Category: MIL-OSI

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Song Shi, Associate Professor, Property Economics, University of Technology Sydney

A single street tree can potentially increase an average Sydney house price by A$30,000, our new research shows. This echoes past research showing street trees not only help boost property prices, but offer other benefits, from improved scenery and privacy to increased shade.

But there’s a catch. Our analysis, published in the international Cities journal, also found that if a street tree is too close, it can actually reduce the selling price by more than $70,000.

Our study looked at more than 1,500 house sales in the City of Sydney from 2021 to 2024, then matched those with detailed council data on nearly 50,000 public trees.

After accounting for other, better known price factors – number of bedrooms, bathrooms, car parking, land size, proximity to the CBD, transport, schools and more – we found trees can be associated with higher house prices. But that price boost only occurred when the trees were about 10–20 metres from a home, such as across the street or near the frontage.

In contrast, trees planted too close – within a 10m radius from the centre of the property – were actually associated with lower sale prices.

This matters beyond Sydney. Every Australian capital city has set tree-planting goals, such as the City of Sydney’s target for 23% tree canopy cover in 2030 and 27% in 2050. Yet many will struggle to meet them, with some facing resistance from residents. Our research explains why tree placement will be crucial if we ever want to meet those targets.

What’s new about this research

Past studies in Perth, as well as several cities in the United States and Canada, have consistently shown trees tend to increase property values.

But what we didn’t know before now was where the benefits stop and the costs begin.

Our study identifies a clear “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) boundary, of around 10m, within which street trees’ economic value turns negative.

That finding is important, because that’s when resident resistance to street trees is likely to be strongest.

This is a first study of its kind to quantify the economic value of public trees by taking advantage of using individual tree-level data managed by the City of Sydney from 2023.

It allowed us to measure tree effects at the finest possible distance from the centre of property: under 10m, 10–20m, 20–50m, 50–100m, and beyond 100m. This is something previous studies could not do when relying on satellite or street imagery.

How tree location affects price

We controlled for all the usual factors that influence house prices, including property features and location amenities. This meant we could measure the impact of trees after accounting for everything else.

We found that distance matters. In dollar terms, one additional tree within 10m of the centre of a property reduced its value by 2.96%. An average home sold in the City of Sydney from 2021 to 2024 was worth $2,613,000 – so that reduction worked out to be a $70,290 cost.

Given the average lot size of 176m² in the City of Sydney, the distance from the centre of an average property to its boundary is typically about 8m.

But if a tree was located 10-20 metres away, it increased the value by about 1.16%, worth an average of $30,310.

If the tree was further than 20 metres away, we found no price difference.

This show a clear proximity effect. Trees being too close to a house are a cost risk; trees at a moderate distance are a valued feature; and trees further away are neutral and just part of the neighbourhood amenity.

Our study used more precise data than ever before to calculate the distance between street trees and the centre of each property.

But future research could take this further by measuring the distance from each tree to the house. It could also incorporate resident surveys to better understand how people perceive and value trees near their homes.

Why trees being too close matters

It makes sense that people may see trees close to home as a financial risk.

Trees can cause structural damage to buildings and infrastructure, increase fire hazards, and safety concerns from falling branches.

Rather than dismissing residents’ concerns as NIMBYism, they should be seen as rational market responses to maintenance risks, structural damage, and amenity loss.

Planting plans need resident support

Every Australian capital city has adopted “urban forest” or tree planting strategies, many of them aiming to hit 30-40% canopy cover in coming decades. For example, the City of Melbourne’s target is 40% canopy cover by 2040, while Brisbane City Council is aiming for 50% shade for residential footpaths and bikeways by 2031.

However, there are doubts about whether many of those targets will be met.

There are good reasons for governments to invest in urban trees, as they can protect us from extreme heat and help as a response to climate change. But resistance from homeowners can undermine these policies.

Our research shows residents are more likely to welcome street trees if they’re planted not too close, and not too far, from their homes.

* Thanks to the coauthors of this paper, Qiulin Ke and Bin Chi from University College London.

– ref. One street tree can boost Sydney house prices by $30,000 – or cost $70,000 if it’s too close: new study – https://theconversation.com/one-street-tree-can-boost-sydney-house-prices-by-30-000-or-cost-70-000-if-its-too-close-new-study-276860

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/one-street-tree-can-boost-sydney-house-prices-by-30-000-or-cost-70-000-if-its-too-close-new-study-276860/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason M. Lodge, Director of the Learning, Instruction & Technology Lab and Professor of Educational Psychology, School of Education, The University of Queensland

It it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally “unfair” and “cheapen” degrees.

In a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Leeser said:

Students feel, instinctively, that in many cases it is deeply unfair to assess them individually based on others’ work.

His logic is one many students will find familiar: one person inevitably ends up doing all the heavy lifting, while others coast along to a shared grade. Leeser added collaboration is merely a “soft skill” that should be taught in the classroom, but not formally assessed.

I understand the need for employers to have graduates who can collaborate in the workplace, but these are soft skills which should not be the subject of a university assessment system.

This is a seductive argument. But it ignores the realities of life inside our universities, as well as the skills we need in today’s workplaces.

Group assignments make sense for unis

There is a pragmatic reason why group assignments persist. They lessen the marking and feedback load, particularly in courses with high numbers of students. For cash-strapped universities, the efficiency is hard to ignore.

But universities do not use group assignments simply to save time. In many disciplines, they are part of a core requirement to graduate.

In the health professions, for example, accreditation standards require students to demonstrate interprofessional practice – or working with other professions.

You cannot be an effective nurse, physiotherapist, or doctor in a vacuum. You must be able to function within a multidisciplinary team, where the stakes are literally a matter of life and death.

Group assignments also teach important communication and collaboration skills. Research in my lab, led by Suijing Yang, suggests students often spend as much, and frequently more, time negotiating how a group assignment will be done as they do actually doing the work. This negotiation is an important part of the learning process.

This negotiation is often referred to as “co-regulated learning”. There is an extensive body of evidence supporting how crucial skills involved in co-regulated learning are for life. These include emotional regulation, problem solving and planning. They are so significant, these skills should be, and are, taught and assessed in many disciplines.

Are these really optional skills?

Just because collaborative abilities are not as easy to assess as other skills, such as factual recall, that doesn’t make them any less important.

In fact, they are seen as crucial for the modern workplace and, more broadly, for a functioning society.

As high-profile US researcher Sherry Turkle and others have warned, our constant interaction with digital devices could see these essential human skills atrophy.

Generative AI is poised to accelerate this decline. Some adolescents already report using AI chatbots as their primary source of companionship, opting for the “frictionless” interaction of an algorithm over the messy reality of human peers.

If universities stop mandating collaboration through group assignments, they will no longer be valuing the very “empathic muscles” that make us human and provide a foundation for harmonious workplaces.

How to stop ‘social loafing’

At one level, the dynamics of group assignments can feel deeply unfair. The vast majority of the cognitive and social labour involved in negotiating the assignment is never directly assessed. Often it is only the final, polished product that receives a mark.

Leeser is right there is always a risk of “social loafing” – where students contribute nothing while reaping the rewards.

But simple fixes, such as outlawing specific forms of assessment, are a crude response to a multifaceted set of problems. These include academic integrity concerns, workload issues, and the difficulty of designing effective assessment tasks, which are only exacerbated by the rise of AI.

As the AI framework published by Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency notes, universities need now more sophisticated ways of assuring learning. This means more of an emphasis on things only humans can do – not less.

The interpersonal communication and negotiation skills honed through university group tasks are precisely the kind of capabilities needed in the age of AI.

So perhaps the debate needs to be about how we improve and enhance group assignments – not how we get rid of them.

Then we could focus on recognising the work students do in those negotiation phases. This means effort would be recognised fairly and more emphasis is placed on students learning how to work with other humans.

– ref. Should unis ditch group assignments? – https://theconversation.com/should-unis-ditch-group-assignments-276979

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/should-unis-ditch-group-assignments-276979/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Fazeli, PhD Candidate, UNSW Sydney

Where are you at most risk when a flood or bushfire strikes? You might think it’s at home. But in reality, the most dangerous time is when you leave and jump in your car. Many flood and bushfire deaths are linked to vehicles, often driven by people evacuating late.

One of the clearest examples comes from the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, in which 173 people lost their lives; 35 of those deaths occurred during evacuation, with many on the road.

What is going through people’s minds as they try to escape? We don’t have to guess – many self-recorded evacuation videos are publicly posted on social media. We analysed hundreds of these videos from around the globe to get a better understanding of how people end up in these dangerous situations.

We found many people either evacuated late after realising the situation was more dangerous than they first thought, or drove back to defend their property. They thought they were doing the right thing in trying to flee to safety – only to find the roads were far more dangerous than they expected.

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How risky are roads during bushfires?

When disasters escalate rapidly, the decision to leave can become one of the most crucial moments people face.

Between 2010 and 2020, bushfire deaths in Australia often occurred on the road rather than at the fire front. An analysis found 33 of 65 bushfire deaths during this period were vehicle-related, many during late evacuations.

More recently, an ABC program documented survivor accounts from Black Saturday, including firefighters, people who defended their properties and those who took to the road in the final minutes.

One firefighter’s account, in particular, captures how quickly conditions can change on the road. At first, nothing about the drive appeared unusual.

when I drove up over the top of the hill down into Kinglake, there was nothing untoward. It was just a normal hot day […] a bit of smoke around.

But within minutes, the road environment changed completely.

so I do a U-turn, and there was a wall of smoke. I’m thinking, where did that come from? All of a sudden, […] You can’t see. It was pitch black. As we’re driving, the sides of the roads were igniting.

The risk of conditions changing is not confined to a single event or location. It is a recurring and ongoing feature of bushfire emergencies in Australia.

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How dangerous are roads during floods?

Floods present a different kind of threat, but the risks on the road can be just as severe.

In Australia, nearly half of all flood fatalities are associated with vehicles, most commonly when people attempt to drive through flooded roads, crossings, or causeways.

This is not unique to Australia. A study of flood fatalities in Texas, covering the period from 1959 to 2009, shows around 80% of flood deaths with known circumstances were vehicle-related.

These deaths often occur when drivers underestimate water depth or flow speed, assume the road ahead is still passable, or follow other vehicles into floodwater. This can quickly lead to vehicles stalling, being swept away, or trapping occupants in fast-moving water.

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What people experience inside a vehicle

To gain a first-person view of what actually unfolds on the road in these situations, we analysed hundreds of self-recorded evacuation videos.

On bushfire-affected roads, conversations inside vehicles revealed uncertainty as conditions changed quickly. Many drivers showed fear and stress – some prayed, while others tried to stay calm for their families.

Videos show people caught in intense heat and heavy smoke, struggling with poor visibility and concern over falling trees or bursting tyres. Some said they were struggling to breathe while others decided to stop or turn around.

Conditions appeared hazardous even for firefighters. Conversations between drivers and passengers often reflected the complexity of the environment and a lack of certainty about what to do.

Some drivers travelled with their windows open and suddenly realised how hot the air was.

Drivers struggled with visibility and some cases showed families expressing extreme distress. Parents comforted their children and sometimes sang to them.

On flood-affected roads, drivers showed signs of distress and intense emotion, often reflected in swearing and expressions of regret, or praying.

They sought reassurance from the actions of others, reflecting an “if they can do it, we can too” sentiment. Extreme cases showed water entering the vehicle, causing the vehicle to become unstable or dysfunctional, with water levels reaching the windshield.

Some drivers could not make it through and were forced to escape.

Importantly, these flood and fire videos only represented those who managed to escape and survive.

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The best way to stay safe

In our analysis of these flood and fire videos, we found a recurring theme – surprise. People found themselves in a very different situation to the one they imagined when they began driving.

Driving on roads affected by floods and fires is risky, and the situation can escalate very quickly. Flash flooding is aptly named: torrential rain can trigger floods in just minutes. Bushfires, too, can intensify quickly

The clearest advice remains to avoid these situations altogether by evacuating early. But if you do find yourself in a vehicle on a fire-affected road, existing Country Fire Authority guidance can make a critical difference to survival.

Stop when it’s no longer safe to continue, park well off the road and away from vegetation if possible. Stay inside the car with windows and doors closed, turn off vents and air conditioning, get below window level and protect yourself from radiant heat using woollen blankets or clothing.

In floods, if rising water traps your vehicle, get out early and move to higher ground. As a last resort, climb onto the roof.

Ultimately, the safest option is to avoid hazardous driving wherever possible. Because once you’re on the road, it may already be too late.

– ref. ‘Don’t leave late’ is the best advice for fires or floods. These terrifying videos show why – https://theconversation.com/dont-leave-late-is-the-best-advice-for-fires-or-floods-these-terrifying-videos-show-why-274983

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/dont-leave-late-is-the-best-advice-for-fires-or-floods-these-terrifying-videos-show-why-274983/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hazel Dalton, Senior Research Fellow, Rural Health Research Institute, Charles Sturt University

According to the latest polling, the right-wing populist party, One Nation, is gaining significant political ground.

But the party has also made headlines for its controversial proposal to make new doctors complete a period of regional or rural service, in return for getting a Medicare provider number. This number is essential for accessing Medicare services such as bulk billing, where patients pay no out-of-pocket expenses for seeing a GP.

One Nation’s proposal is a blunt solution to a real problem. But could this policy actually work?

What exactly is One Nation proposing?

Earlier this week, One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce raised the idea of requiring doctors to work regionally before they can work in cities. If they don’t do a regional stint, they would essentially be blocked from practising under Medicare, Australia’s national health insurance scheme.

As a result, they would not have the option to bulk-bill or refer patients for pathology tests, such as biopsies and blood tests. This means patients can’t get rebates for seeing a doctor. For a ten-minute consultation which costs about $90, for example, the patient would not get the $43.90 rebate back.

At this stage, the proposal is short on detail. It’s unclear if it will apply to all medical graduates, and how long they will required to stay in a rural or regional location. But Joyce has suggested the length of service vary by remoteness. This would mean doctors who work in more remote locations would serve shorter terms.

So, could this policy work in practice?

Probably not. Australia has both a shortage of GPs and an unevenly distributed GP workforce. And a compulsory rural service policy does little to address either problem.

While the number of GPs in Australia has grown, particularly between 2018 and 2023, this growth has not kept pace with the demand for doctors. And the gap is even wider in rural areas.

A compulsory period of service might increase the number of newly qualified GPs in some rural communities. But research suggests they won’t stay long. Many forced service programs struggle to retain people after the service period ends. And even if existing doctors leave and are replaced by new ones forced to work in the country, this is a problem because local patients can’t benefit from continuity of care.

One American study tracked 240 international medical graduates who, because of their visa requirements, had to work rurally for three years. It found most relocated to urban areas within two years of fulfilling that visa requirement.

If you look at the distribution of our GP workforce, there is a clear pattern: GP numbers drop as remoteness increases. As a result, small rural towns have the fewest GPs relative to their population.

This matters because these communities are often too small to sustain a private general practice. And they are usually too far from larger regional centres for residents to easily access care.

Unfortunately, these are structural problems a coercive rural service policy are unlikely to fix. Instead, we should focus on programs which reward doctors for working in the regions.

One example is the Workforce Incentive Program (Doctor Stream). This program offers medical graduates an annual payment which increases according their year of service and level of remoteness.

Funding is also available for rural doctors seeking professional development. These include the Rural Procedural Grants Program and the Australian General Practice Program. As of 2026, the Australian General Practice Program has an additional 100 places dedicated to training rural GPs.

Are there any downsides to this policy?

Yes. Here are three.

First, this policy devalues regional communities. If we force doctors to go to rural communities, it reinforces the idea that rural places aren’t worth choosing. Medical schools already tend to frame metropolitan practice as the goal, and rural practice as the back-up plan. Forcing graduates into rural service may deepen that stigma. So instead of strengthening rural health care, this policy would discourage the long-term commitment rural communities actually need.

Second, it may increase medical costs for rural patients. Based on Joyce’s comments to date, doctors without a Medicare Provider Number will not be allowed to bulk-bill. This means they will charge fees, shifting the cost of health care to patients.

Third, this policy might discourage people from pursuing general practice altogether. Australia is already facing a GP shortage, which is only expected to get worse. For young medical students, a period of compulsory service scheme might become another barrier to pursuing a career in general practice.

One Nation’s proposal may sound straightforward. But without considering the details and potential risks, it may just exacerbate our current shortage of rural and regional GPs. So to find a solution, we may have to go back to the drawing board.

– ref. One Nation wants to get more doctors in rural areas – but it’s got the wrong approach – https://theconversation.com/one-nation-wants-to-get-more-doctors-in-rural-areas-but-its-got-the-wrong-approach-276753

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/one-nation-wants-to-get-more-doctors-in-rural-areas-but-its-got-the-wrong-approach-276753/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Morieson, Research Fellow, Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at a very Chinese time in its life. Recent moves from Chinese AI labs are throwing the dominance of American “frontier labs” such as Google and OpenAI into question.

Last week ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, released an AI video-generating tool called Seedance 2.0 which produces high-quality film-like clips from text prompts, with a casual disregard for copyright concerns. This week Anthropic, the US company behind the chatbot Claude, said three Chinese AI labs created thousands of fake accounts to harvest Claude’s answers in a practice called “distillation” which can be used to improve AI models.

These events have led to suggestions that China may be gaining the upper hand in the battle to dominate AI. So, is China winning the “AI race”?

Cheap, widely used tools

While most advanced frontier models are still made by American companies, China is pushing hard to develop cheap, widely used AI tools, which could create global dependence on Chinese platforms.

Reuters reports the industry is bracing for a “flurry” of low-cost Chinese AI models, with Chinese systems repeatedly driving usage costs down.

What’s the plan? China’s official AI policy documents suggest China sees AI as “a new engine for building China into both a manufacturing and cyber superpower”, and “a new engine of economic development”.

Since 2017, China has recognised that the technology is at the centre of “international competition”. “By 2030,” one key policy document says, China’s AI “technology and application should achieve world-leading levels, making China the world’s primary AI innovation center”.

This focus on becoming the dominant player in AI helps explain why Chinese firms are pushing hard on price. If you can make your AI cheap enough, you might just make it globally ubiquitous.

Cost helps determine who adopts AI first, and which models are first implemented in software and services. Even if the United States remains ahead on most elite benchmarks, Chinese products could still become globally influential if they are widely used and widely depended upon.

High-tech soft power

But China does not present its AI technology to the world as only benefiting itself. Instead, it’s pitched as a contribution to humanity.

A 2019 statement of “governance principles” from a national AI governance expert committee argues that AI development should enhance “the common well-being of humanity” and “serve the progress of human civilization”.

These phrases portray AI as a technology that advances the human story itself, rather than only serving Chinese interests. It suggests Chinese AI leadership is good for everyone.

This is an example of Chinese soft power. Tools such as Seedance may threaten Hollywood’s business model, but they do something else too. High-quality, low-cost generative media can spread quickly.

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If Chinese systems become widespread, they can influence creators, developer habits, and platform dependencies, especially in non-Western markets that need affordable tools and may dislike American tech dominance.

The spread of the ‘Chinese model’

For liberal democracies such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, the growth of Chinese AI tools creates a strategic headache. It will not be easy to manage security concerns about Chinese technology while avoiding technological isolation if Chinese AI tools become widely adopted.

There is a darker side to China’s AI tools. US think-tank Freedom House describes China as having the world’s “worst conditions for internet freedom”, and suggests other nations are now “embracing the ‘Chinese model’ of extensive censorship and automated surveillance”.

In 2022, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued rules for the algorithms that curate news feeds and short video platforms. Providers are required to “uphold mainstream value orientations” and “vigorously disseminate positive energy”.

These algorithms are important because they shape what people see and what is suppressed. As a result, these rules suggest the Chinese government is deeply concerned with controlling information across its social media platforms and AI tools.

A dilemma for third parties

Not every Chinese AI tool is a propaganda weapon. Rather, China is building world-class AI technology within an authoritarian system that prioritises the control of information.

This means China’s ability to make generative AI commercially powerful will likely also, despite its claims about serving “human civilisation”, make censorship and narrative management cheaper and easier.

China’s business and soft-power model is a much bigger story than just Seedance’s cavalier attitude towards copyright or Anthropic’s concerns about intellectual property. China’s goal is to build AI tools that rival those created by America’s tech giants, and to make them inexpensive and adopted globally.

For other countries, this may create a dilemma. Once a technology becomes a standard, it can be difficult to justify using a different product.

The question that remains is whether liberal democracies can adopt China’s low-cost products without drifting into dependence on systems shaped by an authoritarian political model.

– ref. How China is betting cheap AI will get the world hooked on its tech – https://theconversation.com/how-china-is-betting-cheap-ai-will-get-the-world-hooked-on-its-tech-276878

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/how-china-is-betting-cheap-ai-will-get-the-world-hooked-on-its-tech-276878/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James J Bell, Professor of Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

New Zealand’s earlier efforts to safeguard marine or coastal environments, particularly as marine reserves and marine protected areas, typically focused on shallow ecosystems, largely because that is where most data exists.

But following the passing of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Protection Act last year, it was good to see many deep rocky reefs among the 12 new high protection areas (HPAs).

These areas prohibit recreational and commercial fishing while allowing certain customary practices in ways that reduce or eliminate extractive activities, helping ecosystems recover and rebuild.

This is important because deeper reefs often host protected species and this recognises the need to protect these habitats.

As our new research shows, even just 50 metres of depth can separate entirely different marine communities.

In this study at the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve off northeastern Aotearoa New Zealand, we examined sponge assemblages – a major component of temperate rocky reefs – from 5 to 65 metres in depth.

Sponges play an important role in filtering water, recycling nutrients and creating habitat for other organisms. They are also sensitive to environmental change, including marine heatwaves.

Reefs do not simply continue unchanged with greater depth. In fact, deeper communities in the “mesophotic” zone, typically found at 30–150 metres of depth, can host very distinct species that never occur in the shallows.

If conservation efforts don’t recognise this, we may be leaving a significant portion of marine biodiversity unprotected.

Different communities at depth

Our results were striking. Sponge assemblages were strongly structured by depth.

Most species were depth specialists, found either in shallow reefs less than 30 metres deep or in deeper mesophotic zones, but not both.

Across all sites we surveyed, we identified 64 sponge species or operational taxonomic units. Only 18 occurred across multiple depths spanning both shallow and mesophotic zones. In other words, less than a third of species had distributions broad enough to potentially link the two zones.

Differences between depths were driven mainly by species replacement, not by shallow communities simply becoming poorer versions of deeper ones. This means mesophotic reefs are not just extensions of shallow reefs. They are ecologically distinct systems.

Are deep reefs climate refuges?

For years, scientists have debated whether deeper reefs might serve as refuges during disturbances such as marine heatwaves, which can disproportionately affect shallower ecosystems.

The idea, known as the deep reef refugia hypothesis, suggests deeper populations could survive warming events and later reseed damaged shallow reefs.

There is some evidence this can occur for certain species. In our study, a small subset of depth generalist sponges occurred consistently across both zones. These species may have the potential to benefit if deeper habitats avoid disturbances that impact shallower waters.

But our findings suggest this refuge effect may apply only to a minority of species. Most sponges had narrow depth ranges. If shallow populations decline, deeper reefs will not automatically act as a backup for entire assemblages.

This challenges the common assumption that deeper reefs can safeguard shallow biodiversity at an ecosystem level.

Why this matters

Marine protected areas in shallow, accessible habitats are easier to survey, monitor and manage. But biodiversity does not stop at 30 metres.

If deeper reefs host distinct communities, then protecting only the shallows leaves much of that biodiversity exposed to fishing pressure and other anthropogenic impacts.

Our assessment of the current network of 44 marine reserves in New Zealand shows the majority contain areas of rocky reef, but only half have reefs below 50 metres.

Importantly, these include New Zealand’s larger offshore reserves (the Kermadec Islands, Auckland Islands, Bounty Islands, Campbell Island and Antipodes Island), which means the total protected area deeper than 50 metres comes to an impressive 16,294 square kilometres (about the size of the Auckland region).

However, these offshore marine reserves extend far deeper than the mesophotic zone and only a fraction of this area is rocky reef. When discounting the larger offshore reserves, the total area covered by marine reserves deeper than 50 metres is only 394 square kilometres, less than 1% of New Zealand’s territorial seas.

This has direct implications for marine spatial planning in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.

Our research suggests ensuring the protection of both deep and shallow areas in the same geographical regions is essential if we want to safeguard the full spectrum of reef biodiversity. Protecting shallow reefs alone will not automatically protect deeper mesophotic species or vice versa.

Mesophotic reefs are often out of sight and out of mind. They lie beyond most recreational diving depths and are less studied than their shallow counterparts. Yet they can host rich sponge assemblages and other invertebrate communities that contribute significantly to ecosystem functioning.

They are also not immune to change. Ocean warming, shifting currents and sedimentation can all influence deeper habitats. While depth may buffer some disturbances, it does not guarantee protection.

Our findings add to a growing body of evidence that temperate mesophotic ecosystems should be managed as distinct ecological entities. They are not simply deeper versions of shallow reefs, nor are they universal refuges.

As climate change intensifies and marine heatwaves become more frequent, conservation planning must consider how biodiversity is structured across depth. This means designing protected areas that encompass entire reef profiles, from the surface to the limits of light penetration.

– ref. Deeper ocean ecosystems are unique – and uniquely vulnerable without better protection – https://theconversation.com/deeper-ocean-ecosystems-are-unique-and-uniquely-vulnerable-without-better-protection-276363

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/deeper-ocean-ecosystems-are-unique-and-uniquely-vulnerable-without-better-protection-276363/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Hume, Lecturer In Theatre (Voice), Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne

Few actors are imitated as often as Michael Caine. Even Michael Caine has imitated Michael Caine.

His voice has been used in birthday card greetings and been the source of jokes in various comedy sketches. It is synonymous with a certain type of Britishness.

Last week, artificial intelligence company ElevenLabs announced Caine has licensed his voice to the company. It will be available on their ElevenReader app, which allows you to listen to any text in a voice of your choosing, as well as being available on their licensing platform, Iconic Marketplace.

To understand why Caine’s voice is so iconic (and wanted by AI) we need to look deeper at what people actually hear in it.

Why do people love listening to Michael Caine?

Caine was born in London in 1933. His mother was a cook and a cleaner, and his father worked in a fish market. Caine speaks with a Cockney accent, setting him aside from most other actors of his generation.

Cockney hails from London’s East End and is often associated with London’s working class – think Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady, the Artful Dodger from Oliver!, or Bert the Chimney Sweep from Mary Poppins (although Dick van Dyke’s accent is not the most accurate, it’s still recognisably Cockney).

Traditionally, you were said to be a true Cockney if you were born within earshot of the Bow Bells – the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow church on Cheapside.

That distinctiveness matters because the accent carried heavy class meaning in mid-20th century Britain.

We don’t hear many contemporary examples of Cockney. Accents change and evolve over time and it has gradually been replaced by a new dialect called Multicultural London English (MLE).

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While most actors of his age acquired a “stage accent” – known as Received Pronunciation (RP) – Caine made a conscious decision to hold onto his working-class roots and not change his accent. Instead, he built his career on it.

He once said,

I could’ve gone to voice lessons, but I always thought if I had any use […] I could fight the class system in England.

His accent became cultural capital and helped him land roles in Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969) and Jack Carter (1971). By the 1970s, he was a British cultural icon.

What do we hear when we hear celebrity voices?

Hearing a person’s voice is never just about acoustics. We hear social meaning: culture, identity, character and story.

Sociolinguist Asif Agha coined the term “enregisterment” to describe how a way of speaking becomes publicly recognised as signalling particular social types and values.

Over time, Caine’s voice has become enregistered as a recognisable Cockney accent associated with East London and historically linked to a working-class identity. Hearing his voice activates a socially shared register of meanings attached to Cockney.

This contrasts with, say, Queen Elizabeth II, whose accent was enregistered with royalty, prestige and wealth.

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Another useful concept here is what sociolinguists sometimes call “dialectal memes”: the images and character types that circulate around particular accents. These memes are transmitted through books, television, film, and even celebrity figures themselves.

Caine has been a carrier of Cockney dialectal memes in popular culture.

When you look at it this way, AI voice licensing commodifies not just the acoustic properties of Caine’s voice, but the enregistered social meanings audiences recognise in it.

What AI licensing means for Caine

ElevenLabs describes its Iconic Marketplace platform as “the performer-first approach the entertainment industry has been calling for”. Through licensing, actors maintain ownership of their voices in a digital, AI landscape.

Caine licensing his voice theoretically ensures he receives credit and compensation, and prevents unauthorised clones appearing elsewhere.

It is possible this is exactly the direction actors want AI to go in – for use of their voice to be controlled by themselves, with clear credit and payment.

However, this model is not without risk to the actor or the listener. We should ask: do we need to hear something in Caine’s voice? Will we process information differently or hear it with more authority if it’s delivered in the voice of a cultural icon like Caine?

Giving power over to machines

People who admire Caine may want him to read to them. Some will be willing to pay for it. We need to remain conscious of the decisions we are making here.

In the 1960s, computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of the world’s first chatbot, Eliza, warned about the dangers of forming relationships with machines. He was alarmed to see users confiding in Eliza and responding to the chatbot as if it actually understood them, even when they knew it did not.

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What happens if an AI voice is not actually generic, but recognisably tied to a real human?

An actor’s likeness and voice may be protected with licensing, but their human self is not. That creates a pathway to attachment or even infatuation.

Caine is not just licensing his voice, but also the Cockney persona audiences recognise in it. Suddenly, a machine speaks with the authority of a real human behind it.

– ref. Michael Caine’s voice is iconic. Why would he sell that to AI? – https://theconversation.com/michael-caines-voice-is-iconic-why-would-he-sell-that-to-ai-276506

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/michael-caines-voice-is-iconic-why-would-he-sell-that-to-ai-276506/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Titov, Lecturer in Modern European History, Queen’s University Belfast

As Ukrainian officials meet with US negotiators in Geneva with the possibility of full three-way talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington in early March, there’s a glimmer of hope that an end to the conflict may be in sight. But the fact that after four years this remains a glimmer speaks volumes about the difficulties in ending the war.

Even Donald Trump, who promised to end the war in one day, has now stopped issuing ultimatums and deadlines to the warring parties.

In what has become a war of attrition, discussions about vulnerabilities and losses are only meaningful when compared with those of the opposing side. Reflecting on how each side’s theories of victory changed over the four years helps to grasp the war’s overall trajectory.

Russia’s initial plan for a swift knockout of Ukraine was foiled within the first few days of the invasion. Instead, it settled into a conflict of grinding the enemy down through slow advances on the battlefield and debilitating attacks on the energy infrastructure in the rear, with the expectation in Moscow that at some point Ukraine would throw in the towel.

But the question is whether Russia has enough manpower and economic resources for this strategy.

Russia is finally experiencing economic difficulties due to a combination of western sanctions and falling oil prices, which fell from over US$100 (£74) per barrel in 2022 to approximately $60 in 2025. In 2026, the Kremlin had to raise taxes and reduce its reliance on oil, whose share of Russia’s budget fell from 40% in 2019 to 25% in 2025. Perhaps the Kremlin is beginning to realise that this cannot continue forever.

But Russia’s weakness is relative to that of Ukraine. This applies to war losses: Putin believes that Ukraine’s manpower losses are higher than Russia’s (which flies in the face of what some western researchers estimate) and that Ukraine, with a much smaller population than Russia, has much less staying power.

Ukraine’s theory of victory, meanwhile, has evolved from a belief in an outright military victory in 2022–23, to just trying to exhaust Russia’s military in 2025 by using the “wall of drones”. But as the Russian army had captured some key strongholds, such as Siversk, Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole, Kyiv’s new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov (the fourth since the start of the war), declared that Ukraine’s path to victory now was to kill 50,000 Russian soldiers per month. That’s more than most estimates of Russia’s recruitment, which is believed to be around 30,000 per month.

Western politicians and analysts have embraced this theory, arguing that Russia’s unsustainable losses justify Ukraine continuing with the war with their support.

But after four years, Kyiv’s position is hampered by the loss of the full support of what was once its key ally: Washington. The Ukraine frontline is being slowly but steadily forced back and in 2025 for the first time in the war there was no major Ukrainian offensive.

Kyiv’s best hope is to freeze the conflict along the current line of contact, get security guarantees from the west, join the EU, and maintain pressure on Russia through western sanctions. Unfortunately for Ukraine, there are issues with every item on this list.

The situation at home is challenging and funding from the west is declining, thanks to the US. Meanwhile, its energy infrastructure has been severely damaged, there are ongoing issues with unpopular mobilisations, and the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has suffered a significant blow from a major corruption scandal involving his closest aides.

However, crucially, Ukraine is still fighting and its best hope now is an economic collapse in Russia. Attacks on Russia’s oil industry were intended to hasten that collapse, but Moscow’s destruction of Ukraine’s energy grid has demonstrated its greater capacity for escalation. This year will not be easy for Ukraine.

Europe’s position

Since the start of the invasion, Europe’s ideal plan for helping Ukraine win has not changed. It is believed that a combination of economic sanctions and military aid to Ukraine will eventually cause Russia’s economic collapse and military defeat.

Other than this there is no European plan to end the war, except to try to prevent Trump from striking a deal which would favour Russia and gut Ukraine. For the best part of a year, the so-called coalition of the willing (Kyiv’s European allies led by France, the UK and Germany) has been talking about post-war plans with itself.

But the irony is that – despite being Ukraine’s biggest donor – coalition countries have been excluded from negotiating with Russia, whose consent to any western military deployment as a security guarantee for Kyiv will be essential.

Whatever happens, the EU will have to pay Ukraine’s bills, either to continue the war or to cover its post-war reconstruction. The EU’s promise to accept Ukraine as a member would also require increased funding over an indefinite period.

Whose side is the US on?

Under the Biden presidency, the US and Europe had the same theory of victory. However, since returning to power in January 2025, Trump has forced Europe to finance the supply of US military equipment to Ukraine. Meanwhile, it has opened negotiations with Russia to end the war.

The US push for peace remains a mystery. After all, if the Ukrainians are willing to fight and the Europeans are willing to pay for it, it is unclear why the US is so eager to end a war that is exhausting one of its geopolitical rivals in Russia.

Perhaps Trump genuinely wants to stop the killing. Or perhaps he believes that if the war is not stopped now, the eventual peace deal will be much worse for Ukraine and the west. Or maybe it’s simply a matter of stopping “Biden’s war”. A war that Trump has no interest in and that he clearly feels is hampering his plans to do business with Putin.

As with Gaza, a deal can be reached only when the parties involved in the conflict are exhausted and ready to stop fighting. In these circumstances, Trump’s mediation could succeed. For now, however, each side is still clinging to its vision of victory.

On its fourth anniversary, there is hope that this may be the last year of the war. While all sides are growing increasingly exhausted, it will be the “last mile” that matters most — who can muster the willpower and resources in the final stretch to end the war on their terms.

– ref. Ukraine: after four years of war, exhaustion on both sides is the main hope for peace – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-after-four-years-of-war-exhaustion-on-both-sides-is-the-main-hope-for-peace-276783

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/ukraine-after-four-years-of-war-exhaustion-on-both-sides-is-the-main-hope-for-peace-276783/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elke Schwarz, Professor of Political Theory, Queen Mary University of London

The very public feud between the US Department of Defense (also known these days as the Department of War) and its AI technology supplier Anthropic is unusual for pitting state might against corporate power. In the military space, at least, these are usually cosy bedfellows.

The origin of this disagreement dates back months, amid repeated criticisms from Donald Trump’s AI and crypto “czar”, David Sacks, about the company’s supposedly woke policy stances.

But tensions ramped up following media reports that Anthropic technology had been used in the violent abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by the US military in January 2026. It was alleged this caused discontent inside the San Francisco-based company.

Anthropic has denied this, with company insiders suggesting it did not find or raise any violations of its policies in the wake of the Maduro operation.

Nonetheless, the US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has issued Anthropic with an ultimatum. Unless the company relaxes its ethical limits policy by 5.01pm Washington time on Friday, February 27, the US government has suggested it could invoke the 1950 Defense Production Act. This would allow the Department of Defense (DoD) to appropriate the use of this technology as it wishes.

At the same time, Anthropic could be designated a supply chain risk, putting its government contracts in danger. These extraordinary measures may appear contradictory, but they are consistent with the current US administration’s approach, which favours big gestures and policy ambiguity.

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At the heart of the dispute is the question of how Anthropic’s large language model (LLM) Claude is used in a military context. Across many sectors of industry, Claude does a range of automated tasks including writing, coding, reasoning and analysis.

In July 2024, US data analytics company Palantir announced it was partnering with Anthropic to “bring Claude AI models … into US Government intelligence and defense operations”. Anthropic then signed a US$200 million (£150 million) contract with the DoD in July 2025, stipulating certain terms via its “acceptable use policy”.

These would, for example, disallow the use of Claude in mass surveillance of US citizens or fully autonomous weapon systems which, once activated, can select and engage targets with no human involvement.

According to Anthropic, either would violate its definition of “responsible AI”. Hegseth and the DoD have pushed back, characterising such limits as unduly restrictive in a geopolitical environment marked by uncertainty, instability and blurred lines.

Responsible AI should, they insist, encompass “any lawful use” of AI models by the US military. A memorandum issued by Hegseth on January 9 2026 stated:

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and social ideology have no place in the Department of War, so we must not employ AI models which incorporate ideological ‘tuning’ that interferes with their ability to provide objectively truthful responses to user prompts.

The memo instructed that the term “any lawful use” should be incorporated in future DoD contracts for AI services within 180 days.

Anthropic’s competitors are lining up

Anthropic’s red lines do not rule out the mass surveillance of human communities at large – only American citizens. And while it draws the line at fully autonomous weapons, the multitude of evolving uses of AI to inform, accelerate or scale up violence in ways that severely limit opportunities for moral restraint are not mentioned in its acceptable use policy.

At present, Anthropic has a competitive advantage. Its LLM model is integrated into US government interfaces with sufficient levels of clearance to offer a superior product. But Anthropic’s competitors are lining up.

Palantir has expanded its business with the Pentagon significantly in recent months, giving rise to more AI models.

Meanwhile, Google recently updated its ethical guidelines, dropping its pledge not to use AI for weapons development and surveillance. OpenAI has likewise modified its mission statement, removing “safety” as a core value, and Elon Musk’s xAI (creator of the Grok chatbot) has agreed to the Pentagon’s “any lawful use” standard.

A testing point for military AI

For C.S. Lewis, courage was the master virtue, since it represents “the form of every virtue at the testing point”. Anthropic now faces such a testing point.

On February 24, the company announced the latest update to its responsible scaling policy – “the voluntary framework we use to mitigate catastrophic risks from AI systems”. According to Time magazine, the changes include “scrapping the promise to not release AI models if Anthropic can’t guarantee proper risk mitigations in advance”.

Anthropic’s chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, told Time: “We didn’t really feel, with the rapid advance of AI, that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments … if competitors are blazing ahead.”

Ethical language saturates the press releases of Silicon Valley companies eager to distinguish themselves from “bad actors” in Russia, China and elsewhere. But ethical words and actions are not the same, because the latter often entails a real-world cost.

That such a highly public spectacle is happening at this time is perhaps no accident. In early February, representatives of many countries – but not the US – came together for the third time to find ways to agree on “responsible AI” in the military domain. And on March 2-6, the UN will convene its latest conference discussing how best to limit the use of emerging technologies for lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Such legal and ethical debates about the role of AI technology in the future of warfare are critical, and overdue. Anthropic deserves credit for apparently resisting the US military’s efforts to undercut its ethical guidelines. But AI’s role is likely to be tested in many more conflict situations before agreement is reached.

– ref. Anthropic v the US military: what this public feud says about the use of AI in warfare – https://theconversation.com/anthropic-v-the-us-military-what-this-public-feud-says-about-the-use-of-ai-in-warfare-276999

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/anthropic-v-the-us-military-what-this-public-feud-says-about-the-use-of-ai-in-warfare-276999/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pandanus Petter, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and new Liberal leader Angus Taylor have invoked “Australian values” to justify taking a hard line on immigration, especially from countries that supposedly don’t share our values.

The phrase summons comforting and nostalgic images of football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars, but politicians are rarely asked to spell out what our national values actually are.

When they do, they are often talking about different things.

So, what exactly do Australians “value”? And do these values line up with what politicians are saying about migration?

A ‘fair go’

One frequently invoked idea in the context of Australian values is a “fair go”.

It’s an official part of our immigration system. The Australian Values Statement, which all visa applicants must sign and agree to abide by, includes an explicit mention of “a fair go for all”.

Our research on this longstanding national ideal shows people attach many different meanings to it.

Most people thought it included the belief that migrants should have the same opportunities as everyone else.

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What did we find?

In 2024–25 we ran a module in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to ask the public what they thought a “fair go” meant.

Respondents were presented with a range of statements about a “fair go” and asked to give a score between one and seven according to how much they agreed, with one being the lowest and seven the highest.

The table reveals widespread agreement that a “fair go” is about people being able to get ahead without facing discrimination, with a common view that all should have access to the same quality of education and healthcare.

Fewer people agreed a fair go was about the redistribution of wealth and income, or people being free to “do what they want”.

Instead, the idea of reward for effort was strongly associated with the fair go.

Importantly for the present debate about immigration, 52% of people gave the highest possible level of agreement that recent migrants should have the same opportunity as everyone else to get ahead in life. Only 7% actively disagreed.

The sentiment towards immigration

We were also interested in how these beliefs coalesced together, and how they related to attitudes toward migrants as people, and toward levels of immigration.

We found that fair-go beliefs fell into two main clusters: an “egalitarian” group that embraced the anti-discriminatory aspects of equal opportunity most strongly, and a “meritocratic” group that favoured ideas of striving and reward for effort.

Those in the first cluster were generally positive both toward migrants as people and toward immigration in general. Those with the second set of beliefs were also somewhat positively aligned toward people of migrant backgrounds, though less supportive of increased immigration.

Of course, not everyone has positive feelings about migrants.

In the survey, around 28% of people thought people born in Australia should be given preference over others, and on levels of migration, people were divided. While 43% thought current levels should remain the same or rise, nearly 47% thought they should be lowered.

These results show the fair go is a collection of disparate beliefs, reflecting underlying ideological and partisan differences in our country.

Australian culture and values blend ideas of equality of opportunity, equitable access to education and health, safety nets for the disadvantaged, and an emphasis on reward for effort.

Australians don’t all sing from the same hymn sheet on migration. But they are also mostly strongly in favour of the view that our core national value requires us to treat new migrants as equals.

Beyond the difficulty of defining Australia’s national values lies the further challenge of deciding which source countries supposedly share them.

This has become a theme in current debates, where certain countries, especially non‑European ones, are portrayed as fundamentally misaligned with Australian values.

The assumption that Australian values are coherent is flawed, and the same flawed assumption is often projected onto other countries.

The tension between values and politics

We also interviewed current and former politicians across the political spectrum.

While all endorsed the importance of the fair go, they differed in how widely they believed this value was shared.

Many politicians from the Labor Party argued their party was the true champion of the fair go, and spoke of conservative efforts to undermine it.

Unsurprisingly, the Greens and One Nation attached very different policy meanings to the phrase, particularly on issues such as migration and same‑sex rights.

Politicians inevitably invoke cultural idioms such as the fair go for their own strategic purposes, and these divergent interpretations reinforce how difficult it is to find common ground on what constitutes Australian values.

While our results show support for migration, they also sound a warning. We asked if the fair go was alive and well today and only 40% answered positively.

On the possibility of people in the future getting more of a fair go than they do today, only 19% agreed.

Instead of invoking Australian values to justify exclusion, our leaders need to build on values we genuinely share, including a fair go for migrants, and make the fair go something people can see and experience in their daily lives.

– ref. Politicians say immigration threatens ‘Australian values’, but our research shows no one knows exactly what that means – https://theconversation.com/politicians-say-immigration-threatens-australian-values-but-our-research-shows-no-one-knows-exactly-what-that-means-276746

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/27/politicians-say-immigration-threatens-australian-values-but-our-research-shows-no-one-knows-exactly-what-that-means-276746/