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School mourns after beloved teacher falls from roof

A beloved former teacher is being remembered as an educator who “loved a laugh and to have fun” after he suffered critical injuries following a fall. Paul Hogan, 61, was reportedly retrieving balls from the roof of St Margaret Mary’s School in Spotswood, Melbourne when he fell 3m to the concrete ground at around 2:30 pm on Thursday. He suffered critical head injuries and was taken to hospital, where he died on Friday. It is reported that students were still at school and parents were on campus for parent-teacher interviews, when the incident occurred. Hogan worked as a teacher and principal at several schools across the city, with an extensive 36-year career in education. “We extend our sincere condolences to Paul’s family, friends and colleagues, and we hold all of those impacted in our hearts and prayers," Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools executive director Dr Edward Simons said. “Paul was a friend and mentor to many in our MACS community and he will be dearly missed.” Hogan had his first classroom teaching role in 1988. He retired in 2022, but continued to work as a part-time and casual relief teacher at St Anne’s Sunbury, St Mary’s Ascot Vale, and St Margaret Mary’s Spotswood. Ascot Vale Panthers Junior Football Club said Hogan served as a “confidant, mentor and friend” to all who attended St Mary’s. “His infectious personality, energy and passion saw him loved by parents and students alike,” the club said. “Hoges was a tremendous supporter of the Ascot Vale Panthers Junior Football Club and the wider Ascot Vale community.” WorkSafe is investigating the incident. Images: 7NEWS

Caring

Secret transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein investigation finally released

Secret transcripts from the 2006 Grand Jury investigation into allegations of sex trafficking and rape against Jeffrey Epstein have been made public for the first time. On Monday, approximately 150 pages of unseen transcripts were released to the public, which were released weeks earlier than originally anticipated. “It is our hope that the release of these records gives peace of mind to our community and gives Jeffrey Epstein’s victims the closure they deserve,” Clerk of the Circuit Court in Palm Beach County, Florida, Joseph Abruzzo, said in a <a title="www.mypalmbeachclerk.com" href="https://www.mypalmbeachclerk.com/Home/Components/News/News/734/16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. In February, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allowed the documents to be released, with the judge planning a hearing for next week to discuss when and how they would be released. “The details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Circuit Judge Luis Delgado wrote in his ruling. “The testimony taken by the Grand Jury concerns activity ranging from grossly unacceptable to rape – all of the conduct at issue is sexually deviant, disgusting, and criminal.” The transcripts detail a testimony in 2005, where an anonymous 17-year-old girl was approached by a friend who said she could make $US200 ($300) if she gave a massage “to a wealthy man in Palm Beach”. She went to his house and was led to a room by Epstein’s assistant, and was instructed to remove her clothes by the millionaire. According to Palm Beach Police Detective Joe Recarey’s testimony, Epstein told the girl he would pay her if she brought “girls” to his home, “And he told her, ‘the younger, the better’.” Over an undetermined amount of time, the girl brought six friends from her high school to Epstein’s home, including a 14-year-old girl. Following the Grand Jury investigation in 2006, Epstein took a plea deal with South Florida federal prosecutors in 2008. The deal, which has been criticised for being too lenient, allowed him to get away with several federal charges of abuse against underage girls if he pleaded guilty to Florida state charges, as he pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019 after spending just over a month in custody as he awaited sentencing. Image credits: MGG/Shutterstock Editorial/Palm Beach County Circuit Court

Legal

What are financial years – and why are they different from calendar years?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michaela-rankin-1544784">Michaela Rankin</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a> Yesterday was July 1, the first day of the new financial year in Australia. Also called fiscal years, financial years are often abbreviated in print. The one that’s just begun in Australia – July 1 2024 to June 30 2025 – will typically be denoted by FY24/25 or FY25. As the name suggests, financial years are used for financial reporting, tax and budgeting purposes. Whether you are preparing an individual tax return or financial statements for a business, it is important to understand the difference between financial and calendar years. Both have 365 days. But the calendar year, based on the <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/gregorian-calendar.html">Gregorian calendar</a>, runs from New Years’ Day on January 1 through to December 31. Australian financial years on the other hand run from July 1 of one year to June 30 the next. But this July to June financial year <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200430054150/https:/www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/228.html">does not apply</a> in all countries. Many align their financial year with the calendar year, but others have further variations still. So why are they different, and what does that mean for businesses operating across borders? <h2>Different around the world</h2> In contrast to our own, the United Kingdom’s financial year starts on April 6 each year and runs to April 5 the next. The English and Irish New Year traditionally fell on March 25, when taxes and other accounts were due. But in the 18th century, the British empire switched from the Roman Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, and had to <a href="https://www.bowesbrooks.co.uk/why-does-the-tax-year-start-on-6th-april/">adjust the start date</a> to avoid losing tax revenue. India’s fiscal year runs from April 1 until March 31, for a <a href="https://www.idfcfirstbank.com/finfirst-blogs/finance/reasons-why-the-financial-year-starts-from-april">number of reasons</a>. Historically a country that was heavily focused on agriculture, this timeframe aligned with the crop cycle and allowed the government to develop financial plans for the sector. The British empire also influenced the April reporting schedule in India, as prior to independence many financial policies were based on the British system. <h2>Government budgets play a role</h2> In the United States, fiscal years once ran from July 1 to June 30, like Australia’s do now. But in 1974 this was <a href="https://www.federaltimes.com/management/budget/2022/09/20/why-the-us-federal-fiscal-year-2023-starts-in-october/">changed</a> to instead span October 1 to September 30, giving Congress more time to agree on a budget each year. In the US, however, companies can also <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/how-to-decide-on-fiscal-year/">choose their own</a> fiscal years. Some choose a calendar year, but others elect dates that better align with their business cycle. Walmart’s, for example, ends on January 31 each year to reflect its typically strong financial performance over the holiday period at the end of the year. In Australia, the financial year matches government reporting cycles. Unlike the northern hemisphere, our parliamentarians typically take holidays over summer in December and January, which makes meeting over November and December to approve government budgets difficult. The federal budget is issued in May for the following financial year, giving parliament time to consider it before the new fiscal year begins. <h2>Comparing (and taxing) performance</h2> Regardless of the time period over which a financial year operates, its primary purpose is to provide a standardised time frame for financial reporting. Financial years allow income and expenses to be tracked and compared over the same timeframe each year. This allows investors to compare business performance across consistent periods. They are also used to determine the collection of personal income tax. Our government uses this information to calculate the amount of tax it will collect through the Australian Taxation Office each year. Businesses with operations spanning multiple countries may have to contend with fiscal years that do not align. Where this is the case, they may need to choose one financial year for the whole company, typically that used by the parent company. Keeping track of the financial year is helpful for individuals, in knowing when tax returns need to be prepared (and when to expect end-of-financial-year sales). It is also important for businesses to consider the financial year in making budgeting, business and tax planning decisions. <img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/233655/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michaela-rankin-1544784">Michaela Rankin</a>, Professor and Head, Department of Accounting, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-financial-years-and-why-are-they-different-from-calendar-years-233655">original article</a>. </div>

Money & Banking

Wellness is not women’s friend. It’s a distraction from what really ails us

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Wellness is mainly marketed to women. We’re encouraged to eat clean, take <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYqaatWPxvy/">personal responsibility</a> for our well-being, happiness and life. These are the hallmarks of a strong, independent woman in 2022. But on the eve of International Women’s Day, let’s look closer at this <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-colonised-feminism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-94856">neoliberal feminist</a> notion of wellness and personal responsibility – the idea women’s health and well-being depends on our individual choices. We argue wellness is not concerned with actual well-being, whatever wellness “guru” and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow <a href="https://goop.com/wellness/">suggests</a>, or influencers say on Instagram. Wellness is an industry. It’s also a seductive distraction from what’s really impacting women’s lives. It glosses over the structural issues undermining women’s well-being. These issues cannot be fixed by drinking a turmeric latte or #livingyourbestlife. <h2>What is wellness?</h2> Wellness <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/statistics-and-facts/">is an</a> unregulated US$4.4 trillion global industry due to reach almost $7 trillion by 2025. It promotes self-help, self-care, fitness, nutrition and spiritual practice. It <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/what-is-wellness/">encourages</a> good choices, intentions and actions. Wellness is alluring because it feels empowering. Women are left with a sense of control over their lives. It is particularly alluring in times of great uncertainty and limited personal control. These might be during a relationship break up, when facing financial instability, workplace discrimination or a global pandemic. But wellness is not all it seems. <h2>Wellness blames women</h2> Wellness implies women are flawed and need to be fixed. It demands women resolve their psychological distress, improve their lives and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">bounce back from adversity</a>, regardless of personal circumstances. Self-responsibility, self-empowerment and self-optimisation underpin how women are expected to think and behave. As such, wellness <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZs2iIxrSwb/">patronises women</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT3bw_Yhsp6/">micro-manages their daily schedules</a> with journaling, skin care routines, 30-day challenges, meditations, burning candles, yoga and lemon water. Wellness encourages women to improve their appearance through diet and exercise, manage <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ7IO7qJHZ_/">their surroundings</a>, <a href="https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5489-female-leadership-advice.html">performance at work</a> and their capacity to <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/working-women-balance">juggle the elusive work-life balance</a> as well as <a href="https://medium.com/authority-magazine/having-a-positive-mental-attitude-and-thinking-process-is-a-successful-key-to-healthy-wellbeing-ae11e303969c">their emotional responses</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/planning-stress-and-worry-put-the-mental-load-on-mothers-will-2022-be-the-year-they-share-the-burden-172599">to these pressures</a>. They do this with support from costly life coaches, psychotherapists and self-help guides. Wellness demands women <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaFc2o7OHSf/">focus on their body</a>, with one’s body a measure of their commitment to the task of wellness. Yet this ignores how much these choices and actions cost. Newsreader and journalist Tracey Spicer <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDh28nBp4k/">says</a> she has spent more than A$100,000 over the past 35 years for her hair to “look acceptable” at work. Wellness keeps women <a href="https://www.hercampus.com/school/bu/the-male-gazes-effect-from-beauty-ideals-to-mental-health/">focused on their appearance</a> and keeps them spending. It’s also <a href="https://medium.com/artfullyautistic/the-dark-reality-of-wellness-culture-and-ableism-307307fcdafb">ableist</a>, <a href="https://www.byrdie.com/wellness-industry-whitewashing-5074880">racist</a>, <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2020/07/16/tools-of-the-patriarchy-diet-culture-and-how-we-all-perpetuate-the-stigma/">sexist</a>, <a href="https://www.self.com/topic/anti-aging">ageist</a> and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/422517/the-pursuit-of-wellness-wellness-is-for-the-wealthy">classist</a>. It’s aimed at an ideal of young women, thin, white, middle-class and able-bodied. <h2>But we can’t live up to these ideals</h2> Wellness assumes women have equal access to time, energy and money to meet these ideals. If you don’t, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/the-self-help-cult-of-resilience-teaches-australians-nothing">you’re just not trying hard enough</a>”. Wellness also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">implores women</a> to be “adaptable and positive”. If an individual’s #positivevibes and wellness are seen as <a href="https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-should-say-no-to-positivity-and-yes-to-our-negative-emotions/">morally good</a>, then it becomes morally necessary for women to engage in behaviours framed as “investments” or “self-care”. For those who do not achieve self-optimisation (hint: most of us) this is a personal, shameful failing. <h2>Wellness distracts us</h2> When women believe they are to blame for their circumstances, it hides structural and cultural inequities. Rather than questioning the culture that marginalises women and produces feelings of doubt and inadequacy, wellness provides solutions in the form of superficial empowerment, confidence and resilience. Women don’t need wellness. They are unsafe. <a href="https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/">Women are</a> <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/latest-release">more likely</a> to be murdered by a current or former intimate partner, with reports of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-governments-can-do-about-the-increase-in-family-violence-due-to-coronavirus-135674">pandemic increasing</a> the risk and severity of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/01/the-worst-year-domestic-violence-soars-in-australia-during-covid-19">domestic violence</a>. Women are more likely to be employed in unstable <a href="https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/april-2020/Pandemics-economic-blow-hits-women-hard">casualised labour, and experience economic hardship and poverty</a>. Women are also bearing the brunt <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work/">of the economic fallout from COVID</a>. Women are more likely to be juggling a career with <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1972">unpaid domestic duties</a> and more likely <a href="https://www.mercyfoundation.com.au/our-focus/ending-homelessness/older-women-and-homelessness/">to be homeless</a> as they near retirement age. In their book <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/confidence-culture#:%7E:text=They%20argue%20that%20while%20confidence,responsible%20for%20their%20own%20conditions.">Confidence Culture</a> UK scholars Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue hashtags such as #loveyourbody and #believeinyourself imply psychological blocks, rather than entrenched social injustices, are what hold women back. <h2>What we should be doing instead</h2> Wellness, with its self-help rhetoric, <a href="http://www.consultmcgregor.com/documents/research/neoliberalism_and_health_care.pdf">absolves the government</a> of responsibility to provide transformative and effectual action that ensures women are safe, delivered justice, and treated with respect and dignity. Structural inequity was not created by an individual, and it will not be solved by an individual. So this International Women’s Day, try to resist the neoliberal requirement to take personal responsibility for your wellness. Lobby governments to address structural inequities instead. <a href="https://www.mindful.org/why-women-should-embrace-their-anger/">Follow your anger</a>, not your bliss, call out injustices when you can. And in the words of sexual assault survivor and advocate Grace Tame, “make some noise”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, PhD Candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, Lecturer in Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/wellness-is-not-womens-friend-its-a-distraction-from-what-really-ails-us-177446">original article</a>. </div>

Mind

"Why is the water so salty?" and other priceless questions from clueless tourists

In the heart of the stunning intersection where the Daintree Rainforest kisses the Great Barrier Reef, you’ll find <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g499639-d1045292-Reviews-Ocean_Safari-Cape_Tribulation_Daintree_Region_Queensland.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ocean Safari</a> – a top-notch, eco-certified tour company. Brooke Nikola, one of their delightful tour guides, has been guiding wide-eyed adventurers through this paradise for years. With thousands of tourists coming from all corners of the globe, she’s accumulated a treasure trove of amusing anecdotes that could rival the size of the reef itself. Let’s dive right into the deep end with some classic moments <a href="https://www.news.com.au/travel/australian-holidays/queensland/hilarious-comments-from-clueless-tourists/news-story/ad90a419cbf4fed9d454d3edef0cb096" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per news.com.au</a>. One sunny day, while marvelling at the endless blue expanse, a curious tourist asked Brooke, “Why does the water taste so salty?” “Well, it’s the ocean,” Brooke gently reminded them. Ah, the wonders of seawater – still a mystery to some. Then there was the time aboard the Ocean Safari vessel, cruising serenely over the waves, when a perplexed guest inquired, “How far above sea level are we?” And who could forget the would-be scientist who attempted to bottle the stunning blue ocean water, only to be baffled when it turned out clear. We can only imagine Brooke explaining the tricky science of light refraction and how the ocean's mesmerising blue doesn't quite fit into a bottle. No doubt their holiday turned into an impromptu science lesson. The complaints Brooke hears are just as priceless. One guest, dripping after a snorkelling session, grumbled, “Ugh, snorkelling makes me so wet.” Then there was the revelation about the rainforest. As rain drizzled through the lush canopy, a bewildered tourist remarked, “It’s so rainy in the rainforest!” Who knew that rain would be part of the rainforest experience? Certainly not that guest! Geography can be tricky, especially in a place as uniquely named as Cape Tribulation. As tourists boarded the Ocean Safari vessel from Cape Tribulation beach, one asked where the Daintree Rainforest was – oblivious to the verdant scenery they had driven through for the past hour. Brooke had to kindly point out that they had been in it this whole time. Another classic came from a guest who thought Cape Tribulation was an island. They earnestly asked, “So, how big is the whole island?” To which Brooke replied, “It’s pretty big. So big, in fact, it’s known as Australia!” Through all of these delightful moments, no doubt Brooke remained a fountain of patience and good humour. So, next time you find yourself at Cape Tribulation, remember to bring your sense of wonder – and a good laugh. Because as Brooke can tell you, the Great Barrier Reef is full of surprises, both above and below the water! Images: Ocean Safari / Instagram

Travel Trouble

Michael Mosley used science communication to advance health and wellbeing. We can learn a lot from his approach

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-ball-14718">Lauren Ball</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kirsten-adlard-684475">Kirsten Adlard</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> Overnight, we learned of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-09/michael-mosley-body-found-greek-island-clare-bailey-mosley/103957382">tragic passing</a> of Michael Mosley, who went missing last week while on holiday on the Greek island of Symi. The British celebrity doctor was a household name in many countries, including Australia. Mosley was well known for his television shows, documentaries, books and columns on healthy eating, weight management, physical activity and sleep. During the days he was missing and once his death was confirmed, media outlets have acknowledged Mosley’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/michael-mosley-tv-doctor-death-b2558717.html">career achievements</a>. He is being celebrated for his connection to diverse public audiences and his unrelenting focus on science as the best guide to our daily habits. <h2>From medicine to the media</h2> Mosley was born in India <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8770jyz6vvo">in 1957</a> and was sent to England at age seven to attend boarding school. He later studied philosophy, politics and economics at the <a href="https://michaelmosley.co.uk/biog/">University of Oxford</a>. After a short stint in investment banking, Mosley opted to train in medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Rather than forging a career in clinical practice, <a href="https://michaelmosley.co.uk/biog/">Mosley</a> started working at the BBC in 1985 as a trainee assistant producer. In the decades that followed, Mosley continued to work with the BBC as a producer and presenter. Mosley became a popular public figure by applying his medical training to journalism to examine a breadth of health and wellbeing topics. In 1995, following his documentary on <a href="https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/baf970949e3a46a992ae52420395a7c2">Helicobacter pylori</a>, a bacterium that causes ulcers in the stomach, the British Medical Association named him <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/2kczjZKp8sGSDxSxKYzxsyr/michael-mosley">medical journalist of the year</a>. His other television work on diet, weight management, exercise and sleep earned him <a href="https://www.emmys.com/bios/michael-mosley">Emmy</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0608839/awards/">BAFTA</a> (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts), and <a href="https://rts.org.uk/tags/michael-mosley">Royal Television Society</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/2kczjZKp8sGSDxSxKYzxsyr/michael-mosley">award nominations</a>. Over the past decade, Mosley published <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Fast-Diet-Original-Revised-Research/dp/1780722370/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAjuAotTN">several books</a> on <a href="https://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Fastexercise-Michael-Mosley-Peta-Bee-With/9781476759982?utm_source=googleps&utm_medium=ps&utm_campaign=AU&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw34qzBhBmEiwAOUQcF3wd7d1bj8KMFeEtKS6ZU7py5rRzjiycZhcsMbSEQ9lXhjEBcY4GRxoCwgIQAvD_BwE">exercise</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/8-Week-Blood-Sugar-Diet-Recipe/dp/1925456595/ref=sr_1_7?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAjuAotTNxxkW3">healthy eating</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Fast-800-Australian-New-Zealand/dp/B07MPRQWJP/ref=sr_1_8?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAjuAotTNxxkW">intermittent fasting</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Weeks-Better-Sleep-life-changing-improved/dp/1761425927/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAj">sleep</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Just-One-Thing-Changes-Transform/dp/B0BJVRP94X/ref=sr_1_9?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAjuAotTNxxk">behaviour change</a>. He sold millions of copies of his books around the world, including at least <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/p/mosley-1mil-sales">one million</a> in Australia and New Zealand. Alongside his wife, Dr Clare Bailey Mosley, he recently embarked on a <a href="https://michaelmosley.co.uk/live/">live theatre show tour</a>, yet another vehicle to bring his key messages to audiences. <h2>A trusted voice</h2> Mosley became a trusted voice for health and wellbeing throughout his journalistic career. His television program <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j9gny">Trust Me, I’m a Doctor</a> drew on his medical qualifications to discuss health and wellbeing credibly on a public platform. His medical training also inferred credibility in examining the scientific literature that underpins the topics he was communicating. At the same time, Mosley used simple terminology that captured the attention of diverse audiences. For many of Mosley’s outputs, he used himself as an example. For instance, in his <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09by3yy/episodes/downloads">podcast series</a> Just One Thing and <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Just-One-Thing-Changes-Transform/dp/B0BJVRP94X/ref=sr_1_9?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.75_akcxo8tanyLrD4CVMwd1lCTliHyckSLPU2W7K4HmdPqRlVqvMbKWKkJ6CPCsrFsAw4Vfw5SWOYkl_Y8ah4yNCSjQksdT3ByCSHhiycNB9AB5h6vVUqB99okxDDWPaXUCwD-CZMzHZDvAjuAotTNxxk">companion book</a>, Mosley self-tested a range of evidence-based behavioural habits (while also interviewing subject-matter experts), covering topics such as eating slowly, yoga, listening to music, cooking, gardening and drinking green tea. His focus on intermittent fasting and high-intensity training was fuelled by his <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-08/how-dr-michael-mosley-popularised-intermittent-fasting/103952408">diagnosis of type 2 diabetes</a>, and his work on sleep health was based on his experience <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/sleep-revolution-michael-mosley/okmv5o7qe">with chronic insomnia</a>. At the most extreme end of the spectrum, Mosley <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25968755">infested himself with tapeworms</a> in the pursuit of exploring their effects on the human body. By using himself as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/09/michael-mosley-favourite-health-tip-slow-deep-breathing">human guinea pig</a>, he fostered a connection with his audience, showing the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-personal-touch-using-anecdotes-to-hook-a-reader">power</a> of personal anecdotes. <h2>Some controversies along the way</h2> Despite his notable career achievements, Mosley received ongoing criticisms about his work due to differing opinions within the medical and scientific communities. One key concern was around his promotion of potentially risky diets such as intermittent fasting and other restrictive diets, including the 5:2 diet and low-carb diets. While <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9946909/">some evidence</a> supports intermittent fasting as a way to improve metabolic health and enable weight management, Mosley was criticised for not fully acknowledging the potential risks of these diets, such as a potential to lead to <a href="https://clindiabetesendo.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40842-023-00152-7">disordered eating</a> habits. His promotion of low-carb diets also raised concerns that his work added to a diet-focused <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/lose-a-stone-in-21-days-channel-4-criticism-eating-disorder-food-relationship-beat-a9656531.html">culture war</a>, ultimately to the detriment of many people’s relationship with food and their bodies. More broadly, in his efforts to make scientific concepts simple and accessible to the general public, Mosley was sometimes criticised for overgeneralising science. The concern was that he didn’t properly discuss the nuance and tension inherent in scientific evidence, thereby providing an incomplete synthesis of the evidence. For example, Mosley conceptualised the <a href="https://thebloodsugardiet.com">blood sugar diet</a> (a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean-style diet), which was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68452019">criticised</a> for lacking a strong grounding in scientific evidence. Similarly, <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/article/smoke-and-mirrors-the-truth-about-vaping-nmpf3przr">associating his name with e-cigarettes</a> may have drawn unhelpful attention to the topic, irrespective of the underlying details. <h2>What can we learn from Mosley?</h2> Overall, Mosley has been objectively successful in communicating scientific concepts to large, engaged audiences. Mosley showed us that people want to consume scientific information, whether through the news media, social media, podcasts or books. His passion and persistence in using science to promote health and wellbeing have likely supported public health efforts across the globe.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/231934/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-ball-14718">Lauren Ball</a>, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kirsten-adlard-684475">Kirsten Adlard</a>, Supervisor of Engagement, Communication, and Outreach, Centre for Community Health and Wellbeing, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-queensland-805">The University of Queensland</a> Image credits: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock Editorial This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/michael-mosley-used-science-communication-to-advance-health-and-wellbeing-we-can-learn-a-lot-from-his-approach-231934">original article</a>. </div>

Caring

Wild moment giraffe snatches toddler from car

A father has recalled the heart-stopping moment his toddler was snatched by a giraffe at a safari park in Texas. Jason Toten, 24, his fiancé Sierra Robert, 23, and their daughter Paisley were at Fossil Rim Wildlife Centre in Glen Rose where visitors can drive-through the park and get close to wild animals. "We were having a little family day, just getting out of the house," Jason told a local news outlet. While the family were admiring the view, one giraffe slowly approached them and the pair encouraged their daughter to offer it some food, but within an instant, the two-year-old girl was lifted into the air. "I looked out the back window and I saw the giraffe … and then up she went," Jason recalled. The giraffe, who was only trying to grab the bag of food from Paisley, accidentally hoisted the toddler up by her shirt, with other park visitors behind them capturing the wild moment. Sierra reacted immediately and clung to her child, as she was pulled into the air, and all it took for the giraffe to let go was a stern "hey". The giraffe then dropped the tot back into the car uninjured, and throughout the entire ordeal Paisley was the bravest of them all. "I guess it startled the giraffe. She wasn't even scared," Jason recalled. "As soon as her mom caught her, she went 'oh.'" "It scared me but after it was all over, we realised everyone was safe and unharmed, and we laughed about it," Jason added. After the incident, the family took Paisley to the gift shop and "all she wanted was a giraffe toy and a giraffe T-shirt." "We ended up getting her both, we figured she deserved it." Images: Facebook

Travel Trouble

Tiny reason for huge commitment: Grandad to run from Perth to Sydney

John Harb admits he’s never been much of a runner. But that’s about to change, when the 62-year-old grandad and yoga enthusiast runs from Perth to Sydney for his granddaughter Luna. Little Luna came into the world three months early at Sydney's Royal Hospital for Women, in February, and at just 500 grams, she was the same weight as a tub of butter. The experience left John in awe, not only of his baby granddaughter, but of the magic that happens in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the hospital. “To watch Luna over the past three months, and witness her strength and her fighting spirit has been incredible,” said John. “Seeing my daughter Michelle and her husband Nick, and all the other parents and premature babies in the ward going through such a difficult time but being so well supported by the doctors and nurses made me want to do something to help,” he said. “When I discovered 80 percent of the equipment in the unit, including the equipment that kept Luna alive, was purchased through donations, I wanted to do something big.” Taking inspiration from Nedd Brockman, John has decided to run across the country with the goal of raising one-million-dollars to support the NICU. Currently training by running 15 kilometres a day, John has sourced advice from a range of experts including Brockman himself, who made a special visit to the NICU after hearing of John’s plans. He plans to commence his run at Cottesloe Beach on 1 October and arrive at The Royal Hospital for Women, Randwick in early December. Royal Hospital for Women Foundation General Manager Elise Jennings said John’s commitment will allow the hospital to purchase more lifesaving equipment on their wish list, like a new ultrasound machine for high risk pregnancies. “I have come to know John through the time he spent in the NICU supporting Michelle and Luna and I know how passionate he is about making a difference for those who come after Luna and we are incredibly grateful to John for his commitment. Running from Perth to Sydney is a huge undertaking, especially for a grandfather in his 60s with no previous long distance running experience, but if anyone can do it, he can.” “We are thrilled that John is announcing his run as part of our major annual fundraiser, Heart for Her, in recognition not only of the extraordinary care received by Michelle and Luna, but for all of the babies and families who come through our doors.” “For three decades now, The Royal Hospital for Women Foundation has funded the best medical equipment, innovative research, people and programs but we rely on the generosity of our donors to do this.” Donations can be made <a title="https://www.royalwomen.org.au/fundraisers/johnharb" href="https://www.royalwomen.org.au/fundraisers/johnharb" data-outlook-id="eed61181-8705-430d-a478-3f5f14e8b008">https://www.royalwomen.org.au/fundraisers/johnharb</a> Image credits: Supplied

Family & Pets

Why you should never take nutrition advice from a centenarian

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bradley-elliott-1014864">Bradley Elliott</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-westminster-916">University of Westminster</a> It’s a cliche of reporting on people who reach 100 years of age, or even 110, to ask them some variation of the question: “What did you do to live this long?” Inevitably, some interesting and unexpected answer is highlighted. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/05/briton-says-becoming-worlds-oldest-man-at-111-is-pure-luck">Fish and chips</a> every Friday. Drinking a glass of <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/worlds-oldest-man-juan-vicente-perez-dies-aged-114-13107627">strong liquor</a> every day. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/susannah-mushatt-jones-loves-bacon-2015-10">Bacon</a> for breakfast every morning. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-france-nursing-homes-795c8273f66b61669e93103cc9c25cd0">Wine and chocolate</a>. While a popular news story, this is a relatively meaningless question that doesn’t help us understand why certain people have lived so long. Let me try to explain why, via beautiful buildings, fighter pilots and statistics. In the second world war, Allied statisticians were applying their skills to minimising the number of bombers being shot down by enemy fire. By studying the damage patterns of bombers returning from action, maps could be drawn up of the most frequently damaged parts of aeroplanes so that expensive, heavy armour could be added to these areas. Simple enough, right? Then, along comes statistician Abraham Wald who argues for the exact <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2287454?origin=crossref">opposite point</a>. The planes that they’re studying are all those that did return from combat with extensive damage, but what about those that didn’t return? Wald argues that armour should be added to those places that are undamaged on all the returning planes, as any plane hit in these undamaged areas was shot down, never making it back to be surveyed. <h2>Survivorship bias</h2> This phenomenon is known as survivorship bias, or the cognitive and statistical bias introduced by only counting those that are around to count but ignoring those that haven’t “survived”. You can take these examples to the absurd. Imagine a group of 100 people, all of whom have smoked their entire life. As a group, the smokers would die earlier of cancers, lung disease or heart disease, but one or two might defy the odds and live to 100 years of age. Now imagine the intrepid journalist interviewing the lucky soul on their 100th birthday with that classic question: “What do you attribute your successful ageing to?” “Smoking a pack a day,” says the newly minted centenarian. It seems obvious but survivorship bias is everywhere in society. We can all think of that one famous actor or entrepreneur who succeeded despite adversity, who worked hard, believed in themselves and one day made it. But we never read about or hear about the countless examples of people who tried, gave it their all and never quite made it. That’s not a good media story. But this creates a bias, we primarily hear the successes, never the failures. This bias applies to our perceptions of architecture (mostly great buildings from a given period “survive”), to finances (we often hear examples of people who have succeeded in risky investments, those who fail don’t sell books or self-help plans) and to career plans (“If you work hard, and drop out of college now, you can be a successful athlete like me,” say those who have succeeded). I work with a variety of older people and often include extreme outliers who have lived to extreme ages. We’re currently studying over 65-year-olds who have maintained unusually high levels of exercise into older age and have maintained excellent health. They’re phenomenal examples of older humans, many of them are faster, fitter and stronger than me by many of the measures we perform in the lab, despite being almost twice my age. While we know that their lifelong exercise is associated with their unusually good health into older age, we can’t directly say one causes the other yet. It could be that highly active people are protected against chronic diseases such as cancers, diabetes and heart disease. But it also could be that these people are still active into older age as they’ve not been afflicted by cancers, diabetes or heart disease earlier in their lives. Conversely, there could be some unknown third factor that we’ve not yet identified about these people that both keeps them healthy and separately keeps them exercising. For clarity, there are things that scientists like me will say in carefully caveated, scientific language that will probably help you to live longer. Being very physically active, not eating too much and not smoking are all on that list, along with generally having a positive outlook in life, and of course, picking the right parents and grandparents. Correlation does not equal causation. That point is hammered home relentlessly to students in science degrees. It’s how our brain works, we see a pattern between two variables, and assume they’re linked in some way. But often, like in survivorship bias, we’re not looking at all the data, and so finding patterns where there are none.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/229159/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bradley-elliott-1014864">Bradley Elliott</a>, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-westminster-916">University of Westminster</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-should-never-take-nutrition-advice-from-a-centenarian-229159">original article</a>. </div>

Retirement Life

1 in 5 deaths are caused by heart disease, but what else are Australians dying from?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/garry-jennings-5307">Garry Jennings</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Nobody dies in good health, at least in their final moments. But to think the causes of death are easy to count or that there is generally a single reason somebody passes is an oversimplification. In fact, in 2022, four out of five Australians had multiple conditions at the time of death listed on their death certificate, and almost one-quarter had five or more recorded. This is one of many key findings from a <a href="https://pp.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-deaths/what-do-australians-die-from/contents/about">new report</a> from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The report distinguishes between three types of causes of death – underlying, direct, and contributory. An underlying cause is the condition that initiates the chain of events leading to death, such as having coronary heart disease. The direct cause of death is what the person died from (rather than with), like a heart attack. Contributory causes are things that significantly contributed to the chain of events leading to death but are not directly involved, like having high blood pressure. The report also tracks how these three types of causes can overlap in deaths involving multiple causes. In 2022 the top five conditions involved in deaths in Australia were coronary heart disease (20% of deaths), dementia (18%), hypertension, or high blood pressure (12%), cerebrovascular disease such as stroke (11.5%), and diabetes (11.4%). <hr /> <iframe id="MzQHA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MzQHA/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> <hr /> When the underlying cause of death was examined, the list was similar (coronary heart disease 10%, dementia 9%, cerebrovascular disease 5%, followed by COVID and lung cancer, each 5%). This means coronary heart disease was not just lurking at the time of death but also the major underlying cause. The direct cause of death however was most often a lower respiratory condition (8%), cardiac or respiratory arrest (6.5%), sepsis (6%), pneumonitis, or lung inflammation (4%) or hypertension (4%). <h2>Why is this important?</h2> Without looking at all the contributing causes of death, the role of important factors such as coronary heart disease, sepsis, depression, high blood pressure and alcohol use can be underestimated. Even more importantly, the various causes draw attention to the areas where we should be focusing public health prevention. The report also helps us understand which groups to focus on for prevention and health care. For example, the number one cause of death in women was dementia, whereas in men it was coronary heart disease. <hr /> <iframe id="NosVz" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NosVz/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> <hr /> People aged under 55 tended to die from external events such as accidents and violence, whereas older people died against a background of chronic disease. <hr /> <iframe id="1l3OS" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/1l3OS/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> <hr /> We cannot prevent death, but we can prevent many diseases and injuries. And this report highlights that many of these causes of death, both for younger Australians and older, are preventable. The top five conditions involved in death (coronary heart disease, dementia, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and diabetes) all share common risk factors such as tobacco use, high cholesterol, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, or are risk factors themselves, like hypertension or diabetes. <hr /> <iframe id="7Eb8O" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7Eb8O/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> <hr /> Tobacco use, high blood pressure, being overweight or obese and poor diet were attributable to a combined 44% of all deaths in this report. This suggests a comprehensive approach to health promotion, disease prevention and management is needed. <hr /> <iframe id="2MmGg" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" style="border: none;" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2MmGg/" width="100%" height="400px" frameborder="0"></iframe> <hr /> This should include strategies and programs encouraging eating a healthy diet, participating in regular physical activity, limiting or eliminating alcohol consumption, quitting smoking, and seeing a doctor for regular health screenings, such as the Medicare-funded <a href="https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/your-heart/heart-health-checks">Heart Health Checks</a>. Programs directed at accident prevention, mental health and violence, especially gender-related violence, will address untimely deaths in the young.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/231598/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/garry-jennings-5307">Garry Jennings</a>, Professor of Medicine, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-sydney-841">University of Sydney</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-5-deaths-are-caused-by-heart-disease-but-what-else-are-australians-dying-from-231598">original article</a>. </div>

Body

Manhunt after masked figures steal puppy from backyard

A single mother of six has been left devastated after two masked dog-snatchers jumped the fence of their family home and stole their new puppy from the backyard in broad daylight on Tuesday. “We only got it two days ago, and it was a puppy to my children,” Jamie-Lee told 7NEWS. The puppy - a pug named Willow - was bought on Sunday, and according to the mum problems started arising not long after, when the vendor demanded the puppy back. “(They said) if we didn’t give the dog back, they were going to steal it — 48 hours later that’s exactly what they did,” she said. She added that they also returned just after midnight on Wednesday, with CCTV footage capturing their car driving past their home that night. “I don’t know if they were coming back for the second dog,” she said. “It’s yeah, very scary.” Police are appealing for information and have asked anyone who might've seen the dog, who has distinct brown and blue eyes, to contact them. “We paid for this dog, we own this dog, it is our puppy,” Jamie-Lee said. Image: 7News

Legal

Fergie reveals the advice she received from Queen Elizabeth before she died

Sarah Ferguson has revealed the heartfelt advice she received from Queen Elizabeth before she died. In an interview with <a href="https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/555582/sarah-ferguson-feeling-better-than-ever-exclusive-interview/">Hello!</a> magazine, the Duchess of York has opened up about her battle with cancer, and how a piece of advice she received from the late Queen helped her through her health journey. Speaking about how her outlook on life has changed after her diagnosis, Fergie reflected on what her ex-mother-in-law said to her before she passed away. "One of the only people who saw me properly was the Queen [the late Elizabeth II]," she told the publication. "And before she died, she said: 'Sarah, being yourself is enough'." The Duchess of York still carries that advice with her to this day, explaining that she's raised her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, to be honest in who they are. Fergie has previously opened up about her relationship with the late Queen, sharing how her words of wisdom have impacted her for years. In September 2023, she shared that the last thing the Queen ever said to her was to “just be yourself”. "And she saw it. She just got so annoyed when I wasn't being myself," she explained on an episode of the podcast Tea Talks with the Duchess and Sarah. "And that's probably when I got into all the pickles. But now I am myself, and I'm just so lucky to be able to be myself." Earlier that same year, the Duchess reflected on the calming presence of the Queen, telling <a href="https://people.com/sarah-ferguson-reveals-queen-elizabeth-last-words-before-death-7964451">People</a> magazine that Queen Elizabeth was "so brilliant at putting you at ease," adding, "She had the most incredible faith of any single person I've ever met." "She just knew what to do," Fergie continued. "She knew how to make people feel good. She never took it onboard as about her." Image credits: Getty Images

Family & Pets

Boomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bobby-duffy-98570">Bobby Duffy</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/kings-college-london-1196">King's College London</a> Generational thinking is a big idea that’s been horribly corrupted and devalued by endless myths and stereotypes. These clichés have fuelled fake battles between “snowflake” millennials and “selfish” baby boomers, with younger generations facing a “war on woke” and older generations accused of “stealing” the future from the young. As I argue in my book, <a href="https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/generations/">Generations</a>, this is a real shame. A more careful understanding of what’s really different between generations is one of the best tools we have to understand change – and predict the future. Some of the great names in sociology and philosophy saw understanding generational change as central to understanding society overall. <a href="http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Comte/Philosophy2.pdf">Auguste Comte</a>, for example, identified the generation as a key factor in “the basic speed of human development”. He argued that “we should not hide the fact that our social progress rests essentially upon death; which is to say that the successive steps of humanity necessarily require a continuous renovation … from one generation to the next”. We humans get set in our ways once we’re past our formative years, and we need the constant injection of new participants to keep society moving forward. Understanding whether, and how, generations are different is vital to understanding society. The balance between generations is constantly shifting, as older cohorts die out and are replaced by new entrants. If younger generations truly do have different attitudes or behaviours to older generations, this will reshape society, and we can, to some extent, predict how it will develop if we can identify those differences. But in place of this big thinking, today we get clickbait headlines and bad research on millennials “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-hate-napkins-2016-3?r=US&IR=T">killing the napkin industry</a>” or on how baby boomers have “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/">ruined everything</a>”. We’ve fallen a long way. <h2>Myth busting</h2> To see the true value of generational thinking, we need to identify and discard the many myths. For example, as I outline in the book, gen Z and millennials are not lazy at work or disloyal to their employers. They’re also no more materialistic than previous generations of young: a focus on being rich is something we tend to grow out of. Old people are not uncaring or unwilling to act on climate change: in fact, they are more likely than young people to boycott products for social purpose reasons. And our current generation of young are not a particularly unusual group of “culture warriors”. Young people are always at the leading edge of change in cultural norms, around race, immigration, sexuality and gender equality. The issues have changed, but the gap between young and old is not greater now than in the past. Meanwhile, there are real, and vitally important, generational differences hidden in this mess. To see them, we need to separate the three effects that explain all change in societies. Some patterns are simple “lifecycle effects”, where attitudes and behaviours are to do with our age, not which generation we are born into. Some are “period effects” – where everyone is affected, such as in a war, economic crisis or a pandemic. And finally, there are “cohort effects”, which is where a new generation is different from others at the same age, and they stay different. It’s impossible to entirely separate these distinct forces, but we can often get some way towards it – and when we do, we can predict the future in a much more meaningful way. There are many real generational differences, in vitally important areas of life. For example, the probability of you owning your own home is hugely affected by when you were born. Millennials are around half as likely to be a homeowner than generations born only a couple of decades earlier. There is also a real cohort effect in experience of mental health disorders, particularly among recent generations of young women. Our relationship with alcohol and likelihood of smoking is also tied to our cohort, with huge generational declines in very regular drinking and smoking. Each of these point to different futures, from increased strain on mental health services to declining alcohol sales. But lifecycle and period effects are vitally important too. For example, there is truth in the idea that we grow more conservative as we age. One analysis suggests that this ageing effect is worth around <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379413000875">0.35% to the Conservatives each year</a>, which may not sound like a lot, but is very valuable over the course of a political lifetime. And, of course, the pandemic provides a very powerful example of how period effects can dramatically change things for us all. <h2>Reaching beyond the avocado</h2> When there is such richness in the realities, why are there so many myths? It’s partly down to bad marketing and workplace research – that is, people jumping on the generation bandwagon to get media coverage for their products or to sell consultancy to businesses on how to engage young employees. This has become its own mini-industry. In 2015, US companies spent up to US$70 million (£51 million) on this sort of “advice” <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/helping-bosses-decode-millennialsfor-20-000-an-hour-1463505666">according to the Wall Street Journal</a>, with some experts making as much as US$20,000 an hour. Over 400 LinkedIn users now describe themselves solely as a “millennial expert” or “millennial consultant”. Campaigners and politicians also play to these imagined differences. Our increasing focus on “<a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/culture-wars-in-the-uk.pdf">culture wars</a>” often involves picking out particular incidents in universities, such as the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-45717841">banning of clapping</a> at events or the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57409743">removal of a portrait of the Queen</a> to exaggerate how culturally different young people today are. Maybe less obviously, politicians such as former US President Barack Obama repeatedly lionise coming generations as more focused on equality, when the evidence shows they’re often not that different. These assertions are not only wrong, but create false expectations and divides. Some have had enough, calling on the Pew Research Center in the US, which has been a champion of generational groups, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/07/generation-labels-mean-nothing-retire-them/&data=04%257C01%257C">stop conducting this type of analysis</a>. I think that misses the point: it’s how it’s applied rather than the idea of generations that’s wrong. We should defend the big idea and call out the myths, not abandon the field to the “millennial consultants”.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167138/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bobby-duffy-98570">Bobby Duffy</a>, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/kings-college-london-1196">King's College London</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/boomers-vs-millennials-free-yourself-from-the-phoney-generation-wars-167138">original article</a>. </div>

Mind

Another man dies after fall from world's biggest cruise ship

A passenger has died after he fell from the world's largest cruise ship on the first night of a week-long voyage. The unidentified man allegedly jumped from Royal Caribbean’s new 366 metre-long Icon of the Seas, just hours after it left a port in Miami, Florida on its way to Honduras, according to the US Coast Guard. “The cruise ship deployed one of their rescue boats, located the man and brought him back aboard,” the Coast Guard told the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/05/28/us-news/passenger-dead-after-jumping-off-worlds-largest-cruise-ship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Post</a>. “He was pronounced deceased. Beyond assisting in the search, the US Coast Guard did not have much involvement in this incident,” the agency added. Royal Caribbean told the publication, “The ship’s crew immediately notified the US Coast Guard and launched a search and rescue operation”. “Our care team is actively providing support and assistance to the guest’s loved ones during this difficult time.” At the time of the incident, the cruise ship had only travelled 500km from Florida, and stopped for two hours to help the search and rescue Coast Guard team to locate the passenger. The man was brought back on-board in critical condition before he succumbed to his injuries and died on the ship. The Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, took its maiden voyage in January this year. The Royal Caribbean ship has 20 decks and is nearly the size of four city blocks, holding 7,600 passengers and 2,350 crew members. Image credits: Royal Caribbean

Travel Trouble

Where did money come from?

<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-hail-1302961">Steven Hail</a>, <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/">Torrens University Australia</a> For the most part, economists continue to believe a story of money told to generations of students by a series of textbooks over the past 150 years. This story asks us to imagine a pre-monetary barter economy, where people bought goods and services by trading them for other goods and services. Eventually a suitable commodity – perhaps gold or silver – emerged as both an acceptable means of exchange for conducting trade and a convenient unit of account for expressing value. Later, coins were issued – eventually to be monopolised by governments – and later still paper money, credit, and banking systems. The problem with this story is that there is no historical evidence to support it. As was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2802221?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">noted</a> by prominent anthropologist Caroline Humphreys: <blockquote> No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money … all available ethnography suggests that there has never been such a thing. </blockquote> So where did money come from exactly? One difficulty we face is that writing about money – what gives it value, and how monetary systems work – is not something young economists are generally encouraged to do. As a consequence, among the best articles ever written about money are two now more than 100 years old by British economist Alfred Mitchell-Innes, entitled “<a href="https://www.community-exchange.org/docs/what%20is%20money.htm">What is Money</a>?” and “<a href="https://cooperative-individualism.org/innes-a-mitchell_credit-theory-of-money-1914-dec-jan.pdf">The Credit Theory of Money</a>”. These papers, until recently almost completely ignored by the economics profession, tell a different story, rejecting the idea that money evolved naturally from barter. We can now be confident this version is closer to the truth. And it has big implications for how we think about the role of governments within monetary systems, and what gives money value. Acknowledging the true story of money would force a paradigm shift among economists – no wonder a lot of them don’t want to think about it. <h2>Actually, early governments invented money</h2> The truth is that money predates markets. <a href="https://youtu.be/7cLDFjTt4Bs?si=fDTafcZD_u1S23kD">Governments invented money</a> – it did not emerge independently from pre-existing barter systems. Market economies simply could not develop until money existed. For much of history, the currency tokens people regarded as money had little or no intrinsic value, taking the form of clay tablets, hazelwood tally sticks, base metals, shells or paper. The earliest forms of what Keynes called “modern money” – to distinguish it from gift tokens used for ceremonial purposes in communal groups – go back to the origins of taxation, accounting, and even literacy and numeracy. These early currencies were units of account used to assess the tributes that had to be paid to early governmental institutions in the Middle East. The word shekel is still used as a currency unit, but dates to ancient Babylon and the emergence of money itself, over 5,000 years ago. The idea that the need to pay taxes is what creates a demand for a currency was well understood by colonial governments. They knew how to introduce their currencies into countries they had invaded. To force locals to supply labour or goods to the government, they imposed a tax liability – often, a hut tax. This tax could only be paid using the currency of the colony. Locals had to either work for the colonial government or supply goods to others who did, else they wouldn’t have the specific currency needed to pay taxes. This created a demand for the colonial power’s currency, which the government could then spend. If such a government spent more overall than it withdrew in taxation – running a budget deficit – the community could add the remaining currency to its savings. Taxation and the legal system created a demand for the government’s money and provided the impetus for the development of a monetary economy. Even today, it’s the tax system that drives the monetary system. Demand for a government’s money is guaranteed because people need it to pay federal taxes. <h2>But banks create money too</h2> Actual physical cash makes up a tiny proportion of the money in circulation. Most of what we regard as money is held in our bank deposits, effectively a bunch of numbers on a ledger. Most of these bank deposits are created by banks when they make loans to us, and this is not government money at all – it is private money, created by the banks themselves. When a bank makes a loan to you, that loan becomes an asset for the bank, because you have to pay it back with interest. But at the same time, the loan appears as a deposit of funds in your account, which is a liability for the bank. Technically, you both owe each other. On paper, this means there’s now money in the system that wasn’t there before. The bank hasn’t actually lent you someone else’s money, the loan deposited in your account represents the bank’s IOU to you. Both the loan and the deposit are created by the bank, using nothing more than a computer keyboard. The bank has promised to use its holdings of government money to make payments on your behalf, including tax payments to the government, or to provide you with government money in the form of physical cash. As economist Hyman Minsky once said, “anyone can create money – the problem lies in getting it accepted”. Obviously, private banks don’t issue government currency. The Commonwealth government and its agent, the Reserve Bank of Australia, sit at the top of our own monetary system. Government-issued currency will always have value because it’s the unit of account needed to assess and pay our taxes. How much value the currency holds depends on how much the economy produces, how difficult it is to obtain the currency and on how much tax we have to pay. Here is some food for thought. If we accept that money and markets did not emerge naturally but had to be created by governmental institutions and legal systems, this means that there is no such thing as a genuinely free market, no such thing as a natural rate of unemployment, and no such thing as a natural distribution of income and wealth. The theory that money emerged naturally in the private sector encourages people to believe that free markets are natural systems in which governments only interfere. But in truth, early governments invented the very institutions of money and markets, and the regulatory frameworks that determined how those markets work and in whose interests. Exchange economies have always depended on systems of law and they always will. The more pertinent question concerns who writes those laws – and in whose interests those regulations are applied. <hr /> Correction: This article has been amended to reflect that a loan deposit represents a bank’s IOU to the customer, not to a bank’s other customers, as originally reported.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/229481/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <hr /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-hail-1302961">Steven Hail</a>, Associate Professor, <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/">Torrens University Australia</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-money-come-from-229481">original article</a>. </div>

Money & Banking

New claim from Mexican criminal cartel over murdered Aussie brothers

A member of the Sinaloa Cartel has claimed that they were the ones who handed the robbers accused of <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/finance/legal/i-killed-them-major-twist-in-slain-aussie-brothers-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener">murdering two Aussie brothers</a> and their American friend over to police. The city of Ensenada, near where the murders occurred, is under the control of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, and now they have debunked <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/travel/travel-trouble/doesn-t-add-up-new-theory-emerges-in-perth-brothers-deaths" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previous theories </a>that believed the cartel were involved somehow. “They were low-level robbers acting alone,” a member of the group, who chose to remain anonymous, told The Daily Beast. “But we handed them over. We learned that the cops were looking for the gringos and also began looking for those who were responsible. We called the authorities to let them know where to find them.” The cartel member added that the group was afraid of "unwanted attention" from Mexican authorities. Callum Robinson, 33, Jake Robinson, 30, and their friend Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, were all killed in what police have characterised as a bungled robbery while they were camping in the Baja California region during a surfing trip. The trio were reported missing on April 27 after they failed to check-in at their next accommodation. Their bodies were discovered in a well over the weekend with <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/health/caring/tragic-new-details-emerge-over-aussie-brothers-missing-in-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gunshots </a>to the head, around seven kilometres from where they were killed. Three people have been arrested, with the alleged ringleader charged with “forced disappearance”. He has not yet entered a plea and charges are expected to be upgraded to murder in the coming days. Image: Instagram/ 7NEWS

Legal

Catriona Rowntree shares her Europe travel hacks she picked up from locals

After decades of hosting Getaway, Catriona Rowntree has learned a thing or two about travelling. Along the way, the 52-year-old has picked up some must-know secrets from locals that every traveller should know before heading to Europe. While in Mallorca in Spain, Rowntree quizzed locals on how to make the most out of her experience, and what faux pas to avoid. She was given advice on the best way to start a day at the markets, told why you should never rent an Airbnb or buy seafood on a Monday, why takeaway coffee is a bad idea and the secret to a longer, healthy life. The TV host shared a little known secret when it comes to buying fresh fish, and said travellers should not buy fish on Monday, because fishermen don’t fish on Sundays, meaning fish purchases on Mondays won’t be fresh. “The life expectancy of a Spaniard is 84, they're a healthy lot, loving a Mediterranean diet, a dollop of sun and a good climate,” she added. The presenter also discovered that all the locals she has spoken to don't like Airbnb accommodation and prefer for tourists to stay in hotels. “All the locals I've spoken to say that's what's pushing them out of their apartments as the town centres are slowly gentrified,” she said. “The average wage is low, most locals rent, sadly landlords prefer the higher fee of an Airbnb. Not cool!” Catriona's final tip is not to get your coffee takeaway, but rather sit down in a cafe, enjoy your coffee and take it slow. “People sit down to enjoy their coffee, they don't get a takeaway: 'If you can't sit for five minutes and talk to a person what's wrong with you!',” she said. Catriona said she was told by a local that the best way to start your day is to explore the markets by getting a hot chocolate and some churros. “Not every day as you'll be round, but market day for sure," she said. Image credits: Instagram

Travel Tips

“Turn his life around”: Paul Hogan’s grandson set to be released from prison

The grandson of Crocodile Dundee is set to be released from prison after 57 days behind bars. Jake Paul Hogan, 34, broke down in court after learning that his father has moved to Sydney to support him in living a life without crime when he leaves jail. His father Todd Hogan, who is the son of the Crocodile Dundee star, flew back from New Zealand to support his son at the sentencing at the Downing Centre Local Court, which Jake appeared at via audio link. The younger Hogan was in custody on remand after his bail was refused in March, and was sentenced on Wednesday for breaking into apartment buildings to fund his “high-level drug habit” and for breaching a court order against an ex-girlfriend. Before falling into a life of drugs, Jake worked as a carpenter but soon became homeless after his drug addiction took hold. In order to fund his drug habit, the 34-year-old began sleeping in abandoned buildings, and stealing clothes and other items to sell for cash. Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund described Jake’s actions as a “sudden escalation of offending” after his life broke down, while also telling the court she was “comforted” by the fact he was supported by his father Todd and sister in court. “This is a young man that needs some scaffolding, he totally has the ability to turn his life around,” she said. “No doubt you were having difficulty seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and managing to find your way out of the hole.” The court was told Jake’s father was having trouble contacting his son during his difficult times, and had even flown to Sydney from New Zealand to find him. “Mr Hogan you are phenomenally lucky to have these supports,” Ms Freund said. She told the court Jake’s father is set to remain in Sydney to give him support when he leaves custody. Jake was convicted of all charges and sentenced to a community corrections order for two years, and an intensive corrections order for nine months. “I wish you good luck Mr Hogan,” Ms Freund said. Image credits: Getty Images / Facebook

Legal

"A step too far": Grandparents barred from school event for bizarre reason

A Melbourne school has come under fire for refusing to let a group of grandparents into the classroom for a special event because they did not have a Working With Children Check (WWCC). Furious grandparents have slammed St Joseph’s Primary School in Yarra Junction for taking it "a step too far" when they asked them to provide the WWCC after being invited to attend the “Inquiry Afternoon”. The event was held for year one and two students to speak about “technology and the world has changed over time”, according to The Herald Sun. Grandparents were asked to provide a WWCC on the back of the invitation, which some of them missed. “The Working With Children Check isn’t set up for the one-off visit — it is a step too far,” founder of the National Grandparent Movement Ian Barnett told Sunrise. “I understand we’re living in a time when we want more checks and balances, but it is unrealistic to think that grandparents attending such a day would actually need to go and provide a Working With Children Check." The grandparents without a WWCC were forced to sit in the principal's office and do their show-and-tell via a video call. “I’m sure they had very good intentions — no one set out for this to happen,” Herald Sun education editor Susie O’Brien said. “But imagine turning up, arranging your entire week, your day to come to your grandchild’s event … and the child’s school refuses entry.” She added that although schools did have some discretion over such requirements, when a group of people are invited for a specific event, it is usually not required. Barnett also said that "for such visits you don’t need a Working With Children Check,” in most states. “I haven’t heard of this in NSW. I have to admit, I’m from NSW. So it is really going a bit extreme. Schools do have the right to decide who comes onsite. But it just seems it’s not required. “To actually drag the child out from the classroom to sit with nana or grandad, it’s a step too far and embarrassing, I think, for the school as well.” A spokesperson for the primary school acknowledged that although there was some confusion, the school had to comply with the child safe standards. “There was advance notice to all St Joseph’s families on this requirement, with 29 grandparents signing in on Friday with a working with children clearance," they told the Herald Sun. “We acknowledge the disappointing experience of the four grandparents who couldn’t attend the grandparents’ day and are attempting to call these families this morning.” Images: Sunrise/ The Herald Sun

Legal

All the head-turning looks from the 2024 Met Gala

Known as "fashion's biggest night out", the Met Gala 2024 has kicked off in spectacular style with A-listers from all over the world gracing the carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The event, which is a fundraising event for the Met, is held every year on the first Monday of May, to celebrate the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”. The dress code this year, The Garden of Time, is said to be inspired by a short story of the same title written by JG Ballard in 1962. The who's who of Hollywood hit the carpet at the Met this year, led by actress Zendaya, who is this year's co-chair of the event after returning to the Gala for the first time in five years. Many Aussie superstars walked the carpet, such as Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Naomi Watts, Troye Sivan, Chris Hemsworth and Kylie Minogue, who attended for the first time since 2014. Hugh Jackman also graced the Met carpet solo for the first time, last attending alongside his now ex-wife Deborra Lee-Furness in 2023. The Aussie actor took to Instagram to share that his dapper Tom Ford tuxedo was the very same outfit that he wore to his first Met Gala in 2004 that had been "refitted and repaired". Other Hollywood legends that graced the carpet included Sarah Jessica Parker, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Lopez, Uma Thurman, Penelope Cruz and many more. Image credits: Getty Images

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School mourns after beloved teacher falls from roof

Secret transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein investigation finally released

What are financial years – and why are they different from calendar years?

Wellness is not women’s friend. It’s a distraction from what really ails us

"Why is the water so salty?" and other priceless questions from clueless tourists

Michael Mosley used science communication to advance health and wellbeing. We can learn a lot from his approach

Wild moment giraffe snatches toddler from car

Tiny reason for huge commitment: Grandad to run from Perth to Sydney

Why you should never take nutrition advice from a centenarian

1 in 5 deaths are caused by heart disease, but what else are Australians dying from?

Manhunt after masked figures steal puppy from backyard

Fergie reveals the advice she received from Queen Elizabeth before she died

Boomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars

Another man dies after fall from world's biggest cruise ship

Where did money come from?

New claim from Mexican criminal cartel over murdered Aussie brothers

Catriona Rowntree shares her Europe travel hacks she picked up from locals

“Turn his life around”: Paul Hogan’s grandson set to be released from prison

"A step too far": Grandparents barred from school event for bizarre reason

All the head-turning looks from the 2024 Met Gala

Our Partners

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Newspaper

Contests

Entertainment

Travel

Health

Lifestyle

Finance

Property

Compare

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Information

Keep up to date

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School mourns after beloved teacher falls from roof

Secret transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein investigation finally released

What are financial years – and why are they different from calendar years?

Wellness is not women’s friend. It’s a distraction from what really ails us

"Why is the water so salty?" and other priceless questions from clueless tourists

Michael Mosley used science communication to advance health and wellbeing. We can learn a lot from his approach

Wild moment giraffe snatches toddler from car

Tiny reason for huge commitment: Grandad to run from Perth to Sydney

Why you should never take nutrition advice from a centenarian

1 in 5 deaths are caused by heart disease, but what else are Australians dying from?

Manhunt after masked figures steal puppy from backyard

Fergie reveals the advice she received from Queen Elizabeth before she died

Boomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars

Another man dies after fall from world's biggest cruise ship

Where did money come from?

New claim from Mexican criminal cartel over murdered Aussie brothers

Catriona Rowntree shares her Europe travel hacks she picked up from locals

“Turn his life around”: Paul Hogan’s grandson set to be released from prison

"A step too far": Grandparents barred from school event for bizarre reason

All the head-turning looks from the 2024 Met Gala

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