Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a series of raids throughout Los Angeles and Southern California in early June 2025, sparking protests in downtown Los Angeles and other cities, including New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas.
Some demonstrators expressed growing frustration with ICE by showcasing the Mexican flag, which has become the defining symbol of the protests in Los Angeles.
The use of the flag has also become the subject of intense debate in the media.
Research published in 2010 found that even though the public was more likely to be bothered by protesters waving the Mexican flag than the U.S. flag, that difference was largely absent once you divided the public into subgroups, including white people, Latinos and immigrants.
To reexamine public attitudes toward protesters waving the Mexican flag, we conducted an online survey experiment among 10,145 U.S. adults in 2016.
We found that even though much of the public continued to be less bothered by the American flag than the Mexican flag, there were also important and perhaps surprising differences in protest attitudes between white Americans and other racial and ethnic groups.
A demonstrator holds a Mexican flag in front of law enforcement during a protest on June 13, 2025, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Wally Skalij
More or less bothered
In the study, we randomly divided respondents into two groups: a treatment group and a control group. Respondents in the treatment group were shown an image of protesters waving a Mexican flag. Respondents in the control group were shown an image of protesters waving the U.S. flag. After viewing the image, respondents were then asked about the extent to which they supported or were bothered by the protests.
Overall, 41% of the respondents said they were bothered by protesters waving the Mexican flag, and 28% said protesters waving the U.S. flag bothered them.
Our results show important differences in opinion between racial and ethnic groups.
White respondents were more likely than any other racial and ethnic group to say they were bothered by protesters waving Mexican flags. Sixty-nine percent of white respondents said they were bothered, 31 percentage points more than the average of nonwhite respondents.
However, 51% of white respondents were also bothered by the image of protesters waving U.S. flags. By contrast, just 20% of Latinos, 33% of Black Americans and 34% of Asian Americans said they were bothered by protesters waving U.S. flags.
Put differently, large majorities of nonwhite respondents were supportive of showing U.S. flags at protests despite their more positive views toward Mexican flags.
What explains racial differences?
When taking a deeper look at what causes Americans to feel bothered about protesters waving Mexican flags, some clear patterns emerge.
On average, older Americans were more likely to be bothered relative to younger Americans. This was particularly true for Americans over 40 years of age compared with millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z respondents, born between 1997 and 2012.
However, there are some nuances when examining age groups and whether they had attended a protest, march or rally in the previous year.
Our findings suggest that older Americans who had not engaged in protests were most likely to be bothered when they saw images of protesters waving Mexican flags. Millennials and Gen Z respondents who participated in a protest were least likely to be bothered.
Given that this issue intersects nationality, race, ethnicity, gender and citizenship status, it’s logical that these factors explained why Americans supported or opposed the use of Mexican flags at immigration protests.
A woman carrying a flag with details of the United States and Mexican flags walks past members of the United States Marine Corps on June 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images
For example, racial minorities who have a stronger sense of ethnic or racial identity were more likely to be supportive of protesters waving Mexican and U.S. flags. In other words, group identity is a strong predictor of support for protests in general, regardless of what flag is being flown.
However, minorities who lack a sense of ethnic pride and identity were most likely to be upset when they saw others expressing their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.
The reality is that recent immigration protests across the country are the first time many of the Latino youth who are citizens have participated in these types of protests. Anyone under age 22 would not have memory of, or been alive during, the last large pro-immigrant protests in 2006.
The Mexican flag represents more than nationalistic pride. It represents their parents’ heritage, hard work and their binational experience as Americans engaged in politics.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kassem Fawaz, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Many apps and social media platforms collect detailed information about you as you use them, and sometimes even when you’re not using them.Malte Mueller/fStop via Getty images
You wake up in the morning and, first thing, you open your weather app. You close that pesky ad that opens first and check the forecast. You like your weather app, which shows hourly weather forecasts for your location. And the app is free!
But do you know why it’s free? Look at the app’s privacy settings. You help keep it free by allowing it to collect your information, including:
What devices you use and their IP and Media Access Control addresses.
Information you provide when signing up, such as your name, email address and home address.
App settings, such as whether you choose Celsius or Fahrenheit.
Your interactions with the app, including what content you view and what ads you click.
Inferences based on your interactions with the app.
Your location at a given time, including, depending on your settings, continuous tracking.
What websites or apps that you interact with after you use the weather app.
Information you give to ad vendors.
Information gleaned by analytics vendors that analyze and optimize the app.
This type of data collection is standard fare. The app company can use this to customize ads and content. The more customized and personalized an ad is, the more money it generates for the app owner. The owner might also sell your data to other companies.
Many apps, including the weather channel app, send you targeted advertising and sell your personal data by default. Jack West, CC BY-ND
You might also check a social media account like Instagram. The subtle price that you pay is, again, your data. Many “free” mobile apps gather information about you as you interact with them.
As an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and a doctoral student in computer science, we follow the ways software collects information about people. Your data allows companies to learn about your habits and exploit them.
It’s no secret that social media and mobile applications collect information about you. Meta’s business model depends on it. The company, which operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is worth US$1.48 trillion. Just under 98% of its profits come from advertising, which leverages user data from more than 7 billion monthly users.
Before mobile phones gained apps and social media became ubiquitous, companies conducted large-scale demographic surveys to assess how well a product performed and to get information about the best places to sell it. They used the information to create coarsely targeted ads that they placed on billboards, print ads and TV spots.
Mobile apps and social media platforms now let companies gather much more fine-grained information about people at a lower cost. Through apps and social media, people willingly trade personal information for convenience. In 2007 – a year after the introduction of targeted ads – Facebook made over $153 million, triple the previous year’s revenue. In the past 17 years, that number has increased by more than 1,000 times.
Five ways to leave your data
App and social media companies collect your data in many ways. Meta is a representative case. The company’s privacy policy highlights five ways it gathers your data:
First, it collects the profile information you fill in. Second, it collects the actions you take on its social media platforms. Third, it collects the people you follow and friend. Fourth, it keeps track of each phone, tablet and computer you use to access its platforms. And fifth, it collects information about how you interact with apps that corporate partners connect to its platforms. Many apps and social media platforms follow similar privacy practices.
Your data and activity
When you create an account on an app or social media platform, you provide the company that owns it with information like your age, birth date, identified sex, location and workplace. In the early years of Facebook, selling profile information to advertisers was that company’s main source of revenue. This information is valuable because it allows advertisers to target specific demographics like age, identified gender and location.
And once you start using an app or social media platform, the company behind it can collect data about how you use the app or social media. Social media keeps you engaged as you interact with other people’s posts by liking, commenting or sharing them. Meanwhile, the social media company gains information about what content you view and how you communicate with other people.
Advertisers can find out how much time you spent reading a Facebook post or that you spent a few more seconds on a particular TikTok video. This activity information tells advertisers about your interests. Modern algorithms can quickly pick up subtleties and automatically change the content to engage you in a sponsored post, a targeted advertisement or general content.
Your devices and applications
Companies can also note what devices, including mobile phones, tablets and computers, you use to access their apps and social media platforms. This shows advertisers your brand loyalty, how old your devices are and how much they’re worth.
Because mobile devices travel with you, they have access to information about where you’re going, what you’re doing and who you’re near. In a lawsuit against Kochava Inc., the Federal Trade Commission called out the company for selling customer geolocation data in August 2022, shortly after Roe v Wade was overruled. The company’s customers, including people who had abortions after the ruling was overturned, often didn’t know that data tracking their movements was being collected, according to the commission. The FTC alleged that the data could be used to identify households.
Information that apps can gain from your mobile devices includes anything you have given an app permission to have, such as your location, who you have in your contact list or photos in your gallery.
If you give an app permission to see where you are while the app is running, for instance, the platform can access your location anytime the app is running. Providing access to contacts may provide an app with the phone numbers, names and emails of all the people that you know.
Cross-application data collection
Companies can also gain information about what you do across different apps by acquiring information collected by other apps and platforms.
The settings on an Android phone show that Meta uses information it collects about you to target ads it shows you in its apps – and also in other apps and on other platforms – by default. Jack West, CC BY-ND
This is common with social media companies. This allows companies to, for example, show you ads based on what you like or recently looked at on other apps. If you’ve searched for something on Amazon and then noticed an ad for it on Instagram, it’s probably because Amazon shared that information with Instagram.
Companies, including Google, Meta, X, TikTok and Snapchat, can build detailed user profiles based on collected information from all the apps and social media platforms you use. They use the profiles to show you ads and posts that match your interests to keep you engaged. They also sell the profile information to advertisers.
Meanwhile, researchers have found that Meta and Yandex, a Russian search engine, have overcome controls in mobile operating system software that ordinarily keep people’s web-browsing data anonymous. Each company puts code on its webpages that used local IPs to pass a person’s browsing history, which is supposed to remain private, to mobile apps installed on that person’s phone, de-anonymizing the data. Yandex has been conducting this tracking since 2017, while Meta began in September 2024, according to the researchers.
What you can do about it
If you use apps that collect your data in some way, including those that give you directions, track your workouts or help you contact someone, or if you use social media platforms, your privacy is at risk.
Aside from entirely abandoning modern technology, there are several steps you can take to limit access – at least in part – to your private information.
Read the privacy policy of each app or social media platform you use. Although privacy policy documents can be long, tedious and sometimes hard to read, they explain how social media platforms collect, process, store and share your data.
Check a policy by making sure it can answer three questions: what data does the app collect, how does it collect the data, and what is the data used for. If you can’t answer all three questions by reading the policy, or if any of the answers don’t sit well with you, consider skipping the app until there’s a change in its data practices.
Remove unnecessary permissions from mobile apps to limit the amount of information that applications can gather from you.
Be aware of the privacy settings that might be offered by the apps or social media platforms you use, including any setting that allows your personal data to affect your experience or shares information about you with other users or applications.
These privacy settings can give you some control. We recommend that you disable “off-app activity” and “personalization” settings. “Off-app activity” allows an app to record which other apps are installed on your phone and what you do on them. Personalization settings allow an app to use your data to tailor what it shows you, including advertisements.
Review and update these settings regularly because permissions sometimes change when apps or your phone update. App updates may also add new features that can collect your data. Phone updates may also give apps new ways to collect your data or add new ways to preserve your privacy.
Use private browser windows or reputable virtual private networks software, commonly referred to as VPNs, when using apps that connect to the internet and social media platforms. Private browsers don’t store any account information, which limits the information that can be collected. VPNs change the IP address of your machine so that apps and platforms can’t discover your location.
Finally, ask yourself whether you really need every app that’s on your phone. And when using social media, consider how much information you want to reveal about yourself in liking and commenting on posts, sharing updates about your life, revealing locations you visited and following celebrities you like.
This article is part of a series on data privacy that explores who collects your data, what and how they collect, who sells and buys your data, what they all do with it, and what you can do about it.
Kassem Fawaz receives funding from the National Science Foundation. In the past, his research group has received unrestricted gifts from Meta and Google.
Jack West 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Anna Erickson, Professor of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
An image from Iranian television shows centrifuges lining a hall at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility in 2021.IRIB via APPEAR
When U.S. forces attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 21, 2025, the main target was metal tubes in laboratories deep underground. The tubes are centrifuges that produce highly enriched uranium needed to build nuclear weapons.
Inside of a centrifuge, a rotor spins in the range of 50,000 to 100,000 revolutions per minute, 10 times faster than a Corvette engine’s crankshaft. High speeds are needed to separate lighter uranium-235 from heavier uranium-238 for further collection and processing. Producing this level of force means the rotor itself must be well balanced and strong and rely on high-speed magnetic bearings to reduce friction.
Over the years, Iran has produced thousands of centrifuges. They work together to enrich uranium to dangerous levels – close to weapons-grade uranium. Most of them are deployed in three enrichment sites: Natanz, the country’s main enrichment facility, Fordow and Isfahan. Inside of these facilities, the centrifuges are arranged into cascades – series of machines connected to each other. This way, each machine yields slightly more enriched uranium, feeding the gas produced into its neighbor to maximize production efficiency.
As a nuclear engineer who works on nuclear nonproliferation, I track centrifuge technology, including the Iranian enrichment facilities targeted by the U.S. and Israel. A typical cascade deployed in Iran is composed of 164 centrifuges, working in series to produce enriched uranium. The Natanz facility was designed to hold over 50,000 centrifuges.
Iran’s early intentions to field centrifuges on a very large scale were clear. At the peak of the program in the early 2010s it deployed over 19,000 units. Iran later scaled down the number of its centrifuges in part due to international agreements such as the since scrapped Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015.
Legacy of enrichment
Iran has a long history of enriching uranium.
In the late 1990s, it acquired a Pakistani centrifuge design known as P-1. The blueprints and some components were supplied via the A.Q. Khan black market network – the mastermind of the Pakistani program and a serious source of nuclear proliferation globally. Today, the P-1 design is known as IR-1. IR-1 centrifuges use aluminum and a high-strength alloy, known as maraging steel.
About one-third of the centrifuges that were deployed at the sites of the recent strike on June 21 are IR-1. Each one produces on the order of 0.8 separative work units, which is the unit for measuring the amount of energy and effort needed to separate uranium-235 molecules from the rest of the uranium gas. To put this in perspective, one centrifuge would yield about 0.2 ounces (6 grams) of 60%-enriched uranium-235 per year.
A typical uranium-based weapon requires 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of 90%-enriched uranium. To get to weapons-grade level, a single centrifuge would produce only 0.14 ounces (4 grams) per year. It requires more work to go higher in enrichment. While capable of doing the job, the IR-1 is quite inefficient.
The author explains the uranium enrichment process to CBS News.
More and better centrifuges
Small yields mean that over 6,000 centrifuges would need to work together for a year to get enough material for one weapon such as a nuclear warhead. Or the efficiency of the centrifuges would have to be improved. Iran did both.
Before the strike by U.S. forces, Iran was operating close to 7,000 IR-1 centrifuges. In addition, Iran designed, built and operated more efficient centrifuges such as the IR-2m, IR-4 and IR-6 designs. Comparing the IR-1 with the latest designs is like comparing a golf cart with the latest electric vehicles in terms of range and payload.
Iran’s latest centrifuge designs contain carbon fiber composites with exceptional strength and durability and low weight. This is a recipe for producing light and compact centrifuges that are easier to conceal from inspections. According to the international nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, before the strike Iran was operating 6,500 IR-2m centrifuges, close to 4,000 IR-4 centrifuges and over 3,000 IR-6 centrifuges.
With each new generation, the separative work unit efficiency increased significantly. IR-6 centrifuges, with their carbon fiber rotors, can achieve up to 10 separative work units per year. That’s about 2.8 ounces (80 grams) of 60%-enriched uranium-235 per year. The International Atomic Energy Agency verified that the IR-6 cascades have been actively used to ramp up production of 60%-enriched uranium.
The most recent and advanced centrifuges developed by Iran, known as IR-9, can achieve 50 separative work units per year. This cuts down the time needed to produce highly enriched uranium for weapon purposes from months to weeks. The other aspect of IR-9 advanced centrifuges is their compactness. They are easier to conceal from inspections or move underground, and they require less energy to operate.
Advanced centrifuges such as the IR-9 drive up the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation significantly. Fortunately, the International Atomic Energy Agency reports that only one exists in testing laboratories, and there is no evidence Iran has deployed them widely. However, it’s possible more are concealed.
Bombs or talks?
Uranium enrichment of 60% is far beyond the needs of any civilian use. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran stockpiled about 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium before the attack, and it might have escaped intact. That’s enough to make 10 weapons. The newer centrifuges – IR-2m, IR-4 and IR-6 – would need a bit over eight months to produce that much.
It’s not clear what the U.S. attack has accomplished, but destroying the facilities targeted in the attack and hindering Iran’s ability to continue enriching uranium might be a way to slow Iran’s move toward producing nuclear weapons. However, based on my work and research on preventing nuclear proliferation, I believe a more reliable means of preventing Iran from achieving its nuclear aims would be for diplomacy and cooperation to prevail.
Anna Erickson receives funding from Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) related to nuclear nonproliferation technologies. She has previously served on the Board of Directors of the American Nuclear Society.
The long-eared kultarr (_A. auritus_) is the middle child in terms of body size, but it has by far the biggest ears.Ken Johnson
Australia is home to more than 60 species of carnivorous marsupials in the family Dasyuridae. Almost a quarter of those have only been scientifically recognised in the past 25 years.
Other than the iconic Tasmanian devil, chances are most of these small, fascinating species have slipped under your radar. One of the rarest and most elusive is the kultarr (Antechinomys laniger), a feisty insect-eater found in very low numbers across much of the outback.
To the untrained eye, the kultarr looks very much like a hopping mouse, with long legs, a long tail and a tendency to rest on its hind legs. However, it runs much like a greyhound – but its tiny size and high speed makes it look like it’s hopping.
Kultarr or kultarrs?
Until now, the kultarr was thought to be a single widespread species, ranging from central New South Wales to the Carnarvon Basin on Australia’s west coast. However, a genetic study in 2023 suggested there could be more than one species.
With backing from the Australian Biological Resources Study, our team of researchers from the University of Western Australia, Western Australian Museum and Queensland University of Technology set out to investigate.
We travelled to museums in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth to look at every kultarr that had been collected by scientists over the past century. By combining detailed genetic data with body and skull measurements, we discovered the kultarr isn’t one widespread species, but three distinct species.
Three species of kultarrs
The eastern kultarr (A. laniger) is the smallest of the three, with an average body length of about 7.5cm. It’s darker in colour than its relatives, and while its ears are still big, they are nowhere near as big as those of the other two species.
The eastern kultarr is now found on hard clay soils around Cobar in central NSW and north to around Charleville in southern Queensland.
The eastern kultarr (A. laniger) is the smallest of the three species. Pat Woolley
The gibber kultarr (A. spenceri) is the largest and stockiest, with an average body length of around 9cm. They are noticeably chunkier than the other two more dainty species, with big heads, thick legs and much longer hindfeet.
As its name suggests, the gibber kultarr is restricted to the extensive stony deserts or “gibber plains” in southwest Queensland and northeast South Australia.
The gibber kultarr (A. spenceri) is largest and stockiest. Ken Johnson
The long-eared kultarr (A. auritus) is the middle child in terms of body size, but its ears set it apart. They’re nearly as long as its head.
It’s found in patchy populations in the central and western sandy deserts, living on isolated stony plains.
The long-eared kultarr (A. auritus) is the middle child in terms of body size, but it has by far the biggest ears. Ken Johnson
Are they threatened?
All three species of kultarr are hard to find, making it difficult to confidently estimate population sizes and evaluate extinction risk. The long-eared and gibber kultarrs don’t appear to be in immediate danger, but land clearing and invasive predators such as cats and foxes have likely affected their numbers.
The three species of kultarr seem to now inhabit smaller areas than in the past. Cameron Dodd
The eastern kultarr, however, is more of a concern. By looking at museum specimens going back all the way to the 1890s, we found it was once much more widespread.
Historic records suggest the eastern kultarr used to occur across the entirety of arid NSW and even spread north through central Queensland and into the Northern Territory. We now think this species may be extinct in the NT and parts of northwest Queensland.
What’s next?
To protect kultarrs into the future, we need targeted surveys to confirm where each species still survives, especially the eastern kultarr, whose current range may be just a shadow of its former extent. With better knowledge, we can prioritise conservation actions where they’re most needed, and ensure these remarkable, long-legged hunters don’t disappear before we truly get to know them.
Australia still has many small mammal species that haven’t been formally described. Unless we identify and name them, they remain invisible in conservation policy.
Taxonomic research like this is essential – we can’t protect what we don’t yet know exists. And without action, some species may disappear before they’re ever officially recognised.
The authors wish to acknowledge the important contributions of Adjunct Professor Mike Westerman at La Trobe University to the research discussed in this article.
Cameron Dodd receives funding from the Australian Biological Resources Study and Society of Australian Systematic Biologists.
Andrew M. Baker receives funding from the Federal Government, State Governments, Australian Biological Resources Study and various Industry sources.
Kenny Travouillon receives funding from Australian Biological Resources Study.
Linette Umbrello receives funding from the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) National Taxonomy Research Grant Program (NTRGP)
Renee Catullo 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.
“✏️Describe the vibe” goes the demand to commenters underneath the YouTube video for Lorde’s latest single, “Hammer”. Fans form a flow; a “vibe check” in Zillenial parlance:
The pure rawness … (@lynmariegm)
A more raw true-to-self form … (@m3lodr4matic)
This is pure art … (@anishm-g1r)
Lorde’s 2013 debut album was titled Pure Heroine. But, she tells us – and fans and critics agree – Virgin is the first album which “does not lie”. Pure pop. Not lying is not necessarily synonymous with truth, however. Rather, not lying in the present cultural moment is more akin to the careful articulation of a whole vibe.
For women in particular, truth, authenticity – dare I say realness – mean modulating their feelings, but also a particular calibration and presentation of their bodies in media.
Such a balancing act is captured in that YouTube imperative which moves between the pencil (“✏️”) – the demand to describe – and the “vibe”, the very thing we often find too hard to write down or put into words.
Pop music is often at the nexus of these two seemingly opposite moves. Think about going to a gig and afterwards being asked “how was it?”, and all you can say is “you had to be there”.
Of course it is not so simple. We are always putting our feeling into words – describing all manner of bodily responses. Lorde herself sings in “Broken Glass” about how her eating disordered body was marked by language: the “arithmetic” of calorie counting. Elsewhere, she lists other social signifiers in which she is enmeshed: daughter (“Favourite Daughter”), siren, saint (“Shapeshifter”).
Words and the body
Nonetheless, the repeated theme in press interviews is that Virgin moves beyond language, towards a pure woman’s body, free of the mark of sexuality. At the same time, the album is also “ravenously horny” according to one review. She is both as pure as a newborn (a “Virgin”), but marked by her sexuality.
The song “Current Affairs” most clearly demonstrates proximity between the sexed body and its description in lyrics. Lorde collapses into her lover’s body (“He spit in my mouth”). But when he breaks her heart, she cannot put into language the hurt. Rather she blames her anguish on the news: “current affairs”.
Pop music and pop culture thrives off the market exchange and saleability of sex, particularly young women’s sex. When I first wrote about Lorde 11 years ago, I pitted her against Miley Cyrus, noting the outrage at Miley’s “growing up” (from Hannah Montana to adulthood), which mapped onto her perceived new working class, tasteless identity.
Against the crass vulgarity of Miley, I argued then, we had the middle-class intellectualism of Lorde. The argument stands. Virgin certainly adds a heightened sexiness to Lorde, but it is far from crude. She is branded, not just by the market (the cost of tour tickets and merchandise), but also by her identity as a tasteful and hip woman.
More fleshy (“wide hips/soft lips” she sings in “GRWM”) than the teen “Royal” of 2012, but still on Universal Music Group’s repertoire and still circulated as an “alt” option for pop fans.
We can also think of Lorde’s collaboration with her current working class alter, and last year’s popstar commodity, Charli XCX. In Lorde’s verse in “Girl, so confusing” she notes Charli is, essentially, a “Chav” – “still a young girl from Essex”. But in the same verse, Lorde shows her awareness of both women’s function on the market:
People say we’re alike
They say we’ve got the same hair
It’s you and me on the coin
The industry loves to spend
This knowing wink to how women move within the pop-culture marketplace produces a different kind of purity, one based on an intimacy between the popstar and her listeners. We all know Lorde’s difference from Charli is about image: the “poet” versus the party girl.
Intimacy as purity is part of what cultural theorist Anna Kornbluh recently dubbed the pressure of “immediacy”, characterised by an apparently ceaseless flow and demand to constantly share images and video of our bodies, afforded by the scroll of social media.
While the depiction of our bodies and selves on screens is fundamental to this moment, according to Kornbluh, we contradictorily lose sight of this screening. Feeling as though we are #NoFilter – present and real. Key to this is the exhibition of our feelings and emotions.
For all women, but particularly those in the public eye, the sharing of these feelings materialise into “coin”. Vulnerability, pleasure, all-the-feels-all-the-time – especially for women – make “bank”.
Intimacy and knowingness
Vulnerability has been a catch-cry in media characterisations of Virgin. Critics and fans equate Lorde’s lyrical confessions and press tour patter with a market-valuable “purity”, equated with immediate access (to quote the YouTube fan above) to a “true-to-self” Lorde.
One of her more amusing (but fitting) press engagements was on Bella Freud’s Fashion Neurosis podcast. On the couch, we hear Lorde, wearing a Yohji Yamamoto blazer, musing about vulnerability, gender and her mother – with the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.
Fashion Neurosis: Lorde on the psychiatrist’s couch.
While the Charli XCX track shows Lorde’s intimacy through her knowingness about her role as “coin” for the music industry, the music videos from Virgin offer a more embodied intimacy. The clip for the album’s first single, “What Was That?”, features an extreme closeup inside her mouth. The album cover itself is an X-ray showing her hips and her IUD.
Kornbluh suggests this emphasis on often literal bodily interiors – people’s “insides” – produces an ersatz sense of closeness and sociality, as our relationships become more and more beholden to the alienating circuits of “social” media.
Virgin does not lie. It traces a truth of our times – a paradoxical truth – that we are at our most intimate, our most pure, when we are unmediated, all the while bearing out the imperative to “✏️Describe the vibe” – to mediate and expose ourselves onscreen.
My own vibe check? I love the album. It is pop at its purest – performative, playful and certainly worth paying attention to.
Rosemary Overell 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.
How do you measure climate change? One way is by recording temperatures in different places over a long period of time. While this works well, natural variation can make it harder to see longer-term trends.
But another approach can give us a very clear sense of what’s going on: track how much heat enters Earth’s atmosphere and how much heat leaves. This is Earth’s energy budget, and it’s now well and truly out of balance.
Our recent research found this imbalance has more than doubled over the last 20 years. Other researchers have come to the same conclusions. This imbalance is now substantially more than climate models have suggested.
In the mid-2000s, the energy imbalance was about 0.6 watts per square metre (W/m2) on average. In recent years, the average was about 1.3 W/m2. This means the rate at which energy is accumulating near the planet’s surface has doubled.
These findings suggest climate change might well accelerate in the coming years. Worse still, this worrying imbalance is emerging even as funding uncertainty in the United States threatens our ability to track the flows of heat.
Energy in, energy out
Earth’s energy budget functions a bit like your bank account, where money comes in and money goes out. If you reduce your spending, you’ll build up cash in your account. Here, energy is the currency.
Life on Earth depends on a balance between heat coming in from the Sun and heat leaving. This balance is tipping to one side.
Solar energy hits Earth and warms it. The atmosphere’s heat-trapping greenhouse gases keep some of this energy.
But the burning of coal, oil and gas has now added more than two trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. These trap more and more heat, preventing it from leaving.
Some of this extra heat is warming the land or melting sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. But this is a tiny fraction. Fully 90% has gone into the oceans due to their huge heat capacity.
Earth naturally sheds heat in several ways. One way is by reflecting incoming heat off of clouds, snow and ice and back out to space. Infrared radiation is also emitted back to space.
From the beginning of human civilisation up until just a century ago, the average surface temperature was about 14°C. The accumulating energy imbalance has now pushed average temperatures 1.3-1.5°C higher.
Ice and reflective clouds reflect heat back to space. As the Earth heats up, most trapped heat goes into the oceans but some melts ice and heats the land and air. Pictured: Icebergs from the Jacobshavn glacier in Greenland, the largest outside Antarctica. Ashley Cooper/Getty
Tracking faster than the models
Scientists keep track of the energy budget in two ways.
First, we can directly measure the heat coming from the Sun and going back out to space, using the sensitive radiometers on monitoring satellites. This dataset and its predecessors date back to the late 1980s.
Second, we can accurately track the build-up of heat in the oceans and atmosphere by taking temperature readings. Thousands of robotic floats have monitored temperatures in the world’s oceans since the 1990s.
Both methods show the energy imbalance has grown rapidly.
The doubling of the energy imbalance has come as a shock, because the sophisticated climate models we use largely didn’t predict such a large and rapid change.
Typically, the models forecast less than half of the change we’re seeing in the real world.
Why has it changed so fast?
We don’t yet have a full explanation. But new research suggests changes in clouds is a big factor.
Clouds have a cooling effect overall. But the area covered by highly reflective white clouds has shrunk, while the area of jumbled, less reflective clouds has grown.
It isn’t clear why the clouds are changing. One possible factor could be the consequences of successful efforts to reduce sulfur in shipping fuel from 2020, as burning the dirtier fuel may have had a brightening effect on clouds. However, the accelerating energy budget imbalance began before this change.
Natural fluctuations in the climate system such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation might also be playing a role. Finally – and most worryingly – the cloud changes might be part of a trend caused by global warming itself, that is, a positive feedback on climate change.
Dense blankets of white clouds reflect the most heat. But the area covered by these clouds is shrinking. Adhivaswut/Shutterstock
What does this mean?
These findings suggest recent extremely hot years are not one-offs but may reflect a strengthening of warming over the coming decade or longer.
This will mean a higher chance of more intense climate impacts from searing heatwaves, droughts and extreme rains on land, and more intense and long lasting marine heatwaves.
This imbalance may lead to worse longer-term consequences. New research shows the only climate models coming close to simulating real world measurements are those with a higher “climate sensitivity”. That means these models predict more severe warming beyond the next few decades in scenarios where emissions are not rapidly reduced.
We don’t know yet whether other factors are at play, however. It’s still too early to definitively say we are on a high-sensitivity trajectory.
Our eyes in the sky
We’ve known the solution for a long time: stop the routine burning of fossil fuels and phase out human activities causing emissions such as deforestation.
Keeping accurate records over long periods of time is essential if we are to spot unexpected changes.
Satellites, in particular, are our advance warning system, telling us about heat storage changes roughly a decade before other methods.
But funding cuts and drastic priority shifts in the United States may threaten essential satellite climate monitoring.
Steven Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Mindaroo Foundation.
Benoit Meyssignac receives funding from the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the French National Space Agency.
Thorsten Mauritsen receives funding from the European Research Council, the European Space Agency, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish National Space Agency and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research.
When you went to school, did you call your teacher Mrs, Ms or Mr, followed by their surname? Perhaps you even called them Sir or Miss.
The tradition of addressing teachers in a formal manner goes back centuries. For many of us, calling a teacher by their first name would have been unthinkable.
But that’s not automatically the case anymore. Some teachers in mainstream schools now ask students to call them by their first name.
Why is this? And what impact can teachers’ names have in the classroom?
There’s no rule
There’s no official rule in Australia on what students should call teachers.
Naming is usually decided by schools or individual teachers. This is no official training on this topic before teachers start in classrooms.
Some primary school teachers now use first names or a less formal name such as “Mr D”. Teachers say this helps break down barriers, especially for young students or those who are learning English as an additional language.
High schools are more likely to stick with tradition, partly to maintain structure and boundaries, especially with teenagers. Using formal titles can also support early-career teachers or those from minority
backgrounds assert their authority in a classroom.
But even so, some high school teachers are using their first names to foster a sense of trust and encourage students to see them as a partner in learning, rather than simply an authority figure.
What does the research say?
Research – which is mainly from the United States – suggests names have an impact on how students perceive their teachers and feel about school.
In one study of US high school students, teenagers described teachers they addressed with formal titles as more distant and harder to connect with. Teachers who invited students to use their first name were seen as more supportive, approachable and trustworthy.
A secondary school principal in the state of Maryland reported students felt more included and respected when they could use teachers’ first names. It made classrooms feel less hierarchical and more collaborative.
A 2020 US study on teaching students doing practical placements found those who used their first name observed greater student engagement than those who did not. This came as a surprise to the student teachers who expected students would not respect them if they used their first names.
These findings don’t necessarily mean titles are bad. Rather, they show first names can support stronger teacher-student relationships.
It’s important to note society in general has become less formal in recent decades in terms of how we address and refer to each other.
So, what should students call their teachers?
What works in one school, or even one classroom, may not work in another.
For example, for Indigenous students or students from non-English speaking households, name practices that show cultural respect and mutual choice can be vital. They help create a sense of safety and inclusion.
But for other teachers, being called by their title may be a key part of their professional persona.
That’s why it’s important for naming decisions to be thoughtful and based on the needs of the teacher, students and broader school community.
The key is to treat naming as part of the broader relationship, not just a habit or automatic tradition. Whether students say “Mrs Lee” or “Jess” matters less than whether they feel safe, respected and included. It’s about the tone and relationship behind the name, not simply what someone is called.
Nicole Brownlie 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 United States used to be a leader in vaccine research, development and policymaking. Now US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr is undermining the country’s vaccine program at the highest level and supercharging vaccine skepticism.
On Wednesday, RFK Jr announced the US would stop funding the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, because he claimed that “when the science was inconvenient today, Gavi ignored the science”. RFK Jr questioned the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women, as well as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.
On Thursday, when the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met, the person who first drew RFK Jr into vaccine scepticism, Lyn Redwood, shared disproved claims about a chemical called thimerosal in flu vaccines being harmful.
The undermining of regulation, advisory processes and funding changes will have global impacts, as debunked claims are given new levels of apparent legitimacy. Some of these impacts will be slow and insidious.
So what should we make of these latest claims and funding cuts?
Thiomersal is a distraction
Thiomersal (thimerosal in the the US) is a safe and effective preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination of the vaccine contained in a multi-dose vial. It’s a salt that contains a tiny amount of mercury in a safe form.
Thiomersal is no longer used as a preservative in any vaccines routinely given in Australia. But it’s still used in the Q fever vaccine.
Other countries use multi-dose vials with thiomersal when single-dose vials are too expensive.
In the US, just 4% of adult influenza vaccines contain thiomersal. So focusing on removing vaccines containing thimerosal is a distraction for the committee.
COVID vaccines in pregnancy prevent severe illness
On Wednesday, RFK criticised Gavi’s encouragement of pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
A COVID-19 infection before and during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage two- to four-fold, even if it’s only a mild infection.
Conversely, there is good evidence vaccination during pregnancy is safe and can reduce the chance of hospitalisation of pregnant people and of infants by passing antibodies through the placenta.
In Australia, pregnant people who have never received a primary COVID-19 vaccine are recommended to have one. However, they are not generally recommended to have booster unless they have underlying risk conditions or prefer to have one. This is due to population immunity.
COVID-19 vaccine advice should adapt to changes in disease risk and vaccine benefit. It doesn’t mean previous decisions were wrong, nor that vaccine boosters are unsafe.
RFK’s criticism of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy may influence choices individuals make in other countries, even when unvaccinated pregnant women are encouraged to consider vaccination.
The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine is safe
RFK Jr also questioned the safety of the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine as he announced the withdrawal of US funding support for Gavi.
In the early 2000s, three community-based observational studies reported a possible association between increased chance of death in infants and use of the DTP vaccine.
A few subsequent studies also reported associations, with higher risk in girls, prompting a World Health Organization (WHO) review of safety.
Real world studies are complicated and the data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Often, the very factors that influence whether someone gets vaccinated can also be associated with other health risks.
When the WHO committee reviewed all the studies on DTP safety in 2014, it did not indicate serious adverse events. It concluded there was substantial evidence against these claims.
What will de-funding Gavi mean for vaccination rates?
Gavi, the vaccine alliance, supports vaccine purchasing in low-income countries.
The US has historically accounted for 13% of all donor funds.
However, RFK Jr said Gavi needed to re-earn the public trust and “consider the best science available” before the US would contribute funding again.
Gavi predicted in March that the impact of US funding cuts could result in one million deaths through missed vaccines.
Could something like this happen in Australia?
Australia is fortunate to be buffered from these impacts.
Our vaccine advisory body, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, has people with deep expertise in vaccination. We have robust decision processes that weigh evidence critically and make careful recommendations to government.
Our governments remain committed to vaccination. The federal government released the National Immunisation Strategy in mid-June with a comprehensive plan to continue to strengthen our program.
The federal government also announced A$386 million to support the work of Gavi from 2026 to 2030.
All of this keeps our vaccine policies strong, preventing disease and increasing life expectancy here and overseas.
But to mitigate the possible influence of the US in Australia, our governments, health professionals and the public need to be ready to rapidly tackle the misinformation, distortions and half-truths RFK Jr cleverly packages – with quality information.
Julie Leask receives research funding from NHMRC, WHO, US CDC, NSW Ministry of Health. She received funding from Sanofi for travel to an overseas meeting in 2024. She has consulting fees from RTI International and the Task Force for Global Health.
Catherine Bennett has received honoraria for contributing to independent advisory panels for Moderna and AstraZeneca, and has received NHMRC, VicHealth and MRFF funding for unrelated projects. She was the health lead on the Independent Inquiry into the Australian Government COVID-19 Response .
The United States used to be a leader in vaccine research, development and policymaking. Now US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr is undermining the country’s vaccine program at the highest level and supercharging vaccine skepticism.
On Wednesday, RFK Jr announced the US would stop funding the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, because he claimed that “when the science was inconvenient today, Gavi ignored the science”. RFK Jr questioned the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women, as well as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine.
On Thursday, when the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met, the person who first drew RFK Jr into vaccine scepticism, Lyn Redwood, shared disproved claims about a chemical called thimerosal in flu vaccines being harmful.
The undermining of regulation, advisory processes and funding changes will have global impacts, as debunked claims are given new levels of apparent legitimacy. Some of these impacts will be slow and insidious.
So what should we make of these latest claims and funding cuts?
Thiomersal is a distraction
Thiomersal (thimerosal in the the US) is a safe and effective preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination of the vaccine contained in a multi-dose vial. It’s a salt that contains a tiny amount of mercury in a safe form.
Thiomersal is no longer used as a preservative in any vaccines routinely given in Australia. But it’s still used in the Q fever vaccine.
Other countries use multi-dose vials with thiomersal when single-dose vials are too expensive.
In the US, just 4% of adult influenza vaccines contain thiomersal. So focusing on removing vaccines containing thimerosal is a distraction for the committee.
COVID vaccines in pregnancy prevent severe illness
On Wednesday, RFK criticised Gavi’s encouragement of pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
A COVID-19 infection before and during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage two- to four-fold, even if it’s only a mild infection.
Conversely, there is good evidence vaccination during pregnancy is safe and can reduce the chance of hospitalisation of pregnant people and of infants by passing antibodies through the placenta.
In Australia, pregnant people who have never received a primary COVID-19 vaccine are recommended to have one. However, they are not generally recommended to have booster unless they have underlying risk conditions or prefer to have one. This is due to population immunity.
COVID-19 vaccine advice should adapt to changes in disease risk and vaccine benefit. It doesn’t mean previous decisions were wrong, nor that vaccine boosters are unsafe.
RFK’s criticism of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy may influence choices individuals make in other countries, even when unvaccinated pregnant women are encouraged to consider vaccination.
The diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine is safe
RFK Jr also questioned the safety of the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine as he announced the withdrawal of US funding support for Gavi.
In the early 2000s, three community-based observational studies reported a possible association between increased chance of death in infants and use of the DTP vaccine.
A few subsequent studies also reported associations, with higher risk in girls, prompting a World Health Organization (WHO) review of safety.
Real world studies are complicated and the data can be difficult to interpret correctly. Often, the very factors that influence whether someone gets vaccinated can also be associated with other health risks.
When the WHO committee reviewed all the studies on DTP safety in 2014, it did not indicate serious adverse events. It concluded there was substantial evidence against these claims.
What will de-funding Gavi mean for vaccination rates?
Gavi, the vaccine alliance, supports vaccine purchasing in low-income countries.
The US has historically accounted for 13% of all donor funds.
However, RFK Jr said Gavi needed to re-earn the public trust and “consider the best science available” before the US would contribute funding again.
Gavi predicted in March that the impact of US funding cuts could result in one million deaths through missed vaccines.
Could something like this happen in Australia?
Australia is fortunate to be buffered from these impacts.
Our vaccine advisory body, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, has people with deep expertise in vaccination. We have robust decision processes that weigh evidence critically and make careful recommendations to government.
Our governments remain committed to vaccination. The federal government released the National Immunisation Strategy in mid-June with a comprehensive plan to continue to strengthen our program.
The federal government also announced A$386 million to support the work of Gavi from 2026 to 2030.
All of this keeps our vaccine policies strong, preventing disease and increasing life expectancy here and overseas.
But to mitigate the possible influence of the US in Australia, our governments, health professionals and the public need to be ready to rapidly tackle the misinformation, distortions and half-truths RFK Jr cleverly packages – with quality information.
Julie Leask receives research funding from NHMRC, WHO, US CDC, NSW Ministry of Health. She received funding from Sanofi for travel to an overseas meeting in 2024. She has consulting fees from RTI International and the Task Force for Global Health.
Catherine Bennett has received honoraria for contributing to independent advisory panels for Moderna and AstraZeneca, and has received NHMRC, VicHealth and MRFF funding for unrelated projects. She was the health lead on the Independent Inquiry into the Australian Government COVID-19 Response .
As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks.
Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not know whether Iran will seek a nuclear weapon with renewed vigour in the future.
So, could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran, if it does indeed continue to pursue a bomb?
Is an Iranian bomb an existential threat?
The conventional wisdom, at least in the Western world, is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel, and possibly the United States as well.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were aimed at rolling back “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described an Iranian bomb as “an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world”.
Iran, of course, did not yet possess a nuclear weapon when the strikes occurred, as the UN nuclear watchdog attested. The strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from being able to do so in the future – a prospect seen by Israel and the US as simply “unthinkable”.
But if Iran had built a nuclear weapon before the Israeli and US strikes – or manages to do so in the future – would this pose an existential threat to Israel or the US?
The Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. But thanks to leaks from inside the Israeli nuclear program – as well as the best assessments from around the world – we can be quite sure they exist. It also explains why Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – it can’t without giving up this stockpile.
The US, of course, has been nuclear-armed since 1945 and openly maintains an inventory of thousands of nuclear warheads. These provide a deterrent against nuclear attacks on the United States.
Washington also provides extended nuclear deterrence guarantees to over 30 states, including members of NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It does not need to provide this for Israel given the Israeli arsenal. But if there was ever any doubt about Israel’s stockpile, it certainly could.
After 80 years of living with nuclear weapons, we know the deterrent effect of assured nuclear retaliation is very powerful. It deterred both the Soviets and Americans from using nuclear weapons against each other through multiple Cold War crises. It has deterred both India and Pakistan from using them in multiple standoffs, including quite recently. It has deterred both North Korea and the US from striking each other.
Similarly, Iran would no doubt be deterred from using a nuclear weapon by a certain Israeli or American response.
Iranian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, and the chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America” are a common occurrence at rallies held by supporters of the regime.
But beneath the fiery rhetoric lies a truism: no Iranian leader would destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon if it came at the expense of the destruction of Iran.
In the history of the nation-state, not a single one has ever knowingly committed suicide. Not for any reason – ideological, religious, political or any other. All nations value survival over everything else because this allows for the achievement of other goals, such as power and prosperity.
Further, Iran is ruled by a brutally authoritarian, theocratic regime. And for authoritarian regimes, staying in power is the number one priority. There is no staying in power the day after a nuclear exchange.
Not a panacea
This does not mean an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a welcome development. Far from it.
There is no doubt the existence of over 12,000 nuclear weapons globally poses a potentially existential risk to all of humanity.
But the idea that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a unique risk to Israel or the United States simply does not stand up to scrutiny. If we can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and for that matter, a nuclear-armed Israel, we can live, however reluctantly, with a nuclear-armed Iran.
Regardless of whether the current proposed ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, the military operation initiated by Israel and bolstered by the United States was extremely dangerous and unnecessary, based on both countries’ justification.
The regime in Tehran is brutal, authoritarian, openly antisemitic and worthy of our disdain. But there is no evidence it is suicidal.
The claim an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to Israel or the United States and justifies unilateral, preventive military attacks makes no sense.
It is time to stop repeating it.
Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.
As the ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding for now, it is important to reflect on whether this whole episode was worth the risks.
Wider escalation was (and remains) possible, and we do not know whether Iran will seek a nuclear weapon with renewed vigour in the future.
So, could we live with a nuclear-armed Iran, if it does indeed continue to pursue a bomb?
Is an Iranian bomb an existential threat?
The conventional wisdom, at least in the Western world, is that an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an existential threat to Israel, and possibly the United States as well.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were aimed at rolling back “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described an Iranian bomb as “an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to the United States, and to the entire world”.
Iran, of course, did not yet possess a nuclear weapon when the strikes occurred, as the UN nuclear watchdog attested. The strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from being able to do so in the future – a prospect seen by Israel and the US as simply “unthinkable”.
But if Iran had built a nuclear weapon before the Israeli and US strikes – or manages to do so in the future – would this pose an existential threat to Israel or the US?
The Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. But thanks to leaks from inside the Israeli nuclear program – as well as the best assessments from around the world – we can be quite sure they exist. It also explains why Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – it can’t without giving up this stockpile.
The US, of course, has been nuclear-armed since 1945 and openly maintains an inventory of thousands of nuclear warheads. These provide a deterrent against nuclear attacks on the United States.
Washington also provides extended nuclear deterrence guarantees to over 30 states, including members of NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It does not need to provide this for Israel given the Israeli arsenal. But if there was ever any doubt about Israel’s stockpile, it certainly could.
After 80 years of living with nuclear weapons, we know the deterrent effect of assured nuclear retaliation is very powerful. It deterred both the Soviets and Americans from using nuclear weapons against each other through multiple Cold War crises. It has deterred both India and Pakistan from using them in multiple standoffs, including quite recently. It has deterred both North Korea and the US from striking each other.
Similarly, Iran would no doubt be deterred from using a nuclear weapon by a certain Israeli or American response.
Iranian leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, and the chants of “death to Israel” and “death to America” are a common occurrence at rallies held by supporters of the regime.
But beneath the fiery rhetoric lies a truism: no Iranian leader would destroy Israel with a nuclear weapon if it came at the expense of the destruction of Iran.
In the history of the nation-state, not a single one has ever knowingly committed suicide. Not for any reason – ideological, religious, political or any other. All nations value survival over everything else because this allows for the achievement of other goals, such as power and prosperity.
Further, Iran is ruled by a brutally authoritarian, theocratic regime. And for authoritarian regimes, staying in power is the number one priority. There is no staying in power the day after a nuclear exchange.
Not a panacea
This does not mean an Iranian nuclear weapon would be a welcome development. Far from it.
There is no doubt the existence of over 12,000 nuclear weapons globally poses a potentially existential risk to all of humanity.
But the idea that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a unique risk to Israel or the United States simply does not stand up to scrutiny. If we can live with a nuclear-armed North Korea, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and for that matter, a nuclear-armed Israel, we can live, however reluctantly, with a nuclear-armed Iran.
Regardless of whether the current proposed ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, the military operation initiated by Israel and bolstered by the United States was extremely dangerous and unnecessary, based on both countries’ justification.
The regime in Tehran is brutal, authoritarian, openly antisemitic and worthy of our disdain. But there is no evidence it is suicidal.
The claim an Iranian nuclear bomb would pose an existential threat to Israel or the United States and justifies unilateral, preventive military attacks makes no sense.
It is time to stop repeating it.
Benjamin Zala has received funding from the Stanton Foundation, a US philanthropic group that funds nuclear research. He is an honorary fellow at the University of Leicester on a project that is funded by the European Research Council.
The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.
But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.
The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.
Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.
To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.
This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.
These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.
Different lanes on the radio highway
We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.
Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.
However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.
To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.
Radio traffic on the rise
In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.
However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.
Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.
What can be done?
To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.
Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.
Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.
But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.
Lucia McCallum 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 scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.
But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.
The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.
Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.
To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.
This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.
These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know. Using a technique called very long baseline interferometry, we can use a network of radio telescopes to lock onto the black hole signals and disentangle Earth’s own rotation and wobble in space from the satellites’ movement.
Different lanes on the radio highway
We use radio telescopes because we want to detect the radio waves coming from the black holes. Radio waves pass cleanly through the atmosphere and we can receive them during day and night and in all weather conditions.
Radio waves are also used for communication on Earth – including things such as wifi and mobile phones. The use of different radio frequencies – different lanes on the radio highway – is closely regulated, and a few narrow lanes are reserved for radio astronomy.
However, in previous decades the radio highway had relatively little traffic. Scientists commonly strayed from the radio astronomy lanes to receive the black hole signals.
To reach the very high precision needed for modern technology, geodesy today relies on more than just the lanes exclusively reserved for astronomy.
Radio traffic on the rise
In recent years, human-made electromagnetic pollution has vastly increased. When wifi and mobile phone services emerged, scientists reacted by moving to higher frequencies.
However, they are running out of lanes. Six generations of mobile phone services (each occupying a new lane) are crowding the spectrum, not to mention internet connections directly sent by a fleet of thousands of satellites.
Today, the multitude of signals are often too strong for geodetic observatories to see through them to the very weak signals emitted by black holes. This puts many satellite services at risk.
What can be done?
To keep working into the future – to maintain the services on which we all depend – geodesy needs some more lanes on the radio highway. When the spectrum is divided up via international treaties at world radio conferences, geodesists need a seat at the table.
Other potential fixes might include radio quiet zones around our essential radio telescopes. Work is also underway with satellite providers to avoid pointing radio emissions directly at radio telescopes.
Any solution has to be global. For our geodetic measurements, we link radio telescopes together from all over the world, allowing us to mimic a telescope the size of Earth. The radio spectrum is primarily regulated by each nation individually, making this a huge challenge.
But perhaps the first step is increasing awareness. If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of those black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway.
Lucia McCallum 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.
Even though the survey says these Americans are doing so “just for fun” and claim they rely on the information gained by divination “only a little,” the persistence — and apparent rise — of these practices suggests something deeper is at play.
Tarot card: The High Priestess (Waite–Smith deck), c. 1909. (Pamela Colman Smith), CC BY
I study ancient divination, but to better understand how diviners work, I have observed contemporary diviners at work and talked with them about their practices. They say their clients request tarot consultations more frequently than they did in the past.
Divination methods, including tarot and astrology, offer a way to ask questions when other systems fail to provide answers. These questions can be highly personal and difficult to address in a formal religious setting. The divinatory answers allow people to feel they’ve gained insight, which in turn gives a perception of control over an uncertain future.
Apart from astrology and tarot, some of the best known divination methods include: the interpreting of dreams, reading coffee cups or tea leaves, observing animals and nature, reading palms and other body features such as nose shape and eye placement.
When a diviner uses things, such as cards, tea leaves, dice or shells, the connecting thread to many of these methods is that people cannot control the signs they produce. For example, divination consultants typically mix the tarot card deck to make sure the result are randomized. People should not manipulate the results.
Many people turn to religion when they face the unknown in their lives. They address their insecurities in worship, asking for divine help.
But there have always been people who did not have access to organized religion. Divinatory practices can be especially appealing to those who have been excluded from traditional religion and had to come up with alternative ways to address uncertainties.
In an age marked by ongoing anxiety, political instability and waning trust in institutions, centuries-old divination rituals offer alternative ways for folks to seek entertainment but also to gain a sense of insight, agency and connection. What may seem like harmless fun can also serve as a serious response to a chaotic world. Divinatory practices can provide both spiritual exploration and emotional validation.
Besides increasing political insecurity, another reason for the increased interest in tarot may be the visual aspect. Increased interest in the decorated cards may be a reflection of our highly visual culture. Interest in the cards with images may reflect interest in other images we watch. They are like photos with messages.
The fascination with tarot may also speak about a need to control the consultation as a diviner and their client see exactly the same thing. The images in the cards are also symbolic, and they can be interpreted in different ways.
In principle, the cards can be consulted anywhere without particular preparations. The only material one needs is a deck of cards. The accessible materiality may be adding to their popularity.
Even though the survey says these Americans are doing so “just for fun” and claim they rely on the information gained by divination “only a little,” the persistence — and apparent rise — of these practices suggests something deeper is at play.
Tarot card: The High Priestess (Waite–Smith deck), c. 1909. (Pamela Colman Smith), CC BY
I study ancient divination, but to better understand how diviners work, I have observed contemporary diviners at work and talked with them about their practices. They say their clients request tarot consultations more frequently than they did in the past.
Divination methods, including tarot and astrology, offer a way to ask questions when other systems fail to provide answers. These questions can be highly personal and difficult to address in a formal religious setting. The divinatory answers allow people to feel they’ve gained insight, which in turn gives a perception of control over an uncertain future.
Apart from astrology and tarot, some of the best known divination methods include: the interpreting of dreams, reading coffee cups or tea leaves, observing animals and nature, reading palms and other body features such as nose shape and eye placement.
When a diviner uses things, such as cards, tea leaves, dice or shells, the connecting thread to many of these methods is that people cannot control the signs they produce. For example, divination consultants typically mix the tarot card deck to make sure the result are randomized. People should not manipulate the results.
Many people turn to religion when they face the unknown in their lives. They address their insecurities in worship, asking for divine help.
But there have always been people who did not have access to organized religion. Divinatory practices can be especially appealing to those who have been excluded from traditional religion and had to come up with alternative ways to address uncertainties.
In an age marked by ongoing anxiety, political instability and waning trust in institutions, centuries-old divination rituals offer alternative ways for folks to seek entertainment but also to gain a sense of insight, agency and connection. What may seem like harmless fun can also serve as a serious response to a chaotic world. Divinatory practices can provide both spiritual exploration and emotional validation.
Besides increasing political insecurity, another reason for the increased interest in tarot may be the visual aspect. Increased interest in the decorated cards may be a reflection of our highly visual culture. Interest in the cards with images may reflect interest in other images we watch. They are like photos with messages.
The fascination with tarot may also speak about a need to control the consultation as a diviner and their client see exactly the same thing. The images in the cards are also symbolic, and they can be interpreted in different ways.
In principle, the cards can be consulted anywhere without particular preparations. The only material one needs is a deck of cards. The accessible materiality may be adding to their popularity.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Beatrix Beisner, Professor, Aquatic ecology; Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Plankton have inspired and influenced art, science and architecture.(Shutterstock)
Not much attention is paid to plankton because these creatures are usually hidden from sight. They are mostly microscopic in size and live in aquatic environments, but human lives are intricately connected with plankton.
The etymology of “plankton” originates from the ancient Greek word for “drifter.” Plankton refers to all organisms suspended in all types of waters (oceans, lakes, rivers and even groundwaters), including viruses, bacteria, insects, larval fish and jellyfish. Plankton come in many shapes and sizes, but what unites all of them is a tendency to drift with currents.
There are both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton) types, as well as organisms that blur the line by belonging to both. These include carnivorous plants or photosynthesizing animals (mixoplankton).
Phytoplankton are an essential part of aquatic ecosystems. (Shutterstock)
Understanding plankton
We are an international group of researchers working on plankton that inhabit aquatic waters from high alpine lakes to the deep oceans. We represent a much larger consortium of researchers (the Plankton Passionates) who have recently considered all the ways in which plankton are crucial for human well-being, society, activity and life on our planet.
In our work, we have identified six broad themes that allow us to classify the value of plankton.
Plankton are integral to the ecological functioning of all aquatic environments. For example, phytoplankton use photosynthesis to create biomass that is transferred throughout the ecosystem, much as plants and trees do on land. Phytoplankton are mostly eaten by zooplankton, which are in turn prime food for fish like sardines and herring. These small fish are fed upon by larger fish and birds. That means healthy food-web functioning is critically sustained by plankton.
Plankton play a critical role in other ways that affect the ecological functioning of aquatic environments. Specifically, plankton affect the cycles of matter and the bio-geochemistry of their ecosystems. While phytoplankton use sunlight to grow and reproduce, they also move nutrients, oxygen and carbon around.
Phytoplankton are an essential climate variable — studying them provides key indicators for planetary health and climate change — because they capture carbon dioxide (CO2). When phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, and these animals die and sink to the bottom of water bodies, this stores carbon away from the atmosphere to where it can no longer contribute to climate change; this process is known as the biological carbon pump.
Plankton have also played a role in several human endeavours, including the evolution of science itself advancing many theoretical developments in ecology, such as the study of biodiversity. This diversity of plankton forms — including organisms that look like crystals or jewelry — have fascinated researchers.
Jellyfish are plankton because they are carried by currents through the water. (Shutterstock)
Several theories or frameworks used throughout ecology have emerged from studying plankton, but their applications go further. For example, Russian biologist Georgy Gause observed competition among plankton, leading to his competitive exclusion principle that’s now commonly applied in socioeconomic contexts.
Because of their foundational role in aquatic food webs, plankton are critical to many human economies. Many planktonic organisms are cultured directly for human consumption including jellyfish, krill, shrimp and copepod zooplankton.
Virtually all protein in aquatic ecosystems comes from plankton. Some are used as supplements, such as spirulina powder or omega-3 vitamins from krill or copepods.
Several plankton-derived compounds are highly prized in medicine, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including some plankton toxins used for their immune-stimulating effects. Luciferases are a group of enzymes produced by bioluminescent organisms, including many marine plankton, and are also important in biomedical research.
On the other hand, plankton can also lead to high economic costs when harmful algal blooms, like toxic red tides, occur along coastlines or cyanobacterial blooms arise in lakes.
Plankton benefits for humans
Finally, our research considers the role of plankton in human culture, recreation and well-being. Beyond their use as a food source and in medicine, plankton can be culturally important.
Bioluminescent marine dinoflagellates create incredibly powerful nighttime displays in coastal regions, forming the basis for cultural events and tourist attractions. Diatoms are a type of phytoplankton present in all aquatic ecosystems, and their silica-rich skeletons have been used for flint tools during the Stone Age and as opal in jewelry.
An illustration from the 1887 book ‘Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76.’ (Illus. by E. Haeckel/engraving by A. Giltsch)
Plankton are critical to all of these components. We all benefit from plankton due to their essential role in regulating aquatic habitats, their long-term involvement in climate regulation and the vital resources they provide to humanity.
Humanity lives with plankton as their incredible diversity connects life across land and water and is one of the driving forces behind Earth’s ecological stability and ecosystem services that we value. Plankton are part of humanity’s living in nature, which emphasizes their vital role in our identity, lifestyles and culture.
Plankton profoundly affect communities bordering water, but also those further away through plankton-inspired art and design. Finally, living as nature highlights the physical, mental and spiritual interconnectedness with the natural world.
We need to better recognize the value of plankton as a resource, and as an essential part of stabilizing Earth systems and maintaining them for human well-being.
Beatrix Beisner receives funding from NSERC. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plankton Research (Oxford University Press) and a member of the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), an FRQNT-funded network.
Maria Grigoratou receives funding from the NSF project WARMEM (OCE-1851866) and the EU-funded HORIZON Europe projects EU4OceanObs2.0 and BioEcoOcean (101136748) to Maria Grigoratou. Maria is now affiliated with the European Polar Board.
Sakina-Dorothée Ayata receives funding from the European Commission (NECCTON, iMagine, Blue-Cloud2026 projects), the French National Research Agency (ANR, Traitzoo project), and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).
Susanne Menden-Deuer receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and NASA.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Beatrix Beisner, Professor, Aquatic ecology; Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Plankton have inspired and influenced art, science and architecture.(Shutterstock)
Not much attention is paid to plankton because these creatures are usually hidden from sight. They are mostly microscopic in size and live in aquatic environments, but human lives are intricately connected with plankton.
The etymology of “plankton” originates from the ancient Greek word for “drifter.” Plankton refers to all organisms suspended in all types of waters (oceans, lakes, rivers and even groundwaters), including viruses, bacteria, insects, larval fish and jellyfish. Plankton come in many shapes and sizes, but what unites all of them is a tendency to drift with currents.
There are both plant (phytoplankton) and animal (zooplankton) types, as well as organisms that blur the line by belonging to both. These include carnivorous plants or photosynthesizing animals (mixoplankton).
Phytoplankton are an essential part of aquatic ecosystems. (Shutterstock)
Understanding plankton
We are an international group of researchers working on plankton that inhabit aquatic waters from high alpine lakes to the deep oceans. We represent a much larger consortium of researchers (the Plankton Passionates) who have recently considered all the ways in which plankton are crucial for human well-being, society, activity and life on our planet.
In our work, we have identified six broad themes that allow us to classify the value of plankton.
Plankton are integral to the ecological functioning of all aquatic environments. For example, phytoplankton use photosynthesis to create biomass that is transferred throughout the ecosystem, much as plants and trees do on land. Phytoplankton are mostly eaten by zooplankton, which are in turn prime food for fish like sardines and herring. These small fish are fed upon by larger fish and birds. That means healthy food-web functioning is critically sustained by plankton.
Plankton play a critical role in other ways that affect the ecological functioning of aquatic environments. Specifically, plankton affect the cycles of matter and the bio-geochemistry of their ecosystems. While phytoplankton use sunlight to grow and reproduce, they also move nutrients, oxygen and carbon around.
Phytoplankton are an essential climate variable — studying them provides key indicators for planetary health and climate change — because they capture carbon dioxide (CO2). When phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, and these animals die and sink to the bottom of water bodies, this stores carbon away from the atmosphere to where it can no longer contribute to climate change; this process is known as the biological carbon pump.
Plankton have also played a role in several human endeavours, including the evolution of science itself advancing many theoretical developments in ecology, such as the study of biodiversity. This diversity of plankton forms — including organisms that look like crystals or jewelry — have fascinated researchers.
Jellyfish are plankton because they are carried by currents through the water. (Shutterstock)
Several theories or frameworks used throughout ecology have emerged from studying plankton, but their applications go further. For example, Russian biologist Georgy Gause observed competition among plankton, leading to his competitive exclusion principle that’s now commonly applied in socioeconomic contexts.
Because of their foundational role in aquatic food webs, plankton are critical to many human economies. Many planktonic organisms are cultured directly for human consumption including jellyfish, krill, shrimp and copepod zooplankton.
Virtually all protein in aquatic ecosystems comes from plankton. Some are used as supplements, such as spirulina powder or omega-3 vitamins from krill or copepods.
Several plankton-derived compounds are highly prized in medicine, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including some plankton toxins used for their immune-stimulating effects. Luciferases are a group of enzymes produced by bioluminescent organisms, including many marine plankton, and are also important in biomedical research.
On the other hand, plankton can also lead to high economic costs when harmful algal blooms, like toxic red tides, occur along coastlines or cyanobacterial blooms arise in lakes.
Plankton benefits for humans
Finally, our research considers the role of plankton in human culture, recreation and well-being. Beyond their use as a food source and in medicine, plankton can be culturally important.
Bioluminescent marine dinoflagellates create incredibly powerful nighttime displays in coastal regions, forming the basis for cultural events and tourist attractions. Diatoms are a type of phytoplankton present in all aquatic ecosystems, and their silica-rich skeletons have been used for flint tools during the Stone Age and as opal in jewelry.
An illustration from the 1887 book ‘Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76.’ (Illus. by E. Haeckel/engraving by A. Giltsch)
Plankton are critical to all of these components. We all benefit from plankton due to their essential role in regulating aquatic habitats, their long-term involvement in climate regulation and the vital resources they provide to humanity.
Humanity lives with plankton as their incredible diversity connects life across land and water and is one of the driving forces behind Earth’s ecological stability and ecosystem services that we value. Plankton are part of humanity’s living in nature, which emphasizes their vital role in our identity, lifestyles and culture.
Plankton profoundly affect communities bordering water, but also those further away through plankton-inspired art and design. Finally, living as nature highlights the physical, mental and spiritual interconnectedness with the natural world.
We need to better recognize the value of plankton as a resource, and as an essential part of stabilizing Earth systems and maintaining them for human well-being.
Beatrix Beisner receives funding from NSERC. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Plankton Research (Oxford University Press) and a member of the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en limnologie (GRIL), an FRQNT-funded network.
Maria Grigoratou receives funding from the NSF project WARMEM (OCE-1851866) and the EU-funded HORIZON Europe projects EU4OceanObs2.0 and BioEcoOcean (101136748) to Maria Grigoratou. Maria is now affiliated with the European Polar Board.
Sakina-Dorothée Ayata receives funding from the European Commission (NECCTON, iMagine, Blue-Cloud2026 projects), the French National Research Agency (ANR, Traitzoo project), and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).
Susanne Menden-Deuer receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and NASA.
According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 is 12.2 per cent — over double that of the prime working-age population.
The outlook is bleaker for students planning to return to full-time studies in the fall. Unemployment for this group has reached just over 20 per cent, the highest level since 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the Great Recession.
Roles in retail, hospitality and customer service often serve as a first taste of working life, helping young people build confidence, develop transferable skills and expand their professional networks. Without access to these opportunities, many young Canadians risk falling behind before their careers even begin.
The long-term implications are serious. According to a 2024 report from consulting firm Deloitte, Canada stands to lose $18.5 billion in GDP over the next decade if youth unemployment remains high.
Young Canadians are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years. (Shutterstock)
Many young job-seekers are understandably discouraged by today’s labour market. But as digital natives, Gen Z have advantages to bring to the table, including creativity, values-driven mindsets and fluency in technology.
The key is to stay open, proactive and creative by pursuing non-linear experiences that can serve as legitimate entry points into the workforce. Here are four actionable strategies for Gen Z starting their careers:
Side projects, such as building websites or freelancing, can also help people start their careers. These are increasingly recognized as valid ways to break into the job market.
2. Build core skills that matter.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report identifies analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, leadership and self-awareness as the most in-demand skills for the future. These can be developed through volunteer work, community leadership, mentorship or personal projects.
As workplaces adopt AI and automation, tech literacy is becoming increasingly valuable. Microcredentials can help build specialized skills, while apprenticeships and other experiential learning opportunities offer experiences that employers value.
Networks are also a key part of job success. Relationships with peers, mentors and community members can provide support, broaden perspectives and lead to unexpected opportunities. Participating in interest groups or volunteering can help young workers feel more connected and confident while developing skills that matter.
A new working generation
While these steps won’t solve the systemic challenges facing the labour market, they can help young Canadians gain traction in a system that is still catching up to the needs of their generation.
This will require the collaboration of government, employers, educational institutions and community service providers to innovatively reduce existing barriers. Importantly, these sectors are being asked to “walk the talk” when it comes to addressing youth unemployment.
Gen Z is entering the workforce during a time of profound economic and social change. But they also have unparalleled access to information, supportive communities and platforms to share ideas and make a meaningful impact.
By acting with intention, young Canadians can navigate this landscape with agency, laying the foundation not only for jobs but for careers that reflect their values and ambitions.
Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.
Warren Boyd Ferguson 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.
According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 is 12.2 per cent — over double that of the prime working-age population.
The outlook is bleaker for students planning to return to full-time studies in the fall. Unemployment for this group has reached just over 20 per cent, the highest level since 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the Great Recession.
Roles in retail, hospitality and customer service often serve as a first taste of working life, helping young people build confidence, develop transferable skills and expand their professional networks. Without access to these opportunities, many young Canadians risk falling behind before their careers even begin.
The long-term implications are serious. According to a 2024 report from consulting firm Deloitte, Canada stands to lose $18.5 billion in GDP over the next decade if youth unemployment remains high.
Young Canadians are facing one of the toughest hiring seasons in years. (Shutterstock)
Many young job-seekers are understandably discouraged by today’s labour market. But as digital natives, Gen Z have advantages to bring to the table, including creativity, values-driven mindsets and fluency in technology.
The key is to stay open, proactive and creative by pursuing non-linear experiences that can serve as legitimate entry points into the workforce. Here are four actionable strategies for Gen Z starting their careers:
Side projects, such as building websites or freelancing, can also help people start their careers. These are increasingly recognized as valid ways to break into the job market.
2. Build core skills that matter.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report identifies analytical thinking, resilience, creativity, leadership and self-awareness as the most in-demand skills for the future. These can be developed through volunteer work, community leadership, mentorship or personal projects.
As workplaces adopt AI and automation, tech literacy is becoming increasingly valuable. Microcredentials can help build specialized skills, while apprenticeships and other experiential learning opportunities offer experiences that employers value.
Networks are also a key part of job success. Relationships with peers, mentors and community members can provide support, broaden perspectives and lead to unexpected opportunities. Participating in interest groups or volunteering can help young workers feel more connected and confident while developing skills that matter.
A new working generation
While these steps won’t solve the systemic challenges facing the labour market, they can help young Canadians gain traction in a system that is still catching up to the needs of their generation.
This will require the collaboration of government, employers, educational institutions and community service providers to innovatively reduce existing barriers. Importantly, these sectors are being asked to “walk the talk” when it comes to addressing youth unemployment.
Gen Z is entering the workforce during a time of profound economic and social change. But they also have unparalleled access to information, supportive communities and platforms to share ideas and make a meaningful impact.
By acting with intention, young Canadians can navigate this landscape with agency, laying the foundation not only for jobs but for careers that reflect their values and ambitions.
Leda Stawnychko receives funding from SSHRC.
Warren Boyd Ferguson 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 – Canada – By Karen S. Acton, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy, OISE, University of Toronto
Only nine per cent of Canadian students learn about climate change often in school, while 42 per cent say it’s rarely or never discussed in the classroom.
These are some of the concerning findings from the new 2025 national survey at the nonprofit Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), where I serve as a research consultant. Our team surveyed over 4,200 people, including students, educators, parents and the general public.
The message is clear: Canadians want schools to do more. A strong majority of respondents (62 per cent) believe climate change should be a high priority in education. More than half (56 per cent) believe it should be taught by all teachers.
Understanding is slipping
According to the survey, 80 per cent of Canadians accept that climate change is real and impacting their lives. Most (67 per cent) believe we are in a climate emergency, yet this belief has declined from 72 per cent in 2022.
Also slipping is Canadians’ understanding of climate change, as the pass rate for the survey’s 10-question quiz dipped to 57 per cent in 2025 from 67 per cent in 2022.
Fewer respondents correctly identified human activities as the primary cause of climate change, or named greenhouse gas emissions as the predominant factor. Many still mistakenly believe the ozone hole is to blame, highlighting one of many persistent climate misconceptions.
Also concerning was the increase in Canadians who felt that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.
A recent report by climate communications centre Re.Climate noted a similar decline in public perception of how much of a threat climate change poses. In 2023, 44 per cent of Canadians said reducing carbon emissions was a top energy policy priority. By 2025, that number had dropped to 31 per cent.
The LSF survey highlights Canadians’ dissatisfaction with climate education. When asked to grade schools on how well they were addressing climate change issues, only four per cent gave schools an “A.” Three-quarters of Canadians gave a “C” or lower.
One dominant concern included addressing the spread of climate misinformation. Only 17 per cent of Canadians felt confident in their ability to distinguish between real and false climate news.
Misinformation is a growing barrier to public understanding and action on climate issues. For many young people, social media is a dominant source of climate information, but it’s not always a reliable one.
To address this, almost 80 per cent of respondents, and in particular 87 per cent of educators, agree that climate education in schools should focus more on critical thinking and media literacy.
Teachers willing, but under-supported
The good news is that almost half of the educators we surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change. Many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom.
However, many barriers remain. Most educators still spend fewer than 10 hours per year on climate topics, and 42 per cent rarely address it at all. A full 60 per cent of teachers told us they want to do more but need professional development to feel equipped.
Teachers need more time, resources and strategies to address how climate change connects to broader issues like mental health, social justice and Indigenous knowledge.
Educators are also seeking a school-wide culture that promotes climate change education, but nearly half said they lack support from their principal or school boards.
Unsurprisingly, given the global nature of climate change, the challenges voiced by educators are not unique to Canada. Surveys of teachers in England and the United States found they face similar obstacles, compounded by low teacher confidence, the complexity of the topic and leadership not supporting climate change as a priority.
Almost half of the educators surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change, and many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom. (Shutterstock)
Students need the opportunity
One of the most hopeful takeaways is that students want to learn more about climate change at school, beginning in the early grades. When asked what they would tell their teacher, students told us they wanted lessons that go beyond the science to include real-world solutions and personal empowerment.
They called for open classroom discussions, a clearer understanding of the impacts of climate change and concrete strategies for action.
As one student put it: “Present it to me in a way that’s relevant that I can understand, and tell me how I can personally make an impact.”
Another added: “Everyone needs to do their part or nothing will change!”
These appeals echo those from the recent Voice of 1,000 Kids survey, which found young people want adults to take the climate crisis more seriously and step up to help solve it.
The LSF survey found that 76 per cent of respondents recognize that systemic change is needed to address climate challenges, yet only 19 per cent believe government is doing a good job.
This suggests strong public demand for policy action. Canadian governments must introduce mandatory climate curriculum standards, increased funding for teacher professional learning and resources, and transformative teaching strategies to foster critical thinking and empowerment.
Almost 70 per cent of respondents said they believe young people can inspire important climate action. Supporting school-wide cultures that embrace sustainability isn’t just good teaching — it’s a pathway to broader social change.
Now more than ever, we need a reimagined education system that values climate learning as a core competency. Policymakers and education leaders must rise to meet this challenge before another generation of students graduate feeling unprepared to face the defining issue of their time.
Karen S. Acton works as a consultant for Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF).
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Karen S. Acton, Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy, OISE, University of Toronto
Only nine per cent of Canadian students learn about climate change often in school, while 42 per cent say it’s rarely or never discussed in the classroom.
These are some of the concerning findings from the new 2025 national survey at the nonprofit Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), where I serve as a research consultant. Our team surveyed over 4,200 people, including students, educators, parents and the general public.
The message is clear: Canadians want schools to do more. A strong majority of respondents (62 per cent) believe climate change should be a high priority in education. More than half (56 per cent) believe it should be taught by all teachers.
Understanding is slipping
According to the survey, 80 per cent of Canadians accept that climate change is real and impacting their lives. Most (67 per cent) believe we are in a climate emergency, yet this belief has declined from 72 per cent in 2022.
Also slipping is Canadians’ understanding of climate change, as the pass rate for the survey’s 10-question quiz dipped to 57 per cent in 2025 from 67 per cent in 2022.
Fewer respondents correctly identified human activities as the primary cause of climate change, or named greenhouse gas emissions as the predominant factor. Many still mistakenly believe the ozone hole is to blame, highlighting one of many persistent climate misconceptions.
Also concerning was the increase in Canadians who felt that the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated.
A recent report by climate communications centre Re.Climate noted a similar decline in public perception of how much of a threat climate change poses. In 2023, 44 per cent of Canadians said reducing carbon emissions was a top energy policy priority. By 2025, that number had dropped to 31 per cent.
The LSF survey highlights Canadians’ dissatisfaction with climate education. When asked to grade schools on how well they were addressing climate change issues, only four per cent gave schools an “A.” Three-quarters of Canadians gave a “C” or lower.
One dominant concern included addressing the spread of climate misinformation. Only 17 per cent of Canadians felt confident in their ability to distinguish between real and false climate news.
Misinformation is a growing barrier to public understanding and action on climate issues. For many young people, social media is a dominant source of climate information, but it’s not always a reliable one.
To address this, almost 80 per cent of respondents, and in particular 87 per cent of educators, agree that climate education in schools should focus more on critical thinking and media literacy.
Teachers willing, but under-supported
The good news is that almost half of the educators we surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change. Many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom.
However, many barriers remain. Most educators still spend fewer than 10 hours per year on climate topics, and 42 per cent rarely address it at all. A full 60 per cent of teachers told us they want to do more but need professional development to feel equipped.
Teachers need more time, resources and strategies to address how climate change connects to broader issues like mental health, social justice and Indigenous knowledge.
Educators are also seeking a school-wide culture that promotes climate change education, but nearly half said they lack support from their principal or school boards.
Unsurprisingly, given the global nature of climate change, the challenges voiced by educators are not unique to Canada. Surveys of teachers in England and the United States found they face similar obstacles, compounded by low teacher confidence, the complexity of the topic and leadership not supporting climate change as a priority.
Almost half of the educators surveyed felt confident about their ability to teach climate change, and many are incorporating more climate-related projects and lifestyle and consumer changes into the classroom. (Shutterstock)
Students need the opportunity
One of the most hopeful takeaways is that students want to learn more about climate change at school, beginning in the early grades. When asked what they would tell their teacher, students told us they wanted lessons that go beyond the science to include real-world solutions and personal empowerment.
They called for open classroom discussions, a clearer understanding of the impacts of climate change and concrete strategies for action.
As one student put it: “Present it to me in a way that’s relevant that I can understand, and tell me how I can personally make an impact.”
Another added: “Everyone needs to do their part or nothing will change!”
These appeals echo those from the recent Voice of 1,000 Kids survey, which found young people want adults to take the climate crisis more seriously and step up to help solve it.
The LSF survey found that 76 per cent of respondents recognize that systemic change is needed to address climate challenges, yet only 19 per cent believe government is doing a good job.
This suggests strong public demand for policy action. Canadian governments must introduce mandatory climate curriculum standards, increased funding for teacher professional learning and resources, and transformative teaching strategies to foster critical thinking and empowerment.
Almost 70 per cent of respondents said they believe young people can inspire important climate action. Supporting school-wide cultures that embrace sustainability isn’t just good teaching — it’s a pathway to broader social change.
Now more than ever, we need a reimagined education system that values climate learning as a core competency. Policymakers and education leaders must rise to meet this challenge before another generation of students graduate feeling unprepared to face the defining issue of their time.
Karen S. Acton works as a consultant for Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF).
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Research Fellow at the Centre for Planetary Health and Resilient Conservation Group, Griffith University
In the shadows of Python Cave, Uganda, a leopard leaps from a guano mound – formed by bat excrement – and sinks its teeth into a bat. But this is no ordinary bat colony. The thousands of Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) found in this cave are known carriers of one of the world’s deadliest viruses: Marburg, a close cousin of Ebola.
I am a conservation scientist with over 17 years of experience in wildlife ecology, monitoring and human-wildlife conflict. I’m the co-founder of the Kyambura Lion Project, which made this discovery.
For years, scientists studying how diseases spread from animals to humans have hypothesised that zoonotic diseases jump from a wildlife reservoir (like a bat) to an intermediate host (monkey) and potentially to us, humans.
For past Marburg outbreaks in Uganda, two spillover pathways have been identified: the first, involves humans coming into contact with a fruit bat habitat (namely caves filled with bat guano). Indeed, fruit bats are thought to have infected two tourists at Python Cave in 2007 and 2008.
The second pathway involves humans and animals eating the same fruit that bats have fed upon or made contact with. This second spillover pathway was identified by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists in 2023. They tracked bats from the cave entering cultivated gardens to feed.
But Atukwatse and the team of young Ugandan scientists (Yahaya Ssemakula, Johnson Muhereza, Orin Cornille and Winfred Nsabimana) have potentially found another pathway: predation by at least 14 species.
Such rich visual evidence of a viral interface – bats, predators and people – is virtually non-existent in the literature. Many theoretical depictions of this process exist, and there are isolated incidents of a monkey predating on a bat or wildlife feeding on bat guano, but Atukwatse’s discovery of this many different predators repeatedly feeding on a known Marburg virus reservoir is a first.
His discovery highlights two uncomfortable truths:
many potential zoonotic interfaces remain undocumented – often right under our noses
the people most likely to detect them first are those living closest to wild frontiers.
But the bigger message is this: global health institutions need to stop overlooking local scientists and start funding field-based detection systems across Africa and Asia.
If we want to detect the next outbreak early, we should be empowering more Atukwatses, not waiting for the next lab test.
Atukwatse had heard from nearby guides that a large bat cave lay close to the survey grid. That kind of site, he reasoned, could be perfect leopard territory: a place to hunt, rest or avoid the heat.
This is ecological attentiveness at its best – the field biology equivalent of a commodities trader spotting volatility in a geopolitical flashpoint.
Atukwatse had his radar on and acted on instinct, setting five camera traps at the cave’s entrance and along the surrounding animal trails. Just one week later, he got what he hoped for: three separate clips of a leopard hunting bats in broad daylight. He left the cameras in place in protective casing. He checked them every 7–10 days.
But that was just the beginning.
The scale of the discovery
When I first looked at Atukwatse’s videos, our joint excitement was around the leopard footage. We knew they were adaptable and could even eat small rodents , but no one had ever recorded them eating bats in Africa.
As more clips came in, we realised something bigger was unfolding. Blue monkeys were seen grabbing bats mid-roost. A crowned eagle and a Nile monitor fought over two bat carcasses. A fish eagle – typically a piscivore, which is a carnivorous species that primarily eats fish – was filmed clutching bats in its talons.
Over 304 trap-nights, Atukwatse’s traps recorded 261 independent predator events from at least 14 different species.
Then came the second shock: over 400 human visitors – many of them tourists – were filmed approaching the cave mouth without any protective gear. Some stood just metres from a known Marburg virus reservoir. Importantly, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has built a sanctioned viewing platform about 35 metres from the cave. However, tourists broke park rules and walked within two metres of the cave mouth.
It was only after I visited the cave myself to take stills of the team that we put this all together. Atukwatse had just found the first visual evidence, at a large scale in nature, of at least 14 predators feeding on a known wildlife virus reservoir harbouring one of Earth’s deadliest viruses.
This wasn’t the result of million-dollar pathogen surveillance. It wasn’t even the core aim of our leopard survey. This happened because a young Ugandan field scientist followed his ecological gut.
Why does the discovery matter?
For decades, disease ecologists have known that major outbreaks often originate in wildlife – swine flu, avian flu and even SARS-CoV-2 all trace back to animal hosts. But what’s often missing is direct observation of spillover interfaces – the exact moments when a virus jumps from a bat, goose, or other animal into new species like humans, livestock or other wildlife.
Atukwatse’s discovery may be the first large-scale visual record of such an interface in nature: a roost of Egyptian fruit bats known to harbour a deadly virus, actively predated upon by at least 14 species, with hundreds of humans visiting the same cave mouth unprotected.
This may be a Rosetta Stone moment for spillover ecology – shifting our understanding from hypothetical models to a real, observable interface.
These kinds of spillover sites exist in other places in nature: in a Chinese wet market where a civet meets a meat processor, or in a Gabonese village where a bat is butchered for bushmeat. The difference? Most of them go undocumented. Atukwatse just filmed one.
Alexander Richard Braczkowski is the scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust Kyambura Lion Project.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Research Fellow at the Centre for Planetary Health and Resilient Conservation Group, Griffith University
In the shadows of Python Cave, Uganda, a leopard leaps from a guano mound – formed by bat excrement – and sinks its teeth into a bat. But this is no ordinary bat colony. The thousands of Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) found in this cave are known carriers of one of the world’s deadliest viruses: Marburg, a close cousin of Ebola.
I am a conservation scientist with over 17 years of experience in wildlife ecology, monitoring and human-wildlife conflict. I’m the co-founder of the Kyambura Lion Project, which made this discovery.
For years, scientists studying how diseases spread from animals to humans have hypothesised that zoonotic diseases jump from a wildlife reservoir (like a bat) to an intermediate host (monkey) and potentially to us, humans.
For past Marburg outbreaks in Uganda, two spillover pathways have been identified: the first, involves humans coming into contact with a fruit bat habitat (namely caves filled with bat guano). Indeed, fruit bats are thought to have infected two tourists at Python Cave in 2007 and 2008.
The second pathway involves humans and animals eating the same fruit that bats have fed upon or made contact with. This second spillover pathway was identified by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists in 2023. They tracked bats from the cave entering cultivated gardens to feed.
But Atukwatse and the team of young Ugandan scientists (Yahaya Ssemakula, Johnson Muhereza, Orin Cornille and Winfred Nsabimana) have potentially found another pathway: predation by at least 14 species.
Such rich visual evidence of a viral interface – bats, predators and people – is virtually non-existent in the literature. Many theoretical depictions of this process exist, and there are isolated incidents of a monkey predating on a bat or wildlife feeding on bat guano, but Atukwatse’s discovery of this many different predators repeatedly feeding on a known Marburg virus reservoir is a first.
His discovery highlights two uncomfortable truths:
many potential zoonotic interfaces remain undocumented – often right under our noses
the people most likely to detect them first are those living closest to wild frontiers.
But the bigger message is this: global health institutions need to stop overlooking local scientists and start funding field-based detection systems across Africa and Asia.
If we want to detect the next outbreak early, we should be empowering more Atukwatses, not waiting for the next lab test.
Atukwatse had heard from nearby guides that a large bat cave lay close to the survey grid. That kind of site, he reasoned, could be perfect leopard territory: a place to hunt, rest or avoid the heat.
This is ecological attentiveness at its best – the field biology equivalent of a commodities trader spotting volatility in a geopolitical flashpoint.
Atukwatse had his radar on and acted on instinct, setting five camera traps at the cave’s entrance and along the surrounding animal trails. Just one week later, he got what he hoped for: three separate clips of a leopard hunting bats in broad daylight. He left the cameras in place in protective casing. He checked them every 7–10 days.
But that was just the beginning.
The scale of the discovery
When I first looked at Atukwatse’s videos, our joint excitement was around the leopard footage. We knew they were adaptable and could even eat small rodents , but no one had ever recorded them eating bats in Africa.
As more clips came in, we realised something bigger was unfolding. Blue monkeys were seen grabbing bats mid-roost. A crowned eagle and a Nile monitor fought over two bat carcasses. A fish eagle – typically a piscivore, which is a carnivorous species that primarily eats fish – was filmed clutching bats in its talons.
Over 304 trap-nights, Atukwatse’s traps recorded 261 independent predator events from at least 14 different species.
Then came the second shock: over 400 human visitors – many of them tourists – were filmed approaching the cave mouth without any protective gear. Some stood just metres from a known Marburg virus reservoir. Importantly, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has built a sanctioned viewing platform about 35 metres from the cave. However, tourists broke park rules and walked within two metres of the cave mouth.
It was only after I visited the cave myself to take stills of the team that we put this all together. Atukwatse had just found the first visual evidence, at a large scale in nature, of at least 14 predators feeding on a known wildlife virus reservoir harbouring one of Earth’s deadliest viruses.
This wasn’t the result of million-dollar pathogen surveillance. It wasn’t even the core aim of our leopard survey. This happened because a young Ugandan field scientist followed his ecological gut.
Why does the discovery matter?
For decades, disease ecologists have known that major outbreaks often originate in wildlife – swine flu, avian flu and even SARS-CoV-2 all trace back to animal hosts. But what’s often missing is direct observation of spillover interfaces – the exact moments when a virus jumps from a bat, goose, or other animal into new species like humans, livestock or other wildlife.
Atukwatse’s discovery may be the first large-scale visual record of such an interface in nature: a roost of Egyptian fruit bats known to harbour a deadly virus, actively predated upon by at least 14 species, with hundreds of humans visiting the same cave mouth unprotected.
This may be a Rosetta Stone moment for spillover ecology – shifting our understanding from hypothetical models to a real, observable interface.
These kinds of spillover sites exist in other places in nature: in a Chinese wet market where a civet meets a meat processor, or in a Gabonese village where a bat is butchered for bushmeat. The difference? Most of them go undocumented. Atukwatse just filmed one.
Alexander Richard Braczkowski is the scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust Kyambura Lion Project.
Summer is the UK’s best-loved season. It’s easy to see why, with the warmer, sunnier weather it brings. But the temperature isn’t the only reason people prefer midsummer to the dark days of winter. Many also report their mood is better during the warmer months.
But why is it that our mood changes so much through the seasons? While there are many complex reasons why the weather can have such a significant affect on our mood and wellbeing, the key answer lies in our brain – and the way almost all of our body’s systems are hardwired to respond to what’s going on around us.
Your body’s core temperature is set at 37°C. Temperature is regulated by an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus. This nerve centre receives information about temperature from all over the body and initiates actions to either cool down or warm up accordingly.
The outside temperature can also affect our biological clock – otherwise known as our circadian rhythms. These govern, among other functions, our sleep-wake cycles.
Our circadian rhythms are also regulated by the hypothalamus – more specifically, a part of it called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. The fact that both temperature control and sleep-wake cycles are governed from within the same region of the brain suggests they are inextricably connected.
This connection can also partly help to explain why our moods can shift so much from winter to summer. It’s the interaction between these nervous pathways that are believed to impact mood through their effect on sleep, mood-influencing neurotransmitters, and more.
For instance, in winter, many people find their mood takes a dip – especially during the long, dark days of midwinter. Some people even develop seasonal affective disorder (Sad), a condition associated with depressive episodes that fluctuate with the comings-and-goings of the different seasons – though it’s typically more common in the winter because of the darker days and cold temperatures.
Sad can also cause sleep disturbances, lethargy and appetite changes – particularly cravings for carbohydrates. As the summer months arrive, people with winter Sad usually find their symptoms significantly improve.
There’s some evidence that Sad is linked to secretion of a hormone called melatonin – a hormone that’s also linked to our circadian rhythms. Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland, which shares nervous connections with the hypothalamus and acts to control timing and quality of sleep.
Melatonin levels typically remain relatively low during the day – but levels start to creep up in the evening, reaching their highest levels in the middle of the night. But the lower levels of daylight in the winter can cause dysfunction with melatonin levels, typically increasing it’s secretion. This probably explains why people feel sleepier and more fatigued in winter – and which may in turn trigger depression.
But it’s not just melatonin that’s linked to Sad. Other neurotransmitters which act as mood boosters (such as serotonin) appear to be affected by dark and cold days too. There also seems to be a link with geographical location – with evidence showing the condition is more common in regions furthest from the equator, where there are extremes of daylight and temperature.
Summertime sadness
When summer finally makes an appearance, the effect of sunshine and heat upon the energy-boosting neurotransmitters (such as serotonin) makes a notable difference to mood. This may be partly due to increased amounts of vitamin D – which is made in the skin, and requires sunlight exposure to reach higher levels. Vitamin D has been proven to positively affect serotonin levels.
But not everyone finds themselves pleased by summer’s hotter temperatures and longer days. Some may find they feel more miserable this season.
It’s less clear why some people get Sad in the summertime – and is probably due to a range of factors. It may be due to the heat and humidity or even feelings of self-consciousness. It could possibly even be due to sleep disruptions – since the longer days might disrupt our circadian rhythm.
Certain health conditions may also influence how we cope with the warmer temperatures. Take the menopause, where symptoms such as hot flushes may be exacerbated by the warmer weather. Those dealing with these symptoms may find it becomes even more difficult during heat waves – and this may take a toll on their mental wellbeing.
Some research does show that rising temperatures can be a precipitant for acute mental illness. One study examined a population of patients with bipolar disorder and found there was a significant peak in the number of hospital admissions in the summer months compared to patients with other psychiatric disorders. Their statistical analysis demonstrated that higher temperatures and solar radiation levels were the most significant determinants of acute episodes.
Another study has also suggested a link between increased temperatures and risk of suicidal behaviour.
The body’s natural responses to heat also feeds into the biological stress response. The mechanisms by which the body cools down, such as sweating and promoting blood flow to the skin, can cause dehydration and skin flushing. This may make people feel of frustrated and irritable, have trouble concentrating and may even impact the quality of sleep.
The interplay between temperature, sunlight, the body’s circadian clock and mood is a complex and intriguing conundrum – and one which is as unique as each person. While some of us are hard-wired to be sunchasers, others eagerly look forward to the dark days of winter. But in a world where climate change is a definite reality, we need to better understand how a warming world is going to affect our wellbeing.
Dan Baumgardt 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.
After eight years of renovations, the Waldorf Astoria in New York has reopened and is welcoming new guests. The Waldorf – as most people know it – introduced room service, velvet ropes, red-velvet cake and Thousand Island dressing. It gave its name to a salad, a chain of lunchrooms, as well as a now obscure form of democracy.
In 1907, the novelist Henry James said the Waldorf embodied what he called the “hotel spirit”: it was a place where everyone was equal – as long as they could afford the price of admission. To James, hotels defined America’s emerging culture and ideals. He said this new “spirit” was one of opportunity; of a new elite that was accessible not only by lineage, but by money.
As the historian and journalist David Freeland wrote, the Waldorf generally made room for all who were “able and ready to pay” and who displayed a willingness to “conduct themselves properly”. The Waldorf ethos was developed by its first maître d’, Oscar Tschirky – known simply as “Oscar of the Waldorf” because people struggled to pronounce his name. “Our innovations were startling and sensational”, Tschirky said in his ghost-written autobiography in 1943, “but they were always genteel”.
Those early innovations included the invention of the “presidential suite”, which saw the hotel become an unlikely early force for American feminism when it became a hub of high-level talks between suffragists and President Woodrow Wilson.
The Waldorf, then, is an American institution – or, at least, it used to be.
It is now in the hands of Chinese owners and has been shunned by presidents since Barack Obama, worried over potential security risks. The brand itself has been watered down as there are currently 32 “Waldorf Astorias” dotted around the globe.
The story of the Waldorf encapsulates modern America’s crisis of the establishment. Few places better personify the creation of the US version of the establishment (much more about money than breeding or class). And in the past decade, the hotel’s position, like the US establishment more generally, has come under assault by a rival hotel owner, Donald Trump.
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Trump has his own ideas about how to use these modern palaces to project power – and his innovations are anything but genteel. So what can the beginnings of this former American institution tell us about America today? As a researcher of political and democratic institutions, I have been examining the role of hotels in the story of American democracy. And this particular story begins with a Swiss-born waiter.
Oscar of the Waldorf
Tschirky was born in the Swiss Alpine village of Le Locle in 1866. He and his mother boarded the steamer La France in 1883, bound for New York. In his book, he recalled his mother’s announcement:
Yes, Oscar, we’re going to go to America and live with your brother in that great land of plenty where we can have everything we’ve always wanted.
That night, according to his book, was “the beginning of Oscar’s career as beloved servitor and counsellor to the great and near great of this world”.
Although it would be ten years after arriving in New York, that Tschirky would join the Waldorf (which was just about to open) as maître d’. His contract and salary commenced on January 1 1893, ahead of the grand opening of the Fifth Avenue hotel in March. He would occupy his post for the next half-century as “host to the world”.
Tschirky would remain in place as the hotel expanded in 1897 when John Jacob Astor IV built and connected the larger, taller Astoria Hotel next door. Then in 1931 the hotel was forced to relocate when its Fifth Avenue location was razed for the Empire State Building. The “new” Waldorf Astoria New York reopened on Park Avenue with the addition of its famous towers, making it the tallest hotel in the world at the time.
Tschirky was born just one year after the end of the American Civil War. It was an America of Jim Crow laws and segregation. He would live to see women’s suffrage, but not the civil rights reforms of the mid-1960s.
In this turbulent context, it appears that Tschirky did his best to keep the Waldorf out of politics. He stuck to the advice given by the Waldorf’s manager, George Boldt (himself a German immigrant) who told him that it was “not up to the hotel to settle international affairs”.
Tschirky came to understand, realise, and represent the “hotel spirit” of a new America as he presided over the establishment of hotels as American palaces: not only for visitors, but for the new American aristocracy.
A presidential palace
The Waldorf famously hosted every US president from Grover Cleveland to Franklin Roosevelt. In spring 1897, Cleveland was at the Waldorf with members of his former cabinet, who wanted him as Democratic candidate in the 1900 election. This was the first reported instance of “Waldorf democracy” – in this case, the term was used to identify this new group within (and in some respects differentiate it from) “the democracy”, that was the Democrats.
President Grover Cleveland (sitting on the far left) and his cabinet, between 1895 and 1896. Shutterstock/Everett Collection
This politics was not embraced by all. As reported in The Ohio Democrat, Congressman Edward W. Carmack of Tennessee dismissed it as “the walled-off Democracy, because they are by themselves, representing nobody, and unable to influence a vote”.
Nevertheless, political elites liked the luxury that the Waldorf offered. Presidential suites were established during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency (1913-21). In the Waldorf, this famous suite emulates the furniture of the White House and still contains several presidential souvenirs, (including John F. Kennedy’s rocking chair).
The hotel was also popular among the famous “Four Hundred of the Gilded Age” – the highest echelons of New York society. The group was originally led by Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. The Astors’ ancestral family home, the town of Walldorf, in western Germany, had even given the hotel its name. According to Tschirky’s book, the Waldorf’s grand ballroom was:
… where Teddy Roosevelt had dined, where presidents McKinley, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover had spoken historic words to the nation, where princes of royal blood had been welcomed, where the great people in every walk of life had been honored.
The Waldorf proved a suitable palace for US presidents and their entourages and Tschirky, a suitable “servant”. When interviewed by Washington DC’s Evening Star, Tschirky “wouldn’t talk about presidents except to say that Franklin D. Roosevelt calls him, ‘my neighbor across the Hudson’”.
But Tschirky, “for all his celebrity acquaintances, never forgot that he was, in the end, a servant”, as Freeland wrote. The Waldorf likewise applied the term to its staff.
Exclusivity, exclusion and ‘democracy’
The world famous hotelier Conrad Hilton, who acquired the Waldorf in 1949, recalled in his autobiography, Be My Guest:
Originally the Waldorf was said to purvey exclusiveness to the exclusive. Later [the writer and artist] Oliver Herford announced that it ‘brought exclusiveness to the masses’. But that exclusiveness remained whether the hotel catered to a convention of three thousand or a tête-à-tête between crowned heads.
The Waldorf ethos projected “taste” and imbued it in others. Tschirky “subtly schooled Americans in fine European dining”. In 1956 – six years after Tschirky’s death – the New York Times recalled that, alongside Boldt, he undertook to teach people how to spend their money. The Waldorf embodied good taste by enforcing it, for example in its expectation of “proper conduct”.
But with exclusivity comes exclusion. Hence, the hotel’s introduction of the velvet rope. According to the Waldorf’s luxury suite specialists, this was done “to create order … the fact that it created a sense of stature and separation was secondary”.
Tschirky’s statement that “all who pay their bills are on an equal footing” reflects one of his “rules for success”:
… be as courteous to the man in a five dollar room as to the occupant of the royal suite. It is an old rule, but it never changes.
We can see from this mindset how the hotel was seen to possess, as American Studies scholar Annabella Fick put it, “a democratic quality … even though it is also elitist. In that, it invokes the democratic understanding of early America, which also differentiated between land-owning gentry and the mob”.
This was not the only differentiation. Just two years after the Waldorf opened, the 1895 New York State Equal Rights Law (commonly known as the Malby Law) – which aimed to abolish racial discrimination in public places – had aroused Boldt’s indignation. According to Freeland, Boldt described the law to reporters as “an outrage, as it prevents us from making any selection of our patrons. A man who runs a first-class hotel must respect the wishes of his guests as to the sort of people that he entertains, and the law should not dictate to him.”
In his paradoxical desire for the freedom to discriminate and persecute as he wished – and on behalf of his customers, real or imagined – Boldt illustrated the exclusion inherent in exclusivity. Boldt’s statement also presaged a system of informal segregation, in which Black Americans were allowed in the Waldorf (and elsewhere), but were certainly not welcome.
Despite this the Waldorf was at the heart of a fundamental shift in American culture which “invited” ordinary Americans access beyond the velvet rope – as long as they could afford it. As James McCarthy and John Rutherford said in their 1931 book, Peacock Alley: “The average man and woman … frowned upon grand display – chiefly because the average person knew it was beyond his or her own horizon of enjoyment. The arrival of the Waldorf, however, was an invitation to the public to taste of this grandeur.”
And it wasn’t just the paying customers. During its 30th anniversary in 1923, the Waldorf elevated its staff – its servants – to the level of guests. Reporters for the Birmingham Age-Herald noted: “Practically the entire staff of the hotel were guests … the affair reached the topnotch of Waldorf democracy, for the waiters and financiers, telephone girls and captains of industry, coat-room clerks and merchant princes sat side by side and swapped reminiscences with each other.” The article continues:
Oscar sat [at] the head of his own table as guest of honor. For a brief time Oscar was no longer the solicitous host … For an hour or two Oscar was himself the guest, and the entire kitchen menage of the Waldorf-Astoria was kept hopping filling his wants and those of his fellow guests.
Oscar and his wife Louise, in the Birmingham Age-Herald above ‘Father Knickerbocker’ – a personification of New York City (hence The Knicks) – celebrating the Waldorf at 30. Library of Congress
But being a guest was a temporary experience.
The “Waldorf democracy” described during this event – of people from every walk of life and status mixing and socialising – was very different to that of the Cleveland entourage. It was not party-political, but institutional.
Democracy meant different things, at different times, within the Waldorf; just like in the broader US. The Waldorf, in turn, began to change, and perhaps even lose its meaning within the US by the time of Obama’s presidency.
Chinese ownership
The Waldorf lost its status as presidential palace in 2014. It was bought for $1.95bn by a Chinese company that was later seized by the Chinese government. Security concerns a year later prompted President Obama to stay at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel instead.
Obama’s choice of where to stay – and where not to stay – was widely discussed in the media. The decision was seen to “break with decades of tradition”. ABC News recognised and portrayed it as the end of an era, bidding “Goodbye to the Waldorf Astoria, welcome to the Lotte New York Palace Hotel”. This new era was also framed in geopolitical terms, for example by the New York Times:
With Chinese spies rummaging through White House emails, President Obama has decided not to risk making their spying any easier: He will break with tradition and abandon the Waldorf Astoria … Mr. Obama and other officials will instead take up residence a few blocks away at the Lotte New York Palace.
The same article also pointed out that “hotels have long represented a weak link in security for travelling officials and others”. In fact, Nikita Khrushchev had once got stuck in an elevator at the Waldorf, and “probably thought it was an attempt to assassinate him”.
Covering up an assassination as an “elevator accident” is probably not what Hilton had in mind when he envisaged his hotels as “a means of combating communism”. On the contrary – as Professor Mairi Maclean, a researcher of business elites, put it – Hilton envisaged hotels as a means of “facilitating world peace through international trade and travel”.
Women’s suffrage
It may not have brought about world peace, but the Waldorf did play a part in certain moments of US history because it was always seen as a key arena to lobby rulers, most notably in 1916. Women’s suffrage in America was still four years away. On one side of the debate (and the Waldorf itself) were two hundred suffragists, occupying the East Room. On the other was Woodrow Wilson, occupying the Presidential Suite.
Tschirky recalled being “appointed diplomatic courier … and delegated to carry the first communiqué of the morning … In the midst of it all I stood my ground, swearing myself an ice cold neutral”.
Though neutral on the question of suffrage, Tschirky was willing to reduce boundaries within the hotel, especially if it was good for business. Even as the hotel was being built, Tschirky remembered that “there was not, in all America, such a thing as a motor car, a radio … Nor were cocktails ever seen in private homes; or divorces tolerated in society; nor did women smoke, or wear dresses above their ankles”.
Then in 1907 a notice was put up in the Waldorf: “Women would be served in the hotel restaurants at any time, with or without male escorts.” Freeland noted Tschirky’s simple confirmation that: “We will serve women. What else can you do in a hotel?”
Crowd of women’s suffrage supporters demonstrating with signs reading, ‘Wilson Against Women’, in Chicago on October 20, 1916. Wilson withheld his support for Votes of Women until 1918. Shutterstock/Everett Collection
A few years later, discussing women’s right to smoke in the dining rooms, Tschirky said: “We do not regulate the public taste. Public taste does and should regulate us.”
During the Waldorf’s 30th anniversary in 1923, newspapers such as El Imparcial celebrated it as “a civic asset of unique importance. And to its other accolades must be added that of contributing effectively to the progress of feminism. It was a memorable day in the women’s rights movement when The Waldorf Astoria granted female access to the Peacock Alley.”
Nevertheless, even the naming of Peacock Alley – a corridor in the hotel that became an important place of congregation, especially for women – was a recognition of exclusivity. It was where people gathered to parade themselves. As the recollection goes in Tschirky’s memoirs: “The Waldorf Hotel was a triumphant picture of the Best People at their best”.
Trump
With their ostentatious decor and gilded interiors, Trump’s hotels could be seen as the modern incarnation of Peacock Alley.
But the tenets of politeness, respect and decorum that Tschirky set down seem like echoes from another age when compared to a recent AI video showing Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting shirtless at a pool with drinks at an imaginary “Trump Gaza hotel”. The video appears to have been a spoof, but that didn’t stop the president from sharing it on Truth Social, his own social media platform, and Instagram.
Like Hilton (who was immortalised in Mad Men, demanding a Hilton on the moon) hotels have always been a part of Trump’s brand. Trump recalled, in How to Get Rich, that his “first big deal, in 1974, involved the old Commodore Hotel site near Grand Central Station” on 42nd Street.
The former Trump International Hotel in Washington DC, opened in 2016, was described as “the epicenter of the president’s business interests in [the capital]”. It was also “a popular choice for lobbyists and Republican Congress members during Trump’s presidency”.
“The Trump Organization sold the hotel’s lease to CGI in 2022, when the hotel was reflagged as a Waldorf Astoria”, though Trump’s firm is rumoured to be in talks to reacquire it.
Another similarity between Hilton and Trump is their use of hotels as symbols for the nation. Each hotel of Hilton’s was envisaged as a “Little America”, “to show the countries most exposed to communism the other side of the coin”.
It had all of the ingredients of greatness, but it had been neglected and left to deteriorate for many many decades … It had the foundation of success. All of the elements were here. Our job is to restore our former glory, honor its heritage, but also imagine a brand new and exciting vision for the future.
Forbes commented that this event “could’ve easily been mistaken for a Trump rally”, for example in his statement that “my theme today is five words: ‘under budget and ahead of schedule’ … We don’t hear those words too often in government – but you will!”
Similarly, in an interview with the New York Post, Trump’s son Eric Trump used familiar Maga rhetoric: “Our family has saved the hotel once. If asked, we would save it again”.
What would Tschirky have made of all this? As a political neutral he would have decried Trump’s frequent hotel plugs during political campaigns. No doubt his behaviour would have seemed crass.
Perhaps this reflects two different eras of hotels and their intended functions. Grand hotels such as the Waldorf were shaped by European colonialism, by immigrants like Tschirky and Boldt. But as historian Annabel Wharton describes, the Hiltons “were constructed not, as in the nineteenth century, to meet an established need, but to create one. They suggest that this pressure was not produced simply by the desire for profit, but from a remarkable political commitment to the system that promoted profit-making”. I think we can read Trump’s hotels, and now his politics, in the same way.
The hotel spirit has entered a new phase with Trump’s proposals to “own, level, and develop” the Gaza Strip and create a “Riviera of the Middle East” – riding roughshod over the democratic will of Palestinians in Gaza who dismissed Trump’s vision.
Less than two decades after opening, Tschirky remarked that “many of the great events, financial, diplomatic, political, had had their inception within [the Waldorf’s] stone walls”. For him, it was “an international crossroad where men from all lands came to exchange goods and ideas” and to plan the changes in the world which he would later see come to pass.
Tschirky saw hotels as the most democratic places on Earth. But the “hotel spirit” he espoused – that uniquely American narrative within which he “became a citizen almost overnight” (a feat that seems vanishingly unlikely today) – seems to have been consigned to the past.
“I know that better times will come again”, he says in the preface to his book, “but in terms of the past, I think I have seen the best. New York has changed. America has changed.”
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Alex Prior 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.
From 2015 to 2018, I spent 15 months doing researchwork in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. As an anthropologist, I was interested in everyday life in Iran outside the capital Tehran. I was also interested in understanding whether the ambitions of the 1979 Revolution lived on among “ordinary” Iranians, not just political elites.
I first lived on a university campus, where I learned Persian, and later with Iranian families. I conducted hundreds of interviews with people who had a broad spectrum of political, social and religious views. They included opponents of the Islamic Republic, supporters, and many who were in between.
What these interviews revealed to me was both the diversity of opinion and experience in Iran, and the difficulty of making uniform statements about what Iranians believe.
Measuring the depth of antipathy for the regime
When Israel’s strikes on Iran began on June 13, killing many top military commanders, many news outlets – both international and those run by the Iranian diaspora – featured images of Iranians cheering the deaths of these hated regime figures.
Friends from my fieldwork also pointed to these celebrations, while not always agreeing with them. Many feared the impact of a larger conflict between Iran and Israel.
Trying to put these sentiments in context, many analysts have pointed to a 2019 survey by the GAMAAN Institute, an independent organisation based in the Netherlands that tracks Iranian public opinion. This survey showed 79% of Iranians living in the country would vote against the Islamic Republic if a free referendum were held on its rule.
Viewing these examples as an indicator of the lack of support for the Islamic Republic is not wrong. But when used as factoids in news reports, they become detached from the complexities of life in Iran. This can discourage us from asking deeper questions about the relationships between ideology and pragmatism, support and opposition to the regime, and state and society.
A more nuanced view
The news reporting on Iran has encouraged a tendency to see the Iranian state as homogeneous, highly ideological and radically separate from the population.
But where do we draw the line between the state and the people? There is no easy answer to this.
When I lived in Iran, many of the people who took part in my research were state employees – teachers at state institutions, university lecturers, administrative workers. Many of them had strong and diverse views about the legacy of the revolution and the future of the country.
They sometimes pointed to state discourse they agreed with, for example Iran’s right to national self-determination, free from foreign influence. They also disagreed with much, such as the slogans of “death to America”.
This ambivalence was evident in one of my Persian teachers. An employee of the state, she refused to attend the annual parades celebrating the anniversary of the revolution. “We have warm feelings towards America,” she said. On the other hand, she happily attended protests, also organised by the government, in favour of Palestinian liberation.
Or take the young government worker I met in Mashhad: “We want to be independent of other countries, but not like this.”
In a narrower sense, discussions about the “state” may refer more to organisations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, the paramilitary force within the IRGC that has cracked down harshly on dissent in recent decades. Both are often understood as being deeply ideologically committed.
Said Golkar, a US-based Iranian academic and author, for instance, calls Iran a “captive society”. Rather than having a civil society, he believes Iranians are trapped by the feared Basij, who maintain control through their presence in many institutions like universities and schools.
Again, this view is not wrong. But even among the Basij and Revolutionary Guard, it can be difficult to gauge just how ideological and homogeneous these organisations truly are.
For a start, the IRGC relies on both ideologically selected supporters, as well as conscripts, to fill its ranks. They are also not always ideologically uniform, as the US-based anthropologist Narges Bajoghli, who worked with pro-state filmmakers in Tehran, has noted.
As part of my research, I also interviewed members of the Basij, which, unlike the IRGC proper, is a wholly volunteer organisation.
Even though ideological commitment was certainly an important factor for some of the Basij members I met, there were also pragmatic reasons to join. These included access to better jobs, scholarships and social mobility. Sometimes, factors overlapped. But participation did not always equate to a singular or sustained commitment to revolutionary values.
For example, Sāsān, a friend I made attending discussion groups in Mashhad, was quick to note that time spent in the Basij “reduced your [compulsory] military service”.
This isn’t to suggest there are not ideologically committed people in Iran. They clearly exist, and many are ready to use violence. Some of those who join these institutions for pragmatic reasons use violence, too.
Looking in between
In addition, Iran is an ethnically diverse country. It has a population of 92 million people, a bare majority of whom are Persians. Other minorities include Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Turkmen and others.
It is also religiously diverse. While there is a sizeable, nominally Shi’a majority, there are also large Sunni communities (about 10-15% of the population) and smaller communities of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha’is and other religions.
Often overlooked, there are also important differences in class and social strata in Iran, too.
One of the things I noticed about state propaganda was that it flattened this diversity. James Barry, an Australian scholar of Iran, noticed a similar phenomenon.
State propaganda made it seem like there was one voice in the country. Protests could be dismissed out of hand because they did not represent the “authentic” view of Iranians. Foreign agitators supported protests. Iranians supported the Islamic Republic.
Since leaving Iran, I have followed many voices of Iranians in the diaspora. Opposition groups are loud on social media, especially the monarchists who support Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah.
In following these groups, I have noticed a similar tendency to speak as though they represent the voice of all Iranians. Iranians support the shah. Or Iranians support Maryam Rajavi, leader of a Paris-based opposition group.
Both within Iran, and in the diaspora, the regime, too, is sometimes held to be the imposition of a foreign conspiracy. This allows the Islamic Republic and the complex relations it has created to be dismissed out of hand. Once again, such a view flattens diversity.
Over the past few years, political identities and societal divisions seem to have become harder and clearer. This means there is an increasing perception among many Iranians of a gulf between the state and Iranian society. This is the case both inside Iran, and especially in the Iranian diaspora.
Decades of intermittent protests and civil disobedience across the country also show that for many, the current system no longer represents the hopes and aspirations of many people. This is especially the case for the youth, who make up a large percentage of the population.
I am not an Iranian, and I strongly believe it is up to Iranians to determine their own futures. I also do not aim to excuse the Islamic Republic – it is brutal and tyrannical. But its brutality should not let us shy away from asking complex questions.
If the regime did fall tomorrow, Iran’s diversity means there is little unanimity of opinion as to what should come next. And if a more pluralist form of politics is to emerge, it must encompass the whole of Iran’s diversity, without assuming a uniform position.
It, too, will have to wrestle with the difficult questions and sometimes ambivalent relations the Islamic Republic has created.
Simon Theobald received funding from the Australian National University during his research.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meg Leta Jones, Associate Professor of Technology Law & Policy, Georgetown University
The Supreme Court greenlights states’ efforts to block kids from online porn by requiring age verification.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 27, 2025, that will reshape how states protect children online. In a case assessing a Texas law requiring age verification to access porn sites, the court created a new legal path that makes it easier for states to craft laws regulating what kids see and do on the internet.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton that Texas’ law obligating porn sites to block access to underage users is constitutional. The law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages – for example by making users scan and upload their driver’s license – before granting access to content that is deemed obscene for minors but not adults.
The majority on the court rejected both the porn industry’s argument for strict scrutiny – the toughest legal test that requires the government to prove a law is absolutely necessary – and Texas’ argument for mere rational basis review, which requires only a rational connection between the law’s legitimate aims and its actions. Instead, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion established intermediate scrutiny, a middle ground that requires laws to serve important government interests without being overly burdensome, as the appropriate standard.
The court’s reasoning hinged on characterizing the law as only “incidentally” burdening adults’ First Amendment rights. Since minors have no constitutional right to access pornography, the state can require age verification to prevent that unprotected activity. Any burden on adults is, according to the ruling, merely a side effect of this legitimate regulation.
The court also pointed to dramatic technological changes since earlier similar laws were struck down in the 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, only 2 in 5 households had internet access, mostly through slow dial-up connections on desktop computers. Today, 95% of teens carry smartphones with constant internet access to massive libraries of content. Porn site Pornhub alone published over 150 years of new material in 2019. The court argued that earlier decisions “could not have conceived of these developments,” making age verification more necessary than judges could have imagined decades ago.
More importantly for future legislation, the court embraced an “ordinary and appropriate means” doctrine: When states have authority to govern an area, they may use traditional methods to exercise that power. Since age verification is common for alcohol and tobacco, tattoos and piercings, firearms, driver’s licenses and voting, the court held that it’s similarly appropriate for regulating minors’ access to sexual content.
The key takeaway: When states are trying to keep kids away from certain types of content that kids have no legal right to see anyway, requiring age verification is an ordinary and appropriate way to enforce that boundary.
Implications for other laws
This decision could resolve a fundamental enforcement problem in child privacy laws. Current laws like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act protect children only when companies have actual knowledge a user is under 13. But platforms routinely avoid this requirement by not asking users’ ages or letting them enter whatever age they want. Without age verification, there’s no actual knowledge and thus no privacy protections.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning changes this dynamic. Since the court emphasized that children lack the same constitutional rights as adults regarding certain protections, states may now be able to require age verification before data collection. California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code and similar state privacy laws would gain substantially more regulatory power under this framework.
Meanwhile, social media platforms could face more restrictions. Several states have tried to limit how social media platforms interact with minors. Florida recently banned kids under 14 from having social media accounts entirely, while other states have targeted specific features such as endless scrolling or push notifications designed to keep kids hooked.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning could protect laws that require age verification before kids can use certain platform features, such as direct messaging with strangers or livestreaming. However, laws that try to block kids from seeing general social media content would still face tough legal challenges, since that content is typically protected speech for everyone.
The decision also supports state laws regulating how minors interact with app stores and gaming platforms. Minors generally can’t enter binding contracts without parental consent in the physical world, so states could require the same online. Proposed legislation such as the App Store Accountability Act would require parental approval before kids can download apps or agree to terms of service. States have also considered restrictions on “loot boxes” – digital gambling-like features – and surprise in-app purchases that can result in massive charges to parents.
Since states already require an ID to buy lottery tickets or enter casinos, requiring age verification before kids can spend money on digital gambling mechanics follows the court’s logic.
What comes next?
But this decision doesn’t give states free rein to regulate the internet. The court’s reasoning applies to content that children have no legal right to access in the first place, specifically sexually explicit material. For most online content such as news, educational materials, general entertainment and political discussions, both adults and kids have constitutional rights to access.
Laws trying to age-gate this protected content would still likely face the strict scrutiny’s standard and be struck down, but what online content and experiences underage users are constitutionally entitled to is not settled. Many advocates worry that while the “obscene for minors” standard in this case appears legally narrow, states will try to expand it or use similar reasoning to classify LGBTQ+-related educational content, health resources or community support materials as inherently sexual and inappropriate for minors.
The court also emphasized that even under this more permissive standard, laws still have to be reasonable. Age verification requirements that are overly burdensome, sweep too broadly or create serious privacy problems could still be ruled unconstitutional. The court’s decision in this case gives state lawmakers much more room to effectively regulate how online platforms interact with children, but I believe successful laws will need to be carefully written.
For parents worried about their kids’ online safety, this could mean more tools and protections. For tech companies, it likely means more compliance requirements and age verification systems. And for the broader internet, it represents a significant shift toward treating online spaces more like physical ones, where people have long accepted that some doors require showing ID to enter.
Meg Leta Jones 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meg Leta Jones, Associate Professor of Technology Law & Policy, Georgetown University
The Supreme Court greenlights states’ efforts to block kids from online porn by requiring age verification.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 27, 2025, that will reshape how states protect children online. In a case assessing a Texas law requiring age verification to access porn sites, the court created a new legal path that makes it easier for states to craft laws regulating what kids see and do on the internet.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton that Texas’ law obligating porn sites to block access to underage users is constitutional. The law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages – for example by making users scan and upload their driver’s license – before granting access to content that is deemed obscene for minors but not adults.
The majority on the court rejected both the porn industry’s argument for strict scrutiny – the toughest legal test that requires the government to prove a law is absolutely necessary – and Texas’ argument for mere rational basis review, which requires only a rational connection between the law’s legitimate aims and its actions. Instead, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion established intermediate scrutiny, a middle ground that requires laws to serve important government interests without being overly burdensome, as the appropriate standard.
The court’s reasoning hinged on characterizing the law as only “incidentally” burdening adults’ First Amendment rights. Since minors have no constitutional right to access pornography, the state can require age verification to prevent that unprotected activity. Any burden on adults is, according to the ruling, merely a side effect of this legitimate regulation.
The court also pointed to dramatic technological changes since earlier similar laws were struck down in the 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, only 2 in 5 households had internet access, mostly through slow dial-up connections on desktop computers. Today, 95% of teens carry smartphones with constant internet access to massive libraries of content. Porn site Pornhub alone published over 150 years of new material in 2019. The court argued that earlier decisions “could not have conceived of these developments,” making age verification more necessary than judges could have imagined decades ago.
More importantly for future legislation, the court embraced an “ordinary and appropriate means” doctrine: When states have authority to govern an area, they may use traditional methods to exercise that power. Since age verification is common for alcohol and tobacco, tattoos and piercings, firearms, driver’s licenses and voting, the court held that it’s similarly appropriate for regulating minors’ access to sexual content.
The key takeaway: When states are trying to keep kids away from certain types of content that kids have no legal right to see anyway, requiring age verification is an ordinary and appropriate way to enforce that boundary.
Implications for other laws
This decision could resolve a fundamental enforcement problem in child privacy laws. Current laws like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act protect children only when companies have actual knowledge a user is under 13. But platforms routinely avoid this requirement by not asking users’ ages or letting them enter whatever age they want. Without age verification, there’s no actual knowledge and thus no privacy protections.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning changes this dynamic. Since the court emphasized that children lack the same constitutional rights as adults regarding certain protections, states may now be able to require age verification before data collection. California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code and similar state privacy laws would gain substantially more regulatory power under this framework.
Meanwhile, social media platforms could face more restrictions. Several states have tried to limit how social media platforms interact with minors. Florida recently banned kids under 14 from having social media accounts entirely, while other states have targeted specific features such as endless scrolling or push notifications designed to keep kids hooked.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning could protect laws that require age verification before kids can use certain platform features, such as direct messaging with strangers or livestreaming. However, laws that try to block kids from seeing general social media content would still face tough legal challenges, since that content is typically protected speech for everyone.
The decision also supports state laws regulating how minors interact with app stores and gaming platforms. Minors generally can’t enter binding contracts without parental consent in the physical world, so states could require the same online. Proposed legislation such as the App Store Accountability Act would require parental approval before kids can download apps or agree to terms of service. States have also considered restrictions on “loot boxes” – digital gambling-like features – and surprise in-app purchases that can result in massive charges to parents.
Since states already require an ID to buy lottery tickets or enter casinos, requiring age verification before kids can spend money on digital gambling mechanics follows the court’s logic.
What comes next?
But this decision doesn’t give states free rein to regulate the internet. The court’s reasoning applies to content that children have no legal right to access in the first place, specifically sexually explicit material. For most online content such as news, educational materials, general entertainment and political discussions, both adults and kids have constitutional rights to access.
Laws trying to age-gate this protected content would still likely face the strict scrutiny’s standard and be struck down, but what online content and experiences underage users are constitutionally entitled to is not settled. Many advocates worry that while the “obscene for minors” standard in this case appears legally narrow, states will try to expand it or use similar reasoning to classify LGBTQ+-related educational content, health resources or community support materials as inherently sexual and inappropriate for minors.
The court also emphasized that even under this more permissive standard, laws still have to be reasonable. Age verification requirements that are overly burdensome, sweep too broadly or create serious privacy problems could still be ruled unconstitutional. The court’s decision in this case gives state lawmakers much more room to effectively regulate how online platforms interact with children, but I believe successful laws will need to be carefully written.
For parents worried about their kids’ online safety, this could mean more tools and protections. For tech companies, it likely means more compliance requirements and age verification systems. And for the broader internet, it represents a significant shift toward treating online spaces more like physical ones, where people have long accepted that some doors require showing ID to enter.
Meg Leta Jones 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meg Leta Jones, Associate Professor of Technology Law & Policy, Georgetown University
The Supreme Court greenlights states’ efforts to block kids from online porn by requiring age verification.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 27, 2025, that will reshape how states protect children online. In a case assessing a Texas law requiring age verification to access porn sites, the court created a new legal path that makes it easier for states to craft laws regulating what kids see and do on the internet.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton that Texas’ law obligating porn sites to block access to underage users is constitutional. The law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages – for example by making users scan and upload their driver’s license – before granting access to content that is deemed obscene for minors but not adults.
The majority on the court rejected both the porn industry’s argument for strict scrutiny – the toughest legal test that requires the government to prove a law is absolutely necessary – and Texas’ argument for mere rational basis review, which requires only a rational connection between the law’s legitimate aims and its actions. Instead, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion established intermediate scrutiny, a middle ground that requires laws to serve important government interests without being overly burdensome, as the appropriate standard.
The court’s reasoning hinged on characterizing the law as only “incidentally” burdening adults’ First Amendment rights. Since minors have no constitutional right to access pornography, the state can require age verification to prevent that unprotected activity. Any burden on adults is, according to the ruling, merely a side effect of this legitimate regulation.
The court also pointed to dramatic technological changes since earlier similar laws were struck down in the 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, only 2 in 5 households had internet access, mostly through slow dial-up connections on desktop computers. Today, 95% of teens carry smartphones with constant internet access to massive libraries of content. Porn site Pornhub alone published over 150 years of new material in 2019. The court argued that earlier decisions “could not have conceived of these developments,” making age verification more necessary than judges could have imagined decades ago.
More importantly for future legislation, the court embraced an “ordinary and appropriate means” doctrine: When states have authority to govern an area, they may use traditional methods to exercise that power. Since age verification is common for alcohol and tobacco, tattoos and piercings, firearms, driver’s licenses and voting, the court held that it’s similarly appropriate for regulating minors’ access to sexual content.
The key takeaway: When states are trying to keep kids away from certain types of content that kids have no legal right to see anyway, requiring age verification is an ordinary and appropriate way to enforce that boundary.
Implications for other laws
This decision could resolve a fundamental enforcement problem in child privacy laws. Current laws like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act protect children only when companies have actual knowledge a user is under 13. But platforms routinely avoid this requirement by not asking users’ ages or letting them enter whatever age they want. Without age verification, there’s no actual knowledge and thus no privacy protections.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning changes this dynamic. Since the court emphasized that children lack the same constitutional rights as adults regarding certain protections, states may now be able to require age verification before data collection. California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code and similar state privacy laws would gain substantially more regulatory power under this framework.
Meanwhile, social media platforms could face more restrictions. Several states have tried to limit how social media platforms interact with minors. Florida recently banned kids under 14 from having social media accounts entirely, while other states have targeted specific features such as endless scrolling or push notifications designed to keep kids hooked.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning could protect laws that require age verification before kids can use certain platform features, such as direct messaging with strangers or livestreaming. However, laws that try to block kids from seeing general social media content would still face tough legal challenges, since that content is typically protected speech for everyone.
The decision also supports state laws regulating how minors interact with app stores and gaming platforms. Minors generally can’t enter binding contracts without parental consent in the physical world, so states could require the same online. Proposed legislation such as the App Store Accountability Act would require parental approval before kids can download apps or agree to terms of service. States have also considered restrictions on “loot boxes” – digital gambling-like features – and surprise in-app purchases that can result in massive charges to parents.
Since states already require an ID to buy lottery tickets or enter casinos, requiring age verification before kids can spend money on digital gambling mechanics follows the court’s logic.
What comes next?
But this decision doesn’t give states free rein to regulate the internet. The court’s reasoning applies to content that children have no legal right to access in the first place, specifically sexually explicit material. For most online content such as news, educational materials, general entertainment and political discussions, both adults and kids have constitutional rights to access.
Laws trying to age-gate this protected content would still likely face the strict scrutiny’s standard and be struck down, but what online content and experiences underage users are constitutionally entitled to is not settled. Many advocates worry that while the “obscene for minors” standard in this case appears legally narrow, states will try to expand it or use similar reasoning to classify LGBTQ+-related educational content, health resources or community support materials as inherently sexual and inappropriate for minors.
The court also emphasized that even under this more permissive standard, laws still have to be reasonable. Age verification requirements that are overly burdensome, sweep too broadly or create serious privacy problems could still be ruled unconstitutional. The court’s decision in this case gives state lawmakers much more room to effectively regulate how online platforms interact with children, but I believe successful laws will need to be carefully written.
For parents worried about their kids’ online safety, this could mean more tools and protections. For tech companies, it likely means more compliance requirements and age verification systems. And for the broader internet, it represents a significant shift toward treating online spaces more like physical ones, where people have long accepted that some doors require showing ID to enter.
Meg Leta Jones 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.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Meg Leta Jones, Associate Professor of Technology Law & Policy, Georgetown University
The Supreme Court greenlights states’ efforts to block kids from online porn by requiring age verification.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 27, 2025, that will reshape how states protect children online. In a case assessing a Texas law requiring age verification to access porn sites, the court created a new legal path that makes it easier for states to craft laws regulating what kids see and do on the internet.
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled in Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton that Texas’ law obligating porn sites to block access to underage users is constitutional. The law requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages – for example by making users scan and upload their driver’s license – before granting access to content that is deemed obscene for minors but not adults.
The majority on the court rejected both the porn industry’s argument for strict scrutiny – the toughest legal test that requires the government to prove a law is absolutely necessary – and Texas’ argument for mere rational basis review, which requires only a rational connection between the law’s legitimate aims and its actions. Instead, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion established intermediate scrutiny, a middle ground that requires laws to serve important government interests without being overly burdensome, as the appropriate standard.
The court’s reasoning hinged on characterizing the law as only “incidentally” burdening adults’ First Amendment rights. Since minors have no constitutional right to access pornography, the state can require age verification to prevent that unprotected activity. Any burden on adults is, according to the ruling, merely a side effect of this legitimate regulation.
The court also pointed to dramatic technological changes since earlier similar laws were struck down in the 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, only 2 in 5 households had internet access, mostly through slow dial-up connections on desktop computers. Today, 95% of teens carry smartphones with constant internet access to massive libraries of content. Porn site Pornhub alone published over 150 years of new material in 2019. The court argued that earlier decisions “could not have conceived of these developments,” making age verification more necessary than judges could have imagined decades ago.
More importantly for future legislation, the court embraced an “ordinary and appropriate means” doctrine: When states have authority to govern an area, they may use traditional methods to exercise that power. Since age verification is common for alcohol and tobacco, tattoos and piercings, firearms, driver’s licenses and voting, the court held that it’s similarly appropriate for regulating minors’ access to sexual content.
The key takeaway: When states are trying to keep kids away from certain types of content that kids have no legal right to see anyway, requiring age verification is an ordinary and appropriate way to enforce that boundary.
Implications for other laws
This decision could resolve a fundamental enforcement problem in child privacy laws. Current laws like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act protect children only when companies have actual knowledge a user is under 13. But platforms routinely avoid this requirement by not asking users’ ages or letting them enter whatever age they want. Without age verification, there’s no actual knowledge and thus no privacy protections.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning changes this dynamic. Since the court emphasized that children lack the same constitutional rights as adults regarding certain protections, states may now be able to require age verification before data collection. California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code and similar state privacy laws would gain substantially more regulatory power under this framework.
Meanwhile, social media platforms could face more restrictions. Several states have tried to limit how social media platforms interact with minors. Florida recently banned kids under 14 from having social media accounts entirely, while other states have targeted specific features such as endless scrolling or push notifications designed to keep kids hooked.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning could protect laws that require age verification before kids can use certain platform features, such as direct messaging with strangers or livestreaming. However, laws that try to block kids from seeing general social media content would still face tough legal challenges, since that content is typically protected speech for everyone.
The decision also supports state laws regulating how minors interact with app stores and gaming platforms. Minors generally can’t enter binding contracts without parental consent in the physical world, so states could require the same online. Proposed legislation such as the App Store Accountability Act would require parental approval before kids can download apps or agree to terms of service. States have also considered restrictions on “loot boxes” – digital gambling-like features – and surprise in-app purchases that can result in massive charges to parents.
Since states already require an ID to buy lottery tickets or enter casinos, requiring age verification before kids can spend money on digital gambling mechanics follows the court’s logic.
What comes next?
But this decision doesn’t give states free rein to regulate the internet. The court’s reasoning applies to content that children have no legal right to access in the first place, specifically sexually explicit material. For most online content such as news, educational materials, general entertainment and political discussions, both adults and kids have constitutional rights to access.
Laws trying to age-gate this protected content would still likely face the strict scrutiny’s standard and be struck down, but what online content and experiences underage users are constitutionally entitled to is not settled. Many advocates worry that while the “obscene for minors” standard in this case appears legally narrow, states will try to expand it or use similar reasoning to classify LGBTQ+-related educational content, health resources or community support materials as inherently sexual and inappropriate for minors.
The court also emphasized that even under this more permissive standard, laws still have to be reasonable. Age verification requirements that are overly burdensome, sweep too broadly or create serious privacy problems could still be ruled unconstitutional. The court’s decision in this case gives state lawmakers much more room to effectively regulate how online platforms interact with children, but I believe successful laws will need to be carefully written.
For parents worried about their kids’ online safety, this could mean more tools and protections. For tech companies, it likely means more compliance requirements and age verification systems. And for the broader internet, it represents a significant shift toward treating online spaces more like physical ones, where people have long accepted that some doors require showing ID to enter.
Meg Leta Jones 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.
