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What did our ancestors think when they looked up at the night sky? All cultures ascribed special meaning to the Sun and the Moon, but what about the pearly band of light and shadow we call the Milky Way?

My recent study showed an intriguing link between an Egyptian goddess and the Milky Way.

Southern half of astronomical ceiling from the tomb of Senenmut (ca. 1479-1458 BCE), showing planets, constellations, and star lists.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Rogers Fund, 1948.

Slowly, scholars are putting together a picture of Egyptian astronomy. The god Sah has been linked to stars in the Orion constellation, while the goddess Sopdet has been linked to the star Sirius. Where we see a plough (or the big dipper), the Egyptians saw the foreleg of a bull. But the Milky Way’s Egyptian name and its relation to Egyptian culture have long been a mystery.

Several scholars have suggested that the Milky Way was linked to Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the sky who swallowed the Sun as it set and gave birth to it once more as it rose the next day. But their attempts to map different parts of Nut’s body onto sections of the Milky Way were inconsistent with each other and didn’t match the ancient Egyptian texts.

In a paper published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, I compared descriptions of the goddess in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and the Book of Nut to simulations of the Milky Way’s appearance in the ancient Egyptian night sky.

Carved onto the walls of the pyramids more than 4,000 years ago, the Pyramid Texts are a collection of spells to aid the kings’ journey to the afterlife. Painted on coffins a few hundred years after the age of the pyramids, the Coffin Texts were a similar collection of spells. The Book of Nut described Nut’s role in the solar cycle. It has been found in several monuments and papyri, and its oldest version dates back some 3,000 years ago.

The Book of Nut described Nut’s head and groin as the western and eastern horizons, respectively. It also described how she swallowed not only the Sun but also a series of so-called “decanal” stars that are thought to have been used to tell time during the night.

From this description, I concluded that Nut’s head and groin had to be locked to the horizons so that she could give birth and later swallow the decanal stars as they rose and set throughout the night. This meant that she could never be mapped directly onto the Milky Way, whose different sections rise and set as well.

I did, however, find a possible link to the Milky Way in the orientation of Nut’s arms. The Book of Nut describes Nut’s right arm as lying in the northwest and her left arm in the southeast at a 45 degree angle to her body. My simulations of the Egyptian night sky using the planetarium software Cartes du Ciel and Stellarium revealed that this orientation was precisely that of the Milky Way during the winter in ancient Egypt.

The Milky Way is not a physical manifestation of Nut. Instead, it may have been used as a figurative way to highlight Nut’s presence as the sky.

During the winter, it showed Nut’s arms. In the summer (when its orientation flips by 90 degrees) the Milky Way sketched out her backbone. Nut is often portrayed in tomb murals and funerary papyri as a naked, arched woman, a portrayal that resembles the arch of the Milky Way.

However, Nut is also portrayed in ancient texts as a cow, a hippopotamus and a vulture, thought to highlight her motherly attributes. Along the same lines, the Milky Way could be thought of as highlighting Nut’s celestial attributes.

Nut portrayed as a cow.
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (London: Methuen & Co., 1904); scanned by the author.

The ancient Egyptian texts also describe Nut as a ladder or as reaching out her arms to help guide the deceased up to the sky on their way to the afterlife. Many cultures around the world, such as the Lakota and Pawnee in North America and the Quiché Maya in Central America, see the Milky Way as a spirits’ road.

The Book of Nut also describes the annual bird migration into Egypt and ties it both to the netherworld and to Nut. This section of the Book of Nut describes Ba birds flying into Egypt from Nut’s northeast and northwest sides before turning into regular birds to feed in Egypt’s marshes. The Egyptians considered the Ba, portrayed as a human-headed bird, to be the aspect of a person that imbued it with individuality (similar, but not identical, to the modern Western concept of the “soul”).

The Bas of the dead were free to leave and return to the netherworld as they wished. Nut is often shown standing in a sycamore tree and providing food and water to the deceased and their Ba.

Nut provides food and drink to the deceased and his Ba.
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (London: Methuen & Co., 1904); scanned by the author.

Once again, several cultures across the Baltics and northern Europe (including the Finns, Lithuanians, and Sámi) view the Milky Way as the path along which birds migrate before winter. While these links don’t prove a connection between Nut and the Milky Way, they show that such a connection would place Nut comfortably within the global mythology of the Milky Way. Läs mer…

The UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), finds itself in a public row with the government and many City grandees over its proposals to name and shame firms that are being investigated for breaking financial rules. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has called on the FCA to scrap its plans, putting the regulator in the uncomfortable position of having to either climb down or double down.

We asked Professor Alper Kara, a banking specialist at Brunel University, to explain the best way forward.

What does the FCA want to do and why?

The FCA aims to increase transparency of its investigations of misconduct and regulatory breaches. It plans to reveal the names of companies under investigation at a much earlier stage of the process and more frequently. Currently, the FCA only comments in exceptional circumstances and we only hear about cases if there are fines or criminal charges at the end.

The FCA’s view is that increasing transparency will act as a deterrent for wrongdoing. It suggests that it will also increase awareness among companies on what standards they are expected to meet and what types of failings must be avoided. This, in turn, will help them to change their behaviour and reduce misconduct and breaches. The FCA also hopes that naming firms will encourage whistleblowers and witnesses to come forward.

Why are Jeremy Hunt and others opposed?

The City and trade bodies are strongly opposing the proposal, as is the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee. They all argue it will unduly damage the reputations of named firms before an investigation has concluded, potentially hurting the share prices of those that are listed.

They point out that most companies investigated by the FCA turn out to be innocent, with two-thirds of cases closing without any action taken.

The FCA is coming under heavy pressure over its proposals.
Mark Zakian/Alamy

Another worry relates to the UK’s competitiveness as a global financial hub. Jeremy Hunt fears that naming and shaming would dampen the government’s efforts to attract businesses and investments to London, making it harder to revive the struggling UK economy. Hence he has reminded the FCA that it has a secondary duty to facilitate growth.

How do the rules compare to other countries?

The FCA states that Singapore has a similar framework, for example. On the other hand, as far as I am aware, naming and shaming is not common in other major economies such as the US, Germany, France or Japan.

For this reason, opponents also fear that a stricter UK regime might tempt companies to move elsewhere – at a time when this is happening for other reasons already

Who do you think is right?

The FCA’s role is crucial in maintaining transparency, accountability and integrity in the UK’s financial markets. It is a mammoth task to regulate more than 45,000 companies and a wide spectrum of products and services including banking, insurance, pensions and asset management.

We only need to go as far as the 2007-09 financial crisis to understand why regulation matters in financial markets and why companies in this sector need to be watched carefully.

So the FCA is looking for ways to strengthen its tools to maintain the integrity of financial markets and protect consumers. The watchdog is often criticised – lately by MPs, for example – for lengthy investigations that lack transparency, so the new proposals appear to be a response to this.

However, there seems to be merit in the objections. In particular, it seems legitimate to worry that stricter regulations may prompt companies to relocate, impacting the UK’s competitiveness. Relocating is particularly easy in the financial sector because assets can be moved around swiftly.

Remember that many companies in the financial sector operate internationally. Being named in a case in the UK would impact their international reputation and affect their business elsewhere. This is an added incentive to avoid the risk and move away.

It’s unclear what criteria would be used to name companies. The FCA says it will evaluate this on a case-by-case basis. However, this seems to be defeating the transparency objective. Companies regulated by the FCA are likely to question whether such a process is fair.

The proposals could unfairly lead to volatility in bank share prices.
Ground Picture

I worry about the potential for volatility in stock prices, especially when a case ends with no fines or charges. The FCA argues that this is unlikely, and has given examples from previous cases. But it is not sufficient to draw concrete conclusions from a handful of examples, and more robust research and data is required here.

The UK, like many countries, also maintains costly safety nets to reassure depositors in order to avoid bank runs, such as deposit insurance schemes and lender of last resort facilities. Naming firms under investigation may contradict these efforts.

Is there potential for a compromise?

The FCA proposal and the objections are polar opposites, so I cannot see a middle ground here. The latest response from the FCA indicates that it stands firmly behind the proposal.

Nonetheless, it intends to listen to all views before making a final decision. Even though transparency is generally to be welcomed, it may be better for the watchdog to prioritise stability here. Läs mer…

Brazil records an average of 29,000 snakebites a year, leading to around 130 deaths. And it is in the Amazon that the greatest number of cases occur. This region is home to 38 of the 75 species of venomous snakes recorded in Brazil.

In the event of a snakebite in a remote area of the Amazon, some questions become very important: what is the composition of the venom? Do commercially available serums effectively neutralise this venom? Is there a distribution of these antivenoms in the region? How can the local effects of bites be treated?

To answer these questions, the first step is to study the venoms of snakes in the region. To do this, researchers need to have access to the snakes.

This is where the multidisciplinary study I am coordinating comes in. A team of herpetologists and other professionals that I am part of searches for venomous snakes in forests in the state of Acre and sends the live specimens to the Butantan Institute for study.

The project aims to gain more knowledge about the composition of Amazonian snake venoms and assess whether these venoms are recognised by commercial antivenoms. In addition, the project proposes adjuvant treatments (administered in addition to primary therapy to maximise its effectiveness), such as the use of enzyme inhibitors, mainly to treat the local effects of the bite. Finally, it aims to clarity the procedures for distributing antivenoms in remote areas of the Amazon.

In search of snakes

In order to carry out our research, we need to find venomous snakes in the wild. To do this, our team goes on expeditions, especially to the Serra do Divisor National Park.

Located in the Alto Juruá region, the Serra do Divisor National Park (9) is the westernmost point in Brazil.
Aymatth2, wikipedia

Located in the Alto Juruá region, in the far west of the Brazilian Amazon, the Serra do Divisor is the most westerly point in the country and to get there you have to travel overland: 35 kilometres from Cruzeiro do Sul to the Port of Japiim, in Mâncio Lima. From the port, the journey is by boat on the Moa River and can take between 8 and 12 hours, depending on the type of boat and the time of year.

Our target of observation are the venomous snakes, those that produce venom in specialised glands and have venom-inoculating teeth that can cause poisoning in humans. In the Alto Juruá region, where we collected snakes, 12 species of venomous snakes are known: six true corals, five species of jararacas and the surucucu-pico-de-jaca.

The seriousness of an accident in a place like Serra do Divisor can be greater, due to the great distance between it and towns and hospitals. That’s why you can’t be too careful.

During expeditions, which usually last at least five days, we need to take certain precautions. As well as snakes, you need to be wary of mosquitoes that transmit diseases such as malaria and other venomous animals found in the region, such as stingrays, spiders and scorpions. Other dangers that worry us are storms when we are in the forests, because of the danger of lightning and trees that could fall.

During a night search in the Serra do Divisor, I handled a coral.
Personal archive of the author, Paulo Bernarde

Venomous snakes generally have nocturnal habits and to find them, herpetologists search for them at night on forest trails. At a slow pace, we look carefully on each side of the trail, using torches and observing from the ground to the top of the trees, as far as our eyes can see. Some species can be found up to 20 metres up in the branches of trees.

When we find snakes, we carefully capture them and transport them in boxes to our university, where they are then sent to the Butantan Institute in São Paulo for venom research. On some expeditions, we have captured more than 20 snakes. But in science in general and field research in particular, things don’t always turn out as expected. On our last two expeditions, in December 2023 and February 2024, we found almost half the usual number of snakes.

We believe that the recent El Niño weather event has contributed to the lower frequency of snake encounters, due to changes in the rainfall regime in the region. Our next expedition to the region is scheduled for the end of this year or the beginning of 2025.

Amazonian snakes

The elapids (a family of snakes with 41 species in Brazil) are represented in the region by the true corals. The six true corals of the Alto Juruá belong to the genus Micrurus (M. annellatus, M. bolivianus, M. lemniscatus, M. spixii e M. surinamensis). But none of them have their venom in the “pool” for the production of the (bivalent) antielapid serum, which is made from the venom of the species M. corallinus e M. frontalis, which do not occur in the Amazon.

Unlike the other corals, Micrurus surinamensis feeds mainly on fish. For this reason,it has specifiPhoto shows a red, black and white snake on a leafy groundc characteristics in its venom and prey.
Personal archive of the author, Paulo Bernarde

The interest in Amazonian corals is due to the fact that the biochemical composition of these species’ venoms is relatively less studied and has some particularities. Micrurus surinamensis, for example, unlike other corals, does not feed on amphisbaenians (reptiles popularly known as blind snakes or two-headed snakes) and other snakes, but mainly on fish. As a result, this species has a venom with certain specialisations, aimed at subduing fish, as well as having other types of prey.

The jararaca (Bothrops atrox) is the main snake that causes poisonings in the Amazon.
Personal archive of the author, Paulo Bernarde

Viperids (the family of venomous snakes that includes jararacas, rattlesnakes and the surucucu-pico-de-jaca) are of great interest in this research, since this group is the main cause of snakebite accidents in Brazil. The main snake causing envenomations in the Amazon is the jararaca (Bothrops atrox) and it is the most common snake in the region, found in various types of habitats.

The papagaia (B. bilineatus), which has arboreal habits, stands out for its green colouring, which provides camouflage among the foliage of forest trees. It is one of the species that can be found on branches up to 20 metres high.

Three other species of jararacas – Bothrocophias hyoprora, B. brazili and B. taeniatus – are more difficult to find because they live in terra firme forests and occur in lower population densities.

The surucucu-pico-de-jaca (Lachesis muta) is the largest venomous snake in South America, but is rarely found in dryland forests.
Personal archive of the author, Paulo Bernarde

And then there’s the surucucu-pico-de-jaca (Lachesis muta), the largest venomous snake in South America, which can reach 3.15 metres in length and occurs in low population density in terra firme forests. For this reason, encounters with them are also infrequent.

Knowing more about these snakes can help us produce more effective treatments that are better distributed throughout the Amazon region. Läs mer…

Former prime minister Boris Johnson was reportedly turned away on election day after arriving at his polling station to vote with only “an envelope with his name and address on it”. He was informed that under the new rules, brought about by his government, he could not vote.

Johnson did eventually return to the polling station with the right form of ID and was able to vote, but the debacle presents more than just difficult optics for British democracy. The UK has a general election on the very near horizon. If even a former prime minister is having difficulty casting a ballot in a local election, is it time for a rethink of the rules?

Another case playing out as Johnson was presumably looking for his driver’s licence was that of Adam Diver, who had spent 27 years serving his country in the army. He said on Twitter that he had arrived at his local polling station to be told that he did not have an accepted form of identification. His veteran ID card was not on the list of acceptable forms of ID and he would not be able to exercise his democratic right to vote.

Johnny Mercer MP, a Conservative party minister whose government introduced the new voter identification law, quickly apologised to Diver. The list of acceptable forms of identification was published before veterans ID cards started coming out in January this year, so before this election, he said. “I will do all I can to change it before the next one”. Small consolation for Diver.

What are the voter ID rules?

The Elections Act 2022, which came into force during Johnson’s tenure, introduced new requirements for citizens to present ID at UK general elections and some local elections. Prior to this, no form of identification was required in England, Wales and Scotland.

Accepted forms of identification include passports and driving licences but also a range of other options. If citizens don’t have identification, then they can apply for a free voter authority certificate, provided that they do so before the deadline (which was April 25 for these local elections).

The proposals first came from a 2016 report on “electoral fraud”, written by former Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles. The stated aim of the new laws was to reduce the chance of people impersonating others to steal their vote. But the reality is that impersonation in polling stations, the problem which voter identification is proposed to fix, is very rare.

Data from the Electoral Commission shows that in 2019, a general election year, there were two convictions or cautions for someone voting by pretending to be someone else. Research on the nature of problems in polling stations finds that the more significant problem is that many voters arrive to find that their name is not on the electoral register on polling day.

Many citizens are often already turned away because they miss the registration deadline or misunderstand the registration voting process. These, it might be argued, are more pressing problems to address than impersonation.

It’s not just former prime ministers

The evidence is also clear that voter identification requirements cause many eligible citizens to not vote on election day. My study with Alistair Clark at Newcastle University from the 2023 local elections found that 70% of poll workers turned away at least one voter because they did not have an acceptable form of identification.

The government’s own research showed that 9% of the public do not have in-date and recognisable identification. The availability of identification is lower amongst those with a severely limiting disability, the unemployed and those without educational qualifications.

Voters were reminded to bring ID in an information campaign.
Alamy/Maureen McLean

The experience of not being able to vote can be distressing, as can having to block someone from voting. As one poll worker described in one of our studies: “Women were turned away because they got married and changed their names, then their ID and register names were different”. The worker said they felt this was gender discrimination and added: “I’m quite upset that I’ve turned voters away and particularly discriminating against women.”

Voter identification could be made to work with minimal effect on turnout if sufficient safeguards are introduced to still ensure that eligible electors could vote. As I said in evidence I gave to parliament while these laws were being put together, compromise is possible.

Citizens without voter ID on the day could, for example, be allowed a provisional vote, casting a ballot into a separate box which could be included in the total later on if they come back with ID later on. This is a common practice in the US and ensures citizens have an opportunity to still vote. That said, it does cause delays in counting and doesn’t solve the problem for people without ID.

A second option would involve being flexible about the form of voter identification. Voter identification requirements comes in many forms around the globe.

Some countries are strict about having a photo, while others, such as Canada, accept dozens of different forms of ID. Even the Pickles report, which the government was heavily leaning on, suggests that utility bills could be included.

The UK can learn a lot from Canada, including by borrowing from their “vouching” approach. This system allows one citizen who has ID to vouch for another who doesn’t by signing an affidavit confirming their identity.

This provides a clear paper trail linked to registered voters so that any suspicions of irregularities can be investigated. It also ensures that many citizens without identification, or those who feel uncomfortable providing it, can still cast their vote. Family, friends and neighbours can help one another to participate.

Roughly 1% of the population use this as a way to ensure they can still vote. If vouching was allowed at a UK general election, it could therefore enable roughly half a million people to vote.

The reasons for not having voter identification can be varied. They range from just forgetting on election day to having the wrong idea about what’s acceptable, as in the case of the former prime minister. Some reasons, such as people not having the right ID, reflect underlying inequalities in society.

With a general election on the way, millions of people will be headed to the polls. Relatively easy reforms, such as “vouching”, are needed to make sure that everyone can cast their vote, including Boris Johnson. Läs mer…

The local elections which took place on May 2 have provided an unusually rich set of results to pore over. Around 2,600 seats were up for election on 107 councils across the country. There were elections for 37 police and crime commissioners, and for 11 local mayors. And much as the government would have preferred us not to notice, there was a parliamentary by-election in Blackpool South.

It will be a couple days before we have the full results, but the big picture so far is that the Conservatives have lost about half the council seats they have been defending. According to election analyst Sir John Curtice, they could lose 500 seats by the time counting is finished over the weekend.

The party will, however, welcome the victory of their candidate, Ben Houchen, in the Tees Valley mayoral contest. He ran a campaign which focused on his achievements and played down his Conservative affiliations. But even that contest provides a mixed picture for the party, particularly given that Labour won control of Hartlepool council, one of the districts in the Tees Valley.

Labour has done well, gaining just over 40% of the council seats lost by the Conservatives. Labour won control of Thurrock in Essex, Redditch in Worcestershire and Rushmore in Hampshire in addition to Hartlepool. Redditch and Rushmore are both in the Conservative heartlands and so these wins have important implications for Labour support in the general election later this year.

A local man casts his vote and describes the experience as quite enjoyable.
Alamy

That said, Labour lost control of Oldham council in Greater Manchester where independents did particularly well. The town has a high proportion of Muslim voters and it looks like many of them are deserting the party because of Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza.

A general election ahead

These results give us a good indication of what to expect in the general election expected this year. There is a lot of inertia in voting behaviour over time, with current general elections being strongly influenced both by voting in previous general elections and also by recent local elections. So when a local vote is as close to the general election as this, there’s a lot to be gleaned.

There is a strong relationship between the Labour vote share in the 20 general elections from 1950 to 2019, for example, and the Labour vote share in the election that came before each of these contests. Meanwhile, polls showed far greater volatility.

Labour vote shares in general elections:

One good election leads to another, and vice versa.
P Whiteley, CC BY-ND

The chart shows that when Labour does well in a general election, it tends to do well in a subsequent election. The relationship also works in reverse since a poor result in one election is often followed by a poor result in the subsequent election.

The correlation between the two is very strong (0.70) over this period of nearly three-quarters of a century. The 2019 result marked in the chart shows how much of a mountain the party still needs to climb to win next time.

The best guide to the next general election from these contests is what happened in the Blackpool South byelection. Local elections are always influenced by national politics, but byelections are even more focused on the national picture.

In Blackpool South, the Conservative vote share fell by 32% compared to the 2019 election, while Labour’s share increased by 21%. This produced a huge swing to Labour of 26%.

The largest swing to Labour in the post-war period was in 1997 – a swing of 8.8%. Swings in byelections can be much larger, but we are nonetheless in meltdown territory as far as the Conservatives are concerned.

Meanwhile, it’s quite disturbing from the Tories’ point of view that the Reform candidate nearly pushed them into third place in Blackpool South. Reform received 3,101 votes or nearly 11% of the total. They were only 117 votes behind the Conservatives. Richard Tice, the Reform party leader, was very upbeat when he was interviewed on LBC about the contest, saying that it was the best byelection result the party had ever achieved.

This will have the Tories concerned about whether such a result can be improved on in the general election. Reform could become a serious rival to the Conservatives, particularly in the red wall seats, in the general election.

The local elections of 1996 were the worst for 50 years for the Conservatives. Back then, they took just under 19% of the seats. They were eclipsed by Labour with 49% and by the Liberal Democrats with 22%.

The following year, Tony Blair won a landslide victory in the general election. Counting continues, but Rishi Sunak will no doubt be wondering if a new low is about to be hit. Läs mer…

The board of South Africa’s National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has been dissolved by the country’s higher education and training minister, Blade Nzimande, and the organisation placed under administration. Nzimande made the decision because of “(the problem of) non-payment of (students’) allowances”.

Thandi Lewin is a higher education scholar who worked in the Department of Higher Education with responsibility for oversight of NSFAS between 2018 and 2023. She also briefly served as a departmental representative on the NSFAS board in 2018. The Conversation Africa asked her to explain the organisation’s history, its mandate and the current crisis.

What is NSFAS and how many students does it fund each year?

NSFAS is a South African state entity established in 1999 under the auspices of the Department of Higher Education and Training. Its core function is to distribute government financial aid to students in public post-school education and training institutions – that is, universities and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges.

Since its establishment, according to the minister, the scheme has supported more than 5 million beneficiaries. In 2021 it funded 826,084 students, 67% at universities and 33% at TVET colleges. (This number includes a small proportion of students who are funded through other state bursary schemes.)

About 61% of undergraduate students in public universities are funded through NSFAS.

How are students evaluated for funding?

Firstly, students must meet the financial eligibility criteria, with a family income of no more than R350,000 (about US$19,000) a year. Beneficiaries of the South African Social Security Agency automatically qualify for NSFAS support.

Secondly, students must be registered for a funded programme at a public TVET college or university. Continued funding relies on them meeting both NSFAS’s financial criteria and academic standards set by individual institutions.

NSFAS assesses funding eligibility using data supplied by applicants. The Department of Home Affairs and the South African Revenue Service verify the information. Academic admissions are determined by institutions.

It is important to understand the dual qualification criteria because it shows that the financial aid scheme operates within a higher education ecosystem. Collaboration between institutions is key for it to work effectively.

Is NSFAS in a stable condition?

The provision of state financial aid to students has been one of the most important and successful higher education policies in post-apartheid South Africa. Significant numbers of students who would otherwise not access higher education have been able to do so.

This can be seen in the sustained transformation of the demographic profiles of public universities.

Studies conducted by the Department of Higher Education show that university students funded by NSFAS are less likely to drop out than those who are not. For instance, data on the 2013 entering cohort shows that NSFAS students drop out at a rate 10 percentage points less than the overall undergraduate cohort. They also have an 8 percentage point higher throughput rate overall; this is a measure of student qualification completion.

Of course, multiple factors affect student success. But financial aid is critical to ensure equitable access to higher education and training.

What are its three biggest challenges?

Severe administrative challenges continue to weaken the effectiveness of this social justice policy. In short, the biggest challenges are:

systems and capacity that are not fit for purpose
administrative changes that do not recognise the complexity of the operational ecosystem and the need for co-operation and trust between NSFAS and universities and TVET colleges
an unstable policy environment, including financing that will ensure student funding policies are sustainable over time.

Most recently, in 2023, NSFAS made several ill-conceived and badly planned administrative changes. One was the introduction of a direct payments solution supported by four fintech companies. Beneficiaries are paid directly by NSFAS and not through institutions and third parties. The change was introduced in the middle of the 2023 academic year, without being piloted and at short notice. It sparked chaos for students and institutions alike. The new “NSFAS bank accounts” introduced in 2023 also forced financial processing costs onto students, reducing the value of their allowances.

The effects of this included delayed confirmation of funding and processing appeals, the late or non-payment of allowances and the over- and under-payment of allowances. The entity blamed institutions for its administrative failures, claiming that they did not submit accurate registration data on time.

Then evidence emerged that the direct payments service providers had been irregularly appointed. The CEO of NSFAS was fired for tender irregularities and the former chair of the board is under investigation. He’s accused of taking kickbacks from the direct payments service providers. The board accepted the recommendations of the report it commissioned from the law firm Werksmans to terminate the payment service provider contracts.

Now NSFAS is again under administration. (It was under administration for the first time between 2018 and 2020.) An administrator has taken over the governance and management of the entity because of concerns about maladministration.

What immediate steps ought to be taken?

NSFAS must focus on building the capacity and systems to support its core mandate. It needs to develop appropriate IT systems and architecture to assess and monitor eligibility. It also needs to provide accurate funding decisions and ensure that qualifying students receive the correct funding at the appropriate time.

This could involve direct payments from NSFAS to students but would require IT systems to be integrated with public institutions. This will not work in the short term. NSFAS has recognised this by requesting that institutions continue making allowance payments to students, as was being done before the direct payments process started.

The entity must also, with the support of the department, address the recommendations of two reports. One is the 2021 ministerial commission of inquiry into NSFAS’s systems and capacity. The other is a ministerial task team report on student funding, finalised in 2022. Neither of these reports have been released publicly but they have been discussed in parliament.

The department has a crucial role to play here. It must ensure policy and funding stability in the student funding arena. In recent years funding has been taken from university subsidies to fund NSFAS commitments. This takes critical support away from institutions as only part of NSFAS funding is spent on tuition fees.

If the challenges are not urgently resolved, generations of young people will be negatively affected and scarce public funding will not serve its intended purpose. Läs mer…

Every vehicle built after 1981 has a unique vehicle identification number, or VIN. The location of this string of letters and numbers varies, but it’s located somewhere on every car, SUV, motorcycle and truck – typically on a small metal plate or a sticker.

VINs serve many purposes. They help consumers learn about a used car’s history, including whether it was stolen, or determine whether rebates for a particular electric vehicle are available. This code appears in the paperwork necessary to do everything from insuring your car to selling it.

I research data standards and became interested in VINs while doing research for my book about the cultural history of barcodes.

Like barcode numbers, a VIN’s characters are standardized. They can tell a story if you know what to look for.

A lot of information is packed into these 17 characters.
The Conversation U.S., CC BY-SA

What VINs can tell you

VINs can convey at least seven pieces of information.

Origin
If a VIN begins with a 1, 4 or 5, that means it’s a vehicle assembled in the U.S. Many other countries have their own unique identifier. A 2, for example, means the vehicle was made in Canada; a J stands for Japan.
Manufacturer
The second and third characters indicate the manufacturer. In some cases, the code corresponds with a line of vehicles that now belongs to a larger corporation. Dodge and Jeep, now part of Stellantis, each has its own. So does Lincoln, which became a division of Ford Motor Co. in 1922.
Description
The fourth through eighth characters provide several details, such as body type and engine type.
Security
The ninth character is a “check digit” determined by a complex mathematical equation based on the rest of the VIN’s numbers and letters. This digit, either a number or the letter X, is used to authenticate that the VIN is not a forgery.
Year
The 10th character indicates the model year. There’s only one slot for this, and not all letters and numbers are used, resulting in repetition. An R could signal either 2024 or 1994, for example.
Factory
The 11th character indicates the specific plant where the vehicle was assembled.
Serial number
The VIN’s final six characters compose a serial number that differentiates the vehicle from all others made in the same factory that are the identical type and model year.

Vehicle identification number locations vary but are generally found in one of four places.
The Conversation U.S., CC BY-SA

Finding more information

Only experts can tell where a vehicle was assembled or what type of engine it has by looking at its VIN. But help is available.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides a handy VIN decoder. When I plugged my vehicle’s VIN into the decoder, the site correctly determined that my SUV is a 2011 Subaru Forester with an automatic transmission.

Of course, I already knew all that.

What I didn’t realize was that it weighs between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds, has a 2.5-liter engine and features side curtain airbags to protect the driver and passengers in the front and back seats. I also learned that this Subaru Forester was assembled in Gunma, Japan.

Those details had been invisible to me as a consumer, but they had been within easy reach ever since I bought my Forester in 2018. I had somehow driven that car well over 100,000 miles without realizing the number on the side of my driver’s seat contained some history.

Before buying the Forester, even though I didn’t know that my VIN could say so much, I did run it through a free online system to make sure it hadn’t been stolen.

To be sure, VINs won’t tell you everything you might want to know about a vehicle, such as what color it was when it rolled off the line. But if you can do a little decoding and make use of widely available online tools, they do harbor important information.

Where’s your VIN and what’s it for? Läs mer…

Animal behavior research relies on careful observation of animals. Researchers might spend months in a jungle habitat watching tropical birds mate and raise their young. They might track the rates of physical contact in cattle herds of different densities. Or they could record the sounds whales make as they migrate through the ocean.

Animal behavior research can provide fundamental insights into the natural processes that affect ecosystems around the globe, as well as into our own human minds and behavior.

I study animal behavior – and also the research reported by scientists in my field. One of the challenges of this kind of science is making sure our own assumptions don’t influence what we think we see in animal subjects. Like all people, how scientists see the world is shaped by biases and expectations, which can affect how data is recorded and reported. For instance, scientists who live in a society with strict gender roles for women and men might interpret things they see animals doing as reflecting those same divisions.

The scientific process corrects for such mistakes over time, but scientists have quicker methods at their disposal to minimize potential observer bias. Animal behavior scientists haven’t always used these methods – but that’s changing. A new study confirms that, over the past decade, studies increasingly adhere to the rigorous best practices that can minimize potential biases in animal behavior research.

Adding up?
Karl Krall/Wikimedia Commons

Biases and self-fulfilling prophecies

A German horse named Clever Hans is widely known in the history of animal behavior as a classic example of unconscious bias leading to a false result.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Clever Hans was purported to be able to do math. For example, in response to his owner’s prompt “3 + 5,” Clever Hans would tap his hoof eight times. His owner would then reward him with his favorite vegetables. Initial observers reported that the horse’s abilities were legitimate and that his owner was not being deceptive.

However, careful analysis by a young scientist named Oskar Pfungst revealed that if the horse could not see his owner, he couldn’t answer correctly. So while Clever Hans was not good at math, he was incredibly good at observing his owner’s subtle and unconscious cues that gave the math answers away.

In the 1960s, researchers asked human study participants to code the learning ability of rats. Participants were told their rats had been artificially selected over many generations to be either “bright” or “dull” learners. Over several weeks, the participants ran their rats through eight different learning experiments.

In seven out of the eight experiments, the human participants ranked the “bright” rats as being better learners than the “dull” rats when, in reality, the researchers had randomly picked rats from their breeding colony. Bias led the human participants to see what they thought they should see.

Eliminating bias

Given the clear potential for human biases to skew scientific results, textbooks on animal behavior research methods from the 1980s onward have implored researchers to verify their work using at least one of two commonsense methods.

One is making sure the researcher observing the behavior does not know if the subject comes from one study group or the other. For example, a researcher would measure a cricket’s behavior without knowing if it came from the experimental or control group.

The other best practice is utilizing a second researcher, who has fresh eyes and no knowledge of the data, to observe the behavior and code the data. For example, while analyzing a video file, I count chickadees taking seeds from a feeder 15 times. Later, a second independent observer counts the same number.

Yet these methods to minimize possible biases are often not employed by researchers in animal behavior, perhaps because these best practices take more time and effort.

In 2012, my colleagues and I reviewed nearly 1,000 articles published in five leading animal behavior journals between 1970 and 2010 to see how many reported these methods to minimize potential bias. Less than 10% did so. By contrast, the journal Infancy, which focuses on human infant behavior, was far more rigorous: Over 80% of its articles reported using methods to avoid bias.

It’s a problem not just confined to my field. A 2015 review of published articles in the life sciences found that blind protocols are uncommon. It also found that studies using blind methods detected smaller differences between the key groups being observed compared to studies that didn’t use blind methods, suggesting potential biases led to more notable results.

In the years after we published our article, it was cited regularly and we wondered if there had been any improvement in the field. So, we recently reviewed 40 articles from each of the same five journals for the year 2020.

We found the rate of papers that reported controlling for bias improved in all five journals, from under 10% in our 2012 article to just over 50% in our new review. These rates of reporting still lag behind the journal Infancy, however, which was 95% in 2020.

All in all, things are looking up, but the animal behavior field can still do better. Practically, with increasingly more portable and affordable audio and video recording technology, it’s getting easier to carry out methods that minimize potential biases. The more the field of animal behavior sticks with these best practices, the stronger the foundation of knowledge and public trust in this science will become. Läs mer…

The news about the Israel-Hamas war is filled with reports of Israeli families huddling in fear from relentless rocket attacks, Israeli tanks and artillery flattening buildings in the Gaza Strip, hundreds of kidnapped hostages imprisoned in subterranean tunnels, and millions of people driven from their homes by fighting.

But beyond the visceral violence lies a hidden layer of the war – an online conflict. We are scholars of cyberwarfare who have cataloged and analyzed the various cyber operations conducted during the war by Hamas, Israel and other nations and hacking groups supporting one side or the other. The data paints a picture of an unseen facet of the conflict, and it offers insights about the nature of cyber conflict more broadly.

The main conclusion we’ve drawn is that the consequences of cyber conflict are primarily felt by civilians, not the soldiers or militants actively engaged in the fighting. We find that the damage cyberattacks inflict on digital systems is far less significant than the resulting harm to humans, and the resulting upward spiral of violence.

Hamas’ cyberwarfare activities

The cyberattacks hitting Israeli government and civilian systems have had mixed effects. Some technically simple attacks succeeded in obtaining crucial intelligence that assisted Hamas fighters’ incursion into Israel. Other attacks employed a scattershot approach, targeting anything within digital reach – hospitals, universities, banks and newspapers. These attacks didn’t serve any military purpose, but simply aimed to disrupt Israeli life and terrorize the public.

The quantity and sophistication of the attacks have made clear that hackers working for the government of Iran, a key Hamas funder and supplier, are supporting Hamas’ online warfare. Other “hacktivists” and private hacking groups based in countries as varied as Sudan, Pakistan and Russia have also joined the fray.

Before the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel that sparked the current war, Hamas cyber operatives were working to support the attack planning. A Hamas hacking unit called Gaza Cybergang spied on Israel in search of sensitive information about Israeli military installations. The information they gleaned was instrumental during the attack.

Hamas hackers also conducted phishing attacks, relatively simple attacks in which fake email or text messages resemble legitimate ones and encourage a user to either reply with sensitive information or click on a link that downloads malicious software to their computer or mobile phone.

As the Oct. 7 attack unfolded, the pro-Palestinian hacktivist group AnonGhost released a mobile app with the same name as a prominent reputable app that gives Israeli citizens warnings about impending attacks from Hamas into Israel. AnonGhost issued false alerts – including, reportedly, one about a nuclear attack – and collected users’ data, including their contacts, call logs and text messages.

However, since full-fledged hostilities erupted, Hamas has been largely unable to carry out effective cyberattacks that aid its war efforts. As a result, the group turned to information warfare, seeking to evoke panic and shift public opinion.

The most common type of attack that Hamas’ cyberwarriors and their allies use now is a distributed denial-of-service, when a barrage of nonsense internet traffic is aimed at one or more websites, email servers or other internet-connected systems. They get overwhelmed by the nonsense traffic and either shut down or cease to function properly.

Denial-of-service attacks have hit websites for news media outlets, banks, financial institutions and government agencies. One attack took the Jerusalem Post website offline for two days. The group that claimed responsibility for that attack was a religious hacktivist group called Anonymous Sudan, with known connections to Russian hacking groups.

Hamas and its online allies are also using wiper malware, which infects a computer and destroys its data. This kind of attack does not serve a purpose such as extortion or surveillance – it just aims to destroy everything in its wake.

We also recorded several attacks that infiltrated databases and released their contents, such as one where the private data of students at Ono Academic College was published online.

Another series of attacks took control of digital billboards to display the Palestinian flag in sites around Israel, along with false news about military defeats. These attacks are part of a broader misinformation effort designed to shape domestic debate and terrorize Israeli civilians.

Electronic billboards have been hacked to display pro-Palestinian messages around the world, including this one in Spain.
Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images

Israel’s activities

By contrast with Hamas, Israel is a global cyber power whose military possesses some of the strongest cyber warfare capabilities in the world.

Yet the effectiveness of Israel’s cyber arsenal is limited because Hamas doesn’t depend on the internet very much. Without any targets to strike on a digital battlefield, Israel’s primary strategy has been to turn on or off internet connectivity in Gaza. It can do this because Israel controls the electricity and internet cables that serve Gaza.

On Oct. 27, 2023, Israel imposed a near-total telecommunications blackout that lasted for approximately 34 hours. The telecommunications blackout was condemned by international organizations, including the World Health Organization, whose director general posted that the blackout made it “impossible for ambulances to reach the injured.” Without internet or telephone connections, injured Palestinians in Gaza can’t call an ambulance, nor can medical staff stay connected with their dispatch centers.

Similar internet shutdowns have occurred frequently since then. Due to damage, displacement and power and internet disruptions, internet connectivity in Gaza has been reduced to 15% of the typical rate.

During periods when there was internet service in Gaza, pro-Israeli hacktivists got involved. For example, the group WeRedEvils crashed the Gaza Now news site. As hostilities intensified, up to 60% of all traffic to Palestinian websites was made up of denial-of-service attack traffic, according to Cloudflare, a U.S.-based data-transfer and tracking company. The bulk of the attacks were aimed at banks and technology companies.

The U.S. is involved, too. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is working with the Israelis to help thwart some cyberattacks.

A few observations about online conflict

In contrast to Hollywood depictions of cyber warfare, where unstoppable hackers can cripple entire armies and countries with the push of a button, the reality of cyber power is more constrained. Digital battles cannot win wars. Most of the online operations in the Israel-Hamas war have little effect on the actual battlefield. They involve spying or propaganda, not wholesale destruction.

Our data shows that cyber warfare doesn’t necessarily give terror groups the ability to face major powers on more equal terms. Hamas’ online operations have not been able to offset Israel’s military superiority. But Israel’s online capabilities are not a significant advantage against a largely offline opponent.

Perhaps most importantly, though, is our recurring finding that civilians are the foremost victims of cyberattacks during war. In our experiments, conducted among more than 10,000 people over 10 years, we have seen that cyberattacks arouse severe psychological distress – akin even to the harm generated by physical terrorism. When confronted with cyberattacks, people feel trapped and anxious, and their sense of safety plummets. As a result, victims lash out and demand strong retaliation in a way that fuels cycles of violence.

As Israel and Hamas volley cyberattacks back and forth, innocent people are caught in the crossfire. This human dimension of cyber warfare is the threat that worries us. Läs mer…

Society Hill, where Sixers star Joel Embiid recently put his penthouse condo on the market for US$5.5 million, has long been one of Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhoods.

It’s a distant cry from what the neighborhood looked like 125 years ago when sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois published “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.”

The book examines in meticulous detail the social conditions of thousands of Black Philadelphians living in what was then called the Seventh Ward, a neighborhood that overlaps present-day Society Hill.

We are sociologists and scholars of Du Bois whose research covers gentrification and anti-Black racism. We are also guest-editing a special issue of the City & Community journal that will be dedicated to Du Bois’ historic study.

On its 125th anniversary, “The Philadelphia Negro” offers valuable lessons about why many historically Black Philadelphia neighborhoods look the way they do today – and where they might be headed.

Family portrait of W.E.B. Du Bois, his wife, Nina, and their son, Burghardt, in 1898.
W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, 1803-1999, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

Du Bois surveys the 7th Ward

Du Bois and his wife, Nina, arrived in Philadelphia in 1896 at the invitation of the University of Pennsylvania and with the support of the local settlement house movement. With “The Philadelphia Negro,” published in 1899, these benefactors tasked Du Bois with analyzing “the Negro problems”.

As Du Bois wrote, “Here is a large group of people – perhaps 45,000, a city within a city – who do not form an integral part of the larger social group.” He observed that a quarter of all Black Philadelphians lived in the Seventh Ward, a neighborhood at the time bounded from east to west between 7th and 25th streets, and north to south from Spruce Street to South Street.

Philadelphia of the late 1800s was a manufacturing juggernaut and the second largest city in the U.S.. Yet, as Du Bois detailed in his study, Black Philadelphians were concentrated in “certain slum districts,” areas with “poor homes and worse police protection.” They were shut out from well-paying jobs and faced higher rates of incarceration and lower rates of pardons for crimes than white Philadelphians. These challenges, Du Bois explained, were rooted in systemic racism with historical ties to slavery.

“Such discrimination,” Du Bois stated plainly, “is morally wrong, politically dangerous, industrially wasteful, and socially silly.”

A mural dedicated to Du Bois and the old Seventh Ward is painted on the corner of 6th and South streets in Philadelphia.
Paul Marotta/Getty Images

When Du Bois arrived in Philadelphia, the process of devaluing and disinvesting in Black neighborhoods like the Seventh Ward had already been decades in the making. Throughout the 1800s, Philadelphia’s population swelled considerably as industry expanded and wealth increased. Real estate values rose across the city. Yet, Black residents were less likely than white residents to own property. Racial discrimination, he determined, kept Black Philadelphians in lower-wage work and segregated in areas of the city with older homes that were poorly maintained.

Urban renewal and resistance

Nearly 50 years after Du Bois’ study, the urban planner Edmund Bacon helped organize a “Better Philadelphia” exhibition in 1947 with a vision for private reinvestment in the city’s slumping downtown economy.

Bacon, deemed the “father of modern Philadelphia,” largely got his way. He trained his eyes on Society Hill, and his vision for that neighborhood became a blueprint for urban design. Expensive high-rise apartments pushed out poor residents, including Black people and Eastern European immigrants who had been there for decades.

Other parts of the Seventh Ward later experienced the effects of urban renewal too. Black Seventh Warders led a long, successful struggle in the 1960s and ‘70s to fight off a proposed expressway that would have cut through their neighborhood. However, as the sociologist Marcus Hunter documents in his book “Black Citymakers,” the neighborhood underwent significant changes from 1975 to 2000. South Street east of Broad Street emerged as a “distinctly artsy and commercial area,” while west of Broad Street “became a combination of high-end condominiums and businesses.”

Modern Philly gentrification

With its visible markers of luxury apartments and trendy cafes and restaurants, gentrification has transformed neighborhoods all across Philadelphia, from Germantown to Fishtown. While not part of the old Seventh Ward, the ZIP codes that encompass Point Breeze, in South Philadelphia, and Northern Liberties, just north of Center City, rank among the most gentrified in the nation since 2000.

Construction is underway on a $10 million residential complex at 27th and Girard in Brewerytown, Philadelphia.
Jeff Fusco /The Conversation U.S., CC BY-NC-ND

For some historically Black Philadelphia neighborhoods, however, the disinvestment and decline over the decades has been so extreme that they are not vulnerable to gentrification anytime soon. Middle-class homebuyers, businesses and real estate developers and investors deem them too risky and stigmatized.

Meanwhile, Black Philadelphians have expressed frustration at how new research centers at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania – ironically, the same institution that hired Du Bois to conduct his study – have displaced residents in the historic Black Bottom, a neighborhood since rebranded as University City.

Gentrification benefits many middle-class white people who purchase affordable homes that quickly increase in value as the neighborhood demographics change. But long-term residents and businesses often face higher rents and property taxes that can make the homes and neighborhood where they grew up unaffordable. Cultural institutions such as Black churches close their doors for good as the people they serve leave the neighborhood. The First African Baptist Church in South Philly, one of the oldest churches of its kind in the country, was sold to developers in 2016 and became a boutique hotel.

When Philadelphia residents are squeezed out of gentrifying neighborhoods, they often relocate to lower-income areas, a process Hunter calls “secondary migration.” For those who can afford to stay, there is “cultural displacement” as gentrified neighborhoods no longer feel like home.

Yet, Black Philadelphians have always been “place-makers” – people who use creative and political agency to build spaces where they can thrive and respond to neighborhood change. And organizations fighting for housing justice, such as Philly Thrive, have helped lead anti-gentrification efforts in the city. The Jumpstart Germantown program is training area developers to invest in local communities and build community wealth.

Meanwhile, Black middle-class residents have chosen to invest in Philadelphia by opening businesses where everyone is welcome. One example is Uncle Bobbie’s, a beloved coffee shop, bookstore and community meeting space in Germantown.

While the Seventh Ward is no longer an official designation, an arts-based tribute is teaching new generations about the rich Black history in that area. It’s a story about neighborhood change and the possibility for more equitable futures for Black Americans – something Du Bois hoped for in writing “The Philadelphia Negro” and throughout his career. Läs mer…