Black lives matter: the violence of Indigenous incarceration in Australia

Kirstie Broadfield investigated the unequal relations of power between Indigenous Australians and the criminal justice system. She found that the unequal relations of power create a sense of 'deific authority' in criminal justice officers, resulting in them being more prone to inflicting symbolic, systemic, and subjective violence on Indigenous Australians

Risking a New Underclass: young Australians, broken transitions and the pandemic

From a sociological perspective the period of adolescence has traditionally focused on young people as risk takers as well as being more vulnerable to risks, particularly as they negotiate the transition to adult status. In Australia, many youth are now confronted with a different world from their parents with regards to less certainty about entering the labour market, greater dependence on their families and less opportunity to purchase a home. The challenges associated with transitioning to adulthood are now more problematic and individualized for some young people due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is argued that the current situation has disrupted the transition to adult status and now threatens to produce a new underclass of youth due to high levels of unemployment, underemployment and negative impacts on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the challenges for government and community in producing a response to this problem to reduce the risk of a cohort of youth becoming a new underclass in Australian society

Necropolitics and the violence of Indigenous incarceration

Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over thirty years ago, there have been over 400 Indigenous deaths in custody, with 28% of the Australian prison population identifying as Indigenous. Indigenous over-representation in the criminal justice system continues to be an unresolved issue despite varying attempts to reduce the high incidence of incarceration experienced by Indigenous Australians. This paper proposes a fresh approach to analysing the violence of Indigenous incarceration using the theory of necropolitics. The paper represents a critical discussion of an ongoing research project that demonstrates how an analytical framework based on necropolitics has the potential to elevate the often-silenced voices of vulnerable populations, such as Indigenous Australians, within the criminal justice system. This is because the study will present a multi-level analysis of the overt and covert forms of violence perpetrated against Indigenous Australians within the criminal justice system and unlock the potential of exposing the extent to which unequal relations of power contribute to these forms of violence. The significance of this research therefore lies in its capacity to provide policymakers with deeper insights into how such forms of violence impact upon and further disempower Indigenous Australians in the Australian criminal justice system

A world of gorse: persistence of Ulex europaeus in managed landscapes

Gorse (Ulex europeus L.) is a woody legume and invasive woody weed that has been introduced to temperate pastoral landscapes worldwide. Despite the apparent cosmopolitan distribution of Gorse across much of the temperate agroecological landscapes of the world, research and practice pertaining to the management of Gorse has been largely constrained to single-treatments, regions or timeframes. Gorse eradication has been widely attempted, with limited success. Using the PRISMA method, and a quasi-metanalytical approach, we reviewed the seminal ~299 papers pertaining to Gorse management. We identified (a) the ecological characteristics of the species that predispose Gorse to behaving invasively, and (b) the success of management actions (from a plant ecological life history perspective) in reducing weed vigour and impact. A broad ecological niche, high reproductive output, propagule persistence and low vulnerability to pests allow for rapid landscape exploitation by Gorse throughout much the world. Additionally, there are differences in flowering duration and season in the northern and Southern Hemisphere that make gorse particularly pernicious in the latter, because Gorse flowers twice per year. The implications of these life history stages and resistance to environmental sieves after establishment are that activity and efficacy of control is more likely to be favourable in juvenile stages. Common approaches to Gorse control, including herbicides, biological controls and fire have not been ubiquitously successful, and may in fact target the very site resources – sward cover, soil stability, hydrological balance – that, when degraded, facilitate Gorse invasion. Ongoing seedling regeneration presents difficulties if eradication is a goal, but facilitated competition may reduce costs via natural suppression. Mechanical methods of Gorse removal, though highly successful, induce chronic soil erosion and land degradation and should hence be used sparingly

Southern Ocean convection amplified past Antarctic warming and atmospheric CO 2 rise during Heinrich Stadial 4

Abstract: The record of past climate highlights recurrent and intense millennial anomalies, characterised by a distinct pattern of inter-polar temperature change, termed the ‘thermal bipolar seesaw’, which is widely believed to arise from rapid changes in the Atlantic overturning circulation. By forcing a suppression of North Atlantic convection, models have been able to reproduce many of the general features of the thermal bipolar seesaw; however, they typically fail to capture the full magnitude of temperature change reconstructed using polar ice cores from both hemispheres. Here we use deep-water temperature reconstructions, combined with parallel oxygenation and radiocarbon ventilation records, to demonstrate the occurrence of enhanced deep convection in the Southern Ocean across the particularly intense millennial climate anomaly, Heinrich Stadial 4. Our results underline the important role of Southern Ocean convection as a potential amplifier of Antarctic warming, and atmospheric CO2 rise, that is responsive to triggers originating in the North Atlantic

The diabetes medication Canagliflozin reduces cancer cell proliferation by inhibiting mitochondrial complex-I supported respiration

Objective The sodium-glucose transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors Canagliflozin and Dapagliflozin are recently approved medications for type 2 diabetes. Recent studies indicate that SGLT2 inhibitors may inhibit the growth of some cancer cells but the mechanism(s) remain unclear. Methods Cellular proliferation and clonogenic survival were used to assess the sensitivity of prostate and lung cancer cell growth to the SGLT2 inhibitors. Oxygen consumption, extracellular acidification rate, cellular ATP, glucose uptake, lipogenesis, and phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), acetyl-CoA carboxylase, and the p70S6 kinase were assessed. Overexpression of a protein that maintains complex-I supported mitochondrial respiration (NDI1) was used to establish the importance of this pathway for mediating the anti-proliferative effects of Canagliflozin. Results Clinically achievable concentrations of Canagliflozin, but not Dapagliflozin, inhibit cellular proliferation and clonogenic survival of prostate and lung cancer cells alone and in combination with ionizing radiation and the chemotherapy Docetaxel. Canagliflozin reduced glucose uptake, mitochondrial complex-I supported respiration, ATP, and lipogenesis while increasing the activating phosphorylation of AMPK. The overexpression of NDI1 blocked the anti-proliferative effects of Canagliflozin indicating reductions in mitochondrial respiration are critical for anti-proliferative actions. Conclusion These data indicate that like the biguanide metformin, Canagliflozin not only lowers blood glucose but also inhibits complex-I supported respiration and cellular proliferation in prostate and lung cancer cells. These observations support the initiation of studies evaluating the clinical efficacy of Canagliflozin on limiting tumorigenesis in pre-clinical animal models as well epidemiological studies on cancer incidence relative to other glucose lowering therapies in clinical populations

What do brain endocasts tell us? A comparative analysis of the accuracy of sulcal identification by experts and perspectives in palaeoanthropology

Palaeoneurology is a complex field as the object of study, the brain, does not fossilize. Studies rely therefore on the (brain) endocranial cast (often named endocast), the only available and reliable proxy for brain shape, size and details of surface. However, researchers debate whether or not specific marks found on endocasts correspond reliably to particular sulci and/or gyri of the brain that were imprinted in the braincase. The aim of this study is to measure the accuracy of sulcal identification through an experiment that reproduces the conditions that palaeoneurologists face when working with hominin endocasts. We asked 14 experts to manually identify well-known foldings in a proxy endocast that was obtained from an MRI of an actual in vivo Homo sapiens head. We observe clear differences in the results when comparing the non-corrected labels (the original labels proposed by each expert) with the corrected labels. This result illustrates that trying to reconstruct a sulcus following the very general known shape/position in the literature or from a mean specimen may induce a bias when looking at an endocast and trying to follow the marks observed there. We also observe that the identification of sulci appears to be better in the lower part of the endocast compared to the upper part. The results concerning specific anatomical traits have implications for highly debated topics in palaeoanthropology. Endocranial description of fossil specimens should in the future consider the variation in position and shape of sulci in addition to using models of mean brain shape. Moreover, it is clear from this study that researchers can perceive sulcal imprints with reasonably high accuracy, but their correct identification and labelling remains a challenge, particularly when dealing with extinct species for which we lack direct knowledge of the brain

Beyond cycle lanes and large-scale infrastructure: a scoping review of initiatives that groups and organisations can implement to promote cycling for the Cycle Nation Project

Background/objectives: Cycling has well-established positive relationships with health. Evidence suggests that large-scale infrastructure and built-environment initiatives to promote cycling are likely to be necessary but not sufficient to maximise cycling participation. Smaller-scale initiatives that can be implemented by organisations (eg, employers) and groups (eg, community groups) are therefore also important, but the full range of feasible activities to promote cycling is not known. We aimed to scope the literature and map organisational, social and individual level activities to increase cycling.MethodsDesign: Scoping review following an established five-stage process.Eligibility criteria: Studies or publicly available reports describing cycling promotion initiatives deemed feasible for organisations or groups to implement.Sources of evidence and selection: (i) online databases (Ovid (Medline), Ovid (Embase), SportDISCUS (Ebscohost), ProQuest, Web of Science), (ii) existing systematic reviews, (iii) expert stakeholder consultation.Results: We extracted data from 129 studies and reports, from 20 different countries, identifying 145 cycling promotion initiatives. From these initiatives we identified 484 actions within 93 action types within 33 action categories under the nine intervention functions described by Michie et al. Environmental restructuring (micro-level), enablement, education and persuasion were the functions with the most action types, while coercion, modelling and restriction had the fewest action types.Conclusion: This is the first comprehensive map to summarise the broad range of action types feasible for implementation within organisation/group-based cycling promotion initiatives. The map will be a critical tool for communities, employers, practitioners and researchers in designing interventions to increase cycling