MIL-OSI Export

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Stevens, Professor in Ocean Physics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Earth Sciences New Zealand

“Same as it ever was” is a phrase that continues to resonate in 2026.

The oil shocks of the 1970s, triggered by conflict in the Middle East, sent global energy prices soaring and exposed the vulnerability of modern economies to fuel supply. They also sparked a global surge of interest in alternative energy.

One particularly intriguing idea at the time came from Stephen Salter, a University of Edinburgh researcher who recognised the enormous amount of energy that is constantly cycled within oceans.

He developed a method of turning wave energy into electricity using a pear-shaped device dubbed the “nodding duck”. Despite its whimsical nickname, Salter’s solution appeared able to efficiently extract a large share of the energy carried in passing waves.

The easing of oil shortages and the politics of energy funding brought an end to Salter’s project and pushed marine energy research out of the spotlight.

Still, work in the field has quietly carried on. The last few decades have seen research and development into approaches that source energy from tides, marine winds – and even from differences in heat and salt at different depths.

At the same time, there has been another fundamental shift since the 1970s: the awareness that burning fossil fuels is warming our climate – and that we urgently need to reduce our dependence on them.

An ocean of potential?

New Zealand already generates a high share of its electricity from renewable energy, mostly from hydro, geothermal and wind. But much of the wider energy system still needs to follow.

In scaling up the country’s renewables sector, a large and untapped opportunity lies just offshore.

New Zealand’s west coast is continually swept by waves generated in the Southern Ocean, while the shape of its islands amplifies tidal flows in places like Te Moana-o-Raukawa Cook Strait – one of the most energetic stretches of water on the planet.

These conditions offer exceptional potential for marine energy, for which there is now an increasing range of technologies to harness.

Offshore wind is already well established globally, making up over 99% of marine-based renewable energy capacity. Tidal energy is quickly growing as a sector and now accounts for nearly two thirds of the non-wind ocean energy market. It has advanced through systems that operate much like compact underwater wind turbines.

The UK and France are now planning to install tidal stream energy infrastructure that would deliver at least 400 megawatts of capacity over the next decade, while other countries including Canada, the US, China and Japan are exploring the tech to a lesser extent.

Comparatively, wave energy still has a way to go. But scientists have been developing technology such as buoys and actuators that convert ocean wave motion into electricity, all building on those ideas first explored by Salter.

The new generation of marine energy technologies is solving many of the basic challenges of accessing this large energy resource. The next step is to get it accepted as part of an energy portfolio.

Unlike fossil fuels, waves and tides offer variable yet predictable sources of energy. But doing this at scale will require ways to store that energy – such as pumped hydro or large-scale batteries – to provide reliable supply when demand is high.

In New Zealand, scientists have been exploring these concepts as part of wider research into the potential for capturing energy from the country’s unique ocean environments.

Some of this work, supported by New Zealand’s Marsden Fund, has sought to understand how ocean energy works in these extreme conditions. This enables assessment of how turbine systems developed for smaller coastal settings might perform in more powerful ocean conditions.

Barriers to blue energy

While many of these marine energy technologies are technically viable today, they continue to face significant barriers to deployment. High upfront costs, limited economies of scale and cautious investment environments have all slowed progress.

Previously, proposed marine projects have tended to over-promise relative to technology and social license at the time. One example was a large tidal scheme in the Kaipara Harbour north of Auckland that was touted as capable of powering the equivalent of 250,000 homes. It did not proceed.

Another hurdle has been knowledge gaps in how marine energy developments might affect vulnerable local ecosystems. Recent research has highlighted not only the lack of data on critical species, but also the need to incorporate Māori perspectives and values when assessing impacts on the marine environment.

And so, as another global oil shock unfolds, New Zealand finds itself not much further down the road in realising its marine energy potential than it was 50 years ago.

One way forward is for the country to build on its strengths in hydro, wind, geothermal and solar – and make an even greater push toward renewable energy.

Doing this will require more than discovering new efficiencies in technology. It will mean better understanding how people make decisions about energy use, investing in environmental science to assess impacts and fostering a more capable domestic engineering and infrastructure sector to support deployment.

Regardless of where future renewable growth comes from – be it the sea, sun, earth or skies – it will be essential for reducing fossil fuel emissions. Greater resilience to future oil shocks would be an added benefit.

– ref. NZ is surrounded by ocean energy. Just what would it take to tap it? – https://theconversation.com/nz-is-surrounded-by-ocean-energy-just-what-would-it-take-to-tap-it-279842

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/nz-is-surrounded-by-ocean-energy-just-what-would-it-take-to-tap-it-279842/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Paul Burns, Associate Professor, School of Biotech & Biomolecular Science, UNSW Sydney

On the shores of the west coast of Australia lies a window to our past: the stromatolites and microbial mats of Gathaagudu (Shark Bay).

To the untrained eye they look like a collection of rocks and slime – but they are in fact teeming with microbial life. And these stromatolites are living “relics” of ancient ecosystems that thrived on Earth billions of years ago.

If you wade past, it feels like you’re walking back through time. In fact, the first bubbles of oxygen that filled the atmosphere on early Earth likely came from ancient stromatolites. You could say we owe our very existence to these piles of rocks.

So, what other secrets of our past could these ecosystems tell us? Through decades of research, we know how early life has woven its path through these “living rocks”. But most recently our team embarked on the greatest genealogy search of them all: searching for our great microbial ancestors, the Asgard archaea.

And in a new paper, published today in the journal Current Biology, we report how this search led to the discovery of a key clue that could help explain how complex life evolved on Earth.

The cells that comprise complex life

Asgard archaea were originally named after Norse gods. This fascinating group of microbes sits on the cusp of one of the most significant events in the evolution of life: the origin of the complex cells that make up plants and animals, known as eukaryotes.

Evidence suggests Asgard archaea are the closest relatives of eukaryotes. And that on an early Earth it was the “marriage” of an ancient Asgard archaeon and a bacterium that led to the first eukaryotes.

They formed an ancient partnership. They shared resources and physically interacted, leading to the first complex cells. Like a Romeo and Juliet tale of two distant families coming together, Asgard archaea and bacteria decided it was time to break from traditional family values.

But we have never seen a model of how this may have occurred. Until now.

Holding up a mirror to the ancient past

Our team used the mats of Shark Bay as a “seed” to establish cultures of these ancient microbes. We are one of only four groups worldwide to achieve this, through years of research with a dedicated team of graduate students nurturing the Asgards like offspring.

But the Asgards were not alone. We found them together with a sulphate-loving bacterium. Could this be a model of how complex life may have started on a primitive Earth?

We began by sequencing the Asgards’ DNA to decipher exactly how these microbes tick at the genetic level. We also used artificial intelligence to model how proteins could have behaved in a world before eukaryotes. Evidence suggested these two microbes were sharing nutrients. In other words, they were cooperating.

But we wanted to delve deeper. What do our great microbial ancestors look like? Here we turned to electron cryotomography, a high-resolution imaging approach that allowed us to observe cells and structures at a nanometre scale.

And here we showed – for the first time – an Asgard archaeon and a bacterium directly interacting. Tiny nanotubes were connecting the two organisms – perhaps reflecting what their great-ancestors did on an early Earth that ultimately led to the explosion of complex life as we know it.

Weaving western science with Indigenous knowledge

This was a major discovery – one that originated in Gathaagudu, a World Heritage Site with significant environmental and cultural values.

Aboriginal people first inhabited Gathaagudu over 30,000 years ago. We wanted to recognise and celebrate the language of the Malgana people, one of the traditional language groups of Gathaagudu. We also wanted to connect western science with Indigenous Knowledge in a meaningful way.

To this end and working closely with the world’s foremost Malgana language expert, Kymberley Oakley, and Aboriginal elders, a name was granted for our novel Asgard archaeon from the language of the Malgana people: Nerearchaeum marumarumayae. The species name – marumarumayae – is derived from the Aboriginal language of the Malgana people, meaning “ancient home”, a reference to stromatolites being of ancient origin in Earth’s history.

Weaving Aboriginal language into the naming of our new microbe represents a fitting connection between unique Aboriginal culture in Australia and the ancient microbe discovered that calls the mats of Gathaagudu “home”.

Gathaagudu is under threat from global change, from increased heatwaves, cyclonic events and human activity. And among the values to preserve and conserve are the significant Aboriginal connections as well as the trails of life going back through evolutionary time.

With our study we have peered into our past. And maybe like the Montagues and Capulets of Shakespeare, we see distant families of microbes coming together to bridge the divide and ultimately form the early eukaryotes that eventually led to us: a fragile branch on the evolutionary tree of life.

– ref. ‘First contact’ that may have led to complex life on Earth finally witnessed by scientists – https://theconversation.com/first-contact-that-may-have-led-to-complex-life-on-earth-finally-witnessed-by-scientists-280173

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/first-contact-that-may-have-led-to-complex-life-on-earth-finally-witnessed-by-scientists-280173/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gokcay Balci, Lecturer in Sustainable Freight Transport and Logistics, University of Leeds

The war in Iran has led to a global energy crisis. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a major energy chokepoint that handles roughly 20% of the world’s oil, has been largely blocked by Iran since hostilities broke out in late February. This has, at times, caused oil prices to rise above US$100 a barrel.

As the primary customers of Gulf energy, Asian economies are being hit particularly hard by this crisis. According to figures published by the International Energy Agency in 2025, around 80% of the oil and petroleum products and nearly 90% of the LNG that transited the Strait of Hormuz that year were destined for Asia.

Not all countries in Asia are equally vulnerable. Those most exposed to energy market disruption share a set of structural characteristics: heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, limited fiscal space and constrained energy systems that make it difficult to switch to alternatives quickly.

Countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are all heavily dependent on imported oil and gas to meet domestic demand. However, they lack the foreign exchange reserves needed to secure energy supplies in volatile global markets. When prices spike or supplies tighten, these economies are forced into painful trade-offs between energy access, inflation and fiscal stability.

Wealthier Asian economies such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have greater financial resources, granting them superior purchasing power in volatile markets. But they, too, are structurally exposed to global energy crises. Their energy systems are also deeply dependent on fuel imported from the Gulf, which leaves them sensitive to supply disruptions.

These countries have the fiscal capacity to maintain strategic energy reserves, providing them with temporary relief from disruption. Japan and South Korea, for example, have both initiated record-breaking releases from their state oil reserves since the start of the Iran war.

But with the exception of China, which has huge stockpiles of oil and LNG as well as robust domestic energy supply, these reserves are not designed to offset prolonged disruptions. Japan and South Korea’s national stockpiles only hold enough oil for around 200 days.

Governments under pressure

Faced with tightening supplies and rising prices, many Asian governments have moved quickly to curb energy demand. One of the most immediate responses has been to limit mobility. The Philippines, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all introduced four-day working weeks or have extended public holidays to cut commuting and fuel use.

Pakistan has also introduced hybrid working arrangements for public-sector employees, encouraging remote work to reduce transport demand. Education systems have been similarly affected. Bangladesh brought forward Ramadan holidays in universities, while Pakistan closed schools for two weeks from March 10 and shifted higher education online.

In some cases, governments have introduced more direct restrictions. Myanmar’s military leaders have imposed fuel rationing and have restricted private vehicle use to alternating days based on licence plate numbers.

Other interventions have focused on managing demand in less disruptive ways. Thailand, for example, has raised recommended air-conditioning temperatures to 27°C and is encouraging energy-efficient workplace practices such as replacing suits with short-sleeved shirts.

Some Asian governments have turned to subsidies to shield households and businesses from rising energy costs. Indonesia has allocated tens of billions of US dollars to maintain affordable fuel and electricity prices, while Thailand has capped cooking gas prices and promoted alternative fuels such as biodiesel.

However, subsidies are proving difficult to sustain. For lower-income countries in particular, fiscal constraints limit how long such support can be maintained. Pakistan initially introduced targeted subsidies for farmers and the transport sector, but has been forced to scale them back as the crisis has continued.

Perhaps the most consequential response has been in Asia’s power sector. As energy supplies have tightened and prices surged, several Asian countries have reverted to coal – a fuel many nations have been phasing out.

Thailand has restarted two decommissioned units at the Mae Moh coal-fired power plant, while South Korea and Japan have lifted restrictions on coal generation to allow older plants to operate at higher capacity.

The current energy market disruption has exposed structural vulnerabilities in Asia’s energy systems, including import dependence, limited diversification and fiscal constraints. Governments have relied on a mix of demand reduction, subsidies and fuel switching to limit the impact.

However, these are stopgap measures. If disruptions persist, these countries may be forced to rethink their energy strategies more fundamentally. This could accelerate investment in renewables and nuclear power, as well as efforts towards regional energy integration. But it also risks entrenching coal use and, in the process, hindering global climate goals.

Either way, the current crisis is a reminder that energy security and economic stability remain tightly intertwined and that disruptions in a single chokepoint can ripple across the global economy.

– ref. Some countries in Asia are rationing energy – why they’ve been hit hardest by the crisis in the Gulf – https://theconversation.com/some-countries-in-asia-are-rationing-energy-why-theyve-been-hit-hardest-by-the-crisis-in-the-gulf-279888

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/some-countries-in-asia-are-rationing-energy-why-theyve-been-hit-hardest-by-the-crisis-in-the-gulf-279888/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy E. Hyde, Lecturer, Anatomy, University of Bristol

The human body is often described as a marvel of “perfect design”: elegant, efficient and finely tuned for its purpose. Yet, when we look closer, a rather different picture emerges.

Far from being a flawless machine, the body reads more like a patchwork of compromises shaped by millions of years of evolutionary tinkering. Evolution does not design structures from scratch. Rather, it modifies what already exists.

As a result, many aspects of human anatomy are just “good enough” solutions – functional, but far from perfect. Some of the most familiar medical problems and ailments arise directly from these inherited constraints.

The spine

The human spine tells this story best.

Our vertebral column has evolved little from our four-legged, quadrupedal tree-dwelling ancestors, where it functioned primarily as a flexible beam for smooth movement from branch to branch, while also protecting the spinal cord.

When humans adopted an upright bipedal gait, the spine retained these functions. But it was also repurposed for the additional need of supporting our body weight vertically and maintaining our centre of gravity, while still allowing the flexibility for us to move. These opposing demands creates strain.

The characteristic curves of the human spine helps distribute weight, but it also predisposes us to lower back pain, herniated discs and degenerative changes affecting its most important function – protection the spinal cord and surrounding nerves. These conditions are extraordinarily common, not because the spine is inherently poorly made, but because it’s doing a job it was never originally designed to do.

The neck

Another clear argument against divine design is the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which takes a course that simply makes no sense to invent.

This nerve, which is a branch of the vagus nerve, predominantly controls our organs’ “rest and digest” functions (such as slowing heart rate and breath). The laryngeal nerve also connects the brain and larynx, helping control speech and swallowing.

Logically, one might expect it to use the most direct route to connect brain and larynx. Instead, it descends from the brain into the chest, loops around a major artery, then travels back up to the voice box.

This detour is not a clever design, but a historical leftover from our fish-like ancestors when the nerve took a straightforward path around the gill arches. As necks lengthened over evolutionary time, the nerve was stretched rather than rerouted.

This inefficiency can increase our vulnerability to injury during surgery.

The eyes

Even the eyes reflect evolutionary compromise.

In humans and other vertebrates, the retina (the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eyeball) is wired “backwards.” This means light must pass through layers of nerve fibres before reaching the photoreceptors – specialised cells responsible for detecting light and converting that into a nerve impulse to send to the brain.

The optic nerve then exits through the back of the retina, creating a blind spot just below the horizontal level of the eye where no vision is possible. The brain fills in this gap seamlessly, so we rarely notice it.

So while we’ve developed incredible vision and light receptor cells, this has happened at the expense of having a gap in our visual field.

The teeth

Our teeth offer another reminder that evolution prioritises adequacy over durability.

Humans develop two sets of teeth: baby teeth and adult teeth – and that’s all. Once adult teeth are lost, they’re not replaced – unlike sharks, which continually regenerate teeth throughout life.

In mammals, tooth development is tightly regulated and linked to complex jaw growth and feeding strategies. This system worked well for our ancestors, but for modern humans it leaves us vulnerable to decay and tooth loss.

Wisdom teeth provide another example of evolutionary lag. Our ancestors had larger jaws, suited to tougher diets that required heavy chewing. Over time, human diets softened and jaw size decreased. However, the number of teeth did not change as quickly. Many people no longer have space for their third molars – leading to impaction, crowding and often requiring surgical removal.

Wisdom teeth aren’t useless in principle, but they no longer fit comfortably within modern skulls.

The pelvis

Childbirth presents one of the most profound evolutionary compromises. Like the spine, the human pelvis must balance two competing demands: efficient bipedal walking and birthing large-brained infants.

A narrow pelvis improves locomotion, but restricts the birth canal’s size. Meanwhile, human babies have unusually large heads relative to body size, resulting in a difficult and sometimes dangerous birth process – often requiring outside assistance.

This tension between mobility and brain size has shaped not only anatomy but also social behaviour, encouraging cooperative care and cultural adaptations around childbirth.

Evolutionary persistence

Evolution doesn’t necessarily eliminate structures unless they impose a strong disadvantage. So some anatomical features persist despite offering limited benefit.

The appendix, once considered a completely useless evolutionary left-over, is now thought to have minor immune functions. Yet it can become inflamed, causing appendicitis – a potentially life-threatening condition.

Read more: Intelligent design without a creator? Why evolution may be smarter than we thought

Similarly, the sinuses, have unclear functions. They may lighten the skull or influence voice resonance, and we can even use their size and variability for forensic identification. But the sinus’s drainage pathways go direct into the nose, making it prone to regular blockage and infection, a developmental byproduct rather than a purposeful adaptation.

Even tiny muscles around the ears hint at our evolutionary past. In many mammals, tiny ear muscles allow the outer ear (pinna) to swivel, improving directional hearing. Humans have these muscles, but most people cannot use them effectively.

Our bodies are not perfectly designed, but are a living archive of evolution. Anatomy reveals a historical record of adaptation, compromise and contingency. Evolution does not aim for perfection; it works with what is available, modifying structures step by step.

Understanding anatomy through this evolutionary lens can also help us reframe how we see common medical problems. Back pain, difficult childbirth, dental crowding and sinus infections are not random misfortunes. They are, in part, the consequences of our evolutionary history.

– ref. The human body isn’t a masterpiece of design – it’s a patchwork of evolutionary compromise – https://theconversation.com/the-human-body-isnt-a-masterpiece-of-design-its-a-patchwork-of-evolutionary-compromise-279343

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/the-human-body-isnt-a-masterpiece-of-design-its-a-patchwork-of-evolutionary-compromise-279343/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hollis Karoly, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Amid a renaissance in the science of psychedelics, public interest in psilocybin – or magic mushrooms, as they’ve long been known – is surging.

One study found that rates of psilocybin use increased 44% among adults ages 18-29 from 2019 to 2023, and 188% among those over age 30. This amounts to more than 5 million adults using psilocybin in 2023 alone. And those numbers are rising: A study published in early 2026 found that about 11 million adults in the United States used psilocybin in the previous year.

In many ways, the growing scientific and public interest in psilocybin mirrors the early days of recreational cannabis legalization in the U.S. Much like how cannabis commercialization quickly outpaced the development of regulations necessary to protect public health, the expanding psilocybin market and surging public interest are moving faster than the science and regulations needed to ensure it is used safely.

We are substance use researchers who have spent more than a decade studying the many new, high-THC cannabis products that have flooded the legal-market.

Now, we similarly aim to bridge the gap between public enthusiasm for psilocybin and the limited scientific evidence available about its potential benefits and risks. Currently, this type of real-world data on the effects of psilocybin mushrooms is almost nonexistent.

How do psilocybin mushrooms work?

Psilocybin is a prodrug, which means that it has very low activity until the body converts it into psilocin. Psilocin is the compound primarily responsible for the psychoactive effects of psilocybin mushrooms.

Psilocin resembles the chemical messenger serotonin, which is involved in regulating a range of physiological and psychological functions, including mood, appetite, cognition and sensory perception. As a result, when psilocin binds to serotonin receptors, it alters how people think, feel and experience the world.

Importantly, research suggests that psilocin also alters the brain’s ability to strengthen or weaken neural connections, referred to as synaptic plasticity. This process likely underlies the profound and sometimes long-lasting effects psilocybin mushrooms can have on thoughts, emotions and perception.

Psilocybin mushrooms contain numerous other compounds, together known as tryptamines, such as baeocystin, norbaeocystin and aeruginascin. Research on rodents shows that mushrooms containing these compounds may elicit stronger and longer-lasting effects than psilocybin alone.

But very little is known about how these other tryptamines affect humans. This is because federal regulations require researchers to use an isolated, synthetic version of psilocybin in clinical studies rather than the entire mushroom.

Thus, the many ongoing clinical trials testing psilocybin as a treatment for various mental health conditions use synthetic psilocybin that does not contain these other tryptamines.

Psilocybin mushrooms sit in a legal gray area

Psilocybin is more accessible than ever before.

In 2019, Denver, Colorado, became the first American city to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. This means that possession becomes the lowest law enforcement priority and criminal penalties are reduced or eliminated, but it does not fully legalize them.

Over the next two years, several other U.S. cities including Oakland and Santa Cruz, California; Seattle, Washington; and Detroit, Michigan, followed suit. In 2020, Oregon legalized psilocybin for supervised use in licensed settings, and Colorado did the same in 2022. These legal, supervised-use programs allow access to psilocybin mushrooms in regulated environments without a prescription.

Even for people living outside those states and cities, the barriers to accessing psilocybin mushrooms are low. With a quick Google search and around US$35, anyone can legally purchase kits containing the materials needed to grow psilocybin-containing mushrooms. These kits are legal to buy and sell because they contain only mushroom spores, which are tiny reproductive cells from which mushrooms grow. Once these spores begin growing into mushrooms, they can produce psilocybin, making the mushrooms a federal Schedule 1 substance.

Because psilocybin mushrooms exist in this legal gray area and are governed by different rules across states, psilocybin mushrooms are essentially unregulated across most of the U.S.

As a result, consumers lack reliable information about what their mushrooms contain, how much they should take and how to use them safely.

Psilocybin potency is increasing in the US

Much like the cannabis industry, which has seen a steady increase in product variety and product strength since legalization, the psilocybin mushroom market is experiencing rapid growth.

For instance, psilocybin edibles are now available and increasingly popular.

In addition, selective cultivation practices are being used by individual and commercial growers to systematically increase the amount of psilocybin contained in their mushroom strains. For example, the Oakland Hyphae Cup, a community contest intended to identify the best mushroom strains, has shown wide variability in psilocybin content across samples.

Researchers are identifying a similar pattern of widely variable psilocybin content in scientific studies of psychedelic mushrooms from around the world.

Potential harms of psilocybin

Despite psilocybin’s therapeutic promise, it also carries risks. Psilocybin can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness and changes in blood pressure.

Less commonly, some people experience psychotic symptoms, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, paranoia, confusion or emotional distress.

Another serious potential side effect of psychedelic drugs is what’s known as hallucinogen persisting perception disorder. It involves ongoing perceptual distortions similar to those experienced while directly under the influence of psilocybin, which can persist for weeks, months or years, even once the psilocybin has left the body.

Harms are more likely when people take high doses.

As mushroom potency increases without market regulation, consumers may inadvertently ingest more psilocybin than intended, increasing the risk of harm. Without sufficient research on modern psilocybin products, consumers have little guidance on how to reduce potential harms.

Next steps in research and regulation

Studying psilocybin in the real world requires creative research approaches.

Our team hopes to work within federal restrictions to study people using their own psilocybin mushroom products at home, while providing real-time data to our research team using app-based surveys.

Independent laboratories using state-of-the-art measurement techniques can aid researchers like us by providing information about the potency of the mushroom products that people are using.

While ongoing clinical trials provide important data about the effects of psilocybin under tightly controlled conditions, real-world data is needed to understand how modern psilocybin mushrooms are used and experienced by consumers.

These insights matter not only for scientists and policymakers but for the growing number of people trying psilocybin mushrooms for relief, self-improvement or out of curiosity. In a largely unregulated market, and with few clear guidelines on safe use, consumers are left to simply figure it out on their own.

– ref. Psilocybin mushrooms are going mainstream, but scientific research and regulation lag behind – https://theconversation.com/psilocybin-mushrooms-are-going-mainstream-but-scientific-research-and-regulation-lag-behind-277472

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/psilocybin-mushrooms-are-going-mainstream-but-scientific-research-and-regulation-lag-behind-277472/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Bahir Browsh, Assistant Teaching Professor of Critical Sports Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

“¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!”

Meaning “hurry up, let’s go,” the trademark slogan of Speedy Gonzales was, for generations of children, the first Spanish words they learned.

But by the 1980s, ABC had pulled his cartoons due to concerns that his dress, accent and characters like his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, were insensitive toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The Cartoon Network followed suit in 1999.

I’ve studied and written about the history of animation, including how characters have been received around the world. Though rooted in a well-intentioned effort at cultural sensitivity, taking Speedy Gonzales off the air was a step too far for many viewers. He was one of the few cartoon characters rooted in Mexican identity, and he’d become a cultural icon across all of Latin America. The ensuing uproar in the wake of his cancellation prompted the Cartoon Network to reinstate the cartoon mouse in 2002.

With Warner Bros. greenlighting a new Speedy Gonzales movie in January 2026, the character’s redemption arc appears complete.

A speedy rise to stardom

“The fastest mouse in all of Mexico” first appeared in the 1953 animated short “Cat-Tails for Two.”

He was redesigned with his iconic yellow sombrero and red kerchief when he starred in his eponymous 1955 film, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.

The short film features the general framework for future plots: Speedy helps members of his border community – a place inspired by Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, Texas – evade the conniving Sylvester the Cat.

It opens with a town of starving mice looking longingly at the AJAX cheese factory through a fence establishing an “international border.” They try to determine who will try to outrun Sylvester, the factory’s guard. One of the mice says that his sister is friends with Speedy Gonzales. (Another pipes in that Speedy is friends with everybody’s sister, signaling Speedy as something of a Don Juan.) After they call on Speedy, he uses his speed and smarts to outrun and outwit Sylvester.

The basic premise also appears in a number of cartoons, from Tom and Jerry to Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote: An antagonist is consistently thwarted by a clever protagonist who avoids increasingly complicated traps and attempts at capture.

Speedy Gonzales is unique, though, in that he was the first cartoon star to be from a Latin American country.

In the 1940s, with the European and Asian markets cut off due to World War II, Disney had turned to the Latin American market. The studio produced “Saludos Amigos” in 1942 and “The Three Caballeros” in 1944 to abide by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, which aimed to leverage diplomacy, trade and cultural exchange to improve relations with Latin America.

Speedy ended up appearing in 45 theatrical shorts. In 1969, Warner Bros. shut down its animation studio, but the character lived on in Saturday morning cartoon anthologies like “The Bugs Bunny Show,” which repackaged older cartoons for younger audiences.

Animation’s racial reckoning

The Cartoon Network pulled Speedy Gonzales from the air at a time when networks and studios were starting to reassess animated characters from earlier eras.

Many early cartoon characters, including Mickey Mouse, had been modeled after blackface minstrel characters. Warner Bros.‘ first star, Bosko, was originally patented as “Negro Boy.”

Since racist tropes were ubiquitous in early-20th-century animation, films and shorts like Disney’s “Dumbo,” “Mickey’s Mellerdrammer” or Warner Bros.’ “All This and Rabbit Stew” were either pulled, edited or updated to feature a content warning.

But after The Cartoon Network pulled Speedy Gonzales from the air in 1999, there was unexpected pushback from the Hispanic American community and the character’s Latin American fans. Groups like League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, declared Speedy a cultural icon and requested that his cartoons return to the air.

Back when Speedy Gonzales was first introduced to audiences, Hollywood had been filming more movies in Mexico and at the U.S.-Mexico border. However, most of these films depicted Latinos as either incompetent or villains.

In this regard, Speedy represented something different. Though the character’s English speech and accent reflected stereotypes – and he was voiced by a white actor, Mel Blanc – the character was ultimately a clever, quick-witted and good-natured protagonist. And the Spanish dubbing of his cartoons in Latin America had removed the stereotypical accent altogether.

Let the people decide

The trajectory of Speedy Gonzales resembles that of another controversial cartoon character: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from “The Simpsons.”

An Indian immigrant who earned his Ph.D. in computer science in his home country, Apu becomes the manager of a convenience store in the U.S.

Some critics viewed Apu’s depiction as problematic; voiced by a white actor, Hank Azaria, Apu’s exaggerated Indian-American accent and catchphrase – “Thank you, come again” – was routinely mimicked and mocked by viewers of the show. Others, however, saw Apu as the embodiment of the American Dream: He was intelligent, hardworking and morally grounded.

Cultural theorists like Jacques Derrida and Stuart Hall have written about the complexities of how audiences understand – and either resist or embrace – what they read and watch. They ultimately argue that viewers and readers often interpret media however they see fit, regardless of the creators’ intent. For example, many minority groups who are underrepresented or misrepresented in popular culture will nonetheless find their own meaning and inspiration in characters, even if those characters weren’t supposed to represent those groups in the first place.

This happened with “The Goofy Movie.” Some audiences went on to describe the 1995 film as Disney’s first “Black” animated feature, despite the fact that the characters’ race is never mentioned. There were hints, of course: Black R&B singer Tevin Campbell played the movie’s fictional pop star, Powerline, and the themes of fatherhood and generational tensions eerily echo those in the play “Fences,” written by Black playwright August Wilson.

Of course, in the case of a character like Speedy Gonzales, depictions can become more nuanced as cultural norms and sensitivities change. Jorge R. Gutiérrez is set to direct the animated feature. If his work on films like “The Book of Life” is any indication, he’ll be well-equipped to bring cultural awareness to the animated feature – even if Speedy continues to sport his big, floppy sombrero.

– ref. ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! Speedy Gonzales set to make his triumphant return to the silver screen – https://theconversation.com/andale-arriba-speedy-gonzales-set-to-make-his-triumphant-return-to-the-silver-screen-278753

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/10/andale-arriba-speedy-gonzales-set-to-make-his-triumphant-return-to-the-silver-screen-278753/