iNsAnItY iNtEnSiFiEd: November 2022

S15

Al-Shabaab: sensational media reports about Kenyan terror attacks keep kids out of school

Sensational reporting on terror attacks in Kenya is keeping children out of school, with dire consequences for their education and their futures.

That is the conclusion we came to in a recent paper that examines how local media reporting on terrorist attacks affected primary school enrolment in Kenya between 2001 and 2014.

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Community wildlife conservation isn't always a win-win solution: the case of Kenya's Samburu

Community-based wildlife conservation is often promoted as a win-win solution. The idea behind this approach is that the people who live close to wildlife can be involved in protecting it and have an interest in doing so.

This results in wildlife being protected (a win for global biodiversity) and local people benefiting from conservation through tourism revenues, jobs, or new infrastructure like schools, clinics and water supplies.

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Ukraine war: how the economy has kept running at a time of bitter conflict

November 24 marks nine months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Despite the expectation of the Kremlin – and many international analysts – Ukraine did not fall within days. It repelled Russia’s advance on the capital Kyiv, turned the tide on the battlefields and has now retaken half of territory captured in Russia’s initial push. Ukraine’s military now has initiative and momentum on the battlefield.

But the human cost of this resistance has been enormous. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have lost their lives. The recent UN Human Rights report confirmed the death of 6,595 civilians and warned that there are many more likely to come. One-third of the 44 million population has been displaced: 6.5 million within Ukraine and almost 8 million as refugees in other European countries.

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Working prisoners are entitled to employment and safety standards just like anybody else

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) recently ended its longstanding relationship with the meatpacking company, Wallace Beef.

This means that federal prisoners incarcerated in the Joyceville Institution near Kingston will no longer provide slaughterhouse labour for the private firm.

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What if the dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct? Why our world might look very different

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth with the force of 10 billion atomic bombs and changed the course of evolution. The skies darkened and plants stopped photosynthesising. The plants died, then the animals that fed on them. The food chain collapsed. Over 90% of all species vanished. When the dust settled, all dinosaurs except a handful of birds had gone extinct.

But this catastrophic event made human evolution possible. The surviving mammals flourished, including little proto-primates that would evolve into us.

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'Situationships': Why Gen Z are embracing the grey area

Long gone are the days when seeing a film or sharing a milkshake was all it took to solidify a couple as definitively together. Instead, modern dating has evolved into a delicate – at times complicated – series of ‘baby steps’ for young people.

Research has shown that Gen Z’s attitudes towards dating and sex have evolved from the generations before them; they take an especially pragmatic approach to love and sex, and subsequently aren’t prioritising establishing committed romantic relationships the same way their older peers once did.

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How a Canadian program that helps educators 'thrive' not just 'survive' could help address Australia's childcare staff shortage

On Wednesday, federal parliament passed Labor’s bill to reduce childcare fees for many Australian families.

More affordable childcare for families is great, but it will not solve all the issues in the sector. Schools are not the only ones with a teacher crisis. Early childhood services are also hit with chronic staff shortages.

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Treating mental illness with electricity marries old ideas with modern tech and understanding of the brain â€“ podcast

Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

Mental illnesses such as obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and addiction are notoriously hard to treat and often don’t respond to drugs. But a new wave of treatments that stimulate the brain with electricity are showing promise on patients and in clinical trials. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we talk to three experts and one patient about the history of treating mental illness, how new technology and deeper understanding of the brain are leading to better treatments and where the neuroscience of mental illness is headed next.

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Surrealism: How our strangest dreams come to life in design

Melting clocks drape over trees; men in bowler hats float through the sky; a disembodied eye blinks back from a plate of soup… Disturbing, displaced, dreamlike – the visual language of Surrealism is now so normal that "to be surreal" can be shorthand for anything strange, unreal, or hinting at the deeper, darker recesses of the human mind.

Surrealism began as a literary movement in Paris, 1924, when writer André Breton created its first manifesto – he described it as "pure psychic automatism" – and it was shaped by Symbolist poetry and Dadaism, whose "anti-artworks" defied reason. It was soon embraced by fine artists including Max Ernst, Hans Arp, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and René Magritte, who were reacting to the horrors of World War One, and the devastation of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

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Zimbabwe's stunning 80km safari train

We rattled out of Dete Station towards the north-eastern boundary of Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, an eager dozen – nine tourists, two engineers and one safari guide – en route from Victoria Falls to the Ngamo Plains, an elephant-laden grassland where dwindling acacia forests meet the arid sprawl of the Kalahari sands.

I squinted into the midday sun and sipped a gin and tonic, balancing on one foot and leaning out of the side of our purpose-built, private railcar, hoping for a better view of a vibrant bird perched atop a wire. A fellow passenger had his camera zoomed in all the way. We caught glimpses of electric blue, a longish beak, a large head, but the light made certain identification difficult.

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Why 'quiet quitting' is nothing new

On a recent Monday morning, Gemma, 25, finally decided she needed to overhaul her working life. “I opened my inbox to a load of negative emails from the company’s founder,” explains the London-based PR worker. “I was then expected to deliver big results on a tight deadline. I’d just had enough.”

However, Gemma, whose full name is being withheld over career concerns, didn’t resign. Instead, she chose to remain in her current role; she performs her tasks, but has stopped going the extra mile. “I think it’s quite clear my spark has gone, and I just get by doing the minimum,” she says. “I used to be online hours before I started work; now, I don’t log on until after 0900. I used to work so late that I didn’t have time for myself; now, I close all work apps at 1800 on the dot.”

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Ukraine war: EU parliament names Russia a 'state sponsor of terrorism' â€“ but it won't stop the missiles

The EU parliament has declared Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism. The largely symbolic resolution, which passed by a 494-58 vote on November 23, has no particular real-world consequences, but reflects MEPs’ condemnation of Russia’s “deliberate physical destruction of civilian infrastructure and mass murder of Ukrainian civilians with the aim of eliminating the Ukrainian people”.

The parliament urged the European Union’s 27 member states to adopt the designation “with all the negative consequences this implies”.

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Simon Nkoli's fight for queer rights in South Africa is finally being celebrated â€“ 24 years after he died

Born in 1957, Simon Tseko Nkoli had just turned 41 when he died, in 1998, of an AIDS-related illness. In his short life, the South African activist fought against different forms of oppression. He fought for those downtrodden because of their “race”. He stood up for those ostracised because of their HIV status. His greatest fight, though, was for those persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

Nkoli was born and raised in Soweto, the largest black township in a South Africa ruled by a white minority who enforced apartheid, a system of racial segregation. His activism began in 1980 when he joined the Congress of South African Students, a youth organisation fighting apartheid.

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Black Friday: so many online returns end up in landfill â€“ here's what needs to happen to change that

Two of the busiest online shopping days of the year are upon us. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and recession, retailers will be desperately hoping that shoppers take advantage of discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to bump up annual sales figures.

While this would boost a sector that has yet to fully recover from the COVID pandemic, there’s a major downside. The more that shoppers buy online, the bigger the problem with returned goods.

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The best fiction of 2022: death and life in Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger

In his book On Late Style, published posthumously in 2006, the Palestinian American critic Edward Said identifies a striking characteristic of some writers as they near the end of their lives.

Rather than going gently into that good night, to borrow poet Dylan Thomas’s phrase, they exhibit instead “a renewed, almost youthful energy”. In Said’s account, the work of these aged writers communicates not “harmony and resolution”, but, rather, a sense of “intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction”.

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Cheaper, tougher, less toxic: new alloys show promise in developing artificial limbs

University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.

But there’s a major problem: titanium is not cheap. Precise data is hard to come by, but a conservative average cost of titanium-based prostheses is between US$3,000 and US$10,000. That’s expensive for most people, and prohibitively so for the majority of people in middle- and low-income countries like those in Africa.

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Journalists reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic relied on research that had yet to be peer reviewed

Read more: Preprints: how draft academic papers have become essential in the fight against COVID

While this new normal offers important benefits for journalists and their audiences, it also comes with risks and challenges that deserve our attention.

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My RATs are negative but I still think I might have COVID. Should I get a PCR test?

You’ve been exposed to COVID and are starting to get symptoms. But after a couple of days of testing with rapid antigen tests (RATs), your tests remain negative.

Mass PCR testing has been scaled back, so in what situations can you get a PCR? And why might it be useful?

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Why music can give you chills or goosebumps

Frisson is the French word meaning "shiver", but in this case, we're not shivering because we're cold, we're shivering because we're stimulated by music.

When we hear a certain piece of music or view a particular work of art, there may be an intense psychological and physiological reaction. "You have this sudden rush of dopamine," explains psychologist Dr Rebecca Johnson-Osei. "It's a similar pathway that gets activated with sex and other things that are rewarding to our brains."

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High food prices could have negative long-term health effects on Canadians

Recent high food price inflation has plagued many Canadian families, especially those on tight budgets. Statistics Canada reported in October that in-store food prices increased at a faster rate than the all-items Consumer Price Index for the 11th month in a row.

A recent study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute found nearly 60 per cent of Canadians are struggling to provide food for their families. When they can afford to buy food, many cannot afford to buy enough, or buy the food they want.

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The jobs employers just can't fill

Throughout the past few years, workers have been resigning from jobs in record numbers. Some have been switching careers, some have been job-hopping for faster advancement and some have left the workforce altogether. In the US, for instance, the August 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the labour force participation rate at 1.0 percentage point below its February 2020 level.

In other words, people have been quitting and, in some sectors and jobs, they haven’t been coming back. Perhaps it’s unsurprising, given the poor conditions in many workplaces throughout the pandemic. The dearth of workers is most evident in hospitality and service-work industries, where positions for dishwashers, truck drivers, retail workers, food servers, airport agents, home health aides and similar roles have been open for literal years.

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The best fiction of 2022: Alan Garnerâ€™s Treacle Walker and writing outside the constraints of time

When Treacle Walker was announced as a nominee for the 2022 Booker Prize, 87-year-old Alan Garner was highlighted as the oldest-ever shortlisted author. He is now 88. That said, Treacle Walker, begins with a quote from Italian quantum physicist, Carlo Rovelli: “Time is ignorance.”

Age is, of course, an aspect of time. But Garner, older as he might be getting, has a photo of himself aged six (grinning very fully and twinkly-eyed at something distant), which he has stated most captures who he is “then and now”.

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Why bullying in politics is a matter of democracy

Dominic Raab, the UK’s deputy prime minister, has become the latest figure in the government to be accused of bullying. Bullying, harassment, and sexual misconduct are always serious matters. They can harm a victim’s personal and professional development and wellbeing, and create cultures of fear and intimidation. In political contexts, however, they have effects beyond personal health and institutional welfare.

The impact of bullying in political institutions has the potential to undermine liberal democracy itself. It can distort political representation, decision-making and the implementation of policies that affect the lives of the public.

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The 'illusion of knowledge' that makes people overconfident

If you consider yourself reasonably intelligent and educated, you might assume that you have a fair grasp on the core ways the world works – knowledge about the familiar inventions and natural phenomena that surround us.

Now, think about the following questions: How are rainbows formed? Why can sunny days be colder than cloudy days? How does a helicopter fly? How does a toilet flush?

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Orphan drugs, and the science of 007: Books in brief

Andrew Robinson’s many books include Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts and Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist. He is based in London.

Ants are “easily fooled”, write Bert Hölldobler and Christina Kwapich in their profoundly researched, gloriously illustrated treatise on ant symbiosis. Other organisms — including bacteria, butterflies, fungi and spiders — “can circumvent or break their code and exploit the social acquisitions of ant societies”, for example by entering colonies and masquerading as ants, so their hosts cannot distinguish friend from foe. Hölldobler’s erstwhile co-author E. O. Wilson, who died last year, admired this enchanting book as a “true classic”.

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From sharp butt pains to period poos: 5 lesser-known menstrual cycle symptoms

Period pain is a common symptom of the menstrual cycle, affecting about 70% of young women – but it’s far from the only symptom.

Here are five lesser-known symptoms associated with the menstrual cycle – and what’s going on in your body to cause them.

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It's natural to want to feed wildlife after disasters. But it may not help

Over the past three years, Australians have been bombarded by natural disasters as record-breaking fires and monster floods hit communities hard.

Disasters don’t just affect humans. Wildlife, too, is often harmed. Think of the photos of thirsty koalas during the Black Summer fires, or the flood-hit mud-covered kangaroo. These images bring the hurt home to us in a way words can’t.

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Mukbang, #EatWithMe and eating disorders on TikTok: why online food consumption videos could fuel food fixations

Vivienne Lewis works for The University of Canberra and is a member of the Australian Psychological Society.

You might have come across #EatWithMe videos on TikTok, which typically feature young women eating food while encouraging viewers to eat along with them. Many such content creators say they aim to help people with eating disorders overcome their fear of food.

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Xiaoxhai Tiankeng: the world's biggest sinkhole

Peering down from outer space at the rolling green landscape of south-western China's rural Chongqing Municipality, a series of deep, dark gashes appear, denting the land like an alien footprint. Some experts wonder whether these mysterious formations are the result of a meteorite crashing into the Earth. Others believe they gradually formed over some 128,000 years, as water seeping into underground rivers slowly carved the surrounding limestone rock on its journey.

But one thing is for certain: measuring 660m deep, with a volume of 130 million cubic metres, China's Xiaoxhai Tiankeng is both the deepest and largest sinkhole in the world.

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Why do so many men get away with rape? Police officers, survivors, lawyers and prosecutors on the scandal that shames the justice system

Dr John Fox is affiliated with the Labour Party (member, non-activist), the British Society of Criminology, and the Association of Child Protection Professionals.

Today in England and Wales, an estimated 300 women will be raped. About 170 of those cases will be reported to the police. But only three are likely to make it to a court of law.

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A new mission to see Titanic

Four-hundred miles from St Johns, Newfoundland, in the choppy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, a large industrial vessel swayed from side to side. Onboard, Stockton Rush expressed a vision for the future:

"There will be a time when people will go to space for less cost and very regularly. I think the same thing is going to happen going under water."

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Stripping carbon from the atmosphere might be needed to avoid dangerous warming â€“ but it remains a deeply uncertain prospect

Jonathan Symons sits on the advisory board of RePlanet (a European environmental NGO) and is a councillor of the Australian Institution of International Affairs NSW.

Australia’s latest State of the Climate Report offers grim reading. As if recent floods weren’t bad enough, the report warns of worsening fire seasons, more drought years and, when rain comes, more intense downpours. It begs the question: is it too late to avoid dangerous warming?

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Friday essay: shaping history â€“ why I spent ten years studying one Wikipedia article

In mid-July 2008, I arrived in hot and sticky Alexandria. I had travelled to Egypt to attend Wikimania. As the name suggests, Wikimania is an event for those who share an all-consuming passion for the wiki. But not just any wiki … the most important wiki of all: Wikipedia – the online encyclopedia.

This annual conference for Wikipedians (Wikipedia’s volunteer editors) is a chance to celebrate the project, discuss important issues, and geek out on wiki lore.

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Sandton terror alert: time for South Africa to improve its intelligence sharing channels with the US

Director: Centre for Military Studies, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University

The announcement in October 2022 by the US embassy in South Africa of a possible terror attack caused a lot of confusion, concern and, in some cases, anger in the country. The alert advised US citizens and personnel to stay away from large gatherings around Sandton, Johannesburg’s financial centre.

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How a pandemic PhD peer network group stood the test of time

Jillian Collins is a PhD student in the chemical and biological engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

In 2019, I started my PhD at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, conducting research on type 1 diabetes. It was a new laboratory — which brought its own challenges, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic forced people into social isolation in March 2020. Not only were we still in the process of building our lab, but I also needed to learn how to use the equipment, as well as specific techniques that required hands-on training.

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