Category: Evening Report

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justine Poplin, Teaching Associate, Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

The Chinese Year of the Fire Horse has a new, unexpected mascot: Draco Malfoy.

Associating the Harry Potter antagonist with China’s Year of the Fire Horse might seem odd or whimsical. But it has much to teach us about the complexities of Chinese Mandarin wordplay, online participation and meme-making culture.

A search for Malfoy memes manifest his youthful head floating jubilantly, amid a background of red, gold and black calligraphy.

Meaning in images

In China, Lunar New Year decorations are designed to summon luck, prosperity and protection into the home – and visual puns and homophones are a common feature.

Classic New Year prints often include images of names that sound like phrases for good fortune or prosperity. You will commonly see images of the Zodiac, red lanterns, golden carp, fleshy pink peaches and gold ingots – all symbolising abundance.

Prior to the annual festival, the Chinese character fu 福 (good fortune) is often displayed upside-down on doors and walls in Chinese homes.

This is because the word for “upside-down” (倒, dao) is word play on the word “arrive” (到, dao) in Mandarin. Hanging the fu 福 upside down means “Good fortune has arrived”.

There is other word play, too. Yu 魚 (fish) sounds like the word for surplus, so fish imagery suggests abundance.

During last year’s Year of the Snake wordplay used snake (蛇, shé) and earthly beings/humans (巳, sì) to pair snake imagery with phrases about time, events or letting go.

This Year of the Fire Horse is historically linked with energy, momentum and breakthrough.

In Mandarin, Malfoy 马尔福 (Ma er fu) contains phonetic elements that resonate with words associated with horses (马, ma) and good fortune (福, fu). Hanging Malfoy upside-down on a door or wall extends the same pun, suggesting “good horse fortune has arrived” in your home.

In this way, Malfoy sheds his snake skin from villain to a serendipitous linguistic fit for a year defined by fiery horses and potential prosperity: a modern good luck poster.

Visual remixing

Humour, wordplay and visual remixing are a key feature of Chinese internet culture.

Memes thrive on shared visual references, which can be easily remixed. Malfoy’s titanium white hair and sharp features make him iconic, even in small or edited images.

Another example of homophonic wordplay was during the #MeToo movement.

Facing political sensitivity in China, activists embraced phonetic wordplay to visualise the phrase #MeToo, juxtaposing images of a bowl of rice (米饭, mi fan) with a rabbit (兔子, tuzi). The Chinese meme, Mi Tu (literally rice bunny) is visually coded “cute” on the surface, yet functions with the potency and strategic agility of a Trojan Horse.

The memes became a political statement, to visually disrupt and address sexual abuse or harassment.

The Grass Mud Horse (草泥马m cǎonímǎ) is a mythological alpaca co-created in 2009 as a linguistic and visual protest symbol.

Its name is a homophone for a well known insult, enabling users to express defiance while circumventing censorship. It became a playful yet powerful emblem of resistance to information control, widely circulated through music videos, memes and satirical narratives.

The homophonic wordplay of Draco Malfoy performs a similar cultural function – with celebration that evolves tradition, rather than political protest. Users paste Malfoy’s face onto fire horse emojis, Chinese calligraphy or zodiac themed layouts. Others animate him riding red horses or link his image with auspicious greetings.

Culturally specific memes

Visual culture is culturally specific: meaning cannot be transported across contexts without interpretive friction.

Chinese culture has a long history of playful symbolism. The Malfoy memes fit into that tradition using humour and visual puns to express good wishes. It does not replace sacred rituals or religious practices.

Lunar New Year is not only about preserving tradition. Malfoy as a literary villain may be ironic through a Western lens. However, his image becomes a shared entry point into cross-cultural exchange.

It is about renewing hope for the future, and memes are a clever example of how language shapes visual culture and how traditions evolve.

Visual literacy enables us to unlock the cultural keys embedded within symbols and myths, revealing layers of meaning that might otherwise remain obscured.

Online spaces are where a fictional wizard can temporarily join a centuries-old symbolic system built on flexible wordplay and visual humour for the Year of the Fire Horse.

Justine Poplin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who is the new face of China’s Year of the Fire Horse? Draco Malfoy, of course – https://theconversation.com/who-is-the-new-face-of-chinas-year-of-the-fire-horse-draco-malfoy-of-course-275443

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/who-is-the-new-face-of-chinas-year-of-the-fire-horse-draco-malfoy-of-course-275443/

ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 12, 2026.

Yes, men have a biological clock too. But it’s not just age that affects male fertility
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate Professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong joyce huis/Unsplash When we talk about a biological clock ticking, it usually means the pressure women feel to fall pregnant before a certain age. It’s linked to the decline in eggs (ova) and fertility as females age.

That e-bike you bought your teen might be an illegal electric motorbike – and the risks are real
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorina Pojani, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland A “health emergency”. A “total menace”. “Take them away and crush them”. E-bikes are in the news for all the wrong reasons. A spate of deaths and injuries linked to e-bike crashes have led to widespread

Italy hosted the Winter Olympics 70 years ago. What was it like, and what’s changed?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University Italian skier Bruno Burrini at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina. Getty Images The

Italy hosted the Winter Olympics 70 years ago. What was it like, and what’s changed?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University Italian skier Bruno Burrini at the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina. Getty Images The

Why do I get ‘butterflies in my stomach’?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Loughman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, The University of Melbourne Alfonso Scarpa/Unsplash “Butterflies in the stomach” is that fluttery, nervous feeling you might have before a job interview, giving a speech or at the start of a romance. It’s a cute description for one part of the

Why do I get ‘butterflies in my stomach’?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Loughman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, The University of Melbourne Alfonso Scarpa/Unsplash “Butterflies in the stomach” is that fluttery, nervous feeling you might have before a job interview, giving a speech or at the start of a romance. It’s a cute description for one part of the

For $40, you can name a star for your Valentine. But it won’t mean much
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Nicole Driessen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Radio Astronomy, University of Sydney With Valentine’s Day around the corner, romance is in the air. And what could be more romantic than a picnic under the stars, pointing up to the night sky, and gazing at a star you’ve named

4 lessons NZ should take from another summer of weather disasters
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato DJ Mills/ AFP/Getty Images Another summer of extreme weather has destroyed and damaged homes, cut off communities and, in the most tragic cases, left families mourning their loved ones. It reminds us that New Zealand is one of

How Indigenous ideas about non-linear time can help us navigate ecological crises
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip McKibbin, PhD Candidate, Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney Noel Nesme/Pexels, CC BY It is common to think of time as moving in only one direction – from point A, through point B, to point C. However, many Indigenous peoples – including Māori, the Indigenous people

How bird poo fuelled the rise of Peru’s powerful Chincha Kingdom
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Osborn, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Texas A&M University Islands off the coast of Peru are home to millions of seabirds. Their droppings were an important fertiliser for Indigenous people in the Andes. Jo Osborn In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro

Will Ozempic-style patches help me lose weight? Two experts explain
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Kate Wieser/Getty Could a simple patch, inspired by the weight-loss drug Ozempic, really help you shed excess kilos without the pain and effort of an injection? Promotions of these Ozempic-style, weight-loss patches are popping up online, promising dramatic

Deep-sea fish larvae rewrite the rules of how eyes can be built
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fabio Cortesi, ARC Future Fellow, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland A _Maurolicus muelleri_ viewed under fluorescent light. Dr Wen Sung Chung The deep sea is cold, dark and under immense pressure. Yet life has found a way to prevail there, in the form of some

Natural hydrogen can make decarbonising industry cheaper – NZ’s turbulent geology could give it an edge
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Hydrogen is seeping from the seabed in Poison Bay in Fiordland. Department of Conservation, CC BY-NC-ND Hydrogen is emerging as a critical part of the low-carbon transition for industries where electrification is not a straightforward solution. This includes

Why Australia’s trade deal with Europe hinges on a forgotten promise – and a handshake
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Howard Gray, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for International Trade, Adelaide University Pixabay, Canva, The Conversation, CC BY-NC Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell is in Brussels this week, trying to close a trade deal that has been nearly a decade in the making. The EU–Australia Free Trade

Who is Angus Taylor and could he cut it as opposition leader?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Angus Taylor has all the on-paper qualifications to be opposition leader. But there are big questions over how well he could do the job, when a miracle worker is needed to lift the struggling Liberal Party from its existential crisis.

Southern right whales are having babies less often, but why?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Charlton, Leader of Australian Right Whale Research Program, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University Ivan Stecko/Pexels, CC BY-SA For decades, southern right whales have been celebrated as one of conservation’s success stories. Once driven to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling, southern right whales

View from The Hill: Angus Taylor quits frontbench, declaring Sussan Ley can’t lead Liberal Party ‘as it needs to be led’
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Leadership aspirant Angus Taylor resigned from the shadow cabinet on Wednesday night, but when the Liberal Party will vote on the leadership remained up in the air. After a day of high tension in the party, Taylor went to Ley’s

NSW Premier Minns’ police attack Muslims in prayer, peaceful Gaza protesters
By Pip Hinman in Gadigal Country/Sydney NSW Premier Chris Minns is sounding even more defensive after videos of NSW police violence towards peaceful protesters in Australia went viral — including attacks on Muslims praying in Sydney’s Town Hall Square after the rally on Monday. His “primary concern”, he told ABC TV, was to prevent the

US designates two Micronesian leaders over corruption allegations
RNZ Pacific The United States has designated two high-profile public office holders from Palau and the Marshall Islands for “significant corruption”, the US Department of State says. Palau’s Senate president Hokkons Baules has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption on behalf of China-based actors,” while the former mayor of the Kili/Bikini/Ejit community in

‘New Zealanders are inventive by necessity’: how the master clown Philippe Gaulier shaped NZ theatre
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Joyce Banks, Lecturer in Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast Brig Bee/A Slightly Isolated Dog Master clown and French theatre guru Philippe Gaulier has passed away aged 82, but his influence will live on around the world – particularly in Aotearoa New Zealand. The performance

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/er-report-a-roundup-of-significant-articles-on-eveningreport-nz-for-february-12-2026/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate Professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

When we talk about a biological clock ticking, it usually means the pressure women feel to fall pregnant before a certain age. It’s linked to the decline in eggs (ova) and fertility as females age.

But sperm numbers and fertility similarly decline with age in men. When a heterosexual couple experiences fertility issues, it’s equally likely due to male and female factors. Yet the woman is usually tested first.

But this is changing. New male infertility guidelines for Australian GPs recommend the male and female partner undergo investigations at the same time.

A growing body of research highlights the role of men in infertility and how a man’s age and health matters when trying to conceive. Let’s look at the evidence.

Semen and sperm health decline with age

Sperm are produced in the testes continuously from puberty, but sperm count (the average number of sperm in an ejaculate) starts to decline when a man is in his early twenties. Men over 55 have average sperm counts close to or below the threshold for infertility.

But it’s not just the number of sperm that matters.

Sperm need to be alive, have good motility (movement or “swimming ability”) and be the correct shape to reach and fertilise an egg in the female reproductive tract.

An adequate volume of semen (sperm and seminal fluid together) is also necessary because this provides nourishment to sperm.

---

Read more:
What’s the difference between sperm and semen? And can pre-ejaculate get you pregnant?

---

From around age 30, the number of sperm with good motility and correct shape, and semen volume decline, while the number of dead sperm increases. The biggest changes generally occur from around 35 years of age.

The age-dependent decline in sperm and semen affects male fertility. In studies of more than 2,000 couples, one study showed men older than 45 took five times longer to conceive than men younger than 25. Another study found the chance of falling pregnant within a year was 20% lower at 45 compared to the peak at 30.

Genetic damage and miscarriage risk increase with age

Though a sperm might have reached and fertilised an egg, if it contains genetic damage, this can also affect fertility or the baby.

As men age, their sperm accumulate more genetic damage, including damage to DNA and chromosomes (coils of DNA that carry genes). This is because sperm stem cells replicate hundreds of times during their life. Each time a cell replicates, there is a risk of genetic damage.

Genetic damage to sperm can stop the embryo developing and result in miscarriage. This is linked to about 30% higher chance of miscarriage in men older than 40 compared to those aged 25–29.

New techniques have shown chromosomal abnormalities in sperm also increase with age. These can cause birth defects and chromosomal syndromes such as Down syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome.

Beyond ageing and sperm’s biological clock

Several environmental and lifestyle factors also affect semen and sperm measures, and therefore fertility.

Oxidative stress (too many damaging chemicals and not enough antioxidants) disrupts sperm production and increases sperm DNA damage, and is strongly linked to male infertility.

Oxidative stress is increased by environmental toxins such as pollution, heavy metals, pesticides and some chemicals.

Oxidative stress also increases with certain lifestyle factors, including smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, too much processed meat and sugar consumption, obesity and being sedentary.

Male infertility can also be due to medical causes such as erectile dysfunction, or issues with the male reproductive tract or blood vessels.

A varicocele (dilation of the veins that drain the testes) is one of the most common causes of male infertility, and treatable.

One or two in 100 men with infertility will not have the tubes that transport sperm from the testes to the penis, which means their semen does not contain sperm.

However, for about one in three cases of male infertility, the cause is not known.

The new guidelines

The World Health Organization recognises the importance of addressing infertility in everyone, regardless of sex or gender.

Australia’s first male infertility guidelines support this by recommending infertility is investigated in both partners in heterosexual couples. For the male, this includes examination of the penis, scrotum and testes, and semen and blood analyses.

For the one in nine couples in Australia with fertility problems, this will help them find answers and treatment options sooner.

Staying healthy for fertility

If you’re looking to conceive, age is a consideration but not the only factor.

For optimal sperm health, you can focus on:

• eating a healthy diet with enough vitamins A, C, E and D
• not smoking
• reducing alcohol
• maintaining a healthy weight
• exercising
• avoiding chronic stress
• avoiding excessive exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants.

Reducing unnecessary stress or pressure around falling pregnant is also important. In Australia, most pregnancies are normal and most babies are healthy, regardless of the age of the parents.

---

Read more:
Women are often told their fertility ‘falls off a cliff’ at 35, but is that right?

---

Theresa Larkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Yes, men have a biological clock too. But it’s not just age that affects male fertility – https://theconversation.com/yes-men-have-a-biological-clock-too-but-its-not-just-age-that-affects-male-fertility-268298

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/yes-men-have-a-biological-clock-too-but-its-not-just-age-that-affects-male-fertility-268298/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorina Pojani, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland

A “health emergency”. A “total menace”. “Take them away and crush them”.

E-bikes are in the news for all the wrong reasons. A spate of deaths and injuries linked to e-bike crashes have led to widespread concern. Hundreds of serious injuries have been recorded over the past two years in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. High-speed rideouts across Sydney Harbour Bridge and through golf courses have infuriated authorities.

The vehicles authorities are concerned about aren’t really e-bikes at all. They’re effectively illegal electric motorbikes, able to accelerate rapidly — some to more than 100 kilometres per hour — and often without the safety standards of a legal motorbike. For years, these vehicles were imported through a loophole allowing them to be used on private land. But once in Australia, most end up on roads, bike paths and public space.

The thrill of these vehicles can be a potent cocktail for young people. Their range and speed gives teens more independence before they can legally get a car. That’s great. But teens are also generally more likely to take risks and test boundaries, and less likely to comply with rules. Unsurprisingly, injury and death rates among younger e-bike riders are rising given widespread access to cheap, fast, unlicensed vehicles – often by their well-meaning parents.

How did we get here?

Many people associate e-bikes with parents ferrying kids around on electric cargo bikes, or commuters in business attire zipping to work without raising a sweat. These types of legal vehicles are pedal-assisted and limited to 25km/h.

But the term “e-bike” covers a huge range of vehicles in a booming sector. In 2017, around 9,000 e-bikes were sold across Australia. This year, sales are tipped to be close to 300,000, worth A$1.3 billion.

One reason for the boom: national import standards on high-powered models were loosened in 2021 to reduce red tape at the border.

In late 2025, a more stringent import standard was reintroduced. But because thousands of overpowered vehicles are already here, this won’t be an overnight fix.

If we think of non-compliant e-bikes as illegal electric motorcycles, the risks make more sense. Legal motorbikes, whether electric or petrol, are notoriously dangerous. In 2024, 278 riders died, representing 21% of Australia’s road fatalities despite being just 4.5% of registered vehicles. This is one reason the licence test and safety requirements for motorbikes are rigorous. By contrast, riders of these electric motorbikes don’t sit any test and don’t have to register their vehicle.

Australia doesn’t collect national statistics on e-bike injuries and deaths. What we do know suggests young, usually male e-bike riders are more likely to be injured. Data from the Netherlands and China indicates e-bike riders are more likely to be injured or die than riders of unpowered bikes.

In the United States, e-bike injuries tend to be much more severe, more like motorbike rider injuries than pedal bikes: pelvic fractures, brain injuries, concussion. When pedal bike riders are injured, just 0.3% die. When e-bike riders are injured, the US figure is 11%.

How are young people getting access?

One way young people have been getting these bikes is as gifts from parents.

Why? Reasons include a lack of knowledge about how fast the bikes can go and the risks they present. E-bikes broadly promise more independence for teens and less driving for parents, a benefit many “chauffeur” parents appreciate. The blanket term “e-bike” can make parents think of the overpowered models as just bicycles with a boost.

The spike in popularity means peer pressure is reportedly a factor. “Rideouts” organised and popularised through social media can draw many riders. On TikTok, these vehicles have become status symbols – “tools of identity and rebellion”.

Closing Pandora’s box?

Coverage in recent months has verged on moral panic. But it’s not helpful to think of e-bikes as a threat. The challenge is protecting the excellent uses of e-bikes while weeding out unsafe models.

As we have argued, the word “bike” in “e-bike” is misleading. E‑bikes should be treated as a separate category to pushbikes.

To help parents and other buyers, we should distinguish between street-legal pedal-assisted e-bikes capped at 25km/h, and illegal electric motorcycles with a throttle and much higher top speeds.

What should authorities do?

To get illegal electric motorbikes off the roads, police would benefit from the ability to test the voltage or top speed of e-bikes, as their UK counterparts do.

On the legal front, enforcing the newly adopted standard will be essential – not only at the border, but also at points of sale.

But this won’t be enough, given riders can overclock legal e-bikes by removing built‑in speed restrictions.

Here, authorities could require importers to ensure e-bike software can’t be altered without manufacturer authentication. We already have models for this, such as Queensland’s anti-tampering laws for regulated vehicles such as heavy freight trucks.

E-bike sellers should be required to display prominent, standardised labels and advise buyers that tampering with speed limiters will void their warranty, insurance and legal road access. It must be clear responsibility falls on the owner and rider.

New laws could be useful to restrict higher-powered e-bikes to adults, while teens aged 13-17 could access lower-powered pedal-assist models, ideally with mandatory training or licensing.

Real safety requires infrastructure

E-bikes are here to stay. Even if authorities successfully clamp down on the illegal electric motorbikes, there’s much to be done to use these vehicles safely and effectively.

It might make sense for slower e-bikes to be able to access shared paths and bike lanes, while legal higher-powered e-bikes can use roads.

But in most parts of most Australian cities, bike infrastructure is poor. Bike lanes peter out into traffic and gaps are common. Cycling infrastructure has long been grossly underfunded.

If we are to keep everyone safe on roads, trails and bike lanes, it won’t be enough just to ban overpowered e-bikes. Safety requires careful laws – and real infrastructure.

Dorina Pojani has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN), the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), and iMOVE Australia Cooperative Research Centre.

Richard J. Buning has received research funding from the the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN), the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), Brisbane City Coouncil, and iMOVE Australia Cooperative Research Centre.

– ref. That e-bike you bought your teen might be an illegal electric motorbike – and the risks are real – https://theconversation.com/that-e-bike-you-bought-your-teen-might-be-an-illegal-electric-motorbike-and-the-risks-are-real-275427

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/that-e-bike-you-bought-your-teen-might-be-an-illegal-electric-motorbike-and-the-risks-are-real-275427/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Loughman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, The University of Melbourne

“Butterflies in the stomach” is that fluttery, nervous feeling you might have before a job interview, giving a speech or at the start of a romance.

It’s a cute description for one part of the fight-or-flight response that can kick in if you’re excited or afraid.

But what exactly are these butterflies? Why can we feel them in our stomach? And is there anything we can do about them?

Threat alert

These “butterflies” – along with a raised heart rate, sweating and feeling “jumpy” – are part of your survival mode. That’s when the part of your body known as the autonomic nervous system gets involved.

When you sense a possible threat – whether it’s physical or social, real or imagined – information is sent to the brain’s amygdala region for emotional processing. If the amygdala perceives danger, it sends a distress signal to another part of the brain, the hypothalamus, which kick-starts a cascade of changes to help the body prepare.

The adrenal glands on top of each kidney send the chemical messengers adrenaline and noradrenaline into the bloodstream, activating receptors in the blood vessels, muscles, lungs and heart. The heart rate and blood flow increase, blood sugar levels go up, and muscles are primed for strength (fight) and speed (flight).

Digestion can wait

Digestion can wait until after you have escaped from the tiger (or the job interview). So while all this is happening, your body reduces blood flow to your stomach and intestines, and pauses the constant digestive pulsing of the gut (known as peristalsis).

The autonomic nervous system also stimulates the stomach (and other organs) via the vagus nerve, the nerve that runs down from the brainstem alongside the vertebra, sending signals back and forth between the brain, heart and digestive system.

There isn’t direct evidence to explain which part of this cascade leads to the feeling of butterflies. But it is likely to be related to how the autonomic nervous system pauses the pulsing of the gut, and the vagus nerve sends signals about this change up to the brain.

The feeling of butterflies is technically a “gut feeling” but it’s just one of the signs of the gut communicating back and forth with the brain, along the so-called gut-brain axis. This is the system of communication pathways that shares signals about stress and mood, as well as digestion and appetite.

---

Read more:
Our vagus nerves help us rest, digest and restore. Can you really reset them to feel better?

---

Could our gut microbes be involved?

Gut microbes are one part of this complex communication system. It’s tempting to think that the action of microbes is what causes the fluttery, butterfly feeling, but it’s unlikely to be that simple.

Microbes are, well, microscopic, as are the actions and changes they undergo from moment to moment. There would need to be coordinated microbial movements en masse to explain the sudden onset of that anxious feeling, like a flock of geese in formation, and there isn’t any evidence that microbes work like that.

However microbes have been shown to impact the stress response, with most research so far conducted in mice.

In humans, there is modest evidence from a small study linking microbes with the stress response. This showed that sticking to a microbiome-targeted diet – a diet, rich in prebiotic fibres, designed to feed fibre-loving members of your gut microbiome – could reduce perceived stress compared to a standard healthy diet.

But this single study isn’t enough on its own to definitively tell us exactly how this would work, or if this diet would work for everyone.

What can I do about the butterflies?

How can we manage those nervous bodily feelings?

The first thing to consider is if you need to manage them at all. If it’s a once in a blue-moon, high-stress situation, you might be able to just say “hi” to those butterflies and keep going about your day until your body’s rest-and-digest response kicks in to bring your body back to baseline.

Self-guided techniques can also help.

Mindfully observing your fluttery butterflies may help you notice subtle cues in your body about how you’re feeling, before you become overwhelmed.

By then moving through any actions in your control – from noticing your breath through to taking the next steps towards the plunge you fear most – you show your brain you can overcome the threat.

Sometimes it can be worth turning to the cause of the anxiety-causing situation itself. Could some extra interview prep (for example) help you feel more in control? Or is it more about reminding yourself of how getting through these situations aligns with your values? Sometimes a shift in perspective makes all the difference.

If anxiety is more frequent or is getting in the way of doing the things that matter to you, try the evidence-based method of “dropping the struggle”.

This means sitting with, instead of trying to fight or resist, anxiety and any other bothersome feelings. You might even thank your mind (and body) for its attempt to help, and for the reminder about what is important to you.

Or you can seek help from a psychologist to ease anxiety (as well as other common mental health struggles) using an evidence-based approach commonly known as ACT or acceptance and commitment therapy. This involves developing skills for living a meaningful life in spite of difficult emotions and situations. It helps people work with, rather than control, tricky thoughts and feelings.

In addition to her academic role, Amy Loughman delivers therapies including ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) as a psychologist in private practice.

– ref. Why do I get ‘butterflies in my stomach’? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-get-butterflies-in-my-stomach-269489

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/why-do-i-get-butterflies-in-my-stomach-269489-2/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University

The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are Italy’s fourth as Olympic host and come 70 years after the region first welcomed the world’s best winter athletes.

It is Italy’s third Winter Olympics, second only to the United States (four), reinforcing the nation’s long-standing influence within the Olympic movement.

So, what’s changed since 1956?

Looking back: Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956

The 1956 winter games were originally scheduled for 1944 but were postponed due to the second world war, eventually taking place in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

It was groundbreaking in several ways.

The games ran for 11 days, far shorter than this year’s 17-day program.

Italian skier Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo became the first woman to recite the Olympic Oath at an opening ceremony.

For the first time, the Winter Olympics were broadcast live on television, albeit in black and white, to nine European nations.

In 1956, winter and summer games were held in the same year, (Melbourne hosted the Summer Olympics that year).

This changed in 1994, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) moved them to alternating even-numbered years, significantly boosting the profile, commercial appeal and growth of the Winter Olympics.

From centralised to decentralised hosting

Cortina 1956 featured a highly centralised model, with eight venues clustered within the Dolomites mountain range.

In contrast, Milan Cortina in 2026 reflects the IOC’s modern strategy of decentralisation and sustainability.

The spread-out nature of the 2026 event features:

• four main geographical clusters (Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme) plus Verona (opening and closing ceremonies)
• 15 competition venues
• two host cities – the first time in Olympic history, separated by 413 kilometres
• six Olympic villages
• four opening ceremony locations.

With Milan as a major metropolitan hub, the 2026 games are far more urban than their alpine predecessor.

Growth of the winter games

The expansion from 70 years ago is striking:

New, youth-friendly and broadcast-driven sports such as short-track speed skating, snowboarding and freestyle skiing have transformed the program.

The only new sport in 2026 will be ski mountaineering.

Near-gender parity will be achieved through expanded women’s events and mixed-gender competitions.

Leading nations on the medal table

In 1956, the dominant nations were mainly European – the Soviet Union, Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the US.

This year, the podium will likely be owned by Norway, the US, Germany, Italy, China and Canada – the latter two making huge improvements in recent times.

Even Australia, a summer games powerhouse, which never made the podium until 1994, has improved dramatically and is expected to have its best result of around six medals, placing it in the top 15.

The Russians will be noticeably absent, forced out by the IOC due to the Ukrainian invasion. They will be allowed to have neutral athletes who can win medals but as a nation they are on the outer.

Paralympics, professionalism and equity

The 2026 Winter Paralympics will follow immediately after the Olympics – something that did not exist in 1956.

The Winter Paralympics first appeared in 1976 and only began sharing host cities with the Olympics in 1992.

Other major shifts since 1956 include:

• expanded women’s participation, including ice hockey (introduced in 1998)
• the end of strict amateur-only participation (phased out after 1986)
• increased financial rewards for medal winners
• the return of professional National Hockey League male players for the first time since 2014 – a major boost for fans and broadcasters.

Media, technology and the fan experience

Media coverage has exploded since 1956 with the ability to follow every sport, every event on television and radio, digital platforms, newspaper and print media, blogs, podcasts and social media.

Technological changes over the past seven decades have been dramatic. This includes:

• extensive new types of media coverage
• use of artificial intelligence
• equipment design
• athlete apparel innovation
• snow-making capabilities
• venue design and preparation
• transportation improvements
• monitoring of athlete performance and training methods.

Fan experience will be greatly enhanced and transformed through:

• fan zones and live sites
• Olympic-affiliated cultural events
• sponsor and National Olympic Committee hospitality venues nicknamed “party houses” spread across all four clusters
• athlete and inclusion-focused initiatives such as Athlete365 House and Pride House.

Costs, sustainability and climate challenges

The 1956 games operated on a modest budget of around US$250,000 (A$350,000).

The 2026 event is projected to cost around US$5.9 billion (A$8.3 billion) for operating and infrastructure expenses.

Cost escalation is driven by inflation, transport and accommodation, security requirements, venue construction and technology.

Balancing this are vastly increased revenues from broadcast rights, sponsorship and ticketing.

Most Olympic hosts end up losing money. The list is long, with Montreal (1976), Nagano (1998), Athens (2004), Sochi (2014), Rio (2016), Tokyo (2020/21) and others all going well over budget.

Sustainability and legacy – barely considered in 1956 – are now central.

The IOC strongly discourages “white elephant” venues, prioritising temporary facilities, venue reuse and carbon reduction.

Climate change remains a long-term concern. While snow was imported for some events in 1956, global warming now threatens the future pool of viable hosts.

Geopolitics, governance and security

The election of Kirsty Coventry as the first woman president of the IOC underscores the organisation’s broader push toward gender equity in leadership.

Under her guidance, the IOC is looking to implement firmer policies on transgender participation.

No major boycotts by nations are expected despite tension caused by the expulsion of Russia and Belarus.

Several international sport federations – supported by some European nations – have even restricted these two banned national Olympic teams from participating as individual neutral athletes.

For the 2026 games, doping controls are stricter than ever, led by the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Security planning is at an all-time high. It now includes cyber-threats as well as physical risks.

Watch this space

Seventy years after Cortina d’Ampezzo hosted a modest, alpine-focused winter games, Milan Cortina 2026 represents a vastly expanded, technologically sophisticated and globally connected Olympic festival.

Despite challenges – climate, cost and geopolitics – all indicators suggest the games will deliver a compelling, inclusive and memorable celebration of winter sport.

Richard Baka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Italy hosted the Winter Olympics 70 years ago. What was it like, and what’s changed? – https://theconversation.com/italy-hosted-the-winter-olympics-70-years-ago-what-was-it-like-and-whats-changed-271838

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/italy-hosted-the-winter-olympics-70-years-ago-what-was-it-like-and-whats-changed-271838-2/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Nicole Driessen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Radio Astronomy, University of Sydney

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, romance is in the air. And what could be more romantic than a picnic under the stars, pointing up to the night sky, and gazing at a star you’ve named for your Valentine?

A quick online search reveals multiple paid services for naming a star, usually accompanied by a certificate and a star map for finding the star.

However, these names are not official and are not used by astronomers. According to the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Star Names, the official body that leads selecting star names: “the sky is not owned by anyone”.

So what names do astronomers use for stars and how are official star names selected?

Pay to name a star

Star-naming services offer a range of paid packages – some costing just A$40 – and add-ons to name a star or two.

If you dig into the FAQs you can usually find a disclaimer stating that the star names are recorded in their private database. They have to include this, as the International Astronomical Union explicitly states stars cannot be named after people (except for rare cases). Even without these rules and disclaimers, these websites have too many customers and not enough stars.

Many websites that sell star names claim the star will be visible to the naked eye. For those with excellent vision star-gazing on a dark night, roughly 2,500 stars are visible to the naked eye (5,000 in both hemispheres).

And if you pay for a higher-price package including only “extra bright stars” or visible binary systems (two stars orbiting each other), the number is even smaller.

Yet some of these websites claim to have 100,000-plus, or even 500,000-plus, satisfied customers.

This means that each star has been named at least 20 times. It’s a smidge less romantic when your Valentine’s name is the 20th, or even 100th, name for a star.

The proper process of naming stars

Astronomers never use these purchased names.

Instead we use proper names and designations for stars. Stars can only have one, official proper name, such as the stars Sirius, Betelgeuse and Polaris.

But many have a whole bunch of designations. Designations are unique combinations of letters and numbers used by astronomers when creating surveys and catalogues of stars. Most stars don’t have a proper name, but all known stars have at least one designation.

Fewer than 600 stars have a proper name. This is out of more than one billion stars that have been identified by astronomers.

The International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Star Names keeps an up-to-date list. New stars were most recently added on December 25 2025. The working group has guidelines and rules for naming stars, sometimes including the public in the process.

Typically, star names are rooted in history and culture. Collecting historical and indigenous constellations is part of the working group’s strategy. For example, one of the most recently named stars is called “Sarvvis”, a name used by the Sami people of Northern Scandinavia.

Designations tell astronomers which telescope saw the star. This tells us information about the star, such as what types of light it emits.

Sirius has more than 60 designations, including 2MASS J06450887-1642566, HIP 32349 and CNS5 1676.

“2MASS” is the Two Micron All-Sky Survey in infrared, so this tells us Sirius emits infrared light. “HIP” refers to the European Space Agency Hipparcos mission, and tells us Sirius is a bright optical star. The “CNS5” is the Fifth Catalogue of Nearby Stars, telling us Sirius is closer than 25 parsec (or 82 light years) from the Sun.

The numbers “J06450887-1642566” are the coordinates of the star, and “32349” and “1676” are unique numbers to identify Sirius specifically in those catalogues.

New star names are rare

I have given many stars new designations in my Sydney Radio Star Catalogue. I also gave the star TYC 8332-2529-1 the new designation MKT J170456.2-482100 when I detected it for the first time using the MeerKAT telescope.

In that case, “MKT” stands for “MeerKAT” and the numbers give the coordinates of the star at the time we detected it. That star only has designations, no proper name. Stars can always get new designations when a new survey of the sky is performed or a new catalogue constructed. This is why some stars have tens of designations.

The International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Star Names guidelines prohibit commercial, political or military names and even prohibit naming stars after pet animals.

Since official star naming is focused on historical and cultural names, it is rare for new star names to emerge.

Even for naming campaigns open to the public run by the International Astronomical Union, only stars too faint to be seen by the naked eye are considered. A very recent official star name is “Siwarha” – a name suggested by the team that discovered the star. The name means “her bracelet” and is the name for Betelgeuse’s small companion star.

So it is rare, but not impossible, for astronomers to name the stars they discover.

You can’t officially name a star after your Valentine. But you can plan a romantic evening of star-gazing and point out the officially named stars visible at this time of year. Betelgeuse, Sirius and Rigel can be seen in Australia in the early evening on Valentine’s day.

Laura Nicole Driessen is an ambassador for the Orbit Centre of Imagination at the Rise and Shine Kindergarten, in Sydney’s Inner West.

– ref. For $40, you can name a star for your Valentine. But it won’t mean much – https://theconversation.com/for-40-you-can-name-a-star-for-your-valentine-but-it-wont-mean-much-274742

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/for-40-you-can-name-a-star-for-your-valentine-but-it-wont-mean-much-274742/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of Waikato

Another summer of extreme weather has destroyed and damaged homes, cut off communities and, in the most tragic cases, left families mourning their loved ones.

It reminds us that New Zealand is one of the most natural-hazard-exposed countries on Earth. Severe weather is common, major cities sit in low-lying areas and steep landscapes are prone to landslips.

Added to these risks are earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storm surges, tsunami, drought and wildfires. As the climate continues to change, many of these hazards are likely to pose an even greater risk to people and property.

Amid January’s storms, there was public grief for those who perished – and genuine gratitude for the emergency responders, marae and neighbours who stepped in to help.

The events also reignited discussion about what we learn from disasters, the role of science and trusted agencies, and what can be done to reduce harm before the next event strikes.

Indeed, this summer’s experience, and a building body of research, tell us there are clear lessons to be learned – if we are willing to act on them.

Lesson 1: Hazards are natural. Disasters are social.

Natural hazards can emerge slowly as accumulated stress, or arrive suddenly as an acute shock. Disasters, on the other hand, occur only when hazards intersect with people, infrastructure and decisions. This is why disasters are not just physical phenomena, but social processes.

Natural hazards and resilience research consistently shows that how information is communicated, decisions are made and responsibilities are shared directly shape public trust and how communities cope and recover.

Research following Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 found that after disasters, public trust is fragile, distress is widespread and communities are acutely sensitive to who communicates, how and when.

In this environment, misinformation is to be expected, but it is not inevitable. Evidence shows it can be countered through communicating what is known – and what is yet not known – in a clear, authoritative and targeted way.

Lesson 2: Growth can reduce risk – or lock it in

Living in a hazardous country requires communities and decision-makers to think differently about how risk is managed, and how growth and development are planned.

Research highlights the importance of avoiding future liabilities by adopting evidence-based, nationally consistent approaches that take account of natural hazards and climate risks in decisions made today.

That may mean steering development toward safer areas or investing in “no-regret” infrastructure designed for resilience even if the worst climate or hazard scenarios don’t eventuate.

Regulation can help, but there are other levers to pull. For example, giving communities and real-estate markets clearer information about the risks can enable risk reduction responses.

The alternatives are well known – and are high priced. Relocating communities from high-risk areas is difficult and expensive. Retrofitting protection is similarly costly, while changing urban space is often contested.

From a long-term perspective, the smarter option is to link spatial planning with hazard modelling and climate scenarios to grow well and use science to avoid exposure where possible, rather than pass escalating liabilities on to future generations and ratepayers.

Lesson 3: How we frame extreme events matters

For decades, significant natural hazard events in New Zealand have been described as rare, exceptional or “once in a generation”. This language is a poor fit for the lived reality.

Treasury has warned there is an 80% chance of another Cyclone Gabrielle-scale event within the next 50 years. In other words, extreme weather events are more likely to occur; they are not an anomaly.

The National Climate Change Risk Assessment for New Zealand explains that climate-driven events are likely to increase in frequency, intensity and complexity.

When events are framed as unprecedented – and even if they indeed are – then it becomes easier for decision-makers to defer action. Words matter. Labelling these events as “one-offs” encourages short memories and short-term fixes, rather than sustained risk reduction.

Lesson 4: NZ must bridge its ‘knowledge-action gap’

New Zealand produces world-leading natural hazard research. Its scientists today largely understand rainfall thresholds, slope instability, flood behaviour, liquefaction, infrastructure vulnerability and cascading risk far better than even 15 years ago.

Yet this knowledge still struggles to consistently shape land-use planning, infrastructure investment, emergency preparedness and recovery decisions. Recent research showed that 97% of government spending was on responding to, and recovering from, disasters. Only 3% was spent on risk reduction and resilience.

Being proactive and closing this “knowledge-action gap” requires balanced research that is designed not only to generate evidence, but also to support decision-making in policy, practice and communities.

It also demands working with the people and organisations that already make a difference on the ground. Māori-led research following Cyclone Gabrielle shows that marae and iwi health providers were central to community survival and recovery, often stepping in where formal systems were delayed or absent and carrying the cumulative effects of repeated events.

Like other nations grappling with this issue, Aotearoa needs to continue to move from more response-led thinking to more strategic evidence-led prevention.

That means bringing together engineering, data, social science, economics, adaptation planning and mātauranga Māori into one coherent, multi-hazard approach.

Given the varied nature of the different perils we face, we also need a deeper understanding of each hazard in order to allocate resources effectively for pre-event mitigation, enable synergies and get the best outcomes.

Ultimately, the latest weather disasters leave us with a simple conclusion: if New Zealanders want things to stay the same as much as they can in a warming world – to protect safety, wellbeing and prosperity – then things will have to change.

Iain White leads the Better Resilience Decisions programme for the New Zealand Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform and receives funding from the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake and the Endeavour research programme. He is also New Zealand’s National Contact Point for Climate, Energy and Mobility for the European Union’s Horizon Europe research program.

Bill Fry leads the Data and Enabling Technologies programme for the New Zealand Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform. He sits on the Global Tsunami Model, NZ UNESCO National Decade Committee, ITU/WMO/IOC JTF for Smart Cables and the global DRR GEO working group. He chairs the WG2 of the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System and holds several other UN-IOC leadership roles. He has previously received or currently receives funding from Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake, MBIE Endeavour Fund, Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and EU Horizons.

Julia Becker leads the Living with Risk theme for the New Zealand Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform. She is also an Associate Director for Te Hiranga Rū QuakeCoRE, a Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission, and has received funding from the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake and MBIE Endeavour research programmes.

Liam Wotherspoon leads the Next Generation Risk Assessment programme for the New Zealand Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform. He is also an Associate Director of Te Hiranga Rū QuakeCoRE, a Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission. Liam receives funding from the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake and Endeavour research programmes.

Melanie Mark-Shadbolt leads the Vision Mātauranga programme for the New Zealand Natural Hazards and Resilience Platform. She is also the CEO of Te Tira Whakamātaki, an environmental not-for-profit and home to Hono: the Māori Emergency Management Network. TTW and Hono receive funding from philanthropic organisations, private industry and individuals, and government agencies including NEMA, MBIE, and DOC.

– ref. 4 lessons NZ should take from another summer of weather disasters – https://theconversation.com/4-lessons-nz-should-take-from-another-summer-of-weather-disasters-275437

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/4-lessons-nz-should-take-from-another-summer-of-weather-disasters-275437/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip McKibbin, PhD Candidate, Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney

It is common to think of time as moving in only one direction – from point A, through point B, to point C.

However, many Indigenous peoples – including Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand – experience time non-linearly.

Rather than picturing time as a straight line, we imagine it as recurring, spiralling, and recalling itself.

How we conceptualise time could impact how we respond to ecological crises.

Indigenous time/s

As Māori, we understand time – wā – non-linearly.

Researchers Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting contrast Māori time with colonial time, saying:

With settler colonial ontologies, time is flattened, made one dimensional, reduced to a linear process […] Along this arrow of time, the “present” is placed at the pinnacle of existence, disconnected from both the past and future.

Māori, however, do not place the present at the centre; as the same researchers put it, “there is no centre”.

We think with and as ancestors, and prophecy informs many of our movements.

For us, non-linear time finds natural expression in a metaphor: the koru, or unfolding fern frond. Researcher Paula Toko King and colleagues note this represents

the continuous cycles of life and death and the unfolding of the cosmos, emerging from the realm of potentiality.

Spiralling time should not be confused with circularity.

As writer Makere Stewart-Harawira explains:

a circle invariably returns to the point of origin, [however] the spiral never returns exactly to the point of origin but moves progressively forward in a process of constant motion and expansion.

Significantly, as Potawatomi scholar Kyle Powys Whyte notes:

Spiraling time is an important topic of discussion when Indigenous persons compare their conceptions of temporality across different cultures.

Non-linear time

For many of us – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – non-linear time can be difficult to conceptualise, at first.

Consider memory, dream, imagination, and fantasy, all of which weave past, present, and future in ways that frequently impact how we act.

Think about your favourite season: every time it recurs, it is at once freshly present and reminiscent of past seasons. It may even prompt you to think about future ones.

We do not always realise that our experience of time is non-linear. And yet, for most – if not all – of us, it is. To experience time non-linearly is natural.

Importantly, as Kyle Whyte explains:

Spiraling time does not foreclose linear, future thinking.

This is true of non-linearity generally, which is closer to linearity than the prefix “non-” suggests (yet another way in which binaries constrain our thinking).

3 important insights

Non-linear time could help us to navigate compounding ecological crises, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and mass extinction.

The common refrain, “we’re minutes to midnight” is often used to prompt a sense of urgency and push us to act quickly without considering all the consequences of doing so. Non-linear time subverts this, offering three important insights.

First, these crises will impact, and are impacting, people and peoples differently. Marginalised communities are closer to “midnight” than others. For those who are feeling the effects of these crises, it makes more sense to say, “we’re (already) minutes past midnight”. In recent years, for instance, my iwi (Māori tribe), Kāi Tahu, has had to discuss the possibility of a managed retreat from the coastline, as many of our marae (gathering places) are located on the coast.

Second, non-linear time encourages us to think about – and plan for – what comes “afterwards”. These crises are unlikely to lead to human extinction, and there will be non-humans who survive with us; so it benefits us all to think about how we might navigate collapse, and steps we could take now to transition to alternative ways of living.

Linearity leads us to place too much emphasis on static points, such as thresholds, which typically elevate humans over others. We might ask: what comes after “midnight”?

Third, non-linearity challenges us to imagine beyond anthropocentrism. We conceptualise time in human ways, but it is not only us who are threatened by, and forced to navigate, these crises. Breaking free of linear time helps us to think about the world beyond “the human”. It leads us to wonder.

And what do we learn? That we humans are not the only ones here; that it isn’t only us and “the environment”; that to reduce non-humans to dimensions of “the environment” – as we do when we treat others as exploitable resources – is, ultimately, oppressive; and that only by broadening our concern will we realise justice.

It’s true, “midnight” can be a dangerous time for humans; but by attending to non-humans – including nocturnal animals like kiwi, wētā, and the brushtail possums I love – we will continue to find the dawn, not alone but together.

Philip McKibbin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Indigenous ideas about non-linear time can help us navigate ecological crises – https://theconversation.com/how-indigenous-ideas-about-non-linear-time-can-help-us-navigate-ecological-crises-273231

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/how-indigenous-ideas-about-non-linear-time-can-help-us-navigate-ecological-crises-273231/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Osborn, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Texas A&M University

In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire.

Before this fateful attack, Pizarro’s brother, Pedro Pizarro, made a curious observation: other than the Inca himself, the Lord of Chincha was the only person at Cajamarca carried on a litter, a carrying platform.

Why did the Lord of Chincha occupy such a high position in Inca society? In our new study published in PLOS One, we find evidence for a surprising potential source of power and influence: bird poo.

A potent and precious resource

Chincha, in southern Peru, is one of several river valleys along the desert coast fed by Andean highland waters, which have long been key to irrigation agriculture. About 25 kilometres out to sea are the Chincha Islands, with the largest guano deposits in the Pacific.

Seabird guano, or excrement, is a highly potent organic fertiliser. Compared to terrestrial manures such as cow dung, guano contains vastly more nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential for plant growth.

On the Peruvian coast, the Humboldt/Peru ocean current creates rich fisheries. These fisheries support massive seabird colonies that roost on the rocky offshore islands.

Thanks to the dry, nearly rainless climate, the seabird guano doesn’t wash away, but continues to pile up until many meters tall. This unique environmental combination makes Peruvian guano particularly prized.

Our research combines iconography, historic written accounts, and the stable isotope analysis of archaeological maize (Zea mays) to show Indigenous communities in the Chincha Valley used seabird guano at least 800 years ago to fertilise crops and boost agricultural production.

We suggest guano likely shaped the rise of the Chincha Kingdom and its eventual relationship with the Inca Empire.

Lords of the desert coast

The Chincha Kingdom (1000–1400 CE) was a large-scale society comprising an estimated 100,000 people. It was organised into specialist communities such as fisherfolk, farmers and merchants. This society controlled the Chincha Valley until it was brought into the Inca Empire in the 15th century.

Given the proximity of historically important guano deposits on the Chincha Islands, Peruvian historian Marco Curatola proposed in 1997 that seabird guano was an important source of Chincha’s wealth. We tested this hypothesis and found strong support.

A biochemical test

Biochemical analysis is a reliable way to identify the use of fertilisers in the past. One experimental 2012 study showed plants fertilised with dung from camelids (alpacas and llamas) and seabirds show higher nitrogen isotope values than unfertilised crops.

We analysed 35 maize samples recovered from graves in the Chincha Valley, documented as part of an earlier study on burial practices.

Most of the samples produced higher nitrogen isotope values than expected for unfertilised maize, suggesting some form of fertilisation occurred. About half of the samples had extremely high values. These results are so far only consistent with the use of seabird guano.

This chemical analysis confirms the use of guano on pre-Hispanic crops.

Imagery and written sources

Guano – and the birds that produce it – also held broader significance to the Chincha people.

Our analysis of archaeological artefacts suggests the Chincha people had a profound understanding of the connection between the land, sea and sky. Their use of guano and their relationship with the islands was not just a practical choice; it was deeply embedded in their worldview.

This reverence is reflected in Chincha material culture. Across their textiles, ceramics, architectural friezes and metal objects, we see repeated images of seabirds, fish, waves, and sprouting maize.

These images demonstrate the Chincha understood the entire ecological cycle: seabirds ate fish from the ocean and produced guano, guano fed the maize, and the maize fed the people.

This relationship may even be reflected today through local Peruvian place names. Pisco is derived from a Quechua word for bird, and Lunahuaná might translate to “people of the guano”.

Poo power

As an effective and highly valuable fertiliser, guano also enabled Chincha communities to increase crop yields and expand trade networks, contributing to the economic expansion of the Chincha Kingdom.

We suggest fisherfolk sailed to the Chincha Islands to acquire guano and then provided it to farmers, as well as to seafaring merchants to trade along the coast and into the highlands.

Chincha’s agricultural productivity and growing mercantile influence would have enhanced its strategic importance for the Inca Empire. Around 1400 CE, the Inca incorporated the Chincha after a “peaceful” capitulation, creating one of the few calculated alliances of its kind.

Although the “deal” made between Chincha and Inca remains debated, we suggest seabird guano played a role in these negotiations, as the Inca state was interested in maize but lacked access to marine fertilisers. This may be why the Lord of Chincha was held in such high esteem that he was carried aloft on a litter, as Pedro Pizarro noted.

The Inca came to value this fertiliser so much they imposed access restrictions on the guano islands during the breeding season and forbade the killing of guano birds, on or off the islands, under penalty of death.

Our study expands the known geographic extent of guano fertilisation in the pre-Inca world and strongly supports scholarship that predicted its role in the rise of the Chincha Kingdom. However, there is still much to learn about how widespread it was, and when this practice began.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How bird poo fuelled the rise of Peru’s powerful Chincha Kingdom – https://theconversation.com/how-bird-poo-fuelled-the-rise-of-perus-powerful-chincha-kingdom-275316

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/how-bird-poo-fuelled-the-rise-of-perus-powerful-chincha-kingdom-275316/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

Could a simple patch, inspired by the weight-loss drug Ozempic, really help you shed excess kilos without the pain and effort of an injection?

Promotions of these Ozempic-style, weight-loss patches are popping up online, promising dramatic results with little evidence to back their claims.

Personal recommendations for the patches are common. This includes from some “doctors” on social media. But independent fact checkers have shown these endorsements are AI-generated.

So, before you spend your money, here’s why you should think twice about buying a weight-loss patch.

What’s in them? Do they work?

Ozempic-style patches are also known as GLP-1 patches. But they do not contain any pharmaceutical ingredient from Ozempic (semaglutide) or related drugs such as Mounjaro (tirzepatide).

Instead, the Ozempic-style patches contain a mixture of herbal extracts including berberine, green tea (Camellia sinensis), the tropical fruit Garcinia cambogia and bitter orange (Citrus x aurantium L.).

There is some laboratory evidence that select compounds from berberine, the polyphenols in green tea extract and hydroxycitric acid from G. cambogia may have some effect. This includes suppressing appetite, lowering blood glucose (sugar) levels and playing a role in regulating fat metabolism to promote weight loss.

However, laboratory evidence doesn’t automatically translate to what happens in humans. In fact, recent evidence in humans shows these herbs have little effect on weight loss.

Let’s take berberine. Mostly, the evidence indicates that people who take it don’t lose a lot of weight. One scientific review showed that taking up to 3 grams daily for a year had only a small effect on weight and waist circumference.

Another review that analysed data from multiple studies found that up to 2.4g of green tea extract supplement daily for 13 weeks and more than 4g of G. cambogia daily for 17 weeks did not affect people’s weight.

For bitter orange extract, a daily dose of up to 54 milligrams of synephrine (a compound isolated from bitter orange extract) for eight weeks did not lead to weight loss.

It is important to note that all these studies are for oral formulations of herbal extracts, such as tablets or capsules, rather than for extracts delivered by patches.

Do they get through the skin?

Whether an extract in a weight-loss patch gets through the skin depends on how the extract was made.

Our skin is highly lipophilic, meaning it absorbs oily or fat-soluble chemicals, and blocks water-loving, or hydrophilic, substances.

So not all medicines can be delivered through the skin. Ozempic, for instance, is administered as an injection because the drug molecule in it is too big and water-loving to pass through the skin.

If the extracts in the patches are made using a water-based process, their ingredients are unlikely to pass through the skin and will simply sit inactive on your body until you remove the patch.

The next issue is that patches can only hold very little herbal extract. In the studies we discussed above, grams of material were needed to see any effect. In reality, Ozempic-style patches typically hold less than 0.1g of extract.

So, even if the ingredients get through the skin, these patches don’t contain enough to have any meaningful effect.

You can’t assume patches are safe

The Therapeutic Goods Administration regulates medical products in Australia, including herbal extracts.

For a herbal product to be permitted for sale in Australia it must be listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. There are no Ozempic-style patches on the register.

This means the quality and safety of any patch you buy has not been assessed and cannot be guaranteed.

An Australian study found instances where contamination with undeclared plant materials, heavy metals and prescription drugs, such as warfarin, have been reported in unregistered herbal products. These contaminants are dangerous because they can potentially be absorbed through the skin, then circulate around the body.

In a nutshell

While the idea of Ozempic-style weight-loss patches might seem appealing, they do not work, and their safety is far from guaranteed.

Instead of wasting your money, speak to your doctor or pharmacist who can recommend proven treatments for weight loss. They can provide safe and effective options tailored to help you reach your health goal.

Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd (a medical device company) and was previously a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. He is a member of the Expert Panel for the Haleon Pain Management Institute. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design and testing.

Wai-Jo Jocelin Chan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Will Ozempic-style patches help me lose weight? Two experts explain – https://theconversation.com/will-ozempic-style-patches-help-me-lose-weight-two-experts-explain-275073

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/will-ozempic-style-patches-help-me-lose-weight-two-experts-explain-275073/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Howard Gray, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for International Trade, Adelaide University

Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell is in Brussels this week, trying to close a trade deal that has been nearly a decade in the making. The EU–Australia Free Trade Agreement is tantalisingly close, although EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has yet to confirm a visit to Australia to seal the deal.

Both parties are keen to diversify their trading partners in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s assault on the global trading system.

The European Union and Australia face an increasingly hostile global trade environment, driven by US tariff volatility and China’s assertive trade practices. The EU–Australia Free Trade Agreement represents exactly the kind of initiative needed to reduce dependence on both and build strategic resilience.

European farmer protests

For the EU, despite the overwhelmingly positive benefits on offer, closing the deal is a tough proposition, facing strong opposition from some EU member states’ farming communities.

The EU–Mercosur Free Trade Agreement with the South American trade bloc was signed last month but only after a bruising battle, and mass tractor protests in Brussels and Paris. The European Parliament then referred the deal to the EU Court of Justice, delaying its ratification, which is far from assured.

Clearly, agricultural market access is politically toxic for the EU.

What gains are on offer from the Free Trade Agreement?

An EU–Australia agreement could boost Australia’s economy by up to $A7.4 billion by 2030, eliminating around 98% of tariffs between the two economies.

One of the most visible changes would be the removal of the 5% tariff on European cars and potentially the luxury car tax, which could cut the price of a BMW, Audi, Alfa Romeo or Renault by up to A$10,000.

The EU has long viewed Australia’s luxury car tax as an irritating trade barrier, and its removal would open the Australian market to more competitively priced European vehicles.

More broadly, the benefits would unlock opportunities across critical minerals, worker mobility, investment, carbon market cooperation, and digital trade.

One of the most exciting elements is a proposed labour mobility scheme that would allow Australians to live and work in EU countries, and vice versa.

This is designed for genuine career moves, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, and long-term economic integration. For young Australians dreaming of working in Berlin, Barcelona or Bologna, this could be transformative.

The EU desperately needs to diversify its supply of critical minerals, lithium and other materials away from China, and Australia has them in abundance. An EU–Australia agreement on critical minerals is already delivering results, with Australian companies securing projects.

The last sticking point is beef, and a handshake

Australia and the EU are close to agreement, having seemingly resolved issues such as naming rights for many foods. However, the sticking point is beef.

Australian beef exporters access the EU market through a high-quality beef quota at a 20% tariff. This quota was not created for Australia.

It originated from a trade dispute in which the United States successfully challenged the EU’s ban on hormone-treated beef imports. Under the resulting 2009 agreement, the EU established the quota for hormone-free, high-quality beef.

Crucially, under World Trade Organization rules, this quota had to be available to all eligible suppliers, not just the US. Australia qualified from 2010 and quickly built up a significant share, exporting up to 17,000 tonnes annually to Europe.

---

---

Then came the twist. In 2018, Trump threatened to impose punitive tariffs on European cars; the threat had BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes in a cold sweat.

Fighting for the scraps

To fend off that tariff threat, the EU agreed to carve out a dedicated US share of the 45,000-tonne beef quota. The US would receive an initial 18,500 tonnes, rising to 35,000 tonnes over seven years.

But that left just 10,000 tonnes for Australia, Uruguay, Argentina and New Zealand to fight over. Australia alone had been shipping 17,000 tonnes.

Australia reluctantly accepted. But the understanding (a handshake deal) was that in future trade negotiations, particularly the Australia–EU FTA, Australia would receive an increased quota in compensation.

Perhaps that understanding has been forgotten by EU negotiators.

Securing improved market access for beef remains a priority for the Australian government, and the shifting global context has not made domestic politics any easier.

Today, the EU wants to cap Australian beef imports at around 30,000 tonnes per year, while Australia is pushing for 40,000 tonnes. The EU’s offer is a big increase on our current quota access, but the higher rate would lift Australia’s quota share to be commensurate with the quota access of similarly sized beef exporters, Brazil (50,000) and the US (35,000).

Farrell, the trade minister, has been blunt, warning he will walk away from the table as he did in free-trade talks with Japan in 2023, if the agricultural offer is not improved. The National Farmers’ Federation has backed him, declaring “no deal is better than a bad deal for Australian agriculture.”

The strategic case

A trade deal that would strengthen the rules-based trading system, deepen cooperation on critical minerals, boost worker mobility, and deliver billions in diversified economic growth is being held hostage by a beef quota arising from EU appeasement of Trump in his first presidency.

In a world of growing trade disruption, the strategic case for this agreement has never been stronger.

The momentum is real. The question is whether Brussels can look beyond the paddock and see the bigger picture, before someone else fills the strategic gap that this deal was designed to close.

Nathan Howard Gray receives funding from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Peter Draper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why Australia’s trade deal with Europe hinges on a forgotten promise – and a handshake – https://theconversation.com/why-australias-trade-deal-with-europe-hinges-on-a-forgotten-promise-and-a-handshake-275429

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/why-australias-trade-deal-with-europe-hinges-on-a-forgotten-promise-and-a-handshake-275429/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury

Hydrogen is emerging as a critical part of the low-carbon transition for industries where electrification is not a straightforward solution.

This includes the production of steel, fertiliser and methanol as well as long-haul transport. In New Zealand, these industries account for about 17% of total emissions.

Hydrogen could replace these emissions but this would require annual production of 600,000 to one million tonnes. The cost of producing low-carbon hydrogen is a critical factor.

Currently, “green” hydrogen – made by splitting water with renewable electricity – costs more than NZ$12 per kilogram.

Long-haul transport companies have already invested in green hydrogen, but it remains too expensive for heavy industry or large-scale chemical production. For these industries, the tipping point for economic viability is closer to $4–5 per kilogram.

But New Zealand could be uniquely placed to explore a potentially cheaper option – “natural” or geological hydrogen which the Earth produces and, in some cases, traps in underground reservoirs.

The promise of natural hydrogen

Around the world, researchers and companies are already turning their attention to natural hydrogen.

Near-pure hydrogen has been extracted at a single gas field in Mali, attracting interest from governments in the United States, Canada and Australia.

There is also interest from major international resource companies. By the end of 2023, 40 companies were exploring natural hydrogen globally.

One key process in the accumulation of natural hydrogen is “serpentinisation” – a reaction between water and iron-rich ultramafic rocks. When water alters these minerals, it converts ferrous iron to ferric iron, releasing hydrogen in the process.

The richer the rock is in iron, the more hydrogen is produced. Under the right conditions, these rocks can generate hydrogen at potentially economic scales.

Laboratory-based research shows that at the right temperature and pressure conditions, up to 0.6 kilograms of hydrogen can be released from a cubic metre of ultramafic rock (if it contains the right iron-rich minerals).

New Zealand’s turbulent geological history provides an unusual advantage.

The landscape has been shaped by major episodes of tectonic collision. Rapid and complex uplift of mountain ranges, active plate subduction and regular ruptures of faults that penetrate through the crust create exactly the kinds of geological settings where natural hydrogen can potentially form and accumulate.

Four promising geological situations stand out.

1. Belts of ancient ultramafic rock have been pushed up from deep in the Earth’s crust on both islands. In the North Island, many of these rocks lie beneath major industrial centres, raising the possibility of local “on-demand” hydrogen production close to where it would be used.

2. High-temperature geothermal systems drive powerful circulations of groundwater, enabling the generation and transport of hydrogen from magma.

3. Off the east coast of the North Island, the Pacific plate is being forced under New Zealand in a region known as the Hikurangi subduction zone. As it sinks, chemical reactions including serpentinisation produce methane and hydrogen.

Observed phenomena of this process include the presence of methane hydrates and seeps as well as plume emissions, mud volcanoes, hot springs and localised seeps of hydrogen.

4. Major faults in the South Island, including the Alpine Fault, act as deep conduits, allowing water to interact with ultramafic rocks.

In Fiordland, a remarkable site has vented gas that is 76% hydrogen for at least 40 years. This is one of the more notable seeps of natural hydrogen known worldwide.

These factors make New Zealand unusually well suited to natural hydrogen exploration. The country’s active geology, often thought of as a hazard, could also be a critical resource.

Researchers and industry are beginning to investigate whether these sources could provide hydrogen at $4–5 per kilogram or less. If natural hydrogen proves viable, New Zealand’s unique geology could put the country at the forefront of a new global energy frontier.

---

The authors acknowledge contributions by University of Canterbury colleagues David Dempsey, Jannik Haas, Rebecca Peer and Matt Watson.

---

Ian Wright receives funding from current TEC PBRF fund, and is a co-supervisor of a new MBIE-funded Applied Doctorate Scheme PhD project to study natural hydrogen emissions associated with faults.

Andy Nicol receives funding from the MBIE Endeavour Fund to assess the feasibility of hydrogen geostorage in Taranaki, and is a co-supervisor of a new MBIE-funded Applied Doctorate Scheme PhD project to study natural hydrogen emissions associated with faults..

Paul Viskovic receives funding for this research through the Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF) provided by the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment.

– ref. Natural hydrogen can make decarbonising industry cheaper – NZ’s turbulent geology could give it an edge – https://theconversation.com/natural-hydrogen-can-make-decarbonising-industry-cheaper-nzs-turbulent-geology-could-give-it-an-edge-273210

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/natural-hydrogen-can-make-decarbonising-industry-cheaper-nzs-turbulent-geology-could-give-it-an-edge-273210/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fabio Cortesi, ARC Future Fellow, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland

The deep sea is cold, dark and under immense pressure. Yet life has found a way to prevail there, in the form of some of Earth’s strangest creatures.

Since deep-sea critters have adapted to near darkness, their eyes are particularly unique – pitch-black and fearsome in dragonfish, enormous in giant squid, barrel-shaped in telescope fish. This helps them catch the remaining rays of sunlight penetrating to depth and see the faint glow of bioluminescence.

Deep-sea fishes, however, typically start life in shallower waters in the twilight zone of the ocean (roughly 50–200 metres deep). This is a safe refuge to feed on plankton and grow while avoiding becoming a snack for larger predators.

Our new study, published in Science Advances, shows deep-sea fish larvae have evolved a unique way to maximise their vision in this dusky environment – a finding that challenges scientific understanding of vertebrate vision.

The nightmare of seeing in the twilight zone

The vertebrate retina, located at the back of the eye, has two main types of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells: rod-shaped for dim light and cone-shaped for bright light.

The rods and cones slowly change position inside the retina when moving between dim and bright conditions, which is why you temporarily go blind when you flick on the light switch on your way to the bathroom at night.

While vertebrates that are active during the daytime and predominantly inhabit bright light environments favour cone-dominated vision, animals that live in dim conditions, such as the deep sea or caves, have lost or reduced their cone cells in favour of more rods.

However, vision in twilight is a bit of a nightmare – neither rods nor cones are working at their best. This raises the question of how some animals, such as larval deep-sea fishes, can overcome the limitations of the cone-and-rod retina not only to survive but even to thrive in twilight conditions.

Starting where the fish start

To understand how newly born deep-sea fishes see, we had to start where they do: in the twilight zone of the ocean.

We caught larval fish from the Red Sea using fine-meshed nets towed from near the surface to a depth of around 200m. This way we got hold of three different species – the lightfish (Vinciguerria mabahiss) and the hatchetfish (Maurolicus mucronatus), both members of the dragonfishes, and a member of the lanternfishes, the skinnycheek lanternfish (Benthosema pterotum). Next, we studied what their photoreceptor cells looked like on the outside and how they were wired on the inside.

First, we used high-resolution microscopy to examine the cells’ shape in great detail. Then we investigated retinal gene expression to identify which vision genes were activated as the fish grew. Finally, we got some experts in computational modelling of visual proteins on board to simulate which wavelengths of light these tiny fishes may perceive.

By combining all the approaches, we were able to piece together a picture of how these animals see their world. This sounds relatively simple, but working with deep-sea fishes is anything but easy.

While these animals are generally thought of as monsters of the deep, in reality, most reach only about the size of a thumb – even when fully grown. They are also very fragile and difficult to get.

Working with larval specimens that are only a few millimetres long is even more difficult. However, by leveraging support from the deep-sea research community, we were fortunate enough to combine specimens from multiple research expeditions to piece together an unusually complete picture of visual development in these elusive animals.

So, what did we discover?

For decades, scientists have thought that, as vertebrates grow, the development of their retina follows a predictable pattern: cones form first, then rods. But the deep-sea fish we studied do not follow this rule.

We found that, as larvae, they mostly use a mix-and-match type of hybrid photoreceptor. The cells they are using early on look like rods but use the molecular machinery of cones, making them rod-like cones.

In some of the species we studied, these hybrid cells were a temporary solution, replaced by “normal” rods as the fish grew and migrated into deeper, darker waters.

However, in the hatchetfish, which spends its whole life in twilight, the adults keep their rod-like cone cells throughout life, essentially building their entire visual system around this extra type of cell.

Our research shows this is not a minor tweak to the system. Instead, it represents a fundamentally different developmental pathway for vertebrate vision.

Biology doesn’t fit into neat boxes

So why bother with these hybrid cells?

It seems that to overcome the visual limitations of the twilight zone, rod-like cones offer the best of both worlds: the light-capturing ability of rods combined with the faster, less bright-light sensitive properties of cones. For a tiny fish trying to survive in the murky midwater, this could mean the difference between spotting dinner or becoming it.

For more than a century, biology textbooks have taught that vertebrate vision is built from two clearly defined cell types. Our findings show these tidy categories are much more blurred.

Deep-sea fish larvae combine features of both rods and cones into a single, highly specialised cell optimised for life in between light and darkness. In the murky depths of the ocean, deep-sea fish larvae have quietly rewritten the rules of how eyes can be built, and in doing so, remind us that biology rarely fits into neat boxes.

Fabio Cortesi receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Lily Fogg previously received a Research Training Program scholarship from the Australian Government.

– ref. Deep-sea fish larvae rewrite the rules of how eyes can be built – https://theconversation.com/deep-sea-fish-larvae-rewrite-the-rules-of-how-eyes-can-be-built-275552

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/deep-sea-fish-larvae-rewrite-the-rules-of-how-eyes-can-be-built-275552/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Charlton, Leader of Australian Right Whale Research Program, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University

For decades, southern right whales have been celebrated as one of conservation’s success stories.

Once driven to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling, southern right whales slowly returned to Australian coastlines through the late 20th century. Their recovery reflected the power of international protection, marine sanctuaries and long-term science working together.

But our new research shows this success story is changing. We drew on more than 30 years of continuous shore-based monitoring of southern right whales in the Great Australian Bight, from within the Yalata Indigenous Protected Area in South Australia. We found clear evidence whales are having calves less often, with the average calving interval increasing for 3 to 4 years. This means the number of calves being born has slowed over the past decade.

This decline appears closely linked to climate-driven changes in the Southern Ocean — similar patterns are now being observed across the southern hemisphere.

More than 3 decades of photos

Our study analysed photo-identification data collected by researchers between 1991 and 2024 from a major calving area in the Great Australian Bight. Each whale is identified using its unique pattern of callosities — the hard patches of skin on its head that remain throughout its life.

This allows individual whales to be tracked across decades, providing rare insight into long-term population dynamics and how these change over time. Photo-identification is a globally accepted method used for whale population assessments. By tracking known individuals over time, researchers can directly measure their reproductive histories.

Long-term datasets like this are rare — and that is precisely what makes them so powerful. The Australian Right Whale Research Program at Flinders University is one of the longest continuous photo-identification studies of any whale species in the world. It has used the same methods over decades. In the context of climate change, where impacts often emerge slowly and unevenly, this long-term evidence is essential.

What we found

Since around 2015, female southern right whales have not given birth as often. These extended calving intervals mean fewer calves are being born overall, and this reduces population growth over time.

For a long-lived species that reproduces slowly, this matters. Small changes in reproductive rates impacts population growth. The slowdown in reproduction signals a shift away from the recovery seen in previous decades.

A signal from the south

The cause of this change is not immediately visible from Australia’s coastline. Southern right whales spend much of their lives feeding thousands of kilometres away in the Southern Ocean, where they rely on the cold, nutrient-rich waters created by Antarctic sea ice. These waters support krill and prey that are crucial for whales to build up the energy reserves they need for pregnancy and lactation.

Over the past decade, the ocean has warmed, the ice is melting and there have been dramatic shifts in food availability weather patterns. Our analysis shows longer calving intervals coincide with these environmental changes, suggesting the impacts of climate change on conditions in the Southern Ocean are linked to whales having fewer calves.

A global pattern emerges

Importantly, this is not just an Australian story.

Similar trends are being reported in southern right whale populations off South America and South Africa, where researchers have documented reduced calving rates, whales in poor condition and environmental changes.

Southern right whales are a sentinel species: animals whose health reflects broader changes in their environment. Our findings signal deeper disruption in ocean systems that also support fisheries, affect how the climate is regulated and influence marine plants, animals and other species.

Southern right whales are long-lived, reproduce slowly, and rely on energy-rich feeding grounds. This makes them particularly vulnerable to climate-driven changes in prey.

What needs to change?

Protecting the Southern Ocean and its increasingly vulnerable natural ecosystems demands urgent collective climate action. This must bridge disciplines, industries, governments and interconnected regions.

This action should include the expansion of sanctuaries across the migratory ranges of threatened species. It should also limit threats, such as whales being struck by ships, getting entangled in ropes and being exposed to noise pollution.

The future of southern right whales is likely to be closely tied to the management of krill harvesting and addressing climate change.

We need to listen — and act — while there is still time.

The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of research collaborators and all of the people involved in the long-term research program that make this work possible.

The Australian Right Whale Research Study receives funding from the Minderoo Foundation and in kind support from many organisations and volunteers.

– ref. Southern right whales are having babies less often, but why? – https://theconversation.com/southern-right-whales-are-having-babies-less-often-but-why-275442

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/southern-right-whales-are-having-babies-less-often-but-why-275442/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Angus Taylor has all the on-paper qualifications to be opposition leader. But there are big questions over how well he could do the job, when a miracle worker is needed to lift the struggling Liberal Party from its existential crisis.

Taylor’s political story so far is regarded by many observers and not a few colleagues as one of unfulfilled promise.

If he wins the leadership, he would take over with the party at its lowest, considered to have no prospect of victory at the 2028 election. The first realistic chance for Taylor, now 59, of becoming prime minister would be 2031 – a very long time to survive as opposition leader in this poll-driven era.

Taylor is a Rhodes scholar, with strong qualifications in economics, and an impressive business career behind him, which include having been a director at Port Jackson Partners, a business consultancy firm.

Rod Sims, also a Port Jackson director at the time (and later head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) describes Taylor as “extremely intelligent. He was very, very good at what he did, advising boards of some of the largest companies on corporate strategy”.

Few would doubt Taylor, when elected for the NSW regional seat of Hume in 2013, had his eyes on the ultimate prize, a view reinforced by glowing publicity at the time.

Over the years, however, several personal controversies dogged him, ranging from questions over alleged illegal clearing of protected grassland by a company in which his family had a financial interest (he denied any wrongdoing) to the use of a mysterious and misleading document (which he could never explain) to attack Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

In his maiden speech, condemning political correctness, he made an inaccurate claim about living in the same corridor at Oxford University as feminist writer Naomi Wolf, later to be embarrassed when she said she wasn’t at the university at the time. When in trouble he never seemed able to find his way out of it cleanly.

Taylor’s frontbench experience includes serving as minister for industry, energy and emissions reduction in the Morrison government and as shadow treasurer in Peter Dutton’s opposition.

His time in the latter post wasn’t happy. He struggled against Treasurer Jim Chalmers. According to Niki Savva in her book Earthquake, Dutton thought Taylor a “terrible retail politician who produced policies that could not be sold or explained to the public”.

Taylor wanted the opposition to respond to the government’s 2025 budget tax cuts with an alternative tax policy. But Dutton rejected that, and the opposition went into the election (disastrously) giving the government a big break on the tax issue.

Former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello told The Australian’s Troy Bramston, “At the last election, [the Liberals] got themselves into a position where they were proposing to increase income taxes, run bigger deficits, no real plan to reduce debt”.

Regardless, Taylor as leader would be most comfortable talking about the evils of debt and deficit. But today’s voters no longer care so much about those, and want government to do more, not less.

One economist who has observed Taylor over the years describes him as “very smart and a very good economist”, not a hardline dry but with a market approach of the Howard-Costello era. “He’s in the right party – if it were the party of 20 years ago”. But things have changed.

“I’d be stunned if the times suited Angus Taylor,” this source says. “Would we see the Angus Taylor of his convictions, or Angus Taylor pushed around by the populism of the moment? How would he battle One Nation? That’s hard to do from the viewpoint of market economics.”

In economics Taylor is in the Liberal mainstream, but on climate policy he’s been something of a weather vane.

In his business career he was very alive to the climate change issue and a supporter of renewables. But years later, he was against Malcolm Turnbull’s attempt to bring in a National Energy Guarantee (the NEG), a plan to reduce emissions while ensuring the reliability of the grid. Under Scott Morrison he advocated the net zero by 2050 target. In opposition he was one of those opposing it, walking shoulder to shoulder with Andrew Hastie and other conservatives into the party meeting ahead of the dumping of the Liberal commitment to the target.

Turnbull says pointedly, “Angus’ views on energy were more enlightened when he was working for Rod Sims [at Port Jackson] and supported an economy wide carbon price”.

One of Taylor’s strongest supporters is former MP Craig Laundy, who was a close ally of Turnbull.

Laundy entered parliament at the same time as Taylor, and they’ve kept in touch in recent years. When Laundy had ministerial responsibility for deregulation and Taylor oversaw digital policy. Laundy found him “very good to work with”.

Laundy rejects the perception of some that Taylor has a “born to rule” attitude. “It’s harsh and unfair. He was always a very good communicator and I think [if he is leader] he will surprise many on the upside of how he will connect with the community across the board,” Laundy says.

In his personality Taylor is self-confident but reserved. One source notes a certain vulnerability – a nervousness before a speech, afterwards wondering how it went.

Many disagree with Laundy’s assessment that Taylor communicates well, and even fans see a need for improvement. A former parliamentary colleague says, “Like a lot of really bright guys, Angus can sometimes get into over-analysis of things”.

Certainly if he were opposition leader, how well he could communicate with women would be crucial. His views on quotas mean he would likely start with a handicap in the eyes of many women.

He said last year:“We absolutely need more women in the party at every level, whether it’s members of our branches, whether it’s on our executives, whether indeed it is as members of parliament, and I think there’s a huge job for us, [but] I have never been a supporter of quotas”.

One prominent Liberal woman outside the parliamentary party, who likes Taylor personally, says he is a “caricature of a Liberal male – males who have managed to progressively alienate women from the Liberal party”.

Another muses:“He’s very handsome, well read, tall and a good farmer – but entirely lacking in charisma. How can that be possible?”

As leader Taylor would have to reach out across the party in a way he has never needed to before. “Retail politics” can be as important within a party – especially a fractured one – as with the electorate.

As the most senior member of the conservative faction, Taylor saw himself as the logical opposition leader after the 2025 election. In a serious misjudgement, he encouraged the defection from the Nationals of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as his potential deputy. Taylor lost to Ley (25-29); Price then did not put up her hand.

He assumed Ley would fail, although he did not want to bring on a challenge this soon. But when the pushy Hastie started to force the issue, Taylor was clear: it was his turn next.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who is Angus Taylor and could he cut it as opposition leader? – https://theconversation.com/who-is-angus-taylor-and-could-he-cut-it-as-opposition-leader-275400

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/12/who-is-angus-taylor-and-could-he-cut-it-as-opposition-leader-275400/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Leadership aspirant Angus Taylor resigned from the shadow cabinet on Wednesday night, but when the Liberal Party will vote on the leadership remained up in the air.

After a day of high tension in the party, Taylor went to Ley’s office to quit at about 7:15pm. But in the meeting he did not actually call for a spill or explicitly declare he was challenging.

Taylor, 59, from the right of the party, told the media later: “I don’t believe Sussan Ley is in a position to be able to lead the party as it needs to be led from here.

“The situation right now is devastating for Australians and for that reason we need to urgently restore confidence in the Liberal Party. That means we need strong leadership, clear direction and a relentless and courageous focus on our values.”

The party’s position under Ley had deteriorated to a point where it was weaker than at any time since it was formed in 1944, Taylor said.

He said he would “continue to serve the Liberal Party and to work towards getting it to where it needs to be if it is to have the strength to make a contribution to this great nation, the kind of contribution that it has traditionally made”.

Asked how he would be different from Ley, Taylor said: “You’ll hear more from me and others, I’m sure, in the coming days about that.”

A party meeting and vote on the leadership is expected in the next two days, although exactly how things will unfold is uncertain, with the power to determine the meeting’s timing in Ley’s hands.

Senior Taylor supporters will come out publicly, with more resignations from the frontbench expected.

On Wednesday the numbers were considered close.

Over recent days, Ley has played a cat and mouse tactical game with her opponents, to make their challenge as difficult to launch as possible.

Taylor on Wednesday delayed the timing of his resignation, attempting to ensure the party meeting would be Friday, rather than earlier, giving him maximum time to canvass for votes and to guarantee all his supporters were in place. This is a week of Senate estimates, which has meant not all Liberal senators have been in Canberra.

As Taylor starts his formal canvassing for support, Ley and her backers were considering her next moves.

Taylor will need a motion to “spill” the leadership carried before there is a vote on the leadership. There are 51 members of the Liberal parliamentary party – 28 members of the House of Representatives and 23 senators.

Taylor has brought to a head weeks of intense – and remarkably open – manoeuvring by Ley’s party critics. But the undermining of her has been going on since she became leader in a vote after the election, when she beat Taylor by 29 to 25.

Ley’s position has been progressively weakened by dreadful polls.

The latest is a YouGov poll for Sky News that asked who was the best person to lead the Liberals to have the best chance at the next election. The poll showed starkly that people are not impressed by any of the senior Liberals, with a huge “don’t know” figure of 60%.

Ley was on 10%, Taylor 8%, Andrew Hastie 15%, Tim Wilson 3%, Ted O’Brien 2%, and Melissa McIntosh 2%.

Newspoll, published Sunday, had the Liberals on 15%, and the Nationals on 3%, with Ley’s net satisfaction at minus 39%.

While Hastie is leading in the YouGov poll he is not running in the leadership contest. He announced he would not be a leadership candidate after a recent meeting of key right faction power brokers made it clear he would not have the numbers and should step back.

Ley’s critics argue she has not projected what she or the Liberal party stand for, as well as criticising some specific missteps she has made.

Ley has the support of the moderates, who have smaller numbers than the right.

More fundamentally, the rifts over leadership reflect the wider battle over the party’s identity and future direction.

Many Liberals are spooked by the surging One Nation vote, which was 27% in the latest Newspoll.

Taylor was energy minister in the Morrison government, and shadow treasurer last term, a role in which he struggled to mount successful attacks on the treasurer, Jim Chalmers.

The logistics of triggering the challenge were somewhat complicated for the Taylor camp on Wednesday afternoon by the fact Ley and other senior shadow ministers were tied up for a time with a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Once again in question time, Labor targeted Taylor.

Chalmers said he had been “born with a silver foot in his mouth”.

“In every portfolio that he’s held he’s failed badly and he’s failed upwards,” Chalmers said. “The worse he performs the more entitled he feels to a promotion.

“At every stage of his life he wants everything handed to him on a silver platter,” Chalmers said. “Just when we thought that they couldn’t go any lower on the economic credibility, the member for Hume says ‘hold my chardonnay’.”

Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said on Wednesday night, “I will be backing a move for a change of leadership, […] when it comes to the top job I will be backing Angus in.

“I’ve felt no sense of inspiration or idea of direction, or how we are supposed to work together in a unified way,” she said.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: Angus Taylor quits frontbench, declaring Sussan Ley can’t lead Liberal Party ‘as it needs to be led’ – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-angus-taylor-quits-frontbench-declaring-sussan-ley-cant-lead-liberal-party-as-it-needs-to-be-led-275398

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/11/view-from-the-hill-angus-taylor-quits-frontbench-declaring-sussan-ley-cant-lead-liberal-party-as-it-needs-to-be-led-275398/

By Pip Hinman in Gadigal Country/Sydney

NSW Premier Chris Minns is sounding even more defensive after videos of NSW police violence towards peaceful protesters in Australia went viral — including attacks on Muslims praying in Sydney’s Town Hall Square after the rally on Monday.

His “primary concern”, he told ABC TV, was to prevent the gathered protesters opposing war criminal Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit from finding out that Herzog was in the city — around the corner, at the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour.

“We can reveal this morning that we had 700 Jewish mourners in the city at the same time, and at the same location, and police had to keep them separate from protesters; if those police lines were breached, it would have been far, far worse,” Minns said.

The fact that Herzog was nearby was hardly a secret. Everyone knew, given the number of barricades and no-go zones that had been established over the previous few days.

We also knew Herzog was in Bondi and no public protest had been planned for that.

Minns’ comments were dishonest and cruel justifications for police violence.

Town Hall Square, the assembly point, was already starting to fill by 4.30pm, an hour before the protest was due to start. By 5.30pm, it was jam packed, including with many Jewish Australians and Arab Australians.

First Nations speakers
The programme included First Nations speakers, former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, NSW Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi and Labor MP Sarah Kaine (who was heckled because of federal and state Labor governments’ support for genocidal Israel).

The speeches focused on Herzog, why we oppose closer relations with Israel and Minns’ draconian new anti-protest laws, which give police new powers.

The atmosphere at the beginning was peaceful — except for the 3000 police that surrounded Town Hall Square, including snipers, and stretched across CBD blocks.

The police “kettled” the rally — a tactic designed to intimidate and make it easier to unleash force. Without warning, they started to tear-gas people who were kettled — and therefore with no escape route.

Older and young people alike were crushed by the police kettling and pushing, leaving some in agony unable to breathe and others on the ground covered in blood.

Minns justified this approach, saying “most protesters had dispersed . . .  but a small number didn’t”.

That is not true.

Repeatedly tear-gassed
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were trying to disperse when the tear-gas order was given. People were tear-gassed repeatedly, when they were already on the ground. I, along with hundreds of others, was gassed with no escape route to move away.

Minns has repeatedly implied that protesters wanted to wreak havoc with Jewish mourners — without a shred of evidence.

No speaker asked the large crowd to do this; at no stage was violence suggested.

Anti-Herzog protesters may not agree with those welcoming Herzog, but our protest was against war criminal Herzog, the genocidal state he represents and Minns’ anti-freedom of speech and assembly laws.

If Minns and PM Anthony Albanese truly had Jewish Australians in mind after the Bondi terrorist attack, they would know that Jews are not one homogenous whole in their political views on Israel.

Yet the governments decided to go with the Zionists’ demands to invite Herzog and align themselves to the genocidal state of Israel.

Among the 30,000 people who felt they had to come to this protest were anti-Zionist Jewish Australians, who say Minns and Albanese do not speak for them.

Set up to be ‘tinderbox’
Minns said the “circumstances were a tinderbox”. That’s only because he, calculatedly, set it up to be.

His actions provoked hate and division and further tore apart social cohesion. How else do you explain police attacking a group of Muslims praying? He would not stand for Jews or Christians being attacked in the same way.

Minns’ ridiculous appeal to look beyond the viral social media clips of police violence and “bind up the wounds” shows he has completely lost the plot.

Minns should resign. He is not fit for the job and needs to be held to account.

Pip Hinman is a long-time anti-war activist and member of the Socialist Alliance. This article was first published by Green-Left and is republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/11/nsw-premier-minns-police-attack-muslims-in-prayer-peaceful-gaza-protesters/

RNZ Pacific

The United States has designated two high-profile public office holders from Palau and the Marshall Islands for “significant corruption”, the US Department of State says.

Palau’s Senate president Hokkons Baules has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption on behalf of China-based actors,” while the former mayor of the Kili/Bikini/Ejit community in the Marshall Islands Anderson Jibas has been designated “for his involvement in significant corruption and misappropriation of US provided funds during his time in public office”, the department said in a news release.

The designations render Baules, Jibas, and their immediate family members ineligible for entry into the US.

According to the State Department, Baules abused his public position by accepting bribes in exchange for providing advocacy and support for government, business, and criminal interests from China.

“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected US interests in Palau.”

Baules has dismissed the allegations, telling news media last April he was the target of a smear campaign aimed at ruining his name.

The department said Jibas abused his public position “by orchestrating and financially benefiting from multiple misappropriation schemes involving theft, misuse, and abuse of funds from the US-provided Bikini Resettlement Trust”.

Stolen funds
It added Jibas’ actions resulted in most of the funds being stolen from the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people who are survivors and descendants of survivors of nuclear bomb testing in the 1940s and 1950s.

“The theft, misuse, and abuse of the US-provided money for the fund wasted US taxpayer money and contributed to a loss of jobs, food insecurity, migration to the United States, and lack of reliable electricity for the Kili/Bikini/Ejit people.

“The lack of accountability for Jibas’ acts of corruption has eroded public trust in the government of the Marshall Islands, creating an opportunity for malign foreign influence from China and others.”

US laws allow the government to name foreign nationals and their close family if there is strong evidence they were involved in serious corruption or human rights violations.

The designations come at a time of intense strategic competition between the US and China over influence in the Pacific.

Both Palau and the Marshall Islands have Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with the US, which grant the US exclusive military access in exchange for economic aid.

“The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain and steal from our citizens to enrich themselves. These designations reaffirm the United States’ commitment to countering global corruption affecting US interests,” the State Department said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/11/us-designates-two-micronesian-leaders-over-corruption-allegations/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Joyce Banks, Lecturer in Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast

Master clown and French theatre guru Philippe Gaulier has passed away aged 82, but his influence will live on around the world – particularly in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The performance style inspired by Gaulier can be traced throughout New Zealand theatre since the 1970s, often centring around Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School.

Nola Millar, the first director of Toi Whakaari in 1970, said École Jacques Lecoq – where Gaulier trained and taught, before starting his own school – was one of the best theatre schools she had ever seen.

The influence of Gaulier is significant: several of his graduates went on to teach at Toi Whakaari, including Tom McCrory (Head of Movement, 1998–2013), Christian Penny (Director, 2011–18) and award-winning director Nina Nawalowalo.

In 2002, Nawalowalo and McCrory co-founded The Conch, a theatre company focused on Pasifika stories using visual and physical theatre forms. McCory said Gaulier’s style builds resilience and independence and has been so popular in Aotearoa because “New Zealanders are inventive by necessity”.

Training the clown

Gaulier was trained by Jacques Lecoq (1921–99) at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, founded in 1956. Lecoq’s training focused on using masks, mime and clown. Many of his students went on to develop their own styles and training schools, and Gaulier would become one of the most well-known graduates.

After being his student, Gaulier taught with Lecoq in the 1970s before opening his own school in London in 1991, which relocated to France in 2002.

Here he created a block module style of teaching that was incredibly accessible to international actors.

Like Lecoq, Gaulier also focused on clown, bouffon, neutral mask and melodrama. But his first focus was teaching Le Jeu (the game), complicité and encouraging actors to play. Complicité in this context is best understood as the tangible sense of the performers all being complicit, or colluding, in order to present a show to the audience.

Theatre director, actor and academic David O’Donnell writes in Acting in Aotearoa:

The emphasis on complicité teaches the actor to be completely connected with other actors onstage. The training works against self-indulgence because it requires that the actor be fully engaged with the audience response, that they earn audience engagement and sustain that for every moment of the performance. The work rigorously develops the imagination, the control of rhythm and teaches the actor to become more relaxed onstage.

Playing games in New Zealand

Gaulier’s list of students includes a vast array of famous actors and a surprisingly large number of New Zealanders. New Zealand Theatre company Theatre Action (1971–77) was founded by several Lecoq graduates solidifying the French Clown influence in New Zealand early on.

There are several theatre companies in New Zealand that still consistently use Gaulier’s methods and style, especially Le Jeu and playing games.

In 1991 Samantha Scott founded Maidment Youth Theatre, later renamed Massive Theatre Company. There is a huge community of actors surrounding Massive, many graduates of both Toi Whakaari and Gaulier, including Miriama McDowell, Madeline Sami and Kura Forrester.

Scott went back and studied with Gaulier again in 2012–14 and would often sit beside Gaulier and observe him as a teacher.

Scott recalls Gaulier asking her, “Why do you think so many New Zealanders come over to the school?” She told him that it’s because so many actors have worked with Gaulier graduates and want to experience it for themselves.

Scott said, “I think fundamentally he really likes New Zealanders, he likes our gutsiness”.

A key Gaulier concept Massive Theatre Company emphasises is the complicité between actors, the joy and pleasure of playing and performing to an audience. It is the foundation of their ensemble-based company.

A Slightly Isolated Dog, a theatre company formed in 2005, extends this Gaulier idea of complicité to their audience.

Director Leo Gene Peters has not trained with Gaulier, but was taught by and often collaborates with those who have. Jonathan Price, a core member of the devising company, studied with Gaulier in 2016.

Since 2015, A Slightly Isolated Dog have been creating performance works inspired by classic stories where they take on the personas of a French theatre troupe. Their shows Don Juan, Jekyll & Hyde and The Trojan War see the actors take on these larger-than-life French clowns, easing the audience into the games as they tell these famous stories with the audience.

Theatre works like this invite everyone into the spirit of complicité, the atmosphere of fun where we can all play, and a place where, Gaulier wrote, “in the grip of pleasure and freedom, everyone is beautiful”.

Hannah Joyce Banks interviewed Nina Nawalowalo for her PhD in 2016, and worked with A Slightly Isolated Dog as an actor in 2009 and 2011.

– ref. ‘New Zealanders are inventive by necessity’: how the master clown Philippe Gaulier shaped NZ theatre – https://theconversation.com/new-zealanders-are-inventive-by-necessity-how-the-master-clown-philippe-gaulier-shaped-nz-theatre-275664

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/11/new-zealanders-are-inventive-by-necessity-how-the-master-clown-philippe-gaulier-shaped-nz-theatre-275664/