Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Fish in the Sahara? Yes, in the early Holocene

Catfish and tilapia make up many of the animal remains uncovered in the Saharan environment of the Takarkori rock shelter in southwestern Libya, according to a study published February 19, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Wim Van Neer from the the Natural History Museum in Belgium, Belgium and Savino di Lernia, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and colleagues.

Today, the Saharan Tadrart Acacus mountains are windy, hot, and hyperarid; however, the fossil record shows that for much of the early and middle Holocene (10,200 to 4650 years BP), this region was humid and rich in water as well as life, with evidence of multiple human settlements and diverse fauna.

Rock shelters within the Tadrart Acacus preserve not only significant floral and faunal remains, but also significant cultural artifacts and rock art due to early Holocene occupation of these shelters. In this study, the authors worked with the Libyan Department of Antiquities in excavating parts of the Takarkori rock shelter to identify and date animal remains found at this site and investigate shifts in the abundance and type of these animal remains over time.

Fish remains made up almost 80 percent of the entire find overall, which numbered 17,551 faunal remains total (19 percent of these were mammal remains, with bird, reptile, mollusc, and amphibian remains the last 1.3 percent). All of the fish and most of the other remains were determined to be human food refuse, due to cut marks and traces of burning—the two fish genera at Takarkori were identified as catfish and tilapia.

Based on the relative dates for these remains, the amount of fish decreased over time (from 90 percent of all remains 10,200-8000 years BP versus only 40 percent of all remains 5900-4650 years BP) as the number of mammal remains increased, suggesting the inhabitants of Takarkori gradually focused more on hunting/livestock. The authors also found the proportion of tilapia specifically decreased more significantly over time, which may have been because catfish have accessory breathing organs allowing them to breathe air and survive in shallow, high-temperature waters—further evidence that this now-desert environment became less favorable to fish as the aridity increased.

The authors add: "This study reveals the ancient hydrographic network of the Sahara and its interconnection with the Nile, providing crucial information on the dramatic climate changes that led to the formation of the largest hot desert in the world. Takarkori rock shelter has once again proved to be a real treasure for African archaeology and beyond: a fundamental place to reconstruct the complex dynamics between ancient human groups and their environment in a changing climate.

Entomologist confirms first Saharan farming 10,000 years ago

More information: Van Neer W, Alhaique F, Wouters W, Dierickx K, Gala M, Goffette Q, et al. (2020) Aquatic fauna from the Takarkori rock shelter reveals the Holocene central Saharan climate and palaeohydrography. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0228588. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228588

Palaeontologists identify new Jurassic amphibian

by St. Petersburg State University

A group of Russian and German palaeontologists have described a previously unknown genus and species of prehistoric salamanders. The new amphibian is named Egoria malashichevi—in honor of Yegor Malashichev a talented scientist and associate professor of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University, who passed away at the end of 2018.

The palaeontologists found the remains of the ancient amphibian at the Berezovsky quarry, a fossil locality in the Krasnoyarsk Krai near the town of Sharypovo. Fossils of ancient fish, various reptiles, mammals, herbivorous and predatory dinosaurs have been previously found there. The research materials were collected on field expeditions in the mid-2010s. In these expeditions the scientists from St Petersburg University worked alongside experts from the University of Bonn (Germany), the Tomsk State University, the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Sharypovo Museum of Local History and Nature.

Four vertebrate fossils enabled the scientists to declare the finding of a new genus and species. These were: three trunk vertebrae and the atlas—the first and, in the case of the salamander, the only cervical vertebra. Since the atlas is a highly specialised vertebra, providing for attachment and rotation movements of the skull, it has a rather complex structure, the scientists explain. It is therefore most suitable for describing a new species as it provides much information for analysis. The amphibian proved to have belonged to the geologically oldest stem salamanders.

It was not the first time that remains of ancient salamanders had been found at the Berezovsky quarry. One of them—a basal stem salamander Urupia monstrosa, named after the nearby Uryup River—was about 50-60 centimetres long. Another one—Kiyatriton krasnolutskii—was named after a local historian Sergei Krasnolutskii, the discoverer of the fossil locality Berezovsky quarry. By contrast, this one was quite small in size (about 10-15 centimetres) and looked more like modern Hynobiidae. The newly discovered salamander, judging by the size of the vertebrae, was of medium length (about 20 centimetres).

"Salamanders first appear in the fossil records in the Middle Jurassic, including representatives of both the present-day salamander families and the most primitive ones," said Pavel Skutschas, associate professor of St Petersburg University, doctor of biology, expert in Mesozoic vertebrates. "When they had just appeared, salamanders made efforts to occupy different ecological niches. Thus, the stem salamanders filled the niche of large water bodies; while those close to the present-day salamanders found their niche in small water bodies. As for the newly discovered salamander, it occupied a middle position, although morphologically, it is closer to the primitive."

The scientists not only described the external characteristics of the specimens, but were able to look inside the fossils. In this they were assisted by the experts from the "Centre of X-ray diffraction studies' at the Research Park of St Petersburg University, where the specimens were scanned on up-to-date microtomography scanners. Based on the obtained data, the palaeontologists created 3-D reconstructions of the vertebrae and described their internal structure. As expected, it proved to be very similar to that of the large stem salamanders.

The ancient amphibian received the name Egoria malashichevi—in honour of Yegor Malashichev, associate professor of the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at St Petersburg University, who, among other things, studied the morphology of caudate amphibians. "Yegor Malashichev was a wonderful person and a very talented scientist. He supported aspiring palaeontologists and did everything to help them to stay in scientific research," remarked Pavel Skutschas. Additionally, Malashichev studied the phenomenon of lateralisation (body asymmetries associated with the functioning of the nervous system), as well as other asymmetries in motor performance and visual perception. Yegor Malashichev's professional career was almost exclusively connected with St Petersburg University. In 1996, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology and Soil Science. In 2000, he began to teach there, and in 2003, he defended his dissertation and was awarded a Ph.D. in biology. Sadly, in late 2018, he passed away unexpectedly.

The next step for the palaeontologists is to compare the bones of the 'Berezovsky' salamanders with the fossils from Great Britain: the 'Kirtlington' salamanders which were found at the Kirtlington quarry in Oxfordshire. The Siberian and British faunas of the mid-Jurassic time were very similar. Besides, the palaeontologists are aware of similar amphibians that lived in the territory of present-day England. "They may be representatives of the same genera. However, to ascertain this, a detailed comparison of the palaeontological collections is required. In the coming spring, our colleagues from England will come to St Petersburg to study our research materials. We may discover that Urupia and Egoria used to have a very wide habitat, extending across Europe and Asia," said Pavel Skutschas.

A Jurassic world of salamanders

More information: PLOS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228610

Improving assessments of an endangered lion population in India

by Public Library of Science

An alternative method for monitoring endangered lions in India could improve estimates of their abundance and help inform conservation policy and management decisions. Keshab Gogoi and colleagues at the Wildlife Institute of India present their findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 19, 2020.

Conservation practices have enabled Asiatic lions to recover from a population of only 50 individuals in the Gir Forests of Gujarat, India, to an estimated 500 individuals today. Accurate estimates of their abundance are needed in order for conservation efforts to remain successful. However, existing monitoring methods, particularly a technique known as total counts, can miss some individuals while double-counting others, and they provide limited information on spatial density.

In the new study, Gogoi and colleagues demonstrate an alternative method for monitoring Asiatic lions. They used whisker patterns and permanent body marks to identify individual lions using a computer program and analyzed that data with a mathematical modeling method known as spatially explicit capture recapture in order to estimate lion density. They also assessed prey density and other factors that could influence lion density.

The researchers identified 67 individual lions out of 368 lion sightings within a study site of 725 square kilometers in the Gir Forests, estimating an overall density of 8.53 lions per 100 square kilometers.

They were surprised to find that prey density did not appear to influence variations in lion density within the study site. Instead, lion density was higher in flat valley habitats (as opposed to rugged or elevated areas) and near sites where food had been placed to attract lions for tourists to view them.

The findings suggest that baiting lions for tourism greatly perturbs their natural density patterns, in line with other research demonstrating that baiting disrupts lion behavior and social dynamics. The authors recommend that their alternative monitoring method be used to assess lions across their range (in India and Africa) in order to inform ongoing conservation efforts more accurately.

The authors add: "The only population of Asiatic lions in the world survives in the Saurashtra landscape. Conserving this sub-species with the use of best science and management is a global priority and responsibility. Our research paper addresses this priority by developing a robust approach to their population assessment and monitoring which can be used for all lion populations across the world."

India's endangered lion population increases to 600

More information: Gogoi K, Kumar U, Banerjee K, Jhala YV (2020) Spatially explicit density and its determinants for Asiatic lions in the Gir forests. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0228374. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228374

New test identifies poisonous mushrooms

by Kim Kaplan, US Department of Agriculture

A simple, portable test that can detect the deadliest of the mushroom poisons in minutes has been developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and their colleagues.

Eating toxic mushrooms causes more than 100 deaths a year, globally, and leaves thousands of people in need of urgent medical assistance. Amanitin is the class of mushroom toxins that cause the most serious issues.

The new test can identify the presence of as little as 10 parts per billion (equivalent to 10 cents out of $10 million) of amanitin in about 10 minutes from a rice grain size sample of a mushroom or in the urine of someone who has eaten a poisonous amanitin-containing mushroom. The test also works with dog urine, as dogs are known to indiscriminately eat mushrooms.

"We developed the test primarily for mushrooms as food products. Serendipitously, it was sensitive enough to also detect the toxin in urine," said ARS microbiologist Candace Bever, who worked on the development. Bever is with the Foodborne Toxin Detection and Prevention Research Unit in Albany, California.

No definitive point-of-care clinical diagnostic test currently exists for amatoxin poisoning. Early detection of amanitin in a patient's urine would help doctors trying to make a diagnosis.

"Our hope is that doctors and veterinarians will be able to quickly and confidently identify amatoxin poisoning rather than having to clinically eliminate other suspected gastrointestinal diseases first," she added. "We also hope that will give patients a better chance at recovery, even though there are no clearly effective, specific treatments right now."

The test also could be a practical and definitive way for mushroom foragers to identify and avoid eating mushrooms with amanitin toxin if a commercial partner can be found to produce and market a test kit. This test is the most sensitive and reliable field method available to chemically identify amanitin-containing mushrooms. Although mushroom experts can identify deadly mushrooms just by looking at their appearance, experts cannot see the toxin chemicals that lurk inside.

Still this test only identifies the presence or absence of this specific class of toxin; it does not detect other compounds such as hallucinogens or toxins that cause other gastrointestinal or neurological symptoms. So, it cannot determine if a mushroom is edible.

Mushroom hunting has gained in popularity in the last several decades. A single mushroom identification group on Facebook, among many, has more than 166,000 members. Foraging for mushrooms is popular throughout most of Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, parts of the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, as well as in Canada and the United States. Distinguishing toxic from nontoxic mushroom species is based on first correctly identifying the mushroom and then referencing a mushroom field guide to determine if it is known to contain toxins or not. But mushrooms of the same species can vary in appearance, especially at different life stages and habitats, making them very difficult to identify.

Many poisonous mushrooms closely resemble edible wild mushrooms. For instance, the Springtime Amanita (Amanita velosa) is a highly desirable edible wild mushroom in the Pacific coastal United States. But to the untrained eye, it can appear similar to the Death cap mushroom A. phalloides. The Death Cap accounts for more than 90 percent of fungus-related poisoning deaths in Europe.

"This test can provide more information about a wild mushroom beyond physical appearance and characteristics, and detect something we cannot even see—the presence of amanitins," said Bever. If an affordable product like this was available, foraging could become even more popular and possibly safer.

The new test is an immuno-assay and depends on a very specifically reactive monoclonal antibody—a lab-produced protein that detects and binds only with a specific target. Scientists from the University of California-Davis, Pet Emergency and Specialty Center of Marin and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also contributed to this project.

This research was published in the journal Toxins.

New synthetic route for amanitin, a therapeutically interesting mushroom toxin

More information: Candace S. Bever. Rapid, Sensitive, and Accurate Point-of-Care Detection of Lethal Amatoxins in Urine. Toxins 2020, 12(2), 123; doi.org/10.3390/toxins12020123 (registering DOI)

Progress or pinkwashing: Who benefits from women-focused capital funds?

by Barbara Jayne Orser, The Conversation

An increase in the number of women-focused capital funds promises to help address gender gaps in the provision of financial capital.

Capital funding is the money that lenders and equity holders provide to a business.

A recent study I conducted with Susan Coleman of the University of Hartford in the United States and doctoral candidate Yanhong Li of the University of Ottawa looked at how women entrepreneurs are described within women-focused capital funds. We examined 27 women-focused capital funds in North America.

International studies show that borrower discouragement and informal rejections from potential investors dissuade many women from seeking loans when they start up businesses.

Historically, equity investors have primarily been high-net-worth men. And so a preference to invest in business owners who look and think "just like me" reinforces gender stereotypes. As birds of a feather flock together, women and their businesses can be viewed as too feminine, and therefore less attractive investments. Feminine innovations that benefit women and girls can also be viewed as less attractive.

Our study asked if women-focused capital funds are aimed at truly enhancing gender equity or simply at creating wealth for investors. We were surprised to learn that few funds challenge the institutional constraints that hold back women entrepreneurs. Some actually reinforce gender stereotypes due to how they regard women's supposed entrepreneurial deficiencies.

"Pinkwashing'

For our purposes, we defined "pinkwashing" as capital funds targeted at women solely for marketing purposes. Pinkwashing is most likely the result of creating women-focused funds as an add-on to mainstream finance services, rather than as a central element of the organization's mission to support women.

Several more of our findings should be interesting to would-be investors. Few funds have third-party audits. Online disclosures of fund performance are generally absent. It is often difficult to discern governance and ownership structures of the funds. Lack of reporting standards may reflect the infancy of this capital market.

Stereotypical challenges faced by women also tend to be amplified to legitimize funds, such as the inability to access financial capital and their need for emotional and social support. Women are described as risk-averse, less successful and lacking professional contacts and role models.

In contrast, some funds focus on community building, investment knowledge and circumventing gender biases, offering a positive perspective versus a need to fix women.

Paradoxically, our study's findings provide both optimism and skepticism about the extent to which equality is at the heart of these funds.

We conclude that only a minority of funds seek to counter structural barriers associated with women's access to capital, such as a preference to invest in male-dominated firms and sectors. Most funds are positioned to facilitate individual wealth creation. And few funds prioritize racialized Indigenous people and other underrepresented women versus privileged white women.

Silver lining

At the same time, women-focused capital funds are creating new spaces that enable women investors and small business owners to make choices based on their values, financial knowledge and investment capabilities.

International Women's Day will soon be upon us, and hundreds of investors and women-identified small business owners will gather in Toronto on March 9 for the SheEO Global Summit. Founder Vicki Saunders has a goal—to mobilize the capital, the buying power and the networks of a million volunteers to fund 10,000 women-led ventures.

In the United States, Alicia Robb, founding CEO of Next Wave Impact, is working to reduce the gender imbalance in angel investing and educate women investors. Founding CEO Kathryn Finney of Digitalundivided focuses exclusively on advancing financial capital to Latin-American and Black founders in the U.S. The Indigenous Women Entrepreneurship Fund advances funds for Indigenous businesses in Canada.

Some funds, such as Next Wave Impact, are disrupting the status quo of institutional investment by constructing grassroots engagement, and networks of gender-focused investors and women entrepreneurs.

These change-makers are exemplars of entrepreneurial feminism in the growing market of women-focused capital funds. The investments target women-identified, women-owned and women-led enterprises, and femme and non-binary entrepreneurs.

Ask 'who benefits?'

Investors should keep this in mind before assuming that all women-focused capital funds serve an inclusive economic agenda.

While pinkwashing may be acceptable to some, more transparency is needed to make informed investment decisions. To identify pinkwashing, investors and entrepreneurs are encouraged to examine the governance structure of the funds and ask: "Who appears to benefit from the fund and how?"

Another suggestion is to determine if the fund helps expand the entrepreneurial ecosystem in ways that are likely to benefit women and non-binary femme entrepreneurs, or if the fund serves to perpetuate stereotypes and constraints implicit in the existing ecosystems.

Our study suggests that an increasing number of investment funds described as "women-focused" fall short of this standard in practice.

In light of these findings, due diligence on the part of both investors and entrepreneurs is essential.

Women seeking crowdfunding financing for start-ups are perceived as more trustworthy

Here are 5 practical ways trees can help us survive climate change

by Gregory Moore, The Conversation

As the brutal reality of climate change dawned this summer, you may have asked yourself a hard question: am I well-prepared to live in a warmer world?

There are many ways we can ready ourselves for climate change. I'm an urban forestry scientist, and since the 1980s I've been preparing students to work with trees as the planet warms.

In Australia, trees and urban ecosystems must be at the heart of our climate change response.

Governments have a big role to play—but here are five actions everyday Australians can take as well.

1. Plant trees to cool your home

At the current rate of warming, the number of days above 40℃ in cities including Melbourne and Brisbane, will double by 2050—even if we manage to limit future temperature rises to 2℃.

Trees can help cool your home. Two medium-sized trees (8-10m tall) to the north or northwest of a house can lower the temperature inside by several degrees, saving you hundreds of dollars in power costs each year.

Green roofs and walls can reduce urban temperatures, but are costly to install and maintain. Climbing plants, such as vines on a pergola, can provide great shade, too.

Trees also suck up carbon dioxide and extend the life of the paint on your external walls.

2. Keep your street trees alive

Climate change poses a real threat to many street trees. But it's in everyone's interests to keep trees on your nature strip alive.

Adequate tree canopy cover is the least costly, most sustainable way of cooling our cities. Trees cool the surrounding air when their leaves transpire and the water evaporates. Shade from trees can also triple the lifespan of bitumen, which can save governments millions each year in road resurfacing.

Tree roots also soak up water after storms, which will become more extreme in a warming climate. In fact, estimates suggest trees can hold up to 40% of the rainwater that hits them.

But tree canopy cover is declining in Australia. In Melbourne, for instance, it falls by 1-1.5% annually, mainly due to tree removals on private land.

This shows state laws fail to recognize the value of trees, and we're losing them when we need them most.

Infrastructure works such as level crossing removals have removed trees in places such as the Gandolfo Gardens in Melbourne's inner north, despite community and political opposition. Some of these trees were more than a century old.

So what can you do to help? Ask your local council if they keep a register of important trees of your suburb, and whether those trees are protected by local planning schemes. Depending on the council, you can even nominate a tree for protection and significant status.

But once a development has been approved, it's usually too late to save even special trees.

3. Green our rural areas

Outside cities, we must preserve remnant vegetation and revegetate less productive agricultural land. This will provide shade and moderate increasingly strong winds, caused by climate change.

Planting along creeks can lower water temperatures, which keeps sensitive native fish healthy and reduces riverbank erosion.

Strategically planting windbreaks and preserving roadside vegetation are good ways to improve rural canopy cover. This can also increase farm production, reduce stock losses and prevent erosion.

To help, work with groups like Landcare and Greening Australia to vegetate roadsides and river banks.

4. Make plants part of your bushfire plan

Climate change is bringing earlier fire seasons and more intense, frequent fires. Fires will occur where they hadn't in the past, such as suburban areas. We saw this in the Melbourne suburbs of Bundoora, Mill Park, Plenty and Greensborough in December last year.

It's important to have a fire-smart garden. It might seem counter-intuitive to plant trees around the house to fortify your fire defenses, but some plants actually help reduce the spread of fire—through their less flammable leaves and summer green foliage—and screen your house from embers.

Depending on where you live, suitable trees to plant include crepe myrtle, the hybrid flame tree, Persian ironwood, some fruit trees and even some native eucalypts.

If you're in a bushfire-prone area, landscape your garden by strategically planting trees, making sure their canopies don't overhang the house. Also ensure shrubs do not grow under trees, as they might feed fire up into the canopy.

And in bad fire conditions, rake your garden to put distance between fuel and your home.

5. What if my trees fall during storms?

The fear of a whole tree falling over during storms, or shedding large limbs, is understandable. Human injury or death from trees is extremely rare, but tragedies do occur.

Make sure your trees are healthy, and their root systems are not disturbed when utility services such as plumbing, gas supplies and communication cables are installed.

Coping with a warming world

Urban trees are not just ornaments, but vital infrastructure. They make cities livable and sustainable and they allow citizens to live healthier and longer lives.

For centuries these silent witnesses to urban development have been helping our environment. Urban ecosystems depend on a healthy urban forest for their survival, and so do we.

Local water availability is permanently reduced after planting forests

No need to give up on crowded cities: We can make density so much better

by Thami Croeser and Lucy Gunn, The Conversation

The idea that we should decentralize our population has come up many times in Australia. Recently, the National Farmers' Federation president pushed the notion, calling for a shift to the regions. And the premise is this: city living is unpleasant. Roads are jammed, housing is expensive and it's all so much nicer out in the country. We need to "spread out."

We reject this conclusion. Regional centers certainly must play a role in accommodating our population growth, but for now it'll be a modest role.

The more immediate need is to focus on improving conditions in our major cities. Our smaller towns matter, but we can't neglect the urgent need to get better at doing the bigger ones right.

Our cities are growing very rapidly. The fastest growth is in Melbourne, which added 119,400 residents in 2017-18. That's nearly as many extra people as the entire population of Darwin in a single year. This rapid growth doesn't need to mean more traffic, ugliness or stratospheric housing prices and rents—if we confront a difficult truth.

A dirty word in Australia

The truth is we're just really ordinary at urban density. It's so poorly executed in Australian cities that it has become a dirty word in local politics.

Urban density targets remain low in planning policies for many states. It's often set at around 15 dwellings per hectare. In practice, even lower density is delivered.

Australians tend to think of density as living in high-rise tiny apartments. Drop the "d-word" at your local pub and see how the term "shoebox" or "vertical slum" quickly follows.

The irony is that the very thing that makes a getaway to central Paris or Barcelona so attractive is what many Australian city residents revile at home. The places we visit and admire are really quite dense.

Our estimates based on UN figures suggest Paris averages around 213 people per hectare and Barcelona 156. (By contrast, Melbourne averages 38 people per hectare and Sydney around 50.)

It's higher-density living that makes their streets and public spaces buzz. But, importantly, this density is achieved through a combination of well-designed mid-rise apartments (roughly six stories) close to shops, services and public transport. This gives residents the best of both worlds: cities that are livable and likable.

A failure of planning

Past failed experiments in density have made it difficult to replicate overseas examples locally. The great Australian dream of owning a quarter-acre block and the stigma around density persist with reason. In Melbourne, for example, rapid high-rise development in the last decade has delivered large numbers of very small apartments, in some cases of poor quality and lacking natural light and ventilation.

Very modest investment in public transport makes things worse, as new residents try to cram onto services that haven't kept pace with growth. Car parking, however, is usually mandated. These planning rules mean the price of new apartments includes the expense of multiple floors of parking, and streetscapes are peppered with vehicle crossover ramps.

Without adequate public transport, roads fill with cars, stoking resident opposition to further infill development. The roads and parking these cars need occupy valuable space, which could be better used for trees and urban greening. Green space is often overlooked in the haste to accommodate rapid population growth, yet it's essential for community health and well-being and for reducing urban heat island effects.

Handling population growth doesn't require us to move to Tamworth or Toowoomba, but it will require some really important changes in our urban development priorities. There has to be a much stronger focus on quality and aesthetics to win back public support for infill development. It's also going to take commitment to lift density targets in key planning policies.

Life on a Dutch woonerf.

Plan Melbourne's 2017 refresh, for instance, has moved to a goal of "over 20 dwellings per hectare." It follows the recommendations of research in allowing higher densities in high-activity areas such as activity or town centers. However, it will take time to implement this change in existing and new areas across the city.

Density must be complemented by suitable streetscapes and infrastructure. This will require a significant rethink of the role of the car in urban areas, greater investment in public transport, and a reallocation of large areas of streetscape space to greenery and pedestrians.

That's a big ask, but it's worth it, because density really doesn't have to mean "dogbox."

Dutch show change is possible

Take a (digital) walk around a woonerf neighborhood in the Netherlands, and you'll notice on-street parking is scant, the speed limit is around 15km/h and plentiful road space is allocated to tree planting and garden beds. Kids play in the street under the watchful eye of long-term locals. You don't notice the dense apartments around you because there are trees in the way and there's a lot to see at ground level.

Remarkably, it was only in the 1970s that the Dutch started to move away from car-oriented planning to deliver this kind of urban design, which puts people and place first. With courageous policy change, we could have this in Australia too.Superblocks currently transforming Barcelona might work in Australian cities, tooProvided by The Conversation

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