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< Back to Issue 10 Contingent Realities - the (Ph)ailure of a (Ph)act by Edmond Sim 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Eric Wang Edited by Rita Fortune "What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me" – Protagoras sneered (1). “I cannot but agree” – Plato replied, terse and tight-lipped. They were bitter ideological enemies. Whilst Protagoras sold a world built entirely on human perception, Plato demanded absolute, unchanging facts: forms and realities that existed independently of human viewing (2). For millennia, the discipline of physics sided vehemently with him. The entire enterprise of the physical sciences was a crusade to banish the ‘will’ of anthropomorphic gods and heroes, to uncover the definitive and rational "facts" behind the universe. The pursuit of logos, rather than mythos. Eight years following Plato’s death, a student of his, Zeno of Citium, established the Stoic school, spreading the belief that the universe operated due to reason (logos), was monistic (i.e. one interconnected physical system governed by consistent laws), and operated on cause and effect (3). This belief in determinism (the idea that events in the future had been determined by a chain of past occurrences) reached its zenith in the Scientific Revolution of the 17/18th centuries. Fact: repeatable, reversible and reliable We will start with an easy question: what is a fact? I would argue that a statement is a fact if it: (i) stems from a pre-existing state of affairs in the world; and (ii) is singular, i.e. is restricted to reality, of which there is one. This is described in perhaps the most incomprehensible quotation of mankind by Aristotle (4). “To say that that which is, is not, and that which is not, is, is a falsehood; therefore, to say that which is, is, and that which is not, is not, is true” (4). ‘Pre-existing’ requires a past. For something to already be there, waiting for us to see it, it can't have just spawned from the void. Every 'is' requires a 'why'. This relentless search for the chain of cause and effect reached its extreme in the 18th century with the French polymath, Pierre-Simon Laplace. His proposal of a hypothetical entity, now famously known as Laplace’s Demon, served as the ultimate thought experiment for the deterministic worldview that dominated the Scientific Revolution. Imagine a massive, omnipresent intellect – a demon. If this intelligence knew the exact location and force of each single atom in the universe right now, it would know everything. Uncertainty would vanish. The past and the future would be simultaneously now (5). A rock does not "choose" to roll; rather it rolls because gravity acts upon its mass. Similarly, in a deterministic universe, you do not "choose" to act. Your current physical state was caused by the state of the universe one second ago. That state was caused by the state one year ago, which was caused by the state of the universe before you were born, stretching all the way back to the initial conditions of the Big Bang. We conclude: there only exists one unique solution that maps space to time. Two different pasts never merge into the exact same future. Two identical presents never split into different futures. ‘c’ is a constant (crisis): Classical mechanics, in all its beautiful and symmetrical mathematics, provides us this shocking revelation that reality may be deterministic, and that free will is an illusion, a fiction within the slow march of time (7). Occam’s razor (that is, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) is seemingly disproven through two fundamental flaws within the classical framework. Firstly, the speed of light (denoted as c) is unique because it stays the same regardless of how fast you are moving. James Clerk Maxwell discovered that electric and magnetic fields are perfectly synced; a ripple in an electric field creates a magnetic one, and that magnetic ripple in turn regenerates the electric field. This continuous loop creates an electromagnetic wave, which we see as light. The speed of this wave is determined by two fundamental properties of empty space: how easily it allows electric and magnetic fields to form and spread. As these properties of the vacuum itself never change, light always travels at the exact same speed, whether you are racing toward the light source or standing perfectly still. The immediate consequences of forcing light to travel at a constant value are rather disturbing. Consider the unfortunate events of a German salary worker in the early 20th century: It was another miserable, grey day in Germany. Albert was staring out the window of a Deutsche Bahn train that was currently four hours late, thinking that his day couldn’t get any worse. CRACK. Lightning strikes the metal frame of the train car, right at the front. Albert jumps, spilling his lukewarm coffee. But before he can even dry off his trousers, a second lightning bolt strikes the very back of the train. He spills his coffee over his shirt. Albert has to get off the train at the next stop, Bern, to get to his job working at the Swiss Patent office. As he dries off his clothes on the platform, he observes an express train that runs straight through the station. Lightning, particularly vicious today, strikes both the front and end of the train carriage at the exact same time. When he was sitting inside the moving carriage, the light from the front strike had reached his eyes first because he was moving toward it. Remember, the speed of light remains constant even in his moving carriage. But now, standing completely still on the damp Bern platform, the light from both strikes on this new express train reached him exactly simultaneously (9). The man on the platform and the passengers on the train would fundamentally argue on the chronological order of events in the universe. Yet the frightening fact was neither of them was wrong (10). (This assumes that the Deutsche-Bahn moves at speeds close to the speed of light, however due to strikes from the train worker union, it would be a challenge for the train to move at a non-zero speed at all.) Recall our first condition for the definition of fact – the existence of a pre-existing past. Yet, if two observers cannot even agree on "when” an event took place, this condition fails. Fact, it seems, depends entirely on how fast you go. Bohr-ing reality is fundamentally uncertain. The second deviation from naive Laplace was the discovery of the hollow atom. Rutherford used the analogy of planets (the electrons) orbiting a star (the nucleus) seemingly never straying from their tidy, well-defined and circular orbits. Electromagnetism prevented this model from being taken seriously. Any particle that possesses charge must release energy when accelerated. Now, imagine a satellite that constantly releases energy each orbit around Earth. Naturally, the satellite will fall into the Earth. The same would occur to the electron. It would spiral into the nucleus in less than a fraction of a picosecond. Every atom in the universe would instantly implode. Two independent theories then arose almost simultaneously following this discovery. In 1925-26, the landmark papers of Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics (which uses matrices to calculate important quantum properties) and Schrödinger’s wave mechanics (an equation that relates a quantum state to its energy) attempted to provide reasons as to why energy did not disappear from the electron’s orbit (11). Breaking with the tradition of presenting the quantum ‘ghost’ of randomness, quantum mechanics actually provides a more deterministic theory than one may realise. Akin to Laplace’s demon, Schrödinger’s equation describes the time evolution of a quantum system: given an initial quantum state, we can make a definite and certain prediction of what that quantum state will be at any later time (12). This is a very intangible concept and would likely be poorly understood, so let me demonstrate this by way of an example of a coin toss. Imagine a coin spinning rapidly on a table. If you try and guess whether it’s showing heads or tails at that specific microsecond, you probably can’t. It’d be too blurry. However, the blur itself is not random. The way the coin spins, its momentum, its wobble, the friction against the table is governed by strict, unbreakable rules. If you know exactly how the coin was flicked (the initial quantum state), Schrödinger’s formula can predict with 100% certainty exactly what that "blur" will look like five seconds from now, ten days from now, or one hundred years from now. The deterministic nature of quantum mechanics is that the blur itself evolves predictably. The infamous and rather misrepresented "quantum randomness" only applies at the very end, when you finally get fed up and slap your hand down on the coin, forcing it to be either heads or tails (the measurement) (13). The issue, therefore, with this notion of fact under a quantum lens is the lack of a singular outcome. Time evolution is a well-defined function, yet outcome can only be predicted probabilistically. Therefore, we fail yet again the second condition of fact. Fact is – the friends we made along the way? An ongoing unresolved issue in quantum theory is how to explain the two conflicting ways in which systems evolve. Unobserved states evolve smoothly, yet exhibit discontinuous jumps into an outcome when measured. The infamous “Wigner’s Friend” paradox provides an example (14). Suppose your friend is inside a sealed lab watching a spinning coin. In their perspective, when they stop the coin and read its face, its state collapses into a singular outcome. In the shivering cold, you curse that you had to be the one to stand outside. According to the rules of quantum mechanics, because you haven’t seen the coin face, the smooth, unbroken evolution is still happening. You get sick of suffering in the name of science, so you rush into the laboratory and ask your friend what the coin landed on. At that moment, the superposition abruptly collapses for you. Facts no longer appear grounded in an objective, observer-independent past. Instead, they become relational, contingent upon who is observing the system. Worse still, facts seem capable of multiplying: different observers may legitimately describe different realities. This forms the basis for Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics (15). In RQM, an object (like an electron, a coin, or a cat) does not inherently "possess" properties like position or momentum in isolation. Instead, those properties only exist when two physical systems interact. Asking "Where is the particle right now?" when nothing is looking at it is a grammatically incorrect question, equivalent to asking “What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The property of "position" only truly comes into meaning if there exists a detector for which the electron interacts with (16). Any interaction is essentially an exchange of information between two systems. Rovelli formalises this by proposing two foundational postulates. First, there is a finite limit to the relevant information one system can extract from another. Second, it is always possible to extract new information (17). At first glance, these seem at odds: how can you continually extract new data if the total capacity is capped? The consequence of this tension is what we traditionally call "collapse", but RQM reframes it simply as an update of relative information. If you have maxed out the information capacity of a system — for instance, by pinning down the spinning coin’s exact momentum — then asking a new question about its position forces the system to "forget" old information to make room for the new. This directly yields Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. If we wish to keep using the word "fact" in our theory of modern physics, we must redefine it. Facts are no longer global, pre-existing truths built into a singular reality. Instead, they are by nature local, inherently plural, and entirely dependent on the relationship between the watcher and the watched. Protagoras peers down, then looks up at Plato with a bright-eyed grin. "As I was saying,” References Plato. Theaetetus. Waterfield R, translator. London: Penguin Classics; 1987. Plato. The Republic. Lee D, translator. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books; 2003. Sellars J. Stoicism. Berkeley: University of California Press; 2006. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Ross WD, translator. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1924. Laplace PS. A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. Truscott FW, Emory FL, translators. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 1902. University of Oxford. The Eddington Number. Oxford: University of Oxford. 2020. https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/about-us/life-oxford-mathematics/oxford-mathematics-alphabet/e-eddington-number Mastin L. Determinism. The Basics of Philosophy. 2008. https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html Einstein A. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory. Lawson RW, translator. New York: Henry Holt and Company; 1920. Norton JD. The Relativity of Simultaneity. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. 2022. https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_rel_sim/ Norton JD. Einstein for Everyone. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh. 2022. https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/Special_relativity_clocks_rods/ Heisenberg W. Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen. Z Phys. 1925;33(1):879-93. Nave R. Schrödinger Equation [Internet]. Atlanta: Georgia State University. 2017. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/schr.html Ismael J. Quantum Mechanics. Stanford: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm/ Wigner EP. Remarks on the mind-body question. In: Good IJ, editor. The Scientist Speculates. London: Heinemann; 1961. p. 284-302. Rovelli C. Relational quantum mechanics. Int J Theor Phys. 1996;35(8):1637-78. Laudisa F, Rovelli C. Relational Quantum Mechanics. Stanford: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/ Rovelli C. Helgoland. Segre E, Carnell S, translators. New York: Riverhead Books; 2021. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 2 What’s the forecast for smallholder farmers of Arabica coffee? For millions of smallholder farmers residing in the rural highlands of East Timor and Ethiopia, Arabica coffee is a major source of income. Yet, weather patterns are threatening their future livelihoods. With global coffee yields predicted to dramatically reduce in coming decades, how will this touch Melbourne’s privileged cafe culture? by Hannah Savage 10 December 2021 Edited by Ashleigh Hallinan & Irene Yonsuh Lee Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin The world loves its coffee. After crude oil, coffee is the most exported commodity in the world and global demands are projected to skyrocket alongside demographic growth (2). With a strong inclination by Australian citizens to participate in our bourgeois cafe culture, Australian demand can be expected to mimic this trend. However, as climate change continues to throw curveballs, pressures to satisfy these demands will be felt by all in the supply chain. There are many species of coffee beans, yet global consumption relies only on a narrow genetic selection. Coffea Arabica is the dominant coffee bean species in commercial production (approximately 70 percent), followed by Coffea Robusta (2). Agricultural research and breeding of these crops are not extensive, considering their high sensitivity to climate. If Arabica was a child, it would be the no-mash-touching-the-peas type. Though a laborious crop to farm, this fussy plant has low yield when too much shade deprives it of sunlight or too little shade shrinks soil moisture levels. It insists on altitudes 1000-2000m above sea level and 2000mm of rainfall per annum (2). Moreover, the optimal air temperature for Arabica is 18-21 degrees Celsius (3). With these environmental specifications, it is expected that half of the world’s optimal areas for growth of Arabica and Robusta are expected to be lost by 2050 due to climate change (13). After Hurricane Maria hurtled across Puerto Rico in 2017, 80 percent of coffee trees were destroyed and rural livelihoods were flattened overnight (4). Climate change does not pay sympathy towards poor and marginalized rural communities. Frequency and intensity of extreme weather is increasing in many developing nations. Changes in temperature, weather events and rainfall patterns are already challenging the ability of farmers to adapt. Rainfall distribution is becoming more erratic and unpredictable. This is a key concern to farmers as rain patterns correlate with timing of flowering and fruit production (2). Flowering is usually triggered by the first rains of the wet season, yet unpredictable rains during the year may cause flowering at undesirable times. Unsynchronized ripening requires additional harvesting cycles, costing farmers more money and labour. In addition, water scarcity and warmer air temperature also have profound impacts on harvests. Prolonged drought leads to misshapen or small beans with marks and imperfections (3). Low moisture and heat stress causes wilting, death of crops or acceleration of bean growth (3). At temperatures above 23 degrees, fruit ripens too fast for a rich, sweet coffee flavour to develop (2). What will thrive from these changing climatic conditions are pests, diseases and coffee rust fungus, which are becoming more prevalent in areas previously unfavourable for their survival (5). The insect Coffee berry borer has been a particular challenge to coffee producers globally, as it feeds on coffee beans and damages plantations. One to four generations of these critters are born each fruiting season (5). Climate change brings uncertainty to the future livelihoods of millions of smallholder coffee farmers around the world, who produce 70 percent of the world’s coffee (6). While world leaders dance around pretty statistical graphs of their carbon-cutting “achievements”, there is the underlying issue that global efforts to lower emissions will not have equal consequences across geographical locations. Poorer economies abundant in fossil fuel resources are pressured to implement policies that further increase their vulnerability and are left grappling to find quick coping strategies. Although it accounts for only a small percentage of global coffee production, East Timor is one of the most economically dependent on coffee. East Timor, the small-island nation 700km north-west of Darwin, has relied on its oil sector for economic development in recent decades, but now interest from foreign traders is depleting with global trends towards renewable energy. The coffee industry has been identified by the East Timor government as being a key opportunity for sustained economic growth and reduction of rural poverty. More than 18 percent of Timorese households rely on coffee production as their primary source of income (7). Coffee producers have a poverty rate of 47.9 percent, which is higher than the national rate of poverty, 40.3 percent (7). Many coffee-producing households are without electricity or access to clean water and regular meals. Figure 1: Distribution of coffee-selling households in Timor-Leste (7). Timorese Arabica coffee farmers today celebrate achieving yields their grandparents would have considered inadequate in the early 20th century during Portuguese occupation. This reflects how much the climate has changed across generations. Rain, once predictable to begin at the end of every November, is now inconsistent and reduced (1). Unfortunately, adaptive solutions often demand high investment and low reward in the initial implementation stages. Farmers may be reluctant to remove their aging, unproductive coffee trees and replant new ones for fear of losing a major source of income while waiting for financial output from the new growth (9). There is the temptation to instead plant new crops between existing ones, which exploits soil nutrients and harms coffee yields. Small short-term rewards also discourage poorer farmers from participating in collective reforestation projects (9). There is much work to be done to restore ecosystems devastated from rainforest clearances during Indonesian colonisation in 1975, which occurred mere months after independence from Portugal. Shade trees that characterise these tropical rainforests play important roles in supporting coffee growth. If farmers grow coffee crops amongst the rainforest, crops will benefit from wind shelter and rich soil nutrients (8). Shade reduces daytime air temperature and increases humidity. In the region of Baguia, the collaboration project WithOneSeed, (co-founded by Melbourne’s own ‘The Corner Store Cafe’ owners), actively alleviates poverty by restoring rainforests and granting farmers profits from carbon credit trades. Farmers plant an indigenous shade tree, carbon credits are purchased by foreign customers to offset fossil fuel emissions and a remuneration of 50cents per tree is given to farmers each year so long as the tree survives (10). WithOneSeed therefore provides rural coffee producers with income before trees mature and re-establishes tara bandu, customary resource management that sustained Timor Leste’s environment for centuries pre-colonisation. Organic beans are purchased from smallholder farms at a fair price by The Corner Store and roasted in Oakleigh. The supply chain is transparent and traceable and profits go towards funding WithOneSeed planting. Plus the coffee is good quality and grown without nasty chemicals! (11) Simple adaptive responses are also being made by coffee producers in the world’s fifth largest Arabica producer, Ethiopia (3). As Arabica has been said to originate here, it is perhaps unsurprising that 16 percent of the population rely on coffee for their livelihood. Figure 2: The main coffee growing areas of Ethiopia (3). In the case of a global temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Celsius, land areas suitable for coffee production in Ethiopia would be expected to decline by 21 percent (12). Resilience for smallholder Arabica producers now depends on creative solutions using limited technology and resources available to rural communities. Relocating farms to higher altitudes of Ethiopian highlands is one solution. But this transition comes at a cost for coffee producers in the form of social network losses. While climate conditions of higher land might be more suitable, other factors such as land tenureship rights and soil quality may pose new obstacles (13). As rain seasons shorten and dry seasons lengthen, Ethiopian coffee producers aim to boost irrigation by diverting nearby streams. This is an ancient and cost-effective solution that enables coffee to successfully be grown in areas classified unsuitable (3). Similarly, coffee producers are carrying out traditional techniques of mulching, where laying compost over soil conserves soil moisture (3). However, more government investment in supporting these adaptations is needed to keep ahead of global warming (3). Sustainable agriculture also needs to be met with fair prices. Many Ethiopian farmers do not have access to foreign traders who will pay premium prices that outweigh production costs. Coffee prices are determined by the international market, or “C price”, which is based on the theory that cost is proportional to global demand, with no consideration of quality or organic farming practices (14). This supports and encourages cheap, unsustainable agricultural practice because sustainable or not, farmers will receive the same revenue for their produce. To combat this, Ethiopian business CoQua, based in Addis Ababa city, facilitates opportunities for private producers to link with international clients and initiate direct lines of trade (14). Through CoQua, Melbourne’s Seven Seeds cafe were able to establish a trade relationship with private smallholder Ethiopian Arabica producers. Seven Seeds claim to pay 3.56 times the “C price” (14). Continue as we may to remain disconnected from the challenges of an environmentally fragile coffee industry, it is only a matter of time before global reduction makes noticeable impacts on Melbourne’s shielded society. What will happen when coffee stocks fail to meet Melbourne demand? Seven Seeds co-owner Mark Dundon told The Sydney Morning Herald that he predicts coffee prices will rise, despite general reluctance of consumers to spill more than one bank note from their wallets for a flat white (14). And why shouldn't we pay more for our hot beverages if producers vulnerable to food insecurity are paying more from the brunt of climate change? The following decades have a bitter outlook, but the recent pandemic outbreak enhanced our ability to envision rapid global disruptions where no corner of the world is excluded. Certainly a disruption to Melbourne coffee culture is a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things, but as consumers it is one worth considering now. The future for Melbourians to satisfy their cultural addiction balances dangerously on a series of environmental conditions being met in foreign highlands. While it’s true that being a “smart consumer” can feel like a matter of blind faith (how fair is fair trade?), favouring businesses that have ethical, direct lines of trade with smallholder producers is one small, immediate solution towards building a sustainable future for our treasured beans and those in the firing line of climate change. References: 1. Jack Board, “From crop to kopitiam, Asia's coffee is facing its biggest threat - climate change,” CNA, published 29 February 2020, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/climate-change-coffee-prices-timor-leste-crops-1338741 2. Abaynesh Asegid, “Impact of Climate Change on production and Diversity of Coffee (Coffea Arabica L) in Ethiopia,” International Journal of Research Studies in Science, Engineering and Technology 7, 8 (2020): 31-38. 3. Kew Royal Botanic Garden, Coffee farming and climate change in Ethiopia, (London: The Strategic Climate Institutions Programme), 37, https://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/Coffee%20Farming%20and%20Climate%20Change%20in%20Ethiopia.pdf 4. “How is Climate Change Impacting the Future of Coffee?,” TechnoServe Business Solutions to Poverty, published 16 September 2021, https://www.technoserve.org/blog/climate-change-impacting-future-coffee/ 5. Getachew Weldemichael and Demelash Teferi, “The Impact of Climate Change on Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Production and Genetic Resources,” International Journal of Research Studies in Agricultural Sciences (IJRSAS) 5, 11, (2019): 26-34, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2454-6224.0511004. 6. Michon Scott, “Climate and Coffee,” Science Information for a climate-smart nation, published 19 June 2015, https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-coffee 7. Brett Inder and Nan Qu, Coffee in Timor-Leste : What do we know ? What can we do ?, (Australia: Monash University), 17. 8. Simon P.J Batterbury, Lisa R. Palmer, Thomas R. Reuter, Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, Balthasar Kehi and Alex Cullen, “Land access and livelihoods in post-conflict Timor-Leste: no magic bullets,” International Journal of the commons, 9, 2, (2015): 619-647. 9. Lisa Walker, Understanding Timor Leste, (Dili: Swinburne Press, 2013), 22-158. 10. Andrew Mahar, “Meet the farmers helping to reforest Timor-Leste,” World Economic Forum, published 26 January 2021, Meet the farmers helping to reforest Timor-Leste | World Economic Forum (weforum.org) 11. “The Roastery,” The Corner Store, accessed November 2021, https://cornerstorenetwork.org.au/the-roastery 12. Cheikh Mbow et al., Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, (2019), https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/08_Chapter-5_3.pdf 13. Yen Pham, Kathryn Reardon-Smith, Shahbaz Mushtaq and Geoff Cockfield, “The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review”, Climatic Change, 156, (2019): 609-630, The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review | SpringerLink 14. Dani Valent, “ 'The industry's at risk': the high price of cheap coffees,” published 31 May 2019, national/the-industry-s-at-risk-the-high-price-of-cheap-coffees-20190528-p51rti.html Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

By Ashleigh Hallinan < Back to Issue 3 Space exploration in Antartica By Ashleigh Hallinan 10 September 2022 Edited by Tanya Kovacevic and Breana Galea Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Next The isolated southern expanse of the Earth is an alien realm, with vast expanses of white ice and blue sky that appear to stretch on infinitely. Despite its barren landscape, the Antarctic continent holds secrets to the origins of our Earth and the solar system in the form of meteorites. Meteorites are solid pieces of debris that originate in outer space, survive the journey through our atmosphere, and fall to the Earth’s surface.(1) Their unique components and pungent smells contain fascinating stories of cosmic clouds, condensing stardust and the fiery collisions of entire planets. These ‘space rocks’ can land anywhere on Earth, but the vast majority of meteorites are found in the cold deserts of Antarctica.(2) So, why Antarctica? Across the globe, meteorite abundance is dependent on two factors: the meteorites must be easy to spot, and their preservation must be guaranteed over long time periods.(3) It is the conditions of the Antarctic landscape that make all the difference when it comes to meteorite discovery. The cold, dry nature of Antarctica helps to preserve these extraterrestrial rocks, allowing for more pristine samples to be collected. In this way, we may think of Antarctica as a ‘natural freezer’. In fact, meteorites can be buried and preserved in the Antarctic ice for up to millions of years, allowing for a deep dive into the origins of the solar system upon analysis. Furthermore, meteorites are easier to find in Antarctica due to the stark contrast between the dark colours of meteorites and the white ice. And since so few rocks naturally form on ice sheets, you can be fairly certain the majority of rocks found in Antarctica are extraterrestrial. However, an expedition to Antarctica for meteorite hunting is no small feat. Thankfully, landscape processes occurring on the Antarctic continent create concentrated pockets of meteorites, making the hunt for meteorites less like trying to find a needle in a haystack. These meteorite hotspots are largely a result of the local geology and movement of ice across the Antarctic landscape.(4) As meteorites strike glaciers, they are buried and encased in the ice. These glaciers move across the landscape, acting as ‘conveyor belts’ that carry the meteorites until they reach a large barrier, such as the Transantarctic Mountains. The ice flow is blocked and builds up at the base of the mountain. Here, dry Antarctic winds slowly erode the ice, revealing a bounty of imprisoned meteorites. Traditionally, meteorites have been divided into three broad categories: stony, stony-iron, and iron.(5) While stony meteorites are made up of silicate minerals, iron meteorites are almost completely made of metal. Unsurprisingly, stony-iron meteorites are composed of nearly equal amounts of metal and silicate crystals. Alarmingly, warmer temperatures and melting ice associated with global warming may hinder our search for meteorites. This is particularly the case for iron meteorites, which conduct heat more efficiently than other meteorite types due to their higher metal content.(6) Consequently, meteorites can sink into the ice and out of sight. Despite Antarctica’s otherworldliness, it is not free of the impacts brought about by human activity occurring on landmasses separated by vast seas. However, with the help of artificial intelligence and machine-learning, the quest for meteorite discovery continues. Scientists recently estimated there are as many as 300,000 more meteorites to be discovered in Antarctica, their stories waiting to be uncovered in a never-ending game of hide-and-seek.(7) Using machine learning to combine satellite measurements of temperature, surface slope, speed of ice flow, and reflection of radar signals by ice, scientists have developed a ‘treasure map’ containing the predicted locations of concentrated meteorite zones.(7) The ’treasure map’ is accessible online,(8) so anyone can search the Antarctic continent for rocky remnants left over from the formation of the solar system. When we think of space exploration, we conjure up images of astronauts and spaceships. But Antarctica provides us with the opportunity to peer into the cosmos without ever leaving Earth, given we are brave enough to face the inhospitable conditions and pervasive alienness of the Earth’s southernmost continent. References 1. Sephton M, Bland P, Pillinger C, Gilmour I. The preservation state of organic matter in meteorites from Antarctica. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 2004;39(5):747-54. 2. Corrigan C. Antarctica: The Best Place on Earth to Collect Meteorites. CosmoELEMENTS; 2011. p. 296. 3. Schlüter J, Schultz L, Thiedig F, Al‐Mahdi B, Aghreb AA. The Dar al Gani meteorite field (Libyan Sahara): Geological setting, pairing of meteorites, and recovery density. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 2002;37(8):1079-93. 4. Steigerwald B. NASA Scientist Collects Bits of the Solar System from an Antarctic Glacier Greenbelt: NASA; 2018 [Available from: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/antarctic-meteorites. 5. Lotzof K. Types of meteorites [Internet]. Natural History Museum; [Available from: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/types-of-meteorites.html. 6. Evatt G, Coughlan M, Joy K, Smedley A, Connolly P, Abrahams I. A potential hidden layer of meteorites below the ice surface of Antarctica. Nature communications. 2016;7(1):1-8. 7. Tollenaar V, Zekollari H, Lhermitte S, Tax DM, Debaille V, Goderis S, et al. Unexplored Antarctic meteorite collection sites revealed through machine learning. Science Advances. 2022;8(4). 8. Tollenaar V, Zekollari H, Lhermitte S, Tax DM, Debaille V, S G. Antarctic Meteorite Stranding Zones [Internet]. [Available from: https://wheretocatchafallingstar.science/. Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 10 Shining Light on the Grey by Ingrid Sefton, Kara Miwa-Dale and Anabelle Dewi Saraswati 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Anabelle Dewi Saraswati Edited by the Editor-in-Chiefs Truth: from that with a little t, to the just out of reach capital T “Truth”. We seek it, we declare it, we believe in it. An innate drive towards answers, embedded in the human process of scientific exploration. Our notions of fact and fiction often feel like black and white binaries with clear boundaries; easily distinguishable, one or the other. Consider an alternative. That science, as in life, is a chiaroscuro of fact and fiction. Shades of light and shadow, which contrast truths and contradictions in order to point us to a clearer, but never fully transparent view of reality. Our scientific methods help us whittle away outright lies, and approach a closer approximation to that of fact than one of fiction. Yet, undeniably, there remains frustratingly little we can say with utmost certainty. History is littered with reminders of how fragile “truth” can be. There was a time when illness was understood as a delicate imbalance of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. At one point, continents were assumed to be fixed and unmoving, until tectonic plates revealed a restless Earth in constant motion. It is precisely by interrogating these once-settled “facts” that science advanced — not in straight lines, but through disruption, revision, and occasional collapse. And still, there are questions we orbit but have not yet landed on. What exactly is dark matter, which seems to hold galaxies together while refusing to reveal itself? How does consciousness emerge from the quiet electrical choreography of neurons? In these spaces, science is not a catalogue of answers, but a map of known unknowns. A lack of absolutes does not negate the power of science – far from it. Indeed, this is a large part of what drives us to become ever more inquisitive, innovative and critically questioning of the scientific landscape. Ideas once accepted as unquestionable truths can be later overturned through science, just as concepts once dismissed as fantasy may eventually become reality. May this issue urge you to pause, to consider the myriad of grey space that exists in between as you traverse the boundaries of truth, certainty and fabrication. Where does one end, and another begin? A word from the Cover Illustrator Anabelle For this issue’s cover illustration, I was inspired by the history and strange patterns of crop circles. These vast, intricate formations pressed into fields that sit somewhere between scientific curiosity, mass hysteria, art, and folklore; the perfect visual encapsulation for this issue’s theme, Fact and Fiction. Cropping up throughout the late 70s to 80s, they became a cultural phenomenon tied to UFO sightings, conspiracy theories, extraterrestrial speculation, and pseudoscientific fascination. Conceptually, crop circles simultaneously exist as a hoax, artwork, scientific anomaly, and collective myth, depending on the observer. I approached the illustration through a lens of nostalgia, imagining it as the cover of a forgotten children’s mystery book you could stumble upon in an op-shop dating all the way back to the 80s or 90s; sun-faded, slightly eerie, but playful in its wonder. The Midwest-inspired rural scene allowed me to lean into that atmosphere of a quiet blue hour mystery that surrounded alien encounters and paranormal media in the late twentieth century, when crop circles occupied such a strange and persistent place in the pop culture zeitgeist. The beauty in crop formations lies in their underlying precision. Many are built off fractal geometry and repeating mathematical systems, and naturally occurring patterns found throughout science and nature. Even as objects associated with fiction and conspiracy, they are deeply rooted in structure, mathematics, and design. Crop circles are carefully designed spectacles intended to provoke interpretation. Whether read as evidence, artwork, prank, or myth, they reveal how deeply humans want to believe in stories larger than themselves. The cover became less about proving whether something is real or fabricated, and more about exploring the fragile, fascinating space in between. Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

By Gaurika Loomba < Back to Issue 3 Mighty Microscopic Warriors! By Gaurika Loomba 10 September 2022 Edited by Niesha Baker and Khoa-Anh Tran Illustrated by Rachel Ko Next It’s a fine Saturday afternoon. You’re sitting in your backyard sipping on coffee and losing your mind over the daily Wordle. While you’re so engrossed, an unusual, blue-colored creature pulls another chair and solves the Wordle for you. Just as you look up and try to process the condescending smirk of this creature, your daily news notification pops up. It's true! The whole world has been invaded by aliens! Thankfully this is a figment of our imagination, but would you believe me if I told you that alien invasions are constantly happening unnoticed in the microscopic world of our bodies? Every day, our cells face new ‘alien invasions’, thanks to unhygienic eating, or even just from breathing! In the external world, such an invasion would unsettle the entire human population and adversely impact the lives of everyone. It’s amazing how such invasions inside our bodies are usually defeated daily. So who are these tiny ‘soldiers’ that fight them off, silently and efficiently? It’s time to introduce the two brothers of our story– the innate immune cells system and the adaptive immune cells system, the former being the more enthusiastic and energetic one, while the latter is calmer and wiser. Although different in nature, the two systems coordinate efficiently to eliminate our enemies and help us go on about our lives. The innate immune system acts first when a pathogen (a disease-causing microorganism) manages to enter our bodies by getting around our physical barriers like the skin, and the mucus in the respiratory, gastric, urinary, and sexual tracts, etc. The innate immune system consists of cells like macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs), which are constantly looking out for incoming invaders. These cells recognise pathogens through common foreign attributes that our native cells don’t possess. In order to defend us from the harmful effects of the pathogen, our innate cells engulf them. In fact, the word ‘macrophages’ literally means ‘big eaters.’ Inside our cells, the pathogens’ end is inevitable, smashed and broken into pieces, which are mounted on our soldier cells’ surfaces, informing other soldier cells that an invasion has occurred. Exposing broken parts of the pathogen on our innate cells’ surfaces also produces chemicals called cytokines that help recruit more of our soldier cells to the site of invasion. So, when we get flu, the secreted cytokines is why we run a fever, cough, sneeze, and influx of our soldier cells to the throat area is why we may have swelling around there. Similarly, if we bruise, our blood vessels dilate to allow entry of our soldier cells to the wounded area, which is then manifested as redness and swelling around it. Fortunately, this means of communication of our soldier cells is much faster than our internet connection and so the whole process occurs in a matter of hours. On most days, the keen innate immune system is enough to control an invasion. However, it needs big brotherly advice from the adaptive immune system in case things get out of hand. The main players of this part of the immune system are the calm B- and T-cells. These can be found resting in the lymph nodes, unaware of the invasion in the body. The B- and T-cells are wise soldiers, which is evident in the way they respond to an invasion. Each of these cells has molecules called ‘receptors’, which uniquely recognise pathogen parts presented to them. These receptors, on an adaptive cell, can be thought of as padlocks and the broken pathogen parts, mounted on an innate cell, as a key. In the lymph nodes, each resting B- and T-cell has a different type of padlock, unique for a different key. It is the job of a DC, with a broken pathogen part mounted on its surface, to enter the lymph nodes and search for the most accurate match for its key, from the variety of B- and T-cell padlocks. The key varies based on the different types of pathogens that invade our bodies. Once the perfect match is found, that specific B- and T-cell is activated and rapidly multiplied. This lock-and-key method of activation of adaptive cells confers the specificity of their action. These activated cells move from the lymph nodes to the site of infection and perform different functions that halt the pathogen from spreading the disease, by either killing the pathogen or stopping its reproduction. At the site of infection, innate cells, with the key (broken pathogen part) mounted on their surface wait for the brotherly advice, the incoming adaptive cells with the perfect match to the key. The activated T-cells uniquely interact with macrophages and signal them to start killing the pathogens that they have engulfed. This helps with clearance of the pathogen. Although B-cells are part of the adaptive immune system, they can also recognise the foreign pathogen products, break them down, and present these parts on their surface, just like the innate immune cells. So now B-cells also have a key to the activated T-cell padlocks. Their lock-and-key interaction facilitates the B-cells to release antibodies. Finally, the antibodies, together with the macrophages and DCs, as well as the B- and T-cells of the adaptive immune system, successfully win the war and die peacefully, having completed their purpose. But a small portion of B- and T-cells go on and develop into long-lived memory cells. Over the span of our lives, we are infected and reinfected with pathogens all the time, however not every encounter results in us falling sick. The credit goes to the B- and T-memory cells and their ability to remember the foreign attributes of the pathogen and kill it as soon as it re-invades. Adaptive cells’ memory is the principle of vaccination. An inactive pathogen or a part of the pathogen is introduced into the body. This trains our soldier cells for a real pathogen invasion by triggering the B-cells to form memory and specialised antibodies against the pseudo-pathogen. If the real pathogen infects us again, these pre-formed antibodies make fighting the war much easier and quicker. Correct training of immune cells is essential since a pathogen invasion is a life-or-death situation for us. Any mistakes by our soldier cells can have devastating effects. For example, an important part of the training process is to ensure the immune cells aptly distinguish between civilian cells and foreign cells. This education occurs in the bone marrow. Here, any B- or T-cells that attack civilian cells or cell parts are evicted from the training process so only the most eligible soldier cells continue to become eligible soldiers. (1) But even after a rigorous selection process, things can go wrong with our immune system. Instead of being our defending heroes, they turn their back against us and start identifying civilian cells as aliens and attacking them. Sadly, this is the reality for 5% of the Australian population, with a majority being women. This condition, when the immune cells stop distinguishing internal cells from alien cells, is called an auto-immune disorder. The cause for this disorder is mostly unknown, with some speculations of it being genetic or environmental. The repercussions can be mild, such as causing dry mouth and dry eyes - symptoms for Sjogren’s syndrome, or more severe such as joint pain and immobilisation, known as Rheumatoid Arthritis. These diseases are currently life-long and incurable because they involve our own cells fighting the healthy cells in our body. (2) Nevertheless, the immune system plays a very important role in helping us lead normal lives. It fights the battle against the invaders daily, without us realizing it. Thanks to the soldiers of the immune system, our daily activities, like solving a Wordle on a relaxing Saturday, are not hindered by an alien cell invasion in our bodies! References Kenneth Murphy, Casey Weaver. Basic concepts in Immunology. Janeway’s Immunobiology. 9th ed. United States: Garland Science Taylor and Francis; 2017. p. 4-11 Overview of autoimmune diseases [Internet]. Healthdirect. Available from: Overview of autoimmune diseases | healthdirect Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 2 Maxing the Vax: why some countries are losing the COVID vaccination race As Australia’s COVID vaccination rate reaches 90% for the adult population, are you aware of countries struggling with their vaccination program? This piece discusses three countries, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and India, and the key challenges they face in increasing their vaccination rate. by Grace Law 10 December 2021 Edited by Neisha Baker Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Most Australians are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but are you aware of how other countries are handling their vaccination programs? Each country has its own set of challenges and setbacks it must overcome in getting its citizens vaccinated. The success and failure of vaccination programs depend on how well these are addressed, and how the people respond. Political, economic, geographical, and educational factors can have a huge impact on vaccination success. Below, I will discuss the key challenges affecting COVID-19 vaccination in three countries, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and India, as well as its impact on the country’s vaccination rate. Brazil – the nation that changed their fate Brazil has suffered the highest overall death toll in Latin America which is also the second-highest in the world after the United States. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro was strongly opposed to lockdowns, restrictions, and public-health measures such as masks, which some local areas sought to impose (1). He has also spread disinformation regarding the coronavirus and vaccines, such as posting a video falsely associating the coronavirus vaccines with the onset of AIDS, resulting in Facebook removing it after public outcry (2). As a leader, his words and actions have major roles in influencing opinion and informing the public. While the number of preventable deaths is shocking, the predicted wave of destruction by the Delta variant has not materialised. Over 60% of the population is fully vaccinated despite the mixed messages and deterrence from the central government (3). The city of Serrana became the testing site of the Chinese vaccine Sinovac with most adults being willing towards receiving the vaccine (4). Consequently, the symptomatic cases, hospitalisation and deaths in the area all fell dramatically, becoming a place of envy for the neighbouring communities (5). This initial success also offers hope for low and middle-income countries, which may rely on this cheaper vaccine (6). Despite governmental resistance throughout the pandemic, Brazilians have defied the odds and faced the virus as a united community. Local leaders have challenged the national government to ensure suitable public health orders are enforced, and citizens have actively sought vaccination, preventing further COVID-19 devastation. Papua New Guinea – our struggling neighbour One of Australia’s closest neighbours, Papua New Guinea (PNG), is among the countries with the lowest vaccination rate in the world. According to Our World in Data, only 2% of the population is fully vaccinated (7). One of the most difficult issues to address is mistrust in the vaccine, due to low health education, inadequate health and general resources, and a political and historical distrust in the government. PNG relies on Australia and New Zealand’s AstraZeneca donations to acquire COVID vaccines, as well as Australian embassy staff to help run pop-up clinics in shopping centres. A Chinese medical team has also been working outside the government to unofficially administer the Sinopharm vaccine at a hospital clinic, leading to speculations of politically-motivated manipulation and interference (8). PNG is caught between two great powers, and the already sceptical PNG people are neglected and uninformed about vaccine efficacy, safety, and choices (9). Low science literacy and mistrust in political institutions have made it extremely difficult to convince people to get vaccinated (10). This has furthered the development of conspiracy theories, which interplay with cultural beliefs around witchcraft and superstitions (11). Despite the recent introduction of the “no jab, no job” policy, people are turning to mass resignations or the acquisition of fraudulent certificates instead of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine (12). Australia recently offered aviation lift services to high priority provinces, delivering much-needed emergency supplies to geographically isolated areas in PNG (13). A lot of work is still needed in order to increase the vaccination uptake rate in PNG. Stronger and more impactful campaign messaging will be required to increase public demand for vaccines (14). Foreign aid and assistance should prioritise effective vaccination and long-term health improvement over political agenda (15). The priority must be to stop the pandemic devastation by getting people vaccinated, and addressing long-term infrastructure, funding, and governance issues. India – great challenges and great ambitions India has the second-largest population in the world and it has struggled to source an adequate number of vaccines for its people. The government was ambitious that local manufacturing of the Indian vaccine Covaxin would be sufficient for domestic consumption. Instead, Bharat Biotech’s newest facility in Bengaluru reports quality issues in its initial batches, leading to a delay and vaccine shortage (16). During the country’s destructive second wave from April to June of 2021, the vaccine shortage was exacerbated by the government hesitating to approve vaccines developed and manufactured overseas. Local supply was also hindered by raw material shortages at the beginning of 2021 (17). While the government has sought higher vaccine administrations, setbacks including delays in manufacture, lack of doses received from overseas, and difficulties in obtaining regulatory approval, have contributed to the delayed and restricted nature of the vaccination program. Initially, the people met the vaccination program with great enthusiasm, and the government aimed to vaccinate all adults against COVID-19 by 31 December 2021. But vaccine uptake has plateaued and declined since October, and there are fears this target will not be met. Many factors have contributed to the decreased vaccine uptake, including vaccine shortage, barriers to vaccination such as lockdowns, high infection rates causing fear of visiting vaccination centres, and misinformation particularly in under-resourced rural areas (18). Although an improved COVID-19 vaccination program could have reduced the severity of the second wave, attention now is on maintaining the vaccination uptake rate. As the Indian government started to offer free vaccinations to all adults, citizens living in poverty have had the chance to be vaccinated as well. While many countries wish to manufacture their own vaccines at a fraction of the cost of the pharmaceutical giants, quality control and quality assurance remain incredibly complex issues to tackle (19). Lower-income countries require sufficient guidance and support, and Shahid Jameel, a virologist from Ashoka University in New Delhi says, ‘We can’t fix vaccine inequalities until vaccine manufacturing is distributed.’ (20) Conclusion Numerous factors impact vaccine uptake, with each country facing its own set of challenges. Mismanagement, limited infrastructure, and rampant misinformation were highlighted here, but there are many problems impacting vaccination programs around the world. Urgently addressing these problems will be needed to reduce vaccination inequality around the world, and hopefully, reach the end of the pandemic very soon. For more information on COVID-19 and the vaccine, please visit the VaxFACTS website created by the University of Melbourne: https://www.vaxfacts.org.au/ References Jake Horton, “Covid Brazil: Why could Bolsonaro face charges?” BBC News, published 27 October, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56663217. “Facebook removes video in which Brazil’s Bolsonaro links coronavirus vaccines with AIDS,” Washington Post, published 25 October, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/25/facebook-papers-live-updates/#link-UA7IQVP5E5D2VGUQX7OJQBCFIE. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations,” Our World in Data, published 26 November, 2021, https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL. Mauricio Savarese, “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal,” Associated Press News, published 2 June, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-brazil-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-20bd94d28ac7b373d7a8f3f9c557e5b6. “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal.” “Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal.” “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations.” Natalie Whiting, “PNG caught in China-Australia power play as COVID-19 Delta variant infiltrates Pacific nation,” ABC News, published 2 August, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/png-caught-between-australia-and-china-as-it-fights-delta/100329206. “PNG caught in China-Australia power play as COVID-19 Delta variant infiltrates Pacific nation.” Mihai Sora, “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea,” The Interpreter, published 26 October, 2021, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/overcoming-community-resistance-vaccination-papua-new-guinea. Liam Fox and Marian Faa, “Health workers face death threats as COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy takes hold in PNG,” ABC News, published 10 September, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/png-vaccine-hesitancy-papua-new-guinea-covid-19/100444380. Fraser Macdonald, “Just 1.7 per cent of PNG residents are vaccinated against COVID. Why are they so resistant?” SBS News, published 8 November, 2021, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/just-1-7-per-cent-of-png-residents-are-vaccinated-against-covid-why-are-they-so-resistant/72c40029-dec8-4202-b436-31562d983fbc. “COVID-19 partnership with Papua New Guinea strengthened” Minister for Foreign Affairs, published 27 October, 2021, https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/marise-payne/media-release/covid-19-partnership-papua-new-guinea-strengthened. “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea.” “Overcoming community resistance to vaccination in Papua New Guinea.” Sreenivasan Jain, “Quality Issues Behind Covaxin Shortage: Government vaccine panel chief,” New Delhi Television, published 2 August, 2021, https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/quality-issues-behind-covaxin-shortage-government-vaccine-panel-chief-2500998. Shruti Menon, “India vaccination: Does it have enough doses for all adults?” BBC News, published 3 August, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55571793. Liji Thomas, “Factors predicrting vaccine hesitancy in India,” News Medical, published 26 September, 2021, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210926/Factors-predicting-vaccine-hesitancy-in-India.aspx. Amy Maxmen, “The fight to manufacture COVID vaccine in lower-income countries,” Nature, published 16 September, 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02383-z. “The fight to manufacture COVID vaccine in lower-income countries.” Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

< Back to Issue 4 Real Life Replicants by Elijah McEvoy 1 July 2023 Edited by Yasmin Potts and Megane Boucherat Illustrated by Jolin See Hal, Ultron and (of course) the Terminator. Comparisons between these fictional, world-destroying, artificial intelligence systems and those in our current age of AI are seemingly never-ending. As a child born with a lightsaber in hand, I find these sensationalist remarks endlessly entertaining. Not only because it baffles me to see concepts once relegated to the realm of science fiction be discussed as serious news topics, but also because they’ve got their references all mixed up. The current challenge posed by the new wave of generative artificial intelligence doesn’t come in the form of a ruthless, gun-toting Arnie. It comes in the form of replicants. Just like these uncannily human androids from Ridley Scott’s cult classic Blade Runner, the rapidly increasing capacity of AI to talk, look and create like humans is beginning to blur the line between what is authentically human and what is the product of an algorithm. From the posh C3P0 to the snarky Cortana, having a friendly AI sidekick has always been a childhood dream of mine. This dream has now become a reality with the rise in AI chat-bots. At the forefront of these is Replika, an app that enables users to talk to their own personalized AI via the use of text-like messages. For its two million users (1), Replika provides a variety of functions. For some, Replika acts as a friend in times of loneliness; a feature that contributed to its spike in users during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2). For others, as founder Eugenia Kuyda suggests, it provides a space for users to “open up” about personal or mental health issues and “feel accepted” by a human-like figure (1). For many though, Replika is a digital romantic partner. While it is easy to snicker at the concept of an AI girlfriend, those with past relationship trauma or those living in environments that may be hostile towards their sexuality have used Replika as an outlet to explore genuine feelings of love in a safe setting (3). However, with such attachment comes the chance for exploitation. As stated by Nir Eisikovits, Director of the Applied Ethics Centre at the University of Massachusetts, his concern is “not whether machines are sentient” but rather our own tendency “to imagine that they are” (4). Like the holographic billboards for the AI “JOI” in Blade Runner 2049, suggestive advertisements and aggressive flirting by the AI itself have all been employed by Replika to encourage users to stay on the app and pay a premium subscription for explicit content (5). While Replika has since removed sexual material, the large backlash from users at this decision (6) highlights the unethically coercive power such mimicry of human personality could have on consumers. For years, we’ve been warned of the danger of manipulative TV advertisements encouraging excessive junk food consumption and gambling. Imagine what could be done when that ad is no longer a 30 second video but instead an anthropomorphized AI tailored exactly to you, your interests and your vulnerabilities. Not only is AI replicating the way we talk, but also how we look. From videos of an animated Tom Cruise to convincing photos of a Balenciaga-wearing Pope (7), advanced deepfake videos and prompt-generated images from AI systems like DALL-E are becoming easier to create by the day (8). While the most prominent use of this technology is currently in the form of harmless memes, it can and has been used for more sinister means. Women across the world have had their faces used in non-consensual deepfake pornography, often as a form of revenge or blackmail (9). Furthermore, a fabricated video of Volodymyr Zelensky surrendering to Vladimir Putin that spread on social media last year proves AI’s unsettling potential in political disinformation (8). While fakes like that of Zelensky may have been taken down quickly due to easily identifiable tells, in many cases the damage has already been done the moment people see these videos or images. Mistrust in the news is heightened and real evidence can be accused of being AI generated, a strategy already implemented by Donald Trump to dismiss evidence of his misogyny (8). Although the current usage of this technology is concerning enough, the degradation of truth within society will only worsen as these replicants become increasingly accurate and faster to produce (8). Still, it is the ability for AI to complete jobs once thought to be uniquely human that will result in the largest change to the current status quo. Latest estimates from Goldman Sachs state that close to 300 million jobs globally could be automated by the current AI wave (10). The threat of job losses due to automation is far from new, stretching all the way back to 1811 with the infamous Luddites protesting factory machines (11). However, generative AI is placing a greater variety of jobs in jeopardy due to its ability to exude human creativity, giving rise to what Stanford Professor Victor R. Lee entitles an “authenticity crisis” (12). One of those jobs is that of writers. A common phrase amongst movie reviewers today is “this could have been written by an AI”. While usually used as a jab against the latest Marvel movie, large language models like Chat GPT that are capable of identifying and mimicking patterns in writing make it more than just a joke. Amongst calls for better conditions for screenwriters, a key demand from the Writers Guild of America in this year's Los Angeles writers’ strike was that AI will not be used to write or rewrite scripts (13). When you combine the growing authenticity of these AI with the greedy desires of major studios, it is not a far cry to suggest that producers may use AI to quickly generate scripts for generic soap operas and cash grab Netflix movies, leaving the human creatives to simply ‘clean-up’ these stories at a cut pay rate. Despite all these concerns, generative AI does have the ability to immeasurably improve society. The capacity of this technology to increase workplace efficiency (10), accelerate scientific progress (14) and constantly amuse us with clips of a rapping Joe Biden is undeniable. With the cat out of the bag, innovation in these areas cannot nor should not be halted completely. However, if sci-fi movies have taught me anything useful, it’s that we should not be blinded by the potential of scientific progress. Whether it be through governmental action to regulate the use of AI in industry or the scientific development of better deepfake-spotting technology to help stifle disinformation, implementing safeguards around AI is crucial in avoiding its “ethical debt” (15). Whilst looking to the world of science fiction as an indication of our future may be a bit far-fetched, it may also be a needed reminder of the world scientists should try not to replicate. References Tong A. AI company restores erotic role play after backlash from users ‘married’ to their bots [Internet]. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/ai-company-restores-erotic-roleplay-after-backlash-from-users-married-to-their-bots-20230326-p5cvao.html Clarke L. ‘I learned to love the bot’: meet the chatbots that want to be your best friend. The Observer [Internet]. 2023 Mar 19 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/19/i-learned-to-love-the-bot-meet-the-chatbots-that-want-to-be-your-best-friend The rise and fall of replika [Internet]. [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSKKolgL2U Eisikovits N. AI isn’t close to becoming sentient – the real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorphize it [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/ai-isnt-close-to-becoming-sentient-the-real-danger-lies-in-how-easily-were-prone-to-anthropomorphize-it-200525 Cole S. ‘My ai is sexually harassing me’: replika users say the chatbot has gotten way too horny [Internet]. Vice. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34d43/my-ai-is-sexually-harassing-me-replika-chatbot-nudes ‘My wife is dead’: How a software update ‘lobotomised’ these online lovers. ABC News [Internet]. 2023 Feb 28 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2023-03-01/replika-users-fell-in-love-with-their-ai-chatbot-companion/102028196 How to spot an ai-generated image like the ‘balenciaga pope’ [Internet]. Time. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://time.com/6266606/how-to-spot-deepfake-pope/ Wong M. We haven’t seen the worst of fake news [Internet]. The Atlantic. 2022 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/deepfake-synthetic-media-technology-rise-disinformation/672519/ Atillah IE. AI could make deepfake porn an even bigger threat for women [Internet]. euronews. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/04/22/a-lifelong-sentence-the-women-trapped-in-a-deepfake-porn-hell Toh M. 300 million jobs could be affected by latest wave of AI, says Goldman Sachs | CNN Business [Internet]. CNN. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/tech/chatgpt-ai-automation-jobs-impact-intl-hnk/index.html McClelland C. The impact of artificial intelligence - widespread job losses [Internet]. IoT For All. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.iotforall.com/impact-of-artificial-intelligence-job-losses Hollywood writers are on strike over an AI threat that some are warning is coming for you next. ABC News [Internet]. 2023 May 5 [cited 2023 May 14]; Available from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-06/hollywood-writer-s-strike-over-pay-and-artificial-intelligence/102296704 Lee VR. Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-forcing-people-to-rethink-what-it-means-to-be-authentic-204347 The AI revolution in science [Internet]. [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-revolution-science Fiesler C. AI has social consequences, but who pays the price? Tech companies’ problem with ‘ethical debt’ [Internet]. The Conversation. 2023 [cited 2023 May 14]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/ai-has-social-consequences-but-who-pays-the-price-tech-companies-problem-with-ethical-debt-203375 Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 2 Discovery, Blue Skies... and Partisan Bickering? Is the era of bipartisan science dead? Do we discover for discovery’s sake? And what happens when optimistic scientific vision meets cold political reality? Journeying from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Melbourne, Australia and tackling everything from deadlocked appropriations bills and economic mandates to the scientist-politician and the prospect of discovery, this feature tries to shine a light on all those questions, as it ponders what it really means to do science in the age of politics. by Andrew Lim 10 December 2021 Edited by Ethan Newnham & Sam Williams Illustrated by Friday Kennedy The chalk dust hangs in the air. Blackboards scrawled with inheritance trees, genetic disease rates and historical minutiae about a long-deceased Oxford don … they all stand still for a moment. As he walks out, the freshman class surrounds the professor (a man once unironically described as “the rock star of biology”), pestering him with incessant questions. Ambling into the sunny fall day, they are joined by more and more – he cracks a joke about being a “photos kind of guy” and lets them take the obligatory selfie. Image 1: Dr Eric Lander teaching freshman biology at MIT in 2012. Looking at the scene, it’s hard to believe that we find here a future member of the Cabinet of the United States. Surely such individuals come from the corridors of Congress or the halls of big business, not this leafy, academic and somewhat-secluded corner of Cambridge, Massachusetts, between an apple tree descended from Isaac Newton’s in the garden and a prototype solar car down the hall. And almost certainly this man, who once steeled himself for a “rather monastic” pure mathematics career and whose main claim to fame was in mapping out the human genome, cannot be the one who someday will be asked to bridge science and politics in what appears an ever more divided union. But he is. In 2021, this very professor, Dr Eric Lander, will be sworn in as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), charged by President Joe Biden with maintaining “the long-term health of science and technology” and “guarantee[ing] that [their] fruits … are fully shared”. The mandate belies a time where science increasingly seems to live in the world of partisan political bickering. And so, in an exciting new series of features beginning with this very article, we at OmniSci Magazine are sitting down with those shaping the colliding worlds of science and public service across Australia and around the globe to ask: In a time when Dr Lander’s appointment is heralded by the White House slogan “Science is Back” and Australia sees thirteen Science Ministers in ten years, can science still straddle the political divide, or is the era of bipartisan science dead? What does it mean to discuss national science in an era of international research? And how should scientists and policymakers alike navigate this brave new political world? If not very scientific, it perhaps befits the political side of this feature to begin with the apocryphal. It has been said that The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, the famed four-term 19th-century Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was once attending a demonstration by the physicist Michael Faraday, who had just made his first forays into electricity. After the show, Gladstone went to the back of the room to have a word with the inventor: “It’s all very curious, Mr Faraday,” he murmured, “but does it have any practical use?”. The scientist did not miss a beat: “Well, sir,” he responded, “I suspect one day you shall tax it!” Image 2: President John F Kennedy speaking at Rice University in Houston, Texas in September 1962 It’s an old joke that, to many, sums up the cold-hearted and transactional relationship between science and politics. But those of a more optimistic bent would disagree. They would point to the golden age of space exploration, when, over half a century ago, on a sunny September Houston morning, President John F Kennedy famously declared that the United States would “go to the Moon in this decade”. That day, he offered a vision for his country to “set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained”, promising an open mandate to learn more about the universe around us, with no reason beyond the sheer wonder of exploration. It was a promise to a nation – one that appeared to transcend party politics. Indeed, it was ironically under the presidency of Richard M Nixon, the man whose campaign had accused Kennedy in 1960 of mass electoral fraud, that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, with Nixon transformed into the man who promised to “not drift, nor lie at anchor…with man's epic voyage into space”. But if overflowing bipartisan support for research as a sheer quest for knowledge was once the case, it certainly seems at odds with political reality today. Both sides of the political aisle seem deeply concerned with the economics of science rather than the prospect of discovery. In Australia, upon the appointment of The Honourable Richard Marles MP as Shadow Minister for Science, Opposition Leader the Honourable Anthony Albanese MP described him as “shadow minister for jobs, jobs and more jobs”. The Shadow Minister himself then highlighted science and technology as key to “micro-economic reform” for Australia. Mere months later, upon The Honourable Melissa Price MP’s appointment as Minister for Science, Prime Minister the Honourable Scott Morrison MP spoke of her portfolio encompassing science and technology “right across the economy, both in civil and defence uses”. To many, this speaks to a wider concern – the neglect of esoteric “blue skies” research (pursuing discovery for discovery’s sake) in favour of scientific research with immediate short-term economic impact. you never quite know what a scientific discovery will lead to or when it’ll be useful (or indeed, vital!) for society. I don’t think our State or Federal Governments are doing enough to fund this kind of science and research, in everything from medical research to physics to studying our threatened species. It needs to be valued a lot more.” Representatives from the Victorian branches of the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia did not respond to our request for comment. It's a trend that Ellen Sandell MP, Deputy Leader of the Victorian Greens, has watched with growing concern. In an exclusive email interview with OmniSci Magazine, she expressed her dismay at the state of “blue skies” science: “Basic research - or the study of science to better understand our world, even if we don’t know where it will lead - is incredibly important. I think the pandemic has shown us just how valuable our scientists are, and Image 3: Ellen Sandell MP on the floor of Victorian Parliament. Image 4: Dr Amanda Caples, Lead Scientist of Victoria However, Lead Scientist of Victoria Dr Amanda Caples, one of the key figures in the Victorian Government’s engagement with research, rejects Sandell’s contention. In her discussion with us, Dr Caples spoke of “an ‘and’ conversation rather than choosing one form of research over another…[a discussion about] hav[ing] a good mix of pure and applied research”. She went on: “most pure research has a purpose or use-case in mind – it’s just not typically driven by commercial interests and the applications are not always evident at the outset. The policy outcome that the Victorian Government is seeking to achieve is to mobilise research knowledge to make it available for use in the economy and community more broadly… Applying the brains of the research community to the problems of industry – and I suggest also of government – is not a novel concept. It is the approach of successful innovation clusters from Cambridge UK to Boston and to Israel. It underpins future industries and high-value jobs, attracts talent and supports service industries. We can do it here in Melbourne too!”. Nonetheless, with all these swirling worries, it’s no surprise that the days of blue-skies research investment seem an enchanting vision – the best that humanity can be, boldly seeking out new frontiers of understanding and knowledge. Yet if exciting, perhaps it is but a mirage. A mere two months after the rhetorical highs of his Houston address, in a White House Cabinet Room meeting not declassified until some 40 years later, Kennedy confided in NASA Administrator James E Webb that if he couldn’t find a practical, political use for the research, “we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space”. A year after that, as poll numbers and public support for his scientific venture started to wane, Kennedy’s language became sharper. He bluntly told Webb that “we’ve got to wrap around in this country, a military use for what we’re doing and spending in space.” Even in this, space research’s golden age, amidst his lofty rhetoric of human adventure, Kennedy had his eye on the polls, the politicians and the price tags. Image 5: President Biden announcing his plans to form ARPA-H, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. President Biden and Dr Lander appear to be thinking similarly – at least in terms of searching for a large-scale, popular science mandate that the public will buy into. In the wake of a pandemic, their area of concern seems almost too obvious: health. In his April address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Biden announced his plan to develop an “Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health [ARPA-H]…to develop breakthroughs to prevent, detect, and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer.” Invoking his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, he announced increased funding to “end cancer as we know it”, declaring that there was “no more worthy investment…nothing that is more bipartisan…[and] it’s within our power to do it”. A cure for cancer. A man on the moon. Striking, almost visceral promises designed to address the worries of their generation: from national defence in the Cold War to public health amidst a pandemic. It’s something that both Sandell and Caples seem focussed on too. Sandell believes that a continued and increasing emphasis on health research is the way forward for Victoria: “Melbourne is a centre for excellence when it comes to medical research, so the state government has a role in supporting and encouraging this to ensure we maintain that position.” Likewise, Caples thrusts mRNA research into focus, listing one of her key priorities as “driv[ing the] development of frontier technologies such as quantum computing and mRNA.” But to her, the story is not just about the lessons from the pandemic itself, but also about how we rebuild. As she told us, “Nations around the world are investing in science, technology and innovation as they rebuild economies impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This is because global policymakers understand that a high performing science and research system benefits the broader economy.” This narrative of science as the springboard out of COVID echoes a letter President Biden wrote to Dr Lander upon his appointment, describing science’s power to forge “a new path in the years ahead – a path of dignity and respect, of prosperity and security, of progress and common purpose”. Yet, especially for our stateside counterparts, lofty rhetoric seems no guarantee of avoiding an ugly partisan fight. Just a few years after a Trump White House considered science agency cuts en masse, the issue of funding is back on the congressional table. And it’s not all going well. In the USA, almost all budget laws for federal government agencies, departments and programs begin life as appropriations bills – bills that determine how much money is to be allocated (or “appropriated”) to parts of the government. However, this year, an ongoing Senate deadlock has seen Congress unable to pass any appropriations bills whatsoever. To avert a government shutdown (where no agencies have any money and no federal programs can operate), a stopgap continuing resolution has been implemented, temporarily freezing spending at previous levels, allowing the government to keep operating. On October 18, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced nine appropriations bills to break the logjam and fund the government (including crucial research agencies) through the 2022 fiscal year. Given the political situation, the bills have been riddled with earmarks – unrelated “pork barrel” projects designed to win over wavering votes (the most famous example of this being a $400 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, funded inside a 2005 housing, transport and urban development bill). In just one case of this, $64 million has been carved out of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for additional “special projects”. Yet despite these concessions, the bills look to be dragged through a long political battle. In a statement released as Leahy announced his plans, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Vice Chair of the Committee, lambasted them as “partisan spending bills…[and] a significant step in the wrong direction”, vowing to oppose them. On 3rd December 2021, a week before this article’s publication, Congress passed another stopgap continuing resolution following a night of political brinksmanship that brought the government within hours of being defunded and shut down. Regardless, at the time of writing, all appropriations bills remain unpassed and the battle rages on into 2022. It’s a confrontational attitude – and one that seems to not be going anywhere anytime soon. After all, closer to home, we’ve seen university education funding become a political football, with Shadow Education Minister the Honourable Tanya Plibersek MP promising a Labor Party election platform predicated on undoing what she characterises as Morrison government “economic vandalism”. But it’s not all bad news. In her responses, Sandell describes herself as “worried about the hyper-partisan nature of politics at the moment but…buoyed by how science and evidence has been at the heart of our response to the pandemic in Australia, at least here in Victoria.” She sees the issue of a partisan approach to scientific advice as stemming from a greater problem: the non-existence of the scientist-politician. In her words, “When I entered State politics, I was shocked to discover less than 10% of politicians had any form of post-high-school scientific training. I think that’s a real loss for our Parliament and our society…I hope that the pandemic has shown the population and Governments the value of listening to evidence, and that this rubs off into other areas of policy-making.” But she refuses to tie the power of “this scientific type of thinking” to her own values. In her experience, a scientific mode of thinking invites “politicians of all persuasions” to work to integrate their ideology with evidence. A fiscally conservative scientist-politician is just as possible as a social-justice-minded and progressive one – the policies produced might well be different, but the base evidence is constant. Caples is similarly optimistic: “Regardless of politics, the foundational principles of science remains [sic] the same - which is to expand our knowledge of the natural world, to progress society and develop innovations to meet its challenges. While debates – political or otherwise – might take place on the peripheries of scientific learning, these tenets remain the same to build the evidence base.” After all, the pitch Webb made in his 1963 meeting with Kennedy relied not on social justice, progressivism nor Cold War tactics. It was so much simpler: “man [is] looking at three times what he’s never looked at before… and he understands the Universe just looking at those three things…these are going to be finite things in terms of the development of the human intellect. And I predict you are not going to be sorry, no Sir, that you did this.” Image 6: Vice President Kamala Harris administering the oath of office to Dr Eric Lander, as his wife Lori watches on. That notion of the lasting good that discovery can do – its place as a rung on the ladder of human progress, in so many ways beyond the governance of a single place or a single point in time – is a sentiment that echoes on through the decades. In June 2020, while being sworn in, Lander took some time to ruminate about the text on which he was swearing his oath of office. He told Vice President Kamala Harris about the particular page of the Mishnah (a Jewish text compiled from oral tradition) he had used, which discusses “a very special concept in Jewish tradition called Tikkun Olam, the repairing of the world…it says we don’t have to finish the work, but we may not refrain from doing that work…[it] speaks in many ways to the work of this administration, of repairing the world, building back better.” Caples’ final comments to OmniSci Magazine touch a similar note – “as a lapsed pharmacologist, I look at my work through the lens of a receptor-ligand binding model. Where the receptor is the problem that needs to be solved (or the opportunity to be pursued) and my role is to build the ligand that holds together long enough to bind to the receptor and effect change. The ligand of course has to have the right composition and 3-dimensional structure to be effective, that is people and governance framework.” Sandell agrees: “With the big challenges our world is facing - from climate change to pandemics - scientists are needed now more than ever. And for those thinking about going into policy-making, make sure you keep an open mind, look at the evidence and collaborate with others. Our world needs policy-makers who have a genuine desire to solve some of the big problems of our time, not people who are just in it for themselves. Don’t get discouraged by what you might see in Question Time or the depressing nature of politics at times - we need good, curious people from all walks of life to join politics to improve the tenor of debate and ultimately improve our world.” The consensus from all three? Yes – every day of the week, politics seems dirtier, and the policy problems seem greater than ever before. They may not be issues we can finish in our lifetimes – the solutions we create may not work, the “ligands” may not “bind”, forever. Yet because we might well fail is no reason to “refrain from doing that work”; no reason for “good, curious people” not to try. But, to the man who we began with – that energised professor in Building 26 at MIT – such philosophical musings are all yet to come. There, Dr Lander cracks a caustic quip about his students, reminding them that only a few centuries before, people thought their brains were only there to vent heat. It’s almost ironic to consider that his job will eventually hinge on a handful of brains and egos on Capitol Hill. Tikkun Olam: repairing the world. It appears to be the gallant ambition of saints. Or maybe the quixotic endeavour of fools. So complicated it hardly seems worth the effort. Throughout this magazine, you have read stories of science’s remarkable ability to create patterns amidst chaos, find the quantitative inside the qualitative and build order amidst disorder. These pages provide the opposite – offering no data to extrapolate, no empirical test to conduct, no nice charts and graphs to view. Just a messy, complicated ball of disordered contradictions. It was Aristotle who suggested that democracy was inherently dangerous – that this bubbling cauldron of ideas and ideals, pragmatism and ideology, could not be entrusted to the ballot box. And, indeed, the notion that everything would be easier should we just “follow the science”, as though science was some monolithic entity with its own set of ideologies, seems tempting from time to time. But the questions raised here – of immediate benefits weighed against blue-sky thinking; of hard-to-sell science pondered alongside popular mandates; of political leanings measured next to scientific impartiality – don’t fit nicely into our boxes of conservative and liberal; left and right; moderate and progressive. They are far too complex, far too nuanced and far too important to be rendered into a three-word slogan, a thirty-word answer, or even a three-thousand-word feature article. And maybe – just maybe - that’s why they matter. Andrew Lim is an Editor and Feature Writer with OmniSci Magazine. Image Credits (in order): Michael C. ’16, from “Eric Lander, spring rolls, and the New York Times” in MIT Admissions Blog Sept 6, 2012; Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; The Office of Ellen Sandell MP; The Office of the Lead Scientist of Victoria; Melina Mara/The Washington Post; Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith, accessed via the Library of Congress. Previous article back to DISORDER Next article

'Science is everywhere' Competition Submissions Scroll to view the submissions we received for National Science Week 2021! Lily Robinson, 20 Science is everywhere in our lives. As soon as you take a walk outside, you are immersed in it. This picture is of a dam at my family home at the end of a drought. The water was crystal clear and there were these amazing deep cracks in the mud. I decided to rotate the image upside down to symbolise the impact of the drought upending our lives and the bush around us. Rebecca André, 23 I captured this photograph on my Olympus OM-2 film camera while out on a lunchtime walk. At first I took no notice of this indistinct bunch of leaves but as I moved around them the sun caught my attention and I noticed the illuminated veins. This photgraph reminds me that the beauty of the natural world is all around us all the time, if only we are mindful to observe it. Through science and observation, the beauty of unseen worlds and intricate truths are revealed to us. Sajitha Biju, 36 Vivipary in papaya fruit: Viviparous germination is a type of seed germination seen in plants, where the seeds/embryo begin to develop before they detach from the parent plant. Viviparous germination is also seen in the mangrove Avicennia. Stephanie Tsang, 25 A photograph of a jellyfish pulsing through the cold waters of Port Philip Bay, Victoria. It has no brain nor heart. Science is spectacular and can be found submersed underwater. Cnidarians have been around for millions of years and later and are the common ancestors of many other creatures. The oldest fossils found date back to around 500 million years old. They are found all over the world following the ocean currents. Stephanie Tsang, 25 A photograph of a jellyfish pulsing through the cold waters of Port Philip Bay, Victoria. It has no brain nor heart. Science is spectacular and can be found submersed underwater. Cnidarians have been around for millions of years and later and are the common ancestors of many other creatures. The oldest fossils found date back to around 500 million years old. They are found all over the world following the ocean currents. Betty La, 24 I like to practise on this contraption of wood, metal and vibrating air almost every morning. My motor pattern for the music is set into motion, followed by eighty-eight felt-covered hammers acting as oddly-shaped springs, dancing along steel strings wound with copper. They are spurred on by levers of black and white. The sound is amplified from a wooden soundboard, which expands and contracts imperceptibly with the temperature of the room. Ella Banic, 19 I wish I could explain why I think science is everywhere, but it is too ubiquitous for me to comprehend. In my artwork I have been interested in the relationship between humans and nature, particularly in the liminality of experience. While I can’t really describe what science is or where to find it, in this piece I see science as a life force; which gives us direction and allows us to see above the surface. Sarah Wehbe, 18 This photo of a strawberry was taken with a magnifying glass to show the individual hairs and textured skin of the strawberry that you wouldn't normally notice. These fibrous hairs protect the fruit from insect damage and each of these yellow seeds contain the DNA to produce a whole new strawberry plant. Biological sciences are all around us in the foods that we eat. Junsheng He, 18 This photo of the Moon was taken on the 26th of May this year, the day when the total lunar eclipse took place. When we think of the Moon, it is always an image of a shining silverish sphere. Nevertheless, in this particular night, red light shines to the Moon when it is passing through the shadow of the Earth, turning it to the "Blood" Moon. It insinuates that even the seemingly ordered patterns, the forever rotating heavenly bodies, can change their property driven by the power of science. Minchi Gong, 20 Furry Buddy and Pumpkin: I’ve got a pumpkin from the market, and left it on my desk for a couple of weeks because I was too busy to cook it. One day I surprisingly found that there’re a bunch of furry moulds growing on its body, which successfully caught my eyes. Wow I never thought the mould can be so AESTHETIC! Seems like these little furry microorganisms are so keen to show their sense of presence and to express their interpretation of arts. Louie Minoza, 30 Here we witness the first moments of a new born calf. As it witnesses the warm glow of the setting sun for the first time, unconcerned on where the bright light is going. Taking in the textures and scents of the grass under its body. The feeling of fullness as it suckles on it’s mothers teat after instincts urges it to go against gravity. This new found freedom shall be utilized to embark and explore this world it was born in. Caitlin Kane, 20 Have you ever wondered how a clear sky becomes an electrically charged thunderstorm? Electric currents, like those that flow in our powerlines, are made by the movement of tiny charged particles called electrons. When operating safely within a house, electricity can light a bulb, keep a fridge chilly or charge a car. In the big woolly clouds above our heads, the movement of dust, ice and water can create a static electric charge, like when hair is rubbed with a balloon. Sachinthani Karunarathne, 28 years In the fall, you see trees having photogenic colours. Trees do this not for the beauty what we see but to conserve energy during winter. Because due to changes in the length of daylight and temperature, the leaves stop their food-making process (photosynthesis). So, chlorophyll pigment breaks down, the green colour disappears, and the yellow to orange colours become visible and give the leaves part of their fall splendour. Caelan Mitchell, 23 Copper is one of my favourite metals. It has a significant history, and it looks stunning. It looks even more stunning when you catch an everyday object stained by a rich patina — a complex of copper oxides formed by heat and air. I've never seen anything like this. Joanna Stubbs An Australian native Eucalypt growing for years next to an urban creek and bike path in inner city Melbourne. Scientific research is required in how anthropogenic climate change will affect specific tree species, and inform measures on how best to ensure their survival in a warming climate. Sachinthani Karunarathne, 28 Blood oranges may have a sinister-sounding name, but they’re just a natural mutation of standard oranges. This mutation led to the production of anthocyanins, which make not just blood oranges bright red but also blueberries blue. The flesh develops its characteristic maroon colour when the fruit develops with low temperatures during the night. The anthocyanin pigments continue accumulating in cold storage after harvest. Longer the fridge time redder they become! Sachini Pathirana, 28 A microscopic image of a cell? Nah it’s simple kitchen science. When you wash oily dishes, you will see oil droplets forming thin layers like this on water. This is because adhesive force between oil and water molecules is greater than cohesive force between oil molecules. So, the oil molecules do not mix with water molecules. As a result, oil spreads on the water surface forming a thin layer. Sachini Pathirana, 28 Kernel colour was used to unravel an odd phenomenon in non-Mendelian inheritance: transposons. Transposons are stretches of DNA that jump from place to place in the genome, and landing in the middle of a pigment gene would alter the colour of that cell. Barbara McClintock won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of these transposons. Even the regular white/yellow corn you find in supermarkets has made big genetic leaps. Yitao Gan, 21 The beauty of nature from the preys, harvesters and predators. Christian Theodosiou, 19 My entry shows a sapling in the foreground and a waterfall in the background, captured at midday in the Springbrook mountains of Queensland this year. I aimed to photograph the scene so that perspective gives the appearance that the young plant is being watered by the waterfall and I think that the forms of the leaf and the white foamy water are quite complementary. Even though this waterfall does not directly feed this plant, the fact of their shared environment draws a life-giving relationship between them anyway. Science is everywhere because we, like all complex or simple organisms, are situated within and sustained by infinite webs of interdependence. Whether biological or more molecular, all science everywhere is defined by both obvious relationships, and those that take more time, devotion and study to identify. Teck-Phui Chua, 22 A sapling is growing where an older tree once grew. However, upon closer inspection, the older tree never fully died; part of it was still alive which has allowed a sapling to sprout from its trunk. In a similar vein, science is everywhere and has always been, but what has changed is how much we understand as one generation passes their knowledge onto the next so new discoveries can be made. Additionally, the tree may have seemed dead, but there was still life in it. Whether we choose to act on strong scientific evidence or ignore it, the science will still be there. Sarah Wehbe, 18 Interactions between living organisms are everywhere and are the essence of life itself. This image illustrates the commensal relationship between algae and turtles. The turtle’s shell provides an ideal surface for the algae’s growth, and the turtle is completely unaffected by its presence. In fact, it may help turtles camouflage and hide from prey. This simple interaction between living organisms highlights the existence of science in every aspect of life. Grace Li, 22 Science is often overlooked as a form of art due to its ubiquity. However, a simple photograph can be the reminder needed that science is not only everywhere, but it is beautiful. For example, a photograph is the result of photons travelling from the sun, bouncing off objects, and landing on a camera's sensor. Similarly, these incredible macro-photographic patterns of a lamp is captured by photons travelling through optic fiber. Christina Evans, 43 The bee retrieves pollen from the prickly thistles & how it's all stored on its hind legs like saddlebags. Xuezhi Yang It is fascinating how science is present everywhere, oftentimes interacting with itself creating intricate and mesmerizing works of art. In my artwork, I attempted to capture the anatomy and essence of the Antelope Jackrabbit's ears as light rays penetrate through them. Without light, the delicate and daedal arteries and veins would have been otherwise invisible, tucked away in fur and cartilage. If we truly pay attention, art is found everywhere in science.

By Reah Shetty < Back to Issue 3 Waving Hello to the Aliens By Reah Shetty 10 September 2022 Edited by Zhiyou Low and Ashleigh Hallinan Illustrated by Matt Duffy Next They arrived in a sea of indiscernible shapes, a massive looming body in the sky. We weren’t prepared. We never could have been. Our quest to uncover the unknown, our innate thirst for knowledge – this is humanity’s fatal flaw. We sent the invitation and they accepted it. In the serenity of Earth, with its blue skies and tranquillity, it was easy to convince ourselves we were invincible. If only we had known. *** Life beyond Earth is considered terrifying to some and exciting to others. It is a fascinating question that has plagued humanity for centuries - Do aliens exist? The idea of other – or extraterrestrial – life dates back to ancient times, with the 200AD fantasy novel Vera Historia describing alien lifeforms on the moon.1 Throughout the centuries, we see human imagination construct fantastical tales from humanoids being sent to Earth in the 10th century narrative The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (1) to the first movie featuring aliens in 1902, A Trip to the Moon. (2) As we began pondering more about the possibility of aliens, we started connecting their existence with alien technology. During World War II, soldiers would see unknown airborne objects (3); these sightings kicked our curiosity into motion, laying the conceptual foundation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Belief in alien existence underwent rapid acceleration in 1947, marking a monumental turning point in the possibility of extraterrestrials. Kenneth Arnold, an American businessman and pilot, is largely credited with the first UFO sighting which newspapers described as “flying saucers”. (3) This catalysed a chain reaction of UFO appearances and the iconic images of UFOs as hovering disks. Later that same year, the first apparent tangible remnant of alien technology was discovered. Witnesses reported a large wreckage site at a New Mexico ranch, an event known as the ‘Roswell UFO Crash’. In the face of mass excitement and speculation, the army was quick to offer the explanation of a crashed weather balloon. However, in an interview years later, one of the officers who had attended the scene revealed they had been ordered to keep quiet. The US Air Force then released a statement saying the wreckage was actually from a classified project. (4) With all these mixed messages, it does lead us to wonder what really happened... Jumping forward to current times, the US government has officially recognised the existence of ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ (UAPs) (5) supplemented by recent puzzling aircraft footage of “pyramid-shaped objects” recorded by the Pentagon. (6) The government has approved the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, a team whose mission is to “detect, analyse and catalog [unidentified aerial phenomena] that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security”. (3) With the government unable to provide an explanation and simultaneously confirming the veracity of UAPs, this reopens and supports the ever-intriguing notion that we are not alone. Our evolving comprehension of the solar system and universe corresponds with a growing fervour that we will indeed stumble upon extraterrestrial life. NASA believes Earth is only a small planet out of trillions in the Milky Way galaxy. (7) With so many unexplored and uncharted territories out there, many believe the odds of other living organisms existing are high. It is rather confounding to picture the centre of our lives as a mere tiny cog in the overarching mechanism that is the universe. But it is this grandeur and this vastness which should caution us against encroaching too far into space. Stephen Hawking, a renowned and respected physicist, publicly condemned this mission objective. He was very clear in his belief that aliens of some form do exist but that we should do absolutely everything we can to avoid contact with aliens. Hawking, articulate in his disapproval, paralleled that “if aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans”. (8) Yet in 1974, we began attempting to contact aliens by broadcasting the Arecibo message from Puerto Rico using radio waves. The project was decommissioned in 2020 following a partial collapse. There was no success in its goal of establishing communication. (9) Researchers are in the process of constructing a new updated message to make first contact. They are trying to send out Earth’s location to alien technology capable of receiving it in an attempt to establish a mutualistic relationship. Compared to the Arecibo attempt, not only has the message itself become more advanced but our understanding of the Milky Way Galaxy is more detailed enabling area-specific targeting. (9) The potential for success here demands our urgent attention. In recent years we have seen an influx of science fiction novels and films, many of which feature calamitous situations of hostile invading alien forces against mankind. We see The Avengers, The Matrix, Star Wars and countless others and we empathise with the characters. But the crucial point is that what is happening in those films could become our reality. If our signal is received, we are heading for a drastically different future – a time during which science fiction becomes science nonfiction. Considering this, should we be trying to communicate with aliens? We cannot begin to truly fathom what such a connection would lead to… be it beneficial or disastrous. References 1. Scharf C. The First Alien [Internet]. Scientific American Blog Network. 2019. Available from: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-first-alien/ 2. Monteil A. 50 best alien movies [Internet]. Stacker. 2020. Available from: https://stacker.com/stories/4458/50-best-alien-movies#:~:text=Aliens%20first%20appeared%20on%20screen,%E2%80%9Cufology%E2%80%9D%20emerged%2C%20leaving%20a 3. Wall M. UFOs and UAP: History, sightings and mysteries [Internet]. Space.com. 2021. Available from: https://www.space.com/ufos-uap-history-sightings-mysteries 4. Crookes D. Roswell UFO crash: What is the truth behind the 'flying saucer' incident? [Internet]. livescience.com. 2021. Available from: https://www.livescience.com/roswell-ufo-crash-what-really-happened.html 5. Bram C. UFOs exist, and might come from beyond Earth, the U.S. said. Will that encourage conspiracy theorists? [Internet]. The Washington Post. 2021. Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/30/ufos-exist-might-come-beyond-earth-us-said-will-that-encourage-conspiracy-theorists/ 6. Dockrill P. Pentagon Confirms 'Pyramid-Shaped' UFO Video Footage Is Authentic [Internet]. ScienceAlert. 2021. Available from: https://www.sciencealert.com/pentagon-confirms-pyramid-shaped-ufo-video-footage-is-authentic 7. Program P. Among Trillions of Planets, Are We 'Home Alone?' [Internet]. Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System. 2020. Available from: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1658/among-trillions-of-planets-are-we-home-alone/ 8. Jha A. Is Stephen Hawking right about aliens? [Internet]. The Guardian. 2010. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/apr/30/stephen-hawking-right-aliens 9. Pappas S. Is it time to send another message to intelligent aliens? Some scientists think so. [Internet]. livescience.com. 2022. Available from: https://www.livescience.com/new-seti-message Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 10 When Fiction Feels Real: How the Brain Builds Reality by Terra Gi 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Sophie Lei Edited by Han Chong Most of us assume the brain can clearly separate what is real from what is imagined. Fact seems stable and objective, while fiction seems invented, distant, and unreal. But the brain does not work with reality in such a simple way. Whether we are seeing the world, imagining an image, or becoming absorbed in a story, the brain is still creating an experience from the information it receives. This makes the boundary between fact and fiction less obvious than we often think. The reason imagination can feel so real is that the brain may not process it as something completely separate from perception. Studies led by Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales suggest that the same brain pathways code for both imagination and perception, with imagination acting like a weaker form of perception (1, 2, 3). This makes sense when we consider vision. Around 70% of the information we receive comes through sight: visual information enters through the retina, travels to the occipital lobe at the back of our head, and is decoded by the brain into a complete image. But imagined images are also formed inside the brain, even though they have no external input. One begins in the outside world; the other begins internally. Yet both are reconstructed by the brain, and both exist as images within it. The question becomes less about whether imagination is ‘fake’, and more about whether the brain can always recognise that difference. This is why a dream can feel real right until we wake up, or why imagining a situation can make us nervous before anything has actually happened (1, 4). The brain may only realise the difference once reality interrupts it. Until then, imagination is still an experience the brain has to respond to. The placebo effect shows that the brain does not simply dismiss something because it is not physically real. The word placebo comes from the Latin meaning “I please”, and in medicine, it refers to a ‘fake’ treatment given without an active drug ingredient. At first, this seems like a purely psychological trick: the patient believes they are receiving treatment, so they feel better. However, research by Jon-Kar Zubieta, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, challenged this assumption. His study found that when patients were given a painkiller placebo, their brains released natural pain-relieving chemicals, known as endorphins. Studies on placebo analgesia have shown that this belief in treatment can itself activate endogenous opioid systems in the brain (5, 6). This overturned the idea that the placebo effect was only a matter of belief or imagination; the placebo did not work because the medicine was real, but because the brain responded as if it was. If the brain struggles to separate fact from fiction unless it is clearly corrected, then imagination becomes something we can use, not just something we experience. We can use this to mentally simulate nerve-wracking situations before facing them, or even to picture ourselves achieving future goals so they feel more possible and familiar (1, 4). Bleasdale C. “The Dress”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress#/media/File:The_dress_blueblackwhitegold.jpg The same idea also applies to perception. The famous blue-and-black or white-and-gold dress showed that even vision is not just a direct copy of reality. The dress was physically blue and black, and the same light from the dress entered people’s retinas. But the brain does not stop at the retina. It has to interpret the visual information it receives, including assumptions about light and shadow (7). On one hand, people who saw blue and black interpreted the dress as being lit from the front, so their brains kept the darker colours. On the other hand, people who saw white and gold interpreted the dress as being in shadow, with light coming from behind it, so their brains ‘corrected’ the image differently. This means they were not seeing a different object; their brains were making different predictions about the same object. The same problem appears beyond visual perception. People often believe they are seeing issues objectively, when their brains are already filtering information through unconscious bias. Psychologist Emily Pronin describes this as a “bias blind spot”: people can recognise bias in others more easily than in themselves (8). This helps explain why people can look at the same evidence but walk away with completely different conclusions. Their brains are not just receiving facts; they are selecting and interpreting them in ways that fit existing beliefs. This has serious consequences beyond optical illusions. If perception is already filtered through assumptions, then memory and judgement are also less objective than we like to believe. Eyewitness accounts, for example, can feel completely sincere while still being inaccurate, because the brain does not record events like a camera. It reconstructs them, filling in gaps with expectation, emotion, and later information (9). The same pattern helps explain why misinformation spreads so easily (10). When people encounter complex or uncertain information, the brain often shortcuts the process by relying on what feels familiar, emotionally convincing, or consistent with what they already believe. In this way, false information does not always persuade us because it is carefully reasoned; it often works because it fits neatly into a mental story the brain has already begun building. Neuropsychologist and neurobiologist Roger Sperry once said, “Before brains, there was no colour or sound in the universe, nor was there any flavour or aroma and probably little sense and no feeling or emotion” (11). Reality may exist outside us, but experience is made inside the brain. So if our brains are constantly interpreting, imagining, and filling in gaps, then fiction is not meaningless at all. It is one of the ways the brain practises, believes, and builds reality. References Dijkstra N, Fleming SM. Subjective signal strength distinguishes reality from imagination. Nat Commun. 2023;14(1):1627. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-37322-1 Dijkstra N, Bosch SE, van Gerven MAJ. Shared neural mechanisms of visual perception and imagery. Trends Cogn Sci. 2019;23(5):423-434. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2019.02.004 Ganis G, Thompson WL, Kosslyn SM. Brain areas underlying visual mental imagery and visual perception: an fMRI study. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2004;20(2):226-241. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.02.012 Saplakoglu Y. Is it real or imagined? Here’s how your brain tells the difference. WIRED. Aug 27 2023. https://www.wired.com/story/is-it-real-or-imagined-heres-how-your-brain-tells-the-difference/ Zubieta JK, Bueller JA, Jackson LR, Scott DJ, Xu Y, Koeppe RA, et al. Placebo effects mediated by endogenous opioid activity on μ-opioid receptors. J Neurosci. 2005;25(34):7754-7762. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0439-05.2005 Benedetti F, Mayberg HS, Wager TD, Stohler CS, Zubieta JK. Neurobiological mechanisms of the placebo effect. J Neurosci. 2005;25(45):10390-10402. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3458-05.2005 Wallisch P. Illumination assumptions account for individual differences in the perceptual interpretation of a profoundly ambiguous stimulus in the color domain: “the dress”. J Vis. 2017;17(4):5. doi:10.1167/17.4.5 Pronin E, Lin DY, Ross L. The bias blind spot: perceptions of bias in self versus others. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2002;28(3):369-381. doi:10.1177/0146167202286008 Loftus EF, Palmer JC. Reconstruction of automobile destruction: an example of the interaction between language and memory. J Verbal Learn Verbal Behav. 1974;13(5):585-589. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3 Lewandowsky S, Ecker UKH, Seifert CM, Schwarz N, Cook J. Misinformation and its correction: continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychol Sci Public Interest. 2012;13(3):106-131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018 Sperry RW. Problems outstanding in the evolution of brain function. James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain. 1964. https://people.uncw.edu/puente/sperry/sperrypapers/60s/107-1964.pdf Bleasdale C. “The Dress”. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress#/media/File:The_dress_blueblackwhitegold.jpg Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

< Back to Issue 2 Postdoc Possibilities Thinking about postgraduate research? This column has some advice for you, courtesy of a recent PhD graduate. by Renee Papaluca 10 December 2021 Edited by Ruby Dempsey and Breana Galea Illustrated by Casey Boswell The idea of (dis)order is apparent in many scientific fields. One example of this is artificial light at night, which can disrupt our ecosystems. I caught up with Marty Lockett, a recent PhD graduate in this field, to learn more about the research pathway and their experience studying science at the University of Melbourne. Marty Lockett. Image included with permission. Marty recently completed his PhD in the Urban Light Lab, School of Biosciences. In his spare time, Marty enjoys birdwatching, Lego and science fiction. What was the ‘light-bulb moment’ that prompted you to study science? “I have always enjoyed the outdoors. For example, bushwalking, snorkelling, birdwatching — all that sort of stuff. I am more of a latecomer to science. About 10 years ago, I took long-service leave from my job. I used to be a lawyer. I ended up spending a lot of time doing volunteer work for conservation and restoration organisations… and I was exposed for the first time to the world of science and ecology. The work involved things like cleaning up rubbish, tree planting, weed removal, and banding and recapturing birds with researchers. It was really eye-opening! I realised I could do this for a job… I had never studied science, apart from chemistry at school. I had never been exposed to ecology or really considered it as a potential career option. Having that opportunity to immerse myself in nature in a more constructive and helpful way, rather than being a passive observer, really got me thinking.” Why did you choose to complete a research pathway? “So, I came into this not having an undergraduate degree in science. I completed a Masters of Environment to begin with. My thinking there was to try and get into environmental management, conservation or restoration management. As part of that masters, I completed a couple of third-year animal behaviour subjects. I found this really interesting as I hadn’t studied much about the behaviour of wildlife. Off the back of that, I decided to focus on this area for my research capstone subject. I met Dr Therésa Jones [current supervisor] and … did a mini research project on artificial light at night which is her area of specialization. From there, I got hooked on research… I wanted to find out more and, from there, decided to complete a PhD… There’s so much to learn about the world. Being in the position where the world now knows something that it once didn’t because of your work is really powerful.” What was the focus of your PhD research? Why did you choose this area? “My main project was looking at the effects of artificial light at night on an important food chain in Eucalyptus woodlands.” “There's a lot of research on the effects of artificial light at night on individual organisms… There's less but increasing research on interactions between species. As you spread out wider, there's [even] less research on more complex communities and on the wider cascading ecological effects of artificial light at night. I wanted to look into the effects of artificial light on a system that was underexplored and really important here in Australia.” “I chose a specific Eucalyptus woodland food chain consisting of river red gum trees, lerp psyllids, and birds that eat them. Lerps are the white bumps you sometimes see on Eucalyptus leaves. These are made by the nymphs [juveniles] of insects called lerp psyllids. Psyllids feed on leaf sap. Since eucalyptus sap is very rich in carbohydrates, they secrete the excess carbohydrates and use it to build little white domes over themselves. This takes a resource which is completely indigestible by most animals [Eucalyptus sap] and it turns it into something that is highly digestible by a whole range of animals… like birds, other insects, possums [and] bats. So lerps are a really key food resource in Eucalyptus woodlands. At the next level of the food chain, I chose a bird that was particularly dependent on lerps known as bell miners. I wanted to see the effect of artificial light at night at each level of this food chain. This is because all three organisms were vulnerable to… [the] effects of artificial light at night in different ways, and impacts at one level of the food chain might have cascading effects on other levels.” What did your day-to-day life as a PhD researcher look like? “It's really varied. In my case, I broke it down into three main work categories. So first up, you've got reading and writing. In the early days, before you start doing any experiments, you've got to learn a lot about your area, find out what's known, what's unknown, form hypotheses and figure out ways of testing them…” “In the middle, there is much more time spent on fieldwork and lab work. The extent of this will vary depending on the project… In my case, it was probably 50/50… An amazing amount of research involves what we refer to as ‘art and crafts’ where, after you design an experiment, you've got to then figure out a way to test that experiment on a tight budget. For example, building insect traps; you have to think about how you will make it work logistically. You need something that can be easily broken down and transported, but is rigid enough to stand up in a street, doesn't blow over in the wind and all those kinds of things. Fieldwork involved rigging up electric lights in a paddock, finding ways to stop parrots eating sound recorders; all kinds of weird stuff I never thought I'd be doing. Then there’s the actual fieldwork itself — catching bugs, measuring trees — whatever it is you need to do to gather data.” “The third main activity is statistical analysis and coding, which often go hand in hand. Most of [my] analysis was done in R [programming language], which was another thing that I hadn't done before… I hadn't really appreciated, as an outsider, just how much time scientists spend on statistics and coding. Coding governs a whole lot of things [in research], not just statistics. So you'll use coding to measure the number and diversity of vocalisations in birdsong recordings. You also may use it for physical mapping of study sites. In stats, there is obviously coding involved in statistical analysis, but also for creating the plots for your papers. It's all coding!” “At the end, you come back to reading and writing. You've gathered all your data, you've written up your results and then you've got to put them in context for your reader.” What advice would you give to students considering this research pathway? “There's two aspects to a PhD. On one hand, you are researching something that is of interest to you. This might be a particular organism, process or scientific question… That's a really important element of the PhD. But the other element is about you upskilling. Basically, a PhD is like a research apprenticeship and it's mostly self-driven… Your supervisor is there to guide you but you've got to come up with all the questions yourself, and figure out how to test them. I feel like it's really important to make the most of both these aspects; you want to do a great research project and find out something interesting that the world didn't know before. But you also want to make sure you're making the most of this time to meet people, take on skills, try things out and get outside your comfort zone. This is really important in making yourself as attractive as possible to future employers and a well-rounded researcher.” What are your future plans following your PhD? “I would like to take these skills and apply them in an in-house ecologist or research position. I’d like to do work where there's a chance to both conduct research and apply what we know to achieve better outcomes for wildlife. So, for example, working on the practical application of artificial light, working with people who make decisions about installing artificial light fixtures and helping them to find better ways to balance the needs of humans and the needs of wildlife.” Previous article back to DISORDER Next article