< 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 Man-Made Science: On the Origins of the Gender Gap Scientific practice remains doused in centuries of unreasoned and illogical discrimination against women. But what is the best way to unravel the complexities of such an intricate web of injustice, intellectual theft and suffering? by Mia Horsfall 10 December 2021 Edited by Natalie Cierpisz & Ruby Dempsey Illustrated by Janna Dingle Alice Ball was born in Seattle on July 24, 1892. She would grow up in Washington, achieving top marks in school before studying Chemistry at the University of Washington. She would have her article "Benzoylations in Ether Solution" published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Ball then pursued a Masters of Chemistry at the University of Hawaii, where she would study chaulmoogra oil and its treatment of leprosy. Ball revolutionised the application of the oil, discovering its water solubility in its ester ethyl form, enabling it to be dissolved within the bloodstream. At the time, this revolutionary treatment was the best available for leprosy, having resoundingly positive impacts on more than 8000 people. Ball would die at the age of 24, and Arthur L. Dean, the future President of the University of Hawaii, would publish her findings, the treatment coming to be known as the “Dean Method”. It was not until 2000 that Alice Ball was formally recognised as having pioneered the method. Ball is not a rarity in the history of recognition of women in science. Women have been rendered oblique in the fabric of scientific contribution, pushed into corners by their male counterparts. You are not a scientist, they say. You are a worker, a contributor to a broader scientific framework that lies beyond the tips of your fingers. Your worth does not extend past your utility, your body and brain useful insofar as we dictate. Make no mistake, your work is not yours to own. These women, these scientists, these thinkers are perpetually framed in this lens, their stories framed in the contexts they were stolen from. Throughout history, women have been slotted in around men, in the world, in language, crammed in, letting femininity compress and fold over herself. The notion of feminist and masculinist lenses of science is not inherently divisive despite the dichotomised nature of their terminology. Rather, examining the feminist lenses of science contributes to a richer understanding of the epistemic value of science itself. The dangers of not examining said lenses are not only very real, they are tragic. Historically, women have occupied lesser paid, more arduous, and more dangerous positions within STEM industries, the most famous instance being the large number of women who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch-faces with self-luminous paint. However, there is no unified definition of a “feminist lens of science”. Various feminist philosophers and critics have taken hugely diversified approaches to exploring the hierarchal structure of scientific industries. A more limited feminist approach looks purely at the consequential issues of exclusion, examining issues of employment and discrimination and attempting to rectify these after they have occurred. This is a relatively contained approach to gender disparities within STEM, in contrast to more encompassing ideologies of socialist or existentialist feminism that examines the reason women are excluded in the primary instance, and how their exclusion permeates scientific practice. Existentialist feminism upholds that sex-based discrimination occurs not as a result of biological differences, but due to the social valuation of those biological differences. It is, as Sue Rosser points out, “man’s conception of woman as Other” that leads to ostracisation. In a similar vein, socialist feminism defines knowledge as a product of human investigation rather than an innate property of scientific practice. As a consequence, knowledge is inevitably influenced by social values and indeed, cannot exist without bias. As Rosser points out, this has a very tangible impact at industry level, where “the social shaping of technology has often been conceptualised in terms of men, excluding women at all levels”. So long as the notion of conventional masculinity saturates scientific practice, the proportion of women who not only pursue science but who are recognised for their work will remain diminished. It is no coincidence that of professionals working across STEM industries, only 28 per cent are women. Sexism is not merely a product of academic culture, it is ingrained within the practice of science itself. The study of evolutionary biology is a prime example, where Darwin posited in 1859 “the average standard of mental power in man must be above that of women”. A decade later, Antoinette Brown Blackwell proved this to be an illogical conclusion, much of the research conducted was conducted with this in mind. As a result, foundational assumptions about the makeup of “human nature” were built upon these misguided foundations. It was not until much later that this groundwork was actively revised in mainstream science. Primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas demonstrated that there was very little, if anything, biologically different in the “moral and intellectual” capacities of men and women by investigating the evolutionary significance of female primates. Despite this, science, particularly in the life sciences, remains endowed with sexism that has arisen as a consequence of systemic inequality. One ramification of the surplus of male bioscientists that has been historically upheld is the stigmatisation and mystification of female anatomy and the differences of treatment for various diseases. That is, the predominance of male scientists results in lack of female subjects in medical experiments, leading to “under-diagnosis, inappropriate treatment and higher death rates for cardiovascular and other disease in women”, as Rosser points out. Such a lack of research not only directly results in higher suffering in women, but it is also indicative of a broader culture of apathy and negligence in the treatment of women. Much of these issues arise as a consequence of what is known as the “gender data gap”, a term coined by feminist journalist Caroline Criado Perez. Essentially, our default human is male and our data disproportionately accounts for them. This impacts every area of life, from women being 50 per cent more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack (heart-fail experiment subjects are primarily male) to being 17 per cent more likely to die in a car crash (crash-test dummies are designed with masculine anatomy). These implications are severe, particularly in the realms of psychology, where diagnoses and psychological science has been used as a weapon to marginalise and obscure the autonomy of women. The etymology of the word “hysteria” has its roots from the Latin word for “uterus”, the construction of the word sexist from its conception. Since then, women who have advocated for change have consistently been deemed mentally unfit to serve within social spheres. This notion has bled into psychological practice and shapes much of the diagnostic procedure we see today, however subliminally. Further, the conduct of psychological studies is perhaps inescapably plagued by bias and assumption. This exists within every area of science but is particularly poignant in psychology, where successful post-publication replication is at its lowest. Whilst the reasons for why replication is so low within this field is contested, it undoubtedly means that psychological studies are subject to greater subjectivity in regards to their theoretical frameworks. This, in turn, enables researchers’ own biases and assumptions to saturate the work they conduct. Psychological studies examining sexism often treat it as a distinct social phenomenon that occurs in particular settings rather than a pervasive behaviour ingrained within institutions and scientific practice. One study examines the British Psychological Society’s guidelines surrounding ethical scientific practice, but particularly in regard to the prevention of sexism. The primary issue found here is that the guidelines preventing sexism are concerned more with the wellbeing of the subjects than the epistemic frameworks of the studies themselves. This results in a relatively poor understanding of the way androcentrism has permeated science’s theoretical framework, not merely its applications. When we look at the impact of sexism in psychological and medical sciences in tandem, it becomes evident the way sexist institutions have bled not only into the repercussions of scientific research, but in the very frameworks we use to conduct research. The systemic issues ingrained within the practice of science become tangibly visible in the gender disparities that exist within the sciences. In the US, women earn half of total science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, but only 39 per cent of postdoctoral fellowships and 18 per cent of professorships. Female academics from around the world are pioneering solutions to the persistent gender-discrimination problems facing the scientific community. Liisa Husu suggests that the key to tackling gendered scientific practice is by examining the “non-events”, the things that seemingly do not occur. These include a lack of referencing for female colleagues in publication, lack of recognition or attribution for work (both contemporary and historic). The lack of attendance of female professors and academics at conferences is another contributing factor, as such events not only enable cross-collaboration and open practice to occur without impediment, but facilitate connections to be formed within the academic world. The establishment of ethics committees that oversee scientific publications are also hugely influential. For example, in the US, the National Institutes of Health Funding implemented a regulation that women must be encompassed in “human studies”. These regulations need to be enforced and upheld with rigour and commitment. They cannot be perceived as extraneous or superfluous to the research conducted. This can be aided by requiring pre-publication replication or at the very least, evaluation by researchers independent of the original study. Our standard human is not a white, 70 kg man in his 30s. Our people are bold and bright and diverse and our science has no choice but to reflect that. The face of the scientific community has for too long been dominated by a voice that has been ignorant and apathetic to the suffering it has inflicted. To accept and enable these inbuilt systemic biases to persist is a gross injustice to the communities that have suffered as a result of silence. You are a scientist, we say. You are a beating, breathing, vibrant contributor to our collective pursuit of knowledge. Your voice is vital and worthy of being heard. And heard it will be. References: Arnhart, L., 1992. Feminism, Primatology, and Ethical Naturalism. Politics and the Life Sciences, 11(2), pp.157-170. Australian Government. 2021. Second national data report on girls and women in STEM. [online] Colwell, R., 2020. Women Scientists Have the Evidence About Sexism. [online] The Atlantic Condor, S., 1991. Sexism in Psychological Research: A Brief Note. Feminism & Psychology, 1(3), pp.430-434. England, C., 2016. One in five men have erectile dysfunction. 90% of women experience PMS. Guess which one researchers study more?. Espach, A., 2017. What It Really Means When You Call a Woman “Hysterical”. [online] Vogue. Ferro, S., 2013. Science Is Institutionally Sexist. Here Are 4 Ways To Help Fix It. [online] Popular Science. Plato.stanford.edu. 2020. Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). [online] Rosser, S., 2005. Through the Lenses of Feminist Theory: Focus on Women and Information Technology. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 26(1), pp.1-23. Samuel, S., 2019. Women suffer needless pain because almost everything is designed for men. [online] Vox. Slawson, N., 2019. 'Women have been woefully neglected': does medical science have a gender problem?. [online] the Guardian. Previous article back to DISORDER 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

< Back to Issue 9 Enter . . . the Anthropocene? by Rita Fortune 28 October 2025 Illustrated by Zara Burk Edited by Kylie Wang We live in a time where humanity’s impact on the world around us is clearly visible. From the neverending barrage of information about climate change, to extinction and habitat loss, the consequences of our actions are impossible to avoid. There’s no denying that the world around us is changing, but what if there are deeper implications? What if our impact on the planet will be apparent thousands, even millions of years into the future? Have we changed our planet’s system to such an extent that the birth of our species defined a new geological epoch? The geological timescale is how we understand the relative timing of past events. From the advent of life, to mass extinctions, all of it is documented in the rock record. Our geological past is divided into formalised time periods: eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. These time periods are generally divided by major changes visible in the rock record, such as mass extinctions, major climate shifts, or changes in magnetic polarity, with absolute ages determined by radioactive dating (1). Currently, we are formally sitting in the Holocene Epoch, which began around 11.7 thousand years ago, with the end of the last glacial maximum and beginning of the subsequent warmer interglacial phase (2). However, due to the enormity of impact on earth systems that humanity has had, especially since the dawn of the industrial revolution, some scientists are pushing for the formalisation of a new epoch: the Anthropocene. The concept of the Anthropocene was first officially coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2002 (3). Initially, it was used to recognise the exploitation of earth’s resources by humankind, including the emission of greenhouse gases, urbanisation of land, and increase in species extinction rates. Crutzen and Stoermer suggested the beginning of the Anthropocene to be in the late 18th century, as, in the last 200 years, the “global effects of human activities have become clearly noticeable” (3). The concept, at its core, has remained the same since then, but there have been some changes and debate around formal definitions and informal uses of the term. The Anthropocene has been adopted in popular culture, with its broad use encompassing humanity’s interactions with the earth, but there is ongoing debate about its formal use. Furthermore, although the theory traces its origins to earth system science, efforts to formalise the Anthropocene have been multidisciplinary, involving not only stratigraphers and palaeontologists, but also experts from various scientific backgrounds (4). Formalising the Anthropocene as an epoch distinct from the Holocene relies on being able to find stratal evidence in the rock record for where this transition took place (4). There are countless pieces of evidence for our impact on Earth’s systems.Yet, there is still debate around which ones can be used to define the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Working Group identified as potential evidence for the beginning of the Anthropocene: the increase in sedimentation and erosion rates; changes to carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; climate change and increase in sea level, and; biotic changes such as unprecedented spread of species across Earth (4). Many of these impacts will leave permanent evidence in the geological record, indicating our existence long after our civilisations have crumbled. There are many potential ways to define the beginning of the Anthropocene. Crutzen suggested this crucial moment to be the invention of the steam engine, which led to the industrial revolution, often used as a baseline to compare our current climate to (3). However, evidence of industrialisation from this time is really only visible in Europe, with sediments from the Southern Hemisphere showing no change (5). More recently, it has been posited that the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 should be the official marker of the Anthropocene, as it deposited a thin stratal layer of radionuclides, which do not naturally occur in the environment (6). While it’s clear that humans are a major source of change on Earth, some say that it does not necessarily mean we’ve entered a new epoch. Although geological time periods are often delineated based on environmental change, not every environmental change necessitates the creation of a new epoch. There have been past periods of (relatively) rapid climate change that are not associated with new time periods. An example of this is the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During this time, there was significant global warming, change in habitats, and migration in species. This warm period lasted for approximately 100,000 years, but there were no mass extinctions. Once temperatures returned to normal, ecosystems essentially returned to how they were before the event (7). Geologically speaking, the proposed Anthropocene is a minuscule amount of time. Although the effects are extreme, if we stopped all emissions right now, it is possible that within 5000 years the climate could return to pre-industrial levels (8). Another argument presented by some authors is that the stratigraphic basis for the Anthropocene doesn’t exist yet, and is merely expected to exist in the future. Many structures which have an anthropogenic origin, such as excavation, boreholes and mine dumps, are not yet geological strata. Additionally, in strata that have recorded anthropogenic change, such as speleothems, marshes, lake and ocean floor sediments, the layers representing the Anthropocene would be so thin as to be difficult to distinguish from the underlying Holocene sediments (6). Without the gift of hindsight that has allowed scientists to examine previous epochs, it is difficult to say whether or not the change we currently see will be significant enough on a geological scale to officially move us into a new epoch. There has been suggestion that instead of a new epoch, the Anthropocene could be a Sub-Age, or an Age within the Holocene Epoch (4); acknowledging our profound impact on the earth, but believing that the earth’s system will eventually return to pre-industrial levels. Further complicating the matter, there are suggestions that humans have been altering the earth’s climate since long before the industrial revolution. Evidence shows that a rise in CO2 occurred with the advent of farming by early humans, 7000 years ago. Around the same time, there was also a rise in atmospheric methane, which has been attributed to rice paddies and livestock (9). With the increase in human population happening at this time, there was likewise an increase in land clearance, both to accommodate dwellings and farming. Even though these emissions and land clearing are tiny by today’s standards, they may have been enough to push our climate away from heading into its next glacial period, priming the warmer conditions we experience today. Some arguments have even been made that irreversible impact by humans stretches back even further, to the Pleistocene extinctions of megafauna across multiple continents (10). There is no doubt that humans have had, and are having, a massive impact on the environment. The atmosphere and oceans will take thousands of years to recover from their current level of warming. However, these massive changes do not necessarily mean that we have entered a new epoch. Although it appears there will be ample stratigraphic records of our impacts on this planet, without hindsight, it is difficult to see just how much change we have created. In the context of geological time, humans have been around for a minutely short period. Although what’s happening today might seem dramatic to us, it is possible that millions of years in the future all we will have left behind is a few centimetres of ocean floor sediment. Either way, the Anthropocene as an informal term for our current time period is valuable for acknowledging the consequences of our actions, and a reminder of the permanence of our record. References 1.University of Calgary. Geologic time scale. Energy Education. 2024. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Geologic_time_scale#cite_note-GTS-3 2. Walker M, Johnsen S, Rasmussen SO, Popp T, Steffensen JP, Gibbard P, et al. Formal definition and dating of the GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point) for the base of the Holocene using the Greenland NGRIP ice core, and selected auxiliary records. J. Quaternary Sci. 2009;24(1):3–17. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1227 3. Crutzen PJ, Stoermer EF. The ‘Anthropocene’ (2000) [Internet]. Benner S, Lax G, Crutzen PJ, Pöschl U, Lelieveld J, Brauch HG, editors. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2021. 3 p. (Paul J. Crutzen and the Anthropocene: A New Epoch in Earth’s History). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82202-6_2 4. Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Summerhayes CP, Wolfe AP, Barnosky AD, Cearreta A, et al. The Working Group on the Anthropocene: Summary of evidence and interim recommendations. Anthropocene. 2017;19:55–60. doi: 10.1016/j.ancene.2017.09.001 5. Pare S. Nuclear bombs set off new geological epoch in the 1950s, scientists say. Live Science. 2023. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/nuclear-bombs-set-off-new-geological-epoch-in-the-1950s-scientists-say 6. Finney S, Edwards L. The “Anthropocene” epoch: Scientific decision or political statement? GSA Today. 2016;26:4–10. doi: 10.1130/GSATG270A.1 7. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Britannica. 2023. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/science/Paleocene-Eocene-Thermal-Maximum 8. The Royal Society. If emissions of greenhouse gases were stopped, would the climate return to the conditions of 200 years ago? The Royal Society. 2020. Accessed October 21, 2025. https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-20/ 9. Ruddiman WF, He F, Vavrus SJ, Kutzbach JE. The early anthropogenic hypothesis: A review. Quaternary Science Reviews. 2020;240:106386. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106386 10. Doughty CE, Wolf A, Field CB. Biophysical feedbacks between the Pleistocene megafauna extinction and climate: The first human-induced global warming? Geophys. Res. Lett. 2010;37(15). doi:10.1029/2010GL043985 Previous article Next article Entwined back to

< Back to Issue 9 It’s Dangerous to Go Alone by Julia Lockerd 28 October 2025 Illustrated by Jason Chien Edited by Luci Ackland It’s safe to say that as a species, we have done a fair bit of thinking over the years. From microbes to mammals, to mapping the stars, we have always searched for ways to make meaning of the world and its many mysteries. Every day, the amount of knowledge possessed grows, building on the ideas we learn from each other. But what is knowledge without someone to know it? And how can we build a reliable foundation upon which to amass this knowledge? Many modern philosophers take a ‘what’s mine is mine’ approach to epistemology – the development of knowledge – with ideas like trust and collaboration altogether excluded from the recipe for ‘good science’ (1). Philosopher John Locke suggests that an ‘autonomous knower’ (2) – that’s you! – should only accept input from someone existing outside the self if she already possesses empirical evidence confirming that input is true (3). That is to say, don’t believe anything you read online, or in a book, or hear from your friend, or your professor alone. Basically, don’t believe the sky is blue unless you can look outside and see it for yourself. This seems like a hard way to live and makes it nearly impossible to make any headway on scientific advancement. If there is truly no way to build on previous knowledge, how do we measure anything at all? When considering scientific disciplines, the (presumably brooding) ‘autonomous knower’ must give up her lone wolf life and finally make some friends. This is not only for her emotional benefit, but also because science simply cannot occur without it. Epstein (2006) argues that the three main drivers of scientific collaboration are as follows: 1. The topic demands it. This applies to fields such as cognitive psychology, where the topic is an amalgam of different specialisations. 2. To gain a new perspective. Researchers interviewed by Epstein highlighted how collaboration helps them gain new approaches and techniques. 3. To provide additional knowledge. Although it’s all well and good to assert you should only believe what you can prove yourself (looking at you, Locke), collaboration is crucial to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ every time you want to learn something new (4). This last reason, by its very nature, proves that, despite my best efforts, no one person can possess the whole of human understanding by herself. Thus, the ‘many-headed knower’ makes her appearance on stage. This version of the knower exists as an alternative to Locke’s Autonomous Knower, where multiple individuals can share fragments of a greater epistemic idea. Without it, whole scientific disciplines can be reasoned away as no single person possesses the evidence to prove the scientific idea exists (2). For example, many medical devices could not be realised without input from both clinicians and engineers. If knowledge cannot be shared between these two groups, MedTech might cease to exist at all. With the multiheaded knower by your side, you can now solve scientific conundrums with the power of friendship (or, begrudging teamwork if it’s 11.59pm and you’re still working on that group project due at 12.00am). To fully grasp how systems of collaboration function, we need to investigate the interpersonal relationships that make up the heads of the knower. Generally, these relationships are of two kinds: Moral and Epistemic trust. Returning to our old friend, the multi-headed knower, epistemic trust allows multiple heads to exist, while moral trust in social bonds between researchers keeps her many heads attached. Epistemic trust involves the acceptance of knowledge provided by an external source as true. While trustworthiness often evokes a sense of superior moral value, epistemic trust has far more to do with the perceived competency of the individual providing information. Wagenknecht calls these relationships ‘Epistemic Dependence’ (5). The word dependence here is interesting, as it reveals a certain vulnerability in the relationship between researchers. Wagenknecht likens it to someone asking for directions in a foreign city. Simply, it is a blind trust that one's partner knows the way to go and is capable of leading them there. But where does this trust come from? If trust were truly blind, I could justify my lab results with a simple ‘Trust me bro,’ and my supervisor would go ‘Fantastic. Nobel prize for you.’ Unfortunately, this isn’t how it works, and my career trajectory will (probably) look a little more complicated. It is instead proposed that there are ‘shades of trust and distrust’ that can be influenced by external modifiers, such as accurate conduct of experiments, analysis of results, and epistemic authority. In this model, trust is a dynamic concept that builds or deteriorates between trustees over a chain of interactions (5). If a series of interactions is positive and trust is progressively built up, at some point, an asymptotic limit of trust will be reached. However, the level of epistemic trust between any two researchers is high but never complete, even when there is no reason to doubt the other's testimony. This is good news for Locke, as there still might be a space in which his autonomous knower can exist in happy isolation. Moral trust, the far less popular younger brother of Epistemic trust, is the scrappy underdog in the world of scientific relationships. It is argued that morality shouldn’t even get a seat at the big kids' table, as there is no place for it in scientific collaboration (2). This raises the ever-devious question: why not lie? A little fudge of the numbers could make you the next Elizabeth Holmes, minus the jail time and general disgrace (6). To find an answer, I turn to T.M. Scanlon’s ‘What We Owe Each Other’ (7). Specifically, in chapter five, he discusses the ever-sexy ‘structure of moral contractualism’. Scanlon explores a set of moral requirements that must be accepted or rejected based on the concern we hold for another's well-being, their own personal values, and perspective. Simply, academic falsification is rare because one researcher owes it to another to give a truthful testimony. Returning to the analogy of being lost in a foreign city, what keeps the locals from sending a tourist in the wrong direction out of laziness or fun? I argue that it is the acceptance of a moral principle out of concern for another person's well-being. Immanuel Kant believed lying was always wrong, in every situation (a stance I’m sure made him suuuuuuuuper fun to be around) (8). If this is true, the structure of scientific collaboration must surely crumble in the absence of moral trust (9). Interestingly, Scanlon discusses the place of ‘impersonal values’ in the development of moral code. This relates to reasons for adherence to a moral code that does not pertain to the well-being or status of any one individual. He uses the preservation of the Grand Canyon as an example. We do not deface the Grand Canyon because it would harm any particular group of people, and we cannot argue that this principle is 'what we owe to others', as the canyon doesn't have any personal feelings (that we know of). Instead, only the value we have tied to the land itself stops us from turning it into the biggest lazy river in the world (7). In the context of research, not only do we owe it to each other to adhere to truthfulness, but we also owe it to science as a concept. Essentially, if you’re not doing science with a pure and truthful heart, you’re not doing science at all. Someone needs to tell Dr. Evil about this. As scientific communities have relied more and more on each other to produce collaborative results, science as a whole has become somewhat of a team sport. I argue that while epistemic and moral are two different forms of trust – or even the same form of trust applied to different issues – they both contribute to the social basis of scientific collaboration. Trust in itself is a purely social concept; just as knowledge cannot exist without a 'knower', trust cannot exist without two people, between whom that trust can exist. Therefore, whether you subscribe to the idea that moral trust has any place in scientific collaboration, it is indisputable that there is a social level to any interaction between researchers. This is to say nothing about the more 'frivolous' aspects of collaboration in which personal opinions, egos, and attitudes have been anecdotally proven to affect the quality of collaborative work. Science, at its core, is about understanding. It makes sense that we can’t even get off the ground if we don't start by understanding each other. References 1. J. Locke. An Essay concerning Human Understanding. www.gutenberg.org , 1689. Available: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10615/10615-h/10615-h.htm 2. J. Hardwig. The Role of Trust in Knowledge. The Journal of Philosophy . 1991;88(12):693. doi: 10.2307/2027007 3. R. W. Grant. John Locke on Custom’s Power and Reason’s Authority. The Review of Politics. 2012;74(4) 607–629.doi: 10.2307/23355688. Available: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23355688 4. S. Epstein. Making Interdisciplinary Collaboration Work. Available: https://www.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/~epstein/papers/collaboration.pdf . [Accessed: Mar. 29, 2024] 5. S. Wagenknecht. Facing the Incompleteness of Epistemic Trust: Managing Dependence in Scientific Practice. Social Epistemology . 2014;29(2):160–184. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2013.794872 6. E. Fricker. Testimony and Epistemic Autonomy. The Epistemology of Testimony . 2006:225–245. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276011.003.0011 7. T. M. Scanlon. What We Owe to Each Other. 1998. Available: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/file/feeds/PDF/9780674248953_sample.pdf 8. T. L. Carson. Kant and the Absolute Prohibition against Lying. Lying and Deception . 2010:67–87. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577415.003.0004 9. Immanuel Kant. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? by Immanuel Kant 1784. Marxists.org , 1798. Available: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/enlightenment.htm Previous article Next article Entwined back to

< Back to Issue 10 Are Truths Possible Under AI? by Vanessa Cheng 2 June 2026 Illustrated by Saraf Ishmam Edited by Rita Fortune In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), humans are capable of generating wonders within seconds. Yet, isn’t it also destroying the sense of human intuition and authenticity that we are born with? The development of AI dates back to the pre-20th century when Jonathan Swift’s novel “Gulliver’s Travels” initially introduced the idea of an engine — a mechanical system used to assist the academics to generate new ideas. Throughout the 2000s, scientists have been continuously inventing “generations” of AI and discovering its applications. For instance, in 2000, MIT scientist Cynthia Breazeal invented a robot that interacts with humans, capable of reading emotional cues. In 2009, scientists at Northwestern University developed “Stats Monkey”, an engine capable of generating sports news stories without human intervention. Finally, throughout 2021 to 2023, OpenAI’s ChatGPT model DALL-E was introduced to society (1). It changed how we interpret information, how we communicate, and how we seek knowledge. Furthermore, the development of DALL-E 2 and 3 enabled us to generate visual content without traditional graphic skills. These models sparked debate surrounding ethics within the fields of politics and entertainment. On January 22, 2026, The White House posted a digitally altered photo of a woman arrested at the ICE protest, with her facial features appearing hysterical, sparking intense audience emotions (2). AI is no longer a tool, but rather a weapon with endless possibilities. The development of AI has the ability to fundamentally alter how we interact with reality. It changes how we understand knowledge and understand the world. New AI models, such as DALL-E 3, can generate hyperrealistic images, human-like texts, and even synthetic voices. Thus, the ways we can traditionally look for deception, such as hearing, seeing, and reading could no longer be a valid way of helping us understand the world. When we see something, we tend to believe that it exists; when we hear something, we assume that the voice is authentic. A photo is a proof of a scene, and our voice is our identity. However, AI disrupts this ancient relationship between how humans perceive information and reality. In fact, in Essay Concerning Human Understanding published in 1689 by the infamous philosopher John Locke, he pointed out that individuals typically understand reality through what they see and perceive, and that human knowledge originates from sensory experience (3). Our sensory experience becomes the foundation of truth itself. However, AI has disrupted this centuries old assumption. In a world where even emotions can be artificially generated, sensory perception does not guarantee authenticity. In his first text The Phenomenology of Perception , published in 1945, French philosopher Maurice Markeau-Ponty argues that human perception is our primary way of experiencing reality (4). However, with AI, traditional philosophical claims are threatened. In fact, in 2025, The New Yorker pointed out that AI models such as ChatGPT are becoming increasingly accurate in generating preferred text responses based on predictions of the user’s preference (5). Additionally, in some scientific fields, large language models predict patterns in brain activity. If such human things as thoughts, choices, and the very activity in our brains can be so easily manipulated by AI, we may have much less autonomy than we imagined. Our perceptions of reality are increasingly altered by these systems which we have created. The collapse of truth and our ability to trust our own sentences is leading to the collapse of humanity's free will. This dramatic change in how humans think and behave sparks further discussion on how we should view the ethics of AI. According to the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, AI systems raise significant ethical concerns regarding privacy, transparency, and accountability (6). Algorithms may inherit political biases and social inequalities within the training data scientists “feed” to the model. The development of deepfake images and synthetic voices not only creates ethical concerns surrounding misinformation, but also the erosion of social trust. The article also highlights the importance of “transparency and explainability”. Without transparency, AI risks being a “black-box” system in which “responses” that affect how humans live and make decisions are made through processes that cannot be fully explained by professionals (6). During the US-Iran War, AI has again been used as a weapon to manipulate public opinion and emotions. AI was used to generate videos and images of the Iran War that attracted millions of views, and these were used to make misleading claims about the conflict. For instance, BBC detected that a video of missiles striking the city of Tel Aviv in Israel, with sounds of explosions, was AI-generated (7). Timothy Graham, a digital media expert at the Queensland University of Technology, pointed out that “the scale [of AI generated videos] is truly alarming and this war has made it impossible to ignore now” (7). Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher specialising in Iran at the Oxford Internet Institute, also claimed that “fake videos like these have a detrimental impact on people's trust in the verified information they see online and make it much harder to document real evidence” (7). Moreover, AI doesn’t stop with just misleading humans in their daily life. The increasingly military adoption of the use of AI is concerning. On the morning of 28th February 2026, American army forces struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, a girls elementary school in southern Iran, and killed between 175 to 180 people, with most of them girls aged between 7 to 12 years old. What is the most shocking point is that the American forces blame this strike on a decision made by Claude, a chatbot by Anthropic, which selected the school as a target. In fact, as early as 2024, the US Department of War already outlined how the American forces have been adopting the AI-powered Maven Smart System to help soldiers identify and strike military targets (8, 9, 10). While supporters argue that such systems could improve efficiency, critics warn that delegating life-and-death decisions of hundreds of people should not be risked through allowing algorithms to make such decisions. The growing militarisation of AI also raises other ethical issues, such as who should take responsibility for such an action – the programmer, the commander, or AI? Ultimately, the danger of AI lies not only in its potential to “replace human brains”, but also in its ability to fabricate truth, challenging and reshaping centuries of respected philosophical beliefs. AI’s capacity to distance humans from taking moral responsibilities for their actions is also extremely concerning. Now, can you still believe your eyes and ears? What is the truth? Is truth even possible? References IBM. The History of Artificial Intelligence . IBM Think. https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/history-of-artificial-intelligence The Guardian. First Thing: White House posts digitally altered image of woman arrested after ICE protest . The Guardian. 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/23/first-thing-white-house-posts-digitally-altered-image-arrested-woman-ice-protest Locke J. John Locke . In: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy . https://iep.utm.edu/locke-kn/ Merleau-Ponty M. The Phenomenology of Perception . In: EBSCO Research Starters . https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/phenomenology-perception-maurice-merleau-ponty Somers J. The Case That A.I. Is Thinking . The New Yorker. 2025. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/10/the-case-that-ai-is-thinking ( newyorker.com ) Lizzie S. Harvard Division of Continuing Education. Ethics in AI: Why It Matters . Harvard Professional & Executive Development. 2026. https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/ethics-in-ai-why-it-matters/ ( professional.dce.harvard.edu ) BBC News. AI-generated Iran war videos surge as creators use new tech to cash in . BBC News. 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg8wvz427vo Amaral N. The Iran war highlights the creeping use of AI in warfare . Chatham House. 2026. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/03/iran-war-highlights-creeping-use-ai-warfare Baker KT. AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying . The Guardian. 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blame-for-the-iran-school-bombing-the-truth-is-far-more-worrying The Week. Could the Iran war pop the AI bubble? The Week. 2026. https://theweek.com/world-news/iran-war-ai-artificial-intelligence-bubble-collapse Previous article back to Fact & Fiction Next article

By Andrew Lim < Back to Issue 3 Hope, Humanity and the Starry Night Sky By Andrew Lim 10 September 2022 Edited by Manfred Cain and Yvette Marris Illustrated by Ravon Chew Next Image 1: The Arecibo Observatory looms large over the forests of Puerto Rico The eerie signal reverberates out over the Caribbean skies, amplified by the telescope below. It oscillates between two odd resonating tones for little more than a couple of minutes, then shuts off. Eminent scholars, government administrators and elected representatives watch in wonderment, their eyes glued open. The forest birds and critters chirp and sing. It is November 16, 1974 – from a little spot in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Earth is about to pop its head out the door to say ‘hello’. Those sing-song tunes, beamed out into space on modulated radio waves, are a binary message designed for some alien civilisation– a snapshot of humanity in 1679 bits. It sounds like the beginning of a bad sci-fi flick: the kind that ends with little green men coming down in UFOs for a cheap-CGI first contact. But it isn’t, and it doesn’t. Instead, the legacy of those telescope-amplified sounds – that ‘Arecibo Message’ – has a place in history as a symbol of human cooperation, here on Earth rather than in the stars. The message’s unifying vision imbued the famous ‘pale blue dot’ monologue of its co-creator Carl Sagan; and led to the launch of a multi-year international programme designing its successor message 45 years on, presenting extra-terrestrial communication as a mirror of our earth-bound relations. A unified message symbolizing a unified humanity. The previous feature in this series (Discovery, Blue Skies…and Partisan Bickering?) ended with a declaration of nuance: that science in politics matters solely because it transcends partisan bounds with clear analysis. Yet, looking at stories like Arecibo’s, so imbued with human optimism, maybe this cold, logical formulation isn’t enough. Perhaps for all its focus on appropriations bills, initiative funding and flawed infrastructure, that perspective lends insufficient weight to science’s ability to inspire, to cut through the fog of day-to-day policy battles with a beacon of what could yet be. But is this talk of hope just ideological posturing – a triumphant humanism gone mad? Or could there be some merit to its romantic vision of humanity speaking with one voice to the stars? Might it possibly be that science really is the key to bridging our divisions? COOPERATION AMIDST CHAOS Well, why not begin in the times of Arecibo? After all, the interstellar message came at a key moment in the Cold War. Just a few months before, US President Richard Nixon had made his way to Moscow to meet with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the USSR. The signing of a new arms treaty, a decade-long economic agreement and a friendly state dinner at the Kremlin all seemed to indicate a world inching away from the edge of nuclear apocalypse. Such pacifist optimism is found readily in the message’s surrounding documents, with its research proposal speaking glowingly of future messages designed and informed by “international scientific consultations…[similar to] the first Soviet-American conference on communication with extraterrestrial [sic] intelligence.” Indeed, it seems the spirit of the age. Soon after the Arecibo message’s transmission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project would see an American Apollo spacecraft docking with a Soviet Soyuz module. Mission commanders Thomas Stafford and Alexei Leonov conducted experiments, exchanged gifts, and even engaged in the world’s first international space handshake – a symbol of shared peace and prosperity for both superpowers. Image 2: Thomas Stafford and Alexei Leonov shake hands on the Apollo-Soyuz mission Apollo-Soyuz marked an effective end to the US-USSR ‘Space Race’ (discussed in Part I of this series), and would lead to successor programmes, including a series of missions where American space shuttles would send astronauts to the Russian space station Mir, and eventually the building of the 21st-century International Space Station (ISS). Science seemed capable of forging cooperation amidst the greatest of disagreements, transcending our human borders and divides. Frank Drake, the designer of the Arecibo Message, was filled with optimism, hoping that his message might herald the beginning of a new age, marked by united scientific discovery and unparalleled human growth. He triumphantly declared to the Cornell Chronicle on the day of its transmission that “the sense that something in the universe is much more clever than we are has preceded almost every important advance in applied technology. SCIENTIFIC SPHERES OF INTEREST Yet this rose-tinted vision of science as the great mediator perhaps has a few more cracks in it than its advocates like to admit. Even at the height of Nixon’s Cold War détente, science was not pure intellectual collaboration. Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, pioneered ‘triangular diplomacy’, the art of playing adversaries off against one another with alternating threats and incentives. In later years, he would declare that “it was always better for [the US] to be closer to either Moscow or Peking than either was to the other”. And as he opened channels of communication with China, it was science that would pave the way for a stronger relationship. In the Shanghai Communique negotiated on Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, both sides “discussed specific areas in such fields as science [and] technology…in which people-to-people contacts and exchanges would be mutually beneficial [and] undert[ook] to facilitate the further development of [them].” Scientific collaboration (often manipulated by spy agencies from the CIA to the KGB) was the carrot beside the military stick – a central part of building alliances in a world of realpolitik. To Kissinger and his colleagues, the world was to be divided into Image 3: US President Richard Nixon shakes hands with CCP Chairman Mao Zedong in China in 1972 spheres of influence, even in times of peace – and science was best used as a way of strengthening and shoring up your own prosperity. It is a realist view of science diplomacy that continues to this day, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noting in Image 4: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhonn in September 2021, pledging additional aid and vaccine doses. 2014 that “educational exchanges, cultural tours and scientific collaboration…may garner few headlines, but… [can] influence the next generation of U.S. and [foreign] leaders in a way no other initiative can match”. To both Clinton and Kissinger, science is an instrument of foreign policy, whether deployed overtly in winning over current governments or more subtly in shaping the views of future ones. For them, amidst competing interests and simmering tensions, we ignore science’s soft power at our own peril. Just look at China’s distribution over Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines in the pandemic. In October 2020, January 2021 and September 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi went on tours of Southeast Asia, promising vaccine aid while pushing closer connections between China and the rest of Asia. Last year, it was estimated that China had promised a total of over 255 million vaccine doses – a key step in building stronger economic and military ties in an increasingly tense region. Indeed, in mid-2021, just as concerns about Chinese vaccine efficacy grew, US President Joe Biden announced “half [a] billion doses with no strings attached…[no] pressure for favours, or potential concessions” from the sidelines of a G7 Summit. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin travelled across Southeast Asia. In the the Philippines he renewed a military deal just as a new shipment of vaccines was announced – a clear indicator of the linkage between medical and military diplomacy, something reinforced when Vice President Kamala Harris landed in Singapore later that year to declare the US “an arsenal of safe and effective vaccines for our entire world.” Australia is key to vaccine diplomacy too. On his visit here earlier this year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a point of visiting the University of Melbourne’s Biomedical Precinct to talk about COVID-19, declaring on Australian television that our nation was central to “looking Image 5: United States Secretary of State Lloyd J Austin III meets with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in July 2021 for negotiations on renewing the Visiting Forces Agreement at the problems that afflict our people as well as the opportunities…dealing with COVID…[in] new coalitions [and] new partnerships.” These views are backed up locally too. Sitting down for an exclusive interview with OmniSci Magazine last year, Dr Amanda Caples, Lead Scientist of Victoria, was keen to characterise her work in terms of these developments, reminding us that Victoria had been key to “improving the understanding of the immunology and epidemiology of the virus, developing vaccines and treatments and leading research into the social impact of the pandemic”, and emphasising Australia’s national interest, declaring that “global policymakers understand that a high performing science and research system benefits the broader economy…science and research contribute to jobs and prosperity for all rather than just the few.” Science, it seems, whether in vaccines, trade or exchanges, just like fifty years ago, is again to be a key tool for grand strategy and national interests. Image 6: Dr Amanda Caples, Lead Scientist of Victoria ARGUMENTS AND ARMS But perhaps even this might be too optimistic an outlook – for that simmering balance of power occasionally boils over. We need only to look at what happened when the détente of Nixon and Brezhnev was dashed to pieces with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The policy was roundly condemned as sheer naïveté in the face of wily adversaries, with President Ronald Reagan later describing détente in a radio address as “what a farmer has with his turkey – until Thanksgiving Day”. Science was the first target for diplomatic attacks. After the invasion, Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) launched legislation barring the National Science Foundation from funding trips to the USSR. And the push seemed bipartisan, with Representative George Brown Jr. (D-CA-36) proposing a House Joint Resolution enacting an immediate “halt [to] official travel related to scientific and technical cooperation with the Soviet Union”. Image 7: Russia’s cosmonauts board the ISS on 18th March 2022, shortly before Russia ends its participation in the program Now, as we face war on the European continent, even the ISS – the descendant of Apollo-Soyuz’s seemingly-apolitical scientific endeavours – seems to be falling apart spectacularly. On April 2 this year, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced that it would be ending its participation in the ISS program, demanding a “full and unconditional removal of…sanctions” imposed over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier in the year, Roscosmos’ Director General Dmitry Rogozin openly suggested on Twitter that the ISS being without Russian involvement would lead to “an uncontrolled deorbit and fall [of the station] into the United States or Europe”, alluding to “the option of dropping a 500-ton structure [on] India and China.” Rogozin’s threats became even more pronounced as the war continued, with Roscosmos producing a video depicting Russia’s two astronauts on the station not bringing NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei back to Earth with them (American astronauts primarily go to and return from space via Russian Soyuz capsules). Shared by Russian state news, its chilling final scenes show the Russian segment of the ISS detaching too, with Vande Hei presumably left to die in space aboard the station. Such attacks need not remain rhetorical, either. Scientific advancements have long been tied to weaponry and defence systems, with mathematicians and physicists from John Littlewood to Richard Feynman involved in making bombs and ballistics in times of war. Even Arecibo, that bastion of a united humanity, began life as a Department of Defence initiative detecting Soviet ballistic missiles. Today, the AUKUS defence partnership – one of the most significant Indo-Pacific defence developments in recent memory – centres on sharing nuclear submarine science and technology, promising scientific cooperation regarding “cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and additional undersea capabilities”. Even if induced by factors beyond our control, such weapons-based science is a far cry from the pacifist ideals of the Arecibo message. Thus, perhaps this messy reality is more central to our science than we like to admit. From the ISS to Australia’s waters, science still is intertwined with conflict and frequently co-opted by geopolitical actors in times of renewed aggression. Science at its worst is mere weaponry. But at its best, it speaks to something greater. HOPE IN THE DARKNESS In June 1977, the world was far from diplomatically stagnant. From the rumblings of Middle Eastern peace (what became the Camp David Accords) to new hopes of nuclear arms reduction, US President Jimmy Carter had quite the array of diplomatic dilemmas to consider. But amidst all that cold politics, he penned a letter to be sent on board the spacecraft Voyager, now the furthest manmade object from our solar system, declaring “We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours…This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.” And if this magazine has purported to speak to the ‘alien’ – far removed from our human lives - then perhaps we have discovered quite the opposite: that looking out up there is so much about looking in down here. Science presents a way we can look out at the alien and see ourselves – “survive our time…into yours”, finding a path ahead reflected in the inky blackness above. We are often constrained by time and circumstance, forced in the face of nefarious actors to compromise our idealism and use science as a mere weapon or tool. Discovery for discovery’s sake is frequently the first casualty when battle lines are drawn and aggression begun, and too often the political pessimism of the scientist can seem overpowering. But if the stories of broken détentes, diplomatic realpolitik and weaponised technology have made it all feel inevitable, then perhaps it is worth considering the story we began with, looking up into the night sky and remembering that somewhere amidst the stars is a tiny warble in the electromagnetic spectrum. Long after the funds and papers that forged it have faded away, after the people who wrote it have perished, it will continue. In its odd combination of ones and zeroes, it will represent humanity: our contradictions and our fears, our constant foibles and infighting, but also our occasional glimpses of a future beyond them. A signal…a reminder that when the times, the people Image 8: President Jimmy Carter’s message, sent aboard Voyager, the furthest man-made probe from Earth and the ideas line up just right, science can be the torchbearer for something greater. Something so rare that amidst all the ills of the world, it often seems non-existent, and so powerful that over two millennia ago, Aeschylus himself deemed it the very thing given to humanity by Prometheus to save us from destruction – the ideal that transformed us from mortals fixated on ourselves and our deaths to a civilisation capable of great things. “τυφλὰς…ἐλπίδας”, he called it: blind hope. A handshake in a capsule. A life-saving jab on board a ship. A binary message in a bottle, out among the stars. Fleeting images – not of what we are, but of what we can be: visions of blind hope, that sheer belief that we can grow past our worst violent impulses and reach out into the great beyond. Maybe it’s foolish. Maybe it’s naïve. But, on a brisk fall evening, looking out at a sky full of stars, each one more twinkling than the last, it’s easy to stop and imagine…maybe it’s the only thing that matters. Andrew Lim is an Editor and Feature Writer with OmniSci Magazine and led the team behind the Australian Finalist Submission to the New Arecibo Message Challenge. Image Credits (in order): National Atmospheric and Ionosphere Centre; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; National Archives Nixon White House Photo Office Collection; Kith Serey/Pool via Reuters; Malacanang Presidential Photo via Reuters; The Office of the Lead Scientist of Victoria; AP; National Aeronautics and Space Administration Previous article Next article alien back to

By Renee Papaluca < Back to Issue 3 In conversation with Paul Beuchat By Renee Papaluca 10 September 2022 Edited by Zhiyou Low and Andrew Lim Illustrated by Ravon Chew Next Paul is currently a postdoctoral teaching fellow in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology. In his spare time, he enjoys overnight hikes, fixing bikes, and rock climbing. Note: The following exchange has been edited and condensed. What was the ‘lightbulb moment’ that prompted you to study science? I often say that I chose engineering a little bit by not wanting to choose anything else. I think it also played into my strengths back in high school. I wasn't particularly into English, history or languages but I really enjoyed physics, chemistry and maths. So, that already drew me to science broadly. What ended up directing me towards engineering, and particularly mechanical engineering, was just always tinkering at home. My dad was always tinkering and building things. We had a garage with all of the tools necessary, and I had free rein to pull things apart and put them back together. Mechanical engineering was a way of taking a more formal route of enjoyment into the hobby. Why did you choose to pursue a research pathway? After I finished my double degrees in Science and Engineering, I got a job, which I enjoyed. It was fun working with a bigger team. In this case, it was an oil and gas company with some pretty big equipment involved. This wasn’t just tinkering with something little in the garage, but something on an industrial scale. At some stage, though, I felt like there was a bit missing. There was a research arm as part of the company, but that wasn't somewhere that I could get to. I was excited by the kind of work being done in that area, and I saw a PhD as a way of pursuing that love so that I could then work on those sorts of exciting things. What advice would you give to students considering a research pathway? Certainly, while I was a PhD, all the postdocs would say that the PhD was the best time of their life. Then the PhDs would say that the Masters was the best. So, be prepared for it to be hard. The advice is to be passionate about the topic and not be fearful about uncertainty or knowing the exact topic straightaway. Also, you likely will need a lot of support to get through the hard parts. It’s nice to have tangential input in the form of seminars, visiting academics from other institutions or even from PhDs in the same group or department. This input gives you new knowledge, new exciting fields and new industry connections. What sparked your love of teaching? My original intention was to complete my PhD, gain the relevant skills and return to the industry. My passion for teaching was sparked during my PhD experience; I got to supervise Masters students that are working on a larger project with me. It was a close collaboration with someone, where you start the process of teaching them whatever the topic is. You work on it together, and eventually, the student becomes the master. They can now guide you along, as well as having vibrant discussions together. That's what I find exciting about tertiary education more broadly - we all are pushing the limits of engineering to achieve better outcomes together. What does your day-to-day life as a teaching fellow look like? One of the focuses of my position was to include more project-based teaching, i.e. to include more hands-on education and work in the classroom, which was not included previously. I got the opportunity to create a new subject. I initially spent a lot of time developing what it was going to be. My day-to-day work included choosing new topics to add to the subject and linking them to a hands-on project, like a ground robot. There's a whole bunch of work that goes into designing a robot and the relevant software on top of preparing lecture slides and delivery—all these bits and pieces that make up a subject. Scattered throughout all this is teaching research; the teaching team assesses the students, and I need to assess the teaching itself. For instance, I need to understand what is being attempted in a particular class, what we are intending to achieve and how this aligns with the current best practices in education research publications. What advice would you give to students considering academic teaching as a career? One of the very nice things here at the University of Melbourne is the support teaching staff can receive through the Graduate Certificate of University Teaching. This gives you insight into and guidance on how to tackle the whole field. For instance, one of the lecturers mentioned that you have to be passionate about teaching because it has its ups and downs. Certainly, while developing a new subject, I found it to be quite stressful. It’s a different way of thinking, and all-new terminology, which is exciting and scary, and that took me a little bit by surprise. Where I shot myself in the foot the most was trying to do too much. I was in a very lucky position where I had free rein to make a subject as hands-on as possible, which opened the floodgates to possibilities. Prioritising was extremely important. It's not that you don’t try everything, but trying too many new exciting ideas at the same time means they probably are all going to fail or take an exorbitant amount of time to implement properly. Being realistic in my instruction was important. Also, having a mentor or someone you can talk very openly with was helpful. What are your future plans? For now, my intention is to stay in teaching. I’d like to push this position to the limits of what I can achieve and see where it takes me. I can also imagine the level of curriculum redesign in shifting whole courses to project-based learning. Current reports, like from the Council of Engineering Deans, are pushing for all engineering education to shift over to project-based learning within the next five to ten years. I’d like to continue teaching, with a view to contributing to higher-level curriculum development. Previous article Next article alien back to

< Back to Issue 4 Echidnas: Gentle Courters In The Competitive Animal Kingdom by Emily Siwing Xia 1 July 2023 Edited by Maddison Moore and Arwen Nguyen-Ngo Illustrated by Christy Yung When we think of animals or nature in competition, we picture aggression and savagery over resources such as food, territory and mates. Beyond aggression, however, the variety of animal behaviour associated with competition for resources is immense. A gentle form of competition is the bizarre mating ritual of our own unique Australian fauna: the echidna. Known as Tachyglossus Aculeatus and spiny anteaters, echidnas are quill-covered animals living in Australia and New Guinea. Since Australia is so isolated from other continents, our fauna has often been regarded by outsiders with an air of mystery and awe. To start with, echidnas are in the same family as the famed platypus, called monotremes (egg-laying mammals). Surviving monotreme species can only be found in Australia and New Guinea. The four species of echidnas, along with their duck-billed cousin, are the very few surviving members in this classification. Despite the similarities in their name and appearance in both being covered with hollow, spiny quills, these spiny anteaters are not actually closely related to the more well-known anteaters in the Americas on a genetic and evolutionary basis. Echidnas feed on a diet of ants and termites, using their electroreceptive beaks to find burrowing prey digging them out with their hind claws. These powerful claws are long and curved backwards, specially designed for digging. Funnily, when the British Museum received an echidna specimen, they switched the backward claws frontwards thinking that it was a mistake. As mentioned before, mating rituals can be a violent (even bloody) ordeal in nature. From barbed penises in cats and deadly fights for females in elephant seals, straight to sexual cannibalism in praying mantises, there seems to be endless examples of brutality in the animal world. However, behind these brutal images is another side of nature that seems gentle and even humorous at times: for example, the ritual of our spiny suitors. Echidna mating rituals begin with the formation of a mating train. From June to September in Australia, male echidnas mate by lining up — from their beak tips to their spiny bottoms — to follow behind one single female. These trains can have more than 10 males in line and last for days, even weeks, at a time. During the mating season, male echidnas may leave a train to join or form a different train behind another eligible female. Their mating efforts often lead males to travel for long distances, even beyond their own home ranges. If the males get interrupted and lose track of the female, they reform their train by picking up her scent with their snouts in the air. They are such determined suitors that it is extremely difficult for a female echidna to evade them. Usually, there is one male that remains through the long-winded process, and they get to mate with the female. The reason behind forming echidna trains is unknown, but scientists generally agree that it is correlated with some type of selection process. One theory is that it aids the female in weeding out all the weaker males by tiring them out until the last one remains. Another is that the female is waiting for the right male that she is interested in to get behind her. Either way, it is a process of determination and perseverance. In exceedingly rare occasions where there are still multiple suitors left at the end, the males dig a trench surrounding the female and compete through head bumping. Although there is still much not understood about head bumping due to its scarce occurrence, it is generally considered an echidna social behaviour that serves to maintain dominance. Head bumps are generally only given by dominant echidnas to subordinate echidnas who haven’t recognised their dominance status and moved away. This rarely happens and is a relatively peaceful affair compared to conflicts in other animals. The winner of the mating head bumping ritual then digs until the previously mentioned trench is deep enough for him to be below the female so they can mate through their cloacas. 23 days after copulation, the female lays a soft-shelled leathery egg into a temporary pouch where it continues to incubate for 10 more days when a tiny puggle (a baby echidna or platypus) hatches. The puggle drinks milk from the female’s special mammary hairs until it is capable of feeding itself and has fully covered spines and fur. At last, the matured echidna leaves their mother’s burrow to live independently. The mating rules and practices amongst echidnas are a demonstration of patience and courtesy. This contrasts with the general public misconception of nature being merciless, which is characterised by the brutal competition for food, social status and mating opportunities. Although they are in the same competition for a mate, the lines of waddling echidnas are polite, organised and humorous. Behind the mask of brutality, nature continues to have its pleasant secrets. References Morrow G, Nicol SC. Cool Sex? Hibernation and Reproduction Overlap in the Echidna. PLoS One. 2009 Jun 29;4(6):e6070. Echidna [Internet]. AZ Animals. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/echidna/ Anne Marie Musser. Echidna | Britannica [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.britannica.com/animal/echidna-monotreme Echidna trains: explained [Internet]. Australian Geographic. August 6, 2021 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2021/08/echidna-trains-explained/ Lindenfors P, Tullberg BS. Evolutionary aspects of aggression the importance of sexual selection. Adv Genet. 2011;75:7–22. Warm Your Heart With Videos of ‘Echidna Love Trains’ [Internet]. Atlas Obscura. September 1, 2017. [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/echidna-love-trains Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 8 Glowing Limelight, Fashioned Stars by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin 3 June 2025 Edited by Kylie Wang Illustrated by Jessica Walton Good evening Rose Bowl, Pasadena! The crowd erupts into a roar, the stadium air overcome with a thunder of adulation. Between throngs of teenagers tearing through streets in pursuit of the Beatles, concert-goers fainting at the sight of Michael Jackson, and Top Tens of the day made to navigate flirty fan calls on daytime TV in front of live audiences (1), pop history as we know it has always revolved around the deep, fanatic reverence of the star . Stars in all corners of the entertainment cosmos, be it music, film or TV, have long had their lives glamorised. Tales told of luxurious jet-setting, post-show mischief and infamous public appearances peppered with paparazzi. Fame turned into fables, circulated eagerly by the wider populace. Having avidly followed a plethora of musicians, actors and comedians at different points of my own life, the gurgling vortex of stardom culture has remained ever-intriguing. Why do our relationships with stars mean so much to our society, and have they shifted over time? Public perceptions & parasocial relationships Our journey begins with the making of a star. A star is born from an assemblage of artistic choices: artwork, stage personas, press releases, bold onstage costumes and more, which constellate into a fashioned image. Or, a ‘manufactured personal reality’ (2). This reality is what audiences draw upon when forming attachments to stars, a process that moulds complex, contradicting human beings into idealised forms that may resonate, validate or provide meaning to them. The mid-century women empowered by the feminine sexuality and intelligence of Marilyn Monroe (2), or the working class Eastern European following of Depeche Mode who saw the band as an emblem of social rebellion under the USSR in the late 80s (3), are such examples. Such attachment gives rise to the infamous ‘parasocial relationship’ (PSR). An often derisive term aptly used today to call out toxic, boundary-crossing online fan behaviour, parasocial relationships at their core simply encompass socio-emotional connections formed with media figures (4). In it, audiences extend emotional energy, time or interest towards figures that whilst unreciprocated, create a perceived idea of intimacy similar to that of two-way relationships. For the audience, PSRs can evoke feelings of safety, trust and various forms of devotion, self-strengthened through personal habits – think dressing like a favourite ‘bias’, or diligently watching a favourite director’s closet picks. PSRs have historically been one-sided. Audience reactions to sensation and scandal have had the power to make or break an artist’s image, but restricted channels of dialogue meant that direct two-way feedback was often “fragmented” (2). The influencing power of the star’s image lay within reach of the star themselves, and more often than not, was shaped by the wider commercial agendas of their agency or labels. That is, until recently… The rise of the Internet Whilst the glitz and glamour of stardom remains strongly relevant, we can focus on the advent of the internet as the most powerful force in reshaping the relationship between fan and star. Termed the “o ne and a half sided” PSR (4), seen today is a shift in power dynamics towards one of increased fan-star symbiosis. As the theory notes, technology has allowed for greater perceived proximity and reciprocity, blurring the line between social and parasocial. Under the extensive nature of the current digital world, our internet presence has become increasingly considered a material extension of our real-life selves (4), whether through Zoom calls, real-time story updates or live vlogs. Direct messages or comments that allow instant reply have muddied the realm of physical and virtual reality, thus leading audiences to feel ‘physically’ closer to the figures in question. This decrease in constructed social distance has fostered notions of reciprocity, viewing stars as people they can reach out to and touch, converse with, and most importantly, influence in return – regardless of any actual ability to do so (4). As we witness stars defend their personal choices against an onslaught of ‘netizen’ backlash or wryly reply to a barrage of invasive thirst tweets (5), we see the increased power that global audiences have over said stars’ images. Eroded power barriers between the star and fan have heightened both positive and negative emotional engagement. Well-documented are various behaviours that disrespect boundaries between personal and professional lives, such as harassment, stalking, and other breaches of privacy. Yet, the rise of the ordinary, accessible star has also allowed greater exposure to previously hidden or stigmatised facets of figures’ lives, fostering safe spaces for perceived authenticity and vulnerability that can counter blind idealisation (6). Evolving industries & societies Under the diluted power networks of stardom today, we can describe celebrity image production as increasingly decentralised (6). Technology has made entry into the entertainment industry more accessible by providing numerous channels for artistic output, whether it be through releasing music independently on streaming services like Spotify, Bandcamp or Soundcloud, or creating short-form video skits on platforms like TikTok or Instagram. With top-down connections to age-old media institutions no longer required, the pool of faces that audiences can form relationships with has drastically expanded (7). Social norms – at the time of writing – have also welcomed the notion of diversified talents. As prevailing social, cultural and political structures shape value judgments made of stars (2), we have seen increased audience meaning-making in the dimensions of gender, ethnicity, class or sexual orientation over past decades (8) aligned with a gradual direction towards progressive and learned landscapes. Here, celebrity advocacy for causes and movements beyond the stage is nothing new, but fan bases can now dissect their forays into activism more publicly than ever before. A world unapologetically critical of “out of touch” (9) wealthy stars crooning out Lennon’s Imagine at the beginning of the pandemic would unlikely have welcomed the white-saviorist charity event that was Live Aid 1985 with as open arms as the dominant media narrative did then (10). A hyper-consumerist present If the exclusive stardom of yore can be likened to the dominance of a supermarket monopoly, then stardom today looks more like a diverse hub of online stores for buyers to ‘Click and Collect’ from. Whilst this setup offers diversified perspectives to a consuming audience, it embodies wider societal trends towards hyper-commodification. Market an image that sells well, and everyone will be famous for 15 minutes , as Andy Warhol supposedly declared (11). Reinforcing the ephemerality of mass consumerism are internet memes or trends (12) that morph and dilute rebellious celebrity motifs for overarching capitalistic agendas – think Brat Summer campaigns in the style of Charli xcx’s 2024 album co-opted by the most unethical multinational corporation you’ve ever come across. Like with the discourse exposing ‘nepo’ babies in the entertainment industry (13), we are reminded that despite the semblances of democratisation, the limelight remains far from a level stage. Stardom, beyond So what then? What lies in store for the future star? On one hand, the perception of proximity with the decline of ‘untouchable’ star personas can strengthen fan worship and deification, with frenzied consequences. On the other hand, increased artist-audience dialogue can pave the way for real change over performative gestures as lessening power imbalances bring a form of democratisation that can platform diverse and marginalised voices in art. All in all, stars today may no longer be able to fully present themselves and be perceived solely as spectral, enigmatic illusions that audiences can latch upon, but the new freedoms and avenues that come with being more truly known may be just as bedazzling. References 1. Robinson P. The great pop power shift: how online armies replaced fan clubs. The Guardian [Internet]. 2014 Aug 25; Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/25/great-pop-power-shift-how-online-armies-replaced-fan-clubs 2. Dyer R. Introduction. In: Heavenly Bodies [Internet]. Routledge; 2004. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203605516 3. Wynarczyk N. Tracing Eastern Europe’s obsession with Depeche Mode [Internet]. Dazed. 2017. Available from: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/36659/1/tracing-eastern-europe-s-obsession-with-depeche-mode 4. Hoffner CA, Bond BJ. Parasocial Relationships, Social Media, & Well-Being. Current Opinion in Psychology [Internet]. 2022 Feb;45(1):1–6. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101306 5. Yodovich N. Buzzfeed’s “celebrities reading thirst tweets”: examining the sexualization of men and women in the #MeToo era. Journal of gender studies. 2024 Feb 28;33(8):1–11. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2024.2324263 6. Driessens O. The Celebritization of Society and Culture: Understanding the Structural Dynamics of Celebrity Culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies [Internet]. 2013;16(6):641–57. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877912459140 7. Carboni M. The digitization of music and the accessibility of the artist. Journal of Professional Communication [Internet]. 2014 Jun 4;3(2). Available from: https://doi.org/10.15173/jpc.v3i2.163 8. Stewart S, Giles D. Celebrity status and the attribution of value. European Journal of Cultural Studies [Internet]. 2019 Jul 21;23(1). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419861618 9. Caramanica J. This “Imagine” Cover Is No Heaven. The New York Times [Internet]. 2020 Mar 20; Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/arts/music/coronavirus-gal-gadot-imagine.html 10. Grant J. Live Aid/8: perpetuating the superiority myth. Critical Arts [Internet]. 2015 May 4;29(3):310–26. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2015.1059547 11. Nuwer R. Andy Warhol Probably Never Said His Celebrated “Fifteen Minutes of Fame” Line [Internet]. Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Magazine; 2014. Available from: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/andy-warhol-probably-never-said-his-celebrated-fame-line-180950456/ 12. Cirisano T. “Brat” summer and the dilemmas of going mainstream [Internet]. MIDiA Research. 2024. Available from: https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/brat-summer-and-the-dilemmas-of-going-mainstream 13. Jones N. How a Nepo Baby Is Born [Internet]. Vulture. 2022. Available from: https://www.vulture.com/article/what-is-a-nepotism-baby.html Previous article Next article Enigma back to

< Back to Issue 4 PT by Saachin Simpson 1 July 2023 Edited by Caitlin Kane, Rachel Ko and Patrick Grave Illustrated by Jolin See 'Pt' (medical abbreviation for ‘patient’) recounts a patient visit on an early-morning ward round at Footscray Hospital in my first placement as a second-year medical student. The line “I came to hospital with my innocence” was actually said by the patient and stuck with me, eventually inspiring this poem, which I wrote in a Narrative Medicine class run by Dr Fiona Reilly and Dr Mariam Tokhi. The poem depicts a dramatic rise and fall in tension during the patient visit. It is bookended by soulless technical medical abbreviations that exemplify patient notes on electronic medical records. Pt Pt alert and oriented, sitting upright in chair. Breathing comfortably, responsive to questions. Bilat basal creps, bilat pitting oedema to knee. Pt gazes out window at the opposite concrete wall Pt’s cataracts suddenly shimmer, a sorcerer’s crystal ball. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt’s power becomes apparent in his mighty ocular grip Pt’s lungs echo black tattered sails of a ramshackle timber ship. “I came to hospital with my innocence” Professional, qualified eyes dart from computer To patient And back. “and now I muse on dark and violent tricks” Med student looks at intern looks at reg looks at consultant. Feet shuffle, lips purse Pretending not to hear. “Your poisons gift no remedy, your words fat and hollow” Like a serpentine hiss, his derision rings through sterile air 5-step Therapeutic Guidelines for Reassurance (vol 23.4, updated 2023) does little for his despair. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt need not speak for his stony grimace conveys Pt’s sheer and utter avowal of his final dying days. Pt to await GEM. Frusemide 40mmHg. Cease abx. Refer physio. Refer OT. Call family. For d/c Monday. Previous article Next article back to MIRAGE

< Back to Issue 8 Friend or Foe?: The Mechanisms Behind Facial Recognition by Mishen De Silva 3 June 2025 Edited by Luci Ackland Illustrated by Aisyah Mohammad Sulhanuddin Among the many mysteries which encompass the world around us, lies a complex interaction right under our nose, or perhaps… right above it. In the labyrinth of human consciousness, we rely on the seemingly arbitrary judgements made from the combination of two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, to discern who might be a friend or foe. Facial recognition gives a snapshot into the intricate dance between our perception and cognition, which allows us to cultivate a more detailed understanding of those around us, and their thoughts, feelings and emotions. In those fleeting moments when you recognise your parents in a sea of unfamiliar faces, spot your friends ensconced among the rows of the lecture theatre, or simply bump into an old friend in a crowd of unacquainted strangers, your brain is able to identify faces in a fraction of a second, a remarkable feat of the human cognitive capacity. But what enables us to distinguish one face from another? How do the faces of those we know stand out from the countless other noses, eyes and mouths we see? To understand what makes these interactions so meaningful, we need to take a closer look at the mechanisms behind facial recognition and decoding within the brain. The Brain’s Blueprint To be human is to seek meaning, even when none may exist. The mind has transformed what is two eyes above a nose, and a nose above a mouth, into its own pattern for classifying the identities and expressions we see around us. Many studies have suggested facial processing to be holistic, where the featural patterns of the eyes, nose and mouth are perceived together and upright (1,2). This mechanism of holistic facial processing explains the interesting phenomena behind pareidolia, where the brain adapts the characteristics of human faces onto everyday objects. It’s the reason why when glancing at a bowling ball it may appear surprised (3), or why some have sworn to see a face on Mars (4)! Figure 1. Bowling balls with surprised facial expressions! (3) In pursuit of meaning for the patterns around us, the brain has developed specialised regions for processing the features of a face to help us recognise individual identities. Facial processing operates through a hierarchical mechanism where distinct aspects of the face are interpreted by different regions of the brain. The unchanging elements of the face such as gender, age, ethnicity and features related to someone’s identity are analysed by the Inferior Occipital Gyrus and Fusiform Face Area (FFA), while the changing aspects such as eye gaze, lip movements and facial expressions are analysed by the Superior Temporal Sulcus and Orbitofrontal Cortex (5,6). Of these face-selective regions, the FFA is particularly important for facial recognition as it helps us recognise who a person is (5). Through the activation of our FFA simple patterns shift from meaningless shapes into familiar visages representing our friends, family, or even our own reflection. Studies have uncovered the importance of the FFA for facial recognition by examining what may happen when this brain region malfunctions (7,8). A unique example of this is prosopagnosia, which results from damage to the FFA in the right hemisphere of the brain (9). Prosopagnosia is a relatively rare condition affecting about 1 in 50 people, impairing their ability to recognise faces (9). Imagine if every face you observed looked the same or unfamiliar… even your own reflection! It is through the brain and its specialised regions for facial recognition where we can appreciate the essence of human connection as a result of our neural hardware. These mechanisms responsible for transforming patterns into faces are the reason we can recognise our neighbour from a stranger, friend from a classmate, or our parents from a teacher. Often overlooked amidst the fleeting and impermanent nature of our social interactions, this complex system guides us along the fragile line of human relationships, between familiarity and estrangement, a friend or foe. It highlights how deeply-rooted our connection and sense of identity is to the faces we see. The Brain’s Threat Detection With each neuron, synapse and pathway, our brains are machines wired for connection, not just in how we think, but also in how we perceive and interact with our surroundings. From the brief exchange of smiles with a stranger, to the furtive glare from someone across the room, one of the hallmarks of our emotional understanding is the ability to decode the thoughts and intentions of others, even from the most subtle of expressions. In the vast and intricate web of neural connectivity, it can be difficult to isolate a singular brain region or connection to explain complex cognitive functions. Brain imaging studies have found a strong bidirectional link between the FFA and amygdala, making this a likely candidate for explaining our remarkable decoding ability (10,11). As the FFA picks up on who a person is or what facial expression is being made, it is the amygdala which then evaluates the emotional salience, or importance, of this face. The amygdala then signals back to the FFA to either increase or decrease the facial processing activity accordingly (10,12). Consider how the visibility of teeth in a barred expression can signal anger, the whiteness of someone’s eyes can hint fear or surprise, and the shape of a person’s eyebrows can indicate the intensity of their emotion, all which guide the brain to prioritise and interpret socially and emotionally relevant cues – almost like a survival filter! (13,14,15). From an evolutionary perspective, the FFA-amygdala feedback loop serves as an important tool for rapidly and accurately interpreting the intentions of others, a pinnacle function in the architecture of our physical and social survival (16). The ability to recognise whether someone poses a friend or foe has been a survival mechanism and evolutionary advantage for millennia. The role of our facial processing network, from the amygdala and FFA, to other brain regions discussed, provides a microcosm into our nature as social beings, and our evolutionary selective changes, which have enhanced our ability to sense, respond to, and connect with those around us (17). In this way, maybe the most profound mysteries lie not in distant galaxies or ancient ruins, but are hidden in plain sight, within the faces we walk past every day. Our brain’s ability to read them is not merely a mechanism for decoding emotion, but a mirror into the nature of what it means to be human, where connection, trust, and survival have long been written in the expressions of those around us. References 1. Farah M, Wilson K, Drain M, Tanaka J. What is “special” about face perception?. Psychological Review [Internet]. 1998 Aug [cited 2025 May 14]; 105(3):482–98. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5561817/ 2. Richler J, Gauthier I. A meta-analysis and review of holistic face processing. Psychological Bulletin [Internet]. 2014 Sep [cited 2025 May 14]; 140(5): 1281–302. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24956123/ 3. What do you think these bowling balls saw to leave them so surprised & shocked?. Reddit [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2025 May 31]. Available from: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pareidolia/comments/zc12jo/what_do_you_think_these_bowling_balls_saw_to/#lightbox 4. Gilbert L. Why the brain is programmed to see faces in everyday objects. UNSW Sites [Internet]. 2020 Aug [cited 2025 May 14]. Available from: https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/08/why-brain-programmed-see-faces-everyday-objects 5. Kanwisher N, Yovel G. The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences [Internet]. 2006 Dec 29 [cited 2025 May 14]; 361(1476):2109–28. 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American Journal of Physical Anthropology [Internet]. 2001 [cited 2025 May 14]; 116(S33):3–24. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11786989/ 17. Carter E, Pelphrey K. Friend or foe? Brain systems involved in the perception of dynamic signals of menacing and friendly social approaches. Social Neuroscience [Internet]. 2008 Jun [cited 2025 May 14]; 3(2):151–63. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18633856/ Previous article Next article Enigma back to