Leettaschmidt

Abortion bans are intended to reduce elective abortions, but they are also affecting the way physicians practice medicine.

That is the key finding from our recently published article in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Medical providers practicing in states that implemented abortion bans in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision are forced to balance the needs of their pregnant patients against the risk that the providers could be prosecuted for treating these patients. This dilemma has serious and far-reaching consequences.

We interviewed 22 medical providers working in reproductive health care across Tennessee in the six months following the implementation of the state’s total abortion ban in 2022.

Providers spoke with our team about the need to protect themselves from criminal liability and told us that they were increasingly hesitant to provide care that their patients needed.

Why it matters

A 2024 ProPublica investigation found that at least two women have died in Georgia as a result of being denied medical care stemming from the implementation of these abortion bans. Nearly all of our interviewees spoke about their fear that these kinds of deaths would happen.

Providers told us that patients often believe that these bans include exceptions when the health of the pregnant person is at risk, but that is not always true in practice.

The Tennessee abortion ban allows for an “exception for situations where the abortion is necessary to prevent the death of a pregnant woman or prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function.”

The problem is that such cases are rarely clear-cut. And the stakes for health care providers are very high. In certain states, including Tennessee, if they are found to have provided an abortion in a case where the mother’s life or health was not imminently at risk, they can face felony charges, which could include multiple years in prison.

In interviews, providers described many cases where terminating a pregnancy is medically necessary for the pregnant person. Take cases of preterm premature membrane rupture, a condition where a pregnant person’s water breaks before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Serious complications can follow a premature membrane rupture, particularly in cases that do not result in the beginning of labor.

The standard treatment for this condition is to induce labor in an effort to prevent such potential medical complications. However, if it is early on in a pregnancy and the fetus would likely not survive outside the womb, this treatment is now discouraged, as the law does not sufficiently clarify what interventions are allowed to protect the pregnant person.

In many cases, the physical harm the pregnant person is experiencing correlates with the level of legal protection a medical provider receives.

Although doctors are trained to follow best practices around health care treatment, fear of malpractice accusations leads to the widely documented practice of defensive medicine, cases where providers either over-administer testing or avoid risks in an effort to prevent malpractice lawsuits.

Abortion bans make this dynamic far worse because they often involve the threat of criminal prosecution, which is not covered by malpractice insurance. This exposes providers to a new form of risk, one that is shaping how providers interact with patients and provide care.

Our team calls this new form of defensive medicine “hesitant medicine.” Providers are forced to prioritize their own criminal legal protection over the well-being of their patients, so they hesitate to provide treatment that patients need. Hesitancy is exacerbated by bans that are ambiguous about when a provider can intervene during a pregnancy complication.

What’s next

It will take years before researchers have data showing the full picture of how abortion bans are affecting women’s reproductive health. However, our interviews show that these bans are already shaping how providers are treating pregnant people.

A majority of our interviewees had considered moving to a state without an abortion ban to practice medicine with far less stress around the threat of criminal prosecution, a trend that is already occurring. Over time, this exodus of providers could exacerbate the problem of health care deserts in the United States.

To mitigate some of this harm, more effort is needed from medical associations, employers and legislatures to clarify or revise the Tennessee “Human Life Protection Act” in a way that better protects women’s health.

Sophie Bjork-James receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Anna-Grace Lilly and Isabelle Perry Newman do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

It’s scary movie season, a time when many people watch films about zombies, serial killers, werewolves, magic and mysterious monsters who are impossible to kill.

However, as far as I know, there’s only one film that features all of those elements – and you’ve probably never seen it.

Made in 2007, “Trick ‛r Treat” consists of four interconnected horror stories, each about 15 to 20 minutes long, that all take place on a single Halloween night.

While characters from one story sometimes appear in other segments, the unifying force in the film is Sam, a mysterious creature wearing a burlap mask. He takes umbrage whenever a character disrespects a Halloween tradition, whether it’s by scaring away trick-or-treaters or blowing out a jack-o’-lantern before Halloween is over. Each meets a gruesome end.

Horror buffs eventually discovered the film. Today, it’s hailed as a modern classic.

What went wrong?

“Trick ‛r Treat” was produced by a major studio, Warner Bros. It featured A-list stars, such as Brian Cox and Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. It was produced by Bryan Singer, who was known for churning out hits such as “X-Men” and “The Usual Suspects.” And though its director, Mike Dougherty, was making his directorial debut, he had worked as a screenwriter on films such as “X2: X-Men United” and “Superman Returns.”

Despite all of these credentials, the film’s theatrical release was delayed from fall 2007 to 2008. Then a theater run was canceled altogether, with Warner Bros. finally releasing it on video in 2009.

The studio never gave an official reason for pulling the theatrical release; however, some critics have speculated that the box office success of the “Saw” franchise and Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” remake were factors.

Other reports suggest that the film’s anthology format, its mixture of horror and comedy, and a plot featuring murdered children made it too hard a sell.

Given the cost of marketing and promoting “Trick ‛r Treat” to a nationwide audience, perhaps the risk wasn’t worth it for a film with a relatively small US$5 million budget. Dougherty himself said these hang-ups constituted a “perfect storm”, suggesting that no one development sealed the film’s fate.

Bypassing the box office

As recently as a decade ago, films released directly to DVD were viewed as flops or cash grabs. In fact, there’s an entire subgenre called “mockbusters” – low-budget rip-offs of studio films, such as “Transmorphers,” which tried to piggyback the success of the “Transformers” franchise, and “Atlantic Rim,” which attempted to do the same for the 2013 blockbuster “Pacific Rim.”

Then there are direct-to-video sequels meant to capitalize off hits. Disney made a lot of money in the late 1990s and early 2000s producing widely panned, direct-to-video animated features such as “The Return of Jafar” and “Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World.”

But second lives for films that were initially snubbed or ignored are nothing new.

“The Boondock Saints” was briefly screened in a handful of theaters for a single week in 1999 before being dumped into the video market. Only then did viewers find it, and it became a cult favorite that eventually begat a sequel.

The stigma of direct-to-video release has diminished over the past decade thanks to the rise of streaming, in which content made directly for home viewing can receive critical acclaim and attract subscribers.

Actor Nicolas Cage has made a cottage industry of this format. While some have attributed his massive output in the past decade to his financial difficulties, Cage’s films “Joe” (2013), “Mandy” (2018) and “Pig” (2021) have all received critical acclaim, despite sometimes only running in a handful of theaters for a week before their release into streaming markets and video on demand.

It’s this sort of tradition that led to the rediscovery of “Trick ‛r Treat.”

Hipster horror

The appeal of “Trick ‛r Treat” is rooted in its subversion of horror tropes.

For example, women and children, who’ve historically served as victims in the genre, have a lot more agency in Dougherty’s Halloween tale. In fact, the mysterious Sam was played by Quinn Lord, who was only 8 years old when the film was shot. In the film, the character’s origin, age and gender remain undefined since Sam is masked or covered in prosthetics for the entire film, blurring the line between human and monster.

In addition, the film’s complex structure, which some speculated might have hurt its chances for commercial success, helped fuel the film’s critical praise. Dougherty called it “‘Pulp Fiction’ meets ‘Halloween,’” a nod to the interlocking structure of Quentin Tarantino’s breakout film and the setting of John Carpenter’s horror staple, which also unfolds over one Halloween night.

It has become somewhat of a cliché to say that esteemed art, initially overlooked, was “ahead of its time.”

Still, it would be fair to say that “Trick ‘r Treat” arrived on the cusp of what has been called a “horror renaissance” in the past 15 years. Directors like Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, Robert Eggers and Mike Flanagan have found critical and commercial success by branding themselves as horror auteurs.

In addition, Peele and directors like Nia Dacosta, who helmed 2021’s “Candyman,” have opened up a brand of horror that deals with social issues and identity. Dougherty’s film also anticipated a trend of horror films with a darkly humorous streak, including Peele’s “Get Out” and David Gordon Green’s reimagined “Halloween” sequels.

Despite the film’s rocky beginnings, “Trick ‛r Treat” received a belated theatrical release in 2022, which has spurred talk of a potential sequel.

Dougherty even acknowledges that the film may owe its current popularity to its botched release. While some mainstream films disappear quickly, “Trick ‛r Treat” – currently streaming on Max – reappears every Halloween. Just like Sam.

Scott Malia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

It can be difficult to tell someone what you think of their work, even if you mean well and even if you think they’re doing a good job. Sometimes the person doesn’t understand what you mean, or doesn’t respond the way you’d hoped. Feedback should contribute to learning, but you might sometimes wonder if it’s any use at all. South African university lecturer Martina van Heerden studied the art of giving feedback to students in higher education. Her insights and three top tips are useful for effective communication in many areas of life.

Why did you decide to study feedback?

As a tutor, I initially did not get training on how to give feedback to students on their essays. After a while, I started thinking more about what exactly I was trying to say and do with my feedback. For example, if I told a student “your argument lacks depth”, was I just telling the to make a stronger argument in this essay, or was there a “deeper message”?

So, in my PhD, I explored “what lies beneath” our feedback. What I found is that often feedback has very specific messages for students, largely about what is valued in a particular context; what the student is expected to know in that discipline.

Feedback is a big concern in higher education globally. It is fairly well researched and most research identifies various problems with it. Students don’t seem to take up the feedback, or there are different understandings of its purpose, or it’s not as effective as it should be because of academic language and conventions. The blame tends to be put on students.

I wondered if the problem lay instead with how educators approach and give feedback.

Focusing on English literature studies, I analysed written comments given to first year students and worked with the tutors giving the feedback. English literature is a tricky discipline to give feedback in as it involves balancing language, literature and academic literacy aspects. Focusing too much on one aspect in feedback could mislead students.

What did you find?

There was a bit of misalignment between the purpose and the practice of feedback.

Ideally, the underlying message of feedback in literature studies should be to develop students’ ability to think critically and analytically about texts. It could do this, for example, by asking questions that stimulate thinking around the topics and themes of the text (rather than asking students to merely provide more information on it).

Most of the feedback in my study, however, focused on correcting surface-level errors like grammar and spelling. Although there is nothing wrong with this in itself, it could mislead students about what is valued in the discipline.

Feedback is often quite frustrating for both students and educators – both research and practice wisdom attest to this. Educators are frustrated because students don’t seem to learn from feedback, and students are frustrated because they are getting what they feel is unhelpful feedback. These are global concerns. There is a big discrepancy between how useful educators and students perceive feedback to be.

My work and other research highlights the importance of seeing feedback as a literacy – that is, as a skill – that needs to be developed deliberately.

Too often, it is assumed that educators will know how to give effective feedback, or it is assumed that students will know what to do with feedback. But a lot of the time, they don’t – we go by our instincts and what is perhaps easier to identify and correct. For feedback to actually “feed forward” – beyond a specific essay or task – the skill needs to be developed.

How can people give better feedback?

I recommend asking yourself three questions:

1.) What do I want to achieve with my feedback? Ask yourself if you just want to help students pass this essay or do well in this task, or if you want them to learn something. If they need to learn something, what should they learn?

2.) How understandable is my feedback language? The language of feedback may be steeped in academic, professional, or industry terms which you take for granted. Or you may have developed your own feedback shorthand. This might be easy for you to understand – you’re the one writing it – but that doesn’t mean a student will. So, ask yourself whether someone who is not you would understand your feedback.

3.) What do I want my students to do with my feedback? Too often, comments don’t really give students guidance on what to do. Correcting errors and making statements about students’ work takes agency and action away from students. Using questions and suggestions means that students become more active in the feedback process.

Feedback is important for learning and development. Too often, though, it becomes another obstacle that has to be overcome. Useful, clear, actionable feedback can help students become better writers, researchers, thinkers and scholars.

Martina van Heerden is a member of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners.

Is Donald Trump a fascist? General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, thinks so. Trump is “fascist to the core,” he warns.

John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, agrees. So does Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in this year’s presidential election.

But political commentators who have a grounding in history are not so sure. Writing in The Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal calls Trump “Hitlerian” and his rallies “Naziesque”, but stops short of calling him a fascist.

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic understands the reservations, but he is tired spending time debating the difference between “fascistic” and just plain “fascist”. “He’s damn close enough,” Tomasky writes, “and we’d better fight”.

I understand this logic. It’s the reason Harris uses the term “fascist” to describe Trump – to send “a 911 call to the American people”. But there’s a problem.

I have spent the past six years researching right-wing, authoritarian political communication in America. I can say with confidence how these kinds of labels can misfire. They can very easily be made to look like liberal hysteria, playing straight into the hands of the far right.

Here are the two reasons why it is crucial to call Trump exactly what he is.

1. Calling Trump a fascist, and then instantly adding, “or close enough,” plays directly into the hands of the far right. “See?” they might say. “Anytime anyone steps outside the liberal consensus, they get labelled a fascist. This is how political correctness silences dissent.”

2. Trump’s kind of authoritarianism thrives on ambiguity about what sort of right-wing populist figure he is. Its success depends on the fact that “fascist” is the only name we have right now for authoritarian politics.

In my view, Trump is not a fascist. Rather, he is part of a “new authoritarianism” that subverts democracy from within and solidifies power through administrative, rather than paramilitary, means.

Why the ‘fascism’ label is unhelpful

This brand of new authoritarianism hides in plain sight because there is no name for it yet. It looks like something else – for example, right-wing populism that is anti-liberal, but not yet anti-democratic. And then suddenly, it shows itself as anti-democratic extremism, as Trump did in refusing to accept the 2020 election result and encouraging the storming of the Capitol.

This moment starkly revealed Trump as a new authoritarian. Supplementary debate about whether Trump is like Adolf Hitler risks being pointless. But the problem is that fascism is the only name we have now for anti-democratic extremism.

All fascists are authoritarians. But not all authoritarians are fascists. It’s crucial to understand there are other types of authoritarianism – and how they differ.

This is not just important for preventing Trump from seeking to subvert American democracy. It is also vital for stopping Trump imitators, who will now spring forth in other democracies. If there is still no name for what they are other than “fascist,” then they, too, will thrive on ambiguity.

What is ‘new authoritarianism’?

I suggest we focus on what Trump actually is – an anti-democratic, “new authoritarian” – and understand what this means and how he is gaining wider support using right-wing populism.

The new authoritarians don’t necessarily take a sledgehammer to a nation’s institutions, for example, by doing away with elections. Rather, they hollow out democracy from within, so it becomes a façade draped over a one-party state.

We have many examples of this kind of ruler today: Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko, Tunisia’s Kais Saied and, of course, the poster-figure for the new authoritarians, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s admiration for Putin is a matter of public record. For alt-right thinkers who are influential with Trump, such as Steve Bannon, Putin provides a blueprint for how new authoritarianism works.

Authoritarians like Putin must govern through the state, not the people, because, as social psychologist Bob Altemeyer explains, they ultimately represent a tiny minority of the population.

Military dictatorships rule through the armed forces. The fascist regimes of 20th century Europe were ultimately police states. They relied on converting paramilitary death squads into secret police (like the Gestapo) and state security (the SS in Nazi Germany).

The new authoritarians, however, govern through the transformation of the civil service into their own personal political machines.

That is why Trump is obsessed with the “deep state”, by which he means the way in which democratic institutions have built-in legal safeguards defended by civil servants, who can potentially frustrate executive orders. The new authoritarian strategy is to appoint a stratum of political loyalists to key positions in their administrations, who can circumvent institutional checks. But that is no easy matter.

If Trump is elected, he has vowed to “crush the deep state”, for example, by purging thousands of nonpolitical civil service employees. As part of this, he has pledged to establish a “truth and reconciliation commission” oriented to punishing those he thinks opposed him the past.

Trump has been following this new authoritarian playbook for nearly his entire political career. These are the three steps he is taking to lay the groundwork for authoritarian rule:

1) Undermine electoral integrity

The first key to new authoritarianism: subvert democracy by undermining electoral integrity. The acid test here? Authoritarians do not accept election results when the opposition has won. As Trump has very bluntly put it, “I am a very proud election denier”.

Trump’s opening move in this regard was to take over the Republican Party. He used election denialism to do this, while also marginalising any moderates who opposed him.

The Trump Republican Party is now a minority party, oriented to white grievance, resentment of immigrants and the anti-democratic idea that a country should be run like a company.

Its only hope for winning government as a minority party is by trying to suppress the vote of its opponents. To do this, pro-Trump Republican states have passed a number of laws since 2020 to make voting more difficult.

These states have also aggressively removed people from the voting rolls. Texas alone has stricken one million voters off its rolls since 2021, only 6,500 of whom were deemed non-citizens.

If Trump wins, he will likely make it even harder for people to vote. Civil rights groups fear he may introduce a citizenship question to the census, use the Department of Justice to conduct a massive purge of voter rolls, and launch criminal investigations of electoral officials.

As a backup, Trump will likely resurrect the “election integrity commission” he established in 2017 to justify his claims of alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election and support his election denialism narrative.

2) Weaken the legislative and judicial branches

The second key to new authoritarianism: circumventing the checks-and-balances function of the legislative branch of government. The goal here is to rule by executive fiat or govern through a stacked legislative majority.

The new authoritarians often govern through executive orders, including the use of emergency powers. For instance, Trump has envisaged a scenario in which a Republican Congress could enact emergency powers to empower the president to overturn the authority of state governors to fire their prosecutors and use the National Guard for law enforcement.

Such a development would depend on a number of factors, including the complicity of the judiciary. This is why new authoritarians also attempt to stack the judiciary with loyalists.

In his first term, Trump not only appointed three Supreme Court justices, he also placed judges to the federal appeals courts, district courts and circuit courts.

3) Attack their enemies

This leads to the third pillar of new authoritarianism: decapitating the political opposition and suppressing dissent.

Trump’s threats to investigate and prosecute his enemies, including leading figures in the Democratic Party, should be taken very seriously. His calls to target the “enemy from within” were pointedly directed at what he deemed “radical left lunatics”.

Journalists and the news media would also likely be targeted. Trump’s statement that the broadcast licenses of national networks should be revoked, for example, needs to be understood in the context of his pledges to dismantle federal regulatory agencies if elected.

That matters, because the next step for new authoritarians to solidify their power is through suppressing dissent. Trump has proposed using the military in civil contexts to target criminals and prevent illegal immigration. He has reportedly even questioned why the military couldn’t “just shoot” protesters.

It is important to understand how this differs from fascism, because it is central to Trump’s ability to retain electoral support.

Classical fascism under dictators like Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini was based on street-fighting, paramilitary movements, which used violence to intimidate and crush the opposition. The equivalents of this today are right-wing militias such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

Trump keeps one foot on the edge of this camp. But alt-right figures like Bannon understand that swastika flags and paramilitary uniforms are a political liability. Their preference is for new authoritarianism, which is able to push a right-wing extremist agenda by reducing democracy to sham elections, rather than openly setting up a totalitarian regime.

As such, Trump can dodge accusations of being a “fascist” by telling the Proud Boys to “stand by”, while throwing up a smokescreen of equivocations about the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He can distance himself from kind of paramilitary violence that is reminiscent of classical fascism.

It is about time to call things by their true names. Trump has the anti-democratic tendencies of a new authoritarian – and, as his opponents point out, he seems likely to put his words into actions if elected a second time.

Geoff M Boucher 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.

Historic Ybor City is set to host its largest cigar festival in decades on December 8 at Centennial Park (1800 E 8th Ave). Presented by Arturo Fuente Cigars and J.C. Newman Cigars, the 2024 Ybor City Cigar Festival honors the rich tradition of cigar culture in a celebration that promises to be unforgettable.

Cigar aficionados can explore premium hand-rolled cigars from global vendors, meet iconic cigar makers, and indulge in tastings. The festival also features live entertainment, cigar-rolling demonstrations, and a variety of food, desserts, and beverages, including beer, wine, and spirits. Local artisans will display unique jewelry, artwork, clothing, and cigar accessories, ensuring there’s something for everyone.

A free community event celebrating Ybor City history

Carlito Fuente Jr., owner of Arturo Fuente Cigars, expressed his pride in the event: “Every year, it gets bigger and better… It makes me so proud to be back in Ybor City and see how much it has blossomed.”

With free entry, this event welcomes locals and visitors alike to celebrate Ybor City’s vibrant history, craftsmanship, and community spirit. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to experience the legacy of one of the world’s most iconic cigar traditions!

For more details, click here.

The post Ybor City gears up for its biggest cigar festival in decades appeared first on That's So Tampa.

Big news in the music world. The legendary producer Timbaland, who has been one of the AI music generator Suno’s biggest users, has agreed to serve as a strategic advisor to the company.

Suno and Timbaland are holding a remix contest for people to remix Timbaland’s new song, “Love Again.” Details below.

Timbaland is the biggest name in the music industry thus far to openly embrace the use of AI music generators. In the video, he explains why.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on AI and music. Hope to share something soon. Stay tuned.

Grammy-winning producer @Timbaland shares how Suno is helping him rediscover the purity of creativity in the debut episode of our new video series, MUSE. Hear more from Timbaland: https://t.co/sDcCo2ZC0H

Be the first to hear his new single “Love Again”, dropping exclusively on… pic.twitter.com/B4q81ZNeNS

— Suno (@suno_ai_) October 22, 2024

This ones for y'all!!! I’m hosting a remix contest for my track "Love Again" with @suno_ai_ ! I'm giving away $100K in prizes and will include the best 2 remixes in the official release Enter now—link in my bio! pic.twitter.com/UBERD7TFWq

— Timbaland (@Timbaland) October 23, 2024

.@Timbaland Presents: "Love Again" Remix Contest Remix the legendary producer's new single, "Love Again", on Suno!

Prizes:
100 winners, selected by Timbaland, will win over $100K+ in cash prizes, with the 1st Place winner receiving $25,000
The top 2 winning songs,… pic.twitter.com/ZWBtefG33Q

— Suno (@suno_ai_) October 23, 2024

The legacy of slavery in America remains a divisive issue, with sharp political divides.

Some argue that slavery still contributes to modern economic inequalities. Others believe its effects have largely faded.

One way to measure the legacy of slavery is to determine whether the disproportionate riches of slaveholders have been passed down to their present-day descendants.

Connecting the wealth of a slaveholder in the 1860s to today’s economic conditions is not easy. Doing so requires unearthing data for a large number of people on slaveholder ancestry, current wealth and other factors such as age and education.

But in a new study, we tackled this challenge by focusing on one of the few groups of Americans for whom such information exists: members of Congress. We found that legislators who are descendants of slaveholders are significantly wealthier than members of Congress without slaveholder ancestry.

How slavery made the South rich

In 1860, one year before the Civil War, the market value of U.S. slaves was larger than that of all American railroads and factories.

At the time of emancipation in 1863, the estimated value of all enslaved people was roughly US$13 trillion in today’s dollars. The lower Mississippi Valley had more millionaires, all of them slaveholders, than anywhere else in the country.

Some post-Civil War historians have argued that emancipation permanently devastated slave-owning families.

More recently, however, historians discovered that, while the South fell behind the North economically immediately following emancipation, many elite slaveholders recovered financially within one or two generations.

They accomplished this by replacing slavery with sharecropping – a kind of indentured servitude that trapped Black farm workers in debt to white landowners – and enacting discriminatory Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation.

100 descendants of slaveholders

Using genealogist-verified historical data and financial data from annual congressional disclosures, we examined members of the 117th Congress, which was in session from January 2021 to January 2023.

Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.

Wealth creates many privileges – the means to start a business or pursue higher education. And intergenerational wealth transfers can allow these advantages to persist across generations.

Because members of Congress are a highly select group, our results may not apply to all Americans. However, the findings align with other studies on the transfers of wealth and privilege across generations in the U.S. and Europe.

Wealth, these studies find, often stays within rich families across multiple generations. Mechanisms for holding onto wealth include low estate taxes and access to elite social networks and schools. Easy entry into powerful jobs and political influence also play a part.

Privilege with power

But members of Congress do not just inherit wealth and advantages.

They shape the lives of all Americans. They decide how to allocate federal funds, set tax rates and create regulations.

This power is significant. And for those whose families benefited from slavery, it can perpetuate economic policies that maintain wealth inequality.

Beyond inherited wealth, the legacy of slavery endures in policies enacted by those in power – by legislators who may be less likely to prioritize reforms that challenge the status quo.

COVID-19 relief legislation, for example, helped reduce child poverty by more than 70% while bringing racial inequalities in child poverty to historic lows. Congress failed to renew the program in 2022, plunging 5 million more children into poverty, most of them Black and Latino.

The economic deprivation still experienced by Black Americans is the flip side of the privilege enjoyed by slaveowners’ descendants. The median household wealth of white Americans today is six times higher than that of Black Americans – $285,000 versus $45,000.

Meanwhile, federal agencies that enforce antidiscrimination laws remain underfunded. This limits their ability to address racial disparities.

The path forward

As the enduring economic disparities rooted in slavery become clearer, a growing number of states and municipalities are weighing some form of practical and financial compensation for the descendants of enslaved people.

Yet surveys show that most Americans oppose such reparations for slavery. Similarly, Congress has debated slavery reparations many times but never passed a bill.

There are, however, other ways to improve opportunities for historically disadvantaged populations that could gain bipartisan backing.

A majority of Americans, both conservatives and liberal, support increased funding for environmental hazard screening, which assesses the potential impact of a proposed project. They also favor limits on rent increases, better public school funding and raising taxes on the wealthy.

These measures would help dismantle the structural barriers that perpetuate economic disparities. And the role of Congress here is central.

Members of Congress do not bear personal responsibility for their ancestors’ actions. But they have an opportunity to address both the legacies of past injustices and today’s inequalities.

By doing so, they can help create a future where ancestral history does not determine economic destiny.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Whether we’re socialising, shopping, banking, studying or working, billions of people around the world spend hours each day online.

This digital immersion has many benefits – and plenty of pitfalls, too. Here are just a few of the articles we’ve published by academics who specialise in various aspects of online safety. They’re packed full of cautionary tales and expert advice for keeping your digital spaces safe.

Identifying online scams

Think it’s only the digitally unsophisticated who get trapped by online scammers? Think again. Cybersecurity expert Thembekile Olivia Mayayise warns that even some of the most seasoned internet users she knows have fallen prey to phishing scams. They hand over sensitive information like login credentials and credit card details to “seasoned and cunning scammers who have honed their skills in the world of phishing over an extended period. Some work alone; others belong to syndicates.”

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Read more: Phishing scams: 7 safety tips from a cybersecurity expert

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‘Academies’ for would-be cybercriminals

Given that some people make a career out of running online scams, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’s a market for training aspirant cyber crooks. Cybercrime scholars Suleman Lazarus and Mark Button shine a spotlight on west Africa’s “hustle kingdoms”, which are becoming common in Ghana and Nigeria. At these informal academies, people are taught to carry out digital scams. Sextortion – coercing victims into sharing sexually explicit content and threatening to make it public if the scammer is not paid – is one such strategy.

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Read more: Hustle academies: west Africa's online scammers are training others in fraud and sextortion

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The psychology of scammers

Luckily, researchers are developing new ways to understand the psychology of online scammers. Rennie Naidoo, a professor of information systems, explains how behavioural science and data science could join forces to combat cybercrime. While data science can be used to identify patterns that indicate potential cyber threats, he points out, it cannot recognise the human factors that drive cybercriminal behaviour. That’s where behavioural science comes in.

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Read more: Catching online scammers: our model combines data and behavioural science to map the psychological games cybercriminals play

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Truth and lies on the internet

Disinformation and misinformation have become depressingly common in online spaces. Misinformation arises from people unwittingly spreading falsehoods; disinformation involves the deliberate, planned dissemination of lies. Fabrice Lollia’s experience as a disinformation expert means he’s well placed to offer handy tips for sorting lies from truth.

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Read more: Social media: Disinformation expert offers 3 safety tips in a time of fake news and dodgy influencers

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Keeping kids safe online

It’s not just adults who are at risk online. Children are, in many respects, more vulnerable than their parents and caregivers even though they tend to have a better practical grasp of internet technology than previous generations. Lucy Jamieson, Heidi Matisonn and Wakithi Mabaso have researched various aspects of the ethics of new and emerging technologies, with a focus on how children are affected. The trio provide practical, simple advice for helping children navigate the risks, identify the ethical pitfalls and enjoy the benefits of social media platforms.

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Read more: Children and the internet: helping kids navigate this modern minefield

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There’s been an increased political and media focus recently on so-called youth crime waves, particularly in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

This has unfortunately led to crackdowns from governments and police. Young people in Alice Springs have been subject to curfews.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli (who’s ahead in the polls ahead of this weekend’s election) has suggested young people found guilty of some crimes should be sentenced as adults.

But punitive youth crime policies violate children’s human rights and are an expensive way of making the community less safe. It’s much better to stop youth crime before it starts by supporting children’s positive development in early childhood.

In a new evaluation, we found a preschool program reduced the amount of young people before the courts by more than 50%. When the right family support was provided too, the chances of the children committing crimes were even lower.

Our original study

Early community-based crime prevention strategies have been greatly neglected in Australia. This is despite international evidence and the recommendations of a widely circulated 1999 Commonwealth government report.

Scientific evidence has been accumulating for more than 50 years that shows the root causes of serious youth crime can be addressed in early childhood through prevention initiatives. The most famous example is the Perry Preschool Project, implemented in a disadvantaged area of Michigan in the early 1960s.

In Australia, the Pathways to Prevention Project operated in a disadvantaged, multicultural region of Brisbane from 2002 to 2011.

It was a collaboration between Griffith University, the Queensland Department of Education, and national community agency Mission Australia.

The project aimed to improve child and youth outcomes by partnering with local preschools, schools, families and community organisations.

In 2002 and 2003, 214 four-year-old children attending two local preschools received an enhanced program focused on communication skills. This is called an “enriched preschool program”.

It was integrated into the standard curriculum and delivered by specialist teachers working with the children’s classroom teachers and their parents.

Evidence at the time showed communication skills were directly linked to success at school. They were also linked to to success in life through improved behaviour and enhanced social skills.

The communication program brought children together in small groups with similar levels of language competence. The groups were balanced in terms of gender and cultural background. They completed carefully curated activities including games, bookmaking and reading.

These provided children with the opportunity to extend and practice oral language skills in ways that were personally meaningful. These activities were led by the specialist teachers who had postgraduate qualifications in communication and oral language development.

The specialist teachers engaged parents and children in joint activities, and actively supported reading and language activities at home. By year one, children who received the communication curriculum had better language proficiency, social skills, classroom behaviour and academic achievement than children in the other preschools.

The children’s families could also access practical support from community workers from their own cultural background. This included parenting education, advocacy with government agencies and counselling. This continued until 2011.

What’s new?

Earlier evaluations showed the enhanced curriculum helped improve children’s readiness for school, among a range of other benefits. Now we’ve evaluated the success of the program over the long term.

Using anonymised data-linkage procedures, we followed up the students who received the enhanced curriculum back in 2002 to see what’s happened since.

Children who received the enhanced curriculum had improved classroom behaviour throughout primary school. They were also 56% less likely to be involved in serious youth crime by age 17.

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Read more: Is Australia in the grips of a youth crime crisis? This is what the data says

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Remarkably, our evaluation found none of the children whose families also received support in the preschool years went on to offend.

The full Pathways Program was implemented widely in the community over a ten-year period, so we thought it might have had an impact more broadly.

We looked at the rate of youth offending in the region in the years 2008–16, when members of the 2002–03 preschool cohort were between 10 and 17 years old. It was 20% lower in this region than in other Queensland regions at the same low socioeconomic level.

How does this lead to less youth crime?

Programs like this work by levelling the playing field and improving the lives of children early in their developmental pathways. Developmental pathways are events and experiences that follow on from each other, or cascade, across the course of life.

For instance, a difficult transition to school increases the likelihood of poor engagement and academic problems. These are well-known risk factors for antisocial behaviour.

The long-term impact of Pathways to Prevention on youth offending means it could be a model for similar programs across Australia.

This is especially the case given our nation’s chronic under-investment in community-based developmental crime prevention. We need more programs in disadvantaged communities that are open to everyone and don’t stigmatise people.

Overwhelmingly, efforts across the country are devoted to early intervention with children identified as “at risk” in some way (such as showing disruptive behaviour), or to the treatment of young people who become enmeshed in the youth justice system.

In Queensland, there is an over-reliance on youth detention, which is often very harmful for children and of no preventative value.

Using Pathways as a model for other communities doesn’t necessarily mean exactly replicating what we did (though this is also important). Any early prevention initiative will have the best chance of success if it includes evidence-based strategies that improve children’s life chances.

These can be implemented cost-effectively through existing systems including preschools, schools and primary care. Ideally, they should operate through local partnerships involved at all stages of planning, data collection, implementation and evaluation.

Jacqueline Allen received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology Research Grants.

Kate Freiberg holds an unpaid position at RealWell and received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology Research Grants.

Emeritus Professor Ross Homel received funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Institute of Criminology Research Grants, the Queensland Government and the John Barnes Foundation. He is affiliated with the Justice Reform Initiative as a Queensland Patron and provides honorary research support to RealWell Pty Ltd.

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected to a second term, claiming that, among other things, foreign-born workers take jobs from others. His running mate JD Vance has echoed those anti-immigrant views.

Researchers, however, generally agree that massive deportations would hurt the U.S. economy, perhaps even triggering a recession.

Social scientists and analysts tend to concur that immigration — both documented and undocumented — spurs economic growth. But it is almost impossible to calculate directly how much immigrants contribute to the economy. That’s because we don’t know the earnings of every immigrant worker in the United States.

We do, however, have a good idea of how much they send back to their home countries – more than US$81 billion in 2022, according to the World Bank. And we can use this figure to indirectly calculate the total economic value of immigrant labor in the U.S.

Economic contributions are likely underestimated

I conducted a study with researchers at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab at American University to quantify how much immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy based on their remittances, or money sent back home.

Several studies indicate that remittances constitute 17.5% of immigrants’ income.

Given that, we estimate that the immigrants who remitted in 2022 had take-home wages of over $466 billion. Assuming their take-home wages are around 21% of the economic value of what they produce for the businesses they work for – like workers in similar entry-level jobs in restaurants and construction – then immigrants added a total of $2.2 trillion to the U.S. economy yearly.

That is about 8% of the gross domestic product of the United States and close to the entire GDP of Canada in 2022 – the world’s ninth-largest economy.

Immigration strengthens the US

Beyond its sheer value, this figure tells us something important about immigrant labor: The main beneficiaries of immigrant labor are the U.S. economy and society.

The $81 billion that immigrants sent home in 2022 is a tiny fraction of their total economic value of $2.2 trillion. The vast majority of immigrant wages and productivity – 96% – stayed in the United States.

Remittances from the U.S. represent a substantial income source for the people who receive them. But they do not represent a siphoning of U.S. dollars, as Trump has implied when he called remittances “welfare” for people in other countries and suggested taxing them to pay for the construction of a border wall.

The economic contributions of U.S. immigrants are likely to be even more substantial than what we calculate.

For one thing, the World Bank’s estimate of immigrant remittances is probably an undercount, since many immigrants send money abroad with people traveling to their home countries.

In prior research, my colleagues and I have also found that some groups of immigrants are less likely to remit than others.

One is white-collar professionals – immigrants with careers in banking, science, technology and education, for example. Unlike many undocumented immigrants, white-collar professionals typically have visas that allow them to bring their families with them, so they do not need to send money abroad to cover their household expenses back home.

Immigrants who have been working in the country for decades and have more family in the country also tend to send remittances less often.

Both of these groups have higher earnings, and their specialized contributions are not included in our $2.2 trillion estimate.

Additionally, our estimates do not account for the economic growth stimulated by immigrants when they spend money in the U.S., creating demand, generating jobs and starting businesses that hire immigrants and locals.

For example, we calculate the contributions of Salvadoran immigrants and their children alone added roughly $223 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023. That’s about 1% of the country’s entire GDP.

Considering that the U.S. economy grew by about 2% in 2022 and 2023, that’s a substantial sum.

These figures are a reminder that the financial success of the U.S. relies on immigrants and their labor.

Ernesto Castañeda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Abortion is on the agenda not just in the United States but worldwide.

A majority of people in developed democracies increasingly favor abortion rights and self-determination. And, in most places, laws are shifting to reflect public opinion. Since 2020, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, among others, have legalized abortion. In 2024, France adopted the right to an abortion as a “guaranteed freedom” in its constitution.

At the same time, on every continent, some modern democracies are rolling back reproductive rights, among them Poland, Brazil and the U.S.

My new study, Abortion Rights Backlash, traces the relationship between abortion rights and democracy worldwide. Comparing progress in Argentina and California with the regression of Poland, Texas and beyond, I found that expanding abortion rights strengthens democracy, while restricting reproductive freedom weakens it.

Abortion rights are a test for democracy

Unsafe abortions kill or maim tens of thousands of pregnant people every year globally, and access to safe abortion is considered a fundamental right in international law.

The struggle for abortion rights, then, is a test for democracy. It signals whether citizens have control of their bodies and can influence decision-making on their fundamental rights.

This process has been playing out in the U.S. since 2022, when the Supreme Court ended federal protection for the right to get an abortion. Abortion has since been on the ballot in seven state elections, and in every case people have voted to protect reproductive rights.

A majority of Americans support legal abortion, and upcoming referendums in 10 more states are expected to reflect this democratic sentiment.

Argentina: A political and social movement

Argentina’s path to legalizing abortion in 2020 shows how mobilizing for reproductive rights builds democracy.

The Argentine abortion-rights movement, which began after the end of the country’s military dictatorship in 1983, bolstered the country’s most representative democratic institutions and increased women’s political participation. It also forged new forms of solidarity between marginalized groups.

Under Argentina’s ruling military junta, which was aligned with the Catholic Church, contraception and even divorce had all been banned. The country began steadily expanding women’s rights starting in 1985, when the newly democratic government signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a United Nations agreement obliging it to protect women’s rights.

Studies show that signing international women’s rights treaties lays the groundwork for reproductive rights, and Argentina was no exception. It legalized birth control and divorce in the 1980s, and in 1991 it established a congressional quota requiring that at least 30% of legislative seats be allocated to women.

Women steadily gained more influence in politics, a proven precursor to greater access to abortion. The rising number of women legislators in the Argentine Congress repeatedly moved to legalize abortion, proposing bills to Congress in 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2018.

They all failed, but each successive version gained increasing support from legislators and from the Argentine people. The defeat of the 2018 legal abortion bill triggered massive protests, and progressive legislators responded by sponsoring days of hearings on abortion legalization. Representatives from women’s organizations testified movingly on the thousands of lives lost to unsafe, illegal abortions.

Beyond the political system, Argentine activists worked to forge strategic social coalitions.

They enlisted the country’s powerful unions and respected human-rights movements to their cause. These forces were essential to securing the 2019 victory of President Alberto Fernandez, who pledged to partner with Congress to deliver reproductive rights.

The abortion-rights movement also allied with Latin America’s influential movement to end gender violence and with the LGBTQ rights campaign of Argentina, which in 2010 became the first country in the region to recognize same-sex marriage.

To broaden their appeal beyond the capital city and professional women, the activists worked to engage rural areas and working-class voters. They emphasized the discriminatory impact of abortion bans.

“The rich abort,” they chanted at marches. “The poor die.”

In 2020, the Argentine Congress legalized abortion in Argentina as thousands rallied outside in the Plaza de Mayo. Many were wearing green bandannas, a symbol inspired by the white scarves worn by human-rights activists during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Braving the COVID-19 pandemic, the abortion-rights protesters turned their iconic green scarves into face masks.

Poland: Motherhood by any means necessary

In contrast to Argentina, Poland’s abortion clampdown illustrates how repression of reproductive rights correlates with rising authoritarianism.

In 2016, Poland’s conservative nationalist Law and Justice Party took power, pledging to restore “family values,” and then proceeded to undermine women’s rights and rule of law.

At the time, abortion was legal in Poland only when pregnancy threatened the life or health of the mother. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, the ruling party presented legislative proposals that would eliminate these limited exemptions to Poland’s abortion ban.

The efforts stalled in parliament due to a combination of resistance from opposition parties and massive public outcry, with over 100,000 Poles turning out for street protests in 2016 and 2017 to oppose the proposed ban.

Law and Justice Party leaders solved the problem of democratic opposition by cutting the legislature and the Polish people out of the process.

In 2020, with public protest restricted during the pandemic, the Polish government filed a case with the constitutional court arguing to outlaw abortion under all circumstances. The court, stacked with justices loyal to the government, agreed. It ordered a total ban.

Since then, half a dozen women denied therapeutic abortions or abortion aftercare have died of sepsis in Polish hospitals because doctors, fearful of prosecution, refused them lifesaving surgery.

While it was clamping down on abortion rights, Poland’s right-wing government was attacking the civil liberties of other people. Security forces targeted doctors, raided women’s organizations and arrested activists. Gay people were declared a “threat to the Polish state.”

In 2023, centrist Donald Tusk was elected as Poland’s prime minister on pledges to restore human rights and the rule of law. So far, though, parliament and the courts have blocked his efforts to moderate Poland’s abortion ban.

Democracy in action

The evidence is clear: When abortion is legal, democracy thrives. And when reproductive rights are restricted, democracy withers. That same story is unfolding in the U.S. right now, state by state.

Following a successful 2022 abortion ballot initiative, California guaranteed reproductive freedom in its state Constitution. As in Argentina, this move was spearheaded by a strong women’s movement in the state Legislature.

By contrast, Texas has echoed Poland’s path. After shutting down access to abortion, the state restricted its citizens’ right to travel, further curbing civil liberties.

Mobilizing for reproductive rights expands democracy because it gives women voice and control over basic freedoms. The struggle for abortion rights shows society that the personal is indeed political – and that women’s lives matter.

Alison Brysk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Welcome to our ‘Light and health’ series. Over six articles, we look at how light affects our physical and mental health in sometimes surprising ways.

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For most of our evolutionary history, human activity has been linked to daylight. Technology has liberated us from these ancient sleep-wake cycles, but there is evidence sunlight has left and continues to leave its mark.

Not only do we still tend to be awake in the daytime and sleep at night, we can thank light for many other aspects of our biology.

Light may have driven our ancestors to walk upright on two legs. Light helps explain the evolution of our skin colour, why some of us have curly hair, and even the size of our eyes.

As we’ll explore in future articles in this series, light helps shape our mood, our immune system, how our gut works, and much more. Light can make us sick, tell us why we’re sick, then treat us.

Million of years of evolutionary history means humans are still very much creatures of the light.

We stood up, then walked out of Africa

The first modern humans evolved in warm African climates. And reducing exposure to the harsh sunlight is one explanation for why humans began to walk upright on two legs. When we stand up and the Sun is directly overhead, far less sunshine hits our body.

Curly hair may have also protected us from the hot Sun. The idea is that it provides a thicker layer of insulation than straight hair to shield the scalp.

Early Homo sapiens had extra Sun protection in the form of strongly pigmented skin. Sunlight breaks down folate (vitamin B9), accelerates ageing and damages DNA. In our bright ancestral climates, dark skin protected against this. But this dark skin still admitted enough UV light to stimulate vital production of vitamin D.

However, when people colonised temperate zones, with weaker light, they repeatedly evolved lighter skin, via different genes in different populations. This happened rapidly, probably within the past 40,000 years.

With reduced UV radiation nearer the poles, less pigmentation was needed to protect sunlight from breaking down our folate. A lighter complexion also let in more of the scarce light so the body could make vitamin D. But there was one big drawback: less pigmentation meant less protection against Sun damage.

This evolutionary background contributes to Australia having among the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.

Our colonial history means more than 50% of Australians are of Anglo-Celtic descent, with light skin, transplanted into a high-UV environment. Little wonder we’re described as “a sunburnt country”.

Sunlight has also contributed to variation in human eyes. Humans from high latitudes have less protective pigment in their irises. They also have larger eye sockets (and presumably eyeballs), maybe to admit more precious light.

Again, these features make Australians of European descent especially vulnerable to our harsh light. So it’s no surprise Australia has unusually high rates of eye cancers.

We cannot shake our body clock

Our circadian rhythm – the wake-sleep cycle driven by our brains and hormones – is another piece of heavy evolutionary baggage triggered by light.

Humans are adapted to daylight. In bright light, humans can see well and have refined colour vision. But we see poorly in dim light, and we lack senses such as sharp hearing or acute smell, to make up for it.

Our nearest relatives (chimps, gorillas and orangutans) are also active during daylight and sleep at night, reinforcing the view that the earliest humans had similar diurnal behaviours.

This lifestyle likely stretches further back into our evolutionary history, before the great apes, to the very dawn of primates.

The earliest mammals were generally nocturnal, using their small size and the cover of darkness to hide from dinosaurs. However, the meteorite impact that wiped out these fearsome reptiles allowed some mammalian survivors, notably primates, to evolve largely diurnal lifestyles.

If we inherited our daylight activity pattern directly from these early primates, then this rhythm would have been part of our lineage’s evolutionary history for nearly 66 million years.

This explains why our 24-hour clock is very difficult to shake; it’s so deeply ingrained in our evolutionary history.

Successive improvements in lighting technology have increasingly liberated us from dependence on daylight: fire, candles, oil and gas lamps, and finally electric lighting. So we can theoretically work and play at any time.

However, our cognitive and physical performance deteriorates when our intrinsic daily cycles are disturbed, for instance through sleep deprivation, shift work or jet lag.

Futurists have already considered the circadian rhythms required for life on Mars. Luckily, a day on Mars is around 24.7 hours, so similar to our own. This slight difference should be the least of the worries for the first intrepid martian colonists.

Light is still changing us

In the past 200 years or so, artificial lighting has helped to (partly) decouple us from our ancestral circadian rhythms. But in recent decades, this has come at a cost to our eyesight.

Many genes associated with short-sightedness (myopia) have become more common in just 25 years, a striking example of rapid evolutionary change in the human gene pool.

And if you have some genetic predisposition to myopia, reduced exposure to natural light (and spending more time in artificial light) makes it more likely. These noticeable changes have occurred within many people’s lifetimes.

Light will no doubt continue to shape our biology over the coming millennia, but those longer-term effects might be difficult to predict.

Mike Lee receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Hermon Slade Foundation

The Australian National Health and Medical research Council (NHMRC) has today released draft guidelines for acceptable levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water.

PFAS chemicals are also known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t break down easily and can persist in the environment, including drinking water supplies.

The new guidelines – which are not mandatory but will inform state and territory policy – are expected to be finalised in April 2025. They propose a reduction in the maximum levels previously considered safe for four key PFAS chemicals: PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFBS.

Continually scrutinising and updating our PFAS regulations is important to ensure Australians’ safety. However, these updated guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on Australia’s drinking water. The majority of potable water supplies in Australia either have no detectable PFAS, or have levels already below the new limits.

What are PFAS chemicals?

PFAS are highly fat-soluble compounds that are very slow to break down. They are basically long chains of carbon atoms studded with fluorine molecules.

PFAS chemicals are inert, water-repellent and heat-resistant. These properties make them ideal for industrial usage and they have been used in firefighting foams and fire-retardant material. They have also been used in common household items such as nonstick pans and stain-resistant fabrics.

Unfortunately, their useful industrial stability means they persist in the environment and can accumulate in the human body. It can take five years for half an ingested dose of PFAS to be removed.

Given PFAS chemicals have the potential to mimic the body’s own fats, there has been concern they could harm our health if sufficient amounts accumulated in the body.

What sorts of health effects are they linked to?

The buildup of a chemical that’s hard to remove from our bodies is always of concern. Despite this, the potential health risks appear to be low. In 2018 the Australian Expert Health Panel for PFAS looked in detail at the evidence.

One of the largest concerns was PFAS chemicals’ ability to increase levels of cholesterol in the blood, potentially increasing heart disease risk. However, studies of people who have been chronically exposed to significant levels of PFOA have not shown statistically significant increases in heart disease.

In 2018, the report from Australia’s expert health panel stated:

Evidence to date does not establish whether PFAS at exposure levels seen in Australia might increase risks of cardiovascular disease… Established risk factors … are likely to be of a much greater magnitude than those potentially caused by PFAS.

Cancer has also been a concern. However the expert panel found no consistent evidence that PFAS chemicals are associated with cancer. One study even found exposure to PFOA decreased the incidence of bowel cancer.

However, the impact of PFAS on human health is continuously reviewed as new evidence comes to light.

Why has Australia revised its drinking water guidelines?

Australia began to phase out PFAS chemicals in the early 2000s. Since then, the levels of PFAS detected in the Australian population have steadily dropped.

Now that industrial use is being phased out, the main way we are exposed to PFAS is through things like persistent environmental contamination. While drinking water is not a major source of PFAS, water can be contaminated from environmental sources, for example, if contaminated dust or ground water makes its way into reservoirs.

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines provide limits for how much PFAS is allowed to be in our drinking water.

The NHMRC periodically reviews the health evidence around PFAS used to develop these guidelines, which were last updated in 2018. The latest review looks at additional evidence available since then.

A few developments were of particular interest in this review: studies about the influence of PFAS on thyroid function. Altering thyroid function can be problematic because thyroid hormones regulate our metabolism, growth and development.

The International Agency for Cancer Research’s (IARC) recent ruling on PFAS and cancer also needed to be investigated. The IARC has classified PFOS – one of the four key chemicals Australia is regulating – as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. However the IARC noted there was “inadequate” evidence PFOS directly causes any type of cancer in people.

This agency can rule on the probability that a chemical can cause cancer under any possible exposure, no matter how extreme. But it doesn’t evaluate the risk of cancer from ordinary exposure.

This means the NHMRC needed to reevaluate the evidence that the levels present in drinking water would constitute a risk.

What are the new PFAS limits?

The NHRMC considered evidence about PFAS exposure in animal studies, and by looking at human epidemiology.

In studies involving animals, the NHMRC review paid particular attention to what concentration of PFAS exposure had no effect on their health. This threshold is used to determine limits for humans, by adding a safety buffer usually a hundred times lower than the level that was safe for animals.

The limits are set are carefully considering the evidence about impact on human health, as well as evaluating how much PFAS exposure is likely from sources beyond drinking water, such as food and inhaled dust.

The proposed limits are:

These guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on health. As the NHMRC report shows, majority of potable water supplies in Australia have no detectable PFAS, or levels are already below these new limits.

For example, drinking water sampling for WaterNSW found PFOS levels were between 1.2ng/L and undectable. Similar results were found for PFHxS (between 1.4 and 0.1ng/L) and PFOA (basically undetectable).

While the concentration of PFAS in bores near contamination sites are higher, these are typically not used as sources of drinking water.

The Australian guidelines differ from some international guidelines. The draft guidelines note that different jurisdictions place different weighting on animal and human evidence, and this will affect these regulatory levels.

The draft guidelines are now open to public consultation, with submissions closing on November 22 2024. Final guidelines are expected to be released in April 2025.

Ian Musgrave has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reactions to herbal medicines and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer's disease. He has collaborated with SA Water on studies of cyanobacterial toxins and their implication for drinking water quality.

The global market for standing desks is booming, projected to reach US$12.6 billion by 2032 (£9.7 billion). These desks have been hailed as a simple fix for the health risks associated with sitting all day. However, recent research suggests that standing might not be the health booster many hoped for.

A new study from Australia involving over 83,000 participants found that prolonged standing may not improve heart health and could even increase the risk of certain circulatory problems.

Researchers discovered that standing for extended periods did not reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. In fact, spending too much time either sitting or standing was linked to a higher risk of problems such as varicose veins and feeling dizzy or lightheaded when you stand up.

The phrase “sitting is the new smoking” has become popular in the past decade, highlighting the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle. Prolonged sitting has been associated with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In response, standing desks emerged as a trendy solution, offering a way to reduce sitting time without drastically changing daily routines.

But was there solid evidence to support the benefits of standing desks?

Much of the enthusiasm was based on limited studies that didn’t comprehensively assess long-term health consequences. This gap in knowledge prompted researchers to investigate further.

In the new study, participants wore devices to track their sitting, standing and physical activity over several years. This objective measurement provided accurate data, reducing the inaccuracies often found in self-reported information. The researchers found that sitting for more than ten hours a day was associated with a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

However, simply standing more didn’t mitigate this risk. In fact, standing for extended periods was linked to an increased risk of circulatory problems.

Prolonged standing can cause blood to pool in the legs, leading to conditions such as varicose veins.

The study’s large sample size and use of objective data strengthen the reliability of these findings. However, as an observational study, it cannot definitively establish cause and effect. Also, the average age of participants was around 61 years, which may limit how these results apply to younger people.

Movement is key

These findings suggest that simply swapping sitting for standing isn’t a perfect solution. Our bodies respond better to regular movement rather than static positions, whether that’s sitting or standing.

Incorporating short walks, stretching or light exercises throughout the day can interrupt long periods of inactivity and offer significant health benefits.

Workplace interventions promoting movement have shown promise. Researchers found that office workers who reduced their sitting time by adding periods of standing and light activity saw improvements in blood sugar levels and other health markers.

Another study indicated that alternating between sitting and standing, combined with brief walks, was more effective for health than standing alone.

Sit-stand desks, designed to facilitate easy position changes, offer a promising solution. They promote frequent posture changes and can alleviate discomfort associated with prolonged static positions. Some models even feature reminders to encourage regular movement, integrating activity into the workday.

Getting more physical activity into our lives doesn’t have to be complex. Simple actions such as taking the stairs, walking to a colleague instead of emailing, or standing during phone calls can all contribute. Setting a timer to remind you to move every 30 minutes can help break up long periods of sitting or standing, empowering you to take control of your health.

Movement is key. Standing all day isn’t necessarily better than sitting – both have drawbacks when overdone. By focusing on regular physical activity and varying our positions, we can better address the health challenges posed by sedentary lifestyles. Small changes, such as taking short active breaks or incorporating stretching exercises, can make a significant difference.

Ultimately, while standing desks offer an alternative to prolonged sitting, they shouldn’t be seen as a complete solution. Embracing a more active lifestyle, both in and out of the office, is likely to yield the greatest health benefits. It’s not just about standing or sitting; it’s about moving more and sitting less.

Jack McNamara 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.

In one of the most haunting scenes of Stephen King’s 1975 novel “Salem’s Lot,” a gravedigger named Mike Ryerson races to bury the coffin of a local boy named Danny Glick. As night approaches, a troubling thought overtakes Mike: Danny has been buried with his eyes open. Worse, Mike senses that Danny is looking through the closed coffin back at him.

A mania overcomes Mike. Prayers run through his head – “the ways things like that will for no good reason.” Then more disturbing thoughts intrude: “Now I bring you spoiled meat and reeking flesh.” Mike leaps into the hole he’s dug and furiously shovels soil off the coffin. The reader knows what he’s going to do, but ought not to do, next: Mike will open the coffin, freeing whatever Danny has become.

Enter the whip-poor-wills. Several of them, King writes, “had begun to lift their shrilling call,” the demand for violence that gives the species its name: whip-poor-will.

This isn’t the first time whip-poor-wills appear in “Salem’s Lot,” nor is it the last time King would invoke them in his work. But despite the importance of the species to King, whip-poor-wills never appear in film and television adaptations of “Salem’s Lot.”

Released on Oct. 3, 2024, the most recent adaptation of “Salem’s Lot” incorporates birdsong but makes little use of them. Here and there, an American crow or blue jay calls. Sparrowlike chirps pepper scenes at night. And as Mike unburies the undead Danny, the less threatening call of a barred owl replaces that of whip-poor-wills.

As a cultural sociologist writing a book about eastern whip-poor-wills, I’m interested in this omission not because it reflects an unfaithful recreation of King’s novel. Rather, I see the erasure of whip-poor-wills from “Salem’s Lot” as a symptom of broader ecological changes, one in which species loss is also tied to cultural loss.

The horror of the night

As least as early as Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the call of whip-poor-wills, a member of the nocturnal nightjar family, haunted American fiction.

Perhaps the best known whip-poor-wills in American horror appear in H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “The Dunwich Horror.” Lovecraft references the species nearly two dozen times in his story, with the birds often appearing around the deaths of the Whateley family, who live in the fictional town of Dunwich, Massachusetts.

By behaving in ways that real whip-poor-wills never do, Dunwich’s nightjars symbolize the horrors the Whateleys unleash on the townspeople. The birds also act as psychopomps: beings who guide the souls of the newly deceased to the afterlife.

Dunwich’s whip-poor-wills remain in the town until Halloween – “unnaturally belated,” Lovecraft writes – as they chant in unison with the dying breaths of Whateleys. (Indeed, most whip-poor-wills leave the Northeast by the end of September, and they usually don’t coordinate their singing.) But though whip-poor-wills are essential to the plot of “The Dunwich Horror,” another common owl, this one a great horned owl, replaces whip-poor-wills in the 1970 film adaptation of Lovecraft’s story.

King, too, uses whip-poor-wills to great effect. In “Jerusalem’s Lot,” the short story King later published as a prelude to “Salem’s Lot,” whip-poor-wills haunt the Maine town. And in his 1989 novel “The Dark Half,” King references the lore of whip-poor-wills as psychopomps.

Lovecraft’s and King’s fictional whip-poor-wills draw on widespread Indigenous, European and American beliefs about the species. A whip-poor-will singing near one’s home was an especially ominous sign, usually meaning that death would soon take someone in the house. An 1892 article in the American Journal of Folklore documents this belief in King’s home state, Maine. It also offers a story, probably apocryphal, as evidence: “A whippoorwill sang at a back door repeatedly; finally, the woman’s son was brought home dead, and the corpse brought into the house through the back door.”

Birds and belief disappear

For the better part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, whip-poor-will lore circulated among people who encountered the bird. Outside of the world of folklore studies, you can find passing mention of ill omens in the nature writing of Henry David Thoreau and Susan Fenimore Cooper, though neither gave credence to these superstitions. Into the 20th century, local newspapers continued to share lore about the birds with their readers.

But as erasure of the species from horror suggest, broader cultural familiarity with whip-poor-wills has atrophied. In one exception, “Chapelwaite,” a 2021 television series based on King’s “Jerusalem’s Lot,” the characters explicitly discuss the birds’ behaviors, so that viewers understand the reference.

The cultural erasure of whip-poor-wills mirrors the species’ actual decline. Conservationists estimate that eastern whip-poor-will populations have declined by about 70% since the 1970s. This decline is likely leading to what the naturalist Robert Michael Pyle calls the “extinction of experience.” Pyle reasons that when a species declines, people lose opportunities to encounter it in local landscapes and are less likely to be familiar with it in the first place.

Such declines also drive social and cultural losses. This is most stark when a species goes extinct. Consider the passenger pigeon. As the writer Jennifer Price shows in her book “Flight Maps,” the life of Americans was once entwined with the species. When massive flocks of passenger pigeons arrived, communities gathered to hunt the birds, which were once an integral part of the American diet. Now, however, the species is remembered almost exclusively as a symbol of human-induced extinction.

Similarly, the decline of common birds alters people’s relationships to the environment. For instance, in the U.K., the decline of house sparrows robs landscapes of the beloved sight and sound of a once ubiquitous species. The loss of common cuckoos, meanwhile, means that spring arrives in the U.K. without its iconic song.

Beyond cultures of loss

I think we are witnessing similar cultural changes with whip-poor-wills. Their absence in the adaptations of King’s work mirrors their absence both in the landscape and in people’s lives. But though loss and grief rightfully characterize many people’s relationship with whip-poor-wills and other declining species, I want to make a case for hope.

On one hand, there’s reason to be hopeful about the possibility of conservation: Whip-poor-wills appear to respond well to forest management practices that create diverse forests with a mix of younger and older trees. Many places where whip-poor-wills breed have active conservation plans to support the bird and other species that share their habitats.

Nor are whip-poor-wills culturally extinct.

After all, readers still find their way to the works of Lovecraft and King. These and other enduring references to the species offer people an opportunity to find their way back to the bird – and to what the species meant to all those who have cared for them.

Jared Del Rosso does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Snow is coming to Tampa Bay, well, sort of! Florida’s only real snow park, Snowcat Ridge, is now open for its new season, which kicked off on November 21. Located at […]

The post Florida’s big snow park, Snowcat Ridge, now open for the season appeared first on That's So Tampa.

If your home is prone to flooding during heavy rains, enough sandbags and a tarp in the right spot can mean the difference between dry floors and waterlogged carpets. When well-placed, sandbags in front of your door can help keep minimal floodwaters and debris away from — and out of — your home. However, sandbags must be properly filled and set up to protect your house from water damage so learning how to properly sandbag a door is crucial.

Important note – If a storm threatens, the County will announce sandbag distribution locations and times. The opening of distribution sites depends on a storm’s intensity and the area it is projected to affect.

Hillsborough County will only distribute 10 sandbags per household.

Tips for filling sandbags

1. Bring a friend to a sandbag distribution site. If the site does not have a sandbag machine and requires you to fill your own, it is a two-person job. One person must hold the sandbag open while the other shovels sand into it. Sandbags will be easier to fill with the help of a friend.
2. Fill the sandbags halfway to two-thirds full. Do not overfill them. Doing so can create gaps in stacked rows of sandbags. Tie the tops of the bags so that the sandbags will lay flat when in place.
3. If the sand is very dry, eye protection in the form of safety goggles may come in handy.

Setting up sandbags and tarp to divert water

Follow these steps to sandbag a door and protect your home as much as possible from flooding:

1. Place a plastic tarp in front of the flood prone door. The tarp will serve as a liner. This is an essential step – the sandbags alone will not seal off or stop flood water.
2. The tarp should reach higher than the height of the expected flood and go under the row(s) of sandbags. The tarp should be affixed to the door and doorframe. Heavy-duty waterproof tape can be used for this.
3. Arrange the first row of sandbags horizontally across the entire doorway, flush with the exterior of the house. Flatten the sandbags so they fit as tightly as possible against the exterior of the house and doorway.
4. If more than one row is needed, stack the next row of sandbags on top of the first. Rows should be staggered, like rows of bricks in a wall. All rows of sandbags should be flush with the exterior of the house and door.
5. Flatten the sandbags as you put them in place. This can be done by stepping on them. It’s important to stack the bags securely and to try to seal any cracks in the bags.

The post How to Properly Sandbag a Door appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Max lounges in the shade by a few silver food bowls at the entrance of USF’s Botanical Gardens. He’s a light orange white cat, occasionally sprinkled with dirt and looking as unamused as a cat could.  The gardens’ lead curator, Craig Huegel, doesn’t know Max’s breed or age. He was just here when Huegel took […]

There are thirteen species of bats residing in Florida, but USF students might be able to spot two of them at their own campus.  In June, USF facilities department found evidence of roosting in an upper floor of the Student Services Building (SVC). But, after a September investigation, facilities could not find any more evidence […]

Quick PSA: someone on Facebook is apparently impersonating me using an account called “McMansion Hell 2.0” – If you see it, please report! Thanks!

Howdy folks! I hope if you were born between 1995 and 2001 you’re ready for some indelible pre-recession vibes because I think this entire house, including the photos have not been touched since that time.

This Wake County, NC house, built in 2007, currently boasts a price tag of 1.7 million smackaroos. Its buxom 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths brings the total size to a completely reasonable and not at all housing-bubble-spurred 5,000 square feet.

I know everyone (at least on TikTok) thinks 2007 and goes immediately to the Tuscan theming trend that was super popular at the time (along with lots of other pseudo-euro looks, e.g. “french country” “tudor” etc). In reality, a lot of decor wasn’t particularly themed at all but more “transitional” which is to say, neither contemporary nor super traditional. This can be pulled off (in fact, it’s where the old-school Joanna Gaines excelled) but it’s usually, well, bland. Overwhelmingly neutral. Still, these interiors stir up fond memories of the last few months before mommy was on the phone with the bank crying.

I think I’ve seen these red/navy/beige rugs in literally every mid-2000s time capsule house. I want to know where they came from first and how they came to be everywhere. My mom got one from Kirkland’s Home back in the day. I guess the 2010s equivalent would be those fake distressed overdyed rugs.

I hate the kitchen bench trend. Literally the most uncomfortable seating imaginable for the house’s most sociable room. You are not at a 19th century soda fountain!!! You are a salesforce employee in Ohio!!!

You could take every window treatment in this house and create a sampler. A field guide to dust traps.

Before I demanded privacy, my parents had a completely beige spare bedroom. Truly random stuff on the walls. An oversized Monet poster they should have kept tbh. Also putting the rug on the beige carpet here is diabolical.

FYI the term “Global Village Coffeehouse” originates with the design historian Evan Collins whose work with the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute!!!!

This photo smells like a Yankee Candle.

Ok, now onto the last usable photo in the set:

No but WHY is the house a different COLOR??????? WHAT?????

Alright, I hope you enjoyed this special trip down memory lane! Happy (American) Labor Day Weekend! (Don’t forget that labor is entitled to all it creates!)

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

Urian Rios, an American History professor, said the new general education course requirements in state universities are censorship. Classes “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States” are no longer allowed on general education curriculums in compliance with Florida statute 1007.25. “Issues like sexism, […]

USF’s Board of Trustees (BOT) re-endorsed a statement on free expression in state universities at its Tuesday meeting.  This comes just after USF updated a policy that has redefined how students can organize on campus, including needing to get pre-approval if they plan to gather with amplified sound and displays. The endorsement complies with […]

Want to keep the party going? Maybe it’s time to get the COVID-19 booster and flu vaccine. In college, thousands of students come from all around the world, bringing germs along with them. Flu season typically begins in October and lasts until May, according to the Florida Health Department. With a few weeks left before […]

Health authorities in the United States are issuing warnings and closing public parks due to a rare but potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease.

This week, a resident of the US state of New Hampshire died after being hospitalised with eastern equine encephalitis. Cases have also been detected in other states.

But what is eastern equine encephalitis? How is it spread? What, as the name suggests, do horses have to do with it? And is it a problem for Australia?

What is eastern equine encephalitis?

Eastern equine encephalitis is caused by a virus typically only found in some eastern parts of the Americas, from Central America to Canada.

Eastern equine encephalitis virus causes neurological disease, particularly encephalitis (inflammation and swelling of the brain) and is transmitted to humans via a mosquito bite. Symptoms can be severe and potentially fatal.

But most people bitten by a mosquito carrying the virus won’t have symptoms. For those who develop disease, symptoms include headache, neck stiffness, confusion, seizures and coma.

About one-third of patients with severe symptoms will die and many of those who survive have ongoing neurological problems.

It’s not just people at risk from the virus. Horses are susceptible too and, like humans, can also develop fatal encephalitis after a bite from an infected mosquito.

The virus was discovered after an outbreak of fatal disease in horses in the New England region of the US in 1831, hence the reference to equine illness in its name.

Wild, farmed and captive birds can also be infected with the virus and, in some species develop disease. In fact, birds are key to how the virus spreads.

How is eastern equine encephalitis virus spread?

Birds – especially passerines, a group that includes robins, starlings, thrushes and blue jays – are the main hosts of the virus.

These birds produce high enough levels of the virus to infect biting mosquitoes and maintain what’s known as a “transmission cycle”.

Bird-feeding mosquitoes in forested wetlands, especially Culiseta melanura, allow the virus to circulate among birds. But this mosquito rarely bites people so it isn’t as important for outbreaks of human disease.

It’s the mosquitoes that feed on both birds and mammals that transmit the virus to humans and horses. These include Aedes, Coquillettidia and Culex mosquitoes. But once infected, humans and horses do not spread the virus. That’s because they don’t produce high enough levels of the virus to infect mosquitoes.

How can we limit the spread?

There are no specific treatments for infection with eastern equine encephalitis virus, or any licensed vaccines for use in people. There is a vaccine registered for veterinary use to prevent virus infection in horses.

Personal protective measures and mosquito control are the main strategies to limit people being exposed to the virus.

Outbreaks can have a significant impact on communities, not only from the disease itself, but from measures implemented to limit transmission.

Recent outbreaks have led to outdoor events being cancelled. There have also been concerns about the widespread use of aerial “fogging” to kill mosquitoes as commonly used chemicals are not specific to mosquitoes and may pose a risk to other insects.

Some towns have closed parklands during the evening and asked residents not to go outside at night.

Why is there an outbreak now?

The virus circulates year-round in tropical areas such as Florida. In the north-east of the US, the virus has more sporadic activity. Here, it’s typically introduced by migratory birds and is active in the warmer months when mosquito populations are thriving.

The virus has been known for many decades and a number of outbreaks have been reported in North America. One of the last substantial outbreaks was in 2019 across several north-eastern US states, when there were 38 human cases (including 12 deaths).

There is evidence the virus is spreading into new regions of North America. But, given the sporadic nature of outbreaks, it is difficult to predict when they will occur.

A number of factors are likely at play in determining future outbreaks and the spread of the virus to new regions, including the climate, environmental factors, the activity of mosquitoes and wildlife, and also, importantly, people.

With increasing contact between people and the mosquitoes that can pass on the virus from infected birds, the public health risks increase.

Perhaps human activity around the habitats of mosquitoes and birds, including encroachment of urban development into forested wetlands, elevates risk.

So it’s crucial for health authorities to monitor mosquito and virus activity to provide early warning of the risk of human disease.

Is there a risk to Australia?

There is no evidence that eastern equine encephalitis virus is in Australia and there is no immediate risk of its introduction here.

While Culiseta mosquitoes are found in Australia, their role in local virus outbreaks in people or animals is not well understood.

But there are dozens of different mosquitoes involved in the spread of alphaviruses in Australia. That’s the group that includes eastern equine encephalitis virus, as well as ones that exist in Australia, namely Ross River and Barmah Forest viruses.

It’s reasonable to assume some of these mosquitoes may be able to transmit the virus but this hasn’t been tested in laboratory experiments.

There is very little information on how local passerine birds may play a role in establishing cycles of viral transmission in Australia. There is also no information on whether native Australian vertebrates, such as marsupials, would respond to infection.

When we consider all the available evidence, the risk of the virus spreading to Australia and subsequently causing an outbreak is, most likely, very low.

Are travellers at risk?

The risk of being bitten by a mosquito carrying eastern equine encephalitis virus is extremely low. But anyone visiting eastern regions of North America, including the US and Canada, where the virus can occur should take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Follow directions from local health authorities. And take steps to avoid the locations (especially forested wetlands) and times when mosquitoes are active (typically dawn and dusk). Wear loose fitting clothing with long sleeves and apply repellents containing diethyltoluamide (commonly known as DEET), picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus.

These precautions will also protect against infection with other mosquito-borne viruses you might encounter there, such as West Nile virus.

Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management.

Andrew van den Hurk has received funding from local, state and federal agencies to study the ecology of mosquito-borne pathogens, and their surveillance and control. He is an employee of the Department of Health, Queensland government.

The origins of English expressions are often obscure and require deep linguistic and documentary research to be explained. Being phrases, not single words, their intrinsic meanings can be reconstructed by studying old texts and their earliest use.

Once the intricacies of their origins are unravelled, they can tell us a lot about how our language has developed over centuries. In the end, they often unveil to us fascinating and unexpected stories. Let’s try to briefly analyse four of them.

1. So long

Though now considered dated, “so long” was once a common English expression. It was used to bid farewell, with different degrees of definitiveness, depending on the context.

The phrase can be interpreted as “goodbye until we’ll meet again”. However, if considered literally, the idiom means just “so long” and nothing else. What happened to its meaning and what are its origins, then?

If the expression was generated from the English language, it could be considered a shortened form of a sentence like this: “It will only be so long before we meet again.” However, this explanation is based on a retrospective interpretation of the idiom.

Another option is to consider “so long” as an adaptation from another language. The Irish slán is a possible parallel. It literally means “safe”, but is used in the same way as “goodbye”. The German phrase adieu so lange means “goodbye while we’ll be apart”. This is similar to the Norwegian Adjø så lenge and the Swedish Hej så länge. “So long” could also be compared to the Hebrew shalom (Yiddish sholom) and Arabic salaam, which both mean “peace”.

To understand the origins of phrases, we need to look for the earliest known use, or “attestation”. For “so long”, that’s it’s use in So Long!, the final poem of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

At that time, the idiom was not yet popular, and the poet had to explain it as a “salutation of departure” among people belonging to specific social categories (like sailors) who are not sure they’ll ever meet again. By the 20th century, “so long” became a widespread and commonly understood expression, but the puzzle of its origins endures.

2. God speed

“God speed” is another, now largely defunct, salutation for those who are leaving, and a wish for success. But its origins are murky.

It is not clear whether the component “god” actually refers to the notion of “god or of "good”, because in Old English “god” was spelled god, while “good” was gōd. In turn, the Old English word sped (spede in Middle English) originally meant success, good fortune, prosperity, luck or progression.

At the beginning of the 14th century, god spede and god speid were also used as adverbs, meaning speedily and quickly. However, by the end of the 14th century they consistently started to indicate a wish for success granted by god (but, if the idiom comes from gōd and sped, the meaning could have been just “good luck”).

The current interpretation of “god speed” became widespread after the first half of the 15th century. While “god speed” is not as obscure as “so long”, its origins are not completely explained yet.

3. Will-o’-the-wisp

The expression “will-o’-the-wisp” indicates something unattainable – an elusive goal. As far as we know, it was first used at the beginning of the 17th century as “Will with the wisp”. It is a conceptual parallel to “Jack-o’-lantern” (which was first used in the second half of the 17th century). That’s because the “Will” component was originally capitalised, because it is a person’s name (like “Jack” in “Jack-o’-lantern”).

The expression is equivalent to the Latin term coined in Germany in the 16th century, ignis fatuus (literally, “fire foolish”). It describes an atmospheric evanescent light that can be spotted at night over marshes and swamps. The expression therefore indicates a little sprite flying in the darkness with a fading “wisp” of light.

The expression is a personification of the natural phenomenon in local folklore, which became, over time, the metaphorical representation of an illusory hope.

4. Against the grain

When we say that somebody is acting “against the grain”, we mean that they are doing something that goes against what is commonly thought to be normal, logical, preferred, expected or acceptable.

The idiom, which is the opposite of “with the grain”, also indicates an action performed against someone’s personal inclinations. The expression has been attested since the 17th century and figuratively refers to carpentry and to the wood grain – the longitudinal pattern of wood fibres in a wooden slab.

Working against the arrangement of the fibres of a piece of wood is harder than cutting along them. The idiom is, therefore, a metaphor connected with woodworking and one of its first literary uses is in Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus (1608).

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Francesco Perono Cacciafoco 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.

Modern buildings tend to take electricity and air conditioning for granted. They often have glass facades and windows that can’t be opened. And when the power goes out for days in the middle of a heat wave, as the Houston area experienced in July 2024 after Hurricane Beryl, these buildings can become unbearable.

Yet, for millennia, civilizations knew how to shelter humans in hot and dry climates.

As an architectural designer and researcher studying urban resilience, I have examined many of the techniques and the lessons these ancient civilizations can offer for living in hotter and drier conditions.

With global temperatures rising, studies show that dangerously hot summers like those in 2023 and 2024 will become increasingly common, and intense storms might result in more power outages. To prepare for an even hotter future, designers today could learn from the past.

Sumerians: Keeping cool together

The Sumerians lived about 6,000 years ago in a hot and dry climate that is now southern Iraq. Even then, they had techniques for managing the heat.

Archaeologists studying remnants of Mesopotamian cities describe how Sumerian buildings used thick walls and small windows that could minimize heat exposure and keep indoor temperatures cool.

The Sumerians built their walls and roofs with materials such as adobe or mud that can absorb heat during the day and release it during the nighttime.

They also constructed buildings right next to each other, which reduced the number of walls exposed to the intense solar radiation. Small courtyards provided lighting and ventilation. Narrow streets ensured shade throughout the day and allowed pedestrians to move comfortably through the city.

Ancient Egyptians: Harnessing the wind

The ancient Egyptians also used materials that could help keep the heat out. Palaces were made of stone and had courtyards. Residential buildings were made of mud brick.

Many people also adopted a nomadic behavior within their buildings to escape the heat: They used rooftop terraces, which were cooler at night, as sleeping quarters.

To cool buildings, the Egyptians developed a unique technology called the mulqaf, which consists of tall wall openings facing the prevailing winds. These openings act as scoops to capture wind and funnel it downward to help cool the building. The entering wind creates air circulation that helps vent heat out through other openings.

The mulqaf principle could also be scaled up to cool larger spaces. Known as a wind catcher, it is currently used in buildings in the Middle East and Central Asia, making them comfortable without air conditioning, even during very hot periods.

Ancient Puebloans: Working with the Sun

Civilizations on other continents and at other times developed similar strategies for living in hot and dry climates, and they developed their own unique solutions, too.

The Puebloans in what today is the U.S. Southwest used small windows, materials such as mud brick and rock, and designed buildings with shared walls to minimize the heat getting in.

They also understood the importance of solar orientation. The ancient Puebloans built entire communities under the overhang of south-facing cliffs. This orientation ensured their buildings were shaded and stayed cooler during the summertime but received sunlight and radiated heat to stay warmer during the wintertime.

Their descendants adopted similar orientation and other urban-planning strategies, and adobe homes are still common in the U.S. Southwest.

Muslim caliphates: Using every drop of rain where it falls

Modern water management is also rarely designed for dry climates. Stormwater infrastructure is created to funnel runoff from rainstorms away from the city as fast as possible. Yet, the same cities must bring in water for people and gardens, sometimes from faraway sources.

During the eighth century, the Muslim caliphates in arid lands of northern Africa and the south of Spain designed their buildings with rainwater harvesting techniques to capture water. Runoff from rainfall was collected throughout the roof and directed to cisterns. The slope of the roof and the courtyard floor directed the water so it could be used to irrigate the vegetated landscapes of their courtyards.

Modern-day Mendoza, Argentina, uses this approach to irrigate the plants and trees lining its magnificent city streets.

Mayans and Teotihuacans: Capturing rainwater for later

At the city scale, people also collected and stored stormwater to withstand the dry season.

The ancient Teotihuacan city of Xochicalco and many Mayan cities in what today is Mexico and Central America used their pyramids, plazas and aqueducts to direct stormwater to large cisterns for future use. Plants were often used to help clean the water.

Scientists today are exploring ways to store rainwater with good quality in India and other countries. Rainwater harvesting and green infrastructure are now recognized as effective strategies to increase urban resilience.

Putting these lessons to work

Each of these ancient cultures offers lessons for staying cool in hot, dry climates that modern designers can learn from today.

Some architects are already using them to improve designs. For example, buildings in the northern hemisphere can be oriented to maximize southern exposure. South-facing windows combined with shading devices can help reduce solar radiation in the summer but allow solar heating in winter. Harvesting rainwater and using it to irrigate gardens and landscapes can help reduce water consumption, adapt to drier conditions and increase urban resilience.

Retrofitting modern cities and their glass towers for better heat control isn’t simple, but there are techniques that can be adapted to new designs for living better in hotter and drier climates and for relying less on constant summer air conditioning. These ancient civilizations can teach us how.

Adriana Zuniga-Teran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

It’s fairly well known that women receive less favourable loan terms from salespeople, on average, than men when they borrow money. One recent study into lending practices in US car dealerships recently confirmed as much. Equally, it has been found in bank lending and mortgages for many years around the world.

The academic literature suggests that salespeople may offer women worse terms in the belief they know less about the market, and so will be less capable of assessing whether they’re getting a fair deal. It might also be that women are penalised for not being as assertive as men.

One increasingly pressing question is how this will be affected by artificial intelligence (AI) as it comes to play a bigger part in lending. Though banks and other lenders can be coy about the extent to which they’re using machine learning and generative AI in lending, it’s certainly already happening behind the scenes and is set to become much more important over the next couple of years.

You might think AI could reduce lending discrimination against women, perhaps by neutralising the biases of sales representatives. In fact, a new study from my research group indicates that it has the potential to get worse. So why is this, and can it be avoided?

Our research looked at more than 50,000 car loans in Canada, and found yet more evidence of lending discrimination against women. In the field of credit research, the standard way of comparing loans is known as “expected utility”.

This measures how much a loan benefits a borrower by considering factors like the interest rate, the likelihood of it being approved, and the amount of effort the salesperson allocates to the borrower. We found that the expected utility of loans was 68% lower for women than for men.

To see how AI might change the car industry, which is still only in the early stages of adopting it, we looked at how machine learning could optimise the commissions that lenders pay to salespeople for arranging loans for car buyers. Commissions play an essential role in car lending, influencing sales representatives’ loan-pricing decisions and making up a substantial portion of dealership revenue.

Perhaps in an ideal world, incorporating AI into this process would mean you could automate loan pricing, remove salespeople’s involvement and just do away with their commissions. In reality, there’s enough competition between lenders, and the dealerships make so much money from the commissions, that they would probably just take their business elsewhere. The loan commission model is therefore unlikely to change – either in the car industry or in consumer lending more generally.

Instead, the opportunity for lenders is to use machine learning to optimise commissions so that sales representatives select loan rates that yield higher expected profits for the lender, and are motivated to devote enough effort to the customer to get them to agree to the deal. By doing this, we found that lenders would be able to boost their profits by 8%. This, of course, is at the expense of customers. We found that the expected utility of loans to customers falls by 20% in this scenario.

However, when we compared men and women borrowers, we found that the fall for women was 42% while it was only 17% for men. We didn’t test for exactly what was happening, but it’s a fair assumption that since the back data was “contaminated” with bad loan deals for women, the AI exacerbated this by assuming women are more tolerant of worse offers than men.

The workaround

This confirms longstanding fears among some industry watchers that AI could end up widening discrimination in lending, not only to women but to other groups who receive less favourable loan terms, such as certain ethnic minorities.

It could be argued that the prudent approach would be for lenders to steer clear of AI altogether. Yet we wondered whether a compromise might be possible. Could we encourage lenders to use AI more responsibly, to change the trade-off between profits and social justice?

We tested this in our study by programming the machine-learning algorithm to maximise profits while not worsening the expected utility of loans for women. In other words, utility only decreased for men. Under this restriction, we found that lenders could still increase their profits by 4%.

This indicates that when used thoughtfully, AI can both benefit lenders and protect disadvantaged groups at the same time. In response to those who would rather keep AI away from financial services, it might be better to accept its inevitability and instead use it as a tool to make lending fairer.

Christopher Amaral 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.

Warfare is no longer confined to physical battlefields. In the digital age, a new front has emerged – cyberspace. Here, countries clash not with bullets and bombs, but with lines of code and sophisticated malware.

One of the most recent examples came to light in May this year, when an estimated 270,000 payroll records belonging to the UK’s armed forces were found to have been exposed in a data breach. Though not explicitly named by the UK government, several ministers told the press they believed China to be responsible. The Chinese government has denied any involvement.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time that governments, their institutions and employees were targeted by cyberattackers. Here are five prominent examples.

1. Stuxnet, 2010

In 2010, the first known major cyberweapon was unleashed. Stuxnet was a sophisticated computer worm (a programme that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers) that targeted Iran’s nuclear programme. Unlike typical malware, Stuxnet was engineered to infiltrate and sabotage Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities by causing centrifuges to spin uncontrollably while sending false data to monitoring systems. This made the damage invisible to the people overseeing the systems.

The attack set a new precedent in cyberwarfare, demonstrating how digital tools could cause physical destruction. Believed to be a joint operation by the US and Israel, Stuxnet delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also brought about new fears about the future of global cybersecurity.

The discovery of the worm highlighted the vulnerability of critical infrastructure worldwide. It also sparked debates over the ethics and dangers of state-sponsored cyberattacks.

2. WannaCry, 2017

In May 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack wreaked havoc across the globe, locking up hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries. Ransomware is a malicious type of software that locks your files or computer and demands payment to unlock them.

Exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows, WannaCry encrypted users’ files and then demanded a ransom payment in Bitcoin for their release. The attack hit numerous important sectors, including healthcare. The NHS was badly hit, with the attack affecting at least 81 health trusts. It forced hospitals to cancel appointments and divert emergency services, and it’s estimated to have cost the NHS £92 million.

The rapid spread of WannaCry was stopped by a security researcher who discovered a “kill switch” in the malware, but the damage had already been done. Blamed on North Korean hackers, the attack showed the severe risks posed by outdated software.

3. NotPetya, 2017

Also in 2017, Ukraine was hit by a devastating cyberattack known as NotPetya, which quickly spread beyond its borders, damaging various companies and institutions worldwide.

Initially disguised as ransomware, NotPetya encrypted victims’ data, demanding a ransom that could never be paid. It primarily targeted Ukraine’s government, financial sector and energy companies, and brought vital services to a halt.

But the malware spread and ended up affecting companies across the globe, including the shipping and logistics company Maersk and the phamaceutical company, Merck. It caused billions in damages. The White House described NotPetya as the “most destructive and costly cyberattack in history”.

Unlike traditional ransomware, NotPetya’s purpose was destruction rather than financial remuneration. It has been widely attributed to Russian state-sponsored hackers, who were aiming to destabilise Ukraine, though the Kremlin denied any involvement.

4. SolarWinds hack, 2020

As the world ground to a halt because of COVID-19, several US federal government agencies were targeted by the SolarWinds hack in 2020.

Hackers had infiltrated SolarWinds, a tech company providing IT network management software. They injected malicious code into the company’s Orion platform, which is widely used in the public and private sectors. This allowed them to spy on an array of sensitive information across multiple government departments, including the Treasury and Homeland Security.

The breach went undetected for months and showed how vulnerable even the most secure government systems can be. The attack was attributed to Russian state-sponsored hackers, which Russian government officials have denied.

5. OPM data breach, 2015

Five years before the SolarWinds hack, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was rocked by a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 21 million federal employees and contractors.

It was widely believed that state-sponsored hackers from China accessed sensitive data including social security numbers, fingerprints and confidential information from employee background checks. It was a devastating blow to national security and personal privacy, revealing vulnerabilities in the management of US government data.

It took months for investigators to uncover the full extent of the damage, which sparked a nationwide reassessment of data protection methods. Chinese government officials denied any involvement at the time.

Rachael Medhurst 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.

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