tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/university-of-adelaide-1119/articlesThe University of Adelaide2024-03-25T16:39:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265272024-03-25T16:39:00Z2024-03-25T16:39:00ZKate Middleton suit une « chimiothérapie préventive » contre le cancer. Qu’est-ce que cela veut dire ?<p>Catherine Middleton, dite Kate Middleton, princesse de Galles et épouse du prince William, héritier du Royaume-Uni, a mis un terme la semaine dernière aux spéculations concernant sa santé, en annonçant souffrir d’un cancer. Dans une vidéo de deux minutes destinées à remercier ses abonnés sur les réseaux sociaux pour leurs messages de soutien, la princesse a expliqué que « les analyses effectuées après l’opération [de chirurgie abdominale] ont révélé la présence d’un cancer. »</p>
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<p>« Mes conseillers médicaux m’ont recommandé d’entamer une chimiothérapie préventive, dont les premières étapes ont commencé. », ajoute-t-elle. Aucun autre détail n’a été communiqué concernant le traitement en cours.</p>
<p>Que signifie « chimiothérapie préventive » ? Dans quel contexte ce type de prise en charge peut-il s’avérer efficace ? Voici ce que nous pouvons en dire.</p>
<h2>Il ne s’agit pas d’un remède contre le cancer</h2>
<p>Il est désormais scientifiquement bien établi qu’adopter un certain mode de vie permet de <a href="https://www.e-cancer.fr/Comprendre-prevenir-depister/Reduire-les-risques-de-cancer">limiter le risque de survenue de cancers</a>. Faire du sport, adopter un régime alimentaire sain, se protéger du soleil… toutes ces actions ont fait montre de leurs bénéfices.</p>
<p>Dans des cas très spécifiques, l’administration de certains médicaments peut aussi être envisagée. C’est par exemple le cas du tamoxifène, qui bloque les récepteurs aux œstrogènes dont sont pourvues certaines cellules cancéreuses. Cette molécule peut être administrée aux patientes dont le risque de <a href="https://www.inserm.fr/actualite/cancer-du-sein-une-piste-pour-bloquer-la-formation-de-metastases/">cancer du sein</a> est très élevé.</p>
<p>Les travaux évaluent également l’intérêt de <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/research/aspirin-cancer-risk">l’aspirine pour les personnes à haut risque de développer un cancer du côlon</a> ou certains autres cancers.</p>
<p>Toutefois, dans le cas présent, il ne s’agit pas de ce type de thérapie.</p>
<h2>En quoi une chimiothérapie peut-elle être préventive ?</h2>
<p>Dans le contexte de la prise en charge d’un cancer déclaré, la chimiothérapie préventive se réfère à l’administration de médicaments anticancéreux après suppression des cellules cancéreuses. L’objectif est d’empêcher la maladie de se réinstaller.</p>
<p>Il faut savoir que lorsqu’un cancer est localisé, autrement dit limité à une région donnée du corps, et que l’imagerie (scanner) n’a pas mis en évidence de propagation à d’autres sites, il est possible de venir à bout de la maladie grâce à des traitements tels que la chirurgie ou la radiothérapie.</p>
<p>En revanche, si la maladie a été détectée après qu’elle se soit propagée à d’autres parties du corps, les cliniciens optent pour des traitements <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/metastatic-cancer">qui vont circuler dans l’ensemble de l’organisme</a>. C’est le cas des chimiothérapies (médicaments anticancer), des traitements hormonaux, ou des immunothérapies.</p>
<p>Les chimiothérapies peuvent également être utilisées via une autre approche, qui consiste à les administrer avant ou après une chirurgie ou une radiothérapie. L’idée est alors <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/adjuvant-therapy-5198903">d’empêcher le cancer initial de revenir</a>. En effet, si la chirurgie peut permettre d’éliminer l’intégralité des cellules cancéreuses, il peut aussi arriver dans certains cas que des cellules aient pu passer dans la circulation sanguine et ainsi s’installer dans d’autres endroits du corps.</p>
<p>Administrer une chimiothérapie avant ou après la chirurgie ou la radiothérapie permet de tuer ces cellules et de limiter le risque de retour du cancer.</p>
<p>L’efficacité de cette approche a été prouvée grâce à des essais cliniques. Le taux de rechute et la survie de patients ayant subi uniquement une chirurgie ont été comparés à ceux de patients ayant subi une chirurgie puis une chimiothérapie (lorsque la chimiothérapie est administrée administrée après l’acte chirurgical, on parle de <a href="https://www.e-cancer.fr/Patients-et-proches/Les-cancers/Cancer-du-sein/Chimiotherapie">chimiothérapie adjuvante</a>). Les résultats ont montré que dans le second cas les patients étaient moins sujets aux rechutes et survivaient plus longtemps.</p>
<h2>Quelle est l’efficacité de la chimiothérapie préventive ?</h2>
<p>L’efficacité de cette approche dépend du type de cancer et du type de chimiothérapie administrée.</p>
<p>Dans le cas du cancer du côlon, considéré comme à haut risque de récidive après une chirurgie (en raison soit de son étendue soit de cette dissémination aux ganglions lymphatiques), la première chimiothérapie testée <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564362/">avait augmenté le taux de survie à 5 ans de 15 %</a>. Dans le cas de l’administration de chimiothérapie plus intensive, les chances de survie à six ans approchent les 80 %.</p>
<p>On administre généralement ce genre de chimiothérapie pendant une durée de trois à six mois.</p>
<h2>Comment fonctionne la chimiothérapie ?</h2>
<p>Un grand nombre de médicaments utilisés en chimiothérapie empêche la division des cellules cancéreuses en s’attaquant à leur ADN (le matériel génétique situé dans leur noyau). Pour améliorer leur efficacité, les médicaments ciblant différents sites cellulaires peuvent être combinés.</p>
<p>La chimiothérapie n’est pas sélective, autrement dit elle ne s’attaque pas uniquement aux cellules cancéreuses : elle tue toutes les cellules qui se divisent.</p>
<p>Cependant, dans le cas du cancer, les tissus anormaux contiennent une proportion plus élevée de cellules en division que le reste du corps. Cela signifie qu’à chaque cycle de chimiothérapie une <a href="https://www.e-cancer.fr/Patients-et-proches/Se-faire-soigner/Traitements/Chimiotherapie/Qu-est-ce-que-la-chimiotherapie">proportion plus importante de cellules cancéreuses est éliminée</a> (en regard des dommages collatéraux subis par les cellules saines).</p>
<p>Les tissus normaux peuvent en outre « récupérer » entre deux cycles.</p>
<h2>Quels sont les effets secondaires des chimiothérapies ?</h2>
<p>Les <a href="https://www.e-cancer.fr/Patients-et-proches/Les-cancers/Cancer-de-l-endometre/Chimiotherapie/Les-effets-secondaires">effets secondaires des chimiothérapies</a> sont généralement réversibles, et se font sentir dans les parties du corps où les cellules se renouvellent le plus.</p>
<p>Les chimiothérapies perturbent par exemple la production des cellules sanguines. Or, lorsque la quantité de globules blancs est basse, le risque d’infection augmente. La mort des cellules qui compose la paroi de l’intestin se traduit quant à elle par des aphtes, des nausées, des vomissements et des troubles intestinaux. Certains médicaments parfois administrés pendant la chimiothérapie peuvent aussi s’attaquer à d’autres organes, provoquant par exemple un engourdissement des mains et des pieds.</p>
<p>Les chimiothérapies génèrent également des symptômes généralisés, tels que la <a href="https://www.e-cancer.fr/Patients-et-proches/Les-cancers/Cancer-de-l-endometre/Chimiotherapie/Les-effets-secondaires#toc-fatigue">fatigue</a>.</p>
<p>Étant donné que la chimiothérapie préventive est administrée après que toute trace de cancer a été éliminée par un acte de chirurgie locale, les patients peuvent généralement reprendre leurs activités dans les semaines qui suivent la fin du dernier cycle de traitement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Olver est financé par le Conseil australien de la recherche.</span></em></p>La princesse de Galles a annoncé souffrir d’un cancer dont la prise en charge nécessite l’administration d’une « chimiothérapie préventive ». De quoi s’agit-il ?Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2264902024-03-25T05:53:04Z2024-03-25T05:53:04ZAnnouncing Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis should have been simple. But the palace let it get out of hand<p>The British royal family is famous for its carefully curated media image. That’s why it was a surprise to see them lose control of the narrative in the wake of what we now know is a serious health crisis befalling Catherine, Princess of Wales (or Kate Middleton as she’s popularly known).</p>
<p>It is clear the nearly 1,000-year-old institution of the monarchy and its tradition of “<a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/03/14/kate-middleton-photo-pr-crisis/">never complain, never explain</a>” is being tested by social media and its power to spread rumours and misinformation. The palace’s public relations team has underestimated how difficult it is to manage relationships with social media audiences. Their reactive attempts to rein in speculation has turned Catherine’s health challenge into a PR disaster.</p>
<p>Social media, with its lax regulations and freer environment, offers a more
open forum for users to say whatever they like about the royals. It’s served as a hotbed for Catherine conspiracies, particularly on TikTok. These theories are as wild as they are ridiculous, from Catherine being a prisoner in the palace to her hiding in <a href="https://www.prdaily.com/kate-middleton-stanley-alabama-retail/">Taylor Swift’s London home</a>.</p>
<p>What should have been a simple announcement to a sympathetic public about a popular royal having cancer turned into a spider’s web of competing conspiracy theories across social media. How did it all go so terribly wrong?</p>
<h2>I’ve lost track, what happened?</h2>
<p>All was well with the Prince and Princess of Wales when they were filmed attending church on Christmas Day. As usual when royals are out in public, the scene was picture perfect with everyone dutifully smiling for the cameras in “<a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a46227698/kate-middleton-royal-blue-christmas-day-church-service-prince-william-kids/">co-ordinated</a>” outfits.</p>
<p>Two weeks later, Kensington Palace announced Catherine had undergone planned abdominal surgery, with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/princess-kate-hospitalized-after-planned-abdominal-surgery-palace/story?id=106441561">palace sources</a> telling media the surgery had been “successful” and she would need two weeks to recover. </p>
<p>On January 29, the palace announced Catherine had returned home to recuperate. <a href="https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a46569739/king-charles-discharged-from-hospital/">Unlike King Charles</a> when he released news of his cancer diagnosis on February 5, Catherine was not photographed leaving hospital. This was the first PR misstep. She had appeared outside hospital soon after giving birth to her three children, but this time she remained uncharacteristically out of the public eye.</p>
<p>Almost a month later, when Prince William <a href="https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/prince-william-pulls-memorial-godfather-211406977.html?amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG6tOzuXsqZXP6G2nLLd-lnWzZhYKHVJ5TJ-w5XCCfgMjerRrR8v1R8unjtcoQTbvPDsVt3mtTcZ_g0os6zwOuEFfMKCh0kfEExvz-dB2FG0uqcy6-GoryjvG99TEhMli66hNZLjLENmMhq1mwoV7GmM0AYezMDsZtZVtONH9C1b&guccounter=2">unexpectedly withdrew</a> from his godfather’s memorial citing “personal reasons”, social media users started asking “Where is Princess Kate?”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kate-middleton-is-having-preventive-chemotherapy-for-cancer-what-does-this-mean-226461">Kate Middleton is having 'preventive chemotherapy' for cancer. What does this mean?</a>
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<p>Used to a steady stream of content about the royal family, the public were unsurprisingly questioning if there was more to Catherine’s abdominal surgery than they were being told.</p>
<p>In a rare reactive move, the palace tried to quell questions about Catherine’s whereabouts by releasing a <a href="https://people.com/palace-responds-kate-middleton-conspiracy-theories-online-surgery-recovery-rare-statement-8602191">statement</a> reiterating that she would not be returning to public duties until Easter. </p>
<p>On March 4, US outlet <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2024/03/04/kate-middleton-seen-spotted-public-first-time-mystery-hospitalization/">TMZ published</a> a paparazzi photo of Catherine driving with her mother. Social media audiences asked if it really was Catherine.</p>
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<p>Over the next week, conspiracy theories about Catherine’s absence reached frenzied levels. To show everything was fine, Kensington Palace released a <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1766750995445387393?s=20">Mother’s Day photo</a> of Catherine and her children on their social media accounts. Social media users spotted apparently edited flaws and global news agencies announced “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kate-princess-photo-surgery-ca91acf667c87c6c70a7838347d6d4fb">kill orders</a>”, saying the image had been manipulated. The next day, Catherine <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1767135566645092616">apologised</a> on social media for editing the photo.</p>
<p>Although royals have been <a href="https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a60191061/royal-photoshop-history/">editing their pictures</a> for centuries, it seems particularly digitally naive of the palace’s PR team to release such an obviously edited image into an already cynical social media environment, creating fodder for more conspiracy theories. </p>
<p>Mainstream news outlets then joined social media users in asking questions about Catherine’s absence. Although this media attention did not legitimise wild conspiracies, in some ways it fuelled them. </p>
<p>Days later, TMZ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erWJNmbrECs">published footage</a> of Catherine and William shopping. At this point in the media chaos, many social media users claimed it was fake.</p>
<p>This intense public speculation finally ended on March 23, when Catherine <a href="https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1771235267837321694?s=20">released a video</a> explaining her extended absence after abdominal surgery was caused by the surgeons discovering cancer.</p>
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<p>During a crisis, the public crave transparency, authenticity, honesty and reassurance. These elements were missing in the royal PR team’s carefully worded statements made directly to mainstream media along with reactive, overly curated social media posts.</p>
<p>By providing scant details, the palace seemed to believe they could control public perception. But public image is increasingly difficult to control.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-kate-speculation-about-the-missing-princess-is-proof-the-palaces-media-playbook-needs-a-re-write-225562">Where’s Kate? Speculation about the 'missing' princess is proof the Palace’s media playbook needs a re-write</a>
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<h2>The double-edged sword of social media</h2>
<p>After Princess Diana’s death in a paparazzi-chase car accident, privacy laws and <a href="https://time.com/4914324/princess-diana-anniversary-paparazzi-tabloid-media/">media regulations</a> forbade the most invasive breaches of the royal family’s privacy, particularly for her children, princes William and Harry. However, tabloid appetite for uncontrolled access soon returned once the princes became adults. </p>
<p>Recently, Harry and his wife Meghan have been involved in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/prince-harry-his-many-lawsuits-against-press-2023-12-15/">several lawsuits</a> against media companies over breaches of privacy, including phone hacking.</p>
<p>The rise of social media has typically been viewed as a tool that gives royals more control over their image through the curation of their own personal content. Previously, the fact Catherine was the one <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kate-middleton-cutest-family-photos-2018-5">taking photos</a> of her children was seen as a sign of authenticity and being down to earth (as much as a princess could be). </p>
<p>Yet, social media is both a blessing and a curse for the management of public reputations. </p>
<p>The perpetuation of contested facts and theories on social media in the wake of Princess Catherine’s unexplained absence shows how difficult it is to curate a controlled image using social media. Lack of verified information in mainstream media helps fuel speculative flames.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2024/03/22/where-the-palace-lost-the-plot-and-what-we-can-learn-about-pr-and-empathy-kategate">PR experts</a> believe it is understandable and appropriate for Catherine and her family to have privacy during this time, more timely, direct and honest communication would have gone a long way
to prevent relentless gossip. </p>
<p>Once rumours and conspiracies gained momentum, the palace perhaps thought the less information provided, the better. However, silence during a crisis just fuels more speculation because the lack of information makes it look like there is something to hide. </p>
<p>Catherine’s personal video announcing her cancer diagnosis helped end the social media frenzy. This shows a simple, clear statement posted by Kensington Palace to social media weeks ago would likely have avoided the PR disaster and provided Catherine the privacy she so clearly needs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-kate-middleton-photo-scandal-when-does-editing-become-manipulation-225647">The Kate Middleton photo scandal: When does editing become manipulation?</a>
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<p>The palace is now <a href="https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/2986509/kate-middleton-cancer-pr-disaster/">being criticised</a> for complicating a situation that was relatively simple in retrospect. Many social media users are also upset Catherine took public blame for the photoshopping incident.</p>
<p>Any organisation that deals with the media to maintain positive reputations, including the British monarchy, has no choice but to adapt to all kinds of media, including social media. The long-time practice of keeping calm and carrying on amid controversy and the 24-hour gossip cycle doesn’t work in the era of TikTok, X and YouTube. </p>
<p>In the absence of trusted information, social media will do what it does best: take mostly innocuous online chatter and amplify it until it goes viral.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What should have been a simple announcement to a sympathetic public turned into a spider’s web of conspiracy theories across social media. How did it all go so terribly wrong?Victoria Fielding, Lecturer, University of AdelaideSaira Ali, Senior Lecturer in Media, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2263152024-03-25T01:28:21Z2024-03-25T01:28:21ZCelebrities, influencers, loopholes: online gambling advertising faces an uncertain future in Australia<p>Sports betting is most popular among <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-reports/gambling-activity-australia">Australian young people</a> than any other age group, and this trend has only increased over the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-024-10282-x">past 15 years</a>.</p>
<p>Young males, in particular, are the group most likely to participate in sports betting and face a higher risk of developing gambling issues. </p>
<p>Environmental factors, such as advertising, can make young people more likely to bet on sports. So regulation is essential if we want to prevent young people from gambling-related harm.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/premier-leagues-front-of-shirt-gambling-ad-ban-is-a-flawed-approach-australia-should-learn-from-it-204105">Premier League’s front-of-shirt gambling ad ban is a flawed approach. Australia should learn from it</a>
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<h2>Advertising, promotions and marketing techniques</h2>
<p>Advertising serves <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377601300110">two different purposes</a>. There is the advertising that companies use to set their products apart from their competitors (known as competitive advertising). There is also the advertising companies use to make people more interested in a product (known as primary demand advertising).</p>
<p>Sports betting companies use competitive advertising by promoting their products’ unique features, such as chat features and live match updates, or by offering promotions, such as bonus bets and deposit matches. This type of advertising is most likely to appeal to people who are already involved in sports betting. They are looking for more affordable ways to bet, ways to maximise their winnings, and better features. </p>
<p>Promotions are an effective way to make people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.7.2018.99">bet more</a>. They may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-023-01173-0">more likely</a> to influence people who gamble to risky levels. Because of this, Australia has taken steps to <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/communities-and-vulnerable-people-programs-services-gambling/gambling-reforms">ban some of these promotions</a>, including sign-up and refer-a-friend offers.</p>
<p>Sports betting companies use a variety of marketing strategies to generate interest in sports betting. For example, they often advertise during live sports broadcasts to generate interest in sports gambling. </p>
<p>This serves two purposes: it presents sports betting as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2017.1353082">normal part</a> of being a sports fan and aligns sports betting with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2021.1937274">positive values</a> people associate with sports, such as fairness, success and competence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Young males, in particular, are the group most likely to participate in sports betting.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The impact of celebrities and influencers</h2>
<p>Sports betting companies often feature <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae012">celebrities and athletes</a> in their advertising. This can enhance the appeal of betting, as people transfer their favourable opinions of celebrities and athletes to sports betting. </p>
<p>However, companies can use social media influencers to do this much more effectively. This is because influencers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-08-2021-0200">engage more</a> with their followers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2019.1634898">appear more relatable</a> than more well-known celebrities.</p>
<p>Companies can use influencers in various ways to promote sports betting. One approach is to pay influencers to appear in advertising campaigns, known as <a href="https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/endorsement-in-advertising">influencer endorsements</a>. </p>
<p>Another approach is <a href="https://www.goodbadmarketing.com/aiza/sponsored-content-disclosure-australia/">sponsored content</a>, where a company pays an influencer to promote its brand or product in its own content. For example, an influencer might create a video about sports betting and mention they bet with a specific betting company.</p>
<p><a href="https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/content-marketing/">Content advertising</a> has become increasingly popular in the digital age as people consume more content on a daily basis. </p>
<p>Companies use this strategy by creating content that appeals to their target audience without directly advertising their products. A sports betting company might create a website that shares sports-related news, which would appeal to their target audience of sports fans. This advertising strategy cultivates brand awareness and fosters customer loyalty.</p>
<p>In essence, sports betting advertising goes beyond what people see during commercial breaks. Like all advertising, it appears wherever content is generated and wherever a brand’s target audience is expected to engage with it.</p>
<h2>The complexities of a potential ban</h2>
<p>Last year’s <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Social_Policy_and_Legal_Affairs/Onlinegamblingimpacts/Report/Chapter_5_-_Gambling_advertising">parliamentary inquiry</a> into online gambling outlines recommendations for a gradual ban of online gambling advertising by 2026. Whether these recommendations are implemented remains to be seen, but it is important to recognise that advertising is now more complex and global than ever before. </p>
<p>How will this recommended ban account for influencer advertising, content advertising, or subtle references to odds on websites that provide scores and live updates of sports events?</p>
<p>How gambling advertising is defined will likely become a crucial issue. In 2018, Italy <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c8f3839f-5841-4c90-b768-35147f686ca0">banned</a> all direct advertising for gambling. To <a href="https://pagellapolitica.it/articoli/divieto-pubblicita-scommesse">circumvent this ban</a>, betting companies established websites solely focused on sharing sports-related news content using the same name as their betting brand. This allowed them to openly advertise their betting brand during live sporting events.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-a-strong-hand-to-tackle-gambling-harm-will-it-go-all-in-or-fold-208749">Australia has a strong hand to tackle gambling harm. Will it go all in or fold?</a>
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<h2>A holistic approach</h2>
<p>A complete ban on gambling advertising may soon be implemented in Australia, but it is crucial to consider what exactly defines gambling advertising.</p>
<p>It’s important to involve marketers in the process of implementing an advertising ban because they have the most up-to-date knowledge of current advertising trends; policymakers and researchers might not know about them until years later. </p>
<p>This is a critical step towards preventing sports betting companies from potentially exploiting regulatory loopholes. </p>
<p>A future advertising ban must consider advances in social media marketing strategies, all of which are especially significant for young people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gianluca Di Censo receives funding from the Office of Responsible Gambling. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Delfabbro receives funding from state and federal government agencies for research.</span></em></p>A 2023 federal government inquiry recommended a ban on gambling advertising. What needs to happen should a ban be implemented?Gianluca Di Censo, PhD Candidate, University of AdelaidePaul Delfabbro, Professor, School of Psychology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2264872024-03-24T22:25:17Z2024-03-24T22:25:17Z¿Qué es la quimioterapia preventiva a la que se está sometiendo la princesa de Gales?<p>Muchos se preguntan qué es la quimioterapia preventiva, el tratamiento al que se está sometiendo Kate Middleton, la princesa de Gales, y hasta qué punto este método puede ser eficaz en la lucha contra el cáncer. Esto es lo que sabemos sobre esta terapia. </p>
<p>Para <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-us/how-we-help/prevention">prevenir el desarrollo del cáncer</a>, se recomiendan cambios en el estilo de vida, como la dieta, el ejercicio y la protección solar. Pero además se puede recurrir al tamoxifeno, un fármaco de terapia hormonal, para intentar minimizar el riesgo en algunas pacientes con <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/breast-cancer/in-depth/breast-cancer/art-20045353">altas posibilidades de desarrollar un cáncer de mama</a>. </p>
<p>Una vez tratado el cáncer, hablamos de prevención para referirnos a la administración de quimioterapia posterior a la extirpación del tumor, destinada a evitar su reaparición. </p>
<h2>¿Quimioterapia, radioterapia o cirugía?</h2>
<p>Si un cáncer está localizado (limitado a una parte determinada del cuerpo) y no hay indicios en las exploraciones de que se haya extendido a otras zonas, los tratamientos locales como la cirugía o la radioterapia pueden eliminar el tumor. </p>
<p>Sin embargo, si el cáncer se detecta cuando ya se ha extendido a otras partes del cuerpo en el momento del diagnóstico, los médicos utilizan tratamientos como la quimioterapia (medicamentos contra el cáncer), las hormonas o la inmunoterapia, que circulan <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/metastatic-cancer">por todo el cuerpo</a>. </p>
<p>Otro posible uso de la quimioterapia es añadirla antes o después de la cirugía o de la radioterapia para evitar que el cáncer primario <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/adjuvant-therapy-5198903">reaparezca</a>. Se recurre a ella porque, si bien la cirugía puede haber curado el cáncer, es posible que algunas células microscópicas indetectables se hayan extendido ya por el torrente sanguíneo a lugares distantes. </p>
<p>Y esto hará que el cáncer reaparezca meses o años después a no ser que el tratamiento con quimioterapia, administrado antes o después de la cirugía local o la radioterapia, logre destruir esas células.</p>
<p>Si no podemos detectar esas células, ¿cómo podemos saber si es eficaz administrar quimioterapia adicional para prevenir la recidiva? Lo sabemos por los ensayos clínicos. Los investigadores han comparado pacientes sometidos únicamente a cirugía con otros a los que se les administró quimioterapia adicional (a menudo denominada adyuvante). La terapia adicional consiguió que los pacientes no recayeran y sobrevivieran más tiempo. </p>
<h2>¿Cuál es la eficacia de la terapia preventiva?</h2>
<p>La eficacia de la terapia preventiva depende del tipo de cáncer y del tipo de quimioterapia. </p>
<p>Consideremos el ejemplo común del cáncer de intestino, que tiene un alto riesgo de reaparecer tras la cirugía debido a su tamaño o a su diseminación a los ganglios linfáticos locales. La <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564362/">primera quimioterapia probada</a> mejoró la supervivencia en un 15 %. Con una quimioterapia más intensa, la probabilidad de sobrevivir seis años se acerca al 80 %. </p>
<p>La quimioterapia preventiva suele administrarse entre tres y seis meses. </p>
<h2>¿Cómo actúa la quimioterapia?</h2>
<p>Muchos de los fármacos quimioterápicos detienen la división de las células cancerosas al alterar el ADN (material genético) situado en el núcleo de las células. Para mejorar su eficacia, se combinan diferentes fármacos. </p>
<p>La quimioterapia no es selectiva para las células cancerosas: mata cualquier célula en división. Sin embargo, los cánceres están formados por una mayor proporción de células en división que las células normales del cuerpo. Y con cada ciclo de quimioterapia se mata una mayor proporción de tumor. Las células normales pueden recuperarse entre un ciclo y el siguiente, que suelen administrarse con un separación de tres a cuatro semanas.</p>
<h2>¿Cuáles son los efectos secundarios?</h2>
<p>Los efectos secundarios de la quimioterapia suelen ser reversibles y se observan en partes del cuerpo donde normalmente hay un alto recambio celular. La producción de células sanguíneas, por ejemplo, se interrumpe temporalmente. Y como el recuento de glóbulos blancos es bajo, aumenta el riesgo de infección. </p>
<p>Simultáneamente, la muerte celular en el revestimiento del intestino provoca úlceras bucales, náuseas y vómitos y trastornos intestinales. Además, ciertos fármacos que a veces se administran durante la quimioterapia pueden atacar otros órganos, causando, entre otros síntomas, entumecimiento en manos y pies o <a href="https://www.cancervic.org.au/cancer-information/treatments/treatments-types/chemotherapy/side_effects_of_chemotherapy.html">fatiga</a>. </p>
<p>Dado que la quimioterapia preventiva administrada después de la cirugía comienza cuando no hay indicios de que quede cáncer tras la cirugía local, los pacientes suelen poder reanudar sus actividades normales a las pocas semanas de finalizar los ciclos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Olver no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.</span></em></p>Esto es lo que sabemos sobre el tratamiento destinado a atajar el cáncer que padece Kate Middleton, la princesa de Gales.Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2264612024-03-23T23:30:03Z2024-03-23T23:30:03ZKate Middleton is having ‘preventive chemotherapy’ for cancer. What does this mean?<p>Catherine, Princess of Wales, is undergoing treatment for cancer. In a video thanking followers for their messages of support after her major abdominal surgery, the Princess of Wales explained, “tests after the operation found cancer had been present.” </p>
<p>“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” she said in the two-minute video. </p>
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<p>No further details have been released about the Princess of Wales’ treatment.</p>
<p>But many have been asking what preventive chemotherapy is and how effective it can be. Here’s what we know about this type of treatment. </p>
<h2>It’s not the same as preventing cancer</h2>
<p>To <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-us/how-we-help/prevention">prevent cancer developing</a>, lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise and sun protection are <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-us/how-we-help/prevention">recommended</a>. </p>
<p>Tamoxifen, a hormone therapy drug can be used to reduce the risk of cancer for some patients at <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/breast-cancer/in-depth/breast-cancer/art-20045353">high risk of breast cancer</a>. </p>
<p>Aspirin <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/research/aspirin-cancer-risk">can also be used</a> for those at high risk of bowel and other cancers. </p>
<h2>How can chemotherapy be used as preventive therapy?</h2>
<p>In terms of treating cancer, prevention refers to giving chemotherapy after the cancer has been removed, to prevent the cancer from returning. </p>
<p>If a cancer is localised (limited to a certain part of the body) with no evidence on scans of it spreading to distant sites, local treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy can remove all of the cancer. </p>
<p>If, however, cancer is first detected after it has spread to distant parts of the body at diagnosis, clinicians use treatments such as chemotherapy (anti-cancer drugs), hormones or immunotherapy, which circulate <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/metastatic-cancer">around the body</a> . </p>
<p>The other use for chemotherapy is to add it before or after surgery or radiotherapy, to prevent the primary cancer <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/adjuvant-therapy-5198903">coming back</a>. The surgery may have cured the cancer. However, in some cases, undetectable microscopic cells may have spread into the bloodstream to distant sites. This will result in the cancer returning, months or years later. </p>
<p>With some cancers, treatment with chemotherapy, given before or after the local surgery or radiotherapy, can kill those cells and prevent the cancer coming back.</p>
<p>If we can’t see these cells, how do we know that giving additional chemotherapy to prevent recurrence is effective? We’ve learnt this from clinical trials. Researchers have compared patients who had surgery only with those whose surgery was followed by additional (or often called adjuvant) chemotherapy. The additional therapy resulted in patients not relapsing and surviving longer. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/princess-of-wales-and-king-charles-one-in-two-people-develop-cancer-during-their-lives-the-diseases-and-treatments-explained-226456">Princess of Wales and King Charles: one in two people develop cancer during their lives – the diseases and treatments explained</a>
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<h2>How effective is preventive therapy?</h2>
<p>The effectiveness of preventive therapy depends on the type of cancer and the type of chemotherapy. </p>
<p>Let’s consider the common example of bowel cancer, which is at high risk of returning after surgery because of its size or spread to local lymph glands. The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564362/">first chemotherapy tested</a> improved survival by 15%. With more intense chemotherapy, the chance of surviving six years is approaching 80%. </p>
<p>Preventive chemotherapy is usually given for three to six months. </p>
<h2>How does chemotherapy work?</h2>
<p>Many of the chemotherapy drugs stop cancer cells dividing by disrupting the DNA (genetic material) in the centre of the cells. To improve efficacy, drugs which work at different sites in the cell are given in combinations. </p>
<p>Chemotherapy is not selective for cancer cells. It kills any dividing cells.</p>
<p>But cancers consist of a higher proportion of dividing cells than the normal body cells. A <a href="https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/breast-cancer/treatment/chemotherapy/how-does-chemotherapy-work#:%7E:text=Chemotherapy%20works%20by%20killing%20cells%20that%20are%20rapidly,cells%20can%20repair%20the%20damage%20and%20can%20recover.">greater proportion of the cancer is killed</a> with each course of chemotherapy.</p>
<p>Normal cells can recover between courses, which are usually given three to four weeks apart.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-chemotherapy-and-how-does-it-work-76403">Explainer: what is chemotherapy and how does it work?</a>
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<h2>What are the side effects?</h2>
<p>The side effects of chemotherapy are usually reversible and are seen in parts of the body where there is normally a high turnover of cells. </p>
<p>The production of blood cells, for example, is temporarily disrupted. When your white blood cell count is low, there is an increased risk of infection. </p>
<p>Cell death in the lining of the gut leads to mouth ulcers, nausea and vomiting and bowel disturbance. </p>
<p>Certain drugs sometimes given during chemotherapy can attack other organs, such as causing numbness in the hands and feet. </p>
<p>There are also generalised symptoms such as <a href="https://www.cancervic.org.au/cancer-information/treatments/treatments-types/chemotherapy/side_effects_of_chemotherapy.html">fatigue</a>. </p>
<p>Given that preventive chemotherapy given after surgery starts when there is no evidence of any cancer remaining after local surgery, patients can usually resume normal activities within weeks of completing the courses of chemotherapy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Olver receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Here’s what we know about this type of treatment.Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2228042024-03-18T19:21:49Z2024-03-18T19:21:49Z‘I wanted to stop … but I also wanted to pull’. 1 in 50 people have trichotillomania – a new memoir unpacks compulsive hair-pulling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581450/original/file-20240312-22-juqvok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3994%2C3982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Towards the end of Adele Dumont’s affecting memoir <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-pulling-9781922585912">The Pulling</a>, she thanks the reader, her “stranger”, for the opportunity to unburden herself of her compulsion of 17 years (and since the age of 17): to pull out strands of her hair, regularly and frequently. As a result, a large section of her scalp would eventually lay bare, yet cleverly concealed from others. </p>
<p>Hair-pulling, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/pulling-out-your-hair-in-frustration-what-you-need-to-know-about-trichotillomania-45228">trichotillomania</a>, does not come up much in public conversation. While terms such as ADHD, OCD or PTSD have almost passed into common parlance, hair-pulling is not well known, despite, as the author claims, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9063575/.">affecting 2% of the population</a> – an incidence greater than that of <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/schizophrenia">schizophrenia (0.32%)</a> or <a href="https://library.neura.edu.au/bipolar-disorder/epidemiology-bipolar-disorder/prevalence-epidemiology-bipolar-disorder/worldwide-4/index.html">bipolar disorder</a> (around 1% over a lifetime). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pulling-out-your-hair-in-frustration-what-you-need-to-know-about-trichotillomania-45228">Pulling out your hair in frustration? What you need to know about trichotillomania</a>
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<p>But the secrecy and shame that surrounds trichotillomania mean it is very much a hidden disorder, poorly understood by the general population. <em>Pull your hair out – why don’t you just stop?</em> </p>
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<p><em>Review: The Pulling – Adele Dumont (Scribe)</em></p>
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<p>Dumont’s memoir is structured around themes (“inside an episode”, “shame”, “other people”) and starts with an account of her childhood and family upbringing. The quality of the writing and the tender voice quickly drew me into the mystery of this baffling disorder. </p>
<p>Reading it, I was alert for evidence of trauma or abuse, anything that might explain Dumont’s “eventual unravelling”. There are very few clues from childhood. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581470/original/file-20240313-18-g2eevp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Adele Dumont’s affecting memoir investigates her trichotillomania, or compulsive hair-pulling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scribe</span></span>
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<h2>Sensing something amiss</h2>
<p>Her parents met while fruit-picking in far-north Queensland; her father was a backpacker from France. Together they spent 15 years moving between orchards and later, with their two daughters, from farm to farm across rural Australia. The family lived in tents and later a caravan, and the young Adele remembers a solitary childhood: lived in nature, but never far from her parents. </p>
<p>The family moved to the outskirts of Sydney for the girls to attend school. In the holidays or on weekends, the young Adele remembers her father lifting her gently from sleep to her bed in the Kombi, waking up in orchards. </p>
<p>Her parents stayed together, despite some “unease in the marriage”. She adored her self-taught French bookworm father, his devotion to her and younger sister (“E”), his capacity to accept others “as they were”. Dumont presents her mother as a psychologically complex character, a little scary. “Mama” was at pains to provide materially for her daughters, but not present in a way that enabled them to relax in their own home.</p>
<p>Mama was devoted to her daughters and they led a frugal (“elemental”) life where nothing was ever wasted. Dumont uses the example of her mother’s tendency to hoard, and her own tendency to hoard secrets, to explain her eventual writing of “this silence and all this story” — lest it be wasted. </p>
<p>Dumont writes of her mother’s “laughter without any happiness in it”. She can’t remember her mother “ever being calm”. Perhaps her mother’s family history might account for this: she had an alcoholic brother who died young and a father diagnosed with PTSD – Dumont recalls him as “emotionally detached and damaged”. </p>
<p>The watchful young Adele falls into a pattern of reasoning that is common to hyperaware and highly empathic children who sense something amiss in the people they love. She feels responsible for, in this case, her mother’s suffering. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-reading-help-heal-us-and-process-our-emotions-or-is-that-just-a-story-we-tell-ourselves-197789">Can reading help heal us and process our emotions – or is that just a story we tell ourselves?</a>
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<h2>Compensating by being ‘exceptional’</h2>
<p>One possible clue to the origins of the hair-pulling habit is that the young Adele resented comparison with her mother (her thick hair or full cheeks, for example) but loved being noticed for being “just like Papa” for her habit of playing with her hair while reading. This innocuous-seeming gesture was, in Dumont’s words “a convenient cover for what I was really doing”. </p>
<p>Another clue is Dumont’s tendency towards perfectionism and savage self-criticism. Like so many young women who, sadly, are not comfortable about their appearance, Dumont developed “good girl” behaviours and excelled at school, writing and languages. (“To compensate for this ugliness I needed to be exceptional – exceptionally good, exceptionally polite, exceptionally kind.”) She became a teacher of English and taught asylum-seekers in detention, the subject of her first book. </p>
<p>Dumont claims her secret was too “nebulous” to even attempt putting into words. But she manages to powerfully and elegantly deconstruct the experience of a hair-pulling episode, at the same time cautioning her reader (“you”) that this might be painful to bear. </p>
<p>She describes the urge to go to the place “where only [she] could go”, the desire to pull, the trance-like state it engendered. In her transportation, she finds something “unknowable”, a kind of clarity and “grace”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rather than different thoughts all jostling for attention, I am able to discern one strand of thought, which reveals itself as cleanly as a fishbone lifted from its surrounding flesh. This strand of thought distinguishes itself not only in its purity but in its fluidity; roaming and cartwheeling and leaping like a creature released.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dumont manages very effectively to evoke the full, sensory, “surreal” experience of hair-pulling for her. As a reader, I felt I could enter her world and (almost) comprehend the payoffs of the behaviour. I understood these as something to do with being in flow and claiming an intimate, secret space of oneness with self. There is some enlightenment, yet enough mystery to keep reading. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pulling-out-your-hair-in-frustration-what-you-need-to-know-about-trichotillomania-45228">Pulling out your hair in frustration? What you need to know about trichotillomania</a>
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<h2>Defining compulsions</h2>
<p>There are no simple answers to the problem of trichotillomania: “I wanted to stop pulling, but I also wanted to pull. And one of these desires was always stronger than the other.”</p>
<p>The ambivalence Dumont reveals about her hair-pulling is also reflected in the “irreconcilable” chasm she feels between herself and others, and between her known self and the self revealed to others. It also explains her resistance to therapy. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581237/original/file-20240312-22-3mx1s3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1173&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>It took Dumont 11 years to seek professional help for a disorder that started as a harmless habit and morphed into a significant compulsion that threatened relationships, work, quality of life and her future. Such resistance might resonate with anyone trying to dispense of an unwelcome habit. </p>
<p>There is the sense of not wanting to let go of something that is in some way defining, as Dumont puts it: “Nobody – no professor or psychiatrist – has the power to eradicate my compulsions. They are mine to keep.” </p>
<p>There is also, fortunately for the reader empathising strongly with Dumont’s conflict and pain, a healthy dose of self-dignity at stake (no doubt also familiar to hesitant help-seekers). “Asking someone for help was a form of cheating.”</p>
<p>But the biggest reason for resisting help or even disclosing the habit to those close to her – not even her parents or sister knew – was shame. Shame and being “ashamed at [her] own shame” drew her into a defensive cycle of approaching/resisting help and disclosure. The tension and effort of having to keep the habit secret for fear of being discovered took a toll Dumont admits is “so high it can shape one’s destiny”. </p>
<p>Dumont’s silent plea for the psychologist to whom she would eventually confide could also be “you” – her reader, her stranger. She writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I need her to be tender and patient and sensitive but not to pity me. Professional but not clinical. I need her to understand the gravity of my situation, but not to try to amend it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a plea for acceptance and a strong aversion to glib solutions. </p>
<p>There is a sharply intellectual quality to this memoir, written by a deeply reflective young woman. By the last page of the memoir, I felt I was indeed Dumont’s intended reader, her stranger, her “you”. I returned her appreciation, grateful for the opportunity to walk a little in her shoes, painful though it was at times – and for her honesty, courage and intimacy. </p>
<p>Dumont’s testimony is written with perceptive insight, both into herself and those around her. She is a gifted and compassionate linguist and writer. </p>
<p>Despite the very specific nature of the subject, the memoir speaks to a broad readership: to anyone who has felt the isolation of difference, whether “being” different or simply feeling it. Hers is at once a brave appeal to readers for understanding and acceptance, and a brave read.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Turner Goldsmith 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.</span></em></p>Adele Dumont’s affecting memoir, The Pulling, draws the reader into the secrecy, shame and impulses behind trichotilllomania, or compulsive hair-pulling.Jane Turner Goldsmith, PhD candidate, Creative Writing, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254582024-03-18T02:48:35Z2024-03-18T02:48:35ZVanity, money and ‘angry masculine impastos’: Liam Pieper’s Appreciation is a mordant tale of a tragically flawed artist<p>A nuanced exploration of the value and personal cost of art-making runs through Melbourne writer Liam Pieper’s jaunty new satirical novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198119002-appreciation">Appreciation</a>.</p>
<p>Set in the near present, the novel is about Oli – a gay painter from the country who has learned to capitalise on this fact in public appearances – while also reflecting on “toxic masculinity” in a vague, rote-learned way. Oli paints over-sized, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat">Basquiat</a>-inspired paintings, with “angry masculine impastos” and “rough impressionist wheatfields”. They have names in an Aussie battler idiom: “Daffo”, or “Thresher”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Appreciation – Liam Pieper (Penguin)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the outer orbit of Oli’s universe lurks a flock of art “appreciators”. They are portrayed by Pieper as more interested in the long-term appreciating value of the works they’re bidding on than their artistic merits.</p>
<p>The struggle for artistic survival is the main conundrum at the heart of this mordant romp. Artists compete for a modest elite of buyers who in turn, despite their tastes (or lack of them), hold the keys to the wealth and enduring relevance of a select few (Oli being one of them).</p>
<p>Appreciation is Pieper’s fourth novel, (he has also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/12/liam-pieper-celebrity-ghost-writer-author-bestselling-book">ghostwritten bestsellers</a>). His first, The Toymaker, a work of historical fiction, won the <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-toymaker-9780143784623">Christina Stead fiction award</a>. His third, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52016160">Sweetness and Light</a>, deals with similar themes to Appreciation, including drug abuse, relationship breakdown, and an examinination of how larger systemic forces underpin personal relationships and the myths we make about ourselves.</p>
<h2>Meeting the artist</h2>
<p>Appreciation opens with a postmodern meta-reflection on the nature of story, before introducing our hero.</p>
<p>Oli has “just enough distinct elements to him”. He is in his early 40s. He drives a Toyota Hilux. He is a little too cavalier about his health, his life, and those around him. He has an incredible tolerance to recreational drugs and alcohol. Despite his recklessness, Oli is good-looking enough that nobody “has ever told him that the story of how he got his tattoo is not interesting”.</p>
<p>As Pieper writes, Oli</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has a way of shuffling into the room like a very old dog, turning his attention on you, and in doing so lighting up your day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet Oli is painfully conceited. At the start of the novel, he gazes at himself in the mirror, in a scene evoking the Baroque painter Caravaggio’s Narcissus. Like the painting, in which Narcissus is entranced by his own reflection, the novel continues in this self-regarding loop, with Oli embarking on a journey of scrutinising his own image.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-narcissus-216353">Who was Narcissus?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Oli quickly trades his reflection in the mirror for perusing his social media platforms. As he scrolls, he harvests jolts of validation from followers who’ve deluded him into thinking “somewhere out there, he is loved”.</p>
<p>Several pages later, we discover how deep-seated Oli’s insecurities are when – despite his success, wealth and endless baggies (of cocaine) – he confesses his favourite sensation is being watched. Oli has no shortage of unlikable or even ugly qualities. Still, he does not eclipse the unlikability of Ottessa Moshfegh’s unnamed protagonist in My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), a young woman who tries to chemically sleep for a year.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/my-year-of-rest-and-relaxation-sad-girl-fetishism-or-cuttingly-funny-feminist-satire-188471">My Year of Rest and Relaxation: 'sad-girl' fetishism or 'cuttingly funny' feminist satire?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>There is something to be said for Pieper’s exploration, in this novel, of the value of ugliness in contemporary art and its ability to challenge our existing conceptions of what we consider “good”. However, throughout the work, mentions of Oli’s art and art-making emerge as afterthoughts. This echoes the sense that his rise to fame has been less about his paintings, and more about personal brand-building.</p>
<p>Oli has forfeited so much – and received so much – for his artistic success he can no longer comprehend the true shape of what’s on the easel, or in the mirror before him.</p>
<h2>Irony</h2>
<p>Oli’s world is populated by two kinds of characters. There are those who are profiting off his success and working for him, such as his agent, Anton. And there are those who are trying to profit off his work through “appreciation”, such as buyers or The Paperman: a critic and arts editor of an influential broadsheet newspaper.</p>
<p>Anton, an old drug-dealer-cum-friend, plays a somewhat paternal role in Oli’s life, overseeing nearly all aspects of his livelihood. It is Anton who arranges Oli’s television appearance on a program “beloved by a left-leaning audience for its soothing politics”, which ultimately leads to his downfall.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Appreciation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581545/original/file-20240313-26-a337ji.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>As Anton coolly reminds Oli before he gets up on stage under the influence, “too many wealthy and powerful people have invested in Oli over the years, and too deeply, to let him fuck it up now”. However, by this point in the narrative the odds are higher than even Oli himself.</p>
<p>Critic Northrop Frye, in his influential work <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/318116.Anatomy_of_Criticism?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Z9hRT5eyrB&rank=1">Anatomy of Criticism</a> (1957), defines satire as “militant irony”. Appreciation is peppered with this irony. Giving a speech at the opening night of a rising artist’s first solo exhibition, Oli unabashedly forgets the artist’s name mid-speech. Later, he circumnavigates the after-party searching for the richest guest to schmooze with, whom he ultimately despises for their wealth.</p>
<p>The resounding absurdity in Appreciation is Oli’s painful lack of self-knowledge and awareness (along with the insalubrious behaviours that sustain his art-making). In turn, Oli’s inability to see people for who they are beyond how they can help him reduces the characters in his world to mere outlines. This way of looking at and perceiving others is filtered through the narration. The art collectors are rendered as all parody, and lack any of the idiosyncrasies that give characters true depth and animation.</p>
<p>In Oli’s head, he has assigned the collectors names like “Baron”, who is scornfully described as a “third generation squatter who had inherited enormous wealth and, with it, limitless reserves of white guilt”. </p>
<p>No character – whether it be artist, critic, buyer, those in favour of identity politics or against – is spared from the sharp strikes of Pieper’s sardonic humour.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-laughing-in-an-echo-chamber-its-time-to-rethink-satire-95867">We're laughing in an echo chamber: it's time to rethink satire</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Oli’s tragic flaw</h2>
<p>On a live television panel “broadly themed around an ongoing national identity crisis”, Oli is confronted with what <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13270.Poetics">Aristotle describes</a> as <em>hamartia</em> — a tragic character flaw that leads to their own undoing.</p>
<p>When pressed by an audience member as to whether his work is perpetuating the toxic masculinity he claims it tries to subvert, Oli is exposed as a woke-fraud. Then, after a clumsy tirade by Oli, the same audience member poses the possibility that he might, in fact, not be a very good artist.</p>
<p>After the burn of public humiliation, a disgruntled Anton explains to Oli that the only path towards salvaging his tainted image is to perform the demoralising task of writing a memoir – and, of course, going on a tour to regional schools.</p>
<p>Despite the gags and Oli’s overwhelming unlikability, his journey to try to rectify his self-destruction results in a great digging into his psyche and past. As Oli reconstructs windows of early adolescence with the help of a ghost-writer, a deep tenderness is stumbled upon. </p>
<p>As these past episodes are recounted, a meditation on the early formation of Oli’s artistic identity develops. A new type of character, Rio, also enters the story. Rio is different from those who dominate Oli’s emotionally numb, transactional present. He is wholly unique and effectively drawn – a hum of the real reverberating through the novel and bringing with it emotional subtlety.</p>
<p>However, as Frye reminds us, in satire the “sardonic vision is the seamy side of the tragic vision” where the “sublime and the ridiculous” are “convex and concave of the same dark lens”. As with Appreciation, in the echo of laughter are shards of truth and tragedy: what has been lost, exploited or given up in the pursuit of an uncompromising vision.</p>
<p>Appreciation is a literary page turner with no shortage of dramatic flair. The wry and incisive narration is reminiscent of the theatrical work of Oscar Wilde.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georgia Phillips 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.</span></em></p>The novel Appreciation is a literary page-turner with no shortage of dramatic flair.Georgia Phillips, Lecturer, Creative Writing, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2253462024-03-17T19:01:24Z2024-03-17T19:01:24ZSmart meters haven’t delivered the promised benefits to electricity users. Here’s a way to fix the problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582098/original/file-20240315-18-3y4x18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C311%2C3642%2C2419&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-modern-smart-grid-residential-digital-108664646">Pi-Lens/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/advanced-metering-infrastructure-market">Billions of dollars</a> are being spent worldwide to modernise electricity grids with smart meters. These meters promise to save households money by making it easier for us to understand and manage our energy use. However, our <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">new research</a> suggests these promises might not be fully delivered due to a lack of access to high-resolution, real-time energy data.</p>
<p>Smart meters are the enabling technology of modern smart electricity grids. Smart grids can use digital technology to fine-tune the management of electricity supply and demand. This ensures the grid can deliver low-cost and reliable power. </p>
<p>Countries like Australia are racing to install smart meters extensively. Last year the Australian Energy Market Commission <a href="https://www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/emo0040_-_metering_review_-_final_report.pdf">recommended</a> a goal of 100% uptake among small customers by 2030. In response, an Australian Energy Council <a href="https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/rushing-to-the-finish-line-can-we-clear-the-hurdles-on-the-way-to-100-smart-meters-by-2030/">article</a> suggested these meters aren’t living up to their potential. </p>
<p>This isn’t just an Australian problem – it’s a global challenge. <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">Our research</a> offers a solution to unleash the promised benefits of smart meters at least cost. From improving data transmission to protecting our privacy, there’s a lot we can do to make our energy systems smarter and fairer for everyone.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1117998554998554625"}"></div></p>
<h2>Why do we need a truly smart grid?</h2>
<p>Our demand for electricity is set to soar as the push to electrify everything gains momentum. The Victorian government, for instance, has <a href="https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/691119/Victorias-Gas-Substitution-Roadmap-Update.pdf">banned gas in new homes</a> from 2024. </p>
<p>The International Energy Agency <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/green-energy-electricity-demand-growth-iea-report/">forecasts a 3.4% annual rise</a> in electricity consumption from 2024 to 2026. As transportation electrifies, electricity’s share could increase <a href="https://www.irena.org/Energy-Transition/Technology/Transport">from 1% in 2018 to 49% by 2050</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cooking-and-heating-without-gas-what-are-the-impacts-of-shifting-to-all-electric-homes-210649">Cooking (and heating) without gas: what are the impacts of shifting to all-electric homes?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To meet this growing demand while cutting carbon emissions, we must ramp up renewable energy production. However, the unpredictable nature of wind and solar power presents challenges for the grid.</p>
<p>To manage highly variable supply and demand, we need to digitise our grid. Advanced technologies such as sensors, machine-learning algorithms and cloud computing will enable us to optimise electricity generation, distribution and consumption. </p>
<p>Smart meters are the cornerstone of such a system. They can provide the detailed, real-time data needed for smart grid applications. </p>
<p>Smart meter deployment has surged globally. The smart meter market is <a href="https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/advanced-metering-infrastructure-market">forecast</a> to grow from US$17.5 billion ($A26.6 billion) in 2024 to US$31.8 billion by 2028.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">Our research</a> sheds light on this global deployment and its significant challenges. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582087/original/file-20240314-24-3y4x18.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A summary of the rollout of smart meters in selected countries. (Data for Australia and US from 2023, Canada, China, Japan and UK from 2022, and Sweden, Estonia and Denmark from 2020. DSO = distribution service operator, IESO = independent electricity system operator)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">Rui Yuan et al 2024</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-successful-energy-transition-depends-on-managing-when-people-use-power-so-how-do-we-make-demand-more-flexible-213079">A successful energy transition depends on managing when people use power. So how do we make demand more flexible?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What will better data allow us to do?</h2>
<p>Grid modernisation and smart meters came with big promises of saving money for consumers. This hasn’t happened. The reason is that many direct benefits to consumers require high-resolution data – and the required level of fine detail in real time isn’t being provided. </p>
<p>For example, as a direct benefit to consumers, <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8322199">some machine-learning techniques</a> can help households optimise their energy use by providing insights into exactly how much electricity each appliance is using and when. This information could enable them to lower their electricity bill. These tools can also detect abnormal usage patterns, allowing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/int.22876">timely intervention and maintenance</a> of faulty appliances. </p>
<p>However, these applications and <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">other smart grid benefits</a> for consumers all require high-resolution data. </p>
<iframe title="Smart grid applications, data needs and benefits" aria-label="Table" id="datawrapper-chart-ZbaZF" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZbaZF/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border: none;" width="100%" height="600" data-external="1"></iframe>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-national-electricity-market-wasnt-made-for-a-renewable-energy-future-heres-how-to-fix-it-215067">The National Electricity Market wasn't made for a renewable energy future. Here's how to fix it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What obstacles must be overcome?</h2>
<p>We found three major reasons for the current limitations of smart-metering infrastructure. </p>
<p><em>Data transmission</em> is the first big challenge. High-resolution and more frequent data means a higher volume of numbers, which leads to more delays or disruptions to data transmission. </p>
<p>The second challenge is the <em>data warehousing</em> needed for huge volumes of data. It’s expensive too. </p>
<p>Building and running a data warehouse costs <a href="https://ilsr.org/utilities-customer-data-portability-ler155/">US$19,000–$25,000 per terabyte</a> each year. Upgrading from hourly data to every two seconds requires 1,800 times the storage, at an extra cost of US$36 million! And that’s not counting maintenance, backups, or sharing the data.</p>
<p>The third major issue is <em>data privacy</em>. The data can also be exploited by attackers. They could figure out what appliances you have, your home setup, or even your habits. </p>
<p>This can lead to criminal activities or serious invasion of privacy. For example, people could be tracked based on their vehicle-charging patterns. </p>
<p>Even law enforcement uses electricity data in court cases. One case involved the detection of <a href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/546876/microsoft-subnet-are-smart-meters-real-time-surveillance-spies.html">indoor marijuana growing</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1217580090944622593"}"></div></p>
<h2>A way forward at the cheapest cost</h2>
<p>Ideally, we need a solution that tackles all the issues using the smart meters we already have. <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(24)00055-9">Our solution</a> is based on discovering repeated patterns within electricity usage data, then dividing these data into two parts. </p>
<p>It’s like a book divided into piles of papers and page numbers, with each then handed to different parties. Neither the page alone nor the page numbers make sense until they are combined. </p>
<p>Similarly, we suggest dividing detailed data into smaller patterns called codewords and their daily representations. We’d send only representations to the data centre, letting users keep their codewords to ensure their privacy. </p>
<p>Patterns of energy use often repeat. By using a single codeword to represent multiple days of similar consumption, we can greatly reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. This would cut data communication and warehousing costs. </p>
<p>Continuous research on software, hardware and regulations is needed to refine the proposed framework for the stages of data collection, transmission, storage and analysis. </p>
<p>It’s important for modern energy consumers to be aware that as well as consuming and generating energy (from rooftop solar systems), they also generate data through their smart meters. This data asset is becoming increasingly valuable in the transition to the net-zero era.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Pourmousavi Kani receives funding from Future Battery Industry Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) and Watts AS (from Denmark) for his research. He also has done and is currently involved with consulting jobs that are available in his resume. None are related to the topic of this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rui Yuan receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program and Watts AS (Denmark) for his PhD research. He currently affiliates with Watts AS. </span></em></p>The amount of detailed real-time data a smart grid needs to manage the push for electrification and renewables presents challenges – but there’s an affordable solution.Ali Pourmousavi Kani, Senior Lecturer of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of AdelaideRui Yuan, Industry PhD Candidate, School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195982024-03-14T19:25:08Z2024-03-14T19:25:08ZMeet the kowari: a pint-sized predator on the fast track to extinction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581179/original/file-20240312-24-tb4sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ariana Ananda</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia is home to <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7010/">more than 350 species</a> of native mammals, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1417301112">87% of which are found nowhere else on Earth</a>. But with 39 of these species <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl">already extinct</a> and a further <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl">110 listed as threatened</a>, there’s every chance many will vanish before you even knew they existed. So here’s one we think you simply must know (and save), before it’s too late. </p>
<p>The charismatic <a href="https://teamkowari.com.au/kowari/">kowari</a> is a small carnivorous marsupial. It was once common inland but is now found only in the remote deserts of southwest Queensland and northeastern South Australia, in less than 20% of its former range. </p>
<p>This pint-sized predator fits in the palm of your hand. Its bright eyes, bushy tail and big personality make it the perfect poster child for the Australian outback. But with just 1,200 kowari left in the wild, the federal government upgraded its conservation status in November from <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=329">vulnerable to endangered</a>. </p>
<p>Reversing the decline of the kowari is within our grasp. But we need public support and political will to achieve this. It requires limiting grazing of cattle and sheep, while keeping feral cat numbers under control. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WVAmYlHoqs4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Introducing the kowari (Arid Recovery)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/threatened-species-recover-in-fenced-safe-havens-but-their-safety-is-only-temporary-200548">Threatened species recover in fenced safe havens. But their safety is only temporary</a>
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<h2>Meet the kowari</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://teamkowari.com.au/kowari/">kowari</a> (<em>Dasyuroides byrnei</em>) is a skilled hunter that stalks mice, tarantulas, moths, scorpions and even birds. Alert and efficient, they attack their prey voraciously.</p>
<p>Formerly known as the brushy-tailed marsupial rat, or Byrne’s crest-tailed marsupial rat, the kowari is more closely related to Tasmanian Devil and quolls. </p>
<p>The Wangkangurru Yarluyandi People use the name kowari, while the Dieri and Ngameni peoples use the similar-sounding name kariri.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Closeup of the gibber plain showing areas of flat interlocking red pebbles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581171/original/file-20240312-18-mlrrfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The red stony gibber plains could be mistaken for the surface of Mars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katherine Moseby</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Kowaris live in stony deserts. They mainly inhabit remote treeless “gibber” plains. These areas of flat, interlocking red pebbles form vast pavements that could be mistaken for the surface of Mars. </p>
<p>In the outback, where temperatures can exceed 50°C, kowaris beat the heat by sheltering in burrows dug into sand mounds. At night they emerge to race across the plains, their head and distinctive brushy tail held high, pausing regularly to scan for predators and prey. </p>
<p>During chilly winter days, kowaris slow their metabolism to conserve energy. They go into a state of <a href="https://theconversation.com/torpor-a-neat-survival-trick-once-thought-rare-in-australian-animals-is-actually-widespread-146409">torpor</a>, which is a daily version of hibernation. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/torpor-a-neat-survival-trick-once-thought-rare-in-australian-animals-is-actually-widespread-146409">Torpor: a neat survival trick once thought rare in Australian animals is actually widespread</a>
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<p>At the two main South Australian sites, the number of animals captured in trapping surveys declined by <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12605">85% between 2000 and 2015</a>. At this rate, the species could disappear from the area within two decades.</p>
<p>The entire population is estimated to number as few as 1,200 individuals scattered over just 350 square kilometres. That’s a combined area of less than 20km x 20km. </p>
<p>Based on this evidence, the conservation status of kowaris was upgraded from <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=329">vulnerable to endangered</a> in November last year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A kowari standing in the desert facing the camera with its long bushy tail stretched out to the right" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581170/original/file-20240312-18-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kowari are now restricted to refuge populations in northeast South Australia and southwest Queensland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrea Tschirner</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Shrinking populations in the stony desert</h2>
<p>Kowaris have been declining for a while but are suddenly on the fast track to extinction. How can that be, when they live in one of the most vast and remote parts of Australia? </p>
<p>Threats include land degradation from pastoralism, and predation from introduced feral cats and foxes. </p>
<p>But it’s complicated. Threats can combine, having a synergistic effect (greater than the sum of their parts). And then there are climate influences. </p>
<p>Heavy rain in the desert triggers a cascade of events that culminates in an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-10/feral-cats-tear-through-last-wild-bilby-population/5803252">explosion of feral cat numbers</a>. </p>
<p>When conditions dry out again, the cats switch to eating larger or more difficult prey such as bilbies and kowaris, often causing local extinctions. In southwest Queensland, feral cats most likely wiped out one population of kowaris and decimated another. </p>
<p>Huge efforts to control cat plagues have saved the kowari and bilby populations in <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/australian-journal-of-zoology/volume-70/issue-2/ZO22027/Does-reducing-grazing-pressure-or-predation-conserve-kowaris-A-case/10.1071/ZO22027.full">Astrebla Downs National Park</a> from local extinction so far, but other areas have succumbed.</p>
<p>In SA, all the remaining kowari populations are on <a href="https://www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/publications-and-tools/the-kowari-saving-a-central-australian-micro-predator">pastoral stations used for grazing cattle</a>. </p>
<p>Cattle can trample kowari burrows. They can also compact the sand mounds, making it difficult for kowaris to build burrows in the first place. And they eat the plants on the mounds, reducing the availability of both food and shelter. This makes kowaris easy prey. </p>
<p>Over the past few decades, pastoralism has intensified. <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/pastoral-leases#:%7E:text=Pastoral%20leases%20exist%20on%20around,to%20facilitate%20and%20support%20pastoralism.">Nearly half of Australia (44%)</a> is covered in pastoral leases where many threatened species occur. </p>
<p>Domestic stock usually graze close to watering points such as bores and troughs. More and more watering points are being established, to make more of the pastoral lease accessible to stock. So the area protected from grazing is shrinking as cattle encroach further into kowari territory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sand mound surrounded by the stony desert gibber plain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581168/original/file-20240312-16-mabhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kowari burrow in sand mounds that can be trampled and compacted by cattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katherine Moseby</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How can we save the kowari?</h2>
<p>We have the knowledge and tools required to save this species from extinction. We just need decisive leadership and sufficient funding to put these plans into action. </p>
<p>State governments should provide more resources for desert parks so rangers can monitor feral cat numbers and respond rapidly to plagues. We can make use of new technology such as remote camera traps checked via satellite. These measures would also protect the last remaining stronghold of the bilby in Queensland, another nationally threatened mammal. </p>
<p>The pastoral industry and governments must work together to review watering-point placement and reduce grazing pressure in known kowari habitat. </p>
<p>By closing some pastoral watering points and ensuring a portion of each lease (possibly 20%) is away from waters, we can reduce the harm of stock and provide refuges for threatened species. Pastoral companies could show leadership and implement these actions themselves rather than waiting for governments to act.</p>
<p>In the meantime, reintroductions into safe havens is one stopgap measure helping to prevent imminent kowari extinction. In 2022, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=409398861174893&external_log_id=2222a528-17bb-4f25-b0d5-d45d296c0c73&q=ecological%20horizons">12 kowaris were successfully reintroduced</a> to the 123 square km <a href="https://aridrecovery.org.au/kowari/">fenced Arid Recovery Reserve</a> in northern SA. The population has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AridRecovery/videos/1165149370645281">expanded since release</a>. Removing cats, foxes and domestic stock from the reserve has given kowaris a chance to reclaim a small portion of their former range. </p>
<p>But safe havens are small and we need to act on a larger scale. If we don’t, the kowari may become yet another Australian species lost before you’ve even seen it.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to Genevieve Hayes, former ecologist at Arid Recovery, for coordinating the reintroduction of the kowari at Arid Recovery and commenting on the draft of this article.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/so-you-want-to-cat-proof-a-bettong-how-living-with-predators-could-help-native-species-survive-170450">So you want to cat-proof a bettong: how living with predators could help native species survive</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Moseby is co-founder and chief scientist at Arid Recovery. She receives contract work from Arid Recovery to assist with conservation and restoration works. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Tuft is Chief Executive at Arid Recovery which has received grant funding from the federal government and other sources to support research and conservation for the kowari.</span></em></p>Blink and you’ll miss it. The kowari is a charismatic marsupial carnivore that needs our help.Katherine Moseby, Associate Professor, UNSW SydneyKatherine Tuft, Visiting Research Fellow, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234552024-03-12T02:44:44Z2024-03-12T02:44:44ZArt of the moment: experiencing Marina Abramović and Laurie Anderson at the Adelaide Festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581127/original/file-20240311-20-ls9siy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C51%2C3828%2C5702&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Beveridge/Adelaide Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ruth Mackenzie is the new artistic director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, and for her first Adelaide gig she has brought in two heavyweights: performance artist Marina Abramović and avant-garde artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Both were major events, very much of the moment. </p>
<p>The Marina Abramović Institute’s Takeover featured nine performance artists over four days.</p>
<p>To begin at the beginning, audience members are instructed to arrive at 11am each day. We are ushered into a compelling virtual presentation, where Abramović inducts us into being a participative community. </p>
<p>She tells us performance is the most difficult of the art forms, that you need to abandon time and surrender to the moment. Then she runs the audience through a series of Tibetan breathing exercises to make us attuned to reading the mysteries and personal language of performance artists.</p>
<h2>Durational performance</h2>
<p>Mike Parr’s Portrait of Marina Abramović is the most extreme. A blind painting event, his eyes remain closed for the entire 12 hours. His aim was to paint four black squares, one on each side of a constructed white cube gallery space, in homage to Russian constructivist painter <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kazimir-malevich-1561/five-ways-look-malevichs-black-square">Kazimir Malevich’s 1915 Black Square</a>.</p>
<p>Like Malevich, Parr says his blind painting is the creation of nothingness with a view to a rebirth. But he departs from Malevich: Parr is currently driven by the reality of the shocking events in Gaza, as set out in the painted text which starts on the walls of the show: “free Palestine” and “Gaza is a Warsaw ghetto”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="You can just see the word 'Gaza' from behind red paint." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581122/original/file-20240311-28-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mike Parr’s work started with words looking at the war in Gaza.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Beveridge/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These sentiments are amplified in his “vision” statement distributed at the performance. His impassioned text says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Jewish diaspora rise up to join hands, to relinquish the obscene policies of its political leadership […] to demand justice, freedom, prosperity for the Palestinian people and an end to the oppression and antisemitism of the apartheid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Over the next 12 hours, Parr paints four black squares – at times from perilously high up on a ladder – to be covered with red paint in homage to Abramović’s former Yugoslavian communist background, then covered again with black. The painted squares, complete with drips of red paint running down to the floor, remained after the performance for viewers to ponder their meaning, along with a video of the entire event.</p>
<h2>Place and Country</h2>
<p>Less sensational but equally demanding was the durational performance by Collective Absentia, a Bangkok-based group in a work entitled Our Glorious Past, Our Glorious Present, Our Glorious Future: Our Glorious Spring. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sits with a covered head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581126/original/file-20240311-24-zwa8vu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">One performer meditated on non-violent forms of resistance to ongoing political events in Myanmar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Beveridge/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A member of their collective sat with his head covered and immobile in the middle of a passage-way, meditating on non-violent forms of resistance to ongoing political events in Myanmar. </p>
<p>All attendees at the event had to walk past and around this performance. Most stopped and connected with the sentiment of non-violent forms of resistance. One person even sat directly opposite the performer and meditated.</p>
<p>Christian Thomson’s postcolonial performance, Wait in Gold, involved him slowly and methodically pinning gold painted native daisies to every item of his exterior clothing so that he transforms from human into a larger flower form connected to Country. In this moving performance, he is responding to the denial of a voice as a result of the 2023 referendum outcome, and seeking refuge in the safety of Country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man covered in gold flowers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581124/original/file-20240311-20-59z6cf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christian Thomson seeks refuge in the safety of Country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Beveridge/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo’s absorbing durational work, Amnesia, she slowly covers a large black board with a set of chalk markings. At each mark made, she utters “I’m sorry”. </p>
<p>The mark making is interspersed with her taking off her black shirt, placing it with other discarded shirts, and sewing a new one to put on. At other times she abandons mark making and moves across the floor, writhing as if in deep remorse, again uttering “I’m sorry”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman draws counting marks on a wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581123/original/file-20240311-18-mi9d2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo’s absorbing durational work, Amnesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Beveridge/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The promotional material accompanying her performance points to the work as an inner exploration of “untold narratives and forgotten realities of the past”. Her felt emotion in the performance is deeply persuasive, but I kept wondering about the amnesia from which Suryodarmo is recoiling: is it a deeply personal journey, or more?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marina-abramovic-retrospective-celebrates-the-grand-dame-of-performance-art-but-questions-the-genres-future-214415">Marina Abramović retrospective celebrates the grand dame of performance art – but questions the genre's future</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Encounters with AI</h2>
<p>In a different vein, Laurie Anderson’s exhibition I’ll be your mirror is an encounter with AI. Taking phrases from her song O Superman and her late husband Lou Reed’s song I’ll be your mirror, Anderson has generated intriguing text which hangs in five panels in the Adelaide Circulating Library, the city’s original lending library.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large text and two portrait photographs inside a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581121/original/file-20240311-20-vh3bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">I’ll be your mirror uses AI building off songs from Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy VanDerVegt/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The AI generated conversations between Anderson and Reed, who passed away in 2013, oscillate between the surreal and the eerie with phrases such as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a mirror in the room <br>
And when I look at night<br>
It reflects nothing back to me. <br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bible is on display and open at <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2084-88&version=NIV">Psalms 84-88</a>, but hanging above the Bible is AI generated text based on biblical phrases, displayed as Genesis 1: 26-31. </p>
<p>A section from that text reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some nights now Noah dreams he sees his boat leave the dock<br>
It’s just another day on planet Earth <br>
Only this time it’s with an animal friend. <br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As an adjunct to the exhibition of 21st century textual artefacts set amid 19th texts, Anderson held a virtual public conversation with the machine generating gurus she worked in Adelaide – the takeaway message being what machines generate depends on the input. </p>
<p>The exhibition is utterly intriguing, but novice viewers need an introduction to what they are about to encounter.</p>
<p><em>I’ll Be Your Mirror is on display until March 17.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-duchamp-to-ai-the-transformation-of-authorship-in-art-210059">From Duchamp to AI: the transformation of authorship in art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Speck, with Joanna Mendelssohn, Catherine De Lorenzo and Alison Inglis, has received funding from the ARC to investigate Australian art exhibitions. </span></em></p>Ruth Mackenzie’s Adelaide Festival of Arts has two heavyweights, performance artist Marina Abramović and avant-garde artist and musician Laurie Anderson.Catherine Speck, Emerita Professor, Art History and Curatorship, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074262024-02-26T19:00:43Z2024-02-26T19:00:43ZThe Secret promises we can ‘manifest’ what we want. But if that’s true, why aren’t we all rich and famous?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576648/original/file-20240220-26-k72tyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5991%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mikhail Nilov/Pexel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Our cultural touchstones series looks at influential books.</em></p>
<p>Imagine you really wanted something and all you had to do was ask the universe and you would get it. That’d be awesome, right?! </p>
<p>I present this to my students in my first-year Research Methods in Psychology course, in the first session of the semester. Then I ask them what they think. </p>
<p>The first respondent is usually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They say something like: “Absolutely! You can achieve anything you want if you put your mind to it!” Emboldened, a handful of others express similar sentiments. Naturally, there are also sceptical students, but at this point it doesn’t suit my agenda to give them much oxygen. </p>
<p>Next, I tell the students I presume they’d all love to achieve High Distinctions in my course. I tell them it is, in fact, possible, and I’m going to share how it can be done. At this point, even the most sceptical students are intrigued. </p>
<p>I tell them all they need to know is … The Secret. </p>
<h2>A self-help megaseller</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52529.The_Secret">The Secret</a> is a 2006 feature-length film and then book created by Australian Rhonda Byrne, who was a television executive when she came up with it. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576699/original/file-20240220-20-t5u99s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The book has sold more than 35 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. Byrne has gone on to produce several related books, including The Greatest Secret, and associated merchandise, like a card deck. </p>
<p>It was even adapted as a romantic drama film, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-secret-dare-to-dream-movie-review-2020">The Secret: Dare to Dream</a>, starring Katie Holmes and released in 2020. (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/30/the-secret-dare-to-dream-review-hokey-wish-fulfillment-soap">The Guardian described it</a> as “inoffensively middling […] with nothing of note other than a few laughably dumb moments”.)</p>
<p>Others have also got in on the act. For example, there’s a DVD titled <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Secret-Behind-Abraham/dp/B000O76WTW">The Secret Behind The Secret</a>, in which a self-help guru purports to channel a spiritual being called Benjamin. </p>
<p>The Secret’s fundamental claim is that a law of attraction operates within the universe: we become or attract what we think about most. In effect, positive things happen to positive people and negative things happen to negative people. Importantly, we are not passive recipients of our outcomes. Rather, we manifest our outcomes by actively thinking about them. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mf3-oCDdTzQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Secret: Dare to Dream, the 2020 adaptation starring Katie Holmes, was described as ‘inoffensively middling’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Oprah Winfrey, who <a href="https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1944527_1944528_1944309,00.html">lavishly embraced The Secret</a>, devoting two episodes of her talk show to it in 2006, said it embodied the message she’d been trying to share for 21 years: “you are responsible for your life”.</p>
<p>As others have pointed out, these ideas are not a secret and they’re not new. </p>
<p>The Secret is effectively a repackaging of the “power of positive thinking” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-pop-psychology-can-it-make-your-life-better-or-is-it-all-snake-oil-158709">pop psychology</a> from recent decades – and, centuries earlier, the quackery of the metaphysical movement. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-avoid-toxic-positivity-and-take-the-less-direct-route-to-happiness-170260">How to avoid 'toxic positivity' and take the less direct route to happiness</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Victim blaming</h2>
<p>Much <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-2909.131.6.803">empirical psychological research</a> suggests thinking and feeling positively is likely to be associated with more positive outcomes. </p>
<p>But there’s a stark gap between the blithe blanket statements of The Secret and the <a href="https://people.clas.ufl.edu/shepperd/files/moderators.pdf">empirical studies</a> that have tested the qualifications and nuances of the effects of positive expectations. </p>
<p>It’s in that gap where The Secret becomes an easy target.</p>
<p>For instance, The Secret is good news for anyone fortunate enough to be blessed with an eternally sunny disposition, but less so for anyone struggling with chronic depression. The Secret suggests depression and its consequences are the fault of the victim. If only they could think more positively! </p>
<p>Taken on face value, the principles espoused in The Secret should mean the end of poverty and war. Perhaps we’re not wishing hard enough? </p>
<p>Elsewhere, The Secret has <a href="https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-the-secret-law-of-attraction-considered-quantum-physics-do-you-support-it.397994/">offended physicists</a> with its misappropriation of quantum physics principles to explain the “law of attraction” (in itself a pseudoscientific idea). </p>
<p>And yet … people love this stuff. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-depression-what-we-know-dont-know-and-suspect-81483">What causes depression? What we know, don’t know and suspect</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An alluring fiction</h2>
<p>On Amazon, more than 40,000 customers have taken the time to review the book. The average rating is 4.6/5. Perhaps this should not be surprising. </p>
<p>The Secret (superficially) taps into a spiritual realm and research demonstrates that spirituality <a href="https://downloads.hindawi.com/archive/2012/278730.pdf">nurtures and comforts many</a>. The Secret speaks to a search for meaning and we know feeling a sense of purpose in life <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141">provides a measure of happiness</a>. The Secret proposes the individual has the power to control their own destiny – and research demonstrates the role a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_19">sense of personal control</a> has in people’s lives. </p>
<p>And The Secret encourages <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1348/026151004772901140">magical thinking</a>, which some people may be prone to more than they realise. The Secret promises the alluring fiction that – just for once – things in life might be easy. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Chaser’s War on Everything questioned The Secret’s ability to deliver almost 15 years ago.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Back in the classroom, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-america-enduring-a-slow-civil-war-jeff-sharlet-visits-trump-rallies-a-celebrity-megachurch-and-the-manosphere-to-find-out-203948">this Trumpian age</a> where truth is in the eye of the beholder, The Secret reminds us the principles of the scientific method are still important when it comes to critically consuming information. </p>
<p>There are several ways of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267098119_Conducting_Research_in_Psychology_Measuring_the_Weight_of_Smoke">knowing about the world</a>. We can defer to authority. We can rely on our intuition. We can employ logic. And we can make observations based on our experiences.</p>
<h2>Pseudo ‘experts’</h2>
<p>To some extent, Rhonda Byrne and her devotees leverage these knowledge sources to help give credence to The Secret. For example, it has been endorsed by high-profile influencers (like Winfrey) and prominent US personal development gurus (like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MulLAfffQoQ">Bob Proctor</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_mJiImlcXQ">John Assaraf</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEgaSB7udDg">Jack Canfield</a>). Byrne claims eminent historical figures – including Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein – knew the secret and employed its principles. </p>
<p>All these people are experts, or at least present themselves as experts. So they must know what they’re talking about. As they’re authority figures, we intuit they can be trusted. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s the equivalent of toothpaste advertisers dressing an actor in a white coat to imply they’re a scientist, who recommends a particular brand of toothpaste. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KYFIN6Csr0k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Oprah Winfrey embraced The Secret, helping to make it a bestseller.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To persuade you, The Secret takes you down the peripheral route, the one where you don’t put much effort into your research – “Einstein used it! There must be something to it!” – rather than the central route, where you think critically about claims. “Just because she says Einstein used it doesn’t make it valid. And how does she know he used it?”</p>
<p>The Secret appeals to intuition, by appropriating spiritual and scientific language. To the extent an individual believes in a spiritual dimension to this world, or that they can control their own destiny, The Secret speaks loudly. </p>
<p>On the other hand, anyone who thinks critically about its claims presumably finds themselves arriving at the maxim that if it sounds too good to be true, it is. </p>
<h2>Positive thinking plus effort</h2>
<p>Back in the lecture theatre, my students unpack the claims of The Secret. Quite reasonably, they suggest a whole bunch of important ingredients are needed in addition to “positive thinking”, if someone really is going to manifest their deepest desires. Things like hard work, perseverance, motivation, skill and ability.</p>
<p>The Secret is less able to appeal to logic, though it attempts to by referring to the pseudoscientific “law of attraction”. Again, the secret of The Secret’s success lies in the suggestibility of association. Referring to a “law” implies there is a scientific basis to the principles – and we all know science is logical, right? </p>
<p>A key component of the scientific method is that theories must be testable. Testing theories requires making observations – that is, collecting data. </p>
<p>If personal experience is one form of empirical evidence, then The Secret performs very impressively. There are thousands of testimonials on the internet from people around the world attesting to its ability to deliver results. </p>
<p>But dig a little deeper, and it’s clear this anecdotal evidence (“it happened to me, therefore it’s a thing”) almost always reflects the problem of the illusory correlation. Two events occur in close proximity to the other and rather than putting it down to coincidence, for example, people presume the first event caused the second. </p>
<p>This is even more likely to occur when an individual is <a href="https://www.donchristoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/nickerson1998.pdf">looking to confirm</a> – rather than test – their beliefs. </p>
<p>So, individuals wanting to see evidence The Secret works will find it. They ask the universe for a pay increase and two weeks later they get it. The possibility the pay increase was always on its way, due to their previous hard work and diligence, does not seem to be relevant. </p>
<p>Before my students leave, I wish them all the best for the course and their other university studies. I tell them I hope they all achieve the outcomes they desire. </p>
<p>And I remind them some of the principles embraced by The Secret do have some merit and are supported by empirical psychological research. Particularly, the idea that having a positive attitude tends to produce positive outcomes – though not always, and not because some magical connection with the universe made it so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Strelan 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.</span></em></p>A psychology professor debunks Rhonda Byrne’s world-bestselling book and film – and her theory of personal success through a magical connection with the universe.Peter Strelan, Professor, School of Psychology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2238632024-02-22T01:22:51Z2024-02-22T01:22:51ZVoluntary assisted dying is different to suicide. But federal laws conflate them and restrict access to telehealth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576955/original/file-20240221-30-6rt3ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C224%2C2869%2C1773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/depressed-elderly-widow-sitting-on-her-191917208">Daxiao Productions/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Voluntary assisted dying is now lawful in every Australian state and will soon begin in the <a href="https://www.justice.act.gov.au/justice-programs-and-initiatives/voluntary-assisted-dying-laws-in-the-act">Australian Capital Territory</a>.</p>
<p>However, it’s illegal to discuss it via <a href="https://www.mbsonline.gov.au/internet/mbsonline/publishing.nsf/Content/Factsheet-Telehealth-Updates-April%202023">telehealth</a>. That means people who live in rural and remote areas, or those who can’t physically go to see a doctor, may not be able to access the scheme.</p>
<p>A federal private members bill, introduced to parliament last week, aims to change this. So what’s proposed and why is it needed?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1757948089271214377"}"></div></p>
<h2>What’s wrong with the current laws?</h2>
<p>Voluntary assisted dying doesn’t meet the definition of suicide under state laws. </p>
<p>But the Commonwealth Criminal Code <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2023/August/Voluntary_Assisted_Dying_and_Telehealth#:%7E:text=Sections%20474.29A%20and%20474.29,material%20that%20counsels%20or%20incites">prohibits</a> the discussion or dissemination of suicide-related material electronically. </p>
<p>This opens doctors to the risk of criminal prosecution if they discuss voluntary assisted dying via telehealth.</p>
<p>Successive Commonwealth attorneys-general have failed to address the conflict between federal and state laws, despite persistent calls from state attorneys-general for necessary <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-12/voluntary-assisted-dying-telehealth-ban-law-push/103456102">clarity</a>. </p>
<p>This eventually led to voluntary assistant dying doctor <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-03/voluntary-assisted-dying-communication-laws-face-gp-legal-fight/101292042">Nicholas Carr</a> calling on the Federal Court of Australia to resolve this conflict. Carr sought a declaration to exclude voluntary assisted dying from the definition of suicide under the Criminal Code. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-will-begin-in-wa-this-week-but-one-commonwealth-law-could-get-in-the-way-161982">Voluntary assisted dying will begin in WA this week. But one Commonwealth law could get in the way</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In November, the court <a href="https://search2.fedcourt.gov.au/s/search.html?collection=judgments&sort=date&meta_v_phrase_orsand=judgments%2FJudgments%2F&meta_2=carr+&meta_A=&meta_z=&meta_3=&meta_n_phrase_orsand=&query_sand=&query_or=&query_not=&query_phrase=&query_prox=&meta_d=23+november+2023&meta_d1=&meta_d2=&meta_7=&meta_4=&meta_B=">declared</a> voluntary assisted dying <em>was</em> considered suicide for the purpose of the Criminal Code. This meant doctors across Australia were prohibited from using telehealth services for voluntary assisted dying consultations. </p>
<p>Last week, independent federal MP Kate Chaney <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbillhome%2Fr7146%22;querytype=;rec=0">introduced a private members bill</a> to create an exemption for voluntary assisted dying by excluding it as suicide for the purpose of the Criminal Code. Here’s why it’s needed. </p>
<h2>Not all patients can physically see a doctor</h2>
<p>Defining voluntary assisted dying as suicide in the Criminal Code disproportionately impacts people living in regional and remote areas. People in the country <a href="https://www.ama.com.au/ama-rounds/8-december-2023/articles/ama-urges-attorney-general-amend-laws-relevant-vad-and">rely on</a> the use of “carriage services”, such as phone and video consultations, to avoid travelling long distances to consult their doctor. </p>
<p>Other people with terminal illnesses, whether in regional or urban areas, may be suffering intolerably and unable to physically attend appointments with doctors. </p>
<p>The prohibition against telehealth goes against the <a href="https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/as-made/acts/voluntary-assisted-dying-act-2017">principles</a> of voluntary assisted dying, which are to minimise suffering, maximise quality of life and promote autonomy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old hands hold young hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576959/original/file-20240221-28-e3qk81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some people aren’t able to attend doctors’ appointments in person.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hands-that-care-nursing-home-2094784921">Jeffrey M Levine/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Doctors don’t want to be involved in ‘suicide’</h2>
<p>Equating voluntary assisted dying with suicide has a direct impact on doctors, who <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/213858/1/99568951.pdf">fear</a> criminal prosecution due to the prohibition against using telehealth.</p>
<p>Some doctors may decide not to help patients who choose voluntary assisted dying, leaving patients in a state of limbo. </p>
<p>The number of doctors actively participating in voluntary assisted dying is already <a href="https://www.safercare.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/VADRB%20Annual%20Report%202022-23.pdf">low</a>. The majority of doctors are located in metropolitan areas or major regional centres, leaving some locations with very few doctors participating in voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-is-legal-in-victoria-but-you-may-not-be-able-to-access-it-208282">Voluntary assisted dying is legal in Victoria, but you may not be able to access it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It misclassifies deaths</h2>
<p>In state law, people dying under voluntary assisted dying have the cause of their death registered as “the disease, illness or medical condition that was the grounds for a person to access voluntary assisted dying”, while the <a>manner of dying</a> is recorded as voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<p>In contrast, only coroners in each state and territory can make a finding of suicide as a cause of death. </p>
<p>In 2017, voluntary assisted dying was defined in the <a href="http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ca2008120/s4.html">Coroners Act 2008 (Vic)</a> as not a reportable death, and thus not suicide. </p>
<p>The language of suicide is inappropriate for explaining how people make a decision to die with dignity under the lawful practice of voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<p>There is ongoing taboo and stigma attached to suicide. People who opt for and are lawfully eligible to access voluntary assisted dying should not be tainted with the taboo that currently surrounds suicide.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1719587677257728045"}"></div></p>
<h2>So what is the solution?</h2>
<p>The only way to remedy this problem is for the federal government to create an exemption in the Criminal Code to allow telehealth appointments to discuss voluntary assisted dying. </p>
<p>Chaney’s private member’s bill is yet to be debated in federal parliament. </p>
<p>If it’s unsuccessful, the Commonwealth attorney-general should pass regulations to exempt voluntary assisted dying as suicide. </p>
<p>A cooperative approach to resolve this conflict of laws is necessary to ensure doctors don’t risk prosecution for assisting eligible people to access voluntary assisted dying, regional and remote patients have access to voluntary assisted dying, families don’t suffer consequences for the erroneous classification of voluntary assisted dying as suicide, and people accessing voluntary assisted dying are not shrouded with the taboo of suicide when accessing a lawful practice to die with dignity.</p>
<p>Failure to change this will cause unnecessary suffering for patients and doctors alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michaela Estelle Okninski is affiliated with Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Trabsky's research for this article received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE220100064).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neera Bhatia receives funding from UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council for an unrelated project. </span></em></p>It’s illegal to discuss voluntary assisted dying via telehealth, which means people who live in rural areas and those who can’t physically go to see a doctor may not be able to access the scheme.Michaela Estelle Okninski, Lecturer of Law, University of AdelaideMarc Trabsky, Associate professor, La Trobe UniversityNeera Bhatia, Associate Professor in Law, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231862024-02-22T00:12:48Z2024-02-22T00:12:48ZWe gave palliative care patients VR therapy. More than 50% said it helped reduce pain and depression symptoms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576355/original/file-20240219-28-18om6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C7008%2C4647&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unai Huizi Photography/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People in palliative care are dealing with serious, non-curable illness. Every day can be filled with severe physical, psychological and emotional pain.</p>
<p>Palliative care staff work hard to help make patients as comfortable as possible and provide strong emotional support. Meaningful activities can help but patients often aren’t well enough to do the things they really love, such as travel. We wondered whether virtual reality (VR) could help.</p>
<p>To find out, we supported 16 palliative care patients in an acute ward to do three 20-minute VR sessions, and asked them how they felt before and after each one.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/spcare-2024-004815">Our study</a>, published this week in the journal <a href="https://spcare.bmj.com/">BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care</a>, found more than 50% of patients experienced clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms such as pain and depression immediately after a 20-minute VR session.</p>
<p>Importantly, though, some also told us it didn’t help or that they felt unwell after using it. This shows taking a nuanced approach to using VR in palliative care is crucial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An older woman in bed uses a VR gaming headset." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574581/original/file-20240209-16-t34gok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">VR involves using a headset to allow the user to have an immersive experience that feels 3D.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/female-doctor-checking-on-elderly-patient-1859594494">Newman Studio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What we did</h2>
<p>VR involves using a headset to create an immersive experience that feels 3D, often accompanied by music or realistic sound effects. This computer-generated environment can feel incredibly close to reality. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076231207574">Previous research</a> has looked at VR use in palliative care but we were especially interested in finding out if <em>personalised</em> VR sessions were associated with meaningful changes in pain and depression symptoms.</p>
<p>Personalised VR means each person experiences content that is meaningful to that individual. So rather than asking patients to choose, for example, between a rainforest and a beach VR experience, we interviewed the patients before their sessions to gauge their interests and create a VR session tailored to them.</p>
<p>For example, one person said they wanted a VR experience that allowed them to explore Paris again. Others had migrated to Australia from the UK so they asked for VR experiences that brought them back to the country where they were born. One person was a big fan of Star Wars, so we provided a VR Star Wars game.</p>
<p>For our study, we asked 16 palliative care patients from an acute ward in a South Australian hospital to participate in three VR sessions using a headset that is now known as Meta Quest 2. The participants, who ranged in age from 48 to 87 years old, used the headset for around 20 minutes per session. The primary VR applications we used were Wander and YouTube VR. </p>
<p>We asked each participant about their emotional and physical symptoms before and after each session.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1xZHsQJlqbA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the apps used in our study was Wander.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>We found just 20 minutes of VR immersion could immediately reduce the participants’ subjective feelings of both physical pain and emotional pain (such as depression). At least half of the participants reported significant relief after a single session. After one session, two out of three participants reported relief. </p>
<p>One person told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the service is finished you feel like you’re floating. [It takes a] weight off your shoulders.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, I’d rather lie here thinking about a fish swimming [or] a Willy Nelson concert than be dying […] I enjoyed it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One participant told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh, it’s just amazing, it was nothing like I expected […] it takes you from this world into another beautiful world.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An older woman in a wheelchair uses VR." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576357/original/file-20240219-16-eq6rm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While the benefits of VR were profound for some, they were not universal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/retired-woman-using-vr-glasses-nurse-2073593054">DC Studio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A different person said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] by the time you get to where I am, there’s things you think of, ‘I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d had the chance to have been able to do that’ and then this offers you that experience to have just about feel like you’ve been there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the benefits of VR were profound for some, they were not universal. </p>
<p>Some participants reported feeling worse after the VR sessions.</p>
<p>One person said the headset felt too heavy on their cheekbone, another said they experienced nausea after using the VR.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>We and others have now collected good evidence VR can be a helpful palliative care therapy for some patients – but not all. It is not a universal remedy.</p>
<p>More research is needed to better understand which patients will benefit the most from VR and how we can best use it. It’s also worth remembering skilled staff need to be on hand to support a patient to use VR; it’s no good just buying a VR set and expecting patients to use it on their own.</p>
<p>Our study, while limited, shows VR therapy may in some cases have a role to play to help palliative care patients experience moments of joy and comfort despite the seriousness of their illness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223186/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tobias Loetscher received funding from the Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation for this project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Crawford has received funding from the NHMRC, the MRFF and Cancer Australia. </span></em></p>One person said they wanted a VR experience that allowed them to explore Paris again.Tobias Loetscher, Associate Professor, University of South AustraliaGregory Crawford, Professor in Palliative Medicine, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169982024-02-20T19:57:06Z2024-02-20T19:57:06ZAncient DNA reveals children with Down syndrome in past societies. What can their burials tell us about their lives?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575544/original/file-20240214-26-4oegvh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3264%2C1827&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Las_Eretas_aztarnategiko_etxearen_oinarriak.jpg">Suna no onna / Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After analysing DNA from almost 10,000 people from ancient and pre-modern societies, our international team of researchers have discovered six cases of Down syndrome in past human populations.</p>
<p>Our results, published today in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45438-1">Nature Communications</a>, show people with Down syndrome lived in ancient populations. Although these individuals were very young when they died, they were all buried with care, indicating they were appreciated as members of their communities.</p>
<h2>Down syndrome in humans</h2>
<p>The DNA in our cells (our genome) is separated into 23 chromosomes, much like a book is separated into chapters. Most people carry two “versions” of the first 22 chromosomes, one from each of their parents. In some cases, people can have a third, extra copy of chromosome 21 (this condition is called trisomy 21). </p>
<p>This extra copy of chromosome 21 changes how the body and brain develop. People with trisomy 21 will have some level of intellectual disability and some characteristic physical features (such as almond-shaped eyes or a shorter height). The physical features that can result from trisomy 21 are called <a href="https://www.downsyndrome.org.au/about-down-syndrome/what-is-down-syndrome/">Down syndrome</a>.</p>
<p>However, not every person with Down syndrome has the same physical features, and many of these features are not visible in the skeleton. This has made diagnosing Down syndrome from archaeological remains, which are often damaged and incomplete skeletons, very difficult. </p>
<p>However, we <em>can</em> detect trisomy 21 from even very small amounts of ancient DNA. This is because an additional chromosome 21 will lead to noticeably more DNA from chromosome 21 being present among the DNA that can be extracted from old bones and teeth.</p>
<h2>Discovered across different times and places</h2>
<p>After screening nearly 10,000 DNA samples, we identified six individuals with Down syndrome. </p>
<p>In our research, we screened nearly 10,000 DNA samples from across the world, dating as far back as when humans were hunter-gatherers. The six individuals we identified with Down syndrome were all from Europe, likely because this is where most of our ancient DNA samples were from. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-stone-age-cemetery-dna-reveals-a-treasured-founding-father-and-a-legacy-of-prosperity-for-his-sons-206940">In a Stone Age cemetery, DNA reveals a treasured 'founding father' and a legacy of prosperity for his sons</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One individual was buried in the 17th or 18th century in a church graveyard in Helsinki, Finland, under what is now a popular tourist attraction, the <a href="https://www.myhelsinki.fi/en/see-and-do/sights/senate-square">Helsinki Senate Square</a>. </p>
<p>Another individual was discovered on the Greek island of <a href="https://www.aeginagreece.com/aegina/pages/history/index.html">Aegina</a>, the closest Mediterranean island to Athens. This individual lived approximately 3,300 years ago, and was buried next to a house, with a rare and intricate bead necklace. </p>
<p>A third individual was discovered at the Bronze Age Bulgarian tell site (a settlement on a man-made hill) of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06334-8">Yunatsite</a>, dating to around 4,800 years ago. This infant was buried under the floor of the home in a so-called “urn burial”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of the remains of a small human skeleton." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559452/original/file-20231114-15-iv5hk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The inhumation of the perinatal infant with Down syndrome from the Iron Age site of Las Eretas. This individual was buried within one of the houses in the settlement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographs from the Government of Navarre and J.L. Larrion.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remaining three individuals were found in two Iron Age sites in Spain, <a href="https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1280">Alto de la Cruz and Las Eretas</a>, dating to approximately 2,500 years ago. According to the estimates of their age at death, these babies likely did not survive to birth. </p>
<p>However, they were buried with care within homes or within special buildings reserved for rituals. These burials were remarkable, as most people of the region during these times were cremated instead of buried.</p>
<p>We also compared the skeletons of the individuals with Down syndrome to identify common skeletal differences, such as irregular bone growth, or porosity of the skull bones. </p>
<p>“Learning from this work may help to identify future cases of Down syndrome from skeletons when ancient DNA can’t be recovered,” says our co-author Patxuka de-Miguel-Ibáñez of the University of Alicante, the lead osteologist for the Spanish sites in the study.</p>
<h2>An unexpected discovery</h2>
<p>At one of the same Iron Age Spanish sites, we also identified an infant that carried an extra copy of chromosome 18. This condition, called <a href="https://raisingchildren.net.au/guides/a-z-health-reference/trisomy-18">Edwards syndrome</a>, causes much more severe physical differences, which could be observed in the skeletal remains. This baby likely only survived to 40 weeks’ gestation, but was also given a special burial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a settlement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563237/original/file-20231204-22-9dw6do.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of the Early Iron Age settlement of Las Eretas, Navarra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iñaki Diéguez / Javier Armendáriz, Museo Las Eretas, Navarra</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact that three cases of Down syndrome and the one case of Edwards syndrome were found in just two contemporaneous and nearby settlements was a surprise to us. </p>
<p>“We don’t know why this happened,” says our co-author Roberto Risch, an archaeologist from The Autonomous University of Barcelona. “But it appears as if these people were purposefully choosing these infants for special burials.”</p>
<h2>A view of our past</h2>
<p>Today, individuals with Down syndrome live full and happy lives as valued members of our communities. Notably, our research found no adult individuals with Down syndrome. However, this study shows the perinates and infants that were found were clearly buried with care. In the case where a newborn survived, they were cared for until death. </p>
<p>As we discover and analyse more of these sorts of cases, we will be able to investigate the questions of how our near and distant ancestors viewed rare and uncommon genetic syndromes and how they cared for one another in these cases.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-thought-the-first-hunter-gatherers-in-europe-went-missing-during-the-last-ice-age-now-ancient-dna-analysis-says-otherwise-200899">We thought the first hunter-gatherers in Europe went missing during the last ice age. Now, ancient DNA analysis says otherwise</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After sifting through DNA from almost 10,000 people from ancient and pre-modern societies, we have discovered six cases of Down syndrome in past human populations.Adam "Ben" Rohrlach, Mathematics Lecturer and Ancient DNA Researcher, University of AdelaideKay Prüfer, Group leader, Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218662024-02-19T19:04:04Z2024-02-19T19:04:04Z‘I was who I wasn’t’: McKenzie Wark’s memoir of late transition envisions a less gender-restrictive world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576367/original/file-20240219-24-miu7bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2404%2C1193&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">McKenzie Wark.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MackenzieWark1.jpg">BaixaCultura, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>McKenzie Wark is a cultural and social critic who teaches at the New School in New York. Her new memoir, <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3113-love-and-money-sex-and-death">Love and Money, Sex and Death</a>, is structured as a series of letters to people she has known: her younger self, her mother and sister, her ex-wife of 20 years, more recent lovers, some fictional people – even a god. </p>
<p>In this series of letters, Wark speaks to her past and imagines possible futures. She muses about how her life has changed since coming out as transgender in 2017 at the age of 56, but she also writes evocatively and fiercely about the loss of her mother as a child, her life and relationships in New York, and her visions for a less gender-restrictive world. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Love and Money, Sex and Death: A Memoir – McKenzie Wark (Verso)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>This is a book which has a lot to say about being trans, but it deliberately avoids becoming a linear story of discovery of a “true” self. Instead, Wark shows us how a “self” is made from its relationships, through “fights and feuds”, through “covens of care”. There is a continual sense of her reconstructing herself through and with others. </p>
<p>This is conveyed in the style and form of the book. Part of the beauty of an epistolary memoir is that Wark gets to write throughout in the second person, giving the book a feeling of intimacy. The concept of “writing to a younger self” in the first and last chapters allows Wark to reconstruct a life in hindsight, retro-engineering the story to fit her late change of identity. </p>
<p>This is done with a light touch. Wark writes to her younger self as to another, someone she knows well, but who has their own problems, perspectives and choices. Stories of the past are as much “about” the present self as the facts of what actually happened. Wark writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When one transitions to another sex, the past comes back as if in a different medium. Memories tell not of who one was but who one wasn’t. I was who I wasn’t for the longest time. Transition brings rushes of the past back. Shots for an incomplete home movie. I had to edit memory as I edited flesh.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These “edited memories” are told in ways that foreshadow, without reducing to, any story of “I was always a woman”. Wark complains that trans people are always pushed to tell essentialist stories about their gender. She presents her life as a series of encounters and experiments, which happened to turn out this way, but might have gone another. “I’m writing this to your own future, or a possible one at least,” she writes on the first page, addressing a young McKenzie.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m not going to say you are a girl, or that you always were. You’ve been reading transsexual memoirs on the sly already and not finding yourself in that ‘born in the wrong body’ story. You feel like your body is already a girl’s body. […]
Maybe some sorts of transsexual people ‘always knew’, but you didn’t. You’re always swerving, blindly falling through gender.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wark’s vulnerability and openness about failures, letting people down, not knowing the plot, is part of the book’s aesthetic. But this does not make it a sad story, even as it canvasses death and failed love. As Jack Halberstam argues in <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-queer-art-of-failure">The Queer Art of Failure</a>, failure can open up alternate possibilities for life and love. </p>
<p>Wark is often cynical about the future: “There’s no past, no arcadia. But no future either.” All the same, the book carries the strong themes of care and desire for revolution or utopia, which make it a deeply optimistic work.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/judith-butler-their-philosophy-of-gender-explained-192166">Judith Butler: their philosophy of gender explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Vulnerability and receptivity</h2>
<p>While not sure she was always a woman, Wark writes that she “need[s] to feel feminine”. This does not just mean that she needs to paint her nails (although that, too). It is an overtly sexual “femme” desire: to be exposed, penetrated, made to feel her own vulnerability, openness and receptivity. </p>
<p>One of the things the book does is to enact the queer understanding that this “femme” does not need to be the property of people of any particular gender. Even though she has transitioned into womanhood, Wark maintains a deliberate blurriness about what gender means. Ultimately, she suggests, there can be more revolutionary potential in failing to live up to a single gendered identity than in trying to achieve authenticity. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wouldn’t say that being trans now is living my truth. I’d say it’s a better fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the first chapter of part three, McKenzie and “Veronica”, an elegant trans woman friend, talk over lunch in an expensive New York restaurant. Amid cocktails, disagreements and speculations about the other guests’ sexuality, McKenzie presents a full-fledged theory of trans women as utopian avant-garde. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trans woman bears the burden of the absurdity of gender. She is the scapegoat for what everyone imagines they’re denied. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Precisely because trans women are accused of being deceptive, Wark suggests, they can lead towards a world where people are not constantly in thrall to unattainable “true” models of gender, but instead “make our being together with reference only to each other”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">McKenzie Wark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/photo/author/60623.McKenzie_Wark">Goodreads</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The “Venus” chapter is addressed to a Black trans woman friend who committed suicide during COVID lockdown. It reports on the Brooklyn Liberation for Trans Lives protests for Black trans women. Here, Wark reflects that she has given up her status as a man, but become a middle-class white woman, a “Karen” (a name she had previously chosen for herself). </p>
<p>Following from the scenes in expensive New York restaurants, this (inevitably) feels a bit tokenistic at first. It finishes, though, in such a blaze of anger and ragged grief, of political will for revolution, connection and shared fate that we can glimpse a form of alliance that might be possible when the privileged are prepared to let themselves be undone. </p>
<p>The “hindsight” structure of the memoir means that the reader is always aware of time. Wark counts the years between herself and her past, herself and her future. “Your life as a woman will be brief,” she says to her younger self. “She’ll die young.”</p>
<p>In many ways this is a book about growing older. It addresses the themes of maturing and how priorities in relationships change over time: the gaining of a warmer, less anxious perspective. </p>
<p>Time was necessary for Wark to become her (if that is what she has done) self. The “trade-off with late transition” is ever-present, for better and worse. There is an insistent sense of time shortening ahead of her. But as with her sense of gender, Wark’s sense of time is fluid, often felt through music – jazz when she was younger, rave and ambient later. Time is felt in Wark’s writing, more than measured. It has a music of its own.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How long have we been here? How long are we dancing? […] We are in a pocket in time where there’s more time […] We go into weightless days, seconds, millennia. On the other side of the measure of beats is a time without measure.</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McKenzie Wark’s new memoir is fast moving and kaleidoscopic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nito/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-essentialism-and-how-does-it-shape-attitudes-to-transgender-people-and-sexual-diversity-203577">What is essentialism? And how does it shape attitudes to transgender people and sexual diversity?</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<h2>Freedom and joy</h2>
<p>Wark often assumes an educated reader. Phrases like “This was postmodern aesthetics as Oedipal break-up” will make sense to some readers, but not others. Wark draws on her career as a media theorist, but is also happy to laugh at her “weird brain labour”. There are many funny (although still sometimes painful) moments. Of the dating app Tinder, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when I say I’m trans, they say it’s OK because they’re into kink. (Then ghost me.) They say they have several selves, only one of them female. (They all need a bath.)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the delicious things in this book is the sense of freedom that it invokes. Wark has lived a life of experimentation, following impulses, paying little heed to social conventions. She acknowledges that, at times, this has made her unreliable or even cruel. She does not shy away from responsibility and regret. But overall there is a sense of joy: a “capacity for delight”, as she says of a lover. At heart, these letters are love letters. </p>
<p>There is always more in a book than you can convey in a review, especially a book as fast-moving and kaleidoscopic as this one. But it could perhaps be summarised as a book written from the other side of multiple processes of undoing – loss of loved ones, restructuring of the body and identity, confrontations with violence and prejudice. </p>
<p>Love and Money, Sex and Death ricochets between sparkling defiance, unravelled grief, and furious hope. It always seeks connection with the others it addresses. It combines the personal and political through a philosophy of intimate coalition, in the name of a world where all can find a home and freedom. It’s a fun, wild, devastating ride. Read it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Love and Money, Sex and Death ricochets between sparkling defiance, unravelled grief, and furious hope.Anna Szorenyi, Lecturer in Gender Studies, University of AdelaideCambrey Payne, PhD candidate, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218572024-02-08T19:17:54Z2024-02-08T19:17:54ZWhy are so many Australians taking antidepressants?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573713/original/file-20240206-26-8fjigm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C16%2C5406%2C3620&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-woman-taking-tablet-glass-water-1498026977">Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around <a href="https://australia.cochrane.org/news/new-cochrane-review-explores-latest-evidence-approaches-stopping-long-term-antidepressants">one in seven Australians</a> take antidepressants; more than <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/mental-health/topic-areas/mental-health-prescriptions">3.5 million</a> of us had them dispensed in 2021–22. This is <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2016/204/9/unfulfilled-promise-antidepressant-medications#:%7E:text=Summary,is%20lower%20than%20previously%20thought.">one of the highest</a> antidepressant prescribing rates in the world. </p>
<p>Guidelines mostly recommend antidepressants for <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng222">more severe depression</a> and <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg113/resources/generalised-anxiety-disorder-and-panic-disorder-in-adults-management-pdf-35109387756997">anxiety</a> but not as first-line treatment for less severe depression. Less commonly, antidepressants may be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538182/">prescribed for</a> conditions such as chronic pain and migraine.</p>
<p>Yet prescription rates continue to increase. Between 2013 and 2021, the antidepressant prescription rate in Australia <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/PY/pdf/PY23168">steadily increased</a> by 4.5% per year. So why are so many Australians taking antidepressants and why are prescriptions rising? </p>
<p>The evidence suggests they’re over-prescribed. So how did we get here?</p>
<h2>Enter the antidepressant ‘blockbusters’</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, pharmaceutical companies <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-022-00213-z">heavily promoted</a> new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants, including Prozac (fluoxetine), Zoloft (sertraline) and Lexapro (escitalopram). </p>
<p>These drugs were thought to be less dangerous in overdoses and seemed to have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181155/">fewer side effects</a> than the tricyclic antidepressants they replaced. </p>
<p>Pharmaceutical companies marketed SSRIs energetically and often exaggerated their benefits, including by paying “key opinion leaders” – <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/336/7658/1402">high-status clinicians</a> to promote them. This prompted <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2004/181/7/making-new-choices-about-antidepressants-australia-long-view-1975-2002">substantial growth</a> in the market.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-new-rules-for-defining-who-is-sick-step-1-remove-vested-interests-114621">We need new rules for defining who is sick. Step 1: remove vested interests</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>SSRIs earned billions of dollars for their manufacturers when on patent. While now relatively cheap, they still prove <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/antidepressant-drugs-market-to-reach-15-98-bn-by-2023-globally-at-2-1-cagr-says-allied-market-research-873540700.html">lucrative</a> because of high prescribing levels. </p>
<h2>Why are antidepressants prescribed?</h2>
<p>The majority (85%) of antidepressants are prescribed in <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/mental-health/topic-areas/mental-health-prescriptions">general practice</a>. Some are prescribed for more severe depression and anxiety. But contrary to clinical guidelines, GPs also <a href="https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2021/december/antidepressant-prescribing-in-general-practice">prescribe</a> them as a first-line treatment for less severe depression.</p>
<p>GPs also prescribe antidepressants to patients experiencing distress but who don’t have a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504011/#:%7E:text=Among%20antidepressant%20users%2C%2069%25%20never,current%20physical%20problems%20(e.g.%2C%20loss">psychiatric diagnosis</a>. A friend dealing with her husband’s terminal illness, for example, was encouraged to take antidepressants by her long-term GP, even though her caring capacity wasn’t impaired. Another, who cried when informed she had breast cancer, was immediately offered a prescription for antidepressants. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="GP writes a script" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573716/original/file-20240206-30-a4nh4l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sometimes patients who don’t have a psychiatric diagnosis receive antidepressants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doctor-patient-consulting-room-gp-surgery-2367985555">Stephen Barnes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are several reasons why someone may take antidepressants when they’re not needed. A busy GP might be looking for a convenient solution to a complex and sometimes intractable problem. Other times, patients request a prescription. They may be encouraged by an <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/seratonin-theory-of-depression-under-attack-amid-to-push-to-deprescribe-antidepressants/news-story/f74ca1a6018110e3d680b8d5ce01bc2c">acquaintance’s good experience</a> or looking for other ways to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/321259/listening-to-prozac-by-peter-d-kramer/">improve their mental health</a>. </p>
<p>Most patients believe antidepressants restore a chemical imbalance that underpins depression. This is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0">not true</a>. Antidepressants are emotional (and sexual) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181155/">numbing agents</a> – sometimes sedating, sometimes energising. Those effects suit some people, for example, if their emotions are too raw or they lack energy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work-187769">The chemical imbalance theory of depression is dead, but that doesn't mean antidepressants don't work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For others, they come with <a href="https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/antidepressants">troubling side effects</a> such as insomnia, restlessness, nausea, weight gain. Around half of users have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007725/">impaired sexual function</a> and for some, this <a href="https://annals-general-psychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12991-023-00447-0">sexual dysfunction persists</a> after stopping antidepressants. </p>
<h2>How long do people take antidepressants?</h2>
<p>Most experts and <a href="https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng222">guidelines</a> recommend specific prescribing regimes of antidepressants, varying from months to two years. </p>
<p>However, most antidepressants are consumed by two categories of people. Around half of patients who start antidepressants don’t like them and <a href="https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-244X-9-38#:%7E:text=Medication%20possession%20rates&text=Although%20the%20mean%20MPR%20of,group%20difference%20(Table%203).">stop within weeks</a>. Of those who do take them for months, many continue to use them indefinitely, often for many years. <a href="https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2021/december/antidepressant-prescribing-in-general-practice">Long-term use</a> (beyond 12 months) is driving much of the increase in antidepressant prescribing.</p>
<p>Some people try to stop taking antidepressants but are prevented from doing so by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221503661930032X">withdrawal symptoms</a>. Withdrawal symptoms – including “<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35144325/">brain zaps</a>”, dizziness, restlessness, vertigo and vomiting – can cause significant distress, impaired work function and relationship breakdown. </p>
<p>Across 14 studies that examined antidepressant withdrawal, around 50% of users <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221503661930032X">experienced withdrawal symptoms</a> when coming off antidepressants, which can be mistaken for recurrence of the initial problem. We are conducting a <a href="https://adelaideuniwide.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3QqWrY5TBNUP1YO">survey</a> to better understand the experience in Australia of withdrawing from antidepressants.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1495843401744347136"}"></div></p>
<p>Antidepressants should not be stopped abruptly but gradually tapered off, with smaller and smaller doses. The recent release in Australia of the <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/The+Maudsley+Deprescribing+Guidelines%3A+Antidepressants%2C+Benzodiazepines%2C+Gabapentinoids+and+Z+drugs-p-9781119823025">Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines</a> provides guidance for the complex regimes required for the tapering of antidepressants.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/antidepressants-can-cause-withdrawal-symptoms-heres-what-you-need-to-know-208224">Antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms – here’s what you need to know</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>We need to adjust how we view mental distress</h2>
<p>Overprescribing antidepressants is a symptom of our lack of attention to the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.21160">social determinants of mental health</a>. It’s depressing to be poor (especially when your neighbours seem rich), unemployed or in an awful workplace, inadequately housed or fearful of family violence. It’s wrong to locate the problem in the individual when it belongs to society.</p>
<p>Overprescribing is also symptomatic of medicalisation of distress. Most diagnoses of depression and anxiety are <a href="https://karger.com/psp/article-pdf/37/6/259/3489408/000081981.pdf">descriptions masquerading as explanations</a>. For each distressed person who fits the pattern of anxiety or depression, the meaning of their presentation is different. There may be a medical explanation, but most often meaning may be found in the person’s struggle with difficult feelings, their relationships and other life circumstances such as terrible disappointments or grief. </p>
<p>GPs’ overprescribing reflects the pressures they experience from workload, unrealistic expectations of their capacity and misinformation from pharmaceutical companies and key opinion leaders. They need better support, resources and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4822978/">evidence</a> about the limited <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(17)32802-7/fulltext">benefits</a> of antidepressants. </p>
<p>GPs also need to ensure they discuss with their patients the potential adverse effects of antidepressants, and when and how to safely stop them. </p>
<p>But the fundamental problem is social and can only be properly addressed by meaningfully addressing inequality and changing community attitudes to distress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Jureidini receives research funding from MMRF. He is affiliated with Critical Psychiatry Network Australasia.</span></em></p>Australia has among the highest antidepressant prescribing rates in the world.Jon Jureidini, Research Leader, Critical and Ethical Mental Health research group, Robinson Research Institute, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2228872024-02-08T19:17:36Z2024-02-08T19:17:36Z‘It needs to be talked about earlier’: some children get periods at 8, years before menstruation is taught at school<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573999/original/file-20240207-22-gj9n0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C0%2C6444%2C4240&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/pantyliners-on-pink-background-7692457/">Karolina Grabowska/ AAP</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Managing menstruation in public can be challenging at the best of times, but imagine being eight years old and having to deal with your period at school. You might need to change your pad during class and explain to your friends why you are not going to the swimming carnival. You might be scared you will bleed through your uniform because there aren’t any sanitary bins in the junior years’ bathroom.</p>
<p>In Australia, the average age of the first period is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/7/554/3045901#113385236">about 13</a>. But about 12% of children get their period between the ages of eight and 11. Researchers call this “early menarche” or “early onset menstruation”. </p>
<p>But even though a significant proportion of students are getting their first period as early as Year 3 or even Year 2, primary school students are not officially taught about puberty until Years 5 and 6 (when they are aged between 10 and 12).</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2023.2275595">research</a> explores current period education and what support is available for early menstruators. It shows how schools can act as gatekeepers of knowledge about this essential and very normal part of human development. </p>
<h2>Period shame exists but is not inevitable</h2>
<p>Shame about periods has existed in many parts of the world for centuries. Researchers have noted how children <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565666/">are taught</a> not to talk about menstruation and if they do, it is often negatively (with a focus on pain and discomfort). </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/western-australia/period-embarrassment-sees-wa-students-skip-school-more-than-any-other-state-20210530-p57wh8.html">2021 survey</a> found 29% of 659 menstruating Australian students aged ten to 18 were concerned they would be teased at school for having their period.</p>
<p>Similar issues occur as students grow older. A 2022 <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17455065211070666">Australian survey</a> of 410 university students who menstruate found only 16.2% felt completely confident in managing their periods at university. Just over half believed society thought periods were taboo (and so, not something you talk about). </p>
<p>But the stigma is not inevitable. There are examples of education programs in other countries that celebrate periods and are accessible across ages. </p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://menskompetens.se/">Swedish program</a> that provides information for young people, stories about first periods and advice on how adults can talk to children about menstruation. In the <a href="https://periodpositive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/a-period-positive-national-curriculum-chella-quint-20-july-2022.pdf">United Kingdom</a>, there are moves to introduce a “period positive” curriculum for school students.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dirty-red-how-periods-have-been-stigmatised-through-history-to-the-modern-day-206967">'Dirty red': how periods have been stigmatised through history to the modern day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is taught in Australian schools?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/health-and-physical-education/">Australian curriculum</a> does not not explicitly mention “period” or “menstruation” in any of its online health and physical education curriculum resources, for any year levels up to Year 10. </p>
<p>We can assume schools would cover it under topics such as “understand the physical […] changes that are occurring for them”. But without explicit mention to menstruation or periods, it is likely what is being taught across classrooms in Australia is variable and insufficient.</p>
<p>It was last updated in 2022, under the former Morrison government.</p>
<h2>Our research</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2023.2275595">interviewed</a> 15 staff across government, Catholic and private primary schools in Australia. We asked staff about their awareness of students who have experienced early onset menstruation, how their students are educated about periods, and what support is available to them. </p>
<p>Staff spoke about how students who menstruated early “felt isolated” and voiced the need for earlier “matter-of-fact” menstruation education. As one teacher told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think we’ve got to take it down to Years 3 and 4 and be a lot more specific than we have been, because you are going to get more and more being younger.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, several participants shared apprehension around having discussions about periods with young students. As one teacher explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You don’t want to scare young girls, like seven-and eight-year-olds […] if it is happening earlier, it needs to be talked about earlier. But that’s a hard one because a lot of girls […] aren’t really mature enough to understand […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another teacher said that talking about periods in Year 3 was “probably a bit too much […] you don’t want to traumatise the child”.</p>
<p>Gatekeeping knowledge and awareness about periods from younger children is a problem on multiple levels. For one, it can deprive children of vital information about their bodies. For another, it frames menstruation as something inherently inappropriate, scary or crude. This in turn can reinforce stigma and taboo.</p>
<h2>Can we tell boys about this?</h2>
<p>Staff also spoke about how boys were not necessarily included in lessons about periods, and how male teachers may not have experience talking about these issues. As one teacher told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a discussion that’s been done where they don’t really include the boys in it […].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>School staff also raised concerns that teaching boys about menstruation might present an opportunity for bullying or teasing. One school support officer suggested only girls should be taught about periods, noting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>they [boys] might be like ‘oh, I found your pad!‘</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, separating classrooms by gender for these lessons does not encourage the normalisation of periods. A <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-016-0701-3">2016 study</a> explored the attitudes of 48 Australian men towards menstruation. Participants reported being told little or nothing about periods while growing up, and so they grew up believing it was taboo.</p>
<p>Other teachers in our study noted how important it was for male students to be taught about periods. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I found it really frustrating that we’re giving young men who are eventually going to be in workplaces and potentially in positions of leadership, who are being deprived of these matter-of-fact moments of teaching [about menstruation] where they’re going to sort of pick up these things through like hearsay, through sort of uneducated conversation […]</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-periods-can-come-as-a-shock-5-ways-to-support-your-kid-when-they-get-theirs-177920">First periods can come as a shock. 5 ways to support your kid when they get theirs</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What needs to happen instead?</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2023.2275595">study emphasises</a> how a lack of timely and comprehensive education and support for early menstruators in Australian schools is underpinned by menstrual stigma and taboo. </p>
<p>But it also showed how the issue is driven by perceptions of children’s capacity to learn about periods, based on their age and gender.</p>
<p>This research highlights the need for the Australian curriculum to introduce specific menstruation education by at least Year 3 or earlier. The curriculum needs to explain what menstruation is, why it happens, the ways it can be managed and how it will begin happening to their peers and that this is normal.</p>
<p>In the meantime, we encourage all school staff to work towards building menstrual wellbeing by becoming comfortable discussing periods with all students, make period products accessible to all year levels in all bathrooms, and advertise free period product locations to students from Year 3. </p>
<p>This will enable all children who menstruate to manage their periods in school easily and without shame.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Shipman receives funding from Flinders Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olivia Bellas 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.</span></em></p>In Australia, the average age of first period is about 13. But about 12% of children get their period between the ages of eight and eleven.Olivia Bellas, PhD Candidate, University of AdelaideJessica Shipman, Senior lecturer, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221842024-02-07T19:17:17Z2024-02-07T19:17:17ZIce ages were not as dry as we thought, according to surprising new Australian cave study<p>During ice ages, dry, frozen terrain extended over much of northern Europe, Asia and North America. Many plants and animals retreated from these desolate, harsh landscapes and sought refuge in pockets of more hospitable territory.</p>
<p>But what was happening in the rest of the world? For a long time scientists have thought that dry conditions prevailed across the globe during ice ages, and that the warm periods between ice ages were much wetter.</p>
<p>This interpretation has shaped our understanding of where plants, animals, and even humans lived during Earth’s past. However, it may not be correct.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06989-3">new research published in Nature</a> shows ice ages were actually much wetter than previously thought – at least in the subtropical regions of the southern hemisphere (from 20° to 40° south).</p>
<h2>Ice ages and hemispheres</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of a crystalline tube with a drop of water at the end, against a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572843/original/file-20240201-19-frxma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Speleothem ‘soda straw’ forming from active drip water at the Naracoorte caves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Bourne</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the past million years or so, Earth’s climate has oscillated between cold ice ages (or “glacial” periods) and warmer “interglacial” periods. Currently we are living through an interglacial period known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Holocene-Epoch">Holocene epoch</a>. It began about 11,700 years ago, following the last glacial period which lasted around 110,000 years.</p>
<p>During glacial periods, temperatures were lower, there was less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and ice sheets covered more of the globe. During interglacials, temperatures were higher, there was more carbon dioxide in the air, and large ice sheets remained only in Greenland and Antarctica.</p>
<p>Evidence from the northern hemisphere shows huge ice sheets spread across the northern parts of Europe, northern Asia and North America during glacial periods, and large areas south of the ice were covered with tundra. The <a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/09/ice-age-struck-indigenous-australians-hard/">idea that glacial environments were extreme and harsh</a> was then extended beyond these regions because of evidence that glacial periods were mostly treeless with dusty atmospheres pretty much everywhere, including Australia.</p>
<p>However, our new research reveals that parts of glacial periods were in fact wetter than today across much of the southern hemisphere.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photo of a pool of water in a cave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572845/original/file-20240201-21-5zr6pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cave pool reflecting speleothem stalactites and soda straws at the Naracoorte caves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Bourne</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Developing a 350,000 year climate record</h2>
<p>One way to understand how wet it was in the past is to look at mineral deposits called <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology/speleothem">speleothems</a>, found in underground caves. These deposits, which include stalagmites and stalactites, build up over time as rainwater filters down through soil and limestone into the cave.</p>
<p>We can use the extent of speleothem growth over time to understand changes in water availability. More speleothem growth broadly reflects wetter conditions, while less growth suggests a drier environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of a thin slice of rock showing tree-ring-like internal layers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572844/original/file-20240201-23-5ek8kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cross section of a large stalagmite fragment from Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, showing beautiful, tree-ring-like growth layers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jon Woodhead</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our understanding of past changes in the climate and environment of the southern hemisphere has been limited by a lack of well-dated and long-term records.</p>
<p>To address this problem, we collected samples from speleothems in two cave regions in southern Australia, the <a href="https://www.naracoortecaves.sa.gov.au/">Naracoorte caves</a> in the southeast and the <a href="https://www.capesfoundation.org.au/">Leeuwin-Naturaliste caves</a> in the southwest.</p>
<p>Using a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/uranium-thorium-lead-dating">dating technique</a> based on the decay of naturally occuring uranium, we determined the age of more than 300 individual speleothem fragments from the caves. As a result, we produced a precipitation record spanning the last 350,000 years.</p>
<h2>Wetter and colder, warmer and drier</h2>
<p>Our study revealed surprising yet extremely consistent trends. Over the past 350,000 years, wetter times always occurred within the cooler, glacial periods, while interglacials were consistently dry. </p>
<p>We also studied fossil pollen trapped within the same speleothems. It is harder to be a tree under the <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03441.x">low atmospheric carbon dioxide of glacial periods</a>, but moisture-demanding herbs and shrubs thrived during the glacial periods but were suppressed during interglacials, confirming the dating evidence.</p>
<p>Next, we used our new records from southern Australia as benchmarks for the subtropics around the southern hemisphere, and compared them with other published records from southern Africa and South America. We found wet glacials and dry interglacials were not confined to southern Australia, but in fact, formed a hemisphere-wide pattern. </p>
<p>Climate model simulations also showed a similar pattern over the last glacial cycle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several microscope phots of fossilised grains of pollen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573014/original/file-20240202-27-erbbgu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Selection of fossil pollen grains extracted from the Naracoorte speleothems. Top from left to right: <em>Pteris</em>, <em>Nertera</em> and <em>Amperea</em>. Bottom from left to right: <em>Monotoca</em> (2x), <em>Banksia marginata</em> and <em>Restionaceae</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kale Sniderman</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stable environments with abundant water</h2>
<p>This new understanding of what conditions were like in the southern hemisphere during glacial periods will change how we interpret the movement and expansion of plants, animals and even humans in the past. </p>
<p>It was previously assumed that, during glacial periods, reduced rainfall forced many plants and animals that needed higher levels of moisture into small liveable zones called “refugia”. </p>
<p>However, our research suggests that – at least in the subtropical southern hemisphere – glacial periods were often times of relatively stable environments with abundant water, even if low levels of carbon dioxide meant plants were slow-growing and relatively unproductive. </p>
<p>Our research calls for a big paradigm shift in how we view past ice-age environments across the Earth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rieneke Weij receives funding from the University of Cape Town and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Woodhead receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josephine Brown receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kale Sniderman receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Reed receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Despite cold temperatures, water was relatively abundant in much of the southern hemisphere during ice ages.Rieneke Weij, Postdoctoral researcher in Geochemistry/Palaeoclimatology, University of Cape TownJon Woodhead, Professor emeritus, The University of MelbourneJosephine Brown, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneKale Sniderman, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneLiz Reed, Senior Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219942024-02-07T00:57:14Z2024-02-07T00:57:14ZIf plants can pick fungi to help fight pests and diseases, it opens a door to greener farming and ecosystem recovery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572983/original/file-20240202-23-znbxmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5176%2C3445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/yellow-and-black-caterpillar-on-green-leaf-wZnNIcbnVfA">ArjunMJ/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just beneath your feet, an ancient and silent alliance endures. This alliance between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi is one of the oldest biological partnerships on Earth. </p>
<p>Going back almost <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.91.25.11841">half-a-billion years</a>, this relationship paved the way for plants to make it onto land. These early plants, simple and without the complex root systems of plants today, forged an alliance with fungi. This alliance has been instrumental to the evolution of plant life and has helped <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.14976">shape our ecosystems</a>.</p>
<p>These fungi grow into roots where the plants supply them with the carbon (as sugar and fat) they need to survive. The fungi extend thin root-like threads called mycelia into the soil to make <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoV7zgbkiuo">expansive networks that can access nutrients</a> beyond the reach of plant roots. </p>
<p>But these hidden microbes do more than just help plants get nutrients. Plants are constantly dealing with insect pests and diseases, and have done for a long time. To deal with this, they <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102221-045254">evolved sophisticated defences</a>. AM fungi can <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.17781">dramatically enhance these defences</a>. </p>
<p>So could plants be picking their fungal allies based on their ability to enhance defences against pests and diseases? We recently explored this question and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wrae007">proposed hypotheses</a> around how this could happen. The answer could have huge implications for making agriculture more sustainable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572938/original/file-20240201-102989-zuwwq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist impression of a Devonian landscape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eduard Riou (1838-1900) from The World Before the Deluge 1872, United States</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Harnessing the ancient alliance</h2>
<p>Considering the benefits AM fungi can provide plants, it’s no surprise there has been a lot of interest in using them in environmental management. Studies show AM fungi can have huge benefits for ecosystem restoration by supporting the <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12843">establishment of native plant communities</a>. Their <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.15119">importance to ecosystem function</a> makes it clear mycorrhizal fungi should be <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10092">included in conservation efforts</a>.</p>
<p>In agricultural systems, fungi can increase crop growth, nutrient uptake and <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.15570">yields</a>. These benefits have been a major focus for researchers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00572-004-0307-4">since the 1950s</a>. </p>
<p>While there is ample evidence of the benefits AM fungi can provide for crops, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01520-w">results in the field are inconsistent</a>. There can be a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13353">mismatch</a> between the nutritional needs of the crops and the ability of the fungi that are present or introduced to the soil to meet those needs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572932/original/file-20240201-29-hzjgww.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contrast image of mycelia of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: Loreto Oyarte Galves</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Do plants pick their fungal partners for defence?</h2>
<p>Within the roots of a single plant, numerous fungal species can co-exist, forming complex communities. The species that make up these communities may each offer different capabilities – some are better at defence, while others are better at nutrient uptake. The benefit a plant gets from its fungal partners is, in part, <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.10128">determined by which species are present</a> within its roots.</p>
<p>We can apply AM fungi to the soil but this doesn’t mean these fungi will actually partner up with the plant.</p>
<p>So <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-science/fulltext/S1360-1385(03)00012-8">what determines which fungi gain entry to the roots</a>? Do plants have a say in this? And, if so, how do they choose? These questions have long been on the minds of ecologists and biologists.</p>
<p>At the core of this relationship is a complex exchange system. Plants provide the fungi with carbon they need, and the fungi provide benefits to the plants. </p>
<p>Research has shown a plant will <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1208473">play favourites</a> (at least in some cases) with the fungi. They will partner up and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1208473">give more carbon to the fungi that provide the most nutrients</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there are <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.15308">significant challenges</a> to exploiting these nutritional benefits in agriculture, where large inputs of nutrients are added to the soil. This can limit our ability to use the fungi in this way by removing plant reliance on the fungi for nutrients.</p>
<p>But can we exploit this partnership for plant defences? Globally, insect pests consume <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aat3466">up to 20% of the major grain crops</a> alone.</p>
<p>Given that we know plants can play favourites, could they select their fungi to boost defence? We have developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wrae007">hypotheses</a> to try to better understand this question, to set the stage for future research.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572929/original/file-20240201-23-hv463l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Potential defence-based selection of mycorrhizal fungi by plants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A complex question with big implications</h2>
<p>There are many complications. When a plant is under attack by pests, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45026-3">this compromises its ability to supply carbon</a> to its fungal allies, as its carbon resources are strained. It is still not known how these changes affect the plant’s “choice” of fungal partners. </p>
<p>We need a better understanding of how such choices happen and how herbivores can interfere with the ability of plants to reward those fungi providing the most benefit.</p>
<p>However, if plants can pick out the fungi that help them fight off pests and diseases, it could change the way we think about nature’s partnerships. It has big implications for farming, conservation and restoring damaged environments. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A field of lettuce against the evening sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572947/original/file-20240201-25-i6sxrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pests present huge problems for many crops, such as lettuce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/healthy-vegetable-field-under-beautiful-sky-2399299853">hitesh 8482/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Knowing how plants select fungal allies would pave the way for better-defended crops, reducing the need to apply synthetic pesticides. It would open up exciting possibilities for helping ecosystems recover and thrive. </p>
<p>The possibility that plants can identify and select fungi based on the benefits they derive opens up exciting new frontiers in ecological research. As we explore these underground interactions, we inch closer to harnessing the potential of one of the Earth’s oldest symbioses. It is a reminder of the complex relationships that maintain life on the planet, connections that are as important today as they were 500 million years ago when the first plants reached for the sun above and the fungi below.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Frew receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the British Ecological Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carlos Aguilar-Trigueros receives funding from the Research Council of Finland and the Humboldt Foundation (Germany). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the NSW Department of Planning and Environment and the Future Food Systems Limited Cooperative Research Centre. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Watts-Fawkes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natascha Weinberger 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.</span></em></p>Despite its 500-million-year history, the plant-fungi alliance holds mysteries that, once unravelled, could revolutionise agriculture and ecosystem management.Adam Frew, Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney UniversityCarlos Aguilar-Trigueros, Research Fellow, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of JyväskyläJeff Powell, Professor and ARC Future Fellow, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney UniversityNatascha Weinberger, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney UniversityStephanie Watts-Fawkes, Research Fellow, Waite Research Institute, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223842024-02-05T03:40:54Z2024-02-05T03:40:54ZSovereignty is sacred: in Timor-Leste’s remote Oecusse Enclave, a border dispute threatens to open old wounds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573320/original/file-20240205-17-gb5sa9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C954%2C715&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Rose</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September, Timor-Leste will mark a quarter century since its vote for independence from Indonesia, the conclusion of a 24-year long struggle that left few Timorese families <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_occupation_of_East_Timor#Number_of_deaths">untouched</a>. </p>
<p>Reconciliation with its giant neighbour stands out as one of Timor-Leste proudest achievements, but as 2024 begins, a long simmering border dispute, in which a border hamlet faces the prospect of its land being transferred to Indonesia, is stirring both political strife and ghosts many hoped were at rest.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/timor-leste-election-offers-an-extraordinary-lesson-in-how-to-build-a-stable-democracy-206421">Timor-Leste election offers an extraordinary lesson in how to build a stable democracy</a>
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<h2>Where is the land?</h2>
<p>The area in question is a hamlet called <a href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Naktuka,+Timor-Leste/@-9.3473574,124.0538669,7268m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x2c550ea704aafb87:0xb7b71c467eda2f81!8m2!3d-9.3469731!4d124.0617151!16s%2Fg%2F11bx56h2nt?entry=ttu">Naktuka</a>. It’s around 1,000 hectares of rare old-growth forest and rice fields on the western edge of Timor-Leste’s <a href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-9.2802797,124.1371103,10.75z?entry=ttu">Oecusse</a> (also spelled Oecussi) Enclave. Oecusse is 800 square kilometres of rugged coast and mountains some 70 kilometres west of the rest of Timor-Leste. </p>
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<p>Although Naktuka is home to only around 60 families, and a four hour drive along a coastal track from the nearest major town, to the people of Oecusse it is anything but marginal. Its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14442210601161732">forests</a> are the domain of Oecusse’s king (<em>usif</em>), and the place he periodically <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ocea.5240">gathers</a> the Enclave’s clans to celebrate their identity as “people of the dry land” (Atoni Pah Meto) and subjects of their legendary forebear, Lord Benu (Ama Benu). For them, Naktuka is <em><a href="https://devpolicy.org/publications/books/MRose_indigenous-spirits-and-global-aspirations-in-a-southeast-asian-borderlandDevPol.pdf">pah le’u</a></em> (sacred land). </p>
<p>However, in the wake of recent border <a href="http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=35443&lang=en&n=1">negotiations</a> between Indonesia and Timor-Leste, concerns have been raised over how much longer they will be free to access it. </p>
<p>At the end of 2023, Naktuka was visited by a team from the Timor-Leste’s government who oversaw the placement of around 76 metal stakes (<em>estaka</em>) along a line some 350 meters inland from the frontier. Suspicions quickly grew it was to be a new border.</p>
<p>Such a border would cede around <a href="https://www.fundasaunmahein.org/2024/01/24/land-border-agreement-with-indonesia-pragmatism-and-high-level-politics-over-sovereignty-and-community-rights/">270 hectares</a> of forest and rice fields to Indonesia.</p>
<p>Subsequent developments didn’t allay concerns. On February 1 2024, the head of the technical team working on the border said the stakes <a href="https://tatoli.tl/2024/02/01/abitante-naktuka-fo-fiar-ba-xanana-luta-too-finaliza-fronteira-terrestre/">did not</a> represent a new frontier, but were being used to assess where one might be placed. </p>
<p>Coupled with an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CNRTMediaCenter/posts/pfbid02X7TdCALJ4MtR1RbYi4opTkfU5R8JZJNmXpNPFbX9KjhcDN9MM3GR8KmApbigmZ1Yl">announcement</a> by the CNRT Media Centre, mouth-piece of Timor-Leste’s ruling party, that a “win-win” solution could involve dividing Naktuka in half and giving away around 500 hectares, this was cold comfort. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cash-for-the-winner-the-loser-for-dinner-cockfighting-in-timor-leste-is-a-complicated-game-131027">Cash for the winner, the loser for dinner: cockfighting in Timor Leste is a complicated game</a>
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<p>They even posted a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=687045866942460&set=pcb.687045883609125">map</a> from the Indonesian <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Land-Boundary-Division-in-Noel-Besi-Segment-Citrana-Source-The-Development_fig1_370053360">Geospatial</a> Information Agency showing how it might look.</p>
<p>In Timor-Leste, this has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=naktuka">resulted</a> in an angry backlash. The signing of the border agreement, which was to have <a href="https://kemlu.go.id/portal/en/read/5667/berita/indonesia-completes-6-border-agreements-with-neighbouring-countries-in-the-last-9-years">occurred</a> in Jakarta in late January, has been postponed.</p>
<h2>A small hamlet on a divided island</h2>
<p>Recent questions over the ownership of Naktuka stem from unresolved negotiations over the border between Timor-Leste and Indonesia, created when the latter regained its independence in 2002. </p>
<p>While Naktuka is governed by Timor-Leste, in 2005, Timor-Leste <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/world/asia/east-timor-and-indonesia-sign-border-pact.html">signed</a> an agreement confirming the status of around 95% of its border with Indonesia, with a small number of areas to be clarified later. Naktuka was one. The reason goes back at least 120 years.</p>
<p>In 1904, when the Dutch and Portuguese moved to finalise the division of Timor, they differed in their interpretation where Oecussi’s borders should be. By 1915 the question was effectively settled. The Portuguese put down <a href="https://www.newmandala.org/the-timor-crisis-and-dom-bonaventuras-plea-for-help-houbens-archival-investigations/">milestones</a> and proceeded to govern <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Timor_1914.png">Naktuka</a> for 50 years.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/asean-leaders-give-in-principle-support-for-timor-lestes-membership-what-does-this-actually-mean-194462">ASEAN leaders give 'in-principle' support for Timor-Leste's membership. What does this actually mean?</a>
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<p>With the Indonesian invasion of 1975, Naktuka, along with the rest of Portuguese Timor, became part of the province of <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/97682212/">Timor Timur</a>. In 1999 it voted in Timor-Leste’s independence referendum and was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uti_possidetis">incorporated</a>, as a former part of both Portuguese Timor and Timor Timur, into Timor-Leste. </p>
<p>Indonesia argues that as Naktuka should not (<a href="https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-boundaries-in-the-island-of-timor-the-netherlands-v-portugal-award-thursday-25th-june-1914">arguably</a>) have become part of Portuguese Timor 110 years ago, it should not be part of Timor-Leste now. Suffice to say this is not an argument that makes such sense to the people who live there today, or many of their compatriots.</p>
<p>Naktuka is remote and poor. After independence its people got on with life. Their days revolved around rice farming and their role as caretakers of the land, including the king’s forest, site of the royal feast of <em>‘seu puah</em> (the communal betel nut harvest). The population grew, slowly, and in many ways Naktuka was similar to any other hamlet in Timor-Leste.</p>
<p>And yet, periodic incidents reminded people of their limbo. In 2013, the Timor-Leste Police were <a href="https://www.easttimorlawandjusticebulletin.com/2013/01/naktuka-border-dispute-needs-diplomacy.html">prevented</a> from building a guard-post. Indonesian soldiers would come across the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ZkjAyCy5I">frontier</a>, often just bored, but an unpleasant reminder of the occupation. In 2012 there was even a <a href="https://www.easttimorlawandjusticebulletin.com/2013/01/indonesian-military-suspected-of.html">murder</a> which local media reported was committed by people from across the border. The Indonesian press carried the occasional article about citizens of Timor-Leste settling <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/01/22/ri-reprimands-timor-leste-over-border-area-violation.html">illegally</a> in an area they called “disputed”, but to residents was simply <a href="https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/277815870741736776/">home</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt the intentions of Timor-Leste government in seeking a permanent fix on its western border are good, but the idea it can do so by ceding land is surprisingly out of touch with reality. In Timor-Leste sovereignty is sacred, literally, as is the principle of consent and consultation on matters relating to land. Any solution to the situation in Naktuka that ignores this is very unlikely to work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rose 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.</span></em></p>On a remote stretch of border between Timor-Leste and Indonesia, a dispute over a remote hamlet is stirring memories of conflict many hoped was behind them.Michael Rose, Research Associate, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.