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How tracking menopause symptoms can give women more control over their health

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/deborah-lancastle-1452267">Deborah Lancastle</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-wales-1586">University of South Wales</a> Menopause can cause more symptoms than hot flushes alone. And some of your symptoms and reactions might be due to the menopause, even if you are still having periods. Research shows that keeping track of those symptoms can help to alleviate them. People sometimes talk about the menopause as though it were a single event that happens when you are in your early 50s, which is <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/symptoms-causes/syc-20353397#:%7E:text=Menopause%20is%20the%20time%20that,is%20a%20natural%20biological%20process.">the average time</a> to have your last period. But the menopause generally stretches between the ages of 45 and 55. And some women will experience an earlier “medical” menopause because of surgery to remove the womb or ovaries. The menopause often happens at one of the busiest times of life. You might have teenagers at home or be supporting grown-up children, have elderly parents, be employed and have a great social life. If you feel exhausted, hot and bothered, irritable and can’t sleep well, you might be tempted to think that it is because you never get a minute’s peace. But that is why monitoring symptoms is important. <a href="https://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/Abstract/2023/03000/Symptom_monitoring_improves_physical_and_emotional.7.aspx">My team recently tested</a> the effects of tracking symptoms and emotions during the menopause. We asked women to rate 30 physical and 20 emotional symptoms of the menopause. The physical and psychological symptoms included poor concentration, problems with digesting food, stress and itchy skin, as well as the obvious symptoms like hot flushes and night sweats. Women tracked positive emotions like happiness and contentment, and negative emotions like feeling sad, isolated and angry. There were two groups of women in this study. One group recorded their symptoms and emotions every day for two weeks. The other group recorded their symptoms and emotions once at the beginning of the fortnight and once at the end. The results showed that the women who monitored their symptoms and emotions every day reported much lower negative emotions, physical symptoms and loneliness at the end of two weeks than at the beginning, compared to the other group. As well as this, although the loneliness scores of the group who monitored every day were lower than the other group, women in both groups said that being in the study and thinking about symptoms helped them feel less lonely. Simply knowing that other women were having similar experiences seemed to help. One participant said: “I feel more normal that other women are doing the same survey and are probably experiencing similar issues, especially the emotional and mental ones.” <h2>Why does monitoring symptoms help?</h2> One reason why tracking might help is that rating symptoms can help you notice changes and patterns in how you feel. This could encourage you to seek help. Another reason is that noticing changes in symptoms might help you link the change to what you have been doing. For example, looking at whether symptoms spike after eating certain foods or are better after exercise. This could mean that you change your behaviour in ways that improve your symptoms. Many menopause symptoms are known as “non-specific” symptoms. This is because they can also be symptoms of mental health, thyroid or heart problems. It is important not to think your symptoms are “just” the menopause. You should always speak to your doctor if you are worried about your health. Another good thing about monitoring symptoms is that you can take information about how often you experience symptoms and how bad they are to your GP appointment. This can help the doctor decide what might be the problem. Websites such as <a href="https://healthandher.com">Health and Her</a> and <a href="https://www.balance-menopause.com">Balance</a> offer symptom monitoring tools that can help you track what is happening to your physical and emotional health. There are several apps you can use on your phone, too. Or you might prefer to note symptoms and how bad they are in a notebook every day.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209004/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/deborah-lancastle-1452267">Deborah Lancastle</a>, Associate Professor of Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-wales-1586">University of South Wales</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tracking-menopause-symptoms-can-give-women-more-control-over-their-health-209004">original article</a>.

Body

Tracking the shift in meanings of ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ over time

The mental health terms ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ have become increasingly pathologised since the 1970s, according to analysis by Australian researchers of more than a million academic and general text sources. <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288027" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Publishing</a> in PLOS ONE, psychology and computer science researchers from the University of Melbourne tracked the frequency and meaning of the concepts ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ from 1970 to 2018, and words that occurred in their vicinity. Using natural language processing, the team analysed more than 630 million words across 871,340 academic psychology papers, as well as 400,000 texts from general sources such as magazines, newspapers and non-fiction books. Paper co-author psychologist Professor Nicholas Haslam has a long standing interest in how mental health terms change their meanings over time, particularly the way harm-related words like bullying, abuse and trauma tend to expand over time, incorporating new, and often less severe kinds of experiences. Haslam says that trend reflects progressive social change and a rising sensitivity to harm and suffering in our culture. “We emphasize [that’s] mostly a good thing,” he says. <iframe title="The Emoji Squad: The Mysterious Group Behind the Little Icons We Love 🤝" src="https://omny.fm/shows/huh-science-explained/the-emoji-squad-the-mysterious-group-behind-the-li/embed?in_playlist=podcast&style=Cover" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0"></iframe> The terms ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ were selected for analysis as prevalent, prominent mental health concepts. The researchers expected the emotional intensity and severity of the two terms to reduce over time as the frequency of their use increased. That expectation was informed by previous research using a similar approach, co-authored by Haslam and <a href="https://sciendo.com/article/10.58734/plc-2023-0002" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">publishing in</a> Sciendo, where increasing use of the word ‘trauma’ since the 1970s was associated with a shift in meaning including a broadening of use and declining severity. They hypothesised a similar trend for ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’. “Well, we didn’t find what we expected,” Haslam says. Contrary to expectation, the emotional severity associated with anxiety and depression increased linearly over time. The authors say this is possibly due to growing pathologising of the terms, given their analysis shows use of the words increasingly linked to clinical concepts. In particular, the terms ‘disorder’ and ‘symptom’ have become more commonly associated with ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ in more recent decades, the paper says, finding similar patterns in both the academic and general texts. Anxiety and depression were also increasingly used together, compared to use in the ‘70s where the terms were more likely to refer to separate things. Haslam says, these shifts in meaning could reflect growing awareness of mental health in society and more research is needed into the implications, he says. But he notes this is an area where there can be “mixed blessings”. On the one hand, greater awareness of anxiety and depression can help people to seek appropriate treatment; and on the other, pathologising more ordinary variations in mood can risk become self-fulfilling or self-defeating. At a more systemic level, pathologising the milder end of the mental health spectrum could risk leading to a misallocation of resources away from the more severe and urgent mental health problems, Haslam says. Image credits: Getty Images <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/social-sciences/tracking-the-shift-in-meanings-of-anxiety-and-depression-over-time/">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/petra-stock">Petra Stock</a>.

Mind

Too big, too heavy and too slow to change: road transport is way off track for net zero

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robin-smit-594126">Robin Smit</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-technology-sydney-936">University of Technology Sydney</a> The need to cut the emissions driving climate change is urgent, but it’s proving hard to decarbonise road transport in Australia. Its share of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions <a href="https://ageis.climatechange.gov.au/">doubled</a> from 8% in 1990 to 16% in 2020. New vehicles sold in Australia have <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-thought-australian-cars-were-using-less-fuel-new-research-shows-we-were-wrong-122378">barely improved</a> average emissions performance for the last decade or so. The federal government <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/publications/australias-emissions-projections-2022">publishes</a> emission forecasts to 2035 – 15 years short of 2050, the net-zero target date. Our <a href="https://www.transport-e-research.com/_files/ugd/d0bd25_7a6920bdd9e8448385863a7c23ec9ecf.pdf">newly published study</a> forecasts road transport emissions through to 2050. The estimated reduction by 2050, 35–45% of pre-COVID levels in 2019, falls well short of what’s needed. Our findings highlight three obstacles to achieving net zero. These are: Australia’s delay in switching to electric vehicles; growing sales of large, heavy vehicles such as SUVs and utes; and uncertainties about hydrogen as a fuel, especially for freight transport. These findings point to policy actions that could get road transport much closer to net zero. <h2>How was this worked out?</h2> Emissions and energy use vary from vehicle to vehicle, so reliable forecasting requires a detailed breakdown of the on-road fleet. Our study <a href="https://www.transport-e-research.com/software">used</a> the Australian Fleet Model and the net zero vehicle emission model (n0vem). The study focused on so-called <a href="https://www.cummins.com/news/2022/05/26/well-wheel-emissions-simplified">well-to-wheel emissions</a> from fuel production, distribution and use while driving. These activities account for about 75–85% of vehicle emissions. (<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-climate-friendly-is-an-electric-car-it-all-comes-down-to-where-you-live-179003">Life-cycle assessment</a> estimates “cradle-to-grave” emissions, including vehicle manufacture and disposal.) Working with European Union colleagues, our emissions simulation drew on an updated <a href="https://www.transport-e-research.com/_files/ugd/d0bd25_7a6920bdd9e8448385863a7c23ec9ecf.pdf">EU scenario</a> (EU-27) showing the changes in the EU vehicle fleet needed to meet the latest (proposed) CO₂ targets. Our study assumed Australia will be ten years behind the EU across all vehicle classes. We further modified the scenario to properly reflect Australian conditions. For instance, the EU has a much higher proportion of plug-in hybrid vehicles than Australia, where buyers are now bypassing them for wholly electric vehicles. <h2>Energy use is shifting, but too slowly</h2> Using this modified scenario, the simulation produces a forecast fall in total wheel-to-wheel emissions from Australian transport from 104 billion tonnes (Mt) in 2018 to 55-65Mt in 2050. Within the range of this 35–45% reduction, the outcome depends largely on the balance of renewable and fossil-fuel energy used to produce hydrogen. The modelling nonetheless predicts a large shift in energy use in road transport in 2050, as 2019 was basically 100% fossil fuels. The on-road energy efficiency of battery electric vehicles is roughly twice that of fuel cell electric (hydrogen) vehicles and roughly three times that of fossil-fuelled vehicles of similar type. The modelling results make this clear. In 2050, battery electric vehicles account for about 70% of total travel, but 25% of on-road energy use and only about 10% of total emissions. In contrast, fossil-fuelled vehicles account for about 25% of total travel in 2050, 60% of energy use and 75-85% of emissions. That’s even allowing for expected efficiency improvements. This means the shift to a mostly electric fleet by 2050 plus the use of hydrogen is predicted to fall short of what’s needed to get to net zero. It will require aggressive new policies to increase the uptake of electric vehicles across all classes. <h2>Lighter vehicles make a big difference</h2> But that is not the whole story. One neglected issue is the growing proportion of <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-may-be-underestimating-just-how-bad-carbon-belching-suvs-are-for-the-climate-and-for-our-health-190743">big, heavy passenger vehicles</a> (SUVs, utes). This trend is very noticeable in Australia. The laws of physics mean heavier vehicles need much more energy and fuel per kilometre of driving, and so produce more emissions. Currently, a large diesel SUV typically emits a kilogram of CO₂ for every 3 kilometres of driving, compared to 15km for a light electric vehicle and 200 kilometres for an e-bike. An average electric vehicle currently emits 1kg of CO₂ every 7km. This distance is expected to be around 60km in 2050, when renewables power the electricity grid. A lightweight electric car will more than double the distance to 125km per kilogram of CO₂. Reducing vehicle weights and optimising energy efficiency in transport will be essential to meet emission targets. The study modelled the impacts of <a href="https://www.automotiveworld.com/special-reports/vehicle-lightweighting-2/">lightweighting</a> passenger vehicles while keeping buses and commercial vehicles the same. If Australians had driven only small cars in 2019 for personal use, total road transport emissions would have been about 15% lower. The reduction in emissions from simply shifting to smaller cars is <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/publications/national-greenhouse-accounts-2019/national-inventory-report-2019">similar to</a> emissions from domestic aviation and domestic shipping combined. Importantly, lightweighting cuts emissions for all kinds of vehicles. <h2>The uncertainties about hydrogen</h2> Fuel cell electric vehicles using hydrogen account for only a few percent of all travel, but most will likely be large trucks. As a result, in our scenarios, they use a little over 10% of total on-road energy and produce 5-20% of total emissions, depending on the energy source used for hydrogen production and distribution. The modified EU scenario includes a significant uptake of hydrogen vehicles by 2050. That’s by no means guaranteed. The uptake in Australia has been negligible to date. That’s due to costs (vehicle and fuel), the need for new hydrogen fuel infrastructure, less mature technology (compared to battery electric vehicles) and limited vehicle availability. <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-rapidly-decarbonise-transport-but-hydrogens-not-the-answer-166830">Unresolved aspects</a> of hydrogen in transport include lower energy efficiency, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-australia-to-lead-the-way-on-green-hydrogen-first-we-must-find-enough-water-196144">need for clean water</a>, uncertainty about leakage, fuel-cell durability and value for consumers. <h2>How do we get back on track?</h2> Our study suggests Australia is on track to miss the net-zero target for 2050 mainly because of the large proportions of fossil-fuelled vehicles and large and heavy passenger vehicles. These two aspects could become targets for new policies such as public information campaigns, tax incentives for small, light vehicles, bans on selling fossil fuel vehicles and programs to scrap them. Other options to cut emissions include measures to reduce travel demand, optimise freight logistics and shift travel to public transport, to name a few. The study confirms the scale of the challenge of decarbonising road transport. Australia will need “all hands on deck” – government, industry and consumers – to achieve net zero in 2050.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208655/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robin-smit-594126">Robin Smit</a>, Adjunct Associate Professor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-technology-sydney-936">University of Technology Sydney</a> Image credits: Getty Images This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/too-big-too-heavy-and-too-slow-to-change-road-transport-is-way-off-track-for-net-zero-208655">original article</a>.

Travel Trouble

Are you financially literate? Here are 7 signs you’re on the right track

With the cost of living and interest rates rising, a growing number of Australians are struggling to manage their <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/almost-half-of-australia-is-financially-stressed-here-s-one-way-to-fix-it-20221011-p5bowq.html">finances</a>. Many are experiencing real <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/australians-under-increasing-financial-stress#:%7E:text=The%2520level%2520of%2520financial%2520stress,say%2520they%2520are%2520struggling%2520financially">financial stress</a>. But even in the best of times, managing your finances is hard. Every day, you’re making complex financial decisions (some of which carry huge ramifications) and there are more financial products and services available than ever before. Navigating this minefield can be overwhelming and lead to financial anxiety. Being financially literate helps. But what does “financial literacy” mean in practice? Here are seven signs you’ve got the basics covered. <h2>1. You track your cashflow</h2> By tracking your cashflow on a regular basis, you’re ensuring your expenses don’t exceed your income. In other words, you make sure you’re earning more than you spend. A good sign you’ve successfully managed your cashflow is that you have a surplus or a buffer. These left-over funds can be used to boost savings, pay off debt or meet other financial commitments. Cashflow management allows you to assess whether there are opportunities to increase your savings and/or reduce spending. Being able to manage your earnings and spending is a key financial skill. <h2>2. You have a budget – and you follow it</h2> Setting and following a budget requires financial discipline, which is a key part of financial literacy. By following a budget, you’re putting a measure in place to live within your means and reduce the risk of overspending. With all the competing demands that come with managing money, your budget can be a tool to keep you on track. And developing this habit over time can empower you to make wise financial decisions. <h2>3. You understand the difference between good debt and bad debt</h2> Love it or hate it, debt forms part of our financial portfolios and sustains the financial institutions we interact with. Knowing how to make debt work for you is a skill and a sign of good financial knowledge. It is crucial to understand the difference between good debt and bad debt. Good debt is debt used to improve your long-term financial position or net worth, such as a home loan. Bad debt tends to be consumption-driven and doesn’t have lasting value. Examples include payday loans or retail accounts. <h2>4. You have your money in various places</h2> One of the key concepts of financially literacy is understanding the importance of diversification. By having your money spread across various places (such as a savings account, property, the share market, superannuation and so on), you’ve reduced the concentration of risk. This helps protect your wealth in tough economic times. <h2>5. You understand how financial assets work, along with their pros and cons</h2> Financial assets refers to things like cash, shares and bonds. It’s important to understand how financial assets work and how they can either help or hurt your financial position. For instance, savings accounts are a safe financial instrument that earn interest on the amount accumulated within the account. But the fact they’re so safe also means that they won’t outperform inflation. This type of knowledge is an imperative part of financial literacy. <h2>6. You’re aware of your financial strengths and weaknesses</h2> Financially literate people reflect on their capabilities. When you can appreciate where your financial strengths and weaknesses lie, you can make better financial decisions and prioritise your needs. On the other hand, being oblivious to your strengths and weaknesses means you miss opportunities to improve your financial health. For example, perhaps you buy unnecessary stuff when you feel sad. Or maybe you panic when faced with tough financial choices and make quick decisions just to make the problem go away. Neglecting to reflect on patterns of behaviour can lead to serious and possibly irreversible financial mistakes. <h2>7. You set financial goals and put measures in place to meet them</h2> Financially literate people plan for their finances. This involves setting goals for either earnings, savings, investments, and debt management or putting measures in place to protect wealth (via, for example, insurance to protect your wealth against loss). Setting goals is one thing, but it’s also important to have a system and habits in place to achieve them. Make sure you understand what you’re trying to achieve with your goals, why the goals are important and how you’ll achieve them. Boosting your financial literacy can feel tough at first. But tackling your finances head on, controlling spending, participating in financial markets, handling debt, being able to understand financial assets and working towards financial goals can help you feel in control of your financial situation. This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-financially-literate-here-are-7-signs-youre-on-the-right-track-202331" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Images: Getty

Money & Banking

"I loved him very much": Pink reveals heartbreaking inspiration behind hit track

Multi award winning singer-songwriter Pink has opened up about the heartache that inspired her 2006 hit song ‘Who Knew’. The 43-year-old was chatting to fellow singer Kelly Clarkson on Kelly’s talk show when she made the tragic admission that ‘Who Knew’ is about the loss of two of her friends to drug overdose. “I lost several friends, unfortunately, to overdose,” she told Kelly, “and the second one was very, very, very close to me, and I loved him very much.” The singer was referring to her dear friend Sekou Harris, who died of a heroin overdose at just 14 years old. In a 2012 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pink said of the song and its inspiration, “I always wanted to write a song for a friend of mine, Sekou Harris, who overdosed on heroin and died. And I never knew how because I didn’t want to force it and write some cheesy overdose song.” When Kelly mentioned that experiencing so much loss “sucks”, Pink countered that loss is unavoidable and that people “need music for that”. “I need music to help me through my feelings,” she said, “and I can numb down really easy.” She opened up about how the song has evolved over the years, and provided her comfort when faced with the deaths of those close to her heart. "But the thing that I love about the song now, after all these years, is that I never get tired of performing it, and it's taken on so many different meanings over the years,” she admitted, “it was about my grandmother at one point. It was about my dog. "I've lost people, so it's always sort of fresh in my heart." This isn’t the first time that Pink has been honest about her history with drugs. In her 2012 EW interview, the singer confessed that she understood addiction, as she “was a hardcore partier from 12 to 15. I was like a candy raver and I was on all the club drugs. Selling Ecstasy and crystal meth and Special K. I overdosed on Thanksgiving of ’95. And then I never took drugs again, ever.” In the same year, Pink told Shape Magazine that although she wasn’t hospitalised, she got the wake-up call she needed, and turned her attention to her wildly successful music career. Viewers of The Kelly Clarkson Show got a bonus look at that very career after the interview, with Pink and Kelly taking to the stage to perform a stunning duet of Pink’s ‘Who Knew’. Image: Getty

Caring

How satellites, radar and drones are tracking meteorites and aiding Earth’s asteroid defence

On July 31 2013 a <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">constellation of US defence satellites</a> saw a streak of light over South Australia as a rock from outer space burned through Earth’s atmosphere on its way to crash into the ground below. The impact created an explosion equivalent to about 220 tonnes of TNT. More than 1,500km away, in Tasmania, the bang was heard by detectors normally used to listen for <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/security/asno/Pages/australian-ims-stations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extremely low-frequency sounds</a> from illegal tests of nuclear weapons. These were two excellent indications that there should be a patch of ground covered in meteorites somewhere north of Port Augusta. But how could we track them down? My colleagues and I who work on the <a href="https://dfn.gfo.rocks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Desert Fireball Network (DFN)</a>, which tracks incoming asteroids and <a href="https://dfn.gfo.rocks/meteorites.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the resulting meteorites</a>, had a couple of ideas: weather radar and drones. Eyes in space Finding meteorites is not an easy task. There is a network of high-quality ground-based sensors called the <a href="https://gfo.rocks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Fireball Observatory</a>, but it only covers about 1% of the planet. The <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US satellite data</a> published by NASA covers a much larger area than ground-based detectors, but it only picks up the biggest fireballs. What’s more, they <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/483/4/5166/5256650" target="_blank" rel="noopener">don’t always give an accurate idea of the meteor’s trajectory</a>. So, to have any chance to find a meteorite from these data, you need a little outside help. Weather radars In 2019, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology started making its weather radar data <a href="https://www.openradar.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">openly available</a> to researchers and the public. I saw this as an opportunity to complete the puzzle. I combed through the record of events from the Desert Fireball Network and NASA, and cross-matched them with nearby weather radars. Then I looked for unusual radar signatures that could indicate the presence of falling meteorites. <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496384/original/file-20221121-22-iwtkve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="An annoyed aerial photo showing the locations of the Woomera radar station and the falling meteorites." /></a><figcaption>The Woomera weather radar station captured reflections from the falling meteorites. Curtin University, Author provided</figcaption></figure> And bingo, the 2013 event was not too far from the Woomera radar station. The weather was clear, and the radar record showed some small reflections at about the right place and time. Next, I had to use the weather data to figure out how the wind would have pushed the meteorites around on their way down to Earth. If I got the calculations right, I would have a treasure map showing the location of a rich haul of meteorites. If I got them wrong, I would end up sending my team to wander around in the desert for two weeks for nothing. The search I gave what I hoped was an accurate treasure map to my colleague Andy Tomkins from Monash University. In September this year, he happened to be driving past the site on his way back from an expedition in the Nullarbor. Thankfully, Andy found the first meteorite within 10 minutes of looking. In the following two hours, his team found nine more. <figure class="align-center "><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496385/original/file-20221121-16-he3p7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="Photo of several people walking through a desert field looking at the ground." /><figcaption>A field team from Monash University searched for meteorites in the strewn field. Monash University, Author provided</figcaption></figure> The technique of finding meteorites with weather radars <a href="https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/how-to-find-meteorites/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">was pioneered</a> by my colleague Marc Fries in the US. However, this is the first time it has been done outside the US NEXRAD radar network. (When it comes to monitoring airspace, the US has more powerful and more densely packed tech than anyone else.) This first search confirmed there were lots of meteorites on the ground. But how were we going to find them all? That’s where the drones come in. We used a method developed by my colleague Seamus Anderson to <a href="https://gfo.rocks/blog/2022/03/14/First_Meteorite_Found_with_Drone.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">automatically detect meteorites from drone images</a>. In the end we collected 44 meteorites, weighing a bit over 4kg in total. Together they form what we call a “strewn field”. <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496386/original/file-20221121-13-qssltc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" alt="An aerial view of a desert field with a black dot (a meteorite) highlighted by a yellow square." /></a><figcaption>A machine-learning algorithm identified meteorites from drone photos. Curtin Uni, Author provided</figcaption></figure> Strewn fields <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.13892" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tell us a lot</a> about how an asteroid fragments in our atmosphere. That’s quite important to know, because the energy of these things is comparable to that of nuclear weapons. For example, the 17-metre asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013 produced an explosion 30 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. So when the next big one is about to hit, it may be useful to predict how it will deposit its energy in our atmosphere. With new telescopes and better technology, we are starting to see some asteroids <a href="https://skymapper.anu.edu.au/news/great-balls-fire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">before they hit Earth</a>. We will see even more when projects such as the <a href="https://www.lsst.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vera Rubin Observatory</a> and the <a href="https://atlas.fallingstar.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)</a> are up and running. These systems might give us as much as a few days’ notice that an asteroid is heading for Earth. This would be too late to make any effort to deflect it – but plenty of time for preparation and damage control on the ground. The value of open data This find was only made possible by the free availability of crucial data – and the people who made it available. The US satellites that detected the fireball are presumably there to detect missile and rocket launches. However, somebody (I don’t know who) must have figured out how to publish some of the satellite data without giving away too much about their capabilities, and then lobbied hard to get the data released. Likewise, the find would not have happened without the work of Joshua Soderholm at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, who worked to make low-level weather radar data openly accessible for other uses. Soderholm went to the trouble to make the radar data <a href="https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">readily available and easy to use</a>, which goes well beyond the vague formulations you can read at the bottom of scientific papers like “data available upon reasonable request”. There is no shortage of fireballs to track down. Right now, we’re on the hunt for a meteorite that was spotted in space last weekend before <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/science/fireball-asteroid-toronto-new-york.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blazing through the sky over Ontario, Canada</a>.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194997/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> Writen by Hadrien Devillepoix. Republished with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-satellites-radar-and-drones-are-tracking-meteorites-and-aiding-earths-asteroid-defence-194997" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. Image: NASA

Technology

It took scientists 100 years to track these eels to their breeding ground

The life of a European eel isn’t an easy one. They’re critically endangered, must travel up to 10,000 km to get to their spawning point and then when they get there they <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_life_history#European_eel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">probably die</a>. But they’re also incredibly difficult to keep track of. In the 1920s a Danish biologist named Johannes Schmidt, discovered the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sargasso Sea</a> – due east of North America – had eel larvae. He spent the next 20 years trying to confirm his finding. But in the century since, researchers have been unable to sample either eggs or spawning adults. Now, a team from Europe has published a paper in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19248-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientific Reports</a> that shows the first direct evidence of adult European eels migrating to the Sargasso Sea to breed. This provides vitally needed information on the life cycle of these slippery suckers. “The European Eel is critically endangered, so it is important that we solve the mystery surrounding their complete life-cycle to support efforts to protect the spawning area of this important species,” <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ancient-mystery-of-european-eel-migration-unravelled-to-help-combat-decline-of-critically-endangered-species" target="_blank" rel="noopener">says project lead Ros Wright from the UK Environment Agency.</a> “This is the first time we’ve been able to track eels to the Sargasso Sea … Their journey will reveal information about eel migration that has never been known before.” The team attached satellite tags to 26 female eels that were in rivers in the Azores archipelago – an autonomous region of Portugal in the North Atlantic Ocean – and then waited. When tracking had been done before in areas within Europe, like the Baltic and North Sea, the migratory routes were tracked up to 5000 kilometres, but the tracking had not gone for long enough, and the eels were heading in the right direction, but never made it all the way to the Sargasso Sea. <div class="newsletter-box"> <div id="wpcf7-f6-p219813-o1" class="wpcf7" dir="ltr" lang="en-US" role="form"> </div> </div> “The data from the tags were used to identify migratory routes that extended up to 5000 km from release, and which suggested routes taken by eels migrating from different countries converge when passing the Azores,” <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19248-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the team wrote in their paper.</a> “However, although eels were tracked for six months or more, their migration speed was insufficient to reach the Sargasso Sea for the first presumed spawning period after migration commenced, prompting the hypothesis that the spawning migration period of eels may extend to more than 18 months.” So, the team went directly to Azores to try and get the last leg of the journey, tracking 26 of the female eels with ‘X tags’. These collect data every two minutes and when the tag releases from the eel and bobs to the surface it then connects to the ARGOS satellite. Of course, not every single one worked. Only 23 tags communicated with the system; two became detached from the eels within a week. But the remainder provided a wealth of data to the team. Average migration speed was between 3 and 12 kilometres a day, and they were tracked from 40 days all the way to 366 days. Five of the eels ended up in within the Sargasso Sea boundaries while one eel made it all the way to the presumed breeding area Schmidt discovered those many years before. This isn’t the first time that eels have been tracked in this way. A study published last year, also in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-02325-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientific Reports</a>, which Cosmos covered at the time, looked at the spawning migrations of the Australasian short-finned eel. They found that the eels travelled for five months, around 2,620 km from south-Eastern Australia, as far north as the Coral Sea in Northern Queensland. The researchers in the European eel case still have much to do. The eels didn’t move fast enough to be able to make it to the spawning period on time, which means we still don’t really understand the life cycle. “Rather than make a rapid migration to spawn at the earliest opportunity, European eels may instead make a long, slow spawning migration at depth that conserves their energy and reduces mortality risk,” the team wrote. There’s also questions of what mechanisms the eels use to be able to correctly navigate to the Sargasso Sea. As usual in science, one answer has led to plenty more questions. <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=219813&title=It+took+scientists+100+years+to+track+these+eels+to+their+breeding+ground" width="1" height="1" /> <div id="contributors"> <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/european-eels-life-cycle-tracking-schmidt-sargasso-sea/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on Cosmos Magazine and was written by Jacinta Bowler. Image: Getty Images </div>

Family & Pets

The FBI tracked Aretha Franklin for 40 years - here’s why

Until 2007, Aretha Franklin was tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with her bumper 270-page file recently obtained by <a href="https://rollingstoneindia.com/aretha-franklin-was-tracked-by-the-fbi-for-40-years-heres-whats-in-her-file/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rolling Stone</a>. The Queen of Soul, who passed away in 2018 aged 76, was subjected to false phone calls and surveillance, as well as having her inner circle infiltrated by FBI sources, according to the outlet. Franklin’s file, first requested via the Freedom of Information Act shortly after her death, is reportedly filled with phrases such as “Black extremists”, “pro-communist”, “hate America”, “radical”, “racial violence”, and “militant Black power”. It also contained plenty of suspicion about the singer, her work, and the other artists and activists she associated with, as the FBI tried and failed to connect the Respect singer to the Black Liberation Army and other “radical” movements. According to the documents, Franklin’s civil rights work and association with activists including Martin Luther King Jr and Angela Davies, became a focus for the FBI, with agents tracking her addresses, phone numbers and activities. The singer’s son, Kecalf, told the Rolling Stone he was unsure whether Franklin knew she was under surveillance but said it was a “waste of time” for the FBI to follow her “every move” for so many years after failing to connect her to radical movements of any kind. "I'm not really sure if my mother was aware that she was being targeted by the FBI and followed. I do know that she had absolutely nothing to hide though…” he said. "It does make me feel a certain way knowing the FBI had her targeted and wanted to know her every move. "But at the same time knowing my mother and the way she ran her business I know she had nothing to hide so they wouldn't have found anything and were wasting their time. As you see…they found nothing at all." The documents obtained by Rolling Stone, which include some newly-declassified files and others that are heavily redacted, include a 1968 report discussing funeral plans for Martin Luther King Jr which described it as a “racial situation”. “Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin…of this group, some have supported militant Black power concept…[performance at MLK memorial by these prominent entertainers] would provide emotional spark which could ignite racial disturbance in this area,” it reads. The FBI also included files “just in case”, such as her 1971 contract with Atlantic Records to attempt to connect the Blues Brothers star’s business dealings to the Black Panther Party. Letters and reports of death threats were among the collection of documents as well, including one from a man threatening to kill her and her family and another extortion attempt against her. With some documents indicating that there are additional materials in the FBI’s possession that haven’t been released, Rolling Stone requested these records be made available. The FBI has yet to comment on the report. Image: Getty Images

Legal

After Roe v Wade, here’s how women could adopt ‘spycraft’ to avoid tracking and prosecution

The art of concealing or misrepresenting one’s identity in the physical world has long been practised by spies engaged in espionage. In response, intelligence agencies designed techniques and technologies to identify people attempting to hide behind aliases. Now, following the US Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v Wade, women in the United States seeking assistance with unwanted pregnancies have joined the ranks of spies. The ruling has resulted in several trigger laws coming into effect in conservative states to outlaw abortions in those states. These laws, coupled with groups targeting women’s reproductive rights protests, have raised fear among women of all ages about their data being used against them. Thousands have engaged with online posts calling on women to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/28/why-us-woman-are-deleting-their-period-tracking-apps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">delete their period tracking apps</a>, on the premise that data fed to these apps could be used to prosecute them in states where abortion is illegal. At the same time, abortion clinics in New Mexico (where abortion remains legal) are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-mexico-shields-abortion-providers-ahead-expected-patient-surge-2022-06-27/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> bracing for an influx of women from US states. As someone who has served as a special agent for the United States Army and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and as a Senior Intelligence Officer with the US Defense Intelligence Agency, I can tell you deleting period tracking apps may not be enough for vulnerable women now. But there are some tools women can use to conceal their identities, should this be necessary – the same tools once reserved for professional spies. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Menstrual tracking app Stardust is one of Apple’s top three most-downloaded free apps right now. It’s also one of few apps that has said it will voluntarily—without being legally required to—comply with law enforcement if it’s asked to share user data. <a href="https://t.co/sJ17VAiLvp">https://t.co/sJ17VAiLvp</a> — Motherboard (@motherboard) <a href="https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/1541456351414583297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2022</a></blockquote> The privacy myth Apart from espionage, the emergence of the internet created a new impetus for widespread data collection by data aggregators and marketers. The modern surveillance economy grew out of a desire to target products and services to us as effectively as possible. Today, massive swathes of personal information are extracted from users, 24/7 – making it increasingly difficult to remain unmasked. Data aggregation is used to assess our purchasing habits, track our movements, find our favourite locations and obtain detailed demographic information about us, our families, our co-workers and friends. Recent events have demonstrated how tenuous our privacy is. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/22/20926585/hong-kong-china-protest-mask-umbrella-anonymous-surveillance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Protests in Hong Kong</a> have seen Chinese authorities use cameras to identify and arrest protesters, while police in the US deployed various technologies to identify <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-surveillance-of-black-lives-matter-shows-the-danger-technology-poses-to-democracy-142194" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black Lives Matter</a> protesters. Articles appeared in Australian <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/29/protests-police-government-surveillance-how-to-avoid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media outlets</a> with advice on how to avoid being surveilled. And people were directed to websites, such as the <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/behind-the-one-way-mirror" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, dedicated to informing readers about how to avoid surveillance and personal data collection. What we’ve learned from both spy history and more recent events is that data collection is not always overt and obvious; it’s often unseen and opaque. Surveillance may come in the form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/surveillance-cameras-will-soon-be-unrecognisable-time-for-an-urgent-public-conversation-118931" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cameras</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-hide-from-a-drone-the-subtle-art-of-ghosting-in-the-age-of-surveillance-143078" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drones</a>, automated number plate readers (<a href="https://theconversation.com/number-plate-recognition-the-technology-behind-the-rhetoric-17572" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ANPR/ALPR</a>), <a href="https://www.q-free.com/reference/australia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">toll payment devices</a>, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/publication/acoustic-surveillance-devices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acoustic collectors</a> and of course any internet-connected <a href="https://theconversation.com/smartphone-data-tracking-is-more-than-creepy-heres-why-you-should-be-worried-91110" target="_blank" rel="noopener">device</a>. In some cases when your fellow protesters upload images or videos, crowd-sourced intelligence becomes your enemy. Data deleted, not destroyed Recently, a lot of the focus has been on phones and apps. But deleting mobile apps will not prevent the identification of an individual, nor will turning off location services. Law enforcement and even commercial companies have the ability to access or track certain metrics including: <ul> <li>international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), which is related to a user’s mobile number and connected to their SIM card</li> <li>international mobile equipment identity (IMEI), which is directly related to their device itself.</li> </ul> Ad servers may also exploit device locations. Private companies can create advertisements targeting devices that are specific to a location, such as a women’s health clinic. And such “geofenced” ad servers can identify a user’s location regardless of whether their location settings are disabled. Further, anonymised phone track data (like call signals pinging off nearby towers) can be purchased from telecommunications providers and de-anonymised. Law enforcement can use this data to trace paths from, say, a fertility clinic to a person’s home or “bed down” location (the spy term for someone’s residence). The bottom line is your phone is a marker for you. A temporary cell phone with an overseas SIM card has been the choice for some people wishing to avoid such tracking. Adding to that, we recently saw headlines about <a href="https://theconversation.com/bunnings-kmart-and-the-good-guys-say-they-use-facial-recognition-for-loss-prevention-an-expert-explains-what-it-might-mean-for-you-185126" target="_blank" rel="noopener">facial recognition technology</a> being used in Australian retail stores – and America is no different. For anyone trying to evade detection, it’s better to swap bank cards for cash, stored-value cards or gift cards when making purchases. And using public transport paid with cash or a ride-share service provides better anonymity than using a personal vehicle, or even a rental. In the spy world, paying attention to one’s dress is critical. Spies change up their appearance, using what they call “polish”, with the help of reversible clothing, hats, different styles of glasses, scarves and even masks (which are ideally not conspicuous these days). In extreme cases, they may even use “appliances” to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cias-former-chief-of-disguise-drops-her-mask-11576168327" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alter their facial characteristics</a>. Then again, while these measures help in the physical world, they do little to stop online detection. Digital stealth Online, the use of a virtual private network (<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-virtual-private-network-vpn-12741" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VPN</a>) and/or the onion browser, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tor</a>, will help improve anonymity, including from internet service providers. Online you can create and use multiple personas, each with a different email address and “personal data” linked to it. Aliases can be further coupled with software that removes cookies and browser history, which will help conceal one’s online identity. One example is <a href="https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CCleaner</a>. This program removes privacy-violating cookies and internet history from your device, while improving your device’s privacy. There are also plenty of online applications that allow the use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-be-phish-food-tips-to-avoid-sharing-your-personal-information-online-138613" target="_blank" rel="noopener">temporary email addresses</a> and phone numbers, and even temporary accommodation addresses for package deliveries. To some, these may seem like extreme privacy measures. However, given the widespread collection of identity data by commercial companies and governments – and the resultant collaboration between the two – there’s reason to be concerned for anyone wanting to fly under the radar. And for women seeking abortions in the US, these measures may be necessary to avoid prosecution. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Not to be that guy but it seems like it really should be bigger news that the national guard is now helping crack down on abortion protests <a href="https://t.co/DGh83in0Cm">https://t.co/DGh83in0Cm</a> — Read Wobblies and Zapatistas (@JoshuaPotash) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1541527897273409536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2022</a></blockquote> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dennis-b-desmond-1252874" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dennis B Desmond</a>, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-the-sunshine-coast-1068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of the Sunshine Coast</a> This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-roe-v-wade-heres-how-women-could-adopt-spycraft-to-avoid-tracking-and-prosecution-186046" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original article</a>. Image: Getty Images

Legal

Man who fell onto train tracks is arrested in hospital

A man has horrified commuters after falling on the tracks just moments before a train was due to arrive. Dramatic CCTV shows the 57-year-old man standing on the edge of platform 12 at Redfern Station in Sydney before tumbling head first onto the tracks on April 1. Two women were seen running and hopping onto the tracks to help pull the man out while others called the guards. The guards managed to get in touch with the driver of the train that was due to arrive telling them to stop due to the incident. The heroic women managed to help pull the man off the tracks and back to safety before he was rushed to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital with injuries to his head and wrist. Police questioned the man before arresting him for breaching an apprehended violence order. Transport Minister David Elliot commended the woman and the guards for their actions while calling out the man for his carelessness. “It was quite clear he was unsteady on his feet and that really isn‘t an excuse,” he said. "If you are going to be using public transport … there is a risk associated with being around this sort of heavy machinery." "I also was extremely proud of those staff members who immediately responded." Watch the video <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=saved&v=1017733092183892" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. Image: Nine News

Travel Trouble

Meet the teen tracking Russian billionaires’ jets

A 19-year-old who shot to fame for tracking billionaire Elon Musk’s private jet has taken on a <a href="https://happymag.tv/elon-musk-jet-tracker-russian-aircraft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new target</a>: the aircrafts belonging to Russian billionaires. Jack Sweeney first garnered attention after creating a Twitter account that tracked and updated the world about the movement’s of Musk’s jet. Now, as Russian billionaires attempt to move their yachts and aircrafts out of Russia to prevent them from being confiscated thanks to widespread sanctions, Sweeney started a new account exposing their movements. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Roman Abramovich's Jet LX-RAY Landed in Ankara, Ankara Province, TR. Apx. flt. time 35 Mins. <a href="https://t.co/8mBVcRf47Q">pic.twitter.com/8mBVcRf47Q</a> — Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) <a href="https://twitter.com/RUOligarchJets/status/1498964543564922882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2022</a></blockquote> A new Twitter account, called Russian Oligarch Jets, appeared on February 28 and began posting automatic updates about the take-offs and landings of various Russian jets. On March 3, the account shared a list of the oligarchs it is tracking and their planes. The list includes several belonging to Roman Abrahamovich - a confidant of President Vladimir Putin - and Alisher Usmanov, who has been blacklisted and has his $800 million yacht <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/luxury/russian-oligarch-alisher-usmanov-yacht-seized-germany" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confiscated</a> by German authorities. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> The latest list is below. Trying to stay the most accurate, red removed green added. <a href="https://t.co/WjZV2J9Tib">pic.twitter.com/WjZV2J9Tib</a> — Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) <a href="https://twitter.com/RUOligarchJets/status/1499088188463202306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2022</a></blockquote> When he was still tracking Musk’s jet, Sweeney was offered $5,000 by the tech founder to stop. However, Sweeney said the sum wouldn’t be enough to replace “the enjoyment factor” and instead asked for an internship. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> This account has every right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, Even AF1 (<a href="https://twitter.com/AirForceTrack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AirForceTrack</a>) Twitter policy states data found on other sites is allowed to be shared here as well. <a href="https://t.co/Wol8O1DRiq">pic.twitter.com/Wol8O1DRiq</a> — Elon Musk's Jet (@ElonJet) <a href="https://twitter.com/ElonJet/status/1483587836053909504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2022</a></blockquote> With Musk seeming to disapprove of the counter-offer, Sweeney was soon offered a job with Stratos Jet Charters. Sweeney runs several other accounts that post automatic updates about various aircraft, including <a href="https://twitter.com/PutinJet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russian VIP jets</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/weatherplanes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">weather planes</a>, and VIP jets belonging to the <a href="https://twitter.com/USAirForceVIP" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US Air Force</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/CelebJets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">celebrities</a>. Image: @jxck.sweeney (Instagram)

Technology

Mapping floods on every street in the world

<div class="copy"> Accurate, street-level data on flooding risk is tremendously useful when preparing for natural disasters. But this data can be very hard to come by, especially in poorer nations. Enter the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://floodmapping.inweh.unu.edu/" target="_blank">World Flood Mapping Tool</a>, a new site developed by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). The tool contains detailed 3D maps of all the world’s floods since 1985. “As temperatures continue to rise, the number of flood events will increase along with their severity,” says Hamid Mehmood, a GIS and remote sensing specialist at UNU-INWEH, who was lead developer on the tool. “No place is immune. And yet remarkably few regions, even in wealthy countries, have useful, up-to-date flood maps because of the cost and difficulty of creating them.” The free mapping tool, which is available on UNU’s <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://inweh.unu.edu/" target="_blank">website</a>, is designed to be simple to use. Users can select an area of the world map in which they’re interested, enter a time frame, and the tool generates a map showing which parts of the area were inundated. They can also view population density, land type and 3D images of building structures. “We need to prepare now for more intense and more frequent floods due to climate change,” says Vladimir Smakhtin, director of UNU-INWEH. “This tool will help developing nations in particular to see and mitigate the risks more clearly.” The tool uses satellite data from the Google Earth Engine to discern flooded land. The researchers tested the satellite-generated data against eight well-documented flooding events (including the February 2008 <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/flood-mackay-queensland/" target="_blank">Queensland floods</a>), finding the tool to be 82% accurate. The researchers say their tool will be particularly helpful for urban planning and development, as it can pinpoint precise areas that are at risk of flooding. “Painting a detailed picture of the historical and potential flood-risk areas will be invaluable for any urban and regional planning department,” says collaborator Duminda Perera. Image credits: Getty Images</div> <div id="contributors"> This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/water/mapping-floods-on-every-street-in-the-world/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Ellen Phiddian. </div>

Technology

Princess Diana’s godson on track to win the world record for Most Royal Weddings

Prince Phillippos, son of King Constantine II and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece and godson of Princess Diana, just enjoyed his third wedding ceremony to wife Nina Flohr, because when you’re (ex-)royalty, such excesses just make sense. 35-year-old ex-royal Phillippos celebrated his relationship to 34-year-old VistaJet heiress Nina at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Athens over the weekend, marking the third such celebration after a small, COVID-restricted ceremony in St. Moritz in December and an event at Stibbington House in Cambridgeshire in May, thrown by socialite Alice Naylor-Leyland. The December ceremony was only attended by the couple’s fathers, whereas the most recent ceremony, a Greek Orthodox one, saw many members of the couple’s extended families in attendance. Phillippos, whose title ‘Prince of Greece’ with the style Royal Highness is not legally recognised by the Greek government following the deposition of his father in 1973, has many royal godparents in addition to the late Princess Diana. They include King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Princess Beneditke of Denmark, the current Right Honourable Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Penelope Knatchbull, and Bulgarian royal, Kyril, Prince of Preslav, Duke in Saxony. Evidently this is not a family that believes that less is more. Flohr wore a “white silk more taffeta gown, modified from Chanel’s 2021 A/W Couture Collection”, according to the royal fan website RoyalHats.net. They also reported that she “topped her gown with a lengthy silk tulle veil and the antique corsage pearl and diamond floral tiara, a diadem of Scandinavian royal origin that Queen Anne-Marie inherited weeks before her marriage to King Constantine.” Phillippos is the youngest son of King Constantine II, the last monarch of Greece, and Queen Anne-Marie, originally of Denmark. The family holds no political power in Greece thanks to the country abolishing the monarchy in 1973, and they lived in exile for decades. The Danish royal family also holds no political power, but the constitution requires the Queen, Phillippos’ aunt Margarethe II, to perform periodic functions. The bride’s father, Thomas Flohr, founded the luxury private airline company VistaJet in 2004. Her mother, Katharina Konečný, is a founding editor of Russian Vogue and a creative director at Fabergé. Image: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

Relationships

Retired race horses on track to help troubled kids

Image: A Current Affair New charity ‘Rehab 4 Rehab' is saving the lives of children and retired racehorses on the Mornington Peninsula through a ground-breaking equine therapy program. Children struggling with mental health issues get paired up with clinical psychologists, occupational therapists and retired racehorses to accelerate therapy sessions. “We are seeing lots of children with anxiety, depression, self-harming, suicidal kids, lots of autistic kids,” found Alisha Griffiths told A Current Affair. “They are practicing exactly what they would do in the normal four white wall environments but they’re doing it on a farm with retired racehorses.” Ms Griffiths said she had been around horses all her life and now she wants to share them with others. “They also build a rapport with a psychologist a lot quicker, they trust the psychologist because they’re around a retired racehorse,” she said. Clinical psychologist Jo Paterson crossed path with Alisha’s charity when she was looking for somewhere to keep her own horse – and she ended up with a job. “When you’re talking about things that are distressing and through trauma, then you’ve got something there that can help regulate, when they get upset,” Ms Paterson said. There are 46 horses at Ms Griffiths property and most of them are retired racehorses. In order to train them for being a racehorse to a therapy horse, they settle their lives down and “show them a slower pace”. Head horse trainer Alex McDonough said she’s surprised by how well the horses have adjusted. “It’s almost like they know they’re around children,” she said.

Caring

An Italian museum’s innovative way of tracking viewer interactions

Art researchers in Italy have discovered a new way to help more accurately curate popular museum exhibitions. Working with the Italian national agency for new technologies, the Istituzione Bologna Musei in Bologna has installed 14 small cameras that use artificial intelligence (AI) to study the reactions of viewers. The cameras pick up facial expressions, posture and positioning of those who pass through the gallery on a daily basis. The data collected by these cameras is then used to draw broader conclusions about future exhibits and specific artworks. Researcher Riccardo Scipinotti came up with the initiative, referred to as ShareArt, to record how long visitors look at art, the paths they take through galleries, where their eyes are drawn to on particular canvases. All of these factors make up each piece of art’s “attraction value”, as well as analysing which exhibits are the most popular. The ShareArt technology has the potential to revolutionise the museum and art world, as the data shared from the AI could determine placement of certain works in a gallery, how works are lit or hung, or how works are displayed in relation to one another. The team of researchers began to roll out ShareArt in early July as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in Italy, and has already started to yield interesting results. The technology is also fitted to detect if museum-goers are flouting making-wearing rules. The AI device is programmed to flash red if a visitor is wearing their mask incorrectly, or not wearing one at all. Image credit: Shutterstock

Art

Rod Stewart's "hidden track" inside his Beverly Hills home

He has long been known as a railway enthusiast, even if at times he chose not to talk about it. But Sir Rod Stewart's legendary choo-choo layout -–26 years in the making – just has to be seen to be believed. The rocker's astonishingly detailed 124ft long x 23ft wide model depicting an American city and its industrial hinterland in the 1940s contains hundreds of buildings, from trackside switchman shanties to vast factories and skyscrapers. Called Grand Street And Three Rivers City, it also features a railway station crossed by numerous bridges at rush hour. Also featured in the landscape are period cars and lorries, driving alongside the train tracks. Everything is dramatically lit in the colours of late afternoon sunshine. Sir Rod told Railway Modeller magazine that scenery and structure modelling, rather than locomotives, trackwork or electrics, are his forte. "It's the landscape I like. Attention to detail, extreme detail, is paramount. There shouldn't be any unsightly gaps or pavements that are too clean," he said. Sir Rod was inspired by American Railways because that is where we has living when he began creating the model in 1993. At the time, he had recently built a new house in Los Angeles and included an attic room specifically for the layout. While Sir Rod acknowledged it took a while for him to publicly admit he was a railway enthusiast, he agreed in his interview with the magazine that attitudes now appear to be changing towards model railway making. But he added that he was still wary about answering questions on TV about it because "it's hard to talk about something so all-encompassing" if he was meant to be discussing his music. His passion was first inflamed when he was "eight or nine" on a family holiday in Bognor Regis where he saw a "marvellous" railway layout in a model shop. He said his father had once given him the advice that "every man needs a hobby". "Mine's model railway," said Sir Rod, who had a toy railway as a child. When he wanted a station for it, his dad bought him a guitar instead, which many might think turned out to be a shrewd move. His fortune stands at £190 million, according to the Sunday Times' UK Musicians' Rich List, and he has had nine No 1 albums and 62 hit singles in the UK. Sir Rod said guests are stunned by his magnificent model railway when he runs it for them at his LA home. He said: 'When I take on something creative like this, I have to give it 110 per cent. For me, it's addictive. I started, so I just had to finish. "I'm lucky I had the room. If I'd realised at the start it would have taken so long, I'd have probably said No! No! Nah!" Photos: Facebook and Model Railroader Magazine

Real Estate

Side-tracked with Justine Tyerman

The handful of Kiwis on the road from Glenorchy to Queenstown got a bonus the day we left Paradise – there were two of everything: mountains upright in their usual position and upside down in the Lake Wakatipu looking-glass. Reality and reflection were hard to tell apart. The historic TSS Earnslaw was steaming towards Queenstown against a stunning backdrop of the Remarkables after a fresh fall of snow. Arrowtown, my childhood holiday home, was our next destination for... but we got side-tracked along the way as often happens when you have the freedom and flexibility of travelling by motorhome. About 5km from Arrowtown, I shrieked ‘Pull over here!’ which my obliging husband was able to do safely at short notice, only because this usually busy tourist road was deserted. We simply could not by-pass Lake Hayes, the world-famous mirror lake where we used to swim and picnic as kids in the summer. We drove down to the water’s edge and debated whether we had time to cycle around the lake on the superb new trail before the weather was forecast to crack up late in the afternoon. <img style="width: 500px; height: 300.78125px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7839073/wyus57w0.png" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/58cc0af220ca436e903204b86c8412cd" /> Lake Hayes in autumn regalia. Photo by Destination Queenstown With our powerful Wisper Wayfarer ebikes aboard, we were confident that if the weather misbehaved or we miscalculated the distance, we’d be able to get back home fast. We set off in full winter ski gear with a hint of snow in the air. The 8km grade 2 uppy-downy loop track was a bit like a roller coaster ride climbing high above the lake on the far side and then descending steeply so I made great use of the power-assist and throttle on my Wayfarer. The hills were no trouble at all, such a novelty for a cyclist like me for whom the word ‘pushbike’ has, in the past, had a literal meaning - whenever I encountered anything other than flat terrain, I became a pusher. The trail around the lake was breathtakingly scenic even though the mirror effect was more like crumpled taffeta rather than satin. Coronet Peak, resplendent in pure white, stood regally on one side of the lake and the iconic Double Cone of the Remarkables Range on the other. <img style="width: 500px; height: 300.78125px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7839044/justine2-edit.png" alt="Our Maui Cascade motorhome on the shores of Lake Hayes. Photo by Justine Tyerman" data-udi="umb://media/8ea30167c7194d98a16555fe32547a27" /> Our Maui Cascade motorhome on the shores of Lake Hayes. Photo by Justine Tyerman There were many information boards along the way explaining the preciousness of the wetlands, the many native water birds who nest there such as the endangered crested grebe, Project Gold that aims to re-establish kowhai trees which once flourished in Central Otago, and the sculpting of the landscape by massive glaciers in the last Ice Age. We stopped for lunch at the highest point of the trail and looked across the lake at the multi-million-dollar houses that have sprung up along shore in recent years. Discovering a lovely freedom camping spot on the edge of the lake, we decided to park there for the night instead of continuing on to the Arrowtown Holiday Park. Ah, the joys of travelling in a fully self-contained Maui motorhome with the convenience of having a kitchen, fridge, freezer, bathroom, bedroom, lounge and dining room at our disposal. The ability to stop wherever and whenever the spirit willed gave us a delicious sense of freedom. By early evening, snowflakes began to drift down from a slate grey sky and the temperatures plummeted. We pulled the thermal blinds, turned on the heating and enjoyed hot showers followed by tummy-warming gluhwein as we prepared dinner. Showering in a confined space is quite an art and requires a high degree of organisation, ensuring one has everything needed before enclosing oneself in a cubicle about a quarter the size of a regular shower. The gas-heated hot water cylinder allows for two 3-minute hot showers, or longer when you are plugged into mains power at a camping ground. Overnight, we were so snug we had to open a skylight... even in the snow. To be continued... Read <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/travel/international-travel/heading-for-paradise">part 1</a>, <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/travel/international-travel/turning-greener-with-the-years">part 2</a> and <a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international-travel/in-the-company-of-giants">part 3</a> of Justine’s Central Otago road trip here. *Māori originally named the lake Te Whaka-ata a Haki-te-kura after an ancestress called Haki-te-kura whose image is said to be reflected in the lake. *Justine Tyerman travelled courtesy of <a href="https://email.directgroup.com.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=7BtkdCC0m6zkzxkMbzBp_u-wDIiN0dqP5C4--uPeeORQEIbDN5PYCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2fs%2fJhhmC1WLLJHWzgHLuGio%3fdomain%3dmaui-rentals.com">thl</a> in a <a href="https://email.directgroup.com.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=Qkj6NLpKp2tlANmS7flVVwRI3QQ1--ikfep03D2Q2yJQEIbDN5PYCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2fs%2fxoYeC2xMMKiylrC1Psne%3fdomain%3dmaui-rentals.com">Maui 4-berth Cascade motorhome,</a> and rode a <a href="https://email.directgroup.com.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=EREOstBETVaXmFP1mVnBaKL_EfzEYOF92sK3gvj8QSNQEIbDN5PYCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2fs%2f7HYRC3QNNLSNA3T2mkmn%3fdomain%3dwisperbikes.co.nz%2f">Wisper Wayfarer ebike</a> courtesy of <a href="https://email.directgroup.com.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=el2BMJzFCzOsVE0F-1QDqIDJkkAkbT1z4nc0mxuNGHZQEIbDN5PYCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fprotect-au.mimecast.com%2fs%2fGgjoC4QOOMSk0PCWQMn4%3fdomain%3delectricbikes.co.nz%2f">Electric Bikes NZ</a>

International Travel

How 5 short intentions can help people recovering from depression stay on track

About <a href="https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/">one in six people in England</a> report experiencing anxiety or depression in any given week, and depression is a <a href="https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression">major cause of disability worldwide</a>. Some people have experienced very adverse experiences over their lives, leading to low self-esteem and other vulnerabilities which can make people susceptible to depression. Difficult life circumstances, such as financial problems, loneliness, stresses at work, among family or in relationships, poor physical health and genetic vulnerabilities also contribute. Even long-term depression can be treated, but the lifetime risk that the depression returns has been reported as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2169519/">about 50 per cent for those experiencing one episode</a> of major depression, with the likelihood increasing with further episodes. Greater numbers of people experiencing mental health problems, and greater awareness of effective treatments, has increased demand for services. In recent years this has led to investment through the <a href="https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/">Improving Access to Psychological Therapies</a> programme, but because of huge demand, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50658007">waiting times can still be a problem</a> and it’s important that we develop new ways of helping people manage and overcome their mental health problems – to prevent problems occurring in the first place, and to prevent them returning. A lot of this comes down to teaching people to help themselves more effectively. To some extent this is already happening, for example with increases in self-help support within mental health services, and the use of self-help websites, online support and apps. Working with NHS staff, we have developed the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29665889">Self-Management after Therapy intervention</a>, or SMArT, designed to help people to stay well after they have recovered from an episode of depression. Like other relapse-prevention approaches, it assumes that many people continue to remain vulnerable to depression. Recovery is seen as a process that continues after the end of therapy that has its ups and downs. This approach helps prevent someone from feeling they are back to square one if they have a setback, a frame of mind that can increase the likelihood of a return to more severe depression. The approach, first developed by psychologist <a href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/peter-m-gollwitzer.html">Peter Gollwitzer</a> in the 1990s, has been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260106380021?via%3Dihub">found to support changes in behaviour</a>, such as quitting smoking or doing more physical activity, through what are called implementation intentions. It is designed to help people turn an intention to act into a habitual behaviour. We know how hard it can be to make good intentions a reality (such as practically every New Year’s resolution), and when someone’s mood and motivation are low it can be even harder. As one mental health service user said during our research: “I know what to do, but when I’m down I just don’t do it.” Implementation intentions work by linking a specific situation to a specific response. For example: “Every evening between 7pm and 9pm I will write down all the positive things that have happened that day,” or “Every Thursday evening I will go to the pub quiz with my friend Katy”. They often take the form of “if …, then …” statements, such as: “If I feel down, then I will talk to my partner about why this might be.” When the situation comes up, the learned response is brought to mind, and is therefore more likely to be acted out. Using our SMArT intervention, people are encouraged to identify up to five of these implementation intentions. It’s important that they are realistic and that they will have an impact on the person’s wellbeing. The best way of thinking about them is to consider five things you do on a regular basis that are important to you. Then, imagine how you would feel if you didn’t do them. That is what tends to happen in depression, or when a person is at risk of a relapse. The use of the SMArT intervention is supported in mental health services by <a href="https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/psychological-therapies/roles/psychological-wellbeing-practitioner">psychological wellbeing practitioners</a>, and patients are encouraged to share their intentions with friends or family who can support them. SMArT is just one of a number of ways of helping people who are prone to depression to stay well and we’re carrying out more research to see how effective it is. It provides a bridge between the end of therapy and life without therapy and helps people see the importance of setting plans and having routine in their lives. It also emphasises that recovery is a process that includes learning about oneself and self-management strategies. It is something for the long-term – not just for all-too-soon-abandoned New Year’s resolutions.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129046/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-lucock-916922">Michael Lucock</a>, Professor of Clinical Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-huddersfield-1226">University of Huddersfield</a> This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-five-short-intentions-can-help-people-recovering-from-depression-stay-on-track-129046">original article</a>.

Mind

See Australia: The bucket-list worthy walking track

The Murray River Walk is a four-day guided walk that combines hiking and houseboating along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Murray River between Renmark in South Australia and the Victorian border. While you’re wandering along river banks, across flood plains and through forests of red gums, a houseboat named Desire motors upriver to meet you with chilled wine and canapés at the end of each day. It’s a luxurious way to walk the walk, with hot showers, a top-deck spa and water views at every turn, including the five double bedrooms and two bathrooms, spacious lounge and dining area. The food is a highlight, a showcase of local produce and native ingredients – Murray River scallops, kangaroo, yabbies, Riverland beef and lamb, quandong desserts and salads of samphire and native greens foraged during the day, as well as platters of emu pâté, olives, cheeses, chutneys, nuts and sundried fruits. Evening meals are presented degustation-style, with matched Riverland wines. Walking is easy, more of a stroll than a trek along mostly level ground, covering between 10 and 15 kilometres each day. There are frequent stops as your guides show you the scars on trees where canoes, shields, woomeras and coolamons were cut from the bark by the Erawirung people, point out middens and cutting tools scattered in the undergrowth and the charcoal remains of ancient cooking hearths. There are plenty of stories of the paddle-steamer days, too, when hundreds of boats and barges plied the river, ferrying wool and supplies to the stations and ports along the waterway, with rusting relics and half-submerged wrecks. You’ll also learn how irrigation and water management has changed the landscape along one of our most highly regulated rivers with its system of dams, locks and weirs The route meanders across two historic properties, Calperum and Bunyip Reach stations; the Murray River Walk has exclusive access, so you won’t see any other walkers. You will see plenty of kangaroos, skinks and, if you’re lucky, a shy echidna or two. Pelicans are constant companions, as are elegant egrets and slightly goofy spoonbills perched in treetops, cormorants and darters drying their wings on half-drowned branches and whistling kites riding the thermals. Ducks patrol the shallows and emus flounce across the floodplains, feathered skirts fluttering. You’ll spend almost as much time on the river as you do on land, exploring anabranches and backwaters in an aluminium cruiser, negotiating locks and stickybeaking at historic customs houses and old shearing sheds, including a barbecue lunch and beer stop at Wilkadene Woolshed Brewery on the last day. As far as walking holidays go, it’s pretty cruisy. WHERE IS IT? The walk begins and ends in Renmark, 256km east of Adelaide, around a 3-hour drive east of Adelaide. WHY GO? Cruising and gourmet food. WHEN TO GO? Walking season is May to the end of September. HOW LONG? 4 days. This is an edited extract from Australia’s Best Nature Escapes by Lee Atkinson published by Hardie Grant Books [39.99] and is available in stores nationally. Photographer: © Lee Atkinson <img style="width: 250px !important; height: 300px !important;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7821835/image_.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/411059142cf548be950fc4f94d8782c4" />

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It took scientists 100 years to track these eels to their breeding ground

The FBI tracked Aretha Franklin for 40 years - here’s why

After Roe v Wade, here’s how women could adopt ‘spycraft’ to avoid tracking and prosecution

Man who fell onto train tracks is arrested in hospital

Meet the teen tracking Russian billionaires’ jets

Mapping floods on every street in the world

Princess Diana’s godson on track to win the world record for Most Royal Weddings

Retired race horses on track to help troubled kids

An Italian museum’s innovative way of tracking viewer interactions

Rod Stewart's "hidden track" inside his Beverly Hills home

Side-tracked with Justine Tyerman

How 5 short intentions can help people recovering from depression stay on track

See Australia: The bucket-list worthy walking track

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It took scientists 100 years to track these eels to their breeding ground

The FBI tracked Aretha Franklin for 40 years - here’s why

After Roe v Wade, here’s how women could adopt ‘spycraft’ to avoid tracking and prosecution

Man who fell onto train tracks is arrested in hospital

Meet the teen tracking Russian billionaires’ jets

Mapping floods on every street in the world

Princess Diana’s godson on track to win the world record for Most Royal Weddings

Retired race horses on track to help troubled kids

An Italian museum’s innovative way of tracking viewer interactions

Rod Stewart's "hidden track" inside his Beverly Hills home

Side-tracked with Justine Tyerman

How 5 short intentions can help people recovering from depression stay on track

See Australia: The bucket-list worthy walking track

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