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The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a shift towards the use of social media platforms in teaching. The South African Department of Basic Education, for one, instructed all schools to adopt online teaching and learning to save the 2020 school year, disrupted by the pandemic and the forced closure of schools.

It is getting clearer that this shift towards technology use will continue. Some researchers have noted that it has also put the focus of the learning process more on students than on teachers.

Young people aged between 15 and 24 usually attend secondary school or higher education institutions and use social media. Incorporating social media into school activities could make learning more interesting to this age group. Their participation and performance in their studies might then improve.

We are information systems researchers with the University of Cape Town. Our research focus is on the use of information systems in education, specifically in underdeveloped communities. We seek to identify and offer solutions to some of the challenges of using technology in the classroom.

Our recent study describes the challenges secondary school teachers face when using social media applications like WhatsApp as a teaching tool. They include access to devices, internet connectivity, security, skills, school policies and useful application features.

The education department, school management, teachers, students and application developers should work together on these issues to make technology more effective in teaching.

Social media platforms and teaching

The integration of WhatsApp into the school curriculum became one of the focus areas of the South African Department of Basic Education during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Teachers, besides being competent in their subjects, now needed to be comfortable using social media platforms for teaching.

But teachers, especially those from schools in poorer communities with limited technology resources, don’t all have the skills needed to effectively use online applications like WhatsApp for teaching. Practical solutions are needed to help them.

Four public, fee-paying secondary schools from the Western Cape Provincial Department of Education were included in this study. The schools all use social media as an online tool to support their teaching. They record and share learning materials like teaching videos and video notes, send homework and reminders about homework tasks, and conduct virtual classroom lessons. They also use the technology as a translation tool.

These schools started using social media to teach during the pandemic and continued afterwards. Teachers at each school with social media teaching experience were interviewed. A total of six teachers were interviewed over a period of a year.

School documents like the cellphone and social media policies and the school’s code of conduct were also reviewed.

The challenges associated with using social media are classified into different categories: student, teacher, application and institutional challenges.

Student challenges: Students from poorer communities often don’t have access to a cellphone, or their devices have basic functionality. This does not allow them to access WhatsApp. Students who live in dangerous neighbourhoods are also at risk of having their phones stolen. Students’ privacy and safety linked to cyberbullying is also a concern since they would need to share their mobile numbers to be included in a WhatsApp classroom group.

While some students have access to a device, they don’t have data on the device to use WhatsApp. Some also lack the skills to access resources sent on social media.

Teacher challenges: Teachers themselves experience challenges when using social media for teaching. Their privacy is a concern since students have access to their personal cellphone numbers. This makes it difficult to separate their work and personal lives. This is unfair on the teachers. Not having adequate training to use social media is also an issue for the teachers.

The older teachers feel less confident in using social media within the classroom and rely on their younger colleagues to help them. Managing WhatsApp classroom groups is difficult since the teachers need to constantly add or replace cellphone numbers. The teachers are then left with the task of managing multiple contacts.

Application challenges: Limitations associated with the WhatsApp application itself affect teaching. Sending large files like videos and documents over WhatsApp is blocked. It is especially frustrating when teaching videos are blocked. The teacher needs to split the video into smaller parts which are then sent piecemeal over WhatsApp to the students.

WhatsApp does not provide a professional presentation mode for teaching. This is frustrating for a teacher who wants to make a PowerPoint presentation to the students.

Institutional challenges: The school plays a role in the success rates achieved when using social media as an online teaching tool. Teachers say Wi-Fi connectivity may be intermittent or inaccessible. Weak signals, having no electricity, and vandalism are mentioned as reasons.

When the Wi-Fi does not work, teachers and students must then rely on their own data, which can be costly. School policies that do not fully support the use of social media applications for teaching prevent WhatsApp from being fully utilised. Some schools do not allow students to use cellphones, unless prior permission is given. Without permission, phones are confiscated and students are fined.

Why our findings matter

The biggest challenge is the unequal access to the internet and cellphones which schools in poorer communities have. Students not using social media eventually fall behind because they don’t receive learning materials from their teachers.

Additionally, teachers struggle with increased work when using social media and work frustrations brought about by WhatsApp’s lack of teaching features.

The South African Department of Basic Education wants to see the successful integration of technology use like WhatsApp into all South African classrooms. That can’t happen unless all the challenges are adequately addressed. Läs mer…

The overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev from the posts of first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and the leader of the Soviet state in October 1964 was an unprecedented event in the history of the Soviet Union.

The old leader was deposed by the opposition without violence. He was not imprisoned or killed after losing power. While his predecessors Lenin and Stalin and successors Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko all died in power, Khrushchev was sent into retirement, where he lived under supervision for another seven years.

Unlike the era of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union did not disintegrate when its leader had to relinquish power. Six decades have now passed since what has become known as the “most democratic coup” in Soviet history – sometimes referred to as the “little October revolution”.

Khrushchev, who rose to power on the death of Josef Stalin in 1953, actually came close to being overthrown as early as 1957. At that time, Stalin’s former collaborators and close comrades, including Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov, opposed him. They even gained an upper hand in the party’s highest body, the presidium. But Khrushchev was saved by the support of the army leadership, the KGB political police and the wider party leadership, the central committee.

Seven years later, however, he was brought down by politicians from the next generation – men who largely owed their powerful positions to him.

Strongest among them was Leonid Brezhnev, who duly took Khrushchev’s place as first secretary (shortly afterwards renaming his position general secretary, the same title as Stalin). Next in line was Alexander Shelepin, the powerful secretary of the party’s central committee who had run the KGB from 1958 to 1961.

The role of the KGB, which in October 1964 was headed by Shelepin’s successor Vladimir Semichastny, was crucial in ensuring Khrushchev’s downfall, as its ninth directorate – which was responsible for the protection of state officials – not only protected but also constantly monitored them.

Semichastny not only knew about the revolt against Khrushchev but was actively involved in it. Had he informed the leader about the plotting, pretty much what he was in the job to do, Khrushchev would more than likely have averted the palace coup this time as well.

In his memoirs, Semichastny even mentioned the fact that Brezhnev raised the possibility of Khrushchev’s assassination during one conversation with him. But this plan was never put into action. In the event the plot to remove the Soviet leader was completed by non-violent means.

Reforming leader

Khrushchev has gone down in history as a reformer who wanted to make Soviet communism less brutal. He strongly criticised Stalin for his abuse of power but, at the same time, he gradually increased his own powers.

His efforts at political and economic reforms stopped when they posed a threat to maintaining the monopoly of communist power. Despite paying lip service to the idea of less heavy-handed domination of the Soviet bloc from Moscow, he became known for his bloody suppression of the Hungarian revolt in 1956. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, he then brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

New kind of leadership: Kruschev meeting US president John F Kennedy in Vienna in 1961.

His initially positive reforms improved the living standards) of the people in his country, but later became chaotic and led to social unrest, including the massacre of workers in Novocherkassk in 1962 and the need to buy grain from the west, which he had previously wanted to ideologically “bury”.

Also, the rift between the Soviet Union and China at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s caused a certain resentment in Moscow. Khrushchev’s moves towards liberalisation had not caused the rift, which was more due to China’s increased authoritarianism under Mao Zedong during that era. This was exacerbated by border disputes between the two countries as well as disagreements over international relations. But Khrushchev’s critics felt he could – and should – have handled relations more skilfully.

Fall and legacy

Having faced down a coup attempt in 1957, by October 1964 Khrushchev found himself politically isolated and without support in either the presidium or in the central committee. His opponents forced him to return prematurely from his vacation in the Georgian report town of Pitsunda to Moscow where he was confronted by his political opponents, led by Brezhnev with the support of other powerful politicians, including Shelepin, Alexei Kosygin and Mikhail Suslov.

Realising his supporters in the presidium were in the minority and that to retain power would mean involving the army or KGB, which he was not confident would back him, Khruschev resigned.

Reflecting on how his leadership had rejected Stalinism, he is reported to have said: “I am glad that, finally, the party has matured and can control any individual.”

But Brezhnev, who manoeuvred himself into power in Khrushchev’s stead, learned from the fall of his predecessor and tightened his grip on the levers of power. Yet the Soviet Union – thanks in large part to Khrushchev – never returned the state terror and mass murder of Stalinism.

The Soviet Union was to experience another coup attempt against a leader in 1991, when conservative opponents tried to overthrow another reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev. But this attempt, much less prepared and elaborate and lacking the necessary wider support, failed. The Soviet Union collapsed and was formally disbanded just a few months later.

But for many people, it’s Khrushchev whose reforms and governing style began the gradual disintegration of the Soviet Union as far back as the 1950s, partly thanks to his efforts to impose more democratisation. It is not surprising that the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, disdains him – especially since Khrushchev, according to Putin, “senselessly donated” Crimea to Ukraine in 1954.

At least Khrushchev himself was able to live to focus on the positives. He would recall in his memoir how he freed his country from the suffocating fear of Stalinism and was able to raise a generation of younger politicians who were finally not afraid to stand up to him. Sadly, this is no longer a hallmark under the current leadership. Läs mer…

If you notice a tiny, strikingly coloured spider performing an elaborate courtship dance, you may have seen your first peacock spider.

New species of peacock spider are discovered every year; the tally is now 113. One newly discovered species, Maratus yanchep, is only known to exist in a small area of coastal dunes near Yanchep, north of Perth.

As Perth’s suburbs sprawl ever further north and south, it means one problem – the housing crisis – is worsening another, the extinction crisis.

The dunes which are home to Maratus yanchep are just 20 metres from land being cleared for large new estates.

If the species was formally listed as threatened, it could be protected. But the spider was only described in 2022 and has not been listed on state or federal threatened species lists. That means Maratus yanchep has no protection, according to the state government.

What’s so special about a spider?

Peacock spiders are tiny. Many have bodies just 4–5 mm across. The males only put on their mating displays during short periods of the year, typically August to September. Their size and habits also make it hard to learn about their populations and preferred habitats. This is partly why we’re only now realising how many peacock spider species there are.

Concerted effort by enthusiasts such as Jurgen Otto has greatly expanded our knowledge. Of the 113 described species, each has distinctive colouring and its own dances (males have the colour and the moves). But we know there are more species of peacock spider waiting to be recognised by western science.

Many species of peacock spider are only known from within a very small area of suitable habitat.

This puts the species at high risk of extinction because a single threat such as a large bushfire or a suburban development can destroy all their habitat at once.

Peacock spiders such as this Maratus tasmanicus are tiny but pack a lot of personality.
Kristian Bell/Shutterstock

How can this be allowed?

Before any native bushland is cleared in Australia, developers have to undertake an environmental impact survey to look for threatened species and assess what damage the development would do. If a threatened species is found, the development can be scaled back or denied.

The problem is, these surveys only look for species known to be in danger. If a species isn’t listed on Australia’s growing list of threatened species, it won’t be looked for.

But Maratus yanchep has not been assessed to see if it is threatened. This means it has no protection from development.

This points to a wider problem. Large, well-known Australian vertebrates such as koalas and platypuses tend to get more attention – and conservation efforts – than humble invertebrates. We face an uphill battle to conserve our wealth of invertebrates.

Worldwide, many invertebrates are in real danger of disappearing. Australia is home to at least 300,000 invertebrate species, dwarfing the 8,000-odd vertebrates – but only 101 are currently listed under the federal government’s laws protecting threatened species, the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act. The problem here is we don’t have enough data to assess most invertebrate species for formal conservation listing and protection.

Data takes money

Listing a species as threatened requires a large amount of data on where the species is and isn’t found. This takes time and specialist knowledge. But funding is scarce.

As a result, our efforts to gather data on invertebrates often relies on passionate volunteers and enthusiasts, who may often pick one genus – say peacock spiders – and set out to expand our knowledge.

When clear and immediate threats do appear – such as clearing coastal dunes in Yanchep – we are again reliant on the unpaid work of volunteers to gather information.

These dunes near Yanchep are the only known home of this species of peacock spider – and the site for large new development.
Michael Lun, Author provided (no reuse)

The problem of sprawl

Perth is one of the longest cities in the world. Its suburbs sprawl for 150 kilometres, running from Two Rocks in the north to Dawesville in the south.

Many Perth residents want to live by the coast, driving demand for new housing on the city outskirts. This drives destruction of native bushland and pushes species towards extinction. Some species tolerate the change from bushland to suburbia, but these are a minority – less than 25%. Small, localised species are at highest risk of extinction.

Perth’s sprawl shows no sign of slowing. Land clearing for housing has contributed to the worsening plight of the Carnaby’s cockatoo. Fifty years ago, the iconic cockatoo flew over the city in flocks as large as 7,000. There’s nothing like that now.

Perth’s urban sprawl now stretches beyond Yanchep. Pictured: Yanchep’s beach. The bush area in the background is where maratus yanchep lives.
Kok Kin Meng/Shutterstock

What can we do?

Efforts are underway to protect Maratus yanchep. The not-for-profit charity Invertebrates Australia is working to nominate it for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Greens MP Brad Pettitt raised the issue in Parliament in August.

The one thing peacock spiders have going for them is their looks. They are spectacularly beautiful. They’re also easily identified by the distinct patterns on the males – for most species you don’t need expert training to tell them apart, just decent eyesight.

As a result, peacock spiders have drawn attention from dozens of amateur arachnologists and photographers who collect and share information on where they can be found. This citizen science data is often able to be used as evidence in listing a species as threatened – and unlocking vital protection.

Images of these spiders also boosts their public profile and support for their protection.

Despite the recent groundswell of interest in saving this tiny spider, it may be too late. To avoid the mass extinction of iconic Australian species, we must find better ways of building without large-scale habitat clearing.

Read more:
Photos from the field: zooming in on Australia’s hidden world of exquisite mites, snails and beetles Läs mer…

Since 2019, the Australian Department for Industry, Science and Resources has been striving to make the nation a leader in “safe and responsible” artificial intelligence (AI). Key to this is a voluntary framework based on eight AI ethics principles, including “human-centred values”, “fairness” and “transparency and explainability”.

Every subsequent piece of national guidance on AI has spun off these eight principles, imploring business, government and schools to put them into practice. But these voluntary principles have no real hold on organisations that develop and deploy AI systems.

Last month, the Australian government started consulting on a proposal that struck a different tone. Acknowledging “voluntary compliance […] is no longer enough”, it spoke of “mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings”.

But the core idea of self-regulation remains stubbornly baked in. For example, it’s up to AI developers to determine whether their AI system is high risk, by having regard to a set of risks that can only be described as endemic to large-scale AI systems.

If this high hurdle is met, what mandatory guardrails kick in? For the most part, companies simply need to demonstrate they have internal processes gesturing at the AI ethics principles. The proposal is most notable, then, for what it does not include. There is no oversight, no consequences, no refusal, no redress.

But there is a different, ready-to-hand model that Australia could adopt for AI. It comes from another critical technology in the national interest: gene technology.

A different model

Gene technology is what’s behind genetically modified organisms. Like AI, it raises concerns for more than 60% of the population.

In Australia, it’s regulated by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. The regulator was established in 2001 to meet the biotech boom in agriculture and health. Since then, it’s become the exemplar of an expert-informed, highly transparent regulator focused on a specific technology with far-reaching consequences.

Three features have ensured the gene technology regulator’s national and international success.

First, it’s a single-mission body. It regulates dealings with genetically modified organisms:

to protect the health and safety of people, and to protect the environment, by identifying risks posed by or as a result of gene technology.

Second, it has a sophisticated decision-making structure. Thanks to it, the risk assessment of every application of gene technology in Australia is informed by sound expertise. It also insulates that assessment from political influence and corporate lobbying.

The regulator is informed by two integrated expert bodies: a Technical Advisory Committee and an Ethics and Community Consultative Committee. These bodies are complemented by Institutional Biosafety Committees supporting ongoing risk management at more than 200 research and commercial institutions accredited to use gene technology in Australia. This parallels best practice in food safety and drug safety.

The Gene Technology Regulator has a sophisticated decision-making structure.
Office of The Gene Technology Regulator, CC BY

Third, the regulator continuously integrates public input into its risk assessment process. It does so meaningfully and transparently. Every dealing with gene technology must be approved. Before a release into the wild, an exhaustive consultation process maximises review and oversight. This ensures a high threshold of public safety.

Regulating high-risk technologies

Together, these factors explain why Australia’s gene technology regulator has been so successful. They also highlight what’s missing in most emerging approaches to AI regulation.

The mandate of AI regulation typically involves an impossible compromise between protecting the public and supporting industry. As with gene regulation, it seeks to safeguard against risks. In the case of AI, those risks would be to health, the environment and human rights. But it also seeks to “maximise the opportunities that AI presents for our economy and society”.

Second, currently proposed AI regulation outsources risk assessment and management to commercial AI providers. Instead, it should develop a national evidence base, informed by cross-disciplinary scientific, socio-technical and civil society expertise.

The argument goes that AI is “out of the bag”, with potential applications too numerous and too mundane to regulate. Yet molecular biology methods are also well out of the bag. The gene tech regulator still maintains oversight of all uses of the technology, while continually working to categorise certain dealings as “exempt” or “low-risk” to facilitate research and development.

Third, the public has no meaningful opportunity to assent to dealings with AI. This is true regardless of whether it involves plundering the archives of our collective imaginations to build AI systems, or deploying them in ways that undercut dignity, autonomy and justice.

The lesson of more than two decades of gene regulation is that it doesn’t stop innovation to regulate a promising new technology until it can demonstrate a history of non-damaging use to people and the environment. In fact, it saves it. Läs mer…

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has announced free school lunches if Labor is re-elected at the state’s upcoming election on October 26.

The A$1.4 billion policy would cover primary students in public schools and begin next year. Labor estimates it would save parents about $1,600 per child, per year. On Sunday, Miles said:

[The program is] universal to avoid stigmatising the kids that need the food the most, but also to ensure that it supports every Queensland family.

The meals will be delivered in partnership with P&Cs Queensland, Queensland Association of School Tuckshops, school principals, Health and Wellbeing Queensland and non-government food providers.

The Greens are also campaigning on a pledge to deliver free breakfasts and lunches for every state primary and high school student, costed at $3 billion over the next four years.

Would a school lunches program help students and families? How would it work in practice?

An unusual approach for Australia

Unlike the United Kingdom and United States, Australian does not have a national or state-based free or subsidised school meal program.

Instead, parents are responsible for providing morning tea and lunch through a “lunchbox system”. Families can also usually pre-order food from a canteen or tuckshop. In some cases, state or territory governments fund charities and non-for-profits to provide breakfast or lunch programs for schools identified as most in need of support.

Research shows the nutritional quality of food provided to Australian school children often does not meet dietary guidelines. There are mandatory guidelines for state school canteens and tuckshops to follow but these are not always reflected in practice. Research shows many canteen menus contain less-than-desirable options and pricing often does not encourage families to buy healthier options.

Unfortunately, health survey data shows Australian children’s diets are high in energy dense and nutritionally poor foods. On top of this, the 2023 Foodbank Report shows 36% of Australians are food insecure and about one quarter of these households have children at home who may not have adequate food for school.

Australia has a ‘lunchbox system’ where families provide the food for school.
Halfpoint/ Shutterstock

What are the potential opportunities?

So the idea of a free school lunch program delivered by organisations familiar with providing food in schools sounds like a positive solution.

Beyond improving nutrition and health outcomes for more than 326,000 Queensland students, it can also provide other benefits.

We could see improved school attendance by creating an incentive for students to go to school and improved diets leading to reduced illness. Because well-nourished children are more ready to learn, concentrate and stay on task, school lunches could lead to improved academic performance.

Importantly, school lunches can reduce inequality and stigma for families who experience food insecurity.

The school kitchen can also provide a opportunities for students to learn about food preparation and service as well as healthy eating.

School lunches can ensure all students are provided with nutritious food.
Joel Carrett/AAP

What are the key challenges?

But we need to make sure the program is properly and sustainably designed. There will be a cost to taxpayers, not just in terms of the set up, but ongoing maintenance.

The initial implementation will require commercial kitchens and equipment, qualified and trained staff, secure food procurement and supply chains as well as all the policies and procedures to go with this. This raises the question of whether the timeline of starting in Term 1, 2025 is realistic for all schools.

The roll out needs to be equitable – extra consideration is needed for how this plan will be delivered to rural and remote Queenslanders. We also know access to reliable supplies of food, staff, equipment and support varies greatly across the state.

The program will also need to cater to children with food allergies and intolerances, food preferences experienced with conditions like autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and different cultural eating practices.

This plan has the potential to improve Queensland children’s health and education outcomes, while saving families money, time and stress. But it is complex and success will lie in making sure all Queensland primary students are provided with nutritious and appropriate food at school. Läs mer…

Heat can do amazing things to change your hairstyle. Whether you’re using a curling wand to get ringlets, a flat iron to straighten or a hair dryer to style, it’s primarily the heat from these tools that delivers results.

This comes with casualties. While your hair is surprisingly tolerant to heat compared with many other parts of your body, it can still only withstand so much. Heat treatment hair appliances frequently operate at over 150°C, with some reportedly reaching over 200°C. At these temperatures, your hair can end up fried.

Many people use heat protectants, often in the form of sprays, to minimise the damage. So how do these protectants work? To answer that, I first have to explain exactly what heat does to your tresses on the molecular level.

Heating tools can do amazing things – but this often comes at a price.
Engin Akyurt/Pexels

What heat does to your hair

A large proportion of your hair is made up of proteins. There are attractive forces between these proteins, known as hydrogen bonds. These bonds play a big role in dictating the shape of your locks.

When you heat up your hair, the total attraction of these hydrogen bonds become weaker, allowing you to more easily re-shape your hair. Then, when it cools back down, these attractions between the proteins are re-established, helping your hair hold its new look until the proteins rediscover their normal structure.

The cuticle – the outermost protective layer of your hair – contains overlapping layers of cells that lose integrity when they’re heated, damaging this outer protective layer.

Inside that outer layer is the cortex, which is rich in a protein called keratin.

Many proteins don’t hold up structurally after intense heating. Think of cooking an egg – the change you see is a result of the heat altering the proteins in that egg, unravelling them into different shapes and sizes.

It’s a similar story when it comes to heating your hair. The proteins in your hair are also susceptible to heat damage, reducing the overall strength and integrity of the hair.

Heat can also affect substances called melanin and tryptophan in your hair, resulting in a change in pigmentation. Heat-damaged hair is harder to brush.

The damage is even more devastating if you use heat styling tools such as curling irons or straighteners to heat wet hair, as at the high treatment temperatures, the water soaked up by the fibres can violently evaporate.

The result of this is succinctly described by science educator and cosmetic chemist Michelle Wong, also known as Lab Muffin. She notes if you heat wet hair this way, “steam will blast through your hair’s structure”.

This steam bubbling or bursting through the hair can cause substantial damage.

It’s worth noting hair dryers don’t concentrate heat in the same way as styling tools such as flat irons or curling wands, but you still need to move the hair dryer around constantly to avoid heat building up in one spot and causing damage.

Once heat damage is done, regardless of whether it is severe or mild, the best remaining options are symptom management or a haircut.

For all of these reasons, when you’re planning to heat treat your hair, protection is a good idea.

If you’re heating up hair, protection is a good idea.
Bucsa Nicolae/Shutterstock

How hair protectants work

When you spray on a hair protectant, many possible key ingredients can go to work.

They can have daunting-looking names like polyvinyl pyrrolidone, methacrylates, polyquaterniums, silicones and more.

These materials are chosen because they readily stick onto your hair, creating a coating, a bit like this:

Hair protectant applies a coating to your hair.
Author provided

This coating is a protective layer; it’s like putting an oven mitt on your hands before you handle a hot tray from the oven.

To demonstrate, I created these by examining hair under a microscope before and after heat protectant was applied:

These high magnification images of untreated hair, and hair sprayed with a heat treatment spray, show how the product coats your hair strands.
Author provided

Just like an oven mitt, a hair protectant delays the heat penetration, results in less heat getting through, and helps spread out the effect of the heat, a bit like in this image:

Hair protectant can help spread out the effects of the heat.
Author provided

This helps prevent moisture loss and damage to both the protective surface cell layer (the cuticle) and the protein structure of the hair cortex.

For these barriers to work at their best, these heat-protecting layers need to remain bound to your hair. In other words, they stick on really well.

For this reason, continued use can sometimes cause a buildup which can change the feel and weight of your hair.

This buildup is not permanent and can be removed with washing.

One final and important note: just like when you use a mitt for the oven, heat does still get through. The only way to prevent heat damage to your hair altogether is to not use heated styling tools. Läs mer…

When you think of lung cancer treatment, what comes to mind – chemotherapy, radiation, surgery? While these can be crucial, there’s another powerful tool that’s often overlooked: exercise.

Our recent study, published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, challenges the common belief that people with lung cancer are too sick to be physically active.

In fact, we found exercise can play a vital role in improving life for those battling this disease.

What we did and what we found

Our review involved analysing 26 high quality studies on how best to incorporate exercise into treatment for lung cancer.

We found the overwhelming weight of evidence shows exercise offers benefits at every stage of the lung cancer journey. This includes:

before surgery (being more fit can lead to faster recovery and potentially fewer complications)
after surgery (gentle exercise helps regain strength and makes daily tasks easier)
during other treatments (physical activity can ease side effects like fatigue and muscle weakness)
at advanced stages of disease (even for late-stage patients, evidence shows exercise can improve quality of life and maintain independence)
patients experiencing muscle wasting (evidence shows exercise, especially strength training, helps preserve muscle and keeps patients stronger).

What does exercise look like?

When we say “exercise,” we’re not talking about running marathons. For someone with lung cancer, it might mean:

taking a short walk around the block
doing some gentle cycling on a stationary bike
swimming or doing some movement in the water
lifting light weights or doing banded exercises
doing yoga or tai chi for more mobile, flexible joints, as well as stress and pain reduction.

The key is to start slowly and listen to your body. What works for one person might not work for another.

Getting started safely

If you or a loved one has lung cancer and wants to be more active, start by talking with your doctor. They can advise on any precautions you should take and send you to an exercise specialist if needed.

You might also consider working with an exercise physiologist or physiotherapist who can design a safe, personalised program.

It’s OK to start small – even five to ten minutes of activity is beneficial, according to the Cancer Council Australia .

Try to be consistent, if you can. Regular, gentle exercise is better than occasional intense bursts.

It can help to keep track of your progress and how you feel after each session. You might also try looking for support groups or exercise classes specifically for cancer patients at local hospitals or community centres.

The Cancer Council Australia website offers inspiration and ideas on exercises to start with, even in the home.

The real-world benefits

Research shows regular physical activity can significantly improve quality of life for lung cancer patients. These can include:

reduced fatigue, even though that might seem counterintuitive
less breathlessness, as exercise can improve lung function
less muscle weakness, which makes daily tasks easier

better mood, as physical exercise can help fight depression and anxiety
better sleep; many patients report sleeping more easily after starting an exercise routine.

Exercise can improve lung function and may reduce breathlessness.
Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock

Ditch the stigma, and get the exercise support you deserve

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed worldwide. It’s a devastating illness that affects not just the body, but also a person’s mental health and quality of life.

Unfortunately, there’s often a stigma attached to lung cancer. Many patients feel judged, or that they must have done something – such as smoking – to “deserve” their diagnosis.

This shame can prevent people from seeking help or joining support programs.

But here’s an important truth: anyone can get lung cancer, even if they’ve never smoked.

And regardless of how someone developed the disease, they deserve compassion and the best possible care – including support for physical activity.

Never too late to start

It’s important to note exercise can be beneficial even for those receiving palliative care.

In palliative care, the goals shift from fighting the cancer to enhancing comfort and quality of life, and physical activity can play a significant role in this.

Even palliative care patients may benefit from exercise.
PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

A lung cancer diagnosis is undoubtedly daunting. But we’re learning patients have more tools to improve their wellbeing than we once thought.

Exercise isn’t a cure, but it can be a powerful complement to traditional treatments and medications.

If you or someone you know is facing lung cancer, don’t be afraid to discuss incorporating exercise into the treatment plan with your health-care team. Start small, be patient and consistent, and remember that every bit of movement counts.

By challenging old assumptions and embracing exercise as part of lung cancer care, we can empower patients to take a more active role in their treatment. Läs mer…

French bestselling author Muriel Barbery’s sixth opus, One Hour of Fervour, is a contemplative novel, a poetic travelogue and a homage to Japan. We follow Haru Ueno, a successful Japanese art dealer, whose life is turned upside down the day his French mistress forbids him from raising his child.

Review: One Hour of Fervour – Muriel Barbery (Gallic Books)

Tea ceremony, temples, sake, kabuki: Barbery transports us to an exotic Kyoto with her precise prose including haikus as well as aphoristic Japanese tales. Unknown words abound (shakuhachi, fūrin, matstutake), creating an ambience, and Haru’s philosophical thoughts are interspersed throughout the story.

The book, translated by Alison Anderson, begins with the end of the story, when 67-year-old Haru is about to die. He reflects on the three threads in his life: art, friendship, and Rose, his estranged daughter.

Then we go back 50 years, to the 1970s, following the young Haru as he develops his eye for art and his “predilection for Western women”. His life is regulated like a metronome, between his work as a successful art dealer, his visits to his friends Keisuke and Tomoo, and his weekly walk to Shinnyo-dō, a temple perched on a hill in the northeast of Kyoto, where “at every instant, he would know this was his home”.

His social network expands when he meets Jacques Meilland, a Parisian antique dealer who specialises in Asian art, and then Paul Delvaux, a young Belgian who becomes his assistant. Haru has a string of female conquests, including Maud, the mysterious French woman who will bear his child but deny him the role of being a father.

A profound joy

The novel is divided in six parts, contrasting time and place, and emphasising the radical change that takes place in Haru’s life when he accidentally learns he has fathered a child. At a distance and in secret, from that moment on, his life will revolve around his daughter.

NewSouth

The narrative is designed to highlight the “hour of fervour” that gives the book its title. Barbery has revived this old-fashioned word, “fervour”, which expresses perhaps the unique and short-lived feeling of living life to the full and being in total harmony with place and people.

That’s what Keisuke, the potter, wants to experience in spite of any sad circumstances. “If life has only one hour of fervour left to offer me, I want us to spend it together,” he says to his old friend Haru. This “hour of fervour” is actually gifted to Jacques Meilland, right in the middle of the novel, on one of Haru’s walks in Shinnyo-dō with him: “My life had only one hour of fervour to give, and I’ve known that hour, thanks to you,” he tells Haru. It is then that he felt “a profound joy there, the joy of being wholly in phase with (him)self”.

Although it can be read separately, An Hour of Fervour forms a set with A Single Rose (2020), Barbery’s previous book, which focuses on Rose, Haru’s daughter. In 12 chapters punctuated by parables of flowers and trees, Barbery tells of 40-year-old Rose’s discovery of her origins through a sort of treasure hunt in Kyoto, designed by her late father in his will. An Hour of Fervour is therefore a prequel, unplanned, according to the author.

Barbery has always been fascinated by Japanese culture. Being awarded Kyoto’s creative residency the Villa Kujoyama in 2008 changed her vision of the world and her writing. While she insists her last two novels are the fruit of this maturation, many links can be made with her debut books. Indeed, her bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2006) portrayed the character of Kakuro, an exotic and idealised Japanese man.

Goodreads

After diverting to the fantasy genre (The Life of Elves, A Strange Country), unconvincing stories of elves and spells, she returns to a more familiar world, although exotic for a French reader.

Trained as a philosopher, Barbery knows how to structure a narrative, how to craft a punchy title. But if her style is precise, it is often precious. According to the translator, Alison Anderson, the author “tries very hard to avoid repetitions”.

A pedantic use of italicised words emphasises the philosophical concepts. And many platitudes can be found in this pseudo lesson on life, such as, “You’re blind because you only look […] You must learn not to look.” The philosophical-artistic content rings hollow and contrasts shockingly with vulgar language (“Mountain people are real dumbasses”).

Affected and pedantic

Indeed, one might find the book soaked in sake, overloaded with stones, saturated in maple trees. It offers a travel guide of a cliched Japan. The papier-mâché characters in trompe-l’oeil settings embody clichés of Orientalism and deliver a Western vision of Japan bordering on racist.

Characters are stereotypes – like Keisuke, the genial artist, who is so drunk he must be brought home in a wheelbarrow. In this fairy tale for rich people, Haru’s French friend “poor Jacques Melland” – is so infatuated with Japan he is

overcome with disgust at the thought of his apartment in Paris’s eighth arrondissement [the wealthiest], a long succession of rooms with a point de Hongrie parquet floor.

Barbery seems to have taken inspiration also from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s 1943 fable The Little Prince. Its wisdom, “what is essential is invisible to the eye” resonates in One Hour of Fervour: “what’s invisible is never hidden”.

Read more:
’The essential is invisible to the eye’: the wisdom of The Little Prince in lockdown

A rose and a fox are also present, lending the novel its atmosphere of magic. While the fox doesn’t speak, unlike in Saint-Exupéry’s tale, it walks on the water – in a ford that doesn’t exist. “The fox is the key,” are both Haru’s and the novel’s last words. Barbery integrates the supernatural into the natural – crows are conversing with priests; Sayoko, the house keeper in a traditional kimono, is beset with “astonishing intuitions”.

Anderson, whose many translations include Barbery’s six novels, as well as Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio, takes Barbery’s prose head on and provides an accurate, although smoothed, translation. It is difficult however to translate some poetic metaphors such as “un éventail ne dissipe pas le brouillard” (“You cannot fan away the fog”).

No doubt though, Anderson’s work will cater to a cliched Australian taste for Japan. Läs mer…

Is Reko Rennie Australia’s equivalent of Keith Haring? Both Rennie, a Melbourne-based Aboriginal artist who celebrates the heritage the Kamilaroi people of northern New South Wales, and Haring, the American pop art great, emerged out of an urban graffiti culture.

Both create a widely recognisable visual language that has a striking vitality, sense of authenticity and a pulsating vibrancy. Both are deeply autobiographical artists who created a visual code through which to share their personal histories.

Rennie is an interdisciplinary artist who seamlessly moves between video, printmaking, sculpture, painting and neon art. With more than a hundred works on display, drawn from the artist’s two-decade-long career, this is the first significant retrospective of his art.

Rennie possesses the gift of creating memorable images that are simultaneously puzzling, intriguing and entertaining. On entering the gallery, you encounter a 1973 Rolls-Royce Corniche decorated with the strange camouflage colours that reoccur throughout Rennie’s art. The physical car is accompanied by a three-channel video work with a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds soundtrack.

Installation view of REKOSPECTIVE: The Art of Reko Rennie at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
Photo Kate Shanasy/NGV

Beginnings

Although born in Footscray in Melbourne, the artist’s grandmother Julia, who belonged to the Stolen Generation in the 1920s and was enslaved on a pastoral station, raised him and imparted to him his Kamilaroi heritage. In his youth, Rennie saw a photograph of a pastoralist and his wife dressed up for Sunday church and seated in their luxury Rolls-Royce car. At the time, he reflected on the poverty his grandmother would have experienced while working on a pastoral station.

The markings he made on the car, that are layered with a traditional diamond pattern of the Kamilaroi people, claim ownership over the vehicle. Inside it is a photograph of his grandmother. In the video, with a setting sun as a backdrop, Rennie drives the car down dirt tracks to his home country and, in something resembling burnouts, he makes traditional sand engravings with the tyres of the car. The work is poignant, evocative and becomes quickly embedded in your memory.

The piece references an earlier one, with a pink 1973 Holden Monaro. In that video, the car performs a series of burnouts and doughnuts, the traditional initiation ceremony with Westie drag-racing culture of suburbia into which the artist was born. This is in contrast with the initiation practices and traditional sand engravings of the Kamilaroi people. The video is accompanied with an operatic score from Yorta Yorta woman, composer and soprano, Deborah Cheetham, performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Again, the video becomes a haunting and somewhat surreal experience.

Street spaces

Rennie is an artist who looks best when he operates in a public environment.

His early street art, accompanied by break dancing and hip hop, thrives in the accidental lighting of urban spaces. He loves the way street art can ambush the viewer and employ strategies that catch and hold the gaze of the casual passerby. Keith Haring and Howard Arkley were two of the artists who pointed a way for Rennie to move from the street and onto the gallery wall. Although they may have suggested some of the formal strategies, Aboriginal culture provided the content that would consummate the work and give it a narrative.

When in 2020 there was a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Lieutenant James Cook’s first landfall at Botany Bay and the HMB Endeavour’s charting of the East Coast of Australia, the Carriageworks in Sydney commissioned Rennie to make a piece for the occasion.

Reko Rennie, REMEMBER ME 2020, LEDs, plastic, aluminium, electrical components, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Gift of the Eva, Mila and Reko Collection through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2023.
2023.229
© Reko Rennie

His monumental text work is made up of LED neon lettering held up in an aluminium armature. It measures over two-and-a-half metres in height and almost 19 metres in length. The simple message, one anchored in a tradition of street art, reads: “REMEMBER ME”. Cook’s landing marked the beginning of a process of invasion and dispossession, Rennie’s text affirms an opposition to the invasion and stresses that First Nations people survived. Sovereignty was never ceded.

This message has been at the core of much of Rennie’s art, for instance, in the two neon pieces, OA Warrior I (pink) and OA Warrior I (blue), both from 2020. They are based on an 1800s photograph of a defiant Kamilaroi warrior with his raised club. The message is that the OA (Original Aboriginal) will never cede sovereignty.

Reko Rennie, Kamilaroi born in 1974, Initiation 2013, synthetic polymer paint on plywood, Collection of the artist.
Supported by Esther and David Frenkiel
© Reko Rennie, courtesy blackartprojects, Melbourne

In a much earlier piece from 2016, that has always been one of my favourites in Rennie’s art, a ten-metre-long banner bears the inscription, “I was always here”. It is made of hand-pressed metallic foil on satin where he employs the geometric diamond patterning of the Kamilaroi people as a background to the words.

The work commemorates all of the Frontier Wars, massacres and oppression suffered by First Nation peoples in this country and in many other countries in a powerful way.

‘We’re not a monoculture.’ Artist Reno Rennie introduces his works.

Impressive and consistent

Rennie, who turns 50 this year, exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 and with the 2016 XIII Bienale de Cuenca in Ecuador and has held numerous exhibitions across Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe.

His star is in the ascendancy and he is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most distinctive and versatile artists, who is attracting international acclaim.

Beautifully curated by Myles Russel-Cook as his final show at the NGV before he takes up the directorship of ACCA, Rekospective is impressive in scope, consistent in content but not repetitive.

While Keith Haring died at the age of 31, I feel Reko Rennie will be viewed, in retrospect, as an artist at least as significant as Haring and one of growing importance in Australian art.

REKOSPECTIVE: The Art of Reko Rennie is at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia until 27 January 2025. Free admission. Läs mer…

The United States presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 49.3–46.5, a slight gain for Trump since last Monday, when Harris led by 49.3–46.2.

Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2.

The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner-takes-all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total).

Relative to the national popular vote, the Electoral College is biased to Trump, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win to be the Electoral College favourite in Silver’s model.

Last Monday, Harris led by one to two points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (ten) and Nevada (six). In the last week, Trump has gained in all these states in Silver’s aggregates, reducing Harris’ lead to about one point in these states.

If Harris wins these four states, she probably wins the Electoral College by at least a 276–262 margin. Trump leads by less than one point in Georgia and North Carolina, which both have 16 electoral votes.

While Harris is still barely ahead in the Electoral College, her margins have been reduced in the states where she’s leading. As a result, Silver’s model now gives Harris a 52% chance to win the Electoral College, down from 56% last Monday.

This means the presidential election is effectively a 50–50 toss-up. There’s a 23% chance that Harris wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College. The FiveThirtyEight model
is giving similar results to Silver’s model, with Harris a 53% favourite.

There’s still over three weeks until the election, and polls could change in that time. The polls could also be biased against either Trump or Harris, and in this case that candidate could win easily. With the polls across the swing states so close, either candidate could sweep all these states.

I wrote about the US election for The Poll Bludger last Thursday, and also covered the UK Conservative leadership election, the far-right winning the most seats at the September 29 Austrian election and Japan’s October 27 election.

Favourability ratings and economic data

Harris’ net favourability peaked about two weeks ago at +1.4 in the FiveThirtyEight national poll aggregate, but it has now dropped back to net zero, with 46.8% favourable and 46.8% unfavourable. Harris’ net favourability had surged from about -16 after becoming the Democratic nominee, and she gained further ground after the September 10 debate with Trump.

Trump’s net favourability has been steady in the last two months, and he’s now at -9.4, with 52.6% unfavourable and 43.2% favourable. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz is at +4.2 net favourable and Trump’s running mate JD Vance is at -9.6 net favourable. Biden’s net approval remains poor at -14.0.

US headline inflation rose 0.2% in September, the same increase as in August. In the 12 months to September, inflation was up 2.4%, the smallest increase since 2021. Core inflation increased 0.3% in September, the same as in August, and is up 3.3% in the 12 months to September.

Real (inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings were up 0.2% in September after a 0.3% increase in August, while real weekly earnings slid 0.1% after a 0.6% increase in August owing to changes in hours worked. In the 12 months to September, real hourly earnings were up 1.5% and weekly earnings up 0.9%.

Congressional elections

I wrote about the elections for the House of Representatives and Senate that will be held concurrently with the presidential election three weeks ago. The House has 435 single-member seats that are apportioned to states on a population basis, while there are two senators for each of the 50 states.

The House only has a two-year term, so the last House election was at the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans won the House by 222–213 over Democrats. The FiveThirtyEight aggregate of polls of the national House race gives Democrats a 47.1–45.9 lead over Republicans, a gain for Republican from a 46.7–44.5 Democratic lead three weeks ago.

Senators have six-year terms, with one-third up for election every two years. Democrats and aligned independents currently have a 51–49 Senate majority, but they are defending 23 of the 33 regular seats up, including seats in three states Trump won easily in both 2016 and 2020: West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

West Virginia is a certain Republican gain after the retirement of former Democratic (now independent) Senator Joe Manchin at this election. Republicans have taken a 5.4-point lead in Montana in the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, while Democrats are just 2.3 points ahead in Ohio.

Republicans are being challenged by independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska, and he trails Republican Deb Fischer by just 1.5 points. Democrats did not contest to avoid splitting the vote. In other Senate contests, the incumbent party is at least four points ahead.

If Republicans gain West Virginia and Montana, but lose Nebraska to Osborn, and no other seats change hands, Republicans would have a 50–49 lead in the Senate. If Harris wins the presidency, Osborn would be the decisive vote as a Senate tie can be broken by the vice president, who would be Walz. This is the rosiest plausible scenario for Democrats. Läs mer…