Etikett: Theconversation.com

African countries face a conundrum. On the one hand they need to develop economically and industrially. On the other they must also meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally. This risks a conflict between climate mitigation ambitions and Africa’s development agenda.

There are 45 nations on the United Nations’ global list of “Least Developed Countries”; 33 (72%) are located in Africa. These countries face enormous problems, including low income levels and limited levels of industry. They are also affected by climate change disasters like floods and droughts.

Africa contributes just 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But all 54 African countries have ratified the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement. So they’re legally bound to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to prevent an overall global temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius above that of pre-industrial times. In 2024, the world’s temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

I research climate finance and investigated what drives sub-Saharan Africa’s climate ambitions. I also wanted to find out whether wealthier sub-Saharan African nations were more likely to prioritise economic development over aggressive climate commitments than the region’s more impoverished nations.

Read more:
Africa’s megacities threatened by heat, floods and disease – urgent action is needed to start greening and adapt to climate change

My research tested how four factors affect climate policy making in sub-Saharan Africa. These are democracy, fossil fuel consumption, gross domestic product per capita, and total historical emissions.

These factors have been identified in prior research into climate ambition. That’s because they reflect accurately how political will, economic capacity, energy dependency, and the historical responsibility for climate change interact with each other to determine how countries tackle the warming climate.

I found that wealthier sub-Saharan African nations (measured by gross domestic product per capita) show lower levels of climate ambition. Nigeria and South Africa, for instance, are wealthier than many others in Africa. But they’re under political and economic pressure to expand energy access and industrial capacity. This can limit them from curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more:
Africa doesn’t have a choice between economic growth and protecting the environment: how they can go hand in hand

It’s clear from my study that gross domestic product per capita was the only statistically significant determinant of climate ambition among sub-Saharan African countries. This reveals how economic priorities often shape countries’ climate commitments.

Different ambitions

Four key points emerged in my study.

1. There’s a negative relationship between gross domestic product and climate ambition. Wealthier sub-Saharan African countries may prioritise economic development based on energy-intensive industries over climate action. These countries may also face political resistance to climate action from the coal and petrol sectors, and from industries that depend on fossil fuels.

2. The role of democracy is ambiguous. Pressing economic needs and political instability can mean that democratically elected governments prioritise economic and development goals over long-term climate commitments.

Democratic institutions can have limited capacity. They can also be affected by corruption and political instability. That makes it more difficult for them to influence climate policy.

Read more:
Climate hazards aren’t restricted by borders – African countries have taken a big step to address this

3. Sub-Saharan African countries that want to continue burning fossil fuels are still willing to curb their carbon emissions. This is likely because agriculture, forestry and other uses of land, instead of fossil fuel-based industry, dominate their economies.

4. Sub-Saharan African countries are focused on adapting to climate change-induced disasters rather than on dealing with emissions. They’re working to improve agricultural practices to cope with drought and developing flood management systems. These countries need to promote climate-resilient infrastructure and implement early warning systems for extreme weather events. This removes the focus from minimising greenhouse gas emissions.

What needs to happen next

I have several recommendations based on my findings.

First, policies must be coherent. Sub-Saharan African governments need to line up their economic growth strategies with climate policies. Green investments and sustainable development projects should be prioritised.

Second, institutions must be strengthened. Governance structures need to become more transparent and accountable. They should strive to involve the public in shaping climate policy.

Third, renewable energy must be promoted, particularly through investments in solar, wind, and hydropower. The region’s natural resources must be used to move countries away from fossil fuels.

Read more:
Zimbabwe’s climate action plan: a win for the environment, health and energy

Fourth, international support is also key in achieving climate justice for sub-Saharan countries. Developed nations must provide financial aid and other support to the region. For example, they can transfer useful technologies to can support and bolster green growth.

Finally, climate commitments (nationally determined contributions) are not a legal obligation. Because of this, some countries in sub-Saharan Africa do not appear to be making them a priority. Policymakers should make sure that it is feasible for their countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to the levels that they’ve committed to.

My findings show that global climate governance, where countries work together to reduce global warming, can be complicated. Decisions about how sub-Saharan Africa should take part in cooling the planet must be based on what meets the needs of the approximately 1.24 billion people living in the region. Läs mer…

People presenting at emergency with mental health concerns are experiencing the longest wait times in Australia for admission to a ward, according to a new report from the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine.

But with half of New South Wales’ public psychiatrists set to resign next week after ongoing pay disputes – and amid national shortages in the mental health workforce – Australians who rely on psychiatry support may be wondering where else to go.

If you can’t get in to see a psychiatrist and you need help, there are some other options. However in an emergency, you should call 000.

Why do people see a psychiatrist?

Psychiatrists are doctors who specialise in mental health and can prescribe medication.

People seek or require psychiatry support for many reasons. These may include:

severe depression, including suicidal thoughts or behaviours
severe anxiety, panic attacks or phobias
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Psychiatrists complement other mental health clinicians by prescribing certain medications and making decisions about hospital admission. But when psychiatry support is not available a range of team members can contribute to a person’s mental health care.

Can my GP help?

Depending on your mental health concerns, your GP may be able to offer alternatives while you await formal psychiatry care.

GPs provide support for a range of mental health concerns, regardless of formal diagnosis. They can help address the causes and impact of issues including mental distress, changes in sleep, thinking, mood or behaviour.

The GP Psychiatry Support Line also provides doctors advice on care, prescription medication and how support can work.

It’s a good idea to book a long consult and consider taking a trusted person. Be explicit about how you’ve been feeling and what previous supports or medication you’ve accessed.

What about psychologists, counsellors or community services?

Your GP should also be aware of supports available locally and online.

For example, Head to Health is a government initiative, including information, a nationwide phone line, and in-person clinics in Victoria. It aims to improve mental health advice, assessment and access to treatment.

Medicare Mental Health Centres provide in-person care and are expanding across Australia.

There are also virtual care services in some areas. This includes advice on individualised assessment including whether to go to hospital.

Some community groups are led by peers rather than clinicians, such as Alternatives to Suicide.

How about if I’m rural or regional?

Accessing support in rural or regional areas is particularly tough.

Beyond helplines and formal supports, other options include local Suicide Prevention Networks and community initiatives such as ifarmwell and Men’s sheds.

Should I go to emergency?

As the new report shows, people who present at hospital emergency departments for mental health should expect long wait times before being admitted to a ward.

But going to a hospital emergency department will be essential for some who are experiencing a physical or mental heath crisis.

Managing suicide-related distress

With the mass resignation of NSW psychiatrists looming, and amid shortages and blown-out emergency waiting times, people in suicide-related distress must receive the best available care and support.

Roughly nine Australians die by suicide each day. One in six have had thoughts of suicide at some point in their lives.

Suicidal thoughts can pass. There are evidence-based strategies people can immediately turn to when distressed and in need of ongoing care.

Safety planning is a popular suicide prevention strategy to help you stay safe.

What is a safety plan?

This is a personalised, step-by-step plan to remain safe during the onset or worsening of suicidal urges.

You can develop a safety plan collaboratively with a clinician and/or peer worker, or with loved ones. You can also make one on your own – many people like to use the Beyond Now app.

Safety plans usually include:

recognising personal warning signs of a crisis (for example, feeling like a burden)
identifying and using internal coping strategies (such as distracting yourself by listening to favourite music)
seeking social supports for distraction (for example, visiting your local library)
letting trusted family or friends know how you’re feeling – ideally, they should know they’re in your safety plan
knowing contact details of specific mental health services (your GP, mental health supports, local hospital)
making the environment safer by removing or limiting access to lethal means
identifying specific and personalised reasons for living.

Our research shows safety planning is linked to reduced suicidal thoughts and behaviour, as well as feelings of depression and hopelessness, among adults.

Evidence from people with lived experience shows safety planning helps people to understand their warning signs and practice coping strategies.

Sharing your safety plan with loved ones may help understand warning signs of a crisis.
Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock

Are there helplines I can call?

There are people ready to listen, by phone or online chat, Australia-wide. You can try any of the following (most are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week):

Suicide helplines:

There is also specialised support:

Additionally, each state and territory will have its own list of mental health resources.

With uncertain access to services, it’s helpful to remember that there are people who care. You don’t have to go it alone. Läs mer…

The acclaimed American filmmaker David Lynch has died at the age of 78. While a cause of death has yet to be publicly announced, Lynch, a lifelong tobacco enthusiast, revealed in 2024 he was suffering from emphysema.

Best known for films such as Eraserhead (1977), Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001), as well as the hugely influential television series Twin Peaks (1990–91), Lynch – a committed transcendental meditator who worked across multiple mediums including painting, photography and music – was a true creative visionary.

Achieving mainstream commercial success while continually pushing artistic boundaries, Lynch’s impact on popular culture has been profound. The fact that the term “Lynchian”, shorthand for a dreamlike quality of mystery or menace, has passed into our shared cultural lexicon attests to this.

‘The beautiful and the damned’

In the introduction to Lynch’s memoir Room to Dream: A Life (2018), his coauthor Kristine McKenna writes:

We live in a realm of opposites, a place where good and evil, spirit and matter, faith and reason, and carnal lust, exist side by side in an uneasy truce; Lynch’s work resides in the complicated zone where the beautiful and the damned collide.

Drawing on the energies of surrealism, Lynch’s work delves into the darkest recesses of human behaviour while celebrating the haunting beauty and strangeness associated with everyday existence.

We see this in Blue Velvet. Now regarded as a true cinematic classic, Lynch’s violent and sexually explicit film caused widespread shock and consternation on initial release. It is an unflinching exploration of the darkness and depravity that lurks beneath the polished facade of suburbia.

The film’s iconic opening sequence sets the scene. A cloudless blue sky, red roses and a dazzlingly bright, white picket fence. A fire truck is moving at a glacial pace, a man hanging off the side, smiling and waving. Schoolchildren are ushered across the road, while a middle-aged white man tends to his lawn. Suddenly, he collapses, clutching his neck and writhing in agony.

Lynch’s camera zooms in on the grass until we are confronted with a writhing mass of insects hiding beneath the surface. The serene soundtrack has been replaced with an ominous, throbbing bass track.

Lynch signals the film’s descent into the realms of the unsettling and the grotesque. By the end, the shell-shocked viewer is left wondering: “Why is there so much trouble in this world?”

Lynch, whose body of work eschews easy and conformable answers, leaves it up to us to decide.

Becoming an artist

Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20 1946, spending his childhood moving between various states. For college, he set his sights on becoming a painter, and again moved around various art schools in different states – including a trip to Europe.

It was at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia when Lynch started to experiment with film as a medium. Despite dropping out two years later, he stayed in Philadelphia and continued to paint. He also made his first short film, the self-explanatory Six Men Getting Sick (1967).

David Lynch poses at his Los Angeles home in March 2002.
AP Photo/Chris Weeks

In 1970, having been awarded a grant by the American Film Institute, Lynch moved to Los Angeles, where he studied filmmaking at the AFI Conservatory and commenced work on the film that eventually turned into Eraserhead.

Eraserhead, Lynch’s debut feature-length film, is a hallucinatory, nightmarish treatment of domestic life set in an industrial wasteland: a bizarre world where a cooked chicken squirms on a plate, a hideous mutant baby torments its despairing parents and a lady who lives inside a radiator sings mournful songs.

A celebrated career

Eraserhead was a hit with art house audiences and brought Lynch to the attention of Hollywood.

His first major commission was a film based on the life of Joseph Merrick, a severely disfigured Englishmen who became a celebrity in 19th century London. Featuring a memorable leading turn from John Hurt, The Elephant Man (1980) was a major critical and commercial success. It received eight Oscar nominations, including for Lynch as best director.

Having turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi (1983), Lynch signed up to make Dune (1984), an ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel of the same name. The film was savaged by critics and did not play well with audiences.

Blue Velvet came next, along with Lynch’s second best director Oscar nomination.

The equally provocative Wild at Heart (1990), Lynch’s hyperviolent black comedy which doffs its cap in the direction of The Wizard of Oz, won the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Twin Peaks was again interested in the more sinister side of small-town American life. Revolving around the murder of teenager Laura Palmer, the series combines elements of mystery, soap opera and absurdism. It was a worldwide phenomenon.

His other projects included the aggressively avant-gardist Lost Highway (1997), the unabashedly sentimental and idiosyncratic The Straight Story (1999), and the surrealist noir Mulholland Drive (2001).

Widely regarded as Lynch’s masterpiece, this elliptical fever-dream of a movie landed Lynch the best director award at Cannes in 2001. In 2022, it ranked eighth in Sight & Sound’s critics’ poll of the best films of all time.

A fitting end

Lynch continued to experiment with narrative and the possibilities of cinematic form. In what turned out to be his last feature film, the long and challenging Inland Empire (2006), Lynch embraced low-resoluton digital video and pretty much dispensed with conventional narrative storytelling.

L-R: Emily Stofle, David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan and Desiree Gruber at the screening of Twin Peaks at Cannes, 2017.
AP Photo/Alastair Grant

The sprawling complexity of Inland Empire paved the way for Lynch’s triumphant return to television. Lynch’s final substantive work, Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) picks up 25 years after the original series left off.

This 18-episode series, which I believe stands as the equal – if not the superior of – of Mulholland Drive, serves as a fitting culmination of Lynch’s career.

In classic Lynchian fashion, it concludes on a genuinely shocking, hair-raising and ambiguous note, one that lingers with you long after the screen fades to black. Läs mer…

We’re nearing the halfway point of this year’s Australian Open and players like the United States’ Reilly Opelka (ranked 170th in the world ) and France’s Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (ranked 30th) captured plenty of attention despite early-round exits.

These two players caught the eye of the tennis world for not only their towering height (standing 2.11 metres and 2m respectively) but their thunderous serves.

Players of this height don’t just stand out in the players’ lounge – they enjoy a significant advantage on court.

But why exactly does being tall help create those blistering serves? The answer lies in some fascinating physics and biomechanics.

The numbers don’t lie

The connection between height and serving power isn’t just something we imagine – analyses of Grand Slam tennis players show our eyes aren’t deceiving us.

The fastest server of all time might be considered relatively short – Australia’s Sam Groth stands “only” 1.93m – but served an ace at a blazing 263.4 kilometres per hour during an ATP Challenger event in Busan in 2012.

The rest of the top five fastest servers in men’s tennis history, and eight of the top ten, all stood at more than 2m tall.

In women’s tennis, the findings also hold true, with Spain’s Georgina Garcia Perez (1.88m) holding the record at 220km/h. And four of the top five fastest were at least 1.82cm – Sabine Lisicki (Germany) is the shortest at a still above average height of 1.78cm.

The physics behind the power

So what makes height such an advantage for serving?

Among many factors, three are critical.

First, taller players generally have longer arms, which act like speed amplifiers.

In physics terms, the speed of your hand (and therefore the racquet) is approximately equal to the length of your arm multiplied by how fast you rotate it, as shown in the figure below. Longer arms equal faster racquet speeds.

The Conversation, CC BY-SA

Of course, you might imagine that longer arms would be heavier and therefore harder to move quickly. While that’s true for legs (which is why most of the world’s fastest sprinters aren’t super tall), arms are relatively light.

The speed advantage of length wins out over any minor weight penalty.

Athletes come in all shapes and sizes, but do taller tennis players get an advantage?

A better angle of attack

The second advantage is all about geometry.

Taller players can hit the ball at point higher off the ground, so it’s easier to clear the net and yet still get the ball to land in the service square on the opposite side of the court.

Picture trying to throw a scrunched-up piece of paper into a bin from above it versus from the side.

When you’re above the basket, you can throw it down at a steeper angle and still hit your target, but from the side, the paper is as likely to hit the front of the bin or sail over it.

The same principle applies in tennis – taller players can hit powerful serves on a downward angle that clears the net but still lands inside the opponent’s service line.

This height advantage also means a taller athlete can serve powerfully to any part of the service box, not just over the lowest part of the net down the centre of the court. A shorter player has to be much more precise with their angle to achieve the same effect and usually has to hit their fastest serves down the court’s centre.

In tennis serving, angles matter.

Technique: the freedom to swing free

The third advantage might be the most interesting: taller players can actually use more aggressive serving techniques because they have more room for error.

Tennis serves use what’s called a “throw-like pattern”. This is a complex sequence starting from the legs, rotating through the body, and ending with a whip-like motion of the arm and racquet.

This movement pattern can generate enormous power but it’s also harder to control.

As an example, we use this throw-like pattern to throw a ball as far or fast as we possibly can, but we use a different pattern when we’re trying to hit a bullseye on a darts board.

That is, the technique we use for speed is different from the technique for accuracy.

Taller players, with their better angles and higher contact point, can afford to use more of the explosive, throw-like technique and still land the ball within the service square of their opponent.

Shorter players often need to use a more controlled motion to ensure their serves stay in play – they have less room for error so they need to use a more conservative, but accurate, serving technique.

Hope for the not-so-tall

But before shorter players despair, we should remember that some of tennis’s greatest players have dominated without towering height.

Modern legends Serena Williams (1.78m), Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (both 1.85m) are hardly giants, yet they’ve got impressive serving records and even more legendary win-loss records.

These players demonstrate that serving isn’t just about raw power: balance, accuracy, ball spin, serve placement and the ability to disguise your serve direction are crucial skills that take thousands of hours to perfect.

A well-placed serve at 180km/h can be more effective than a 220km/h bullet that your opponent knows is coming.

So, while height definitely provides some natural advantages for serving, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

Tennis remains a sport where technique, strategy and dedication to practice can help players of any size rise to the top. Läs mer…

In his farewell address, outgoing US President Joe Biden warned “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy”.

The comment suggests that, under Donald Trump’s second term as president, it will be billionaires rather than the people who shape public policy.

There is certainly some evidence Biden’s ominous caution should be taken seriously. The world’s richest man and the owner of X, Elon Musk, has been a vocal supporter of the Republican candidate. Other billionaire tech moguls to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago mansion after his 2024 election victory include Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

There is nothing unusual about business leaders wanting the ear of an incoming president. What has concerned Biden and others is that so many of Trump’s influential backers also own media platforms and have the ability to sway public opinion.

Should these new tech titans be thought of as oligarchs?

What is an oligarchy?

Like many of the academic and scientific categories we still use today, oligarchy was originally defined by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

In The Politics, he argued people are “political animals”, social by nature, and instinctively want to live in a community. He studied different governments of the ancient world and concluded there were six essential types.

A state could be ruled by a single leader, a small group of elites, or through mass participation of the people. If the leadership acted in the common advantage (koinê sumpheron), he termed these constitutions to be monarchy, aristocracy or polity, respectively.

If the constitutions became corrupt and the leadership acted only to advance their own self-interest, he labelled them tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.

The School of Athens painted by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1511. Aristotle is depicted centre right.
Wikimedia Commons

So for Aristotle, an oligarchy is a corrupt form of government. It is when power is in the hands of a small group of elites who advance their own interests rather than the common good.

In Aristotelian terms, democracy is also a corrupt form of government in which the majority uses its power to abuse minorities. While the term democracy has been rehabilitated and is usually seen as a positive, the word oligarchy has retained its negative connotations.

When the United States was created, the founding fathers looked back to Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero and other ancient thinkers to try and create the best kind of constitution.

Following the Aristotelian tradition, they tried to design a mixed constitution where neither the one, the few nor the many could dominate the others. The president has great power. But their power is kept in check by Congress and the judiciary, which is in turn kept in check by the media and, ultimately, the people through regular elections.

Modern oligarchies

In modern politics, the term oligarch is most often used in a Russian context. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, opportunistic tycoons made enormous fortunes from buying up state assets such as energy companies and financial institutions, which also brought them significant political influence as a result.

Since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, however, Russia has become increasingly authoritarian. While there is still an oligarchic class, their power has been reined in. They must not challenge Putin’s power or vision for the state.

During the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, opportunistic Russian tycoons made enormous fortunes from buying up state assets.
AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing

Although China is ostensibly a communist state, the Gini index (the measure of social inequality) has blown out in recent years as a small group of elites become increasingly wealthy.

Despite the state’s official commitment to socialist principles, political scientist Ming Xia has argued China is now transitioning into a modern oligarchy.

What about the United States and Australia?

Despite Biden’s warning of a potential oligarchy, political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page argued back in 2014 the US already was one.

The US has the essential features of a liberal democracy (fair and regular elections, freedom of speech, and an independent press). But Gilens and Page worried large businesses and a small group of affluent citizens had a disproportionate influence on policy.

Political scientists hold fears that a small group of affluent citizens have a disproportionate influence on US policy.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

In Australia also, it could be argued an oligarchy is either emerging or has already taken hold.

Australia has a similar-sized economy to Russia and a growing list of billionaires who appear to have significant influence over government policy.

The power of the Murdoch family and their media empire is well-documented. We have also seen increased political activity from other billionaires including Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Clive Palmer – who went as far as to start his own political party.

There is no question billionaires in the US and Australia have enormous power and influence. But that in itself does not make an oligarchy.

In Aristotelian terms, the defining feature of an oligarchy is the ruling elite blatantly use their status for their own personal gain rather than the public good.

This is a moral judgement, and one that is increasingly hard to make when so many of the ultra-wealthy own traditional news media and social media platforms that can shape public opinion.

Nevertheless, any shift towards oligarchy should be a cause of alarm to all who value the long democratic tradition in both the US and Australia.

Whether it is a symptom of Trumpism, as Biden suggests, or part of a longer trend, strengthening our democratic institutions and curtailing the disinformation and misinformation that are all too prevalent on social media, is part of the solution. Läs mer…

Mars is home to perhaps the greatest mystery of the Solar System: the so-called Martian dichotomy, which has baffled scientists since it was discovered in the 1970s.

The southern highlands of Mars (which cover about two-thirds of the planet’s surface) rise as much as five or six kilometres higher than the northern lowlands. Nowhere else in the Solar System do we see such a large, sharp contrast at this scale.

What caused this dramatic difference? Scientists have been split on whether it resulted from external factors – such as a collision with a huge, moon-sized asteroid – or internal ones, such as the flow of heat through the planet’s molten interior.

In new research published in Geophysical Research Letters, we analysed marsquakes detected by NASA’s Insight lander, located near the border separating the two sides of the dichotomy. Studying how the marsquake vibrations travel revealed evidence that the origin of the Martian dichotomy lies deep inside the red planet.

The Martian dichotomy

Altitude isn’t the only difference between the two sides of the Martian dichotomy.

The southern highlands are pocked with craters and streaked with frozen flows of volcanic lava. In contrast, the surface of the northern lowlands is smooth and flat, almost free of visible scars and other significant features.

From geophysical and astronomical measurements, we also know the crust of Mars is significantly thicker beneath the southern highlands. What’s more, the southern rocks are magnetised (suggesting they date to an ancient era when Mars had a global magnetic field), while those of the northern lowlands are not.

The Martian dichotomy was discovered in the 1970s, when images from the Viking probes showed a difference in height and in density of impact craters.

The Viking missions of the 1970s revealed a more detailed view of the Martian surface.
NASA / USGS

The surface density of craters (the number of craters per unit area) can be used to calculate the age of surface rocks – the older the surface, the more craters. So the southern highlands appear to be older than the northern lowlands.

Scientists also believe there was once a vast ocean of liquid water on Mars, likely in the same region as the northern lowlands.

There is a lot of debate about this because the existence or absence of sediments, landforms, and certain minerals that form when the land is covered by an ocean are used as the primary evidence for and against. The existence of liquid water is a prerequisite for life, so it is not difficult to understand the interest of the scientific community and space agencies in this problem.

Outer space or inner forces?

The origin of the Martian dichotomy has been a long-standing puzzle in planetary science. What kind of gradual or violent natural process, phenomenon, cosmic force, or catastrophe in the early phase of Mars (given the age of the rocks on the surface) could offer an answer to this question?

Two main hypotheses have emerged.

First is the so-called endogenic hypothesis. This argues that the difference in heat transfer through the rising of warmer and sinking of cooler material inside the Martian mantle led to a visible dichotomy on its surface.

Second is the exogenic hypothesis, according to which the cause of the dichotomy comes from space. This would mean the catastrophic impact of either a single moon-sized body or several smaller bodies, reshaping the planet’s surface.

Marsquakes

On Earth, we can use data from hundreds and even thousands of seismometers to triangulate the location of an earthquake.

On Mars, we only have data from a single instrument on the Insight lander. To find the location of a marsquake, we have to rely on measuring the difference in arrival time between different kinds of vibrations (called P and S waves).

This lets us calculate the distance to the marsquake. We can also determine the direction to the quake by looking at the movement of particles on the ground.

The Insight lander carried a seismograph to measure marsquakes and other vibrations.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Once we had made a system for pinpointing marsquakes from Insight data, we checked it against known events such as meteoroid impacts spotted by satellite cameras. We found our methods reliably pointed to a cluster of marsquakes in the Terra Cimmeria region in the southern highlands.

Next we studied how S waves lost energy as they travelled through the rock of the southern highlands. We also made similar calculations for earlier observed quakes in the Cerberus Fossae region of the northern lowlands.

Comparing these two showed that the waves lost energy more quickly in the southern highlands. The most likely explanation is that the rock beneath the southern highlands is hotter than in the north.

What quakes tell us about the dichotomy

This temperature difference between the two halves of the dichotomy supports the idea that the split was caused by internal forces on Mars, not some external impact.

The full explanation of why is quite complex. To simplify, scientists have made models of how the dichotomy could have formed based on an initial unevenness in the crust of Mars way back in time.

At one point, Mars had moving tectonic plates like Earth does. The movement of these plates and the molten rock beneath them could have created something like the dichotomy – which was then frozen in place when the tectonic plates stopped moving to form what scientists call a “stagnant lid” on the planet’s molten interior.

These events may have then enabled patterns of convection in the molten rock that can explain the dichotomy we see today, with upwelling benath the southern highlands and downwelling beneath the northern lowlands.

Our marsquake evidence for a temperature difference across the dichotomy is consistent with these models.

To conclusively answer the question of what caused the Martian dichotomy, we will need more marsquake data, as well as detailed models of how Mars formed and comparisons with Earth and other planets. However, our study reveals an important new piece of the puzzle. Läs mer…

A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is expected to take effect on Jan. 19, 2025, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Even as Israel’s cabinet delayed until Jan. 17 its vote to ratify the complex deal, Blinken said he is “very confident this is moving forward.”

The U.S., Qatar and Egypt helped broker the deal, which followed negotiations that had many starts and stops in 2024. Representatives of the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump worked together to advance the agreement, and both leaders took credit for the expected return of an estimated 100 Israeli hostages – both living and dead – and a complete ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Amy Lieberman, a politics and society editor at The Conversation, spoke with Gregory F. Treverton, who served as the chairperson of the U.S. National Intelligence Council during the Obama administration, to better understand what the United States’ role in this agreement says about American influence in the Middle East.

President Joe Biden, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, delivers remarks on the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas on Jan. 15, 2025.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

What is unusual, if anything, about the role of the US in this deal?

So far, the U.S. has not had very much influence in attempts to end the conflict. One reason is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears allergic to taking advice from the U.S. What is striking now is that some combination of Donald Trump coming to power and Joe Biden leaving office has made a difference – and possibly made Netanyahu more willing to take political risks with his governing coalition and to sign on to the deal.

It is more or less the same kind of deal that the U.S. presented in May 2024. So, it is hard to know whether Trump moved the dial by his past threats to punish Hamas and by pressuring Netanyahu, or whether Hamas felt like it has been weakened and lacks outside support from weakened allies like Iran. Or a combination of these factors.

We also know that there are some last-minute hiccups with the deal, so it isn’t over yet. But there is real progress and hope, and that reflects a lot of the Biden administration’s hard work over the past 15 months.

The proposed deal has three phases that will last more than four months. Because it starts doesn’t mean it will get to the end. And the agreed end is very, very vague, with a revamped Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza – something Netanyahu has said he doesn’t want.

The deal has been brokered largely by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar. There is not a serious international monitor of the deal beyond the political pressure of these countries.

People walk past rubble and destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, on Jan. 15, 2025.
Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images

What do you make of Trump’s and Biden’s teams working together on this?

It is not unprecedented. Typically, during ordinary transitions between administrations, there is a lot of cooperation and working together.

What is unusual is that you would perhaps not have expected this kind of collaboration, given the hostility between Trump and Biden and their teams. Biden has said that his administration and the Trump team have been “speaking as one team.” In that sense, it is a bright spot in U.S. politics as of late and returns to a more normal pattern in U.S. foreign policy where there has been cooperation between outgoing and incoming administrations.

It is unusual that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s designated Middle East special envoy, went on his own to meet with Netanyahu in January and reportedly influenced Netanyahu’s decision to accept a deal that he previously rejected. Many special envoys require confirmation by the Senate, though they can hold the post temporarily without it. They also need security clearances, so that limits some of the things they can do.

What else is notable about the US role in the deal?

It is striking that for all his efforts, Biden seemed to have so little influence on Netanyahu. This has been very difficult for Biden politically. He wanted to get a ceasefire deal done, but he also wanted to stop the suffering in Gaza and didn’t want to look like he was giving Israel a blank check to do whatever it wanted.

In the process, the U.S. has been labeled as partially responsible for the tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, which some people would call a genocide. This has done a lot of damage to the United States’ global reputation, and that will take some time to repair.

Trump is entirely unpredictable. He may continue to pressure Netanyahu or he may decide that Netanyahu can do whatever he wants.

Palestinians celebrate the announcement of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Khan Yunis on Jan. 15, 2025.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images

What does this deal tell us about the standing of the US in the Middle East?

In some ways, I think it shows the United States’ diminished influence on the Middle East. On the other hand, the geopolitics of other regional conflicts and political changes, like the fall of the Assad government in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah and Iran over the past year or so, have given certain opportunities to Israel, and therefore the U.S. This includes continuing the Abraham Accords, an agreement the Trump administration helped negotiate in 2020 to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The Saudis have been clear that they won’t make an agreement with Israel if there is not a state or something else designated for the Palestinians. It may turn out that this current deal, if implemented, offers enough for the Palestinians for the Saudis to also make an agreement with Israel. Läs mer…

The size of the Antarctic ice sheet can be hard to comprehend. Two kilometres thick on average and covering nearly twice the area of Australia, the ice sheet holds enough freshwater to raise global sea levels by 58 metres.

Ice loss from this sheet is projected to be the leading driver of sea level rise by 2100, yet its contribution remains highly uncertain. While sea levels are certain to rise this century, projections of the contribution from Antarctic ice vary from a 44 cm rise to a 22 cm fall.

Much of this uncertainty is because the ocean processes that control the fate of the sheet occur on an incredibly small scale and are very difficult to measure and model.

But recently scientists have made significant progress in understanding this “ice-ocean boundary layer”. This progress is the subject of our new review paper, published today in Annual Reviews.

Shrinking, thinning and retreating

At the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet, glaciers flow into the Southern Ocean, forming floating ice shelves. These ice shelves act as keystones, stabilising the ice sheet. They’re also shrinking.

The ocean melts ice shelves from below – a process known as “basal melting”. Increased basal melting has led to the thinning and retreat of the ice sheet in some regions, raising global sea levels.

Ice shelves in Antarctica ice shelves act as keystones, stabilising the ice sheet, but they’re shrinking due to climate change.
Goldilock Project/Shutterstock

It has also slowed the deepest current in the global overturning circulation, a system of ocean currents that circulates water around the globe.

Like the glaciers that feed them, ice shelves are immense. Yet the ocean processes that control basal melting, and the fate of the entire Antarctic ice sheet, occur on the scale of millimetres. They happen in a thin layer of ocean, just beneath the ice.

The boundary layer between the ice shelf and the ocean is cold, miles from anywhere, and beneath very thick ice, so it’s no wonder it has hardly been measured at all.

Studying this layer with other techniques such as computer simulations is also a huge challenge. Until recently, the tiny motions within the ice-ocean boundary layer put accurate modelling of ice melt out of reach.

These twin challenges have long stymied efforts to answer the deceptively simple question: “How does the ocean melt Antarctic ice shelves?”

The underside of ice shelves feature a weird and wonderful icescape.
Filip Stedt

Modelling the micro-scale

Computer simulations of ocean processes aren’t new.

But only recently have simulations of the ice-ocean boundary layer become feasible, as computing resources grow and the cost of using them shrinks.

Several research groups around the world have taken on this problem, modelling the micro-scale ocean flow that supplies heat to the ice for melting.

Researchers are looking for a relationship between what the ocean is doing, and how quickly the ice melts. So far, they’ve uncovered not just one relationship but several, each indicating a different melt “regime”. Ocean conditions (temperature, salt content and the speed of ocean currents) and the shape of the ice determine which melting regime applies.

Ice sheet shape is key because meltwater is fresh and lighter than the surrounding ocean. Like hot air collecting at the top of a room, fresh, cold meltwater collects in hollows in the lower surface of the ice sheet, insulating the ice from the ocean water below and slowing melting.

For steeply sloping ice, the insulating effect is much less. The energetic flow of meltwater as it rises under steep ice leads to mixing with the warmer ocean waters. This increases melting.

Fast ocean currents have a similar effect, as they transfer heat to the ice.

Underwater robots have allowed scientists to get an unprecedented look at the underside of the ice in Antarctica.
Filip Stedt/University of Gothenburg

Sonar-fitted robots

Recently, ocean robots, including autonomous underwater vehicles and tethered probes deployed by drilling through the ice, have provided unprecedented amounts of data on the environment beneath ice shelves.

Using sonar and cameras, these robots have revealed a weird and wonderful “icescape” on the underside of ice shelves.

This icescape is made of many different ice features, ranging from centimetres to kilometres in size. Some, like steep-sided crevasses, are formed by ice fracturing. Others, like dimpled depressions in the ice (often called “scallops”), stair-like “terraces”, mussel-shaped “scoops”, and larger basal channels, are thought to be formed by melt processes.

The strange shapes on the underside of ice shelves are thought to be formed by melt processes.
Filip Stedt

Our new knowledge of melting from computer simulations and robots sheds light on these features and how they form. The existence of melt regimes helps explain the evolution of steep-sided terraces, or why different features appear in distinct parts of an ice shelf.

For instance, in the warm, calm eastern part of the Dotson ice shelf in west Antarctica, an autonomous robot observed basal terraces. In the west of Dotson – which experiences cold, fast currents – large mussel-shaped scoops were discovered.

Uncertainties remain

Exactly how some of these features form is still unknown.

New simulations that allow the ice-water boundary to move in time show the “self-sculpting” behaviour of ice melt. This is similar to how dunes form and move in a desert.

However, new computer models are needed to simulate the formation and evolution of the whole icescape.

Some of the recent advances highlighted here are helping to reduce the uncertainty in our understanding of the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to global sea level rise.

However, incorporating our new understanding of basal melt, and the dynamic icescape it forms, into climate and ice sheet models still presents a huge challenge.

Overcoming this challenge is urgent. Accurate representation of melt in climate and ice sheet models will reduce the deep uncertainty in sea level rise projections, especially as ocean conditions – and ice shelf melt regimes – shift into the future. Läs mer…

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith finds herself at the centre of controversy because of her refusal to be part of a “Team Canada” approach to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

While other provincial premiers have signed on to a common approach, Smith visited the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to make the case against tariffs — at least those affecting the Alberta oil and gas industry.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at a meeting of Canada’s premiers in Toronto in December 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

She refused to join the other first ministers in signing a statement committing to a unified approach.

She’s also signalled her disapproval of proposals to restrict energy exports or to impose an export tax on them if Trump exempts them from the tariffs.

This has angered many Canadians, including some Albertans.

Alberta oil exports

Smith’s maverick approach reflects Alberta’s unique economic circumstances, its internal politics and its longstanding conflicts with the federal government. Any effort to bring Alberta into a Team Canada approach would have to take these factors into account.

Canada’s top export to the United States is energy products, mostly oil and gas. Almost all of the crude oil that Canada exports goes to the U.S., and most of it comes from Alberta. Alberta exports about 80 per cent of the crude oil it produces.

Although it’s not Canada’s largest province, Alberta is Canada’s largest exporter to the U.S. That means the province’s economy is more exposed to the Trump’s tariff threats than any other province.

Crude oil exports to the U.S. are important both to the Albertan economy and to the provincial government’s finances. In 2024-25, royalties from bitumen are projected to be worth $15.6 billion to the Alberta government. Put another way, 20 per cent of the revenues the Alberta government expects to take in this fiscal year are from this source. This does not take into account revenue from corporate and income tax from the industry.

Pumpjacks seen outside Calgary. In Alberta alone, roughly 237,000 drilled wells will need to be abandoned within the coming years.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Internal politics

Alberta has a long history of ties to the U.S. Historian Nelson Wiseman has argued that American settlers who came to Alberta early in the 20th century shaped the province’s political culture along the lines of America’s rugged individualism. The rise of the oil industry created new ties between Alberta and Texas.

Prior to the 2024 election, Albertans were more likely than other Canadians to say that they would vote for Trump if they could vote in the American election. According to a Leger survey, 29 per cent of Albertans would have voted for Trump as compared to 21 per cent of Canadians.

Recent polling data from the Angus Reid Institute shows that the vast majority of Albertans (82 per cent) reject the idea of becoming the 51st state. Although this is a large majority, it is smaller than in the rest of the country at 90 per cent.

Read more:
Requiem for Canada? Regional tensions, changing demographics may fuel Trump’s annexation hopes

This means the number of voters who would view Smith’s visit to Mar-a-Lago positively is higher in Alberta than in other provinces. Given Smith’s populist orientation, it is reasonable to think her core supporters would be inclined to view the visit favourably.

Beefs with Ottawa

There is a long history of regional alienation in Alberta, dating back to 1905 when it became a province. Control over natural resources has been a persistent conflict between Alberta and Ottawa. These conflicts heightened in the early 1980s over the National Energy Program.

Since the election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in 2015, there has been significant conflict over the province’s ability to build pipelines, the carbon tax and proposed regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more:
Why Alberta would be foolish to abandon carbon policy

Smith ran for her party’s leadership in 2022 on a platform of passing a Sovereignty Act to empower the province to refrain from enforcing federal laws. The legislation she eventually passed could not accomplish this within the rule of law, but did set out a framework for conflicts with Ottawa.

The day after announcing that she would not sign on to the Team Canada approach, Smith released a social media statement that revisited several long-standing grievances with the federal government, including failure to ensure pipelines were built, efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and to treat Alberta taxpayers with respect when they contributed to equalization.

Is there common ground?

Having the largest exporting province outside the Team Canada approach against Trump doesn’t position the country well to negotiate with a second Trump administration.

Public disputes over whether Canada would limit exports to the U.S. have revealed at least part of Canada’s negotiating position.

Could Alberta be brought into the fold? The decades-long animosity between Alberta and the federal government makes it difficult to imagine. When a new prime minister tackles these challenges, it will be essential to take into account the economic and political circumstances that have brought Canada to this point. Läs mer…

The 2025 Australian Open (AO) broadcast may seem similar to previous years if you’re watching on the television. However, if you’re watching online via the official Australian Open TV YouTube channel you’ll encounter a distinctly different kind of coverage.

The channel’s “AO Animated” coverage looks more like a Wii Sports tennis match than a real one, with players’ physical forms replaced with virtual avatars.

Fans that have viewed the live streams are divided, with comments ranging from “This is the best kinda live” to “What the hell is this? Why can’t we watch normal? This is utterly ridiculous”.

So what’s the answer? Why can’t we watch normal?

How does it work?

The system that creates the AO Animated streams uses 12 cameras that track the silhouette of the players. This data is then fed into a system and stitched to 29 points on an animated character – the player’s graphical reproduction. The result is a live stream with a two-minute delay that includes commentary and sound from the court.

For those who have seen it, you’ll notice the system is far from perfect. There are glitches with the ball, racquets vanishing and reappearing, clothes changing or appearing to have holes, and fingers remaining straight when they should be gripping the racquet. As Tennis Australia’s director of innovation, Machar Reid, notes, “It’s not as seamless as it could be.”

Although AO Animated was introduced last year, it has only recently become a major talking point among tennis fans. Many learned about the animated live streams through an X post by tennis reporter Bastien Fachan, who points them out as a way for the Australian Open to sidestep limits placed by current media rights agreements.

Nine has paid A$425 million for a five year deal (until 2029) that allows the network the domestic linear and digital rights to the Australian Open and lead-in events, including the United Cup.

Internationally, the BeIN media group has the broadcast rights for 24 countries across the Middle East and North Africa, while ESPN has held the broadcast rights for the United States and Canada since 1984 (and will remain these rights until at least 2031).

Yet the AO has found a way to sidestep these exclusive media rights deals by using animated avatars on YouTube – a decision that raises several questions about the future of sports broadcasting and media rights deals.

Future media rights

As of when this article was published, the AO Animated video of Botic van de Zandschulp playing Alex de Minaur had more than 35,000 views. The most viewed match, with more than 160,000 views, was between Andrey Rublev and Joao Fonseca.

But these are paltry numbers compared to the 1.9 million Australians who tuned into Nine’s TV broadcast of the night session on day three (in which Botic van de Zandschulp played Alex de Minaur).

A closer look at the ratings also reveals it is overwhelmingly older Australians who are tuning in, with 838,000 viewers aged 25–54, compared to 414,000 aged 16–39. You might suspect younger Australian are streaming the tennis via Nine’s video-on-demand platform, but even here an older viewership dominates.

It’s possible many young people are turning to other platforms such as YouTube, which reportedly had almost 21 million active users in Australia in 2024 (almost 80% of the population). In this light, what looks like an effort by Tennis Australia to dodge media rights deals could also be viewed as an effort to reach new, younger audiences.

It seems Tennis Australia’s Machar Reid had this in mind. He told The Guardian the AO Animated videos were targeting the “community that engages with animated or virtual or gaming products”.

This strategy makes sense. Millions of young people are already hooked on YouTube’s huge selection of gaming content. For instance, last year videos related to the viral Roblox game Dress to Impress were viewed more than 4 billion times in the US alone, according to YouTube’s data.

Similarly, more than 645 million people in the United Kingdom watched videos related to the video game franchise EA Sports FC in 2024. This number was even greater in the Middle East and North Africa, at 950 million.

AO is not the first

The AO is not the first to live-stream sports matches in which players are animated. Last year, North America’s National Hockey League used player tracking technology to stream a “MultiVersus NHL Face-Off” game. The players of Colorado Avalanche and the Vegas Golden Knights were replaced with Warner Brothers characters including Batman, Bugs Bunny and the Scooby Doo gang.

The National Football League also recreated a simulation of a live game in which players from the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys were replaced by Simpson’s characters. The entire look and feel of the broadcast reflected The Simpsons.

These US-based examples, together with the recent AO Animated coverage, suggest animated simulations could play a larger role in future media rights deals – and could provide media rights holders unique marketing and collaboration opportunities.

In the future we may see an expansion of the AO Animated live streams. It’s possible the Mii-style characters could even be replaced with popular characters, similar to the examples above. Such a change would further enhance Tennis Australia’s ability to collaborate with its media rights holders, both domestically and internationally. Läs mer…