this as clear evidence that Navalny was a Russian imperialist. Though he later revised his position, saying Crimea should be returned to Ukraine, some saw this as too little, too late. But others were willing to look past the more controversial parts of his biography, recognising that Navalny represented the most effective domestic challenge to Putin.
Another key attempt to build a broad political coalition was Navalny’s Smart Voting initiative. This was a tactical voting project in which Navalny’s team encouraged voters to back the individual thought best-placed to defeat the ruling United Russia candidate, regardless of the challenger’s ideological position.
The project wasn’t met with universal approval. Some opposition figures and voters baulked at, or flatly refused to consider, the idea of voting for people whose ideological positions they found repugnant – or whom they viewed as being “fake” opposition figures, entirely in bed with the authorities. (This makes clear that Navalny was never the leader of the political opposition in Russia; he was, rather, the leading figure of a fractious constellation of individuals and groups.)
But others relished the opportunity to make rigged elections work in their favour. And there is evidence that Smart Voting did sometimes work, including in the September 2020 regional and local elections, for which Navalny had been campaigning when he was poisoned with Novichok.
In an astonishing moment captured on film during his recovery in Germany, Navalny speaks to an alleged member of the FSB squad sent to kill him. Pretending to be the aide to a senior FSB official, Navalny finds out that the nerve agent had been placed in his underpants.
How do Russians feel about Navalny now?
It’s like a member of the family has died.
This is what one Russian friend told me after hearing of Navalny’s death a year ago. Soon afterwards, the Levada Center – an independent Russian polling organisation – conducted a nationally representative survey to gauge the public’s reaction to the news.
The poll found that Navalny’s death was the second-most mentioned event by Russian people that month, after the capture of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka by Russian troops. But when asked how they felt about his death, 69% of respondents said they had “no particular feelings” either way – while only 17% said they felt “sympathy” or “pity”.
And that broadly fits with Navalny’s approval ratings in Russia. After his poisoning in 2020, 20% of Russians said they approved of his activities – but this was down to 11% by February 2024.
Video: BBC.
Of course, these numbers must be taken for what they are: polling in an authoritarian state regarding a figure vilified and imprisoned by the regime, during a time of war and amid draconian restrictions on free speech. To what extent the drop in support for Navalny was real, rather than reflecting the increased fear people had in voicing their approval for an anti-regime figure, is hard to say with certainty.
When asked why they liked Navalny, 31% of those who approved of his activities said he spoke “the truth”, “honestly” or “directly”. For those who did not approve of his activities, 22% said he was “paid by the west”, “represented” the west’s interests, that he was a “foreign agent”, a “traitor” or a “puppet”.
The Kremlin had long tried to discredit Navalny as a western-backed traitor. After Navalny’s 2020 poisoning, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that “experts from the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency are working with him”. The Russian state claimed that, rather than a patriot exposing official malfeasance with a view to strengthening his country, Navalny was a CIA stooge intent on destroying Russia.
Peskov provided no evidence to back up this claim – and the official propaganda wasn’t believed by all. Thousands of Russians defied the authorities by coming out to pay their respects at Navalny’s funeral on March 1 2024. Many, if not all, knew this was a significant risk. Police employed video footage to track down members of the funeral crowd, including by using facial recognition technology.
The first person to be detained was a Muscovite the police claimed they heard shouting “Glory to the heroes!” – a traditional Ukrainian response to the declaration “Glory to Ukraine!”, but this time referencing Navalny. She spent a night in a police station before being fined for “displaying a banned symbol”.
Putin always avoided mentioning Navalny’s name in public while he was alive – instead referring to him as “this gentleman”, “the character you mentioned”, or the “Berlin patient”. (The only recorded instance of Putin using Navalny’s name in public when he was alive was in 2013.)
However, having been re-elected president in 2024 and with Navalny dead, Putin finally broke his long-held practice, saying: “As for Navalny, yes he passed away – this is always a sad event.” It was as if the death of his nemesis diminished the potency of his name – and the challenge that Navalny had long presented to Putin.
Nobody can become another Navalny
Someone else will rise up and take my place. I haven’t done anything unique or difficult. Anyone could do what I’ve done.
So wrote Navalny in the memoir published after his death. But that hasn’t happened: no Navalny 2.0 has yet emerged. And it’s no real surprise. The Kremlin has taken clear steps to ensure nobody can become another Navalny within Russia.
In 2021, the authorities made a clear decision to destroy Navalny’s organisations within Russia, including the ACF and his regional network. Without the organisational infrastructure and legal ability to function in Russia, no figure has been able to take his place directly.
More broadly, the fate of Navalny and his movement has had a chilling effect on the opposition landscape. So too have other steps taken by the authorities.
Russia has become markedly more repressive since the start of its war on Ukraine. The human rights NGO First Department looked into the number of cases relating to “treason”, “espionage” and “confidential cooperation with a foreign state” since Russia introduced the current version of its criminal code in 1997. Of the more than 1,000 cases, 792 – the vast majority – were initiated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian law enforcement has also used nebulous anti-extremism and anti-terrorism legislation to crack down on dissenting voices. Three of Navalny’s lawyers were sentenced in January 2025 for participating in an “extremist organisation”, as the ACF was designated by a Moscow court in June 2021. The Russian legislature has also passed a barrage of legislation relating to so-called “foreign agents”, to tarnish the work of those the regime regards as foreign-backed “fifth columnists”.
Mass street protests are largely a thing of the past in Russia. Restrictions were placed on public gatherings during the COVID pandemic – but these rules were applied selectively, with opposition individuals and groups being targeted. And opportunities for collective action were further reduced following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Freedom of speech has also come under assault. Article 29, point five of the Russian constitution states: “Censorship shall be prohibited.” But in September 2024, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov said: “In the state of war that we are in, restrictions are justified, and censorship is justified.”
Legislation passed very soon after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine made it illegal to comment on the Russian military’s activities truthfully – and even to call the war a war.
YouTube – the platform so central to Navalny’s ability to spread his message – has been targeted. Without banning it outright – perhaps afraid of the public backlash this might cause – the Russian state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has slowed down internet traffic to the site within Russia. The result has been a move of users to other websites supporting video content, including VKontakte – a Russian social media platform.
In short, conditions in Russia are very different now compared to when Navalny first emerged. The relative freedom of the 2000s and 2010s gave him the space to challenge the corruption and authoritarianism of an evolving system headed by Putin. But this space has shrunk over time, to the point where no room remains for a figure like him within Russia.
In 2019, Navalny told Ivan Zhdanov, who is now director of the ACF: “We changed the regime, but not in the way we wanted.” So, did Navalny and his team push the Kremlin to become more authoritarian – making it not only intolerant of him but also any possible successor?
There may be some truth in this. And yet, the drastic steps taken by the regime following the start of the war on Ukraine suggest there were other, even more significant factors that have laid bare the violent nature of Putin’s personal autocracy – and the president’s disdain for dissenters.
Plenty for Russians to be angry about
How can we win the war when dedushka [grandpa] is a moron?
In June 2023, Evgeny Prigozhin – a long-time associate of Putin and head of the private military Wagner Group – staged an armed rebellion, marching his forces on the Russian capital. This was not a full-blown political movement against Putin. But the target of Prigozhin’s invective against Russia’s military leadership had become increasingly blurry, testing the taboo of direct criticism of the president – who is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “grandpa” in Russia.
And Prigozhin paid the price. In August 2023, he was killed when the private jet he was flying in crashed after an explosion on board. Afterwards, Putin referred to Prigozhin as a “talented person” who “made serious mistakes in life”.
In the west, opposition to the Kremlin is often associated with more liberal figures like Navalny. Yet the most consequential domestic challenge to Putin’s rule came from a very different part of the ideological spectrum – a figure in Prigozhin leading a segment of Russian society that wanted the Kremlin to prosecute its war on Ukraine even more aggressively.
Video: BBC.
Today, there is plenty for Russians to be angry about, and Putin knows it. He recently acknowledged an “overheating of the economy”. This has resulted in high inflation, in part due to all the resources being channelled into supporting the war effort. Such cost-of-living concerns weigh more heavily than the war on the minds of most Russians.
A favourite talking point of the Kremlin is how Putin imposed order in Russia following the “wild 1990s” – characterised by economic turbulence and symbolised by then-president Boris Yeltsin’s public drunkenness. Many Russians attribute the stability and rise in living standards they experienced in the 2000s with Putin’s rule – and thank him for it by providing support for his continued leadership.
The current economic problems are an acute worry for the Kremlin because they jeopardise this basic social contract struck with the Russian people. In fact, one way the Kremlin tried to discredit Navalny was by comparing him with Yeltsin, suggesting he posed the same threats as a failed reformer. In his memoir, Navalny concedes that “few things get under my skin more”.
Although originally a fan of Yeltsin, Navalny became an ardent critic. His argument was that Yeltsin and those around him squandered the opportunity to make Russia a “normal” European country.
Navalny also wanted Russians to feel entitled to more. Rather than be content with their relative living standards compared with the early post-Soviet period, he encouraged them to imagine the level of wealth citizens could enjoy based on Russia’s extraordinary resources – but with the rule of law, less corruption, and real democratic processes.
‘Think of other possible Russias’
When looking at forms of criticism and dissent in Russia today, we need to distinguish between anti-war, anti-government, and anti-Putin activities.
Despite the risk of harsh consequences, there are daily forms of anti-war resistance, including arson attacks on military enlistment offices. Some are orchestrated from Ukraine, with Russians blackmailed into acting. But other cases are likely to be forms of domestic resistance.
Criticism of the government is still sometimes possible, largely because Russia has a “dual executive” system, consisting of a prime minister and presidency. This allows the much more powerful presidency to deflect blame to the government when things go wrong.
There are nominal opposition parties in Russia – sometimes referred to as the “systemic opposition”, because they are loyal to the Kremlin and therefore tolerated by the system. Within the State Duma, these parties often criticise particular government ministries for apparent failings. But they rarely, if ever, now dare criticise Putin directly.
Nothing anywhere close to the challenge presented by Navalny appears on the horizon in Russia – at either end of the political spectrum. But the presence of clear popular grievances, and the existence of organisations (albeit not Navalny’s) that could channel this anger should the Kremlin’s grip loosen, mean we cannot write off all opposition in Russia.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, has vowed to continue her husband’s work. And his team in exile maintain focus on elite corruption in Russia, now from their base in Vilnius, Lithuania. The ACF’s most recent investigation is on Igor Sechin, CEO of the oil company Rosneft.
But some have argued this work is no longer as relevant as it was. Sam Greene, professor in Russian politics at King’s College London, captured this doubt in a recent Substack post:
[T]here is a palpable sense that these sorts of investigations may not be relevant to as many people as they used to be, given everything that has transpired since the mid-2010s, when they were the bread and butter of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Some … have gone as far as to suggest that they have become effectively meaningless … and thus that Team Navalny should move on.
Navalny’s team are understandably irritated by suggestions they’re no longer as effective as they once were. But it’s important to note that this criticism has often been sharpest within Russia’s liberal opposition. The ACF has been rocked, for example, by recent accusations from Maxim Katz, one such liberal opposition figure, that the organisation helped “launder the reputations” of two former bank owners. In their response, posted on YouTube, the ACF referred to Katz’s accusations as “lies” – but this continued squabbling has left some Russians feeling “disillusioned and unrepresented”.
So, what will Navalny’s long-term legacy be? Patriot includes a revealing section on Mikhail Gorbachev – the last leader of the Soviet Union, whom Navalny describes as “unpopular in Russia, and also in our family”. He continues:
Usually, when you tell foreigners this, they are very surprised, because Gorbachev is thought of as the person who gave Eastern Europe back its freedom and thanks to whom Germany was reunited. Of course, that is true … but within Russia and the USSR he was not particularly liked.
At the moment, there is a similar split in perceptions of Navalny. Internationally, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, and a documentary about him won an Oscar.
But there are also those outside of Russia who remain critical: “Navalny’s life has brought no benefit to the Ukrainian victory; instead, he has caused considerable harm,” wrote one Ukrainian academic. “He fuelled the illusion in the west that democracy in Russia is possible.”
Trailer for the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.
Inside Russia, according to Levada Center polling shortly after his death, 53% of Russians thought Navalny played “no special role” in the history of the country, while 19% said he played a “rather negative” role. Revealingly, when commenting on Navalny’s death, one man in Moscow told RFE/RL’s Russian Service: “I think that everyone who is against Russia is guilty, even if they are right.”
But, for a small minority in Russia, Navalny will go down as a messiah-like figure who miraculously cheated death in 2020, then made the ultimate sacrifice in his battle of good and evil with the Kremlin. This view may have been reinforced by Navalny’s increasing openness about his Christian faith.
Ultimately, Navalny’s long-term status in Russia will depend on the nature of the political system after Putin has gone. Since it seems likely that authoritarianism will outlast Putin, a more favourable official story about Navalny is unlikely to emerge any time soon. However, how any post-Putin regime tries to make sense of Navalny’s legacy will tell us a lot about that regime.
While he was alive, Navalny stood for the freer Russia in which he had emerged as a leading opposition figure – and also what he called the “Beautiful Russia of the Future”. Perhaps, after his death, his lasting legacy in Russia remains the ability for some to think – if only in private – of other possible Russias.
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Ben Noble has previously received funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. He is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House.
Menstruation, or a period, is the bleeding that occurs about monthly in healthy people born with a uterus, from puberty to menopause. This happens when the endometrium, the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus, is shed.
Endometriosis is a condition that occurs when endometrium-like tissue is found outside the uterus, usually within the pelvic cavity. It is often considered a major cause of pelvic pain.
Pelvic pain significantly impacts quality of life. But how can you tell the difference between period pain and endometriosis?
Periods and period pain
Periods involve shedding the 4-6 millimetre-thick endometrial lining from the inside of the uterus.
As the lining detaches from the wall of the uterus, the blood vessels which previously supplied the lining bleed. The uterine muscles contract, expelling the blood and crumbled endometrium.
The crumbled endometrium and blood mostly pass through the cervix and vagina. But almost everyone back-bleeds via their fallopian tubes into their pelvic cavity. This is known as “retrograde menstruation”.
The process of menstrual shedding is caused by inflammatory substances, which also cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches, aches, pains, dizziness, feeling faint, as well as stimulating pain receptors.
These inflammatory substances are responsible for the pain and symptoms in the week before a period and the first few days.
For women with heavy periods, their worst days of pain are usually the heaviest days of their period, coinciding with more cramps to expel clots and more retrograde bleeding.
Many women also have pain when they are releasing an egg from their ovary at the time of ovulation. Ovulation or mid-cycle pain can be worse in those who bleed more, as those women are more likely to bleed into the ovulation follicle.
Around 90% of adolescents experience period pain. Among these adolescents, 20% will experience such severe period pain they need time off from school and miss activities. These symptoms are too often normalised, without validation or acknowledgement.
What about endometriosis?
Many symptoms have been attributed to endometriosis, including painful periods, pain with sex, bladder and bowel-related pain, low back pain and thigh pain.
Other pain-related conditions such migraines and chronic fatigue have also been linked to endometriosis. But these other pain-related symptoms occur equally often in people with pelvic pain who don’t have endometriosis.
One in five adolescents who menstrate experience severe symptoms. CGN089/Shutterstock
Repeated, significant period and ovulation pain can eventually lead some people to develop persistent or chronic pelvic pain, which lasts longer than six months. This appears to occur through a process known as central sensitisation, where the brain becomes more sensitive to pain and other sensory stimuli.
Central sensitisation can occur in people with persistent pain, independent of the presence or absence of endometriosis.
Eventually, many people with period and/or persistent pelvic pain will have an operation called a laparoscopy, which allows surgeons to examine organs in the pelvis and abdomen, and diagnose and treat endometriosis.
Yet only 50% of those with identical pain symptoms who undergo a laparoscopy will end up having endometriosis.
Endometriosis surgery usually involves removing lesions and adhesions. But at least 30% of people return to pre-surgery pain levels within six months or have more pain than before.
After surgery, emergency department presentations for pain are unchanged and 50% have repeat surgery within a few years.
Suppressing periods using hormonal therapies (such as continuous oral contraceptive pills or progesterone-only approaches) can suppress endometriosis and reduce or eliminate pain, independent of the presence or absence of endometriosis.
Not every type or dose of hormonal medications suits everyone, so medications need to be individualised.
The current gold-standard approach to manage persistent pelvic pain involves a multidisciplinary team approach, with the aim of achieving sustained remission and improving quality of life. This may include:
physiotherapy for pelvic floor and other musculoskeletal problems
psychological or group therapy, as our moods, stress levels and childhood events can affect how we feel and experience pain.
Whether you have period pain, chronic pelvic pain or pain you think is associated with endometriosis, if you feel pain, it’s real. If it’s disrupting your life, you deserve to be taken seriously and treated as the whole person you are.
Sonia R. Grover receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund for LongSTEPPP: Longitudinal Study of teens with Endometriosis, Period and Pelvic pain. She is Director of the Department of Gynaecology at the Royal Children’s Hospital and
Gynaecology Unit Head at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney
Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia
“It’s an old song”, Hermes (Christine Anu) sings at the opening of Hadestown, but “we’re gonna sing it again and again”.
Based on a myth first told in Greece over 2,500 years ago, Hadestown is a modern retelling of the story of lovers Orpheus and Eurydice.
In ancient Greece, Orpheus was considered the greatest of all musicians, due to his divine heritage. His musical ability makes Orpheus uniquely well suited as the lead for a musical.
In the myth and the musical, Orpheus descends into the Underworld to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, after her untimely death. Moved by his powerful song, the king and queen of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone, allow Orpheus to leave their realm with Eurydice.
One condition: Orpheus must not look back at his wife until they have fully emerged from the underworld.
It’s a tale of a love from long ago
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the most retold myths from antiquity, likely due to its narrative focus on love, loss, and the human condition.
The ancient story of Orpheus and Eurydice is best known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Georgics. While Ovid places Orpheus in a world governed by unpredictable gods, Virgil’s focus on natural order means that the tragic events feel predetermined.
There are numerous other ancient versions, including a mention in Plato’s Symposium, where the philosopher (somewhat unfairly) suggests the musician lacked commitment to his lover.
During the Middle Ages, Eurydice was paralleled with biblical Eve. Eurydice and Eve were both figures known to have unfortunate encounters with snakes, and both were viewed as vulnerable to sin (in Eurydice’s case, being carried away by Hades).
Orpheus was sometimes seen as a Christ-like figure, with his descent to hell compared to Christ’s journey to save souls. Indeed, Orpheus is referenced by his fellow traveller to Hell, Dante, in his Inferno.
Jean Raoux, Orpheus and Eurydice, about 1709. Getty Museum
The love story of Orpheus and Eurydice recently featured in the Netflix series Kaos (2024). The story is referenced in video games Don’t Look Back (2009) and Hades (2020).
Orpheus’ desperate journey to reconnect with his lost love holds continued relevance, thousands of years after its first telling.
Our lady of the underground
In the musical, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is paralleled with the story of Hades and Persephone.
In ancient myth, the union of Hades and Persephone in the Underworld was said to cause the changing of the seasons.
Evelyn De Morgan, Demeter Mourning for Persephone,1906. Wikimedia Commons
Zeus offered the solution: Persephone would spend half the year below ground and half above.
When Persephone was with Hades, the world would enter winter. The new life connected with the coming of spring signalled Demeter’s joy at the return of her beloved daughter.
Way down Hadestown
The musical, written by Anaïs Mitchell, is largely faithful to the broad arc of the ancient story of Orpheus and Eurydice. A notable exception is seen in the death of Eurydice. In the ancient myth, this is often attributed to snakebite; in the musical she chooses to descend to the Underworld due to economic desperation.
Having Eurydice choose to sign her life over to Hades arguably lends her a limited amount of agency, although she almost immediately regrets her decision.
While in the ancient myth, Eurydice’s speech is limited to her whispered farewell, these poets all give us an insight into Eurydice’s thoughts and feelings. The musical continues this tradition of giving agency, hopes and opinions.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is paralleled in the musical with the story of Hades and Persephone. Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia
The dangers posed by unpredictable seasons, seen in the ancient myth of Hades and Persephone, is used in the musical to reflect modern concerns over climate change and environmental decline.
Rising seas and poor harvests threaten the lives of those inhabiting the industrialised world of Hadestown.
Orpheus attempts to bring a dystopian world “back in tune” through restoring environmental harmony, bringing a hopeful note to the tragic story.
Anu is a reassuring presence as the narrator and Orpheus’ confidant, the god Hermes. Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia
Nothing changes
In this Australian restaging of the hit Broadway production, Noah Mullins rises to the significant challenge of portraying Orpheus, the greatest of all musicians. Abigail Adriano’s raw portrayal of Eurydice’s confinement in the underworld is genuinely moving.
Anu is a reassuring presence as the narrator and Orpheus’ confidant, the god Hermes. Adrian Tamburini’s powerful bass-baritone adds to the authority of Hades, and Elenoa Rokobaro gives a dazzling performance as Persephone. The chorus and mostly on-stage band are excellent.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been told for thousands of years. Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia
At its heart, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice confronts one of the defining challenges of mortality: the reality that death can separate us from those we love and value most.
In retelling the myth, Hadestown offers timely meditations on the power of creativity and human connection, bringing this ancient love story alive again for modern audiences.
Hadestown is in Sydney until April 26, then touring to Melbourne.
Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Despite the perceived outrage at Khaled Sabsabi’s depiction of Hassan Nasrallah in his 2007 work You, Australian art has long made subjects of outlaws and questionable figures. And it is all the richer for it.
Why is the Albanese government allowing a person who highlights a terrorist leader in his artwork to represent Australia on the international stage at the Venice Biennale?
I agree with you that any glorification of the Hezbollah leader Nasrallah is inappropriate.
This was followed by disapproval from Arts Minister Tony Burke. Within 24 hours, Creative Australia’s board announced Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, the nominated artistic team for the Australian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, had been scratched.
The news sparked shock resignations at Creative Australia, private funding retractions and widespread outrage across the Australian and international arts sectors.
The work in question, You, isn’t related to Sabsabi’s proposed 2026 Biennale work. It is an experimental video artwork which engages with the complexities of the 2006 Lebanon War and how Sabsabi, who was born in Tripoli and migrated to Australia in 1978, may have experienced this war remotely via newsfeed.
The work features images of now-deceased Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It should be noted the work was made in 2007, 14 years before Australia determined Hezbollah to be a terrorist organisation. It resides in the prestigious collection of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
A double standard
Prior to Sabsabi, a number of prominent Australian artists have depicted outlaws and controversial figures in their work. So how were those works received?
Let’s look at Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series as an example. These 27 famous paintings depict the notorious bushranger Edward (Ned) Kelly’s final days in 1880. Nolan painted the series between 1946 and 1947, in the aftermath of the catastrophic second world war.
The works can be understood as an effort to investigate homegrown violence in Australia’s history, wherein the outlaw is a metaphor used to explore conflicting migrant/settler cultures among the bright and dusty central Victorian landscape.
Similarly, late Australian painter and 2000 Archibald Prize winner Adam Cullen did not meet much controversy when his 2002 portrait of convicted violent criminal Mark “Chopper” Read was installed in the Art Gallery of NSW. That same year, Cullen illustrated Mark Read’s children’s book, Hooky the Cripple.
An acclaimed artist, Cullen is revered for depicting violence and darkness in Australian culture. His works reside in most state and national collections.
Art thrives through diverse perspectives
Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley’s 2018 series Blood Money revises Australian banknotes to feature historical First Nations figures, and forms part of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s art collection.
Works in the series include First Nations colonial resistance fighters and outlaws Jandamarra (1873–97), Woloa (1800-31), Pemulwuy (1750-1802) and Dundalli (circa 1820-55).
These individuals waged violence against the Crown and were classified as enemy combatants in their time. Yet it’s fair to say they make compelling and appropriate subjects for Presley’s art, which helps us better understand Australia’s complex and violent history.
Iranian-born Australian photographer Hoda Afshar’s Agonistes (2020), an award-winning portrait series with accompanying video, features various Australian whistleblowers, including Witness K Lawyer Bernard Collaery and the incarcerated Afghan Files whistleblower David McBride.
Each figure depicted in Afshar’s portraits has faced punishment and persecution by local authorities, in part due to Australia’s weak whistleblower protection laws.
Khaled Sabsabi is a distinguished Australian artist whose Biennale proposal won a rigorous open tender to be exhibited in Venice 2026. Spanning 30 years, his work examines spiritualism, optimism and the intricate beauty of a migrant Australian experience that’s particularly unique to the global microcosm of Western Sydney.
If artists are to be cancelled for making works that spark “divisive debate”, as Creative Australia has called it, there won’t be much art left to see.
Ella Barclay has previously received funding from Creative Australia.
Humans have been poisoning rodents for centuries. But fast-breeding rats and mice have evolved resistance to earlier poisons. In response, manufacturers have produced second generation anticoagulant rodenticides such as bromadiolone, widely used in Australian households.
Unfortunately, these potent poisons do not magically disappear after the rodent is dead. For example, it’s well known owls who eat poisoned rodents suffer the same slow death from internal bleeding.
Our new research shows the problem is much bigger than owls. We found Australia’s five largest marsupial predators – the four quoll species and the Tasmanian devil – are getting hit by these poisons too.
Half of the 52 animals we tested had these poisons in their bodies. Some had died from it. These species are already threatened by foxes and feral cats. Rat poison is yet another threat – and one they may not be able to survive. Other countries have moved to ban these poisons. But in Australia, they’re widely available.
How does rat poison end up in a Tasmanian devil?
Quolls and Tasmanian devils are carnivores. They eat mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, finding food by hunting – or by scavenging dead bodies, including rats and mice. But do they eat enough poisoned rats and mice to be at risk?
To find out, we analysed liver samples from all four of Australia’s quoll species as well as the iconic Tasmanian devil. The samples came from dead animals from a range of sources, including animals dying in veterinary care, found as roadkill, or simply found dead.
Each of these species is endangered or vulnerable. Together, they represent the largest remaining Australian carnivorous marsupials – native animals at the top of their food chains.
We tested samples from 52 animals. Half of these were positive for second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. Of these, 21% tested positive for more than one rodenticide.
Unfortunately, many animals we tested had consumed doses high enough to kill. Around 15% of the Tasmanian devils, 20% of the eastern quolls, 22% of chuditch (western quolls) and 20% of the spotted-tailed quolls tested were very likely to die either from the poison itself or a related cause such as longer-term sickening.
Tasmanian devils often scavenge from carcasses – exposing them to poisoned rats. Vaclav Matous/Shutterstock
We found one chuditch from a Perth suburb had been exposed to three different second-generation rodenticides. It had levels of one poison, brodifacoum, at 1.6 milligrams per kilo, far above the rate presumed to be lethal to mammals. This is likely the highest recorded exposure rate in an Australian marsupial.
Some 5% of Tasmanian devils had also been exposed to lethal levels of these second-generation poisons and a further 10% were exposed to potentially lethal levels.
Even when these poisons don’t directly kill the quoll or devil, they can leave it worse off.
All five species are threatened, meaning their populations are a fraction of what they used to be. Even small changes to populations can trigger more rapid decline.
Our analysis indicates an increase in deaths of just 2–4% of the chuditch population could increase extinction risk by 75%. This figure is dwarfed by how many chuditch are at risk from rat poisons, which we estimate at 22% of any given population in each generation, based on the exposure rates here.
So, exposure to rat poison alone is likely enough to tip the species towards extinction – even without other threats such as being killed by foxes and cats.
The release of an eastern quoll during a translocation. Rat poisons may pose a real risk to the species. Judy Dunlop, CC BY-NC-ND
Can poisons be too potent?
After the poison kills a mouse or rat, it remains lethal for some time.
The poisons we examined take several months to halve in toxicity, meaning during this time they can kill owls, reptiles, frogs and small and medium-sized mammals such as possums.
In Australia and around the world, evidence is mounting that these second-generation rodenticides are killing many more animals than those targeted. The poisons are hitting a wide range of carnivores including otters, wolves, foxes and raccoons. Even the famous Californian condor is threatened by rodenticides.
Efforts to use thousands of litres of bromadiolone to stop a mouse plague in New South Wales triggered strong criticism. But to date, criticism has done little to curb their use in Australia.
Second generation anticoagulant poisons are extremely effective at killing rats and mice – but the poison doesn’t stop there. speedshutter Photography/Shutterstock
Australia is an outlier on this issue. In European and North American nations, these products are restricted to use by licensed pest controllers and banned for home use. Some nations have gone further and banned these poisons altogether. But here, you can buy them at Bunnings, Coles or Woolworths.
Last year, a delegation of Australian researchers lobbied politicians to do more to regulate the use of these poisons.
The institution responsible for ensuring poisons are safe is the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicine Authority. At present, the authority is weighing a decision on whether to introduce restrictions on these second-generation poisons, expected in April.
In the absence of regulation, you can make a difference at home. Don’t use second-generation poisons which rely on brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone, difenacoum or flocoumafen. Get rid of your mouse or rat problem with first-generation poisons containing warfarin, coumatetralyl or other chemicals.
Taking a moment to consider these alternatives could save Australia’s most threatened native predators from an agonising death.
Acknowledgements: Michael Lohr (Birdlife Australia) was the lead author on the research behind this article. Cheryl Lohr (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Western Australia) contributed to the research.
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.
It’s an unfortunate fact that bad people sometimes want guns. And while laws are designed to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, the determined criminal can be highly resourceful.
There are three main ways to source an illegal weapon: find a lawful owner willing to provide one unlawfully, buy one from another criminal, or make your own.
The first two options aren’t as easy as they sound. The buyer might “know a guy” willing to sell, but the seller generally has good reason to be cautious about who they sell to.
The price of the right firearm can be high, too, as is how “clean” its history is. No criminal wants to be connected to someone else’s crimes by their weapon’s history.
Which leads us to the third option. Privately made firearms, manufactured to avoid detection by the authorities, are nothing new. What has grown is the computer-aided manufacture, of which 3D-printing technology is the best known form, enabling manufacture without traditional gunsmithing skills.
The resulting “ghost guns” will potentially become more prevalent in New Zealand, and are already posing a significant challenge in overseas jurisdictions. With public submissions on the planned rewriting of the Arms Act closing at the end of February, it’s an issue we can’t ignore.
No room for complacency
Although blueprints of fully 3D-printed firearms are most common, hybrid designs, conversion kits, and firearms components sold as a kit or as separate pieces, are all gaining ground.
These are all far more advanced and deadly than the homemade wood and metal weapon used in 2022 to kill former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Their ease of manufacture, improved reliability and performance, non-traceability and lower cost all appear to be driving demand. There is also the ideological attraction of avoiding state scrutiny that makes 3D-printing popular with far-right extremist groups.
This growth mirrors overseas trends. But it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective. Of the 9,662 firearms (including airguns) the New Zealand Police seized between August 2016 and July 2022, the most common were conventional rifles and shotguns.
However, that is no cause for complacency. If proposed firearms law reforms – such as a new registry – help shrink the black market, we can expect the ghost gun market to grow.
3D printed guns and gun conversion devices held by the US National Firearm Reference Vault. Getty Images
Gaps in the law
Legislation passed in 2020 makes the crime of illegal manufacturing (by unlicensed people) punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment.
Additional penalties can be added for making certain prohibited items, such as large-capacity magazines. In October last year, an Otago man became the first to be imprisoned in New Zealand for 3D-printing firearms.
Despite this, and the foreseeable risk, there are several significant gaps in New Zealand law.
1. Making guns detectable
Unlike the US and some other countries, New Zealand does not mandate that every gun be detectable by containing enough metal to set off X-ray machines and metal detectors.
The US also prohibits any firearms with major components that do not show up accurately in standard airport imaging technology.
2. Penalties for obtaining blueprints
While the manufacture of 3D-printed firearms is illegal, there is nothing specific in New Zealand law about downloading blueprints.
There may be scope within existing censorship laws around downloading objectionable material. But this may be limited by the need to classify each plan or blueprint as objectionable. And artificial intelligence means these plans can change and evolve rapidly.
More wholesale laws covering the computer-aided manufacture of firearms or their individual parts would be preferable.
Canada, for example, introduced recent changes to firearms law making it a crime to access or download plans or graphics. Knowingly sharing or selling such data online for manufacturing or trafficking is also a crime, with penalties of up to ten years in prison.
New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia are all making new laws in this area. In the case of South Australia, offenders face up to 15 years in prison for the possession of 3D-printer firearms blueprints.
3. Preventing ‘ghost ammunition’
Privately manufactured firearms still require ammunition to be effective, and the Arms Act is only partly effective in this area.
But that obligation does not apply when firearms licence holders give, share or otherwise supply ammunition among themselves. Furthermore, there are only limited regulations around obtaining the precursors or tools for making ammunition, with only a few key ingredients, like gunpowder, restricted to licence holders.
This is similar to the Australian approach. But Australia also requires licensed owners to purchase only the type of ammunition required for their specific firearms type.
Trying to the correct balance here is tricky: the law must be practical to work but also ensure a potential ghost gun market does not create a “ghost ammunition” market, too.
The ability to privately manufacture firearms, by computer-aided methods in particular, is a foreseeable and potentially hard-to-police problem. But by learning from other jurisdictions and making a few simple law changes, New Zealand can move now to make communities safer.
The author thanks Clementine Annabell for assisting with the research for this article.
Alexander Gillespie is a recipient of a Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship to research comparative best practice in the regulation of firearms. He is also a member of the Ministerial Arms Advisory Group. The views expressed here are his own and not to be attributed to either of these organisations.
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
A national Newspoll, conducted February 10–14 from a sample of 1,244, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, unchanged from the previous Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 38% Coalition (down one), 31% Labor (steady), 12% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (steady) and 12% for all Others (up one).
Newspoll previously used 2022 election preference flows, but they have adjusted for stronger One Nation preferences to the Coalition at the Queensland state election. The one-point drop in the Coalition’s primary vote suggests Labor gained, but preference flow changes affected the unchanged two-party estimate.
The graph below shows Labor’s two-party vote for each pollster’s headline voting intentions. As the pollsters are making adjustments to the 2022 election preference flows, I don’t think it’s useful anymore to use the 2022 flows as a baseline.
I’ve revised some of the previous iterations of Morgan and Essential so they use their headline respondent preferences. The four new polls included since the last federal update are Newspoll, the YouGov MRP below and last week’s Morgan and Redbridge polls.
All polls have the Coalition leading by about 51–49. Labor had a better result (a 50–50 tie) from Morgan two weeks ago, but last week it reverted to a Coalition lead. Labor can recover this lead by the election that is due by May, but they’re currently losing.
In Newspoll, Anthony Albanese’s net approval slid one point to a new low of -21, with 58% dissatisfied and 37% satisfied. Peter Dutton’s net approval was up one point to -10. Albanese led Dutton by 45–40 as better PM (44–41 previously).
The graph below shows Albanese’s deteriorating ratings in Newspoll. The plus signs mark the data and a smoothed line has been fitted.
In more bad news for Labor, just 34% said they deserved to be re-elected, while 53% said it’s time to give someone else a go.
YouGov has Coalition winning the most seats
YouGov conducted a national MRP poll (multi-level modelling with post-stratification) from January 22 to February 12 from an overall sample of over 40,000. MRP polls are used to estimate the outcome in each House of Representatives electorate using huge samples and modelling.
YouGov’s central forecast if the election were held now is the Coalition winning 73 of the 150 lower house seats, three short of a majority. Labor would win 66 seats, independents eight, the Greens one and others two. At lower limits, the Coalition could win 65 seats and Labor 59, while at higher limits the Coalition could win 80 and Labor 72.
The overall vote share in this MRP poll was 51.1–48.0 to the Coalition, a 3.2% swing to the Coalition since the 2022 election. Primary votes were 37.4% Coalition, 29.1% Labor, 12.7% Greens, 9.1% One Nation, 8.9% independents and 2.8% others.
YouGov is using respondent preferences for its MRP polls, and it has a weakening of flows to Labor from both Green and One Nation voters compared with 2022. By 2022 election preference flows, this poll would be 50.2–49.8 to Labor.
Labor’s primary vote is down most in its once safe working-class seats. But the Coalition is not likely to regain any of the seats taken by teal independents at the last election.
Redbridge and Morgan polls
The Poll Bludger reported last Tuesday that a national Redbridge poll, conducted February 3–7 from a sample of 1,013, gave the Coalition a 51.5–48.5 lead, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since early November. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (up two), 31% Labor (down three), 11% Greens (steady) and 18% for all Others (up one).
Coalition supporters were more firm in their voting intentions (61% solid, 34% soft) than Labor supporters (51% solid, 39% soft). The poll suggested a 9% two-party swing against Labor in the outer suburbs, but this would have been based on a small subsample. Other swings were 5% against Labor in inner and middle suburbs, no change in provincial cities and a 3% swing to Labor in rural areas.
The Poll Bludger reported Sunday that a Redbridge and Accent Research poll of 20 marginal seats, conducted February 4–11 from a total sample of 1,002, gave the Coalition a 52–48 lead (51–49 to Labor across these seats in 2022). Primary votes were 43% Coalition, 33% Labor, 12% Greens and 12% for all Others.
A national Morgan poll, conducted February 3–9 from a sample of 1,688, gave the Coalition a 51.5–48.5 lead by headline respondent preferences, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since the January 27 to February 2 poll.
Primary votes were 40.5% Coalition (up two), 29% Labor (down one), 11% Greens (down 0.5), 4% One Nation (down 1.5), 9.5% independents (down one) and 6% others (up two). This is the lowest support for the Greens in this poll since November 2022. By 2022 election preference flows, the Coalition led by 51.5–48.5, a two-point gain for the Coalition.
UAP can’t register for election
Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) voluntarily deregistered during this term, and were unable to re-register under this name. Palmer and the UAP’s only federal parliamentarian, Victorian Senator Ralph Babet, challenged this law, but the High Court last Wednesday denied the challenge.
Babet was elected in 2022 and won’t be up for election as his six-year term expires in June 2028. The coming election will be a normal one for the full House and half the Senate, not a double dissolution where all senators are up for election.
The UAP could still register under a different name, but their registration would need to be completed before writs are issued for the election. If the election is on May 17, the latest possible date, writs would need to be issued by April 14.
Victorian Labor retains Werribee at byelection
I previously covered the February 8 Victorian state byelections for Werribee and Prahran. On the election night count, Prahran was a Liberal gain from the Greens, with Labor ahead in Werribee but not certain to hold.
Over 2,000 additional postals have been counted in Werribee, and Labor increased its lead, and now leads by 50.8–49.2 against the Liberals, a 10.2% swing to the Liberals since the November 2022 state election.
Left-wing parties will do badly in Germany
I covered next Sunday’s German election for The Poll Bludger on Saturday. The conservative CDU/CSU and far-right AfD are the top two parties in the polls, with the governing centre-left SPD and the Greens trailing.
In Canada, Mark Carney is almost certain to be elected Liberal leader, replacing Justin Trudeau. In recent weeks, the Liberals have closed the gap on the Conservatives, but still trail by a large margin. US and UK polls were also covered.
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.
Indonesia’s TVOne launched an AI news presenter in 2023.T.J. Thomson
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at lightning speed in the past couple of years, creating disruption in many industries. Newsrooms are no exception.
A new report published today finds that news audiences and journalists alike are concerned about how news organisations are – and could be – using generative AI such as chatbots, image, audio and video generators, and similar tools.
The report draws on three years of interviews and focus group research into generative AI and journalism in Australia and six other countries (United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and France).
Only 25% of our news audience participants were confident they had encountered generative AI in journalism. About 50% were unsure or suspected they had.
This suggests a potential lack of transparency from news organisations when they use generative AI. It could also reflect a lack of trust between news outlets and audiences.
Who or what makes your news – and how – matters for a host of reasons.
Some outlets tend to use more or fewer sources, for example. Or use certain kinds of sources – such as politicians or experts – more than others.
Some outlets under-represent or misrepresent parts of the community. This is sometimes because the news outlet’s staff themselves aren’t representative of their audience.
Carelessly using AI to produce or edit journalism can reproduce some of these inequalities.
Our report identifies dozens of ways journalists and news organisations can use generative AI. It also summarises how comfortable news audiences are with each.
The news audiences we spoke to overall felt most comfortable with journalists using AI for behind-the-scenes tasks rather than for editing and creating. These include using AI to transcribe an interview or to provide ideas on how to cover a topic.
But comfort is highly dependent on context. Audiences were quite comfortable with some editing and creating tasks when the perceived risks were lower.
The problem – and opportunity
Generative AI can be used in just about every part of journalism.
For example, a photographer could cover an event. Then, a generative AI tool could select what it “thinks” are the best images, edit the images to optimise them, and add keywords to each.
Computer software can try to recognise objects in images and add keywords, leading to potentially more efficient image processing workflows. Elise Racine/Better Images of AI/Moon over Fields, CC BY
These might seem like relatively harmless applications. But what if the AI identifies something or someone incorrectly, and these keywords lead to mis-identifications in the photo captions? What if the criteria humans think make “good” images are different to what a computer might think? These criteria may also change over time or in different contexts.
Even something as simple as lightening or darkening an image can cause a furore when politics are involved.
AI can also make things up completely. Images can appear photorealistic but show things that never happened. Videos can be entirely generated with AI, or edited with AI to change their context.
Generative AI is also frequently used for writing headlines or summarising articles. These sound like helpful applications for time-poor individuals, but some news outlets are using AI to rip off others’ content.
AI-generated news alerts have also gotten the facts wrong. As an example, Apple recently suspended its automatically generated news notification feature. It did this after the feature falsely claimed US murder suspect Luigi Mangione had killed himself, with the source attributed as the BBC.
What do people think about journalists using AI?
Our research found news audiences seem to be more comfortable with journalists using AI for certain tasks when they themselves have used it for similar purposes.
For example, the people interviewed were largely comfortable with journalists using AI to blur parts of an image. Our participants said they used similar tools on video conferencing apps or when using the “portrait” mode on smartphones.
Likewise, when you insert an image into popular word processing or presentation software, it might automatically create a written description of the image for people with vision impairments. Those who’d previously encountered such AI descriptions of images felt more comfortable with journalists using AI to add keywords to media.
Popular word processing and presentation software can automatically generate alt-text descriptions for images that are inserted into documents or presentations. T.J. Thomson
The most frequent way our participants encountered generative AI in journalism was when journalists reported on AI content that had gone viral.
For example, when an AI-generated image purported to show Princes William and Harry embracing at King Charles’s coronation, news outlets reported on this false image.
Our news audience participants also saw notices that AI had been used to write, edit or translate news articles. They saw AI-generated images accompanying some of these. This is a popular approach at The Daily Telegraph, which uses AI-generated images to illustrate many of its opinion columns.
The Daily Telegraph frequently turns to generative AI to illustrate its opinion columns, sometimes generating more photorealistic illustrations and sometimes less photorealistic ones. T.J. Thomson
Overall, our participants felt most comfortable with journalists using AI for brainstorming or for enriching already created media. This was followed by using AI for editing and creating. But comfort depends heavily on the specific use.
Most of our participants were comfortable with turning to AI to create icons for an infographic. But they were quite uncomfortable with the idea of an AI avatar presenting the news, for example.
On the editing front, a majority of our participants were comfortable with using AI to animate historical images, like this one. AI can be used to “enliven” an otherwise static image in the hopes of attracting viewer interest and engagement.
A historical photograph from the State Library of Western Australia’s collection has been animated with AI (a tool called Runway) to introduce motion to the still image. T.J. Thomson
Your role as an audience member
If you’re unsure if or how journalists are using AI, look for a policy or explainer from the news outlet on the topic. If you can’t find one, consider asking the outlet to develop and publish a policy.
Consider supporting media outlets that use AI to complement and support – rather than replace – human labour.
Before making decisions, consider the past trustworthiness of the journalist or outlet in question, and what the evidence says.
T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.
Michelle Riedlinger receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Global Journalism Innovation Lab. She is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.
Phoebe Matich receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a post-doctoral research fellow within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society.
Ryan J. Thomas 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.
Most of us would do anything for our pets if they become unwell. But just as caring for a human loved one can come at great personal cost, a growing body of research shows that’s also true for many pet owners looking after a seriously ill pet.
One 2017 study looked at how people with healthy pets fared compared to those caring for pets with serious diseases.
It found many of those looking after seriously ill animals felt they didn’t have enough time for themselves due to the time they had to spend with their pet.
Compared to owners of healthy pets, those caring for unwell pets experienced:
greater burden, stress and symptoms of depression/anxiety, as well as poorer quality of life.
Our 2023 research into experiences of people looking after older dogs showed similarly concerning results.
We surveyed people with dogs eight years or older. Some of these dogs were living with canine cognitive dysfunction, a form of dementia similar to Alzheimer’s disease in people.
Out of the 637 respondents to our survey, 16% had a high burden of care likely to be associated with negative psychological, physical and financial outcomes.
One respondent told us:
My partner and I cannot leave him home alone for long at all […] I worry about [my pet’s] quality of life. I feel my partner is really struggling with [my pet’s] deterioration and when the time comes for euthanasia I know it will be me forcing the issue. I feel constant anxiety about this decision looming.
A higher burden of care was associated with the dog having more severe canine cognitive dysfunction, pet owners who were aged between 25 and 44 years, and those who lived alone.
This makes sense, because people who live alone don’t have another person to support or help them. The most difficult dog behaviours people reported were night-time disturbances and barking.
Burden of care in other situations
Any significant pet disease or disability is likely to be associated with stress in their caregivers.
Even behavioural problems in dogs, such as aggression or separation-related disorder, have been associated with clinically significant strain in more than 68% of people.
Most of the research has been done in dogs, but owners of ill cats also have a higher burden, although it appears less than owners of an ill dog.
We previously showed that a third of owners of cats with epilepsy are likely to be experiencing high levels of carer stress or strain.
These problems were worse in owners who did not feel supported by their vet. For example, they may feel they’re being rushed through appointments, or that their concerns are being dismissed.
Pet owners more likely to feel this caregiver stress included those who were younger than 55, and those whose cat had uncontrolled seizures.
Strong emotions and complex needs
The burden of caring for an unwell pet is not well recognised, even by vets.
People suffering this kind of carer stress are likely to require more time in consultations at the vet’s office, visit more frequently, and become angry and emotional.
From a vet’s perspective, clients with such strong emotions and complex needs can be challenging.
People suffering a high burden of care are likely to require more time in consultations at the vet. Beach Creatives/Shutterstock
How can you get help?
If you or somebody you know is struggling with caring for a seriously ill pet, find a vet you trust and feel comfortable with. If you can tell them what you are struggling with, the vet may be able to provide some support.
Call on your village! Ask friends and family for help to provide you with respite. We often do it when we first bring a new puppy or kitten home, but don’t think it’s OK to ask for help when they’re sick or ageing and need more care.
Know that it’s OK to sometimes feel frustrated, overwhelmed, or even resentful towards your pet. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It means providing this level of care is hard.
I think that most of the people are not aware of the benefits of living with the cat with special needs.
Supporting the human-animal bond means supporting both humans and animals. We’re all better off when we recognise and support people struggling with caring for their pets.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Susan Hazel has received funding from the Waltham Foundation and is affiliated with the Dog and Cat Management Board of South Australia, and the RSPCA South Australia.
Tracey Taylor receives funding from the Waltham Foundation.
When the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was established in 2013, one of its driving aims was to make disability services and support systems fairer.
However, our new research shows significant inequalities remain, with some groups finding it much harder than others to be deemed eligible and access a funding plan.
So, what can we do to ensure these reforms don’t further embed existing inequalities? Here’s what we found.
Inequalities in scheme access
To receive funding from the NDIS, participants are required to demonstrate their eligibility.
We wanted to explore whether decisions about eligibility were leading to inequalities in who could access and use NDIS funding.
Our study looked at the individual NDIS applications of 485,676 people aged seven or older, made between 2016 and 2022, to see if they were deemed eligible.
We then compared differences in eligibility rates between groups, considering:
age (applicants 55 or older versus those under 55)
gender (women and girls versus other applicants)
socioeconomic disadvantage (those from the poorest 30% of areas versus all other areas).
Who is deemed ineligible?
We found some groups are more likely to be rejected from the scheme than others: women and girls, people aged 55 and over, and those who live in disadvantaged areas.
Within these groups, eligibility rates also vary.
For example, people with intellectual disability, autism, and brain injury or stroke were very likely to be deemed eligible, regardless of their age, gender or socioeconomic disadvantage (900 or more were accepted per 1,000 applicants).
However, people with physical disability and psychosocial disability (disabilities that can arise from a mental health issue, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) were significantly more likely to be rejected.
This was true across groups, but particularly evident among women and girls.
We compared eligibility rates within every 1,000 applications made by women and girls versus men and boys.
Among those who had physical disability, 145 more women and girls were rejected, compared to men and boys.
Among those with psychosocial disability, 83 more applications were deemed ineligible for every 1,000 applications made by women, compared to men.
Age was also a factor. Older Australians with a physical disability had 235 fewer approvals per 1,000 applications than those with physical disability under 55.
Inequalities are more pronounced among those trying to prove eligibility for the scheme.
Once accepted into the NDIS, our research found women and girls, and people living in poorer areas, received similar amounts of funding as men and boys, and those living in better-off areas.
This budget is based on what the participant wants to achieve in everyday life and their support needs relating to their disabilities.
However once people receive and are using plans, we then see some differences in how much these people are able to spend. This relates to factors such as the availability of services in an area or whether culturally safe supports are available.
We found that women with psychosocial disability spent more than men with similar sized budgets.
This result could reflect that women with psychosocial disability on the NDIS have higher support needs than men.
It could be that it is harder for women to get onto the scheme in the first place, so those who are deemed eligible have more significant disability than men.
But we need more research to unpack this further.
Why do we see these inequalities?
In the early days of the NDIS, to help fast-track applications, the National Disability Insurance Agency (which runs the NDIS) specified a list of diagnoses closely related to disability.
Known as list A conditions, people with these diagnoses are automatically eligible for the NDIS.
Disabilities likely to be associated with a list A diagnosis include level 2 or 3 autism (requiring substantial or very substantial support) and intellectual disability.
However some people who could have permanent and significant disability, may have a diagnosis not on list A, such as Down syndrome and motor neurone disease. They must provide a broader range of evidence on the impact of their disability to be eligible.
If they face other challenges – such as socioeconomic disadvantage – it may be harder for them to collect this evidence. For example, they may not be able to afford private health care that would help support their application.
This might explain why people who do not have a list A diagnosis are less likely to prove their eligibility for the scheme.
Where next for the scheme?
Following recommendations from an independent review into the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Agency is currently making changes to how it assesses eligibility.
One of the changes suggested is removing list A classifications altogether.
Instead, the agency will use a suite of functional assessment tools. These are still in the process of being designed, but they are one way to assess a person’s ability to perform everyday tasks and identify the level of support they require.
This approach aims to assess more objectively and fairly how much someone is impacted by their disability.
However, there are longstanding critiques of these tools. These include concerns they are not safe for minority groups, such as those with a culturally or linguistically diverse background, LGBTQIA+ people, and First Nations applicants.
Our new research demonstrates how and why some inequalities arise. We should put this understanding front-and-centre in any changes to the NDIS.
Most importantly, we should make sure reforms are co-designed with a broad range of different groups, to ensure we don’t perpetuate old inequalities or introduce new ones.
George has conducted commissioned work for the Australian Department of Social Services (NDIS service use), the Victorian Department of Families Fairness and Housing (inequalities in NDIS service use), and the Queensland Department of Seniors, Disability Services, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships (NDIS service use in regional and remote Queensland).
Alexandra Devine receives funding from the NHMRC.
Anne Kavanagh receives funding from the ARC, NHMRC, MRFF, MS Australia and the Australian government.
Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC and Department of Social Services.
Yi Yang has conducted commissioned work for the Australian Department of Social Services (inequalities in NDIS service use), the Victorian Department of Families Fairness and Housing (inequalities in NDIS service use), and the Queensland Department of Seniors, Disability Services, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships (inequalities in NDIS service use in regional and remote Queensland).
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