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For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the past 15 years, while other sectors have hardly budged. The share of renewable energy has gone from 7.5% to more than 30% in that time.

But unfortunately, this impressive pace is not fast enough.

Investments in renewable energy plants slowed in 2023 – financial approvals for new solar farms shrank more than a third and no new wind farms won backing. By the end of that year, Australia had 56 renewable energy projects under construction, down from 72 a year earlier.

For Australia to achieve the federal government’s 43% emissions cut target by 2030, and the deeper and swifter cuts required after that, we need to accelerate. The federal government wants the electricity sector to be generating at least 82% from renewable sources by 2030. The electricity sector needs to be clean enough by that year to make electrification the better choice for sectors heavily dependent on fossil fuels, from transport to heavy industry to household gas.

And it won’t end there. After 2030, when other sectors start to electrify en masse, the electricity sector will need to keep building more and more new renewable capacity to keep up.

If it doesn’t, it simply won’t be possible to eliminate the remaining 56% of our emissions that come from producing and burning fossil fuels. And that’s before Australia even starts looking at expanding its industrial base to become a so-called “renewable superpower”.

There are three reasons the electricity sector isn’t achieving the required pace at the moment.

Not enough poles and wires

New wind and solar farms need new transmission lines to get their electricity to users. That’s because the good sources of wind and sunshine aren’t in the same places as the existing transmission network. And even if they were, we’d still need to upgrade and build transmission because of the growth in demand.

The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates 50% of the transmission needed to deliver a clean, reliable, affordable energy supply in 2050 needs to be constructed in the next six years.

But most of these transmission lines are yet to be built.

This chart shows the planned build by five year time period for transmission and utility scale renewables, based on the AEMO Draft 2024 Integrated System Plan, Step Change scenario.
Grattan Institute, CC BY-NC-ND

Instead, renewable generators have had to connect to existing lines, which have become congested. So even when new renewable installations get approvals for construction, their output can be curtailed because they can’t get it to consumers. This has hit developer finances hard.

And many rural communities aren’t happy with the new transmission lines planned for their regions. While many of the required lines have been known about in the energy sector for years, the communities that will host them are only finding out about them now. Understandably, many object.

Thousands of local residents attend a rally at Flagstaff Point in Wollongong to protest against a proposed offshore wind turbine farm.
AAP/Dean Lewins

As well, bottlenecks in the planning approval bureaucracy mean things are slow to get built. This isn’t just about transmission lines: it also applies to new renewable generators and even upgrading roads so equipment and machinery can be used safely.

Coal hanging on

There’s still uncertainty about when coal generators will leave the market.

We need to build replacement capacity for ageing coal generators before they retire but no one wants to build new generators to replace the coal if they aren’t sure when demand for their electricity will emerge.

Generators are required to declare their earliest exit date if that date is less than three-and-a-half years away, but there’s nothing to stop them pushing that date out. That’s what Delta Electricity did last year, when it changed the closure date for the Vales Point power station in New South Wales from 2029 to 2033.

Vales Point coal-fired power station has had its operating life extended to 2033.
Rob Brady/Shutterstock

On top of this, nervous state governments have started making opaque deals to pay coal power stations to stay open, as insurance against the slow pace of the renewables build.

Read more:
Do we want a wind farm outside our window? What Australians think about the net zero transition

Governments aren’t coordinating well

Every state government on the east coast has a renewable energy target. So does the federal government. But these targets were set as arbitrary percentages linked to arbitrary dates, not chosen to deliver the cleanest, most reliable, cheapest energy system for consumers.

State and federal governments choose their targets in isolation, which drives up overall costs. To give just one example: both New South Wales and Queensland have established “renewable energy zones” in New England shire, located right across the border from each other. Developing these areas as a single zone should cost less overall, but no such interstate efficiency has emerged. Each state has gone its own way.

An aerial view of the hybrid Gullen solar farm and Gullen Range wind farm at Bannister in NSW. Locating renewables in one location makes it easier to provide suitable transmission lines.
Steve Tritten/Shutterstock

Is there a way out?

All of the above has led to a policy quagmire that has bogged down Australia’s energy transition.

In our report released last month, my colleagues and I argue the best way forward is to temporarily put aside a desire for neat, market-driven policies. Instead, we think governments and industry need to accept an approach that could feel ad hoc or disorganised at times in the next decade while coal exits are taking place.

During this time, governments will probably need to intervene regularly to coordinate new transmission, new generation, and coal exits, so the lights stay on.

Once coal is a no longer a substantial part of the market, it will be time for governments to step back. Beyond 2030, electricity demand is expected to keep growing, and the renewables building task will continue.

If current forecasts are right, coal will fall below 10% of our electricity production by 2032. ‘Storage’ includes utility and consumer storage. This is based on AEMO’s 2023 Integrated System Plan, Step Change scenario.
Grattan Institute, CC BY-NC-ND

Governments need to start designing the rules that will govern this new electricity system. It requires asking a fundamental question: what will the respective roles, rights, and responsibilities of energy consumers, industry, and governments be in the future?

Keeping the system reliable will be a fundamentally different task when the amount of electricity generated depends on the weather. Market rules must change to ensure there is always sufficient generation available to meet demand in this new electricity system.

And carbon pricing – a political taboo for so long – will need to be discussed again. Even when the coal generators have closed, a vital share of our electricity will come from gas. The electricity sector needs a clear and enduring carbon price for the energy sector to guide gas-plant entries and exits, and ensure they pay for their emissions.

Governments will need to better integrate and orchestrate all forms of distributed energy resources, from rooftop solar panels to electric vehicles, particularly as electric vehicles become able to use their batteries to help power the grid.

Australia may be able to muddle through the next few years, but voters will not forgive their political leaders if they mess up the post-coal era and fail to deliver the trifecta of clean, affordable, and reliable energy. The hard work starts now.

Read more:
No threat to farm land: just 1,200 square kilometres can fulfil Australia’s solar and wind energy needs Läs mer…

A central focus of this week’s budget is the treasury’s forecast for inflation.

By this time next year, inflation is projected to be back within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range.

Inflation has dropped dramatically from its peak of 7.8% just 18 months ago, but the last mile – getting from the present 3.6% to less than 3% – was always going to be the hardest.

Treasury believes its measures to bring down the prices of rents, medicines and energy will cut the consumer price index by 0.5% percentage points.

But here, the plan hits an obvious snag. Providing relief on these expenses gives people access to the funds they would have spent on them. This, in turn, allows people to spend the money elsewhere, potentially adding to inflation.

So why does the treasury expect inflation to fall?

Some might save the budget handouts

Some people may not spend all of the money they save on rent, energy and medicines.

Reserve Bank researchers have found the government payments most likely to be spent are those that permanently boost incomes,
especially those of lower-income households. The boost to rent assistance is one of those payments.

Temporary bonuses, such as the energy bill price relief, are less likely to be all spent and more likely to be saved.

Again, lower-income households and households with less cash in the bank are likely to spend more of what they are given than better-off households.

In addition, as the budget measures mechanically push down the consumer price index, they will also limit increases in government benefits that are linked to the index. This restrains future spending – and its effect on inflation.

Forecasts show the economy weak

But the main reason the treasury is confident its measures will restrain inflation lies deeper in the budget forecasts.

Two years of rising prices and interest rates have taken their toll on large numbers of Australians. As have two years of the government properly banking extra revenue in budget surpluses rather than providing more support to households.

Treasury has revised down its forecast of real household consumption growth this financial year from 1.5% in the last budget to just 0.25%, despite strong migration.

This means that, on average, each Australian is expected to buy less than they did a year ago, and substantially less than was previously expected.

We’re buying less.
Prostockstudio/Shutterstock

Commonwealth Bank customer data shows working-age Australians have cut back dramatically on spending in the first three months of this year, with only Australians aged 65 or more spending more in real terms. Many of these older Australians have been cushioned by owning their homes and having wealth that earns more when interest rates climb.

This is a pretty grim picture. One redeeming feature (until now) has been that unemployment has stayed low and employment has continued to grow, as it did in April, according to the figures released on Thursday.

But the labour market is showing signs of cooling. Average hours worked have fallen 3.5% over the past year. Fewer employers are planning to hire, fewer are saying they find it hard to get new workers, and fewer are advertising.

Treasury expects unemployment to climb, moving from 4.1% to 4.5% by the middle of next year. Although the unemployment rate would still be low by historical standards, the move up to 4.5% is a critical part of the inflation puzzle.

The budget also paints a pretty weak picture for the global economy, forecasting the longest stretch of below-average economic growth since the early 1990s. This will bear down on the Australian economy, alongside any disruptions to trade as a result of geopolitical tensions around the world.

The lagged impact of the budget tightening over the past two years, growing unemployment and the subdued global outlook are all part of why the treasury is expecting inflation to come down and stay down.

More than mechanical

So, it isn’t just the mechanical effect of the budget measures on recorded prices. According to the treasury, the economy is set to cool as these measures are put in place, making knock-on spending pressures less likely than they would be in better times.

Forecasting is far from a precise science. Forecasting inflation is especially weird, given the role expectations about inflation play in bringing about actual inflation.

And forecasting turning points in the economy – such as when an economy that is overheating turns into one that is heading toward a recession – is especially difficult.

In this week’s budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has made a call that things are set to turn and he needs to change gears.

It’s a brave call, perhaps a fateful one with an election in the coming year. Only time will tell if its the economically wise one. Läs mer…

Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that desegregated public schools, stands in the collective national memory as a turning point in America’s fight for racial justice. But as the U.S. observes its 70th anniversary, Brown also represents something more somber: It ultimately led to thousands of Black teachers losing their jobs.

Before Brown, Black teachers constituted 35% to 50% of the teacher workforce in segregated states. Today, Black people account for just 6.7% of America’s public K-12 teachers, even as Black children make up more than 15% of public school students.

As researchers focused on education policy, teacher diversity, critical research methods and teacher quality, we believe this is an important piece of unfinished business for a country still reckoning with systemic racism. In our view, the best way to fulfill Brown’s promise and confront the national teacher shortage is to hire more teachers of color.

How Black teachers’ ranks rose and fell

Before Brown, Black children often were excluded from public schools or forced into underfunded and unsafe schools. Rather than accept these conditions, many Black communities pooled limited resources to build private schools of their own, buy curricular materials and hire Black teachers.

Conditions were vastly unequal to those for white children at the time, but the presence of Black teachers provided Black children with deep value and care.

Prior to 1954, there were about 82,000 Black teachers in the United States. A decade later, with hundreds of segregated schools closing, more than 38,000 Black teachers had been fired by white school leaders. As the community-run schools for Black children disappeared following the end of legalized segregation, so too did the Black educators who staffed them.

Brown had mandated integration for students but said nothing of their educators.

The importance of Black teachers

In the decades since, parents, social justice advocates and researchers have documented the importance of teachers of color and pleaded for teacher workforce diversity. They argue that Black teachers support student learning and social and emotional development of children of color in ways that lead to better outcomes.

Black students are more likely to attend college when they have Black teachers at the K-12 level.
SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images

One study found the presence of Black math teachers increased the likelihood that Black students enroll in rigorous math classes. Another found that Black students taught by at least one Black teacher from kindergarten through third grade were 13% more likely to graduate from high school and 19% more likely to attend college than same-race peers who did not have a Black teacher.

Still, the teacher workforce remains stubbornly white-dominated. Why? Research shows problematic certification measures, adverse working conditions and discriminatory hiring practices contribute to keeping Black people from becoming teachers or keeping their teaching positions.

Certification exams are barriers to entry

Obtaining a professional license is a critical milestone in a teacher’s career. Yet licensure policies and exams long have kept Black teachers out, similar to race-based policies such as literacy tests that once prevented Black people from voting in the segregated South.

By several measures, standardized tests have been found to be biased against people of color. Research shows they contain culturally biased questions that privilege white test-takers.

What’s more, certification and licensing exams prevent the entry of Black people into teaching and determine which teachers are retained. As a result, from 1984 to 1989, about 21,500 Black teachers lost their jobs, according to one study of the impact of reliance on licensure exams and policies.

This gatekeeping function is especially troublesome because other studies show exam results are poor predictors of teacher effectiveness. In one study, Black teachers in North Carolina with low exam scores nonetheless had positive outcomes on Black student achievement.

Difficult work conditions lead to turnover

Black teachers have the highest rate of turnover among teachers, both white and nonwhite. When asked to reflect on their careers, longtime Black teachers say they face constant racist microaggressions from fellow teachers, non-Black parents and district personnel.

Black male teachers in particular say their expertise is overlooked and that they are forced to play disciplinarian for Black boys. Other studies show Black teachers are systematically sorted into schools with fewer resources, chronic turnover and leadership instability.

Last-in-first-out hiring policies exacerbate the issue. Layoffs of this nature disproportionately affect the students most often taught by beginning teachers and teachers of color.

All of this makes teaching a precarious profession for Black educators.

Discriminatory hiring practices

Teacher hiring practices have made this cycle, and they can break it, too.

Black teachers are more likely to be hired at schools with Black principals.
Kali9/E+ via Getty Images

One study found equally qualified Black teacher applicants receive fewer job offers than white candidates. When hired, Black teachers are more likely to be selected by principals of color, and they, too, are a disproportionately small percentage of school leaders.

Principals say they seek teachers who best fit their school culture. Yet research shows that definitions of “fit” rely on subjective traits and personal attributes, and often this means excluding Black teachers.

The nation faces a massive teacher shortage, but there is no shortage of potential teachers of color. Seven decades after Brown, it is a lack of willingness to hire and retain them that is missing. Läs mer…

Last week, police descended on the University of Calgary campus with riot gear like shields, tear gas, batons and rubber bullets to forcibly remove protesters from an encampment set up on campus. According to the University of Calgary, the community has the right to free speech and protest, but temporary structures and “overnight protests are not permitted” due to safety concerns. The university said students were given a written trespass warning.

The encampment was one of many that have sprung up on university campuses across North America (and globally), as student protesters demand action from their governments and universities on the atrocities in Gaza.

Their demands include calling on their institutions to financially divest assets tied to Israel or connected to companies supplying weapons and technology to Israel’s government.

Collectively, they are one of the largest mass protests in recent history.

At the heart of it is: 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas and 250 taken hostage on Oct. 7 and the subsequent and ongoing attack on Gaza by Israel. According to the United Nations, that onslaught has resulted in the killing of 35,000 Palestinians and famine conditions for the majority of Gaza.

What we’re seeing across the country are thousands of students risking their future, refusing to stop speaking their minds and demanding more ethical actions from their governments and universities.

A supporter enters the encampment on McGill University campus, in Montréal, May 13, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

In many cases — including at the University of Calgary, as well as Columbia University in New York City, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT in Cambridge — we’ve watched police descend, sometimes using violence to disperse demonstrators.

It’s been hard to watch for a lot of us. But Pratim Sengupta didn’t just watch it — he lived it. He is a professor of learning sciences at the University of Calgary, where he says social justice is at the centre of every project he works on. Last week, as police descended on his campus, Sengupta was there. He’s one of our guests on today’s Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast.

Book cover for ‘Are You Calling Me a Racist?’
NYU Press

Our other guest is a university leader who has been watching what’s been happening at University of Calgary and other campuses from afar. She’s my sister, Sarita Srivastava. She is currently Dean of the faculty of arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). She has also just finished a run as Provost, the top academic officer of the school. Srivastava is also a scholar in sociology with a focus on race and social movements, a longtime activist herself and author of the recently published book, Are you Calling Me a Racist? Why We Need to Stop Talking about Race and Start Making Real Antiracist Change.

Together, we look at what’s been happening on campuses across North America — and another way forward than the one we’ve been witnessing.

Resources

“Encampments at Canadian university campuses” (CBC)

“Quebec Superior Court judge rejects McGill injunction request to remove encampment” (CBC)

An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 2013)

“U.S. Student Pro-Palestine Demonstrations Remain Overwhelmingly Peaceful” – Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)

“Anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, and solidarity: considerations towards an analytic of praxis” (Studies in Political Economy, May 2024 by Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban)

Go deeper

Read more:
Divesting university endowments: Easier demanded than done

Read more:
What students protesting Israel’s Gaza siege want — and how their demands on divestment fit into the BDS movement

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts (transcripts available), Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes.

Join the Conversation on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and use #DontCallMeResilient.

Don’t Call Me Resilient is produced by a team that includes Ateqah Khaki (associate producer), Jennifer Moroz (consulting producer) and Krish Dineshkumar (sound designer). Läs mer…

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has called for a rescue plan for some of the UK’s most vulnerable young people. There are, he said, 3.4 million children born after 2010 who are in poverty and whose development has been affected by the austerity policies of Conservative-led governments.

The interventions he recommends include an expanded Sure Start programme in partnership with foundations and corporate investors, support for unemployed and low-paid people to find higher-paid jobs and an extension to the government’s household support fund that is set to end in October.

It’s true there is a cohort of young people who haven’t had the forms of support that existed before austerity. It is also true that they need government support to avoid falling into, or being unable to escape, serious social issues like poverty and ill health. There is an intuitive case to be made for early years interventions like Sure Start, more effective employment support and emergency funding for people facing destitution.

But the lesson we should take from the austerity years is that these kinds of piecemeal, ad hoc measures are extremely vulnerable when the government inevitably changes and any progress is, consequently, easily reversed. This is because targeted spending to help a relatively small proportion of the population often breeds resentment. Our research shows it can even result in the beneficiaries being framed as an undeserving out-group by hostile politicians and media.

Having criteria for financial support makes systems difficult to administer and creates disincentives for economic, social and health-promoting activity. After all, there are good reasons to stay sick when getting well may mean being forced into harmful, poorly paid and insecure work. And means testing ignores those who are under intense financial strain but don’t fall into outdated definitions of poverty. It also requires extensive bureaucracy to classify claimants.

As repeated attempts to overhaul sickness and disability benefits show, having stricter criteria does not reduce the number of claimants.

Our research has found that it’s far better to have a broader approach that provides security to the whole population through policies that the government can’t afford, politically, to take away. The safety net needs to be there when people fall, not when they’re trying to get up again.

Basic income, in which every permanent resident is regularly provided with cash even if they are in work, can achieve this. It is both affordable and politically feasible. We have even shown that schemes with lower payment levels are more effective at alleviating poverty than the policies pursued by Gordon Brown during the New Labour governments and the measures he is calling for now.

Stress and poor mental health

Crucially, aside from reducing the stigma and exclusion caused by targeted payments, universal systems provide a secure and predictable income in ways that are almost as important to people’s wellbeing as the amount of financial support.

It is this lack of predictability and security that has been so damaging to young people (and indeed a large number of people under 55). Put simply, financial insecurity has brought about rapidly rising rates of stress and associated health conditions among those too young to access pensions and age-related benefits to help with things like housing and energy bills.

Financial insecurity was already rising before austerity measures were introduced. One of the architects of the last Labour governments, Liam Byrne, has declared New Labour economics “history”, denouncing its contribution to wealth inequality in Britain.

It is not just a small group of young people who should be targeted with a £3 billion investment. Everyone in the UK has been the victim of an increasingly dysfunctional economic model. It is a mistake to believe that its effects are restricted to those born after 2010.

In the UK, the social security necessary for people to take risks and build the enterprises, activities and services we need is a distant memory for adults. Young people respond with incredulity to things like the education maintenance allowance that Britons used to enjoy.

There’s a strong case for universal early-years support.
Gary L Hider/Shutterstock

As such, a £3 billion investment will make little difference. It might seem like a small budget is less likely to arouse public opposition. But because it’s so little and because it is inadequate, it is necessarily reversible and likely to be cut. It’s just not enough to make a big impact. It is also targeted at young people in poverty, a group likely to be lower on the agenda for some older voters, whose interests often appear to be the central focus of the main political parties.

Policies like universally available early-years support and nursery and pre-school access, combined with basic income, are common sense and pragmatic. Our modelling suggests that only a broad programme of investment that reaches everyone in the country can produce the economic transformation the UK needs. It is common sense to strive for a long-term plan that gives adults the social security to care for and provide opportunities for “austerity’s children” and for those younger people to realise the potential they clearly possess.

If the UK wants a bright future, it has to to act now. Läs mer…

In the battle against diseases, the human body boasts an intricate defence network capable of identifying and neutralising threats – the immune system.
It serves as a guardian, constantly patrolling the body to keep it safe from invaders like bacteria, viruses, and even cancer cells.

Scientists are harnessing the power of the body’s natural defence mechanism to develop immunotherapy, revolutionising the landscape of medical treatment. It enhances, redirects, or restores the body’s immune response to recognise and eliminate abnormal cells, such as cancer cells or those responsible for autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes.

Immunotherapy, however, is expensive. So, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are still the primary cancer treatments for most patients. But these conventional methods can damage healthy tissues as well as abnormal cells. They also tend to have debilitating side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, tiredness and hair loss.

Immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to combat diseases with precision and minimal harm by blocking molecules – called checkpoint inhibitors – like PD-L1 or CTLA-4 that cancer cells use to turn off the immune systems.

Checkpoint inhibitors are a Nobel prize-winning discovery and they’re now one of the most widely used forms of immunotherapy. They work by blocking surface proteins that prevent immune cells from attacking cancer cells. By lifting the brakes on the immune response, these inhibitors unleash the body’s natural defence mechanism against cancer.

Hot and cold tumours

Tumours are often categorised as “hot” or “cold” based on their interaction with the immune system.

Hot tumours are characterised by a robust immune response, with infiltrating immune cells actively engaging with cancer cells. In contrast, cold tumours exhibit minimal immune activity, often evading detection by the immune system.

Immunotherapy has worked in hot tumours such as melanoma, kidney cancer and lung cancers. However, many tumours – such as most types of colon cancer – respond poorly to immunotherapy because they’re able to evade immune surveillance.

However, immunotherapies are emerging that could expand the benefits to more cancer patients, including those with cold tumours. These approaches include combination therapies using more effective immune checkpoint inhibitors with other agents, including chemotherapy and drugs in trials, to prime the immune system and enhance tumour recognition.

There are other approaches too.

CAR-T cell therapy

CAR-T cell therapy involves extracting a patient’s immune cells and genetically engineering them to produce chimeric antigen receptors – proteins on the surface of the immune cells that recognise cancer – before reintroducing them into the bloodstream. Once inside the body, the modified immune cells target and destroy cancer cells. This treatment has been used in tumour conditions like lymphomas or leukaemias but now these are moving into other cancer types.

Invariant natural killer cells

A 2024 trial used “invariant natural killer cells”, which help coordinate the body’s immune response, as immunotherapy during very severe infections, when people affected by a viral attack on their lungs could no longer breathe. The trial found that most patients recovered despite being critically unwell.

Unlike traditional vaccines that prevent infectious diseases, cancer vaccines stimulate the immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells. Cancer vaccines may contain tumour-specific markers called antigens or genetic material to train the immune system to target cancerous cells.

This means that immunotherapy can offer truly personalised medicine. There’s data, for example, on cancer vaccines from clinical trials based on the changes or mutations of a specific patient’s tumour.

Benefits beyond cancer treatment

While immunotherapy has gained widespread recognition for its efficacy in cancer treatment, its applications could extend far beyond oncology. By harnessing the immune system’s ability to distinguish self from non-self, immunotherapy offers promising avenues for combating a diverse range of ailments.

For example, researchers are exploring its potential in treating autoimmune diseases, allergic disorders, infectious diseases, and even neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

The treatment can be highly effective but it’s not everyone. For reasons we don’t yet fully understand, some people are resistant to treatment. Immunotherapy isn’t free of side effects either. Autoimmune complications can include colon and lung tissue inflammation. The current high cost of immunotherapy can prove prohibitive for many potential patients. Additionally, uptake of the treatment is limited by patient selection – choosing who would most benefit from this treatment and developing personalised treatment regimens remain critical for maximising results.

Ongoing research into immunotherapy could herald an era of targeted and tailored treatments. These include oncolytic viruses that can attack cancer directly, and microbiome modulation, which uses bacteria to enhance the activity of checkpoint inhibitors.

As our understanding of immunology continues to deepen and technology advances, immunotherapy could offer precision medicine and personalised treatments for a host of previously incurable conditions – the challenge is to make it available and accessible to more patients. Läs mer…

The past decade has seen an explosion of new research into some of the most fascinating sounds in the sea: the vocalisations of whales and dolphins.

Scientists have uncovered how humpback whales learn songs from neighbouring populations, so that these songs travel from western Australia to South America. They discovered bowhead whales singing 184 different songs over three years, and learned how bottlenose dolphins use signature whistles to shore up alliances.

Researchers have also showed that sperm whale vocal dialects are more different the more they are in contact with each other across the entire Pacific, suggesting these dialects function as ethnic markers. Advancing technology in the form of drones, acoustic tags and recorders mean such insights are accumulating rapidly.

Much of what whales and dolphins signal seems to relate to identity within social contexts. This can include identifying alliance members, or members of long-term social units and clans, or a particular population or species. Vocal communication also builds and reinforces social bonds and coordinates cooperative foraging.

We have also seen the resurrection of an old idea: that hiding behind all these findings is really a human-like language. If we can just find the right tools, the thinking goes, we can decode it and start talking to whales like we talk to our neighbours.

The hottest new tool is AI. Reading some of the press around the topic, you could be forgiven for thinking such conversations are imminent.

Techniques for studying whales and dolphins are becoming more sophisticated.
Nick Starichenko/Shutterstock

Two recent studies stand out for the dramatic claims they make about whale language. One details a humpback responding to the playback of a call with a similar one (but then ultimately losing interest).

This study’s importance was to demonstrate that such playback studies are possible, because playing back an animal’s calls and observing their reaction is a tested method for uncovering the meanings and functions of signals.

It’s not, however, the first playback to whales or dolphins, and neither, as the scientists claimed, were they “conversing” with the whale. If this was a “conversation”, then we’ve been having more insightful “conversations” with other species for decades – there have been over 600 such playback studies on birds.

The second study is a detailed analysis of patterns of clicks, called codas, produced by sperm whales. It shows that the whales appear to synchronously change the tempo of their codas when using them in exchanges with each other.

Such synchronous chorusing is not unique to whales. It happens across the animal kingdom, from fireflies to primates. Few animal displays are as breathtakingly synchronised as the four-part chorusing of plain-tailed wrens, while happy wrens use pair-specific duets to signal commitment to mates.

Nonetheless, the sperm whale findings are exciting, and fit in with our general understanding of codas having a social bonding function. But the scientists also tried to force these tempo changes into a “phonetic alphabet”, “like the International Phonetic Alphabet for human languages”, and it is this latter claim that has grabbed headlines.

There is, however, no evidence that sperm whales use these different tempos in anything like the complex sequences that characterise human language. We find better evidence for complex sequencing rules in Bengal finches. I wonder why we don’t see headlines about phonetic alphabets or imminent conversations with these birds?

Don’t believe the hype

We’ve been closely studying cetacean vocal behaviour in the wild and in captivity for several decades now. Compare that to how quickly you or I can start exchanging ideas with another person we don’t share a language with – because we use our theory of mind to understand each other as communicative agents.

If language was there, I think we would have found it by now. The most powerful language detector we know of sits between our ears, and we used it to effortlessly learn the language of our childhood as toddlers. As the story of Helen Keller shows, language finds a way.

Persuading the BBC not to describe sperm whale clicks as “language” in their Blue Planet II series was the highlight of my science communication career. Why?

A lot of complex communication is going on in cetaceans, much of which we still don’t understand. However, I am convinced that we should drop the stifling and anthropocentric focus on language. It crowds out other perspectives on what is going on – for example, the relationship between rhythm-based communication and music might be a better way to understand the bonding function of coda synchrony in sperm whales.

We should be wary of ranking species on a single dimension relative to humans, as if all evolution is a path to something like us (much like early anthropologists ranked societies by their progress toward western “perfection”). Instead, let’s take ourselves off the top of the ladder and see other animals as distinct branches of an evolutionary tree.

Both of the research groups promoting talking to whales are linked to, or name themselves after, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (Seti). The leaders of one group, Project Ceti, argue that understanding whale “language” will help us when we meet ET.

Whale communication research has been treated as a test run for talking with aliens.
Josemaria Toscano/Shutterstock

We’ve been here before. John Lilly also leaned into Seti, promoting the idea that dolphins were an alien intelligence with a complex language. His weak evidence ultimately evaporated in a cloud of hype and hallucinogens.

Unfortunately, his claims kept the important discovery of bottlenose dolphin signature whistles in the shadows for far too long, and cast a cloud of disrepute over the entire field of cetacean communication that took decades to disperse. It would be tragic if today’s important insights suffered the same fate because of irresponsible claims and a narrow focus on language.

We should strive to understand and value these awesome creatures for what they are, not for how they might sooth our cosmic loneliness. Läs mer…

A mighty river is flowing out of the Amazon rainforest, and it’s not the one you’re thinking of. In the first kilometre above the forest canopy, a “flying river” is transporting moisture evaporated from Amazonian trees southwards along the Andes mountains towards Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state in Brazil.

Almost the entire state – an area larger than the UK – is currently affected by unprecedented floods. The flying river has acted like a firehose, fuelling five months of rainfall in just two weeks, further enhanced by a strong jetstream located in just the wrong position above the region. And, based on future projections of climate change, this situation will likely get worse as the temperature rises.

Since the beginning of May, those massive floods in Rio Grande do Sul have made world headlines. In the state’s capital, Porto Alegre, the Guaíba river is more than five metres above its normal level, breaking a record set in 1941. The death toll is 149 and growing, with 108 still missing. The floods have displaced more than 600,000 people and directly or indirectly affected more than 2 million, in 446 of the 497 municipalities in the state.

In various municipalities, the water and energy systems collapsed, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes with no power or drinking water. Schools suspended classes and the state’s main roads and airport are closed.

Rio Grande do Sul has been hit by a series of major floods.
Maxi Franzoi / Sipa US / Alamy

While the southern part of the country is under water, a heatwave caused record-breaking temperatures in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. For scale, this is similar to all of northern France being flooded while Barcelona swelters in 40°C heat.

This is not the first time the southernmost part of Brazil has been affected by such large-scale disasters. Similar weather systems, featuring moisture from the Amazon near the surface and the jetstream crossing the Andes high above, were associated with floods between September and November 2023, as well as major floods in 1997 and 1983.

A combination of factors makes these floods more likely. For instance, warm ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific (still currently the case, even as El Niño starts to decay) is associated with these weather systems, as are abnormally warm tropical Atlantic temperatures, which add more moisture to the air brought south in the flying river.

Things to come

Is this event a sign of things to come for southern Brazil? As the atmosphere warms, it can carry more water, which means there is the potential to form massive clouds and heavy rains. This is a bit like buying a more absorbent sponge: it can hold more water but when you squeeze, more water falls out.

In fact, we are already observing this. Compared with the floods in 1941, this time the excessive rainfall was concentrated in a much shorter period, meaning the water rose much faster. Future climate projections already indicate that a warmer atmosphere results in an intensification of the flying rivers from the Amazon into south Brazil and adjacent regions, and more precipitation.

We have analysed results from state-of-the-art climate models that are able to simulate storms across South America in detail, just a few kilometres across. These indicate that extreme rainfall like that happening now is likely to become more frequent in the future, and such risks may in fact be underestimated by the previous generation of climate models.

These simulations, run under UK-Brazil and South America-US partnerships, are being used to assess such risks in southern Brazil and right across South America. Early results suggest that, as in Africa, parts of Europe, North America, India and elsewhere, short but very intense rainfall is likely to happen more often as the planet warms, irrespective of the unique weather systems that may affect particular regions. Läs mer…

Our family dog used to have a rather noticeable extra eyelid that became especially apparent when he dozed off, usually upturned on the rug. This is the fleshy curtain seen at the corner of each eye, closest to the nose. It’s also commonly called the nictitating (literally “blinking”) membrane.

You may have noticed these “third” eyelids on your pets appear occasionally, perhaps during their sleepy moments, or when they’re enjoying a bit of affection. But what does this unusual structure actually do? And why don’t we have one as well?

Third eyelids sweep in a generally horizontal direction across the eye, instead of vertically as the upper and lower lids do. They’re actually a specialised fold of the conjunctiva – the thin, moist membrane that coats the other lids and the exposed white of your eye (the sclera). They’re found in many mammalian species, but are not unique to them. Birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish can also have a third eyelid.

The structure varies too; in many species a cartilage skeleton provides support, while others contain glands that secrete tears. This variation is probably to help animals adapt to multiple different environments – to the sea, the air and even arboreal habitats in trees.

Several different studies have examined third eyelids to help understand their role in hedgehogs, kangaroos and brown bears.

And research has shown the third eyelid functions much as the upper and lower lids do. It protects the eye, and sweeps away any invading debris. It also distributes tears across the eye’s surface, keeping it moist and preventing ulcers forming. This is particularly important in brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs, like pugs and King Charles spaniels, whose protruding eyes are not as well protected compared to other breeds.

In the wild

Both domestic and wild animals (including species from canine, feline and equine families) need eye shielding and protection from foreign bodies. Wild animals may need them even more, since they might be exploring grasslands, or contending with bites and scratches from prey or rival animals.

Preventing, trapping and removing debris is crucial for desert animals like camels, where sand and dirt might damage the eye. Their third eyelid is partially transparent and this helps camels retain some vision in the middle of a sandstorm, while covering their eyes.

In bushlands, aardvarks also have third eyelids, perhaps to protect their eyes as they root around for insects.

The third eyelid may offer protection from water, and a translucent membrane can aid underwater vision of aquatic animals, including manatees (curiously, manatees come from the order Afrotheria, which also includes aardvarks). Larger species of sharks (blues for instance) typically protect their eyes with their third eyelid when hunting and feeding.

For birds, fast air currents can prove equally damaging. So, in birds of prey like falcons, the eyelid is used during rapid flight in hunting. Often air gusts will set off third eyelid blinking in these birds (including owls) as a natural protective reflex.

This crow’s third eyelid is visible in this photo.
Fotograf Julian/Shutterstock

In other avian species, it might protect against damage from sharp-beaked offspring. Imagine a bird returning with a prize of food to a nestful of voraciously hungry chicks, all pecking and scrabbling to get their share.

Studies suggest third eyelids play a unique role in woodpeckers, whose skulls undergo vibration trauma when drilling a tree trunk with their beak. Two problems arise as a result of this forceful head banging – damage to the softer eye tissue, and sawdust being thrown into them. In this case, the third eyelid may act as both a seatbelt and a visor.

In polar regions, where the white landscape reflects sunlight, ultraviolet rays can damage the eye. This can lead to temporary loss of vision – a condition known as snow blindness. So it’s possible that some arctic animals like polar bears have third eyelids that absorb UV light. There’s no established evidence of this yet, but their third eyelids are clear, assisting them in being skilled marine hunters.

Evolutionary loss

Humans and most primates (except lemurs and the calabar angwantibo, from the Lorisidae family) have evolved to the point where a proper third eyelid is no longer needed. Human and primate eyes are less likely to be damaged by hunting, rivalry and the environment. Plus, human eyes are highly sensitive and able to recognise and respond to danger by closing more quickly.

But the third eyelid isn’t entirely gone. Humans have a remnant of it called the plica semilunaris. This crescent-moon fold can be seen at the corner of our eyes too. Have a look yourself in the mirror.

Some scientists have argued the plica can still help drain tears. There are two small ducts at the angle of our eyelids, which allow excess and old tears to escape into the nasal cavity. That explains why you get a runny nose when you cry.

But would getting our true third eyelid back be of any use to us? Maybe the alien in Men in Black could offer an opinion. Perhaps it could allow us to naturally keep our eyes cleaner, less irritated, or dislodge that contact lens that won’t come out.

We’ll just have to accept we don’t share the clever nature of our pets’ third eyelids. But then we also can’t compete with their night vision, acute hearing or sense of smell. It’s a long list. Läs mer…

The US president, Joe Biden, has announced new tariffs on imports of electric vehicles, solar equipment and batteries from China. The move comes a month after he called for higher tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium products, and said that his administration would investigate Chinese shipbuilding.

Tariffs will increase from 25% to 100% on electric vehicles, from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, and from 25% to 50% on solar cells. Tariff rates on certain steel and aluminium products will also more than triple to 25%, up from 7.5% or less.

With the 2024 US presidential election drawing closer, both Biden and the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, are keen to convince voters they are tough on China. In an interview with Time magazine in April, Trump suggested that tariffs of more than 60% on Chinese goods were part of his plan, should he be elected.

They argue the tariffs will stop cheap electric vehicles and other products flooding the US market. Following the announcement of the tariff hikes, the US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, insisted the tariffs would protect American jobs.

However, the existing tariffs on imports from China are already prohibitive, and have had a significant effect on sales of such products in the US. So, raising tariffs even further will probably have very little impact on US consumption.

What it may mean is a full-blown trade war, which could hurt American consumers. China immediately said it was opposed to the hikes, and has vowed to take “resolute” retaliatory measures.

Biden speaks at the White House event where he announced tariff hikes on US$18 billion of imports from China.
Samuel Corum/Pool/EPA

The decision to raise tariffs is a response to the Chinese government’s policy of subsidising Chinese products, such as electric vehicles. These subsidies ensure Chinese companies do not have to turn a profit, which according to the Biden administration gives them an unfair advantage in global trade.

This sounds like a fairly simple rationale – but there are a few complexities. First, the US and many other western countries use the same type of policies. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act, a subsidy programme that aims to promote investment in green technologies, includes the clean vehicle tax credit for purchases of certain electric vehicles.

Measuring subsidies can be difficult. But a recent article by the Kiel Institute, an economic research institute and thinktank, suggested Chinese subsidies are much higher than those of countries such as the US.

So, the argument for levying new tariffs is not that China uses subsidies, but that they are much higher than those used by the US government. That isn’t quite such a simple message for the electorate, and the numbers could be debated.

Second, there are World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to deal with such matters. In March, China requested WTO dispute consultations on the US clean vehicle tax credits, arguing that the policy discriminates against Chinese goods.

A request for consultation is the first step in a dispute settlement process, and we are likely to see a new request regarding the latest US tariff increases. However, the WTO’s appellate body, which hears cases brought by WTO members, is in crisis. Since 2017, the US has been blocking the appointment of new judges to the appellate body, due to concerns around US sovereignty and the WTO’s judicial overreach.

In doing so, it has limited the ability of the WTO to deal with these types of dispute. Under normal circumstances, the US would be expected to take its complaint about Chinese subsidies to the WTO, just like China has done. Bypassing the WTO in such matters is only limiting the role and effectiveness of the organisation, risking damaging cycles of tariffs and retaliation.

Third, although higher tariffs are unlikely to reduce the volume of US imports from China significantly in the short term, they may force companies selling to the US market to adjust their supply chains in the future. To avoid these steep tariffs, manufacturers may be incentivised to shift production towards US allies such as Mexico.

There’s a new trade war brewing

Given the WTO is unlikely to be able to resolve this dispute, the tariff hikes may well spark a trade war involving rounds of retaliatory tariffs by both the US and China.

The US raised tariffs on imports from China substantially during the Trump administration, launching a trade war between the two countries in 2018. Careful observers will note that the tariff increases seen in this period were never reduced to their pre-trade war levels.

In 2020, while Trump was still president, the US and China signed a deal to ease the trade war. But the deal didn’t include tariff reduction commitments, and instead established new US tariffs on imports from China for the foreseeable future.

Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, during a dinner at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2017.
Kim Chen / Alamy Stock Photo

The fact that tariff rates are already high is an issue for a US administration wishing to appear tough on China. One option is to follow the latest policy announcement and raise already high tariffs further. This is unlikely to change the amount of Chinese goods that US consumers buy, but it will create headlines as Biden looks to convince voters he is doing all he can to protect American producers.

Another option, albeit a less appealing one, would be to raise the proportion of imported goods that are subject to these high tariffs. The downside of this option is that it will start to hurt domestic consumers. The goods currently exempt from these high tariffs tend to be items for which Americans can’t find easy substitutes, such as smartphones and game consoles.

These fresh tariffs probably won’t have any significant effects in the short term. But in the future, global supply chains will adjust, and we might expect to see manufacturing shift from China to countries like Mexico. Läs mer…