We know that boys and girls are produced in much the same frequency. But how – and why – is this 1:1 ratio achieved?
A new paper searches huge human data sets for gene variants that throw the 1:1 sex ratio off balance, and test the biological and theoretical rules of sex ratio.
What produces the 1:1 sex ratio?
Early scientists credited divine providence with ensuring that “every male should have its female”.
Of course, we now know that sex chromosomes are the real determiners of sex. Females have two X chromosomes; males have a single X and a male-specific Y.
The Y carries a male-determining gene called SRY, which kickstarts the differentiation of a ridge of cells into a testis. The embryonic testis makes male hormones which direct the embryo to develop as a boy. Without SRY, an alternative pathway is activated that makes an ovary, and the embryo develops as a girl.
The 1:1 ratio results from the way the X and Y chromosomes are doled out in sperm and eggs. Our cells all have two sets of chromosomes that constitute our genome, one set from each parent. A special type of cell division makes sperm and eggs with just a single set of chromosomes, so that a fertilised egg once again has two sets (one set from the sperm and the other from the egg).
So sperm all get a single copy of each chromosome – and just one sex chromosome, either an X or a Y. XX females make eggs with a single chromosome set, all of which carry an X.
When a sperm fertilises an egg, the sex chromosome the sperm carries determines the sex of the baby. Embryos that receive one X from the mother and another X from the father are destined to be XX girls, and embryos that receive a Y-bearing sperm will develop as XY boys.
So the 1:1 XY ratio in sperm should produce a 1:1 ratio of XX girls and XY boys.
Sex ratio variation
But there are lots of exceptions to a 1:1 ratio in the animal kingdom. There are genetic mutations that subvert the orderly segregation of the X and Y, or that preferentially kill male or female embryos.
Why should the sex ratio be stuck at 1:1 anyway? After all, a few males can fertilise the eggs of many females.
Indeed, for many animals, unequal sex ratios are the norm. For instance, the mouse-sized marsupial Antechinus stuartiiproduces only 32% males, even when assessed at birth (so it’s not that male babies die more often).
Many birds have sex ratios far from 1:1, and some show very specific adaptations that make ecological sense. For instance, the second kookaburra chick to hatch, facing a lower chance of survival, is usually a female, the sex most likely to survive.
And there are systems of non-standard sex chromosomes. Polar mammals and strange rodents, for instance, are famous for systems in which a mutant X chromosome quashes SRY to form fertile XY females, or a mutated version of SRY doesn’t work. In these species, females predominate, which makes sense for mammals that have to get all their breeding done in a short summer.
Insects take the cake. An extreme case is a kind of mite that produces a ratio of 15 females to 1 male. In many fruit fly species, 95% of sperm carry the X chromosome, so the progeny are largely female.
Why a 1:1 sex ratio in humans? Fisher’s principle
So if sex ratio is so malleable, why have humans (and most mammals) gone for a 1:1 ratio? The great British statistician Ronald Fisher proposed that the ratio is self-correcting and will tend to 1:1 unless there are evolutionary forces that select for distortions.
The argument is simple. Given every baby must have a mother and a father, if there is a deficiency in one sex, the parents of the rarer sex will have more grandchildren than parents of the more common sex.
For instance, if males are the rarer sex, parents who by chance produce more sons than daughters will leave more grandchildren than those that produce more daughters than sons. As a result, son-producing genes will get a boost until parity is reached.
So do we see measurable and heritable departures from 1:1 in the family sex ratio of human sons to daughters? What about Fisher’s principle – is there any evidence that strong evolutionary effects are constraining the human population sex ratio to be 1:1?
In the new research published this week, researchers Siliang Song and Jianzhi Zhang from the University of Michigan conducted an exhaustive examination of huge human data sets from the United Kingdom and found the answer is an emphatic no. They did identify two genetic variants that affected sex ratio, but these seemed not to be passed on through families.
So why do humans obey the 1:1 rule? Is it just statistical artefact, because any one family has relatively so few children that even large departures from a 1:1 ratio get evened out across many families?
Some families have the gene variants to produce more sons than daughters, but other families produce more daughters than sons. Song and Zhang’s analysis suggests this high variability is part of the problem for demonstrating any systematic bias.
Another possibility is that humans face special evolutionary constraints. Perhaps the human tendency for monogamy places additional evolutionary pressure on humans to adhere to Fisher’s principle in a way that does not apply to other animal species.
Whatever the answer, this paper by Song and Zhang raises many intriguing questions, and will be a stimulus to further research on the longstanding and fascinating question of parity in the human sex ratio.
Jenny Graves receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Arthur Georges receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Gambling, especially sports and race betting, is a hot political issue at the moment.
This is largely due to the recommendations from a 2023 report from a nonpartisan federal government committee, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, called You Win Some, You Lose More.
This report recommended “the Australian government, with the cooperation of the states and territories, implement a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling”.
This has led to lots of debate and controversy.
Recently, Peter V’landys, head of the NRL and Racing NSW, claimed lotteries were more harmful than race and sports betting combined, citing independent statistics.
Let’s explore the relative harm of different types of gambling and see if this claim holds up.
Australians love a punt
Gambling is widespread in Australia, with more than half of adults engaging in at least one form each year.
According to the latest national data, lotteries are the most common type (40% of Australians buy a ticket annually), followed by race betting (17%), pokies (16%), scratchies (15.7%) and sports betting (9.6%).
However, the popularity of a gambling form doesn’t necessarily reflect its harm. Different gambling activities have distinct characteristics.
Two key factors mean that some gambling forms are more harmful than others: the speed of gambling and bet size.
Pokies allow for frequent, small bets, with spins every three seconds. Race and sports betting can involve much larger sums and betting that is relatively fast, but still slower than pokie spins.
Sports betting, in particular, is getting faster with in-play betting and microbetting.
Poker machines, or ‘pokies’ are the biggest single source of gambling losses in Australia.
Lotteries, on the other hand, are much slower-paced.
People typically spend a small amount on tickets and wait for a draw to find out if they’ve won.
Although it’s possible to spend a lot on tickets, people tend not to, unlike with faster gambling forms.
The average spend on pokies among the 16% who play them is around $4,782 per year, compared to an average spend on lotteries of $377 per year. These are averages. Most won’t spend these amounts but some will spend far more, which raises the average amount.
V’landys’ claim about lotteries being more harmful than race and sports betting was based on “independent statistics”.
He said that of 100 people seeking help from a gambling hotline, 70 had issues with pokies, 15 with lotteries, eight with race betting, four with sports betting, and three with casinos.
We were unable to verify these figures – if anyone has the data, we’d love to see the research to assess them.
However, we do have publicly available data.
What the data say
The NSW GambleAware website’s 2020-21 report shows that of 2,886 people seeking help, 73.3% identified pokies as their primary form of gambling, while only 13 people (less than 1%) listed lotteries. Race betting accounted for 13.1%, and sports betting for 7.9%.
People who experience problems also usually take part in more than one form of gambling, as the NSW report showed.
When these secondary gambling activities were considered, sports betting was cited by 35.5%, race betting by 33.5%, pokies by 19.5%, and lotteries by 13.7%.
What we discovered
The best evidence on gambling problems and harm comes from large-scale prevalence studies, typically commissioned by governments and conducted by independent researchers.
These studies offer high-quality insights into how each gambling form contributes to problems.
While one prevalence study is great, our team recently combined data from seven national and state-based prevalence studies. This resulted in a very high-quality dataset that we can use to study this question.
In our analysis, we used statistical techniques to show how strongly each gambling form is associated with problems.
These techniques give us regression coefficients, which are just numbers that tell us how strong the association is. A higher number means a stronger association between that form and gambling problems.
The most problematic form was pokies (coefficient = 0.147), followed by casino games (0.136), sports betting (0.068) and race betting (0.038).
Lotteries, with a coefficient of 0.001, were the least problematic and were not statistically significant even in our large sample.
As you might guess from such a low number, there’s very little relationship between lotteries and gambling problems.
What about prevalence?
Prevalence matters too – while pokies were most strongly associated with problems, the number of people participating in each gambling form is also important.
Let’s consider an analogy – a car that gives out a lot of exhaust fumes. That car is harmful, but if virtually no one owns one, then it’s not going to account for much pollution.
The same idea applies for gambling forms. If a gambling form is very harmful but very few people do it, it doesn’t account for many problems in the population.
It works the other way, too – if there is a very clean type of car that many people drive, they also won’t add up to much pollution.
Similarly, if we have gambling forms that have very little association with problems, it won’t add up to many problems in the population, even if lots of people take part.
The regression coefficients tell us how problematic each gambling form is. Prevalance tells us how many people do it.
When we combine these two bits of information, we can work out the degree of problems in the community that come from each form.
When we did this, pokies were responsible for 52-57% of gambling problems in the community.
Sports and race betting each contributed 9-11%, with a combined total of around 20%.
Lotteries accounted for just 0.1-1% of problems.
Even if we include scratchies as part of lotteries, this only adds another 2-5% of problems, still far below sports and race betting.
The real issue
What’s the takeaway?
Lotteries are widely played but are not typically associated with much harm.
Sports and race betting, despite having fewer participants, are more harmful due to their faster pace and the potential for large, frequent bets.
Lotteries involve slower betting and lower spending, making them much less risky.
If we aim to reduce gambling harm in our community, the focus should be on pokies, which are widespread in pubs and clubs outside WA, casino games and race and sports betting.
These forms have features that make them far more harmful than slower-paced gambling like lotteries.
Alex Russell receives funding from Gambling Research Australia, the Department of Social Services, the NSW Responsible Gambling Fund, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, the South Australian Government, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Northern Territory Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade, the Alberta Gambling Research Institute and Arts Queensland. He previously provided statistical advice on projects to inform a casino group about gambling and gambling problems amongst their employees, and what could be done to reduce this.
He is a board member for the Australian Loneliness Research Foundation.
Matthew Browne has received funding from the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission, the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, Gambling Research Australia, the Alberta Gambling Research Institute, the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General, the Commonwealth Department of Social Services, the Office of Responsible Gambling, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority for various research studies on gambling behaviour, youth gambling, and the social costs of gambling, and gambling-related harm.
Matthew Rockloff receives funding from Matthew Rockloff has received funding from the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission, the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling, the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, Gambling Research Australia, the Alberta Gambling Research Institute, the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney-General, the Commonwealth Department of Social Services, the Office of Responsible Gambling, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority for various research studies on gambling behaviour, youth gambling, and the social costs of gambling, and gambling-related harm.
This follows ongoing reports of disturbing events involving sexist abuse by students in both independent and government schools in Victoria and around the country.
But while this week’s announcement is a welcome and necessary step, we need a more comprehensive plan to eliminate gender-based violence in our schools.
What is the ‘manosphere’?
The “manosphere” is an overlapping collection of extreme men’s communities on social media that are anti-women and against women’s empowerment. This includes Tate, the “misogynist influencer” who is facing trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking and rape (which he denies).
Our recent research found women teachers are increasingly exposed to sexism, misogyny and sexual harassment as the result of boys’ exposure to “manfluencer” ideas and behaviours. These problems are further compounded by the infiltration of far-right sentiments into schools, which has been linked to far-right online forums.
At the same time, women teachers report they are not being supported by school leadership.
The new teaching resources were developed by education academics Helen Cahill and Debbie Ollis, in consultation with teachers, students and parents.
They aim to give students skills to counter the influence of “Tate-types”, and to navigate issues such as consent, sextortion, pornography and gender-based bullying.
They will be part of respectful relationships education, which is mandatory in Victorian government schools (following a recommendation of the 2015 Royal Commission into Family Violence).
Problems with respecful relationship education
There have been implementation issues with respectful relationships education.
A 2022 review (of which one of us, Naomi Pfitzner, was an author) found problems with the funding, quality of resources and training supplied to schools, and with schools’ levels of commitment
Previous research also suggests teachers may be hesitant to engage with controversial or tricky topics. There is a risk some issues are being left out of classroom discussions.
Crucially, respectful relationships is not mandatory in all Victorian schools — independent and faith-based schools in Victoria need to opt in.
In other Australian states and territories, respectful relationships education is not compulsory in any school system.
We need more information
Education departments around the country collect various forms of data about school life, such as learning and attendance. But we don’t have accurate national data on the prevalence of gender-based violence in schools.
Without the full picture of how widespread gender-based violence is in Australian schools, it is difficult to resource and design an appropriate response.
Gender-based violence in schools is inextricably connected to the endemic levels of violence against women in Australia.
We cannot separate a broader culture that enables gendered slurs, misogyny and gender inequity — known enablers of gender-based violence — from attitudes towards women and girls in schools.
The proliferation of online misogynist content requires a new, tailored approach.
Our current project with Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety is examining how online misogyny in the manosphere influences young boys and men in Australia. We will then create resources to support teachers and help make schools safer for all young people.
It is shameful many girls’ first experience of gendered violence happens as students at school. And teachers deserve a safe workplace free from misogyny and sexism.
Stephanie Wescott receives funding from Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).
Alexandra Phelan receives funding from Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).
Naomi Pfitzner has received funding from the Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, the Victorian and Queensland governments and the Australian government. She was an author of the review into Respectful Relationships Education in Australia mentioned in this article.
Sarah McCook receives funding from Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).
Steven Roberts receives funding from Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), the Australian government and the Australian Research Council. He is a Board Director at Respect Victoria, but this article is written wholly independently from that role.
It was big news in the podcasting world when US Vice-President Kamala Harris recently sat down with Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy for an extended interview. This was not just because it was one of the few times Harris has opened herself up to direct media scrutiny, but also because it signalled podcasting’s coming of age.
High-stakes interviews are no longer solely the domain of legacy media. Politicians, like celebrities with a story to tell or a film to sell, can pop onto a podcast with a hopefully sympathetic host to reach vast and potentially new audiences. (That said, Harris also did interviews with CBS News, 60 Minutes, The View and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the same week.)
So for the VP and Democratic presidential candidate, is this about finding new audiences or answering to a different, perhaps softer style of interview?
Call her who?
If you haven’t heard of Call Her Daddy, note the show’s emphasis is on sex and female empowerment. Cooper’s listeners are 70% women and 76% of them are aged under 35. It is often compared to the Joe Rogan Experience, a comparison Cooper hates. Cooper has also been called the Oprah Winfrey of her generation, which may say something about her interviewing skills or her market value.
The comparisons to Rogan are hard to avoid. Call Her Daddy has been running since 2018. In 2020, Cooper split with her co-host and took the program to Spotify, also home to the Joe Rogan Experience. There, Call Her Daddy rose to be the second most-listened-to podcast globally, behind Rogan, with an average of 5 million weekly listeners. Spotify gave Cooper US$60 million to Rogan’s rumoured $250 million. This particular gender pay gap was recently reduced when Cooper took the podcast to SiriusXM for $125 million.
A Harris appearance on Rogan’s podcast could give her a larger audience than Cooper’s and parallel access to young male listeners.
‘Here’s the thing …’
Soft or smart?
Harris’ decision to be interviewed on a podcast aimed at young women brought criticism from those who saw it as the “soft option”, as well as those who don’t rate young women or approve of talk of sex.
The same commentators seem to have overlooked that for the last year, Trump has been wooing the “manosphere” and has called in to friendly bro-casts such as This Past Weekend with Theo Von. In other podcasts like Full Send, Trump has had scope for friendly freewheeling banter on topics from Ice Spice to golf.
In the journalistic tradition of podcasts since Serial, Cooper revealed her process and opened her interview with Harris by sharing the reasoning behind her line of questioning. “Let’s be real, I’m probably not the one to be having the fracking conversation,” she deadpanned.
Harris said she went on the podcast “to be real, you know, and to talk about the things that people really care about”. There were moments of genuine emotion, such as anger and compassion at the death of a young woman, Amber Thurman, in Georgia in the wake of the US’s newly restrictive abortion laws. Yet at times Harris still sounded rehearsed, in the manner of people in the public eye required to repeatedly answer similar questions and give similar speeches.
The risk to a politician is that the authenticity and intimacy for which podcasting is known could just as well work against them – a lack of “realness” becomes amplified through headphones, straight into the listeners’ ears.
While Harris’ cadence sounded like familiar speechifying near the end, perhaps her anecdotes were new to sections of Cooper’s audience. For all the claims that a focus on the concerns of women made for a “soft interview”, it was also a timely reminder of the centrality of reproductive freedom to women’s lives and the election.
The risks of the interview were more Cooper’s, who hinted at the prospect of losing listeners by interviewing a politician while wanting Call Her Daddy to be “a place where everyone feels comfortable tuning in”. This is a pertinent concern for her as much of the program’s initial popularity was built on Barstool, a media company known for its conservative leanings.
A different listener
The question remains: is appearing on extremely popular podcasts with young audiences a good political strategy for Harris? The positives of appearing on Call Her Daddy were clear, given Cooper’s main audience of young women is generally more politically engaged and motivated to vote than young men.
Rogan’s audience is 81% male with 34% aged 18–35. Making a connection with young men could prove trickier for Harris within the “bro-ey”, jokey framework of the Joe Rogan Experience than it was with Cooper.
A lot will depend on Harris’ interaction with the host, but Rogan is not known for hostile interviewing and Harris is experienced in connecting with people from a range of backgrounds. And her recent spot on shock jock Howard Stern’s radio show gave her a chance to share her love of car racing.
In a tight election, which could come down to swing voters in six or seven states, such skills, showcased in the podcasting space, could impact the election. The potential gains seem worth any risks.
Lea Redfern 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.
Stan Original’s newest series is coming to smaller screens, having premiered its first three episodes in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Thou Shalt Not Steal follows Aboriginal teen Robyn (played by the immensely talented Sherry-Lee Watson). She escapes juvenile detention and embarks on a defiant road trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide to uncover a long-held family secret.
Fellow outsider Gidge (Will McDonald) comes along for the ride. He has run away from his dodgy preacher dad Robert (Noah Taylor, clearly enjoying his character’s exaggerated grossness, from a perpetually stained singlet to overflowing ashtrays).
In hot pursuit are two incongruous duos. First come detectives Burke and Wills (Shari Sebbens and Darren Gilshenan). Then Robert teams up with the decidely crooked Maxine (played menacingly by Miranda Otto). Where Robert’s deceits are lazily self-serving, Maxine is an outback madam who poses very real dangers to the young people.
‘Some bastards have it coming …’
Thou shalt never go to Coober Pedy
Each episode begins with a tongue-in-cheek lesson from Robyn’s past. These range from the eponymous “thou shalt not steal” to “thou shalt never go to Coober Pedy”.
This deadpan humour cleverly introduces significant issues. There are the inordinate rates of incarceration of Indigenous youth, alcoholism, assault, toxic masculinity, bullying and weaponised religion, among others.
These themes are particularly pertinent in the Northern Territory, where Thou Shalt Not Steal was both set and shot. Earlier this year the NT city of Alice Springs initiated a youth curfew and the territory has now reportedly lifted its ban on using “spit hoods” on young people.
This context means some of the laughs in the series are uncomfortable. But comedy is a well-established vehicle for social justice and the show remains focused on the heroes’ journey, albeit within an important socio-political context.
Over the first six of its eight short episodes, Thou Shalt Not Steal maintains a balance between acerbic comedy and perilous road trip. Its final episodes revel in a series of over-the-top scenarios that nevertheless tie up narrative loose ends in an enjoyable way.
Indeed the shift to outright absurdity reveals the show’s gentler message: about finding a chosen family.
Miranda Otto and Noah Taylor’s characters are dangerous for different reasons. Stan
In that show, the Robin Hood mythology falls to 13-year-old Alice Springs’ local, Robbie (Pedrea Jackson). The same desert-dry humour articulates the charming teen’s well-intentioned misadventures through a variety of legal and familial landscapes.
Alice Springs (Mparntwe) is not just a recurrent muse for Rivers; it is also where he grew up, as the son of award-winning filmmakers Penelope McDonald and Warwick Thornton. Rivers has noted that, while his family actively supports each other, they are also “competitive”, pushing each other to produce their best work.
The series is set in Central and Southern Australia in the winter of 1980. Stan/Ian Routledge
Slick and self-aware
Having worked previously with his parents on multiple productions, Thou Shalt Not Steal is also something of a family affair. Co-created and co-written with cousin Tanith Glynn-Maloney, who also serves as executive producer, Thou Shalt Not Steal was developed during COVID lockdowns. The duo slowly developed the premise and the first two episodes over two years, before securing investment and support.
The result is a slick, well-made series with terrific attention to detail. The gorgeous landscapes contrast with the dank, grimy spaces occupied by the antagonists. The soundtrack is its own treasure trove, ranging from Slim Dusty to the Yamma Family and the Warumpi Band, and always in perfect alignment to the scenes. The chorus of “almost the end, almost the end!” is a highlight in the last episode.
[…] shy away from being a bit cheesy, being a bit self-aware, and being over the top at times. Hopefully there’s twists and turns that people don’t expect. But it was very consciously, like, let’s have fun.
Thou Shalt Not Steal is most definitely a fun ride.
Thou Shalt Not Steal is streaming on Stan from today.
Kelly McWilliam 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.
For Deaf people, train travel can be a gamble. On an average day, nothing goes wrong: they catch their train to their destination and carry on with their business.
But when something out of the ordinary happens, the situation can quickly get scary, because most updates are only delivered by audio announcements. A Deaf traveller may miss their train because it was moved to a different platform, or watch as their station whizzes by because the train isn’t stopping there today. They may also remain on a train carriage in an emergency after everyone else has evacuated, and have to be rescued by station staff.
Every single one of these examples has been drawn from the real life experiences of Deaf people in Sydney. But my colleagues and I are working with Sydney Trains and members of the Australian Deaf community to develop an advanced, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered signing avatar which can automatically translate audio announcements into Auslan.
Our work on the avatar also builds towards the next step: developing AI systems which can “understand” Auslan.
Journeys don’t always go to plan
Earlier this year, my colleagues and I ran a pilot study with three Deaf train travellers in Sydney. As well as the stories they shared about what can go wrong during train travel, we learned they use tried and tested strategies for making their journeys go smoothly.
Their strategies might be familiar to regular commuters. For example, they would plan their journeys with an app, arrive early and look for signage to let them know if anything had changed.
But they also said they felt they needed to stand near information screens to watch for updates, and ask station staff or other passengers for information when the situation had changed. They also reported being hypervigilant while on the train, watching to make sure they don’t miss their stop.
But these strategies didn’t always ensure Deaf travellers received important information, including about emergencies. For example, while usually helpful, station staff were sometimes too busy to assist.
The greatest frustration came in situations where other passengers weren’t willing or able to provide information, leaving our Deaf travellers to just “follow the crowd”. This often meant ending up in the wrong place.
Developing a signing avatar
Speech-to-text software might seem like an easy solution to some of these problems. But for many Deaf people, English is not their native language and Auslan can be processed far more easily and quickly.
Our Deaf travellers told us that, in a perfect world, they would want live interpreters. However, automatic, AI-powered translation using a signing avatar displayed on a platform or train screen which could identify key words in an audio announcement, generate a sentence with correct Auslan grammar, and stitch together the corresponding signs from our vocabulary library was appealing for a number of reasons.
Avatar by Maria Zelenskaya, QUT. Auslan by Julie Lyons, QUT.
First, it allows for real-time translation of announcements that use known vocabulary – which is relevant in the trains-and-stations context, where many announcements cover similar topics.
Second, an avatar and its signing can be customised to the needs of a given situation, such as using information about screen location to ensure the avatar signs in the right direction while pointing out exits or other platforms.
Third, multiple signers can contribute signs to an avatar’s vocabulary, which can then be smoothly stitched together to make a sentence.
And importantly, an avatar means no real person has to be the “face” of an organisation’s automatically generated announcements. This is particularly important because the Australian Deaf community is small and close knit, and if something goes wrong with the translation, nobody suffers any reputational damage.
From a technical point of view, an avatar also allows us to ensure a minimum quality threshold for signing. We’re using motion capture to make sure each sign in our vocabulary library is accurate, and movements are clear.
It also helps us avoid the “uncanny valley” – an effect where something human-like but subtly wrong is unsettling. We don’t want any of the many-fingered monstrosities you may have seen recently generated by AI.
AI for everyone
This work is one step in our broader aim of creating an AI system which can understand Auslan. This AI could be used to help Deaf and hearing station staff converse, or to create “chatbot booths” or app-based assistants that would allow Deaf people to get information on demand in Auslan about their train journeys or other daily tasks.
Sign languages and Deaf cultures around the world have nuances and complexities that hearing researchers and developers of AI may not be aware of. These nuances and complexities must be embedded in new technologies, and researchers and developers must take a language-first approach to AI data collection and design with – not just for – Deaf people.
Only then will AI meet Deaf people’s real needs: to ensure their safety and independence in every aspect of daily life.
Jessica Korte has received funding from Qvest Australia, a technology solutions partner to Sydney Trains.
Do you really know what you look like on the inside? Most people do not, and usually it takes surgery or medical imaging to take a look while we are still alive.
A case study was published last week where researchers made the rare finding of a man with “triphallia”. Most people would say the man had three penises. But anatomists, like myself, who teach health professionals about the structure of the human body, prefer the term penes (plural of penis).
This finding emerged from the dissection of the body of a 78-year-old man who had donated his body to science. It is a case that has left many anatomists scratching their heads, and ignited discussions about typical human anatomy and anatomical variation.
I too have an extra organ – an extra spleen – plus other anatomical variations regarding two muscles. It is highly likely you might also have anatomical variations, and not necessarily know.
Back to this case
According to the latest study, only one penis was externally visible. But when his body was dissected, there were two extra, smaller penises inside the scrotum.
The main penis was 77mm long and 24mm wide, with the smaller ones about half the size. However, the images provided in the study don’t seem to match the written descriptions in all places. So the study does need clarification.
Intriguingly, researchers identified a single urethra – the hollow tube from the bladder that allows urine (and sperm from the testes) to leave the body. This urethra travelled from the bladder through part of one of the smaller penises and along the length of the main penis, leaving out the third penis entirely.
Was there a misunderstanding in identifying these anatomical structures? Could the second penis simply be a misidentified part of the main one? Is this actually a case of diphallia – two penises? In either case, the man’s anatomy was different to what you’d typically see in anatomy textbooks.
The study suggests all three penises contained erectile tissue capable of engorgement. But it remains unclear whether they worked independently or together. Unfortunately, the authors did not confirm structures by examining them under the microscope, or report tracing the nerves or blood vessels, to shed more light.
A separate case of someone with three penises, which was documented in 2020, involved a three-month-old infant.
In this instance, the main penis was in its typical position, but you could see the extra ones on the perineum (between the anus and the scrotum in males).
Neither of the extra penises had a urethra, making them incapable of functioning typically. Ultimately, these non-functional penises were safely removed.
Such cases are rare, with only these two examples reported in medical databases.
So how does this happen? The answer may lie in how embryos develop.
Early in development
The penis begins to develop early in the first trimester of a 40-week pregnancy, a time when a woman may not know she’s pregnant.
During this critical period, the embryo may be exposed to various influences. These include toxins passed through the bloodstream if the mother falls ill, takes certain drugs while pregnant or is exposed to certain chemicals. There are also genetic factors that shape how organs develop.
By the fifth week of pregnancy, cells migrate to the midline of the embryo, where they help form the precursor to the penis.
Problems in this migratory process, abnormalities in a developmental gene (called “sonic hedgehog”), or fluctuations in testosterone levels or receptors during early fetal development, could potentially lead to the formation of additional penises.
While the appearance of triphallia may be startling, these rare cases highlight a broader point: our anatomy can vary significantly. Just as individuals differ in their external appearances, so too does our internal anatomy.
For example, there are anatomical variations in blood vessels, organs, muscles, nerves and even bones that may not be readily visible.
Indeed, incidental findings during my own medical examinations have found I have a supernumerary (or extra) spleen, called a splenunculus, an extra flexor digitorum longus muscle (in my leg), and I’m missing both palmaris longus muscles (in my forearms).
While my anatomical variations are internal, a common example of a visible external anatomical variation are extra nipples. These can be mistaken for moles and can also result from developmental issues in the early weeks of pregnancy.
Why is this important?
Cases like the man said to have three penises are important reminders of the complexities of human anatomy and the many factors that can influence our bodies from the very start of development.
Exploring these rare findings emphasises the importance of continued research in anatomy and embryology.
These findings also highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle for people intending to fall pregnant and who are already. This is so growing embryos can have the best chance of developing typical anatomy.
Amanda Meyer is affiliated with the Australian and New Zealand Association of Clinical Anatomists, the American Association for Anatomy, and the Global Neuroanatomy Network.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicky Morrison, Professor of Planning and Director of Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University
GettyImages
Essential workers such as teachers, health workers and community safety staff play a vital role in ensuring our society works well. Yet soaring housing costs in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are squeezing essential workers out of the communities they serve.
The issue is reaching crisis point across Australia. Anglicare Australia yesterday released a special edition of its Rental Affordability Snapshot focused on essential workers in full-time work. Housing costs under 30% of household income are considered affordable. In a survey of 45,115 rental listings, it found:
3.7% were affordable for a teacher
2.2% were affordable for an ambulance worker
1.5% were affordable for an aged care worker
1.4% were affordable for a nurse
0.9% were affordable for an early childhood educator
0.8% were affordable for a hospitality worker.
This trend is creating unsustainable patterns of urban sprawl and long commutes. It erodes workers’ quality of life. It also undermines public service delivery by making it harder to recruit and retain these workers in high-cost areas.
International experience, particularly in the UK where I have advised on similar policies, shows there are solutions to this crisis. These global lessons fall into four categories.
Essential workers face long commutes from home when they can’t afford to live in the communities they serve. Halfpoint/Shutterstock
1. Define essential worker housing
Essential worker housing typically targets front-line public sector workers on low to middle incomes. Yet eligibility should extend to support roles, such as ambulance drivers, porters and medical receptionists, who play a vital part in enabling front-line services. They too struggle to find affordable housing near their workplaces.
Conditions of eligibility should also include a cap on household earnings.
The UK experience highlights the importance of providing both rental and ownership options. To keep key worker housing affordable and accessible over time, both types need to be priced appropriately.
Australian cities could adopt similar approaches, by requiring housing developers and community housing providers to allocate affordable housing for essential workers. Prices would be below market rates for both rentals and home ownership for the long term, and not revert to market rates. This ensures stability for public service workers.
2. Financial innovations focused on long-term affordability
Innovative financial models, such as shared equity schemes, have succeeded in the UK. These allow workers to gradually buy into their homes, creating long-term stability.
Shared equity involves the government or another investor covering some of the cost of buying the home in exchange for an equivalent share in the property. Australia could explore similar schemes to provide immediate relief while ensuring sustained affordability for future essential workers.
This approach could build on the Commonwealth’s proposed Help to Buy scheme, currently before the Senate, and existing state and territory shared equity programs. These may need refinement to better serve essential workers by, for example, adjusting income thresholds and eligibility criteria to ensure they qualify. These schemes also need to expand to cover all urban areas where housing affordability is most strained.
3. Leverage planning systems
Countries like the UK have leveraged their planning systems to deliver affordable housing for key workers. In England, planning authorities use mechanisms such as Section 106 agreements to ensure a portion of new developments is reserved for key worker housing as a condition of planning approval.
Australian states could adapt this model, setting targets within existing planning frameworks. For example, they could use Voluntary Planning Agreements to prioritise essential worker housing.
Yet essential worker housing should not displace housing for other people in urgent need. They include people who are homeless, low-income families, people with disabilities, the elderly, those at risk of domestic violence, veterans and youth leaving foster care.
4. Use public land for housing development
The use of surplus public land for essential worker housing has proven successful in several cities, including London, Amsterdam and San Francisco.
Earmarking land owned by the public sector, such as hospital or education sites, is a strategic way to deliver affordable housing near key public sector employers. It also allows staff to travel to work nearby using sustainable transport instead of cars.
Affordable housing has profound benefits
Without action, essential workers are likely to be forced into lower-quality, high-cost housing, shared accommodation, or long commutes from more affordable areas. Over time, these patterns of job-housing imbalances and urban sprawl are unsustainable. These issues are the focus of my current research, particularly in Western Sydney.
The New South Wales government has set up a parliamentary select committee to inquire into options for essential worker housing. It’s bringing much-needed attention to the housing crisis affecting key public sector roles.
Tackling these issues through targeted housing solutions has many benefits. It can help create more sustainable communities, reduce recruitment and retention difficulties for employers and ease the strain on infrastructure and services.
The key takeaway from the UK and other countries is the importance of long-term, sustainable solutions that do not shift the focus away from those most in need of housing. Australia has the opportunity to strike this balance. We need to ensure essential workers can afford to live near their workplaces while not sidelining everyone else in need of affordable housing.
Nicky Morrison 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.
Former One Direction band member and solo artist Liam Payne has been found dead outside a hotel in Buenos Aires, media reports have confirmed. Payne was just 31 years old – a loved friend and father.
Alongside his former One Direction band mates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, Payne had a huge influence on popular culture in his home country of the United Kingdom and internationally.
The group formed in 2010 on the British talent show X Factor and stayed together for about five years before officially splitting in 2016. Throughout this time, Payne remained a valuable member of the band and a clear talent in his own right.
Although each member auditioned seperately, they were eventually hand-picked by Simon Cowell to form a group.
After the split (and a brief hiatus from music-making), Payne continued to release music periodically as both a songwriter and collaborator. He most recently released the single Teardrops in March, ahead of an anticipated second solo album.
News of Payne’s death has led to an outpouring of tributes. Like many young people thrust into stardom seemingly overnight, his life wasn’t without controversy. But the response to his death by fans and industry colleagues alike is proof of the impact he had.
The making of a pop supergroup
While One Direction may have not been together for as long as other globally successful acts, their influence far exceeded bands that have been together for decades. They released five studio records – and broke many more, including six Guinness World Records. And even though they didn’t make it to their 10th anniversary together, they had still sold some 70 million records by 2020.
In the years since the split, fans continued to gather, listen and celebrate – with the most recent anniversary (14 years) seeing fan-led events held in Australia and the rest of the world.
It’s easy to dismiss pop music and its influence, especially in the face of what feel like increasingly dire global circumstances. But pop, like many other forms of entertainment, provides a practical way for people to gain momentary pleasure and comfort.
It also provides connection with others – and relief from politics and other daily pressures. For example, one of One Direction’s biggest hits, That’s What Makes You Beautiful, sought to empower young people who might otherwise be overwhelmed by negative messaging.
Within a year of their debut, the group was met with massive crowds of fans almost everywhere they want.
One Direction has been compared to The Beatles in terms of their influence on young people – and female and queer fans in particular.
The impact on fans when their idol dies
The loss of life, especially a young person’s life, is always a tragedy.
For some young fans, this might be the first person they “know” who has died. While it may not be the same as losing a family member or close friend, the feeling of loss is significant. Young fans will need support. And in 2024, many will find this support through social platforms and online forums.
I still remember the impact the deaths of stars such as Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley had on people like me who were teenagers in the 1990s. These were artists I admired and listened to – and whose art I relied on during times of pleasure and pain.
A similar pang was felt when artists such as George Michael, Aretha Franklin and David Bowie died, albeit later in my life and theirs.
The experience of losing a music idol is in many ways a universal one. People whose art we attach to our own life experiences become inseparable from our lives. And when they die, it can feel like those experiences are over too.
After news of Payne’s death broke, hundreds of fans took to the streets of Palermo in Buenos Aires, where Payne had been visiting. They held a vigil, cried and consoled one another in front of the Casa Sur hotel where Payne had been staying.
One fan, 25-year-old Yamila Zacarias, probably spoke for many when she said:
He meant a lot to me because the band came into my life at this time when you’re trying to be a part of something, and being a One Direction fan became that something for me.
Lifelong fandom and memories
There’s a stereotype of “fans” as hordes of screaming girls, which can really take away from the depth of fandom.
Anyone at any stage of life can be a fan of just about anything. And the best thing about fandom is that it can, and often does, allow lots of different types of people an outlet for connection throughout their lives.
Many fans have left comments on old music videos. YouTube/screenshot
The death of US actress Betty White in 2021, as sad as it was, brought people across generations and walks of life together. And not just those who knew her personally, but those who had connected with each other through their love of her work. It reminded me of my own family, including my Nan and Dad, now gone, and the laughs we’d share as we watched her.
As more details and tributes to Payne’s life and death emerge, the fans will have each other to lean on. If you yourself know someone who is a fan of Payne or One Direction, even reaching out to just acknowledge that person’s grief and experience is important. It says to them, “what you love is valid, and so are you”.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Liz Giuffre 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.
Clusters of severe thunderstorms are expected to strike Australia’s southern regions over Thursday and Friday.
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued severe weather warnings and forecasts related to these unusually widespread stormy conditions as they move through South Australia today and into Victoria.
As of October 17th, there’s a risk of severe thunderstorms for parts of central and southern Australia.
While we might not always think of thunderstorms as a threat, severe storms can be surprisingly damaging. The enormous Sydney thunderstorm of 1999 dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hail, causing widespread damage to cars and roofs. At the time, it was the most expensive natural disaster on record, overtaken only by the unprecedented 2022 floods across eastern Australia – which were themselves partly caused by severe thunderstorms in addition to other weather systems.
When severe thunderstorms bring torrential rain, they can often trigger flash flooding. This is because extreme rain from thunderstorms usually falls over a relatively short time – less than an hour or two in many cases. Lightning can also pose a threat.
In recent years, severe thunderstorms have also shown they can damage the power grid. In 2016, huge rotating supercell storms brought intense winds and at least seven tornadoes to South Australia, toppling transmission towers and causing a statewide blackout. Smaller thunderstorms caused major outages in Victoria in February this year after taking down six towers.
But what makes a thunderstorm “severe”?
The ingredients for a storm
What triggers thunderstorms? Climate scientists and meteorologists often talk about the ingredients necessary for thunderstorms.
To make a normal thunderstorm, you need to have a lot of moisture in the air. Then you need vertical instability in the atmosphere, meaning relatively warm moist air near the surface and very cold air above. You also need a mechanism to lift warmer surface air up to a level where the atmospheric instability can be released.
For a severe thunderstorm, you need all those ingredients and usually one more: vertical wind shear. This means that wind speeds and direction differ with height. For example, you might have strong northerly winds down low, and strong southerly winds up higher.
Vertical wind shear can make a run-of-the-mill thunderstorm much more intense, in a range of ways. For instance, wind shear can help warm updrafts stay separate from cold downdrafts and rainfall, which can help make the storm last longer.
If a thunderstorm has large hail, damaging wind gusts or could trigger a tornado or flash flooding, this makes it a severe thunderstorm, according to Bureau of Meteorology classification.
You might have also heard of supercell storms. These are convective thunderstorms, characterised by strong, rotating updrafts that last for a long time.
Forecasters can predict the potential for severe thunderstorms several days out by looking for moisture-laden air and winds. But predicting exactly where and when they might pop up is extremely challenging.
Severe storms can bring lightning, hail, intense winds and rain. Pictured: a previous thunderstorm over Perth’s northern suburbs. cephotoclub/Shutterstock
What’s unusual about these storms?
The storms this week are unusually widespread, with thunderstorms possible from Kalbarri in central Western Australia down through Esperance, across into South Australia, into Victoria and up through New South Wales and southern Queensland.
These conditions are due to a large-scale low pressure system moving west to east.
As this large low pressure system moves east, it brings thunderstorms. This map shows the low pressure system on October 16th. Bureau of Meteorology, CC BY-NC-ND
Ahead of the arrival of this low pressure system, winds from the north are bringing down moisture and instability and priming the system for thunderstorms. When air near the low pressure system begins to rise, energy from the warm, moisture-laden and unstable air can be released. This includes energy release due to condensation of water vapour. These rising air currents can travel several kilometres up into the atmosphere, even reaching the top of the troposphere, 10–15km up.
Severe thunderstorms in southern Australia are more likely in spring and summer. That’s because there’s plenty of moisture available from the tropics and the warm oceans around Australia, while low pressure systems and cold fronts can still emerge from the cold oceans to our south.
Thunderstorms, tornadoes and fire
Severe thunderstorms can also pack a hidden punch. They can trigger tornadoes in extreme cases.
In August, severe thunderstorms hit northern Victoria and triggered a tornado, a destructive whirling column of air that damaged houses and farms in the high country.
This surprised many people. It’s generally known that Australia has tropical cyclones in the north, intense tropical storms coming in off the sea, but not as well known to have tornadoes.
In fact, Australia does get tornadoes – an estimated 30–80 each year. In 2013, a total of 69 known tornadoes caused almost 150 injuries. Many of these tornadoes spin out of supercells.
In Australia’s hotter months, many fires burn around the country. Thunderstorms can make fires worse by bringing strong, warm northerly winds, often with rapid variations in speed and direction that can increase the rate of spread of a fire.
Firefighters and first responders dread these conditions. Australia’s most deadly bushfire was Black Saturday in 2009, which killed 173 people. One reason it was so dangerous was its suddenness. Intense northerly winds brought down powerlines and started fires, which were quickly whipped into intense firestorms, including thunderstorms generated in the fire plumes.
Will climate change bring more severe storms?
As the world heats up, more water is evaporating off warm sea surfaces and hanging in the air as water vapour. This means there’s more of this ingredient necessary to fuel severe thunderstorms and more intense rain from thunderstorms.
What we don’t know for certain yet is how prevailing air currents over Australia are changing. This could shift moisture to different regions, or affect other thunderstorm ingredients like vertical wind shear, instability, and lifting mechanisms. If circulation patterns do change, we could see severe storms develop in new areas, or different times of the year.
Andrew Brown receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather.
Andrew Dowdy receives funding from University of Melbourne, including through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and the Melbourne Energy Institute.
Former One Direction band member and solo artist Liam Payne has been found dead outside a hotel in Buenos Aires, media reports have confirmed. Payne was just 31 years old – a loved friend and father.
Alongside his former One Direction band mates Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik, Payne had a huge influence on popular culture in his home country of the United Kingdom and internationally.
The group formed in 2010 on the British talent show X Factor and stayed together for about five years before officially splitting in 2016. Throughout this time, Payne remained a valuable member of the band and a clear talent in his own right.
Although each member auditioned seperately, they were eventually hand-picked by Simon Cowell to form a group.
After the split (and a brief hiatus from music-making), Payne continued to release music periodically as both a songwriter and collaborator. He most recently released the single Teardrops in March, ahead of an anticipated second solo album.
News of Payne’s death has led to an outpouring of tributes. Like many young people thrust into stardom seemingly overnight, his life wasn’t without controversy. But the response to his death by fans and industry colleagues alike is proof of the impact he had.
The making of a pop supergroup
While One Direction may have not been together for as long as other globally successful acts, their influence far exceeded bands that have been together for decades. They released five studio records – and broke many more, including six Guinness World Records. And even though they didn’t make it to their 10th anniversary together, they had still sold some 70 million records by 2020.
In the years since the split, fans continued to gather, listen and celebrate – with the most recent anniversary (14 years) seeing fan-led events held in Australia and the rest of the world.
It’s easy to dismiss pop music and its influence, especially in the face of what feel like increasingly dire global circumstances. But pop, like many other forms of entertainment, provides a practical way for people to gain momentary pleasure and comfort.
It also provides connection with others – and relief from politics and other daily pressures. For example, one of One Direction’s biggest hits, That’s What Makes You Beautiful, sought to empower young people who might otherwise be overwhelmed by negative messaging.
Within a year of their debut, the group was met with massive crowds of fans almost everywhere they want.
One Direction has been compared to The Beatles in terms of their influence on young people – and female and queer fans in particular.
The impact on fans when their idol dies
The loss of life, especially a young person’s life, is always a tragedy.
For some young fans, this might be the first person they “know” who has died. While it may not be the same as losing a family member or close friend, the feeling of loss is significant. Young fans will need support. And in 2024, many will find this support through social platforms and online forums.
I still remember the impact the deaths of stars such as Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley had on people like me who were teenagers in the 1990s. These were artists I admired and listened to – and whose art I relied on during times of pleasure and pain.
A similar pang was felt when artists such as George Michael, Aretha Franklin and David Bowie died, albeit later in my life and theirs.
The experience of losing a music idol is in many ways a universal one. People whose art we attach to our own life experiences become inseparable from our lives. And when they die, it can feel like those experiences are over too.
After news of Payne’s death broke, hundreds of fans took to the streets of Palermo in Buenos Aires, where Payne had been visiting. They held a vigil, cried and consoled one another in front of the Casa Sur hotel where Payne had been staying.
One fan, 25-year-old Yamila Zacarias, probably spoke for many when she said:
He meant a lot to me because the band came into my life at this time when you’re trying to be a part of something, and being a One Direction fan became that something for me.
Lifelong fandom and memories
There’s a stereotype of “fans” as hordes of screaming girls, which can really take away from the depth of fandom.
Anyone at any stage of life can be a fan of just about anything. And the best thing about fandom is that it can, and often does, allow lots of different types of people an outlet for connection throughout their lives.
Many fans have left comments on old music videos. YouTube/screenshot
The death of US actress Betty White in 2021, as sad as it was, brought people across generations and walks of life together. And not just those who knew her personally, but those who had connected with each other through their love of her work. It reminded me of my own family, including my Nan and Dad, now gone, and the laughs we’d share as we watched her.
As more details and tributes to Payne’s life and death emerge, the fans will have each other to lean on. If you yourself know someone who is a fan of Payne or One Direction, even reaching out to just acknowledge that person’s grief and experience is important. It says to them, “what you love is valid, and so are you”.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Liz Giuffre 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.
Egypt recently deepened its involvement in the war-weary Horn of Africa by arming Somalia and deploying its troops in the embattled country. To Ethiopia’s growing alarm, Egypt is also set to join the multinational force supporting the Somali army against the jihadist threat by al-Shabaab. Egypt’s potentially destabilising presence in the region is seen a direct consequence of Ethiopia’s port agreement with breakaway Somaliland, which Somalia took as a direct affront. Endalcachew Bayeh, a political scholar with a focus on the Horn of Africa, sets out the risks and the path to de-escalation.
What do we know about Egypt’s entry into Somalia and the theatre of conflict in the Horn?
Egypt’s arrival in the Horn of Africa can be traced back to Ethiopia’s quest for a dedicated port under its control. Ethiopia is the world’s largest landlocked country by population and has relied exclusively on the port of Djibouti since the outbreak of the Ethiopia-Eritrea war (1998-2000).
Ethiopia has been exploring alternative access points. This led to the announcement on 1 January 2024 that it had struck a port deal with Somaliland. Ethiopia agreed to recognise the breakaway republic in exchange for a naval base on Somaliland’s coast.
The announcement sparked a diplomatic rift with Somalia, which viewed the deal as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Somalia still considers self-declared Somaliland part of its territory.
Amid the turmoil, Somalia courted Egypt as a regional patron to counter Ethiopia. This aligned well with Egypt’s increasing interest in finding a military partner along Ethiopia’s border.
Egypt is a longstanding rival of Ethiopia. Recently, it threatened to go to war over Ethiopia’s massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which it sees as a threat to its survival.
Egypt deployed military forces in Somalia following its defence deal with Mogadishu in August 2024. It also plans to deploy 5,000 soldiers as part of the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia. The mission is set to replace the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, in which Ethiopia is a main player.
Ethiopia’s agreement to recognise Somaliland and the friction with Somalia have brought its old enemy, Egypt, to its doorstep.
How have Egypt-Ethiopia hostilities added to regional tensions?
Soon after Egypt’s deployment in Somalia, Ethiopia formalised its recognition of Somaliland. It also sent an ambassador to the capital, Hargeisa. This made it the first nation to officially acknowledge Somaliland’s independence. The two are also rushing to turn their memorandum of understanding into a binding bilateral treaty.
Somaliland ordered the closure of the Egyptian Cultural Library in Hargeisa.
Eritrea, for a time a key ally of Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed in the fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, is now at odds with Addis Ababa. And, in response to the recent tensions in the region, Eritrea is strengthening its ties with Egypt and Somalia. A recent meeting of the three has created a united front against Ethiopia.
In Somalia, Ethiopia plays a stabilising role. Somalia now demands that Ethiopia should end its involvement. That could open the way for militant groups and keep Somalia unstable. This is even more likely to happen if Egypt focuses on its competition with Ethiopia rather than Somalia’s stability.
In addition, Somalis have longstanding territorial claims over parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Instability can create fertile ground for groups like Al-Shabaab, which aims to include these territories in an Islamic state.
Ethiopia’s recognition of Somaliland and Egypt’s presence in Somalia come at a time of multiple regional crises. These include the strained Ethiopia-Eritrea relations, the Ethiopia-Sudan dispute over Al-Fashaga border region, and instability in Ethiopia.
This volatile environment increases the likelihood of proxy wars.
Key areas to watch are:
Sudan and Egypt: These two countries align on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam issue. Egypt has enhanced its security cooperation with Sudan through military support and joint exercises. Although Sudan is in turmoil, the Al-Fashaga dispute with Ethiopia remains a potential flashpoint. Egypt may take advantage of this dispute and its support for the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces to further its interests.
Instability in Ethiopia: In several regions, the government is engaged in active conflict with non-state forces. This instability creates fertile ground for Egypt to potentially support proxies against the Ethiopian government. Egypt and Somalia have already expressed the possibility of using proxy forces.
Egypt’s main motivation for intervening in the region is to control the Nile’s source or hinder Ethiopia’s use of the water. As a result, Ethiopia perceives Egypt’s presence at its doorstep as a direct security threat. This increases tensions between Egypt, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Any further destabilisation of Ethiopia would disrupt the entire region, as it shares porous borders with almost all countries in the Horn.
What are the potential avenues for de-escalation?
A promising pathway for reducing tensions in Somalia and the broader region is for the two regional powers to reconsider their strategies and exercise restraint.
Ethiopia can access the sea through Somaliland without formal recognition. This could ease tensions and would not encourage separatist movements.
For Egypt, a more constructive approach would be to limit its direct involvement in the Horn of Africa. Instead, it should address its concerns about the Ethiopian mega-dam through the United Nations, the African Union and other platforms. Historically, its unilateral actions have often been sources of tensions rather than solutions in the region.
The African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development must ensure that the regional states themselves address regional issues. States must make wise decisions now to calm tensions, as no state will be spared from the spillover effects.
Endalcachew Bayeh 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 Phil Tomlinson, Professor of Industrial Strategy, Co-Director Centre for Governance, Regulation and Industrial Strategy (CGR&IS), University of Bath
The UK government’s plan to create a new industrial strategy is a welcome attempt to steer Britain’s economy through the challenges of the 21st century. Amid a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, a clear focus on achieving growth is essential.
The plan is at an early stage. The new green paper marks the beginning of a consultation process designed to shape future government policy.
But creating an industrial strategy in the first place – to coordinate a wide range of economic policies – is commendable. For too long, the UK has been lagging behind other countries which have embraced greater government intervention in their economies.
And the idea of having that strategy overseen by an “industrial strategy council”, to offer a degree of independent oversight, is a good one. If set up properly, this council should encapsulate the idea of industrial strategy as a partnership between the state and business – a collaborative effort to discover new opportunities and develop new policies.
It is also pleasing to see the green paper hasn’t shied away from some of the big issues. There is appropriate emphasis on geography, and creating opportunities in “left behind places”. For too long, economic growth in Britain has been disproportionately concentrated in London and the south-east.
Empowering local leaders in other regions to shape industrial policies, tailored to their specific needs, is a step in the right direction.
The emphasis on addressing the UK’s clapped-out infrastructure is also wise. Pledges to invest in broadband, electricity supply, rail and roads should lay the groundwork for a more interconnected economy. There is evidence that improved connectivity could attract new investment and boost regional productivity in areas that have been economically stagnant for decades.
There are also promises to increase public investment in research and development
in emerging industries such as AI and clean energy. The vision for a modern, hi-tech economy driven by innovation is much needed in a county which currently ranks 25th in the global robotics league table, the only G7 nation outside the top 20.
But there are also risks to such a technology-centred approach, which could easily be at odds with the goal of tackling regional inequality. Indeed, given new investment tends to flow to existing hi-tech regions, the divide between successful and left-behind places could widen.
The plan’s green focus is also timely. By prioritising clean energy and investment in sectors such as electric vehicles, the strategy aligns with goals for achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Mission impossible?
However, other issues also need to be included in the government’s plans. There is no consideration of geopolitics in the green paper. Yet any effective UK industrial strategy has to account for the impact of China and the US, and their ongoing tensions.
Similarly – and strangely – Brexit is hardly mentioned. Despite post-Brexit disruption to trade with the EU continuing to act as a drag on investment and growth, the green paper merely skirts around the issue. Nor is there anything about how industries deeply reliant on EU supply chains and markets (such as car manufacturing) can thrive outside the European single market.
Workers in traditional manufacturing, and in sectors such as retail, hospitality and care, will also need to hear more about support and retraining. The government needs to be mindful of not increasing a sense of polarisation between those who benefit from a green hi-tech revolution, and those who don’t.
And there will need to be much more detail about funding. The Labour government is keen to attract investors – the green paper was published on the same day as a high-profile investment summit in London, which featured impressive international attendees enjoying fine food and high-calibre entertainment.
But heavy reliance on private sector investment raises questions about accountability. For, while public-private partnerships can be effective, there is always a risk that private sector interests may not align with the needs of everyone else.
Overall, the green paper is the starting point for a critical national conversation about the UK’s economic future. The road to tangible success will depend on translating ideas into concrete actions, dealing with inevitable trade-offs, and being brave enough to address some deep structural issues. If it does, the green paper could turn into a blueprint for a genuinely resilient and competitive country.
Phil Tomlinson receives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation.
David Bailey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council’s UK in a Changing Europe Programme.
Michael A. Lewis currently receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
This chart shows how death rates have fallen since the 1970s, emphasising the higher male death experience. The principal finding is that dramatically falling death rates have plateaued since around 2010, especially for men aged 50 to 64. Yet the starkest fact portrayed is the much higher death rates of males than females, in each of the age groups shown.
While this chart shows the differences in death rates clearly, the arithmetic plots used have an inbuilt visual bias with respect to changes over time; they exaggerate the slowing down of the improvements in death rates and the narrowing of the gaps. The second chart uses a ‘logarithmic scale’, which corrects this bias. For this second chart it is the slopes that matter, not the gaps between the groups.
Chart by Keith Rankin.
The ‘plateau-effect’ still clearly shows. What it means is that it is no longer credible to say that “we are all living longer” (as many people urging us to save more for retirement say). Essentially, since about 2010, older working-age adults were dying at the same rates in the late 2010s as in the early 2010s. For the 2020s there is a small Covid19 effect. It seems unlikely that the declining age-group death rates of the millennial period will resume.
The data used shows some other things that are not easy to chart. First, the large gap between male and female death rates is closing (but remains large). Second, males aged between 15 and 35 had disturbingly higher death rates in the late 1980s ‘Rogernomic period’ compared to the early-1980s ‘Muldoon period’. Though females aged 20-24 did have markedly rising death rates in the early 1980s. In recent years, the death rates of younger people has risen significantly, especially females; though female death rates remain significantly lower than male death rates for all age groups. The biggest improvements in death rates in the millennial period were made by younger people, and by males aged 50 to 74. Those improvements slowed or reversed after 2015.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of microRNA, tiny biological molecules that tell the cells in our body what kind of cell to be by turning on and off certain genes.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Ambros about the discovery that led to his Nobel prize and find out what he’s researching now. And we hear about how a deeper understanding of microRNA is opening up new avenues for potential treatment of cancers and other diseases.
Today, Ambros is a professor of molecular medicine and the Silverman Chair in Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in the US. But the research that won him a Nobel prize was published more than 30 years ago in 1993, when he had just established his own research lab at Harvard University.
Ambros was trying to understand the way cells get the right instructions from DNA during their development. To do this, he was studying mutations in an experimental organism: a small worm called C. elegans.
We were studying some mutations and that affected C. elegans’ development in interesting ways – but we were not looking for the involvement of any sort of unexpected kind of molecular mechanisms.
Ambros’s wife, Rosalind Lee, and another member of the lab team, Rhonda Feinbaum, had spent a couple of years trying to understand the genetic process behind the mutation in a labour-intensive search. What they eventually discovered was a microRNA, a new dimension to gene regulation – the process through which genes are turned on and off in certain cells. As Ambros put it:
You can say they’re really the heroes behind this, and our job – mine and Gary’s – is to stand in as representatives of the whole enterprise of science, which is so dependent upon teams, collaborations, brainstorming among multiple people, communications of ideas and crucial data … All this is part of the process that underlies successful science like this.
MicroRNA’s role in cancer
Thanks to the discoveries of Ambros and Ruvkun back in the 1990s, medical researchers all over the world are looking at how microRNA affects the development of human diseases. One such researcher is Justin Stebbing, a professor of biomedical sciences at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK. He explained:
MicroRNAs, like many processes, can go wrong and they’ve been implicated in diseases as diverse as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to cancer and kidney failure.
Stebbing said that in cancer, microRNA has been found to turn off tumour suppressor genes, effectively allowing cancers to spread. But microRNA can also be useful in understanding cancer, and in potential treatments:
We can work out the right treatments for people based on what we call a microRNA signature. We can understand prognosis, which means how severe people’s cancers are, but we can also try and harness them for treatments to make people better.
To find out more about the discovery of microRNA and what research is being done on it today, listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, which includes an introduction from Vivian Lam, associate health and biomedicine editor at The Conversation in the US.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Katie Flood, Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.
Victor Ambros’s laboratory’s research has been funded (since 1985) and is currently funded by the US National Institutes of Heath. Justin Stebbing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The winners of a competition which challenges academics to explain their research in just three minutes have been announced.
A total of 850 researchers from across the UK entered the tenth annual Vitae Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition, which was sponsored by The Conversation through its Universal Impact training and mentoring subsidiary.
These were narrowed down first to 65 competitors and then six finalists, before a judging panel and a public vote determined the winning three.
The overall judges’ award went to Jo Baker from Newcastle University for her presentation on children’s speech difficulties, which was perfectly illustrated through the use of an original cartoon.
Speech and language therapist Jo Baker impressed the judges.
Ulster University’s James McMullan captured the public’s imagination with his presentation on whether eating fish could be the secret to healthy ageing, winning the people’s choice award.
Universal Impact also had the chance to pick an editor’s champion. We chose Muhammad Muddasar at University of Limerick for his research looking at whether the heat we waste on a daily basis could be transformed into a new energy source.
The other finalists were Ferdinando Sereno at UCL, Natalie Weir at University of Derby and Charlie Gerlis from the University of the West of England.
Originally developed by the University of Queensland, the competition challenges doctoral researchers to communicate their research to a non-expert audience – in three minutes or less.
As a judge, I was blown away by the overall standard of the entries – this really was a masterclass in research communications.
All of the academics involved spoke passionately about their research, explaining how it could contribute to making the world a better place.
Each of these researchers deserved their place in the final and it took lengthy discussions before the panel was able to pick a winner.
This year’s final was broadcast live online with the winners announced on Friday, October 4.
The presentations were recorded and uploaded online ahead of a public vote.
‘It opens minds and opens doors’**
At Universal Impact, we have been delighted to support this mission by joining the judging panel and mentoring the champions (who also receive a coveted trophy and small grant) to help them build on their success and take their research to an even wider audience.
Vitae, which organised the competition, is a non-profit organisation that supports the professional development of researchers.
Rachel Cox, head of membership and engagement at Vitae, said: “The Vitae Three Minute Thesis is a fantastic competition which provides a unique opportunity for doctoral researchers to think differently about how they communicate work that is meaningful to them to a wider audience.
“It opens minds and opens doors for the individuals involved, as it can be a pathway to a wide variety of future careers, as previous participants have shown.
“At Vitae, we are proud of the impact this competition has had over the past ten years, and we are excited to see what it can do over the next decade.
“We are also delighted that Universal Impact and The Conversation are supporting this year’s event.”
You can find out more about the competition and the work of Vitae here.
The Conversation Weekly podcast caught up with Victor Ambros from his lab at the UMass Chan Medical School to learn more about the Nobel-winning research and what comes next. Below are edited excerpts from the podcast.
How did you start thinking about this fundamental question at the heart of the discovery of microRNA, about how cells get the instructions to do what they do?
The paper that described this discovery was published in 1993. In the late 1980s, we were working in the field of developmental biology, studying C. elegans as a model organism for animal development. We were using genetic approaches, where mutations that caused developmental abnormalities were then followed up to try to understand what the gene was that was mutated and what the gene product was.
It was well understood that proteins could mediate changes in gene expression as cells differentiate, divide.
We were not looking for the involvement of any sort of unexpected kind of molecular mechanisms. The fact that the microRNA was the product of this gene that was regulating this other gene in this context was a complete surprise.
There was no reason to postulate that there should be such regulators of gene expression. This is one of those examples where the expectations are that you’re going to find out about more complexity and nuance about mechanisms that we already know about.
But sometimes surprises emerge, and in fact, surprises emerge perhaps surprisingly often.
These C. elegans worms, nematodes, is there something about them that allows you to work with their genetic material more easily? Why are they so key to this type of science?
C. elegans was developed as an experimental organism that people could use easily to, first, identify mutants and then study the development.
It only has about a thousand cells, and all those cells can be seen easily through a microscope in the living animal. But still it has all the various parts that are important to all animals: intestine, skin, muscles, a brain, sensory systems and complex behavior. So it’s quite an amazing system to study developmental processes and mechanisms really on the level of individual cells and what those cells do as they divide and differentiate during development.
You were looking at this lin-4 gene. What was your surprising discovery that led to this Nobel Prize?
In our lab, Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum were working on this project for several years. This is a very labor intensive process, trying to track down a gene.
And all we had to go by was a mutation to guide us as we gradually homed in on the DNA sequence that contained the gene. The surprises started to emerge when we found that the pieces of DNA that were sufficient to confer the function of this gene and rescue a mutant were really small, only 800 base pairs.
And so that suggested, well, the gene is small, so the product of this gene is going to be pretty small. And then Rosalind worked to pare down the sequence more and to mutate potential protein coding sequences in that little piece of DNA. By a process of elimination, she finally showed that there was no protein that could be expressed from this gene.
And at the same time, we identified this very, very small transcript of only 22 nucleotides. So I would say there was probably a period of a week or two there where these realizations came to the fore and we knew we had something new.
You mentioned Rosalind, she’s your wife.
Yeah, we’ve been together since 1976. And we started to work together in the mid-’80s. And so we’re still working together today.
And she was the first author on that paper.
That’s right. It’s hard to express how wonderful it is to receive such validation of this work that we did together. That is just priceless.
Victor Ambros and Rosalind Lee toast the Nobel news on the day of the announcement. UMass Chan Medical School
Like it’s a Nobel Prize for her too?
Yes, every Nobel Prize has this obvious limitation of the number of people that they give it to. But, of course, behind that are the folks who worked in the lab – the teams that are actually behind the discoveries are surprisingly large sometimes. In this case, two people in my lab and several people in Gary Ruvkun’s lab.
In a way they’re really the heroes behind this. Our job – mine and Gary’s – is to stand in as representatives of this whole enterprise of science, which is so, so dependent upon teams, collaborations, brainstorming amongst multiple people, communications of ideas and crucial data, you know, all this is part of the process that underlies successful science.
That first week of the discoveries, did you anticipate at that point that this could be such a huge step for our understanding of genes?
Until other examples are found of something new, it’s very hard to know how peculiar that particular phenomenon might be.
We’re always mindful that evolution is amazingly innovative. And so it could have been that this particular small RNA base-pairing to this mRNA of lin-14 gene and turning off production of the protein from lin-14 messenger RNA, that could be a peculiar evolutionary innovation.
The second microRNA was identified in Gary Ruvkun’s lab in 1999, so it was a good six years before the second one was found, also in C. elegans. Really, the watershed discovery was when Ruvkun showed that let-7, the other microRNA, was actually conserved perfectly in sequence amongst all the bilaterian animals. So that meant that let-7 microRNA had been around for, what, 500 million years?
And so it was immediately obvious to the field that there had to be other microRNAs – this was not just a C. elegans thing. There must be others, and that quickly emerged to be the case.
You and Gary Ruvkun had been postdoctoral fellows at the same time at MIT, but by the time you made your respective discoveries, you’d both set up your own labs. Would you call them rival labs, in the same town?
No, I would certainly not call it rival labs. We were working together as postdocs basically on this problem of developmental timing in Bob Horvitz’s lab.
We just basically informally divided up the work. The understanding was, OK, Ambros lab will focus on lin-4 gene, and Ruvkun lab will focus on lin-14, and we anticipated that there would be a point that we would get together and share information about what we’ve learned and see if we could come to a synthesis.
That was the informal plan. It was not really a collaboration. It was certainly not a rivalry. The expectation was that we would divide up the work and then communicate when the time came. There was an expectation in this community of C. elegans researchers that you should share data freely.
Your lab still works on microRNA. What are you investigating? What questions do you still have?
One I find very interesting is a project where we collaborated with a clinician, a geneticist who studies intellectual disability. She had discovered that her patients, children with intellectual disabilities, in certain families carried a mutation that neither of their parents had – a spontaneous mutation – in the protein that is associated with microRNAs in humans called the Argonaute protein.
Each of our genomes contains four genes for Argonautes that are the partners of microRNAs. In fact, this is the effector protein that is guided by the microRNA to its target messenger RNAs. This Argonaute is what carries out the regulatory processes that happen once it finds its target.
These so-called Argonaute syndromes were discovered, where there are mutations in Argonautes, point mutations where only one amino acid changes to another amino acid. They have this very profound and extensive effect on the development of the individual.
And so working with these geneticists, our lab and other labs took those mutations, that were essentially gifted to us by the patient. And then we put those mutations into our system, in our case into C. elegans‘ Argonaute.
I’m excited by the very organized, active partnership between the Argonaute Alliance of families with Argonaute syndromes and the basic scientists studying Argonaute.
How does this collaboration potentially help those patients?
What we’ve learned is that the mutant protein is sort of a rogue Argonaute. It’s basically screwing up the normal process that these four Argonautes usually do in the body. And so this rogue Argonaute, in principle, could be removed from the system by trying to employ some of the technology that folks are developing for gene knockout or RNA interference of genes.
This is promising, and I’m hopeful that the payoff for the patients will come in the years ahead.
Victor Ambros receives funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Heath.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that young people are behind most knife crime in the UK. Media coverage often focuses on youth involvement, and the government’s plan to halve knife crime focuses specifically on young people and vulnerable teenagers.
Evidence shows that most knife-involved crime is committed in the home, between adults, in the form of intimate partner violence. Only around 18% of knife offences are carried out by 10- to 17-year-olds. These usually involve other young people.
Although young people’s share of knife crime is low, their involvement is a significant concern and has risen starkly in the last decade.
Choosing to carry a knife out of the home, into the streets, or into school is a rare choice that most children never make. Estimates show that between one and four in 100 young people carry knives.
For those few who do, it is important to understand the complex factors behind why. This is what we, and many other academics, have been studying in our research.
Both researchers and young people themselves cite protection as a factor in knife carrying. Many young people are fearful of being victims of knife crime, and knife carrying may offer a sense of security and defence from potential threats.
This fear is not necessarily correlated to reality. Young people tend to overestimate the prevalence of weapon carrying among their peers. What’s more, those carrying knives for defence often end up having their own knife used against them.
Seeing images of knives
One reason that young people may have a fear of knife crime is because of how the threat is presented to them through images.
Media reports and anti-knife campaign material often features images of shocking weapons, such as zombie knives. Depictions of piles of seized weapons and vicious blades all paint a picture of a risky landscape.
You probably noticed that the photos illustrating this article do not include a picture of a knife. This is a deliberate choice. Our research has found that such knife imagery can evoke fear or excitement for some young people.
Their heightened emotional responses suggest that these young people are the most likely to be vulnerable to future knife carrying. Those who feel most unsafe in their communities are the most likely to respond negatively to graphic imagery.
Interestingly, the young people who participated in our research self-reported knife imagery as having little impact on them. But our study investigated their unconscious emotional response through an implicit association test. This approach is key in a research area vulnerable to self-presentation bias, where young people might attempt to hide their true feelings.
The test we used assessed response speeds to determine associations between images of knives and words relating to fear and excitement. Overall, response times were faster (showed more association) for fear-related words.
Other evidence suggests that anti-knife crime imagery and messaging can create exaggerated belief about the prevalence of knife carrying. This may increase, rather than reduce, the fear of victimisation, and further encourage people to carry knives.
Floods of knife images in a young person’s social and educational environment may normalise knife carrying. Nearly two-thirds of young people report experiencing secondary traumatic stress when viewing knife crime news on social media.
When knife imagery is used in intervention materials presented by someone in a position of authority (a teacher or police officer, for example), it can validate the fears even more.
In other words, the more we talk about knife crime, the scarier it can seem, and the more young people feel the need to protect themselves by carrying a weapon.
Labour’s plan to cut knife crime – including a ban on zombie knives that has just come into effect – should go a long way to reducing the availability of “status” weapons. It may also mean that images of these knives are less prevalent in the media, which, given our research findings, would likely have a positive effect.
But, as noted earlier, most young people are not at risk, and have had no exposure to knife crime. Knife carrying is not normal behaviour for most young people. Anti-knife messaging would serve young people better by avoiding the use of knife imagery, and instead focus on discussing how to keep safe by avoiding risky behaviour, and how to get help if a dangerous situation arises.
Dr Charlotte Coleman receives funding from N8 Policing Research Partnership.
Dr Charlotte Coleman is a member of the Youth Justice Board Academic Liaison Network
Dr Charlotte Coleman is an executive member of the Society for Evidence Based Policing.
Jess Scott-Lewis 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 Elizabeth Chappell, Researcher Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University
The 2024 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organisation created by survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts and public appeals by survivors, who are known as hibakusha, and has sent annual delegations to the UN.
Their work was commended by the Nobel committee, who decided to award the prize to Nihon Hidankyo “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.
Nihon Hidankyo’s co-chair, Toshiyuki Mimaki, said: “I never expected we would win the Nobel peace prize. Now we want to go further and appeal to the world to achieve lasting peace. We are old, but we never give up.”
There are an estimated 106,000hibakusha still living in Japan, with many more alive around the world. There are also survivors – and their descendants – of the more than 2,000 nuclear tests that have taken place worldwide since 1945. Some of these people use the term hibakusha to describe themselves.
This was not the first time the prize had been awarded to a nominee for their efforts towards nuclear disarmament. And it probably won’t be the last.
In 1985, the prize was awarded to an organisation called the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. And then, in 1995, the prize was won by Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to have left the Manhattan Project – the US government’s research project to produce the first atomic bomb – on moral grounds.
Barack Obama was next in 2009, for his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons”. His administration made efforts to renew the strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia, and Obama became the first US president to visit one of the atomic bombed cities when he made a special trip to Hiroshima in 2016.
The following year, the prize was won by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for its “groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of nuclear weapons”. This was a reference to the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which from 2017 has outlawed states from participating in any nuclear weapon activities.
Nihon Hidankyo may not be a household name, but two of its former co-chairs are quite well known internationally. Hiroshima-born Sunao Tsuboi was photographed in one of the few known images to be taken on the day of the bombing.
Tsuboi and fellow survivor Shigeaki Mori also spoke with Obama on his visit to the city. It is said that Obama’s visit was, in part, triggered by Mori’s research. He had spent 40 years searching for the identities of 12 US prisoners of war who had been killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.
Another of Nihon Hidankyo’s former co-chairs, Nagasaki-born Sumiteru Taniguchi, spent three-and-a-half years in hospital after the bombing of his city and never fully recovered from his wounds.
Taniguchi’s story became famous after the publication of his 1984 memoir, The Postman of Nagasaki. The book’s author, Peter Townsend, was a Royal Air Force pilot in the second world war and is known in the UK for his affair with Princess Margaret, sister of the late Queen. The memoir was made into a film in 2022.
The logic of nuclear deterrence
We are currently at a time where the threat of nuclear weapons is growing. This was reflected by the committee who, when awarding Nihon Hidankyo with the prize, noted that the “taboo” against their use was “under pressure”.
Nuclear deterrence relies on the logic of the threat to inflict “unacceptable damage” on the enemy. But nuclear deterrence is not foolproof. What is unacceptable to one adversary may be acceptable to another, depending on the circumstances.
It’s worth remembering that the 1945 atomic bombings were not, as is commonly believed, the only reason the Japanese surrendered the following week and brought the war to an end. Various factions in the war council had been attempting to find ways to surrender for over a year, and the bombs offered Japan’s Emperor Hirohito a way to save face.
The bombs didn’t force the Japanese to surrender, they gave Hirohito the opportunity to surrender … News of the Nagasaki bomb came as they were having a meeting of the imperial war council about what to do about the Soviets coming into the war. It should be known that there was never any special imperial war council meeting after the Hiroshima bomb. That wasn’t considered weighty enough to make everyone drop what they were doing and head to the Imperial Palace.
The effects of radiation on the human body were little known in 1945, due to censorship both by the Japanese military and the US occupation that followed. As I was told in an interview with a hibakusha called Keiko Ogura, who was eight when the first bomb was dropped: “No one understood why people were still dying days, weeks, months and years after the attacks – they thought the atomic bomb was poison gas.”
We now know much more about the devastating consequences of radiation for humans, animals and the environment across generations. However, research is still not widely publicised, with ICAN taking the lead as an international forum for important new findings to be shared and known.
Let’s hope this year’s award will help inform the world once and for all of the nature of these weapons. As former US president, John F. Kennedy, said in a speech to the UN in 1961: “A nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike.”
Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This prize should help ban what Kennedy described as the “sword of Damocles” that still threatens life on earth.
Elizabeth Chappell does not work for or receive funding from any external organisation.
As people who research ageing like to quip: the best thing you can do to increase how long you live is to pick good parents. After all, it has long been recognised that longer-lived people tend to have longer-lived parents and grandparents, suggesting that genetics influence longevity.
Complicating the picture, however, is that we know that the sum of your lifestyle, specifically diet and exercise, also significantly influences your health into older age and how long you live. What contribution lifestyle versus genetics makes is an open question that a recent study in Nature has shed new light on.
Scientists have long known that reducing calorie intake can make animals live longer. In the 1930s, it was noted that rats fed reduced calories lived longer than rats who could eat as much as they wanted. Similarly, people who are more physically active tend to live longer. But specifically linking single genes to longevity was until recently a controversial one.
While studying the lifespan of the tiny worm C elegans at the University of California, San Francisco, Cynthia Kenyon found that small changes to the gene that controls the way that cells detect and respond to nutrients around them led to the worms doubling their lifespan. This raises new questions: if we know that genetics and lifestyle affect how long you live, which one is more important? And how do they interact?
To try to tease out the effects of genetics versus lifestyle, the new study in Nature examined different models of caloric restriction in 960 mice. The researchers specifically looked at classical experimental models of caloric restriction (either 20% or 40% fewer calories than control mice), or intermittent fasting of one or two days without food (as intermittent fasting is popular in people looking to see the positive benefits of caloric restriction).
Because we now know that small genetic variations affect ageing, the researchers specifically used genetically diverse mice. This is important for two reasons. First, as laboratory studies on mice are normally performed on genetically very (very!) similar mice, this allowed the researchers to tease out the effects of both diet and genetic variables would have on longevity.
Second, humans are highly diverse, meaning that studies on genetically near-identical mice don’t often translate into humanity’s high genetic diversity.
The headline finding was that genetics appeared to play a larger role in lifespan than any of the dietary restriction interventions. Long-lived types of mice were still longer lived despite dietary changes.
Diet counts, but genes count more
And while shorter-lived mice did show improvements as a result of dietary restrictions, they didn’t catch up to their longer-lived peers. This suggests that there’s truth to the “pick good parents” joke.
Caloric restriction models still increased lifespans across all the types of mice, with the 40% restriction group having improved average and maximum lifespans compared with the 20% group.
And the 20% group showed improvements in both group average and maximum length of lives compared with the control group. It’s just the effects of genetics were larger than the effect of the dietary interventions.
While all the caloric restriction models resulted in increased lifespan in the mice on average, in the most extreme caloric restriction model tested (40% less group) changes that could be seen as physical harms were observed. These included reduced immune function and losses in muscle mass, which outside of a predator- and germ-free laboratory environment could affect health and longevity.
There are some important caveats in studies like this. First, it’s not known if these results apply to humans.
As with most caloric restriction research in mice, the restricted feeding groups were fed 20% or 40% less than a control group who ate as much as they wanted. In humans, that’d be like assuming people eating every meal every day at a bottomless buffet is “normal”. And people who do not eat from limitless trays of food are “restricted feeding”. That’s not an exact parallel to how humans live and eat.
Second, although exercise wasn’t controlled in any way in this study, most groups did similar amounts of running in their in-cage running wheels except the 40% caloric restriction group who ran significantly more.
The researchers suggested that this extra exercise in the 40% group was the mice constantly hunting for more food. But as this group did so much more exercise than the others, it could also mean that positive effects of increased exercise were also seen in this group alongside their caloric restriction.
So, while we can’t pick our parents or change the genes we inherit from them, it is interesting to know that specific genetic variations play a significant role in the maximum age we can aspire to.
The genetic cards we’re dealt dictate how long we can expect to live. Just as important in this study, however, lifestyle interventions such as diet and exercise that aim to improve lifespan should be effective regardless of the genes we have.
Bradley Elliott receives funding from the Physiological Society, the British Society for Research on Ageing, the Altitude Centre, and private philanthropic individuals, and has consulted for industry and government on longevity research. He is on the Board of Trustees of the British Society for Research on Ageing.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Massey, Professor of extragalactic astrophysics (dark matter and cosmology), Durham University
Illustration of the Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama desert.ESO, CC BY
In recent decades, we’ve learnt huge amounts about the universe and its history. The rapidly developing technology of telescopes – both on Earth and in space – has been a key part of this process, and those that are due to start operating over the next two decades should push the boundaries of our understanding of cosmology much further.
All observatories have a list of science objectives before they switch on, but it is their unexpected discoveries that can have the biggest impact. Many surprise advances in cosmology were driven by new technology, and the next telescopes have powerful capabilities.
Still, there are gaps, such as a lack of upcoming space telescopes for ultraviolet and visible light astronomy. Politics and national interests have slowed scientific progress. Financial belts are tightening at even the most famous observatories.
This is article is part of our series Cosmology in crisis? which uncovers the greatest problems facing cosmologists today – and discusses the implications of solving them.
The biggest new telescopes are being built in the mountains of Chile. The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will house a mirror the size of four tennis courts, under a huge dome in the Atacama desert.
Reflecting telescopes like ELT work by using a primary mirror to collect light from the night sky, then reflecting it off other mirrors to a camera. Larger mirrors collect more light and see fainter objects.
The Extremely Large Telescope under construction atop the Cerro Amazones peak in northern Chile.
Another ground-based telescope under construction in Chile is the Vera C. Rubin telescope. Rubin’s camera is the largest ever built: the size of a small car and weighing about three tonnes. Its 3,200 megapixels will photograph the whole sky every three days to spot moving objects. Over the course of 10 years, these photographs will be combined to form a massive time-lapse video of the universe.
Astronomy used to be a physically demanding job, requiring travel to remote telescopes in dark sites –- but many astronomers began working from home long before COVID. In the late 20th century, major ground observatories started to put in place technology to allow astronomers to control telescopes for observations at night, even when they were not there in person. Remote observing is now commonplace, carried out via the internet.
Expect the unexpected
The view of any telescope on the ground is limited, though, even if it’s on top of a mountain. Launching telescopes into space can get around these limitations.
The Hubble Space Telescope’s operational history began when the space shuttle lifted it above the atmosphere on April 25 1990. Hubble got the full 1960s sci-fi treatment: a rocket to launch it, gyroscopes to point it, and electronic cameras instead of photographic film. But one plan fell through: for Hubble to host a commuting astronaut-astronomer, working decidedly away from home.
Webb, launched on December 25 2021, now spends a third of its time looking at planets around other stars that weren’t even known about when it was designed.
The stated goal of an expensive telescope is usually just a sales pitch to space agencies, governments and (shhh…) taxpayers. The Webb telescope should achieve its original science goals, but astronomers have always known that seeing further, finer or in more colours can achieve so much more. The unexpected discoveries by telescopes are often more significant than the science objectives stated at the outset.
Taking the long view
For scientists, it’s a relief that telescopes go beyond their brief, because Hubble and Webb both took more than 25 years from napkin to launch. In that time, new scientific questions arise.
Building a large space telescope typically takes about two decades. The Chandra and XMM-Newton space telescopes took 23 years and 15 years to build, respectively. They were designed to observe X-rays coming from hot gas around black holes and galaxy clusters, and were launched very close together in 1999.
Similar timescales apply to the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos and Gaia space telescopes, which have mapped all the stars in the Milky Way. The Cobe and Planck missions to study the microwave-light afterglow of the Big Bang also took two decades. Precise dates depend how you count, and a few exceptions have been “faster, better, cheaper”, but national space agencies are generally risk averse and slow when developing these projects.
The latest space telescopes are therefore millennials. They were designed at a time when astronomers had measured the universe’s newborn expansion following the Big Bang, and also its old-age, accelerating expansion. Their main goal now is to fill the gap –- because, surprisingly, interpolations from early times to late times don’t meet in the middle.
The measured rates for the expansion of the universe are inconsistent, as are results for the clumpiness of matter in the cosmos. Both measurements create challenges for our theories of how the universe evolved.
Observing the middle age of the universe requires telescopes operating at long wavelengths, because light from distant galaxies is stretched by the time it reaches us. So, Webb has infrared zoom cameras, while the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope, launched in 2023, and Nasa’s Nancy Grace Roman telescope, which is set to launch in 2026, both have infrared wide-angle views.
Three buses come along at once
Most stars shine in ultraviolet and infrared colours that are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the colours our eyes evolved to see.
Extra colours are useful. For example, we can weigh stars on the other side of our galaxy because massive stars are bright in infrared, while smaller ones are faint – and they stay that way throughout their lifetimes. However, we know where stars are being born because only young stars emit ultraviolet light.
In addition, independent measurements of the same thing are vital for rigorous science. Infrared telescopes, for example, can work together and have already made surprising discoveries. But it’s not great for diversity that the Webb, Euclid and Roman space telescopes all see infrared colours.
Earthly politics gets in the way, too. Data from China’s Hubble-class space telescope, Xuntian, is unlikely to be shared internationally. And in protest at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022 Germany switched off its eRosita X-ray instrument that had been operating perfectly, in collaboration with Russia, a million miles from Earth.
Cheap commercial launches may save the day. Euclid was to have lifted off on a Russian Soyuz rocket from a European Space Agency spaceport in French Guiana. When Russia ended operations there in tit-for-tat reprisals, Euclid’s launch was successfully switched at the last minute to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
If large telescopes can also be folded inside shoebox-size “cubesat” satellites, the lower cost would make it viable for them to fail. Tolerating risk creates a virtuous circle that makes missions even cheaper.
But perhaps the most unusual telescope technology, which may bring the most unexpected discoveries, is gravitational wave detectors. Gravitational waves are not part of the electromagnetic spectrum, so we can’t see them. They are distortions, or “ripples”, in spacetime caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the universe. These might include a collision between two neutron stars (dense objects formed when massive stars run out of fuel), or a neutron star merging with a black hole.
Asked what the next generation of observatories will discover, I have no idea. And that’s a good thing. The best science experiments shouldn’t just tell us about the things we expect to find, but also about the unknown unknowns.
Richard Massey receives funding from the UK Space Agency to support Euclid, and leads UK involvement in the SuperBIT balloon-born telescope.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Bentley, Professor of International Relations, Royal Holloway University of London
The Apprentice – a new film dramatising Donald Trump’s business career during the 1970s and 80s – is the latest in a presidential election full of controversy.
The movie charts Trump’s (Sebastian Stan) professional rise from an awkward nobody to hotshot real-estate tycoon. Trump’s Pygmalion-like transformation is credited to his friendship with Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Cohn was an infamous prosecutor who worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Communist and Lavender (homosexual) scares, and as a political fixer for Richard Nixon.
The key storyline is that Trump becomes Cohn’s apprentice, learning underhanded ways of business and Machiavellian deal-making. Other figures said to have influenced Trump’s career, such as political adviser Roger Stone, get only cameos at best.
Trump does not look good. He is portrayed as vain, using amphetamines as diet pills and getting plastic surgery including liposuction and a scalp reduction. Trump rejects his alcoholic brother and later Cohn, who dies from AIDS in social disgrace.
Trump is also shown to rape his then-wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova) – a scene which made headlines after the movie’s Cannes Film Festival premiere earlier this year. The rape claim was made during the couple’s divorce proceedings, although Ivana said afterwards that she did not consider the incident “rape” in a criminal sense.
Director Ali Abbasi says this depiction isn’t a take-down of the former president but a more nuanced exploration of Trump’s character. Indeed, there is sympathy for Trump – for example, by detailing the emotional pressure from his father.
The film explores how this experience fuelled Trump’s obsession with winning, which is cultivated by Cohn and his three rules of success: “attack, attack, attack”, “deny everything” and “never admit defeat”. The film seeks to get inside Trump’s mindset, not only as a businessperson, but unpicking what drove him in the White House, as well as the election he’s now fighting.
Some have criticised this approach for being too soft on Trump. A review in The Guardian called the film “obtuse and irrelevant”. A further concern is that presenting Trump as a “winner” could actually be seen to legitimise amoral business practices as successful, especially given that Trump’s later six bankruptcies are not clearly mentioned.
The Apprentice is also a deeper commentary on America. Another character comments that Cohn’s three rules also describe US foreign policy. The film raises big questions about the US, not least where Cohn repeatedly highlights what he identifies as the country’s virtues, and justifies his (sometimes illegal) actions as upholding these. The audience is left to consider what shapes America and its foreign policy – and what may be toxic about this.
Will the film influence the upcoming election?
The Apprentice’s screenwriter, Gabriel Sherman, insists the movie is not designed “to influence people’s minds”. Yet the film’s release so close to the polls means it is inevitably political.
The Apprentice is unlikely to radically shift the electoral needle. Trump’s negative portrayal may make some voters on the fence question his suitability for high office. But beyond this, the film will reinforce what people already thought.
Pro-Trumpers won’t like the movie, but this upset will likely just give oxygen to their support. Those against Trump will also be able to feel their opinion has been affirmed, even by those who would have wanted the film to take a harder line. Although it’s perhaps uncertain whether anyone who dislikes Trump will want to spend two hours watching even more of him than they already have in this election.
While the film likely won’t influence the final outcome, it is still a major marker in this election thanks to the huge controversy around it. Concern over its divisive portrait of Trump meant the movie took five years to reach production. Clint Eastwood turned down the option to direct due to the perceived business risk involved. Distribution also took time to secure – a situation Abbasi describes as a “boycott or censorship”.
Distribution problems were also exacerbated by legal threats. After Cannes (where the film received an eight-minute ovation), Trump’s legal team issued a cease-and-desist letter. Communications Director for the Trump election campaign, Steven Cheung, said the film was “garbage” and “pure fiction”, constituting election interference.
Strong resistance also came from billionaire and close Trump associate, Dan Snyder, who was involved in the film’s financing, thinking it would paint a positive picture of the presidential hopeful. Snyder later sought to block the film’s release after seeing a preview.
Controversy has only raised the movie’s profile. And while people will watch it for very different political reasons, some will buy a ticket purely because this film is now a standout event in one of the most contentious US elections in history.
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Michelle Bentley 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 Kieran Maguire, Senior Teacher in Accountancy and member of Football Industries Group, University of Liverpool
When the Premier League broke away from the rest of English football in 1992, its 22 clubs generated £205 million in its debut season, and the average player earned £2,050 a week. Thirty years later, despite having two fewer clubs, the league’s revenue had increased by 2,850% to £6.1 billion and the average player earned £93,000 a week.
At the heart of this extraordinary growth is an American revolution. In the Premier League’s inaugural season, football was still in recovery from the horrors of the stadium disasters at Hillsborough and Heysel. Owners tended to be from the local area and with a business background. The only foreign owner was Sam Hamman at Wimbledon, a Lebanese millionaire who bought the club on a whim having reportedly been much more interested in tennis. The season ended with Manchester United (under Alex Ferguson) winning the English game’s top league for the first time in 26 years.
Now, if the bid for Everton by the Friedkin Group (TFG) is ratified, 11 of the 20 Premier League clubs will be controlled or part-owned by American investors. The US – long seen as football’s final frontier when it comes to the men’s game – suddenly can’t get enough of English “soccer”.
Four of the Premier League’s “big six” are American-owned – Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea – while a fifth, Manchester City, has a significant US minority shareholding. Aston Villa, Fulham, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, West Ham and Ipswich Town also have varying degrees of American ownership.
And it’s not even just the glamour clubs at the top of the tree. American investment has also been significant lower down the football pyramid, led by the high-profile acquisition of then non-league Wrexham by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, and Birmingham City’s purchase by US investors including seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady. American investment in football has reached places as geographically diverse as Carlisle and Crawley in England, and Aberdeen and Edinburgh in Scotland.
Manchester United was the first Premier League club to come under American ownership – after a row about a horse.
In 2005, United was owned by a variety of investors including Irish businessmen and racehorse owners John Magnier and J.P. McManus. Their erstwhile friend Ferguson, the United manager, thought he co-owned the champion racehorse Rock of Gibraltar with them – a stallion worth millions in stud rights. They disagreed – and their bitter dispute was such that Magnier and McManus decided to sell their shares in the football club.
The Miami-based Glazer family – already involved in sport as owners of NFL franchise the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – had already been buying up small tranches of shares in United, but the sudden availability of the Irish shares allowed Malcolm Glazer to acquire a controlling stake for £790 million (around £1.5 billion at today’s prices).
The fact Glazer did not actually have sufficient funds to pay for these shares was a solvable problem. In the some-might-say commercially naive world of top-flight English football before the Premier League, Manchester United was a club without debt, paying its way without leveraging its position as one of the world’s most famous football clubs. Glazer saw the opportunity this presented and arranged a leveraged buy-out (LBO), whereby the football club borrowed more than £600 million secured on its own assets to, in effect, “buy itself” in 2005.
Despite the need to meet the high interest costs to fund the LBO, United continued winning trophies under Ferguson – including three Premier League titles in a row in 2007, 2008 and 2009, as well as a Champions League victory in 2008. Amid this success, the club felt that ticket prices were too low and set about increasing them, with matchday revenue increasing from £66 million in 2004/05 to over £101 million by 2007/08.
Commercial income was another area the Glazers were keen to increase. United set up offices in London and adopted a global approach to finding new official branding deals ranging from snacks to tractor and tyre suppliers – doubling revenues from this income source too.
But in this new, more aggressive world of “sweating the asset”, the debts lingered – and most United fans remained deeply suspicious of their American owners. (Following their father’s death in 2014, the club was co-owned by his six children, with brothers Avram and Joel Glazer becoming co-chairmen.)
Today, despite its partial listing on the New York Stock Exchange and the February 2024 sale of 27.7% of the club to British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe for a reputed £1.25 billion, United still has borrowings of more than £546 million, having paid cumulative interest costs of £969 million since the takeover in 2005. But with the club now valued at US$6.55 billion (around £5bn), it represents a very smart investment for the Glazer family.
Indeed, while the prices being paid for football clubs across Europe have reached record levels, they are still seen as cheap investments compared with US sports’ leading franchises. Forbes’s annual list of the world’s most valuable sports teams has American football (NFL), baseball (MLB) and basketball (NBA) teams occupying the top ten positions, with only three Premier League clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City – in the top 50.
With NFL teams having an average franchise value of US$5.1 billion and NBA $3.9 billion, many English football clubs still look like a bargain from the other side of the pond.
The risk of relegation
The latest to join this US bandwagon, TFG – a Texas-based portfolio of companies run by American businessman and film producer Dan Friedkin – is reported to have offered £400m to buy Everton, despite the club’s poor financial state.
“The Toffees” have been hit by loss of sponsorships as well as two sets of points deductions for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules, leading to revenue losses from lower league positions. While the new stadium being built at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore dock has been yet another financial constraint, it will at least increase matchday income from the start of next season.
Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock will open in time for the start of the 2025-26 season. Phil Silverman / Shutterstock
A wider reason for the relative bargain in valuations of European football clubs is the risk of relegation – something that is not part of the closed leagues of most US sports. While the threat of relegation (and promise of promotion) has always been an integral part of English and European football, the jeopardy this brings for supporters – and a club’s finances – does not exist in the NFL, NBA, Major League Soccer and similar competitions.
The Premier League, with its three relegation spots at the end of each season, has featured 51 different clubs since it launched in 1992. Only six clubs – Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton – have been ever present, with Arsenal now approaching 100 years of consecutive top-flight football.
Other Premier League clubs have experienced the dramatic cost-benefit of relegation and promotion. Oldham Athletic, who were in the Premier League for its first two seasons, now languish in the fifth tier of the game, outside the English Football League (EFL). In contrast, Luton Town, who were in the fifth tier as recently as 2014, were promoted to the Premier League in 2023 – only to be relegated at the end of last season.
While it is difficult to compare football clubs with basketball and American football teams, the financial difference between having an open league, with relegation, and a closed league becomes apparent when you look at women’s football on both sides of the Atlantic.
Angel City, a women’s soccer team based in Los Angeles, only entered the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in 2022 and is yet to win an NWSL trophy. But last month, the club was sold for US$250 million (£188m) to Disney’s CEO Bob Iger and TV journalist Willow Bay – the most expensive takeover in the history of women’s professional sport.
In comparison, Chelsea – seven-time winners of the English Women’s Super League and one of the most successful sides in Europe – valued its women’s team at £150 million ($US196m) earlier this summer. While there are a number of factors to this price differential, the confidence that Angel City will always be a member of the big league of US soccer clubs – and share very equally in its revenue – will have made its new owners very confident in the long-term soundness of their deal.
The story of Angel City FC, the most expensive team in women’s sport.
A further attraction for American investors is the potential to enter two markets – one mature (men’s football) and one effectively a start-up (the women’s game) – in a single purchase. In the US, the top men’s and women’s clubs are completely separate. But in Europe, most top-flight women’s teams are affiliated to men’s clubs – with the exception of eight-time Women’s Champions League winners Olympique Lyonnais Feminin, which split from the French men’s club when Korean-American businesswoman Michele Kang bought a majority stake in the women’s team in February 2024).
While interest in, and hence value of, the WSL is now growing fast, the women’s game in England is dwarfed by viewer ratings for the Premier League – the most watched sporting league in the world, viewed by an estimated 1.87 billion people every week across 189 countries.
These figures dwarf even the NFL which, while currently still the most valuable of all sporting leagues in terms of its broadcasting deals, must be looking at the growth of the Premier League with some jealousy. This may explain why some US franchise owners, such as Stan Kroenke, the Glazer family, Fenway Sports Group and Billy Foley, have subsequently purchased Premier League football clubs.
Ironically, for many spectators around the world, it is the intensity and competitiveness of most Premier League matches – brought on in part by the threat of relegation and prize of European qualification – that makes it so captivating. However, billionaire investors like guaranteed numbers and dislike risk – especially the degree of financial risk that exists in the Premier League and English Football League.
European not-so-Super League
In April 2021, 12 leading European clubs (six from England plus three each from Spain and Italy) announced the creation of the European Super League (ESL). This new mid-week competition was to be a high-revenue generating, closed competition with (eventually) 15 permanent teams and five annual additions qualifying from Europe. According to one of the driving forces behind the plan, Manchester United co-chairman Joel Glazer:
By bringing together the world’s greatest clubs and players to play each other throughout the season, the Super League will open a new chapter for European football, ensuring world-class competition and facilities, and increased financial support for the wider football pyramid.
The problem facing the Premier League’s “big six” clubs – and their ambitious owners – is there are currently only four slots available to play in the Champions League. So, their thinking went, why not take away the risk of not qualifying? However, the proposal was swiftly condemned by fans around Europe, together with football’s governing bodies and leagues – all of whom saw the ESL proposal as a threat to the quality and integrity of their domestic leagues. Following some large fan protests, including at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, Manchester City was the first club to withdraw – followed, within a couple of days, by the rest of the English clubs.
Under the terms of the ESL proposals, founding member clubs would have been guaranteed participation in the competition forever. Guaranteed participation means guaranteed revenues. The current financial gap between the “big six” and the other members of the Premier League, which in 2022/23 averaged £396 million, would have widened rapidly.
For example, these clubs would have been able to sell the broadcast rights for some of their ESL home fixtures direct to fans, instead of via a broadcaster. All of a sudden, that database of fans who have downloaded the official club app, or are on a mailing list, becomes far more valuable. These are the people most willing to watch their favourite team on a pay-per-view basis, further increasing revenues.
At the same time, a planned ESL wage cap would have stopped players taking all these increased revenues in the form of higher wages, allowing these clubs to become more profitable and their ownership even more lucrative.
American-owned Manchester United and Liverpool had previously tried to enhance the value of their investments during the COVID lockdowns era via ProjectBig Picture – proposals to reduce the size of the Premier League and scrap one of the two domestic cup competitions, thus freeing up time for the bigger clubs to arrange more lucrative tours and European matches against high-profile opposition.
Most importantly, Project Big Picture would have resulted in changing the governance of the domestic game. Under its proposals, the “big six” clubs would have enjoyed enhanced voting rights, and therefore been able to significantly influence how the domestic game was governed.
Any attempt to increase the concentration of power raises concerns of lower competitive balance, whereby fewer teams are in the running to win the title and fewer games are meaningful. This is a problem facing some other major European football leagues including France’s Ligue 1, where interest among broadcasters has dwindled amid the perceived dominance of Paris St-Germain.
So while to date, American-led attempts to change the structure of the Premier League have been foiled, it’s unlikely such ideas have gone away for good. The near-universal fear of fans – even those who welcome an injection of extra cash from a new billionaire owner – is that the spectacle of the league will only be diminished if such plans ever succeed.
And there is evidence from the women’s game that the US closed league format is coming under more pressure from football’s global forces. The NWSL recently announced it is removing the draft system that is designed (as with the NFL and NBA) to build in jeopardy and competitive balance when there is no risk of relegation.
Top US women’s football clubs are losing some of their leading players to other leagues, in part because European clubs are not bound by the same artificial rules of employment. In a truly global professional sport such as football, international competition will always tend to destabilise closed leagues.
Why do they keep buying these clubs?
Does this mean that American and other wealthy owners of Premier League clubs seeking to reduce their risks are ultimately fighting a losing battle? And if so, given the potential risks involved in owning a football club – both financial and even personal – why do they keep buying them?
The motivations are part-financial, part technological and, as has always been the case with sports ownership, part-vanity.
The American economy has grown far faster than that of the EU or UK in recent years. Consequently, there are many beneficiaries of this growth who have surplus cash, and here football becomes an attractive proposition. In fact, football clubs are more resilient to recessions than other industries, holding their value better as they are effectively monopoly suppliers for their fans who have brand loyalty that exists in few other industries.
From 1993 to 2018, a period during which the UK economy more than doubled, the total value of Premier League clubs grew 30 times larger. And many fans are tied to supporting one club, helping to make the biggest clubs more resilient to economic changes than other industries. While football, like many parts of the entertainment industry, was hit by lockdown during Covid, no clubs went out of business, despite the challenges of matches being played in empty stadiums.
Added to this, the exchange rates for US dollars have been very favourable until recently, making US investments in the UK and Europe cheaper for American investors.
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So, while Manchester United fans would argue that the Glazer family have not been good for the club, United has been good for the Glazers. And Fenway Sports Group (FSG), who bought Liverpool for £300 million in 2010, have recouped almost all of that money in smaller share sales while remaining majority owners of Liverpool.
Despite this, the £2.5 billion price paid for Chelsea by the US Clearlake-Todd Boehly consortium in May 2022 took markets by surprise.
The sale – which came after the UK government froze the assets of the club’s Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, following the invasion of Ukraine – went through less than a year after Newcastle United had been sold by Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund for £305 million – approximately twice that club’s annual revenues. Yet Clearlake-Boehly were willing to pay over five times Chelsea’s annual revenues to acquire the club, even though it was in a precarious financial position.
Clearlake is a private equity group whose main aim is to make profits for their investors. But unlike most such investors, who tend to focus on cost-cutting, the Chelsea ownership came in with a high-spending strategy using new financial structuring ideas, such as offering longer player contracts to avoid falling foul of football’s profitability and sustainability rules (although this loophole has since been closed with Uefa, European football’s governing body, limiting contract lengths for financial regulation purposes to five years).
Chelsea’s location in the one of the most expensive areas of London, combined with its on-field success under Abramovich, all added to the attraction, of course. But there are other reasons why Clearlake, along with billionaire businessman Boehly, were willing to stump up so much for the club.
From Hollywood to the metaverse
While some British football fans may have viewed the Ted Lasso TV show as an enjoyable if slightly twee fictional account of American involvement in English soccer, it has enhanced the attraction of the sport in the US. So too Welcome To Wrexham – the fly-on-the-wall series covering the (to date) two promotions of Wales’s oldest football club under the unlikely Hollywood stewardship of Reynolds and McElhenney.
Welcome To Wrexham, season one trailer.
The growth in US interest in English football is reflected in the record-breaking Premier League media rights deal in 2022, with NBC Sports reportedly paying $2.7 billion (£2.06bn) for its latest six-year deal.
But as well as football offering one of increasingly few “live shared TV experiences” that carry lucrative advertising slots, there may also be more opportunity for more behind-the-scenes coverage of the Premier League – as has long been seen in US coverage of NBA games, for example, where players are interviewed in the locker room straight after games.
According to Manchester United’s latest annual report, the club now has a “global community of 1.1 billion fans and followers”. Such numbers mean its owners, and many others, are bullish about the potential of the metaverse in terms of offering a matchday experience that could be similar to attending a match, without physically travelling to Manchester.
Their neighbours Manchester City, part-owned by American private equity company Silverlake, broke new (virtual) ground by signing a metaverse deal with Sony in 2022. Virtual reality could give fans around the world the feeling of attending a live match, sitting next to their friends and singing along with the rest of the crowd (for a pay-per-view fee).
Some investors are even confident that advancements in Abba-style avatar technology could one day allow fans to watch live 3D simulations of Premier League matches in stadiums all over the world. Having first-mover advantage by being in the elite club of owners who can make use of such technology could prove ever more rewarding.
More immediately, there are some indications that competitive matches involving England’s top men’s football teams could soon take place in US or other venues. Boehly, Chelsea’s co-owner, has already suggested adopting some US sports staples such as an All-Star match to further boost revenues. Indeed, back in 2008, the Premier League tentatively discussed a “39th game” taking place overseas, but that idea was quickly shelved.
The American owners of Birmingham City were keen to play this season’s EFL League One match against Wrexham in the US, but again this proposal did not get far. Liverpool’s chairman Tom Werner says he is determined to see matches take place overseas, and recent changes to world governing body Fifa’s rulebook could make it easier for this proposal to succeed.
The potential benefits of hosting games overseas include higher matchday revenues, increased brand awareness, and enhanced broadcast rights. While there is likely to be significant opposition from local fans, at least American owners know they would not face the same hostility about rising matchday prices in the US as they have encountered in England.
When the Argentinian legend Lionel Messi signed for new MLS franchise Inter Miami in 2023, season ticket prices nearly doubled on his account. And while there is vocal opposition to higher ticket prices in England, this is not borne out in terms of lower attendances for matches against high-calibre opposition – as evidenced by Aston Villa charging up to £97 for last week’s Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich.
Villa’s director of operations, Chris Heck, defended the prices by saying that difficult decisions had to be made if the club was to be competitive.
Manchester United’s matchday revenue per EPL season (£m)
For much of the 2010s, with broadcast revenues increasing rapidly, many Premier League owners made little effort to stoke hostilities with their loyal fan bases by putting up ticket prices. Indeed, Manchester United generated little more from matchday income in the 2021-22 season, as football emerged from the pandemic, than the club had in 2010-11 (see chart above).
However, this uneasy truce between fans and owners has ceased. The relative flatlining of broadcast revenues since 2017, along with cost control rules that are starting to affect clubs’ ability to spend money on player signings and wages, has changed club appetites for dampened ticket prices. This has resulted in noticeable rises in individual ticket and season ticket prices by some clubs.
However, season ticket and other local “legacy” fans generate little money compared with the more lucrative overseas and tourist fans. They may only watch their favourite team live once a season, but when they visit, they are far more likely not only to pay higher matchday prices, but to spend more on merchandise, catering and other offerings from the club.
Today’s breed of commercially aware, profit-seeking US Premier League owners – pioneered by the Glazer family, who saw that “sweating the asset” meant more than watching football players sprinting hard – understand there is a lot more value to come from English football teams. The clubs’ loyal local supporters may not like it, but English football’s American-led revolution is not done yet.
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Kieran Maguire has taught courses and presented on football finance for the Professional Footballers Association, League Managers Association, FIFA and national football associations in Europe.
Christina Philippou is affiliated with the RAF FA, and Premier League education programs.
In the heart of Isalo National Park in central-southern Madagascar, at least 200km from the sea in any direction, is a remote valley with a mysterious past. This place, Teniky, can only be reached on foot, by hiking through a mountainous region dissected by steep canyons.
Part of the Teniky site has been known for well over 100 years, as we know from names and dates scratched on the rocks there. Various visitors in the 1950s and 1960s with an interest in archaeology described an amphitheatre-shaped location with man-made terraces, a rock shelter with neatly constructed sandstone walls, a chamber cut into the rock with pillars and benches, and a large number of niches cut in the steep cliffs. Recesses are still visible around some of the niches, suggesting that they could be closed off by a wooden or stone slab.
Among the suggested interpretations were that these structures had been made by shipwrecked Portuguese sailors, or Arabs, or even Phoenicians.
No similar rock-cut architecture is known anywhere else in Madagascar or on the east African coast, 400km away.
And until recently, no detailed archaeological studies had ever been carried out at Teniky.
Madagascar’s past is still the subject of considerable debate. Situated in the south-western Indian Ocean, it is one of the last big islands to have been settled by humans. Genetic studies have identified the people of Madagascar as having come mainly from Africa and from Southeast Asia. Archaeology suggests that the first settlers arrived about 1,500 to 1,000 years ago. The earliest settlements studied have been located along the coast, close to river estuaries.
Our archaeological study of Teniky, however, points to a new possibility: a former Persian presence in southern Madagascar about 1,000 years ago.
What we found at Teniky
Our study of high-resolution satellite images revealed the Teniky site was much larger than previously known. It showed there were more terraces and stone walls on a hill 2km to the west. This led us to take a closer look, hoping to get a better sense of who had lived there and when.
During field prospecting on this hill we discovered niches, cut in the walls of a rock shelter, that had not been described before.
Excavations at this rock shelter revealed more archaeological structures, including carved sandstone walls and a large stone basin.
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples from the site dated to the late 10th to mid-12th centuries AD. Pieces of ceramic items of southeast Asian and Chinese origin found there have been dated by a specialist to the 11th to 14th centuries AD.
We also found sandstone quarries from which the stones used to build the walls at the rock shelters were extracted. And we found more stone basins on terraces.
The terraces cover a total area of about 30 hectares, indicating that Teniky must have been a fair-sized settlement. Water is available all year round in the valley below, where people might have been able to plant crops, fish for eels or even keep cattle.
Considering the dimensions, location and character of the rock-cut structures at Teniky, we think the niches and chambers served a ritual purpose.
Who were the people who lived at Teniky?
There is no other archaeological site like Teniky in Madagascar. So, the question arises as to what group of people settled there, far inland, and carved the niches and chambers in the cliff walls about 1,000 years ago. The presence of imported ceramics indicates that they took part in the Indian Ocean trade networks at the time but doesn’t tell us where they came from.
We think the answer may lie in the style of the rock-cut niches.
Rock architecture at Teniky, Madagascar. Courtesy Guido Schreurs.
They are similar to rock niches of the first millennium or earlier in Iran (formerly Persia). Archaeologists have interpreted those as belonging to Zoroastrian communities, which used them as part of their funeral rites.
Zoroastrianism was the dominant state religion of the Persian Sasanian Empire (224-656 AD). After the conquest of the Sasanian Empire by the Arabs in the mid-seventh century AD, Islam was imposed.
Zoroastrian funeral rites do not allow direct burial in the ground, so as not to pollute the earth. Instead, dead bodies are left in places of exposure not touching the ground. Once the flesh has decomposed or been removed by animals, the bone remains are dried and placed in bone receptacles (ossuaries).
We tentatively interpret the rock-cut architecture at Teniky as having been made by a community with Zoroastrian origins.
The larger rock-cut niches might have been the places where the bodies of the dead were exposed, and the smaller niches with recesses might have served as ossuaries, closed off by a slab to protect the bones from the rain and thus to prevent them from polluting the earth.
The stone basins at Teniky show stylistic similarities with those used in Zoroastrian ritual ceremonies to hold water or fire, both agents of ritual purity.
Zoroastrians abroad
There are few accounts of Madagascar written at the turn of the first and second millennia AD. Buzurg Ibn Shahriyar, a tenth-century Persian sailor and writer, collected stories from sailors in port towns on the Persian Gulf which suggest that Persian contacts with Madagascar may have existed then. The name Madagascar did not exist at that time but names like “Wak-wak” or “Qumr”/“Komr” may have referred to the island.
Historical documents, archaeological excavations and genetic studies indicate that Zoroastrians left Iran and settled in western India in the late eighth century AD.
Did they settle on the island of Madagascar too? If the rock-cut architecture and associated stone basins at Teniky are the work of a community with Zoroastrian origins, this would strongly point to a former Persian presence in southern Madagascar about 1,000 years ago.
Many questions remain. We hope future studies will answer some of them.
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.
The rapid growth in aquaculture means that billions of individual aquatic animals are now being farmed without basic information that could help ensure even minimal welfare standards. Our newly published study shows that these welfare risks are not uniform: Aquaculture is likely to have severe effects on welfare for some species, but negligible impacts on others.
Whenever humans manage animals on a large scale, welfare becomes a concern. As experts on aquatic animals and their welfare, we believe that taking proactive measures to shape the aquaculture industry’s growth will be critical for its long-term success.
A cuttlefish tackles a challenge originally designed for human children, demonstrating cephalopods’ complex cognitive processes.
Complex aquatic lives
In a wide-ranging review of the existing science, we identified seven risk factors in fish and other sea creatures that would be challenging or impractical to accommodate in captivity. They include 1) migratory behavior, 2) solitary social structures, 3) long life spans, 4) carnivorous feeding habits, 5) cannibalism, 6) living at depths of 165 feet (50 meters) or more, and 7) elaborate courtship or involved parental care.
We researched these characteristics for each of the more than 400 species currently farmed in aquaculture. Our analysis found that many species of fishes, reptiles and amphibians are likely to suffer in aquaculture because they won’t be able to engage in their natural behaviors in farmed conditions. The same is true for crustaceans such as lobsters and for cephalopods such as cuttlefish.
In contrast, aquatic plants and other invertebrates such as oysters would experience fewer differences between their life in the wild versus in a tank, pond or other aquaculture production system.
We also found that species most at risk are among the most expensive on the market but contribute the least to global production. By shifting toward species whose behaviors and life habits are more compatible with aquaculture, the industry could minimize animal welfare risk while also keeping prices down and production quantities high. In other words, protecting aquatic animal welfare is compatible with producing affordable, nutritious food.
Animal welfare in the water
Research shows that many aquatic animals are intelligent, emotional, curious, highly social and have strong preferences. Like land animals, they can suffer if their needs aren’t met.
Divers observe a feeding school of bumphead (also referred to as humphead) parrotfish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
It would be very difficult and expensive to accommodate this species’ long life span, large range, complex foraging behavior and dynamic social relationships in the highly restrictive and monotonous environments of aquaculture.
We also found examples of invertebrate animals with similarly elaborate ways of life. One example is the red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), a comparatively small crustacean that builds elaborate tunnel and chamber systems underground. Females care attentively for their tiny offspring, fanning, cleaning and feeding juveniles for up to four months after they hatch.
In contrast, plant species farmed in aquaculture, such as seaweeds and water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica), are nutritious, protein-rich foods that can be raised without posing direct animal welfare concerns.
In 2021 alone, 56 species were farmed for the first time. By identifying species that may naturally adapt better to life in captivity, aquaculture producers and policymakers can steer their industry toward a more humane future.
This approach is already finding support in the U.S., where Washington and California have banned octopus farming. The states acted partly in response to research showing that octopuses are intelligent, curious, social animals that can solve problems and recognize individual people – qualities that are incompatible with being raised en masse for food.
More research is needed to understand the lives and behaviors of other sea creatures that are currently farmed or targeted for production in the future. Most of these species remain understudied and mysterious, which makes it hard to make informed decisions about whether they are suitable for farming.
Better data could contribute to aquaculture policy, while also boosting public appreciation for the diversity and intricacy of life on a planet that is 70% aquatic.
Becca Franks receives funding from TinyBeam Foundation and Open Philanthropy.
Chiawen Chiang 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.
A plastic microfiber found in the exhaled breath of a bottlenose dolphin is nearly 14 times smaller than a strand of hair and can be seen only with a microscope. Miranda Dziobak/College of Charleston, CC BY-SA
Our study found the microplastic particles exhaled by bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are similar in chemical composition to those identified in human lungs. Whether dolphins are exposed to more of these pollutants than people are is not yet known.
The ocean releases microplastics into the air through surface froth and wave action. Once the particles are released, wind can transport them to other locations. Steve Allen, CC BY-SA
In fact, bubble bursts caused by wave energy can release 100,000 metric tons of microplastics into the atmosphere each year. Since dolphins and other marine mammals breathe at the water’s surface, they may be especially vulnerable to exposure.
Where there are more people, there is usually more plastic. But for the tiny plastic particles floating in the air, this connection isn’t always true. Airborne microplastics are not limited to heavily populated areas; they pollute undeveloped regions, too.
Our research found microplastics in the breath of dolphins living in both urban and rural estuaries, but we don’t yet know whether there are major differences in amounts or types of plastic particles between the two habitats.
During these brief permitted health assessments, we held a petri dish or a customized spirometer – a device that measures lung function – above the dolphin’s blowhole to collect samples of the animals’ exhaled breath. Using a microscope in our colleague’s lab, we checked for tiny particles that looked like plastic, such as pieces with smooth surfaces, bright colors or a fibrous shape.
Since plastic melts when heated, we used a soldering needle to test whether these suspected pieces were plastic. To confirm they were indeed plastic, our colleague used a specialized method called Raman spectroscopy, which uses a laser to create a structural fingerprint that can be matched to a specific chemical.
Our study highlights how extensive plastic pollution is – and how other living things, including dolphins, are exposed. While the impacts of plastic inhalation on dolphins’ lungs are not yet known, people can help address the microplastic pollution problem by reducing plastic use and working to prevent more plastic from polluting the oceans.
Leslie Hart receives funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, Sea Grant, and the National Science Foundation. Research reported in this article was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R15ES034169 and the College of Charleston’s School of Health Sciences. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Leslie Hart is an epidemiological consultant for the National Marine Mammal Foundation; however, this study was not conducted as a consultant.
Bottlenose dolphin health assessments were conducted under Scientific Research Permit #26622 and #24359, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Research studies were reviewed and approved by Mote Marine Laboratory and NMFS Atlantic Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC).
Miranda Dziobak 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.
I do research on racist and xenophobic speech. I am also an American citizen, and have voted from overseas since 1996 (first in the U.K., and now in Canada).
The current law giving Americans overseas the right to vote in federal elections is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, a Republican president.
The federal program to help American citizens vote while living overseas is overseen by the Department of Defense — which makes sense, given that a large number of them are members of the United States military. All of this should give pause to anyone who thinks that allowing overseas citizens to vote is some sort of left-wing conspiracy.
Complex process
Nor is it an easy matter to vote from overseas. Every state has its own process for verifying citizenship after the registration and request form reaches them, and each has its own rules that voters must follow in order for their ballot to be counted.
My own state, New Jersey, is relatively simple: I can email my registration/request form, get my ballot by e-mail, and email it back. But I must also remember to mail in the paper version of my ballot or my vote won’t count.
This is easy enough for me, from Canada or previously the U.K. But it’s much more difficult for American citizens living in places that lack reliable postal services who often have to use expensive courier services to carry out their duty as citizens.
My husband’s state is New York. He is allowed to e-mail his ballot request, but he must also mail a paper version of the request. And the ballot itself comes with an elaborate set of envelope templates that require precise folding — and must arrive by a strict deadline, no matter where they’re being mailed from.
He’s a former graphic designer, and comfortable performing this task. But imagine trying to do so while suffering from arthritis or vision problems — especially when the home-printed version has tiny text. In short, there is nothing easy about voting from abroad.
So why use inflammatory language to pretend it’s an easy matter to generate many thousands of fraudulent overseas votes? One explanation would be to sow doubt about the election results. Anything that can introduce uncertainty and slow down the counting process can be exploited in an effort that could allow Trump and his allies to falsely declare him the winner on Nov. 5.
Trump’s campaign has made no secret about its plan to follow this path.
Language that suggests American citizens abroad are not really American also fits into a larger pattern of stoking divisions — and of drawing ever tighter boundaries around who would be counted as “real” Americans. This is a classic fascist power move, one that leads to a sharply defined “us,” who are worthy of moral consideration, as opposed to “them,” who are not.
Disenfranchising citizens abroad
Importantly, the movement against overseas voters is not just confined to a social media post. There are lawsuits in several states designed to disenfranchise American citizens abroad. These are citizens who may have gone to enormous lengths to carry out their duties by asking for and sending in election ballots, often at substantial personal expense and faced with substantial barriers.
Trump and his allies are working hard to prevent Americans abroad from exercising their most basic rights of citizenship. When Trump uses language that accuses overseas voters of fraud and foreign interference, it suggests we’re not really Americans.
There’s a major problem in doing so. As mentioned, a large segment of American citizens abroad are members of the U.S. armed forces. Efforts to disenfranchise Americans abroad are also efforts to disenfranchise the military.
‘Figleaf’ language
That’s why Trump’s allegation on Truth Social that Democrats “want to dilute the TRUE vote of our beautiful military” makes no sense. This is especially true given it’s coming from someone who’s attacking the very law that allows members of the military to vote from abroad, including casting ballots for him if they’re so inclined.
This is what I call a figleaf — an additional bit of speech that provides just a bit of cover for saying something else that is much less acceptable. The allegation suggests, to someone who doesn’t understand overseas voting, that Trump somehow supports the military.
Trump’s “diluting the vote” rhetoric also plays into the deeply racist Great Replacement Theory. This theory holds that Democrats and other shadowy forces (often cast as Jewish) are plotting to replace white Americans with foreigners, in part as a way to secure electoral victory.
Overseas voting might seem like a niche issue. But overseas citizens could make all the difference in a close election. The attack on overseas voting is part of a much larger pattern of destructive suggestions from Trump about who is and is not a real American.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Davies, Respiratory Allergy Stream Co-chair, National Allergy Centre of Excellence; Professor and Head, Allergy Research Group, Queensland University of Technology
Hay fever (or allergic rhinitis) is a long-term inflammatory condition that’s incredibly common. It affects about one-quarter of Australians.
Symptoms vary but can include sneezing, itchy eyes and a runny or blocked nose. Hay fever can also contribute to sinus and ear infections, snoring, poor sleep and asthma, as well as lower performance at school or work.
But many people didn’t have hay fever as a child, and only develop symptoms as a teenager or adult.
Here’s how a combination of genetics, hormones and the environment can lead to people developing hay fever later in life.
Remind me, what is hay fever?
Hay fever is caused by the nose, eyes and throat coming into contact with a substance to which a person is allergic, known as an allergen.
Common sources of outside allergens include airborne grass, weed or tree pollen, and mould spores. Pollen allergens can be carried indoors on clothes, and through open windows and doors.
Depending on where you live, you may be exposed to a range of pollen types across the pollen season, but grass pollen is the most common trigger of hay fever. In some regions the grass pollen season can extend from spring well into summer and autumn.
How does hay fever start?
Hay fever symptoms most commonly start in adolescence or young adulthood. One study found 7% of children aged six had hay fever, but that grew to 44% of adults aged 24.
Before anyone has hay fever symptoms, their immune system has already been “sensitised” to specific allergens, often allergens of grass pollen. Exposure to these allergens means their immune system has made a particular type of antibody (known as IgE) against them.
During repeated or prolonged exposure to an allergen source such as pollen, a person’s immune system may start to respond to another part of the same allergen, or another allergen within the pollen. Over time, these new allergic sensitisations can lead to development of hay fever and possibly other conditions, such as allergic asthma.
Why do some people only develop hay fever as an adult?
1. Environmental factors
Some people develop hay fever as an adult simply because they’ve had more time to become sensitised to specific allergens.
Migration or moving to a new location can also change someone’s risk of developing hay fever. This may be due to exposure to different pollens, climate and weather, green space and/or air quality factors.
A number of studies show people who have migrated from low- and middle-income countries to higher-income countries may be at a higher risk of developing hay fever. This may due to local environmental conditions influencing expression of genes that regulate the immune system.
2. Hormonal factors
Hormonal changes at puberty may also help drive the onset of hay fever. This may relate to sex hormones, such as oestrogen and progesterone, affecting histamine levels, immune regulation, and the response of cells in the lining of the nose and lower airways.
3. Genetic factors
Our genes underpin our risk of hay fever, and whether this and other related allergic disease persists.
For instance, babies with the skin condition eczema (known as atopic dermatitis) have a three times greater risk of developing hay fever (and asthma) later in life.
Having a food allergy in childhood is also a risk factor for developing hay fever later in life. In the case of a peanut allergy, that risk is more than 2.5 times greater.
What are the best options for treatment?
Depending on where you live, avoiding allergen exposures can be difficult. But pollen count forecasts, if available, can be useful. These can help you decide whether it’s best to stay inside to reduce your pollen exposure, or to take preventative medications.
If you have mild, occasional hay fever symptoms, you can take non-drowsy antihistamines, which you can buy at the pharmacy.
However, for more severe or persistent symptoms, intranasal steroid sprays, or an intranasal spray containing a steroid with antihistamine, are the most effective treatments. However, it is important to use these regularly and correctly.
Allergen immunotherapy, also known as desensitisation, is an effective treatment for people with severe hay fever symptoms that can reduce the need for medication and avoiding allergens.
However, it involves a longer treatment course (about three years), usually with the supervision of an allergy or immunology specialist.
When should people see their doctor?
It is important to treat hay fever, because symptoms can significantly affect a person’s quality of life. A GP can:
recommend treatments for hay fever and can guide you to use them correctly
organise blood tests to confirm which allergen sensitisations (if any) are present, and whether these correlate with your symptoms
screen for asthma, which commonly exists with hay fever, and may require other treatments
arrange referrals to allergy or immunology specialists, if needed, for other tests, such as allergen skin prick testing, or to consider allergen immunotherapy if symptoms are severe.
Janet Davies receives funding from the ARC, NHMRC, Department of Health and Ageing, and MRFF. She has conducted research on diagnostics in collaboration with Abionic SA, Switzerland, supported by the National Foundation for Medical Research Innovation with co-contribution from Abionic. Her research has been supported by in-kind services or materials from Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology (Queensland), Abacus Dx (Australia), Stallergenes (France), Stallergenes Greer (Australia), Swisens (Switzerland), Kenelec (Australia), and ThermoFisher (Sweden), as well as cash or in-kind contributions from Partner Organisations for the NHMRC AusPollen Partnership Project GNT1116107, Australasian Society Clinical Immunology Allergy, Asthma Australia; Stallergenes Australia; Bureau Meteorology, Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, Federal Office of Climate and Meteorology Switzerland. QUT owns patents relevant to grass pollen allergy diagnosis (US PTO 14/311944 issued, AU2008/316301 issued) for which Janet Davies is an inventor. She is the Executive Lead, Repository and Discovery Pillar, and Co-Chair Respiratory Allergy Stream for the National Allergy Centre of Excellence.
Unrelated to this article, Joy Lee has received funding from the Centre of Research Excellence in Treatable Traits in Asthma, Sanofi, Fondazione Menarini and GSK. This funding support was solely used for presenting at educational meetings in asthma and travel grants to attend international meetings and conferences in asthma and allergic diseases. She has been on advisory boards for Tezepelumab (Astra Zeneca). She is affiliated with the National Allergy Centre of Excellence as the co-chair of the Respiratory Allergy Leadership Group.
As the latest global biodiversity summit gets underway in Colombia, finance for the conservation and restoration of nature is one of the key themes of negotiations.
Global wildlife populations have shrunk by an average of 73% in the past 50 years, according to the 2024 Living Planet report. Consequently, momentum is growing worldwide to deliver new nature markets, such as biodiversity credits, to unlock new sources of funding.
Basically, nature markets are systems of exchange that match demand for nature regeneration with a supply of nature-positive projects.
But this creates risks, as well as opportunities, for Indigenous peoples. Without due care for data sovereignty, Indigenous communities may lose out yet again.
Nature markets could enable Indigenous peoples to fulfill their duties of guardianship. But such markets could also forge a new form of colonialism, including enclosure and appropriation of habitats and species that Indigenous peoples have traditional connections to.
Efforts to prevent deforestation have at times displaced Indigenous people. Mario Tama/Getty Images
One neglected area is Indigenous data. This relates to traditional and cultural information, population data, oral histories and ancestral knowledge relating to the environment and natural resources.
If care is not taken with Indigenous data, there are serious risks of reproducing colonialist patterns of exploitation.
Data represents reality. Data helps decision makers to know whether their interventions are effective, even when they are far away from the ecosystems being protected or restored.
If data are accurate, authentic and timely, a funder does not need to set foot in a remote habitat to know whether its carbon stock or native species abundance are improving or declining.
Biodiversity credits represent one way to operationalise a nature market. They are basically a vehicle for data. The emerging methodologies are bundles of metrics and indicators that track biodiversity and ecological function.
Biodiversity credits use metrics and indicators that track ecological function. Renee Raroa, CC BY-SA
The data enable credit holders to make credible claims of biodiversity uplift, or avoided biodiversity loss, as a consequence of credit sales.
As a representation of ecological reality, data are at least one step removed from the habitats and species they represent. This opens up the potential for nature markets to rely on the exchange of verifiable data, without the need to commodify nature itself, and therefore impinge on the ownership rights of Indigenous communities.
However, data are not free from such considerations. To divert data into a system of market exchange raises a different but related set of concerns about ownership, benefit and sovereignty.
The rise of Indigenous data sovereignty
Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of Indigenous peoples to govern the collection, ownership and application of data about Indigenous communities, peoples, lands and resources. It relates to data produced by and about Indigenous peoples and the environments they have relationships with.
Nature and people are precious, so data that represent nature and people are imbued with that preciousness. As Māori practitioner Ngapera Riley has written:
Data is a taonga (treasure). It’s something that people gift us, and that we gift to others as we go about our daily lives.
In te ao Māori, data come in many forms. This includes whakataukī (proverbs), moteatea (chants), whaikorero (oratory), maramataka (calendar), whakapapa (genealogies), pūrākau (stories) and increasingly digital forms.
Consequently, we must take great care in how data are accessed, shared, stored and used. This is especially critical in a system of market exchange. The dominant markets of today are profit-driven, creating incentives for appropriation and exploitation.
Sovereignty means power
Indigenous peoples are conscious that, while there are risks in data and knowledge sharing, there are also opportunities. Indigenous data and knowledge is a living and evolving system, which can contribute to effective responses to environmental challenges, including the protection and regeneration of biodiversity.
The principles of Indigenous data governance emerged from deliberations about how to protect Indigenous sovereignty when sharing knowledge and data for academic research. These CARE principles hold that Indigenous data should be governed for collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility and ethics.
This is critically important in ecological research, which too often neglects duties relating to data about natural ecosystems and the people who live within them.
It is troubling that the recognition of Indigenous data sovereignty is largely lacking from the discussion of nature markets so far. Unless Indigenous data sovereignty is upheld, the legitimacy of nature markets will likely be irreversibly tarnished.
But Indigenous data sovereignty is more than a risk: it is a source of power. It is a right to self-determination, to choose how data are used and their value is distributed. By ensuring this right, nature markets might deliver on their promise of inclusive, sustainable prosperity.
David Hall is Policy Director for the Toha Network.
Mike Taitoko is a shareholder of Toha Foundry Ltd and a Trustee of Toha Network Ltd.
Nathalie Whitaker works for the Toha Network in various capacities, including shareholder of Toha Foundry and trustee of Toha Network Trust.
Renee Raroa is the Establishment Director of the East Coast Exchange, a venture in the Toha Network.
Tasman Turoa Gillies is Head of Operations for Takiwā, part of the Toha Network.
Islands have long intrigued explorers and scientists. These isolated environments serve as natural laboratories for understanding how species evolve and adapt.
Islands are also centres of species diversity. It has long been speculated that islands support exceptionally high amounts of global biodiversity, but the true extent was unknown until now.
In world-first research published in Nature today, my colleagues and I counted and mapped the diversity of plant life on Earth’s islands. We found 21% of the world’s total plant species are endemic to islands, meaning they occur nowhere else on the planet.
These findings are important. Island plants are at higher risk of extinction than those on mainlands. Detailed knowledge of plants species, and where they grow, is essential for monitoring and conserving them.
Mapping island floras worldwide
The study involved an international team of scientists. We developed an unprecedented database of vegetation information from more than 3,400 geographical regions worldwide, including about 2,000 islands.
The definition of an island is somewhat arbitrary. Conventionally, an island is a landmass entirely surrounded by water and smaller than a continent. This means Tasmania and New Guinea are islands, but mainland Australia – a continent in itself – is not. This is the definition we used.
We found 94,052 plant species, or 31% of the world’s total, are native to islands. Of these, 63,280 plant species, or 21%, only occur on islands.
Endemic species were concentrated on large tropical islands such as Madagascar, New Guinea and Borneo. On Madagascar alone, 9,318 plant species – 83% of its total flora – grow there and nowhere else.
Fewer plant species overall were found at ocean archipelagos such as Hawaii, the Canary Islands and the Mascarenes (east of Madagascar, including La Reunion and Mauritius). But a large share of their species were still unique to these islands.
Two palms are endemic to Australia’s Lord Howe Island – Howea forsteriana and H. belmoreana. They are one of the best-researched examples of “sympatric speciation”, or in other words, species that evolve from a common ancestor at the same location.
This mode of evolution has long been hypothesised to exist. But examples are rare, and highly useful for evolutionary research.
The Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) is, of course, named after the tiny island where it is found. This species, while endangered in the wild, is now widely planted along Australia’s beaches where it is instantly recognisable to us.
Islands are of great conservation concern
Islands cover just 5.3% of the world’s land area, but contribute disproportionately to global biodiversity.
Island plants are at much greater risk of extinction than species found in mainland areas, for reasons such as:
small population sizes
unique evolutionary traits that make them vulnerable to invasive species such as herbivores
specific habitat requirements
habitat degradation
threats from invasive plant and animal species
climate change.
Some 57% of the island-endemic species we assessed are considered critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, or near-threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Alarmingly, 176 of plant species endemic to islands are already classified as extinct, accounting for 55% of all known extinct plant species globally. Among these is Hawaii’s vulcan palm (Brighamia insignis), which is now considered extinct in the wild. However, the species is popular as an ornamental plant and still survives in gardens.
Hawaii’s vulcan palm is extinct in the wild, but is popular as an ornamental plant. Shutterstock
Other species might be less lucky; extinction in the wild may mean being lost for ever.
So, assessing the conservation status of island floras is important. Under a globally agreed United Nations target, 30% of the world’s land and oceans should be protected by 2030. We calculated how much of global islands is conserved today. Disappointingly, only 6% of endemic plant species occur on islands that meet this target.
For instance, New Caledonia, Madagascar and New Guinea – known for their many endemic plant species – contain relatively low levels of protected areas.
Assessing the conservation status of island floras is important. Shutterstock
Protecting our island plants
Urgent action is needed to protect island biodiversity. This includes expanding protected areas, prioritising regions with high numbers of endemic species, and implementing habitat restoration projects.
Without such measures, the unique floral diversity of islands may continue to decline, with potentially severe consequences for global biodiversity.
Much more research is needed to determined the best conservation strategies for all these plant species. Accurate data is vital to guide future conservation strategies and safeguard against further loss.
Our study also serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for targeted plant conservation efforts on islands. Many species teeter on the brink of extinction, and time is running out to preserve this irreplaceable natural heritage.
Julian Schrader 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.
