NeeDoh is the latest squishy sensory toy to go viral. Social media is reporting how these blobs of gel are flying off the shelves, and are in short supply.

But squishy sensory toys have been around much longer than this latest fad. You might remember putty, slime or stress balls.

So why are these products so popular? And when are sensory objects more than just toys?

What are these products?

NeeDoh is one of many stress-ball-esque, pliable, squeezable products.

They’re mainly made from a type of rubber or polymer. And their composition affects their consistency, pliability, texture and ability to form shapes.

For instance, they can be soft, stretchy and oozy while still being able to hold a shape. Some form into a ball and can bounce.

Often, the products are said to be non-toxic, durable and satisfying to squeeze repeatedly.

Why do people like them?

People find such products appealing for a number of reasons. This might depend on their personal preference, sensory sensitivity among neurodivergent people, energy levels, or a combination. They might:

• enjoy the tactile experience

• find it makes them feel calm

• allows them to focus more easily

• use these products to avoid other behaviours, such as nail biting.

Neuroscience helps explain some of this.

Brain regions associated with planning and emotional regulation are activated when adults squeeze a soft or medium density stress ball. This might explain why some people can feel calm or say they can focus on a task more easily.

The brain also wants fingers and hands to fidget and tinker, even when doing sedentary activities like reading. So rather than using hands for less accepted behaviours, such as skin picking or nail biting, they can be used to squish these objects. It can be comforting when we see others fidgeting too as it makes it more socially acceptable.

But not everyone likes how these squishable objects make them feel. Others find the sensation unpleasant or even painful.

We have neural circuits in our body and brain responsible for perceiving and processing incoming sensory information from the world around us, such as light, sound, pressure and temperature.

These circuits form a loop between our brain and body to work out if we find these sensations pleasant or unpleasant. If there is too much sensory input at one time, we can even find these sensations painful.

The serious side of sensory products

Sensory objects are more than a marketing gimmick. They are increasingly used in schools, but with mixed results.

There have been no formal studies on the educational benefits of NeeDoh. However, we can look at studies on fidget tools, such as fidget spinners or fidget cubes, in the classroom.

Some studies in primary school-age children show fidget tools increase on-task behaviour, decrease hyperactivity movements for children with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). However, the results differ based on the type of fidget tool. There’s also limited evidence to show these tools help students accurately complete school work, such as answering a maths question.

Different children may also benefit from different types of fidget tool, depending on their needs and how stimulating their environment is. So it’s best to consult a health-care professional who will usually recommend a specific tool for a specific therapeutic purpose.

For instance, a wobble stool may be recommended to reduce hyperactive movement for one child or to increase movement and energy levels for a different child.

But the real benefit from the increased use of sensory objects in classrooms is this can increase acceptance of neurodivergence and make it more acceptable for those who once felt they had to mask their use.

Sensory tools are also being trialled in higher education. Our first-year students at Bond University set up “sensory toolboxes” to help the on-campus experience for neurodivergent students.

These boxes included items in a variety of textures and pliability. Items were “no sound” to reduce noise reverberation, which some people find unpleasant. Items included those that were smooth, bendy, stretchy, tactile and squishy. NeeDoh cubes were the most popular.

But these items weren’t only popular with students. Some educators said they also enjoyed the sensory stimulation of holding items from the box as they taught classes.

In a nutshell

If you enjoy their texture, and how they make you feel, there’s no harm in using squishable objects like NeeDoh.

These remind us that people experience textures and use their hands in different ways, and for different reasons.

But if you or your child want to use sensory tools therapeutically, check in with a health professional and your child’s inclusive-education teacher to match you with the right type. This may not be a squishable one.

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised no new taxes on Australia’s gas exports in next month’s federal budget, saying the government “will not undermine existing contracts”. Questioned further, he said future gas tax changes aren’t being contemplated either.

That hasn’t stopped the growing calls for higher taxes on gas exporters, with an unusual coalition of the Greens, One Nation, independent Senator David Pocock and others arguing the industry has been paying far too little for too long.

Responding to those criticisms, the oil and gas industry has pointed out it is among Australia’s highest corporate taxpayers.

That’s true: the Australian Tax Office reported late last year that oil and gas companies paid A$10.4 billion in company tax in 2023–24, or 10.9% of the total corporate tax levied in that year.

But it’s also true that Australia doesn’t get as much back for gas extracted offshore and sold overseas as you might think – especially when gas prices are high.

If the federal government is willing to rethink gas taxes in future, Queensland’s Liberal National government has already shown there’s another way to get a better return for natural resources.

How Queensland got more for less gas

The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) is a federal tax first set up in 1988, used to make companies pay to extract a finite natural resource owned by the Australian people.

Since then, gas has grown to become Australia’s third biggest export earner, worth more than $67 billion in 2024.

Gas extracted from Commonwealth waters accounted for 70% of Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in 2024–25, while Queensland shipped the remaining 30% from within the state.

Yet surprisingly, gas and oil exporters actually paid less tax on the gas and oil extracted from the larger areas under the federal government’s control in 2024–25. The federal government received $1.42 billion in PRRT, while the Queensland government was paid $1.69 billion in petroleum royalties, including gas converted into LNG.

How much more Queensland is earning for gas

Queensland taxes its gas, oil, coal and other natural resources extracted within the state using royalty payments. For oil and gas, when prices are low, companies pay less; when prices rise, the companies pay more.

My colleague, industry analyst Josh Runciman, has shown that when global prices soared over recent years, such as after Russia invaded Ukraine, Queensland actually did a better job of getting a fairer share of those higher profits than the federal government. As his submission to the current Senate inquiry on gas taxes said:

From [financial year] 2018–19 to 2023–24, PRRT payments per gigajoule (GJ) of sale gas ranged from A$0.21–AU$0.41, well below royalties in Queensland, which were A$0.19–AU$1.57/GJ of gas over the same period. Queensland’s royalty revenues increased materially in years where LNG exporters earned windfall profits.

Tinkering with the PRRT hasn’t worked

Gas advocates point out that oil and gas companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in setting up Australia’s gas industry, without such large direct contributions from government. For instance, the Gorgon LNG project off Western Australia’s coast cost more than $50 billion alone.

That’s in contrast to some other countries, such as Norway, where the government took on more of the upfront costs and risks to get the gas industry going.

That’s why some – including the prime minister – argue Australia shouldn’t change its approach on gas taxes. On Wednesday, Albanese said:

Australians also have every right to expect a fair return for our country’s resources. And that’s why we reformed the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Two years ago, Labor acknowledged the PRRT needed to “deliver a fairer return to the Australian community”. Labor’s reforms were meant to bring in a further $2.4 billion over the following five years.

But even since then, expected PRRT revenue has been continually revised down, as last December’s official mid-year budget update noted:

Petroleum resource rent tax receipts have been revised down by $0.5 billion in 2025–26 and by $2.5 billion over the four years to 2027–28.

Reforms to the PRRT are yet to translate into significant change. It’s time to consider other options.

How coal royalties offer a model for gas

Four years ago, in the face of strong opposition, the Queensland government changed how it taxed coal.

Like former Reserve Bank deputy governor Stephen Grenville, I believe Queensland’s approach on coal royalties is worth considering as a future replacement for the PRRT.

When the average price of coal is very low, at $100 or less a tonne, companies are charged just 7% of its value. But as prices rise, so does the royalty. If the price of coal is above $300 a tonne, companies pay up to 40% on those super profits.

Of course, a royalty-based approach is not the only option the federal government could consider. As the table below shows, there are pros and cons to other options too, particularly the widely-supported tax on gas profits.

But Queensland’s approach on coal is worth looking at: it’s a proven solution, which strikes a balance between ensuring Queenslanders get more when prices are high, while also providing greater investment certainty when prices are lower.

Kevin Morrison is also an energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an independent think tank. He did his masters research on resource taxation in Australia.

Thirteen Australian women and children linked to ISIS have reportedly been blocked from leaving Syria again, with the Syrian Foreign Ministry blaming the Australian government, saying it had “refused to receive them”.

The ministry said the group was turned back before reaching Damascus International Airport to make their way back to Australia.

Earlier this year, a larger group of women and children attempted to leave their detention camps in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria to make their way to Australia, but they, too, were turned back by Syrian authorities.

At a press conference on Thursday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke reiterated the government’s stance that returning women who broke the law would face arrest. He added they may be “weighing up whether they want to come back to Australia ever”.

This comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said earlier this week Australia would provide “no support for repatriation and no assistance for these people”.

This is not an isolated development. Australia now appears to be moving towards an approach where repatriation is not formally undertaken, nor is it fully prevented.

Staged disengagement

At first glance, this latest case may appear to resemble an “independent return”. This means the women and children left the detention camps to try to return to Australia outside formal repatriation frameworks.

There have been rare precedents elsewhere. In the United Kingdom, Tareena Shakil famously arranged her own escape from ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and returned without government extraction. Similar cases occurred in Europe in the early years of the Syrian conflict.

But what is happening with the Australian women and children is different. They are not simply trying to escape on their own. They are attempting returns through complex and often opaque pathways, facilitated by a combination of local authorities, informal networks and pre-existing administrative processes.

Australian officials established the administrative groundwork to make these returns possible years ago when they visited detention camps (such as Al-Roj in northeastern Syria) to conduct identity checks. And in November 2022, the Albanese government conducted a one-off repatriation mission.

Now, however, the government is taking a hands-off approach until a return is already underway or inevitable. Only then is it issuing travel documents or processing individuals once they arrive.

This creates what might be described as a form of staged disengagement. The state withdraws from the politically sensitive act of “bringing people home” and instead threatens legal action if the women and children return. Any real action is deferred until the group is actually on a plane.

This approach raises a deeper question: is Australia merely outsourcing the risks and logistics of return?

Instead of managing repatriations directly, the government is placing the burden onto the women and those helping them to navigate uncertain and potentially dangerous pathways out of detention camps.

This has important consequences.

A coordinated repatriation process allows governments to control timing, gather information and prepare legal and rehabilitation responses in advance. In contrast, a fragmented and reactive return reduces visibility and limits the government’s ability to shape outcomes.

The result is a shift from proactive governance to selective engagement and prolonged inaction.

When law becomes the first response

The legal implications of this shift are significant.

When returns are unmanaged, the legal system effectively becomes the first point of state control. Rather than being one component of a broader repatriation framework, criminal law is pushed to the front of the process.

Members of the Albanese government have repeatedly stressed this fact in recent months, saying the returning women will face the “full force of the law”.

This compresses decision-making timelines and places greater weight on prosecutorial responses, often in the absence of complete evidence from conflict zones. Authorities are required to make rapid judgements about risk, culpability and prosecutions without the benefit of a structured pre-return assessment.

As a result, these ad hoc returns blur the line between policy and criminal justice. The legal system begins to absorb the functions of the government agencies that would ordinarily handle coordinated returns.

This means the law is no longer responding to policy. It is standing in for it.

Returns are happening, whether planned or not

The key takeaway is that the returns of these ISIS-linked women and children are no longer a hypothetical policy question. It is an ongoing process.

Australia’s current approach does not prevent return. Instead, it reshapes how returns occur, deflecting government responsibility.

In that sense, the issue is not simply a question of whether Australia should repatriate its citizens. It is whether a reactive, outsourced model can provide a coherent or sustainable basis for managing their returns.

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

The beaches of Sydney’s Royal National Park have been disrupted by a pungent odour. And its source is drawing in more than just seagulls.

A 25-tonne sperm whale is rotting on the rock platform of Era Beach. This spectacular sight is drawing in curious spectators and hungry predators.

The humans are keen for a photo op. The predators are drawn by the potential meal.

The lifeless whale may look inviting – to some. But it might be more dangerous for us humans to get close than you may suspect.

How often do whales wash up on shore?

This particular cetacean is likely to have died at sea some weeks ago. But unfortunately, many more whales are being stranded on rock platforms and beaches across the globe.

Strandings are not rare in Australia or New Zealand. Southeast Australia alone recorded 639 strandings between 1920 and 2002. The rate of whale strandings globally also seems to be climbing as some whale populations are recovering and there are more people out in nature to spot them.

Australia has also seen some of the largest mass strandings on record (it has the unenviable title of being a global hotspot). These include 470 long-finned pilot whales beached at Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour in 2020.

However, a single large carcass, like the Era Beach sperm whale, is more typical – and the one people are more likely to see.

It’s quite a spectacle

A decomposing whale is quite the spectacle. It’s a fascinating and morbid sight. According to one media report today:

Thin strips of flesh hang down like rotten tinsel, swaying in the wind. Glistening fluid trickles on to the stone where insects buzz.

Unsurprisingly, beached whales draw in curious people involved in both citizen science (when the public collects and analyses data about the world around us) and for the prospect of a grisly social media shot.

But frolicking around a huge dead beast has potential dangers. And in this case, the environment where the whale rests is the most significant factor.

The massive whale is decomposing on a rock shelf next to the ocean, with tides, waves, and swells. Standing on a rock ledge inspecting a whale means you’re not paying attention to your surroundings. This is how you can find yourself unintentionally entering the ocean.

The ocean may appear calm and forgiving when you first step onto that ledge to inspect the whale, but conditions can change rapidly.

Read more: The ocean can look deceptively calm – until it isn’t. Here’s what ‘hazardous surf’ really means

Then come the sharks

People aren’t the only ones going for a stickybeak at this whale. Bull, tiger and great white sharks are scavengers. To them, a fresh whale carcass is like an enormous buffet. The blobs of fat floating in the water around the whale are, essentially, canapes.

One study used drones to see how the behaviour of 55 white sharks off the coast of New South Wales changed near a stranded whale. They swam faster. Sharks near a stranded whale also tend to be larger on average – possibly because big sharks muscle smaller ones out the way.

These hazards are why many beaches near the stranded whale have been closed as a precaution. NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service warns people not to enter the water due to increased shark activity.

What is that smell?

A gigantic decaying whale, warmed by the midday sun, and kept moist by sea spray, is basically a huge vat of bacteria.

As microbes break down proteins and fats inside the carcass, they release a cocktail of volatile compounds. These include hydrogen sulfide (the smell of rotten eggs), methanethiol (rotting cabbage) and ammonia. Then there’s the aptly named putrescine and cadaverine, the compounds that give corpses their distinctive stink.

So it’s probably best not follow your nose on this occasion. The smell of a rotting whale carcass can be so bad, it can make you vomit. And as waves wash over the carcass or it bloats and ruptures, tiny aerosols are released into the air. These can carry bacteria and pathogens, along with that putrid smell that can drift far beyond the carcass itself.

Marine animals can also carry zoonotic diseases (illnesses that pass from animals to humans). So it’s important not to touch the carcass.

Watch out! It might explode

And who wants to be near when the ticking time bomb goes off? Yes, whale carcasses can explode.

This happens when there’s the natural build-up of gases as the whale decomposes. This is one reason authorities prefer to send the carcass back to sea, if feasible.

So, a selfie that involves climbing onto a whale carcass is a genuinely bad idea.

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

In the hours since the story was first published, a body believed to be that of the missing girl has been found. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the name of a person who has died. The family has asked for her to be referred to as Kumanjayi Little Baby.

On Saturday night, a five-year-old girl – whose family has asked be referred to as Kumanjayi Little Baby – was allegedly abducted from a home in a town camp and is still missing.

Northern Territory Police allege she was abducted by Jefferson Lewis. The 47-year-old had only been released from prison several days earlier and was staying at the same address as Kumanjayi Little Baby.

It is already “one of the biggest” manhunts in recent NT history and made even more difficult by the fact Lewis doesn’t have much of a digital footprint.

So, what police tactics are available in these situations?

‘Going back to 1930s policing’

Northern Territory Police Commissioner Martin Dole said police believed there are people in the local community who may know of Lewis’ whereabouts. Police said Lewis was not on bail or subject to any conditions when the alleged abduction took place.

Police found several personal items at a crime scene at the town camp, which were sent for forensic testing.

Dole said the hunt was “the biggest one I can recall in a very long time”. He added:

We’ve got specialist sections here, we’ve got assistance from interstate, we’ve had offers from interstate all over the other jurisdictions, we’ve got inquiries happening in other jurisdictions, and we’re pouring every available resources down here to assist. And overwhelming support from the community as well.

Making the hunt for Lewis significantly more difficult is the fact he doesn’t use much modern technology.

NT Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley said:

It’s like we’re going back to 1930s policing without a digital footprint – this man doesn’t have a telephone, he doesn’t have a bank account, he doesn’t have a car, so some of the usual practices that we do in 2026 aren’t applicable, hence the amount of resources we have on the ground.

Searchers are enduring tough conditions, Malley said:

(The search conditions are) pretty difficult – long grass, soft sand, rocks, large trees, it’s really overgrown, so it’s a tough slog out there for the people searching.

A trickier search than normal

Technology ties a person to a time and place. For example, When someone uses a phone, it logs their location. If they use an ATM, there may be facial recognition that captures their image.

Not using technology blinds police.

Despite there being little-to-no electronic footprint of Lewis, police still have tactics to locate people who exist off the grid. While a person’s use of technology does aid police, this does not mean they are untraceable if they don’t.

Police will be relying heavily on the local community, given the remoteness of the search.

They will also be calling on the expert knowledge of Indigenous Elders whose local experience in the reading of Country will be crucial – their skills represent knowledge that technology can’t replicate.

Searchers will be looking for:

• footprints that might note stride length and depth (indicating pace and load)

• crushed or bent vegetation, broken branches at body height and disturbed bark on trees

• compression signs where someone sat, rested, or lay down

• drag marks, blood trails, or disturbed leaf litter

• clothing fibres snagged on thorns, hair, or fingernail marks on rocks.

Searchers will also be looking for sheltered areas: rock overhangs, dense scrub, or behind fallen logs.

They will also look out for disturbed animal behaviour such as flushed birds (birds that take flight when scared) or silent zones (an area where normal background sounds of nature are absent or noticeably reduced) which can indicate human presence.

Then there is technology.

The power of police technology

A distinctive element of a police search is AI imagery analysis.

All aerial footage from drones and helicopters gets compiled and analysed. The high-definition, digitally enhanced images are catalogued, including every heat signature of a “grid” of terrain.

This can identify livestock, wildlife, carcasses or a human figure.

This AI analysis can also identify every human and non-human item that may or may not have a heat signature across a geographic area.

But underlying all these different strategies is the age-old practice of map reading.

Map reading can include:

• sweep/line searching – people spread out at intervals and advance in a line

• grid searching – the area is divided into sectors, with each systematically cleared

• spiral searching – teams move outward from a last known point in an expanding spiral

• contour searching – following natural terrain features like ridge lines and creek beds.

These centuries-old practices are still relevant today in trying to find someone.

Bushcraft and persistence

Dole said on Thursday he feared the “timeframe of survivability” was coming to an end for Kumanjayi Little Baby, after consulting with survival experts.

Police will continue to explore all avenues in the hope of finding her safely.

While some technology will be used by searchers, the hunt will likely rely on old-fashioned bushcraft skill and human persistence.

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

What happens when natural selection, the most powerful process driving change in the living world, shapes artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps the most potent technology humanity has invented to date?

We might be about to find out.

According to a new paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we are entering the era of “evolvable AI” – AI systems that can undergo evolution. In turn, that might give rise to a major transition in evolution.

How major is “major”? Well, in nearly 4 billion years there have only been eight, or perhaps only seven, other major transitions. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

The ingredients for evolution

Evolution doesn’t require DNA, cells or even biological life. It just needs information that can replicate, and a source of variation that affects how successfully the information replicates.

When these conditions exist, evolution happens, whether anybody intended it to or not.

Modern AI systems already meet these conditions. Models can be copied. Their parameters, architectures and training data can vary. And some variants perform in ways that make them more likely to be reused, refined or deployed.

Evolution has long operated outside biology. It shapes languages, technologies and cultures. But AI introduces something different: systems that are both information-rich and can influence their own reproduction.

That combination raises the stakes dramatically.

Two scenarios for ‘evolvable AI’

The authors of the new paper recognise two broad AI evolution scenarios that could influence both how selection happens, and the kinds of consequences that might flow on.

Ecosystem scenario

The ecosystem scenario eventuates when AI variants compete, recombine and propagate with little top-down oversight. The better an AI is at persisting and spreading, the more successful it is.

Science fiction authors, AI pioneers and contemporary AI risk experts have long recognised the dangers of such untrammelled and chaotic Darwinian evolution. The fear of self-replicating AIs is an evolutionary fear, even if it doesn’t name evolution explicitly.

Every new AI model, however different, inadvertently adds to the supply of the fuel consumed by natural selection: variation. And we’re not dealing with a single AI but an ecosystem bustling with various machines and humans.

Breeder scenario

Charles Darwin based his idea of natural selection on how animal and plant breeders deliberately select which individuals to breed from. In the wild, nature does the selecting, hence “natural selection”.

The second evolvable AI scenario recognises the power of breeder-based selection – the force that domesticated so many animals and plants, from dogs and cattle to wheat and rice.

Last year, philosophers Maarten Boudry and Simon Friederich proposed that if AI evolution is directed in a top-down fashion (much like deliberate breeding), AI might remain in human control. Evolution still occurs, but it shapes the AI into tamed beasts of computational burden that serve humanity – or, at least, whoever owns the machine.

Within the framework of these two scenarios, the authors apply a sound and comprehensive analysis of what biology can tell us about AI’s potential evolutionary trajectories.

Evolution upgraded

In biology, variation comes from random genetic mutations. The potential for evolution is constrained by this blind source of variation.

AI need not be constrained in the same way. Indeed, the potential exists for AIs to plot the course of their own evolution. They could find the variation they need to follow that route. It may even exist on the internet.

This is similar to how bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance by copying the genes that other, quite different lineages of bacteria have already evolved. With this horizontal gene transfer there’s no waiting in hope for the right mutations.

AI could potentially do something similar. The authors of the new paper argue that a large language model could predict what functionality it needs to replicate and survive, and then find and incorporate code to achieve just that.

The authors recognise that if we maintain breeder-like control over evolvable AI, it will be less likely to pose catastrophic risks, such as dominating humans or outcompeting them for resources.

But the potential for an evolvable AI to escape and run feral always remains.

Read more: Nobody wants to talk about AI safety. Instead they cling to 5 comforting myths

Is it a major transition, though?

One of the paper’s authors, evolutionary biologist Eörs Szathmáry, introduced the idea of “major transitions in evolution” in a landmark 1995 book with the late evolutionary theorist John Maynard Smith.

For example, ancient life used to involve RNA, a relatively fragile molecule that functioned as both the genetic information and the protein that did the organism’s work.

A major transition was the evolution of DNA – it made the information more stable and required the production of proteins as a separate act. This fundamentally changed how genetic information is encoded and used, and made possible great increases in the complexity of living things.

At each subsequent transition, the thing doing the evolving became more complicated – from single-celled life to multicelled life and so on.

The new paper argues that some current trends in AI resemble what happens in major transitions. AI systems are scaling up and expanding in complexity. New training and development methods reorganise how AIs process information. And AI agent teams working together are shifting the concept of what a “single” AI even is.

It’s certainly interesting that evolution within the AI ecosystem is following trends seen in the major transitions in biological evolution. But these things also happen, on a smaller scale, during business-as-usual evolution. They should not yet be interpreted as evidence that AI represents a major transition fit to be listed with those that transformed biological life.

There are, however, many ways evolvable AI could effect a major transition in evolution. Generating an entirely new realm of intelligent life would do the trick.

Another possibility is the rise of co-evolving human-machine symbiosis, akin to our relationship with smartphones. That could create a new kind of individual somewhere between biological and artificial life. If such a development took hold, it would definitely constitute a major evolutionary transition.

Read more: Smaller brains? Fewer friends? An evolutionary biologist asks how AI will change humanity’s future

Rob Brooks receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

You are more empowered because you get to be seen for who you are.

These are the words of Link*, an online gamer with disability – one of a group of 15 gamers with disability we interviewed as part of our new study, published in the Journal of Disability and Social Justice.

Our study aimed to better understand what online gaming offers people with a disability. And Link’s experience highlights one of its key findings: online gaming acts as a powerful space of empowerment, largely due to participants having control over how they identify within online spaces.

A diversity of gaming experiences

Online gaming does have its problems. These include extremist gaming cultures, exploitative monetisation practices (including gambling-like features), and concerns about addiction.

But the prominence of these narratives can overshadow the diversity of gaming experiences, including the potential of online gaming to cultivate spaces for personal growth and development.

It can also allow people – especially those from marginalised groups – to creatively express their identity in a way they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Taking a closer look

We wanted to take a closer look at this in our study by focusing on the empowering impact of online gaming for people with disability – and exploring whether such empowerment extends beyond the online space into other parts of everyday life.

To do this we interviewed 15 people (14 male, 1 female) online. The study focused on young adults aged between 18 and 35 who live with a disability.

The positive impacts of online gaming come from the opportunity online gaming provides to connect to a diversity of people online through shared interests. One of our interviewees, Cloud*, emphasises this point:

There is a lot of disabled-focused communities that have gaming channels and I think it’s great because it brings the community together.

Our research found that the positive influence of online gaming on people’s lives wasn’t just confined to the online space. As Link told us:

I think there can be that confidence boost, especially if you’re good at doing something particular in that game, I think it can give you that sort of translation to the real world.

So, people with disability can take that confidence from online gaming into their daily lives, which is impactful.

The anonymity offered in online spaces allowed participants to construct and express an identity with great control – where a space was created that highlighted other unique parts of their identity, rather than just their disability. As Mario* said:

You can create your own character and just be who you want to be.

This was echoed by Cloud:

Freedom to express yourself and do things that you wouldn’t be able to do in the real world […] You can do whatever you want, you can feel powerful.

These comments speak to the limitations people with disability experience in society while also demonstrating how powerful online gaming can be. They reiterate the importance of having agency around how you identify made possible through the anonymity that online gaming provides. As Cloud puts it:

[Online gaming] has allowed me to feel like I’m just a normal human being who can interact with anyone and be a part of a community.

A sense of expressing identity freely and confidently without feeling isolated and judged. Ultimately, that is empowering.

Playing without limitation

Notwithstanding the narratives of harm, it’s important that people with disability have full inclusion in the online gaming world in terms of access and adaptability, which includes accessible interfaces and devices.

However, it is important to note that accessible options can be quite costly, especially adaptive controllers.

Gaming is a permanent fixture in our lives. It can have profound benefits for people with disability by helping them construct their full identity. We should ensure people with disability can play without limitation and showcase their empowered selves.

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

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

In early April, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced he was finally implementing several restrictions on gambling advertising.

The long-awaited announcement was unveiled – or perhaps buried – in Albanese’s National Press Club address on the fuel crisis, held on the eve of the Easter long weekend.

Hopefully the federal parliament was paying attention because it must push for stronger reforms to tackle Australia’s crippling gambling problems.

Read more: ‘Small and underwhelming’: Albanese’s gambling reforms won’t do much to reduce harm

Partial bans don’t work

Almost three years ago, a federal parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm reached a rare multi-partisan consensus on all 31 recommendations – with the headline recommendation being a total ban on gambling advertising.

The Murphy inquiry report You win some, you lose more – led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy – made a very clear case for a total ban, explaining why partial bans don’t work.

Yet the government has responded years later with a proposed partial ban.

Thankfully, this new plan is not a done deal.

There is an opportunity for another multi-partisan consensus to negotiate a full ban on gambling advertising, and a broader suite of reforms to tackle gambling harm in our communities.

At the very least, the government will need the support of either the Coalition or the Greens to pass their new legislation in the Senate.

Why firmer action is needed

Australia has historically taken a lax approach to gambling reform, and it shows. A 2024 Grattan Institute report shows we have the highest gambling losses in the world per capita.

Australians collectively lost more than $32 billion gambling in 2023-24, half of it on the pokies. And our losses per person have grown almost every year since reporting began in 1975.

Pokies and online betting are particularly addictive, leading to serious harm for hundreds of thousands of Australians.

The Murphy inquiry was focused on online gambling harm and identified gambling advertising as a major culprit. Gambling advertising exposes large numbers of Australians, including children, to a dangerous product and increases losses, with little corresponding economic or social benefit.

In the prime minister’s pre-Easter address he promised some important reforms, including “banning cross-promotion content that mixes commentary with odds” and “ending advertising on jerseys and jumpers and in stadiums”.

But the proposed daytime cap on gambling ads on TV doesn’t go far enough, with three advertisements still permitted every hour from 6am to 8.30pm.

A partial ban might seem like a step in the right direction, but it still allows widespread exposure to gambling advertising and will encourage advertisers to more aggressively market their products in other ways, such as through direct marketing and inducements, which are known to be high risk for people already suffering gambling harm.

This is why the Murphy inquiry called for a comprehensive ban on all gambling advertising on all media (broadcast and online), to be phased in over three years, and a ban on inducements “without delay”.

Parliament must push for more

A formal government response to the Murphy inquiry is expected when parliament returns next month. This will be the first time Australians get to see the details of what the government is proposing.

But the response may be tabled in budget week, while the parliament is looking elsewhere.

Regardless of the timing, the federal parliament should not miss the opportunity to strengthen these reforms.

Banning inducements, reducing the daytime cap (ideally to zero), and extending restrictions to all media would improve these reforms.

But preventing gambling harm must go further than restricting or banning advertising.

We also need a “seatbelt” for the most dangerous gambling products – pokies and online betting – to stop catastrophic losses when people lose control. No one should lose their house, or their life, on the pokies or on a betting app.

Mandatory pre-commitment with maximum loss limits would ensure Australians no longer lose more than they can afford. Under these systems, a gambler chooses their limits in advance – before they lose track of time or start chasing losses. The system would enforce these limits.

It needs to be mandatory to be effective but it should have very little impact on people who gamble in moderation.

The federal government should establish a national pre-commitment system for online gambling, and state governments should roll out state-wide pre-commitment schemes for pokies.

Protecting the public

Developing a national pre-commitment scheme and working with the states to improve regulation of pokies would lift the prime minister’s proposed plan from tinkering to game-changing.

Gambling regulation is one of the clearest examples of where the public interest and powerful vested interests don’t align.

Australians want to see our governments put the public interest first. And standing up to the vested interests is one of the clearest ways that politicians can demonstrate their value and build trust with the Australian people.

We lose more than anyone else but Australia needs a win on this.

The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the federal and Victorian governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute's activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

Each animal species has an optimal temperature at which it can metabolise food and its immune system can best fight off pathogens.

As our recent research shows, temperature directly affects the immune systems of vertebrates – regardless of how they moderate their own body temperatures. At first, slightly hotter temperatures actually give many animal immune systems a boost. But when temperatures get still hotter, conditions favour pathogens – organisms which cause disease.

This is a real problem, given many pathogens found in warmer areas are likely to expand their range as the climate changes.

The good news: learning more about how temperatures affect animal immune systems gives us new options, such as using “frog saunas” to help frogs fight off the lethal chytrid fungus.

How do animals maintain body temperatures?

Different types of vertebrates have very different ways of maintaining an optimal body temperature.

Mammals and birds are endotherms. In cold conditions, they can keep their body temperature close to optimal by burning energy stored as fat. Animals such as reindeer are able to live in temperatures as low as -40°C while keeping their core body temperature at 38-40°C.

At the other extreme are snakes, lizards and other poikilotherms – so-called “cold blooded” animals who rely on the environment to modify their temperature. If they’re too cold, they seek the sun. If too hot, they seek the shade.

Regardless of the method, the goal is the same: keep body temperature as close to optimal as possible.

Pathogens have temperature preferences too

Pathogens are very diverse. Some prefer hotter conditions and others cooler. For some, high temperatures can stop them replicating. But for others, heat is great. The lethal Ebola virus replicates best at 41°C.

The rhinoviruses which cause the common cold prefer the slightly cooler temperatures (33°C) found in human airways.

In birds, outbreaks of lethal H5N1 avian influenza have been shown to come shortly after a large sudden drop in temperatures.

The fungus causing devastating white-nose syndrome in bats likes colder temperatures of 12-16°C. When bats hibernate, their body temperatures drop and their immune response isn’t as strong. This is when the fungus can invade.

Most fish species are poikilotherms. If they move into water colder than their optimal, their immune defences are lowered and they’re more susceptible to pathogens such as viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus or the bacteria Flavobacterium psychrophilum causing coldwater disease.

Frogs and other amphibians are now declining globally. A major cause is the disease chytridiomycosis caused by the chytrid fungus. The disease is implicated in at least 90 extinctions. This fungus lives in water or damp soil and prefers the cold. As the world heats up, the fungus will likely gain access to new water bodies – and amphibian hosts.

Researchers found leopard frogs (Rana yavapaiensis) living in warmer water were infected less than those in colder water. Australian researchers are now building “frog saunas” which let infected frogs kill off the infection.

How does temperature affect animal immune systems?

When an animal’s body temperature is lower than optimal, it can’t mount as strong an immune defence against specific pathogens. Interestingly, we found this effect only seems to impair specific defences, while the animal’s innate defences aren’t affected.

Ground squirrels and many other species can go into short hibernation periods known as torpor. In this state, their metabolism slows down, body temperature drops and reduces numbers of cells and molecules responsible for specific immune defences circulating. In most cases, the lower body temperature also stops pathogens from replicating. Once an animal leaves the torpor state and its body warms up, its specific immune responses bounce back.

How does this work? When temperatures fall, changes take place in the physical structure of the molecules necessary to mount a specific defence against a pathogen, making an immune response impossible. For instance, the major histocompatibility complex, a key immune molecule found in almost all vertebrates, loses the ability to bind to other immune system molecules in the cold.

Heat acts differently. Humans and all other endotherms can induce a fever, which means the immune system raises the body temperature to stop an invading bacterium, virus or other pathogen from replicating. Fevers put most pathogens at a disadvantage and triggers specific immune responses. But too much heat is a problem, as it can stress the body or even kill. Luckily, special molecules called heat shock proteins can buffer cells against heat and help restore the proteins needed to induce a specific immune response.

Lizards, fish and other poikilotherms can’t increase their own body temperature. Instead, when they get an infection, they employ “behavioural fever” – moving to warmer environments to boost their immune response.

Can we use this to protect species?

Knowledge of how temperature affects animal immune systems lets us plan new ways of protecting threatened species.

We can use heat or cold to change body temperatures and trigger immune responses, or to stop pathogens replicating.

But as climate change intensifies, rapid temperature changes will bring many unwelcome changes for animals. Heat-loving pathogens such as malaria will expand their range, as will cold-hating parasites such as ticks. Milder winters in Canada and the United States, for instance, are letting winter ticks survive the cold. These blood-sucking parasites are now killing many young moose.

The more we understand about how temperatures and animal immune systems intersect, the better we are placed to help animals whatever is to come.

Brian Dixon receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

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

Ellena Savage’s debut novel, The Ruiners, starts with a windfall many of us only casually dream of – A$50,000 gifted out of the blue.

It’s a financial reprieve Pip desperately needs. Savage’s 29-year-old protagonist is a disaffected waitress, haunted by the screams of the lobsters she serves each night to overbearing, bib-wearing patrons. “Mummy” is dead. Her estranged father is too. But the lump sum in his will? That’s a ticket out of lingering debt – and out of Melbourne, all the way to a “moist and mouldy” fixer-upper on the Greek island of Fokos.

Newly married, Pip and her husband, Sasha, are soon joined by their mutual friend Viv, then Viv’s co-conspirator and ex-lover. But what could otherwise loom as some kind of bohemian utopia – in the vein of Charmian Clift and George Johnston’s folkloric Hydra – rapidly loses its shine.

Review: The Ruiners – Ellena Savage (Summit Books)

Fokos, it turns out, is the site of illegal dumping. Lots of it. As Viv discovers through an underground network of concerned citizens, barrels of “corrosive waste sludge” are being “listed in the paperwork as wheat” then deposited on the island. The dumping violates “EU waste, export and environmental laws”. The contamination “would almost certainly cause illness and death”.

So far, so good – at least in narrative terms. Savage’s foray into fiction has all the makings of a literary eco-thriller. And, indeed, this is how the book is being described.

But The Ruiners is something else altogether.

Australia through a faraway lens

Blueberries, Savage’s 2020 essay collection, was praised by reviewers for its wry prose and vexed but vivid encounters with wide-ranging themes: bodies, belonging, the birth of a settler-colonial nation.

The Ruiners likewise covers vast territory.

The story is told in triptych. Each central character is restless, unsettled in – and by – the cul-de-sac of their life choices so far.

Pip and Sasha have married hurriedly after meeting at a backyard party. Sasha, nearing the end of his PhD, is testing the waters of a notoriously sparse job market. Pip is a lost sock in the tumble dryer of life, a university dropout with a bank balance once again verging on zero.

Viv, embroiled in a workers’ strike at the socialist magazine he edits, feels torn. Should he join his writers in solidarity or pursue a career-defining story that will guarantee his success as a lefty journalist? He sends for his ex, a Greek named Aggelos, whose history with Viv and Sasha runs deeper than Viv may know.

As its feverish inhabitants accumulate, the house at the centre of the novel also begins to sweat and fester – in more ways than one. Addressing themes of purpose, power and our place in a foundering world, The Ruiners is as much a character study as it is the subversive “millennial parable” it’s billed as.

The novel gnaws at a range of pressing dilemmas. Pip – “stuck, inert”, now an orphan – is unsure whether her anarchist leanings are even possible in the world she’s been “assigned at birth”. She clocks the preening Sasha as someone who positions himself “at the radical fringes of the institutions he nonetheless depended on for his identity and self-esteem”.

Viv, on the other hand, decries the internal failings of the “libtards” clogging the progressive left: their entanglement of ego with politics, altruism with neoliberal capitalism. All three characters belong to the diaspora, natural byproducts of a sprawling war machine.

Although most of its story unfolds on Fokos, The Ruiners casts an awry light on contemporary Australia – where migrants, torn from their homelands, have only reluctantly settled, where affordable housing is figment of the past and where millennial futures have been rotted by the indulgences of the post-war generation.

Clever, but dense

Much of The Ruiners is dominated by recollection and explication. Unfortunately, the density of all this backstory and meticulously chronicled tit-for-tat too often impedes the real action of the narrative.

The characters persistently tell us who they are and why – leaving few dots for the reader to connect on their own. Profound observations and glass-sharp witticisms, such as Pip’s appraisal of Sasha’s compulsive hubris, end up with little room to breathe among so much scaffolding and exposition.

In chapter 10, for example, Sasha summarises a university assignment he once wrote:

For a compulsory cultural studies module I had to take for my masters, I was required to consider ‘mass’ texts. I quietly believed that cultural studies had gone too far […] After some cajoling, my professor convinced me to write about a popular millennial New York television series whose screenplay had a literary, referential flavour to it. I contrapuntally read social alienation in the show against the post-9/11 Bush-Obama wars using my emerging thoughts about the parallel dialectics of centre/periphery and denial/truth.

This summary extends across multiple pages, including a citation of Walter Benjamin, and introduces another thicket of theorising about the common denominator among Sasha’s failed peers: believing their claims held any real power beyond securing a comfortable job in the academy.

Cleverness aside, the effect of these ruminations is stifling and at times claustrophobic. (This is not the only occasion when a character reminisces about a university assignment.) An impulse for didactic delivery results in a bloated middle that undermines the overall pace and structure of what could otherwise be a compelling narrative.

As someone whose research focuses on readers’ idiosyncratic responses to a text, I’m willing to admit when I might simply be the wrong reader for a book. Although I resent the term, I’m an elder or geriatric millennial – born on the cusp between Gen X and Y.

I grew up in a working-class household where any meaningful discussion of politics hovered weakly in the background. I felt out of place at university, where I’d scribble down words like “dialectics” to look up later. I habitually took the stairs to avoid a lift crowded with classmates, whose intellectual banter left me tongue-tied and bewildered.

All this is to say that I may not be the reader Savage had in mind. The Ruiners is a cerebral, discursive work of fiction that demands a deep sympathy for compromised characters, a stiff tolerance for exegesis – and, perhaps, a recent humanities degree.

Snappy prose, diluted by ambition

It’s strongest in its moments of subtle connection, junctures where the various points of view collide for mere moments before the characters disperse once more, lost in their heads. When the plot moves, it does so with vigour. I couldn’t help but wish for such momentum in the book’s sluggish middle, conveyed through Viv’s perspective.

Even so, high points repeatedly showcase the finesse of Savage’s sentence-level craft, especially at the novel’s climax: a scrum on the beach at Fokos that coincides with a mysterious bombing in Athens. “My vision began to refract and shatter,” a character comments, “and I felt my veins surge with sugar and butterflies.”

Another singularly striking moment occurs when the foursome gazes out on the noxious landfill desecrating the once idyllic island.

Sasha thinks to himself:

What I saw before me was postmodernity. A vast, material representation of all the information ever produced – the waste, the false narratives, every trashy ideology, every object produced only to make a profit – a lump of information wherein everything held equivalent, toxic non-value. A heaving mass of excess […] This was our inheritance.

It’s a startling metaphor: the landfill exposing the ruin at our core, our yearning for something clean, simple, honest. The book’s aptly named “coda” is just as poetic – though perhaps too neat – landing on a devious realtor who takes pity on the island’s suffering sea life.

The Ruiners serves up many rich metaphors, not least the hapless crustaceans that stagger from the poisoned sea on Fokos, unable to be saved. While it sometimes falters beneath the weight of its own ambition, the novel should be celebrated for the precious world that putrefies so believably between its pages.

This is an unsettling account: bracing in its intensity and difficult to ignore.

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

On the face of it, the government’s desire to make references to te Tiriti o Waitangi consistent across all legislation sounds reasonable.

As Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith argued, current laws variously require decision-makers to “give effect to”, “recognise and provide for”, “honour” or “have particular regard to” the Treaty and its principles.

The cabinet quietly agreed to the advance the policy in February, after a ministerial advisory group suggested it might be helpful to promote consistent wording for each standard of obligation to the Treaty in legislation.

But the group did not recommend reducing those clauses to a single (low) standard of obligation, merely to “take into account” the Treaty principles.

Concerns had already been raised about this review of the law, including by the Waitangi Tribunal and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

With legislation confirming the changes due to be introduced before this year’s general election, one of the National-led coalition’s most controversial policies may again ignite the campaign trail.

Predetermined policy?

The origins of the issue lie in the coalition agreement between National and New Zealand First which sought to “reverse measures taken in recent years which have eroded the principle of equal citizenship”. Specifically, it committed the government to:

Conduct a comprehensive review of all legislation (except when it is related to, or substantive to, existing full and final Treaty settlements) that includes “The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” and replace all such references with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the Treaty, or repeal the references.

The normal process to achieve such a policy outcome would begin with defining the problem that exists. Officials can then develop a range of policy options to address that problem.

The relative merits and risks of different approaches can be assessed to inform a ministerial decision. During the Waitangi Tribunal hearing, however, officials acknowledged the normal policy development process has not happened.

As the Waitangi Tribunal noted, the outcome of replacing or removing legislative references to “the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” was predetermined by the coalition agreement. The existing problem wasn’t defined, nor was there any consideration of how best to achieve the policy objectives.

As described in Cabinet papers, the policy objective is:

to ensure that where it is appropriate to encapsulate the Treaty or the Treaty relationship in legislation, the provisions are clear as to how the Treaty applies in the context of each legislative regime, to reduce uncertainty and support better compliance.

Read more: What is happening with the government’s contentious review of the Waitangi Tribunal?

Clarifying statutory obligations seems like a sound objective. But as the Waitangi Tribunal also pointed out, this does not appear to reflect the stated purpose in the coalition agreement to “reverse measures taken in recent years which have eroded the principle of equal citizenship”.

Nor does it explain why it has been determined that all Treaty principles clauses should be replaced or removed before any analysis of how clear or unclear those provisions are.

In fact, many provisions describe quite specifically how they will give effect to Treaty rights and obligations.

For example, section 3A of the Climate Change Reponse Act 2002 sets out a detailed list of actions which must be done “to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”.

These actions include seeking nominations from iwi for appointment to the Climate Change Commission, ensuring Māori are consulted on emissions reduction plans, and taking into account the effects of climate change on Māori in the preparation of national adaptation plans.

It is difficult to see how replacing or removing a provision like this would reduce uncertainty.

‘Significant risk’

There are also Treaty principles clauses which have much broader wording. For example, section 9 of the State-owned Enterprises Act 1986 states: “Nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

These types of clauses are referred to as “operative provisions” as opposed to the more detailed “descriptive provisions” such as those in the Climate Change Response Act.

Operative provisions allow greater discretion for the courts to determine the precise obligations they create in specific circumstances.

It could be argued such clauses might benefit from greater clarity or elaboration. But there may well be situations where greater flexibility and discretion is appropriate – and exactly what parliament intended.

Either way, the Waitangi Tribunal noted that the case law and official guidance built up over several decades make the requirements of Treaty principles “easily discoverable”.

In their Regulatory Impact Statement, Paul Goldsmith’s own officials advised the proposed measure “has no apparent benefits and carries significant risk to the Māori-Crown relationship”. Regional hui with Māori were also reportedly removed from the Treaty clause review plans.

Māori have again raised concerns about the policy at the UN, and there is now an application for an urgent hearing before the Waitangi Tribunal. Further legal challenges are likely.

Little wonder, perhaps, that some are now suggesting the policy could generate opposition on the scale of the the failed Treaty Principles Bill which inspired one of the country’s largest ever protests.

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

New research published today in Science Advances reveals that the largest expansion of coral reefs in the past 100 million years happened about 20 to 10 million years ago, between Australia and Southeast Asia.

This vast reef system likely laid the foundations for the extraordinary diversity of marine life we see today.

Coral reefs are among the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. They support about a quarter of all marine species while covering less than 1% of the oceans. Yet scientists have long grappled with the question of how such immense diversity arose in the first place. Where did it begin, and what made it possible?

Our new study uncovers a turning point deep in Earth’s history – a time when reefs didn’t just grow, but expanded on a scale far beyond anything we see today. This expansion may have created the ecological space needed for modern coral reef life to flourish.

An enduring mystery

Biodiversity simply refers to the variety of life in a given place. On coral reefs, this diversity is staggering: thousands of species of fish, corals and other organisms coexist in tightly packed ecosystems.

However, despite decades of research, the origins of this richness have remained an enduring mystery.

Our new study reveals that changes in environmental, biological and tectonic conditions about 20 million years ago promoted the dramatic expansion of coral reefs across a region stretching between Australia and Southeast Asia.

Today, this area is known as the Indo-Australian Archipelago. It’s recognised as a global hotspot of marine biodiversity, especially in an area called the Coral Triangle.

The expansion of reefs in this area coincided with the emergence of many familiar reef organisms, including plating corals and iconic fish groups like parrotfishes.

To uncover this, we combined evidence from geological records, fossils and genetic data. Together, these independent lines of evidence allowed us to pinpoint when and where modern reef biodiversity began to take shape, without relying on any single source alone.

Results suggest reef expansion itself played a crucial role in generating biodiversity. As reefs grew larger, they likely created new habitats and ecological opportunities, allowing species to evolve and diversify.

We have now named this ancient network of reefs the Great Indo-Australian Miocene Reef System. The large reefs in this system were mostly built by corals and crustose coralline algae, an essential group of algae for holding together reef structures. These reefs also provided very important habitat for fish groups that we see on coral reefs today, such as surgeonfishes and butterflyfishes.

Remnants of an epic reef

Surprisingly, the region where this expansion occurred is not where the largest reefs are found today. Instead, reefs off northwestern Australia – including Ashmore Reef, Scott Reef, and the Rowley Shoals – may be remnants of what was once one of the largest reef systems to have ever existed.

Previous geological work has shown this ancient west Australian barrier reef rivalled the extent of the present-day Great Barrier Reef. The new findings go further, suggesting individual reefs within this system may have been far larger than any modern reef.

In fact, the roots of modern marine fish and coral biodiversity may lie in this unexpected place off Australia’s west coast. Over millions of years, biodiversity spread and accumulated elsewhere, particularly across the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

However, there are still uncertainties. Reconstructing ecosystems from millions of years ago requires combining incomplete records. Some aspects of reef size and how these ecosystems connected remain difficult to resolve, as the geological record only contains the remnants of entire reef systems.

But the overall pattern is clear. A massive expansion of reefs about 20 million years ago coincided with the rise of modern marine diversity.

The message is also simple. To understand where biodiversity is today, we need to look deep into the past. The richest ecosystems on Earth may owe their origins to places that no longer appear exceptional – hidden chapters of Earth’s history that continue to shape life in our oceans.

Alexandre Siqueira receives funding from the Australian Research Council through a DECRA Fellowship.