Year: 2019

World Wide (Conversation) – Climate change gets blamed for a lot of things these days: inundating small islands, fueling catastrophic fires, amping-up hurricanes and smashing Arctic sea ice. But a global review of insect research has found another casualty: 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered. It confirms what many have been suspecting: in Australia and around the world, arthropods – which include insects, spiders, centipedes and the like — appear to be in trouble. The global review comes hard on the heels of research published…

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(Conversation) – In April 1941, just a few short years after Superman came swooping out of the Manhattan skies, Miss Fury – originally known as Black Fury – became the first major female superhero to go to print. She beat Charles Moulton Marsden’s Wonder Woman to the page by more than six months. More significantly, Miss Fury was the first female superhero to be written and drawn by a woman, Tarpé Mills. Miss Fury’s creator – whose real name was June – shared much of the gritty ingenuity of her…

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United States (TexasTribune) – For the sixth-straight day since arriving at the Texas-Mexico border, roughly 1,600 Central American migrants intent on seeking asylum in the U.S. are playing a frustrating waiting game in Mexico. The migrants, who are mostly Honduran, are being housed in a former warehouse in Piedras Negras — and being guarded by Mexican law enforcement — while they wait to be let into the U.S. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are only able to process about 20 of the migrants a day, CNN reported, meaning…

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World Wide (Conversation) – In these times of rising activism on climate change and other environmental threats, a new band of campaigners has joined the fight: street artists. And these artists are using the landscape, communities and social media to spread their message. Banksy, probably the most famous street artist in the world, recently made his views clear through a new piece in Wales featuring a boy under what looks like snow, but is actually pollution from an industrial bin. Banksy has always been overtly political and controversial, but this…

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United States (Conversation) – For centuries, male violence and acts of aggression were often the way that power was understood and patriarchy upheld. In contemporary times, in more moderate societies, this has become somewhat tempered, yet it still exists in different forms and has now been given the name “toxic masculinity”. This phrase has long been used by academics to define regular acts of aggression used by men in positions of power to dominate people around them. In the late 1980s, Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell described the ways that white…

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World Wide (Conversation) – Living in a networked world has many advantages. We get our news online almost as soon as it happens, we stay in touch with friends via social media, and we advance our careers through online professional networks. But there is a darker side to the internet that sees far-right groups exploit these unique features to spread divisive ideas, racial hate and mistrust. Scholars of racism refer to this type of racist communication online as “cyber-racism”. Even the creators of the internet are aware they may have…

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Costa Rica (Yes) –  A child growing up in the Costa Rican countryside is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and biodiverse landscapes in the world. The government of this tiny Central American country aims to keep it that way. But preserving this land of tropical rainforests isn’t Costa Rica’s only accomplishment. The government ensures all citizens have access to health care and education, and the country actively promotes peace around the world. So when the New Economics Foundation released its second Happy Planet Index, a ranking of countries based on their…

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Japan (GV) – Celebrating Women in Japan is a project that publishes short profiles of prominent women in Japan on Facebook and Twitter once a day, every day. One recent woman profiled was influential manga creator Rumiko Takahashi. Yesterday, Rumiko Takahashi was awarded the Grand Prix at the prestigious Angouleme International Comics Festival for her contribution to the development of manga. Congratulations. Her work was described as ‘extremely progressive’. #Japan #CelebratingWomeninJapan pic.twitter.com/YkowwZqKCB — CelebratingWomeninJapan (@womenofjapan) January 25, 2019 The project is spearheaded by Melanie Brock, an international business consultant in Japan and…

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World Wide (Conversation) – For the past few million years the world’s oceans have existed in a slightly alkaline state, with an average pH of 8.2. Now, with carbon emissions escalating, there is more CO₂ in the world’s atmosphere. This dissolves in the oceans, altering the chemistry of the seawater by lowering the pH and making it more acidic – up to 30% more in the past 200 years. This growing acidification of the oceans is becoming a serious problem for the production of shellfish around the world. Shellfish are…

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