City of Science: Looking to the past, present and future of healthcare and the human body


Yvonne Slater
Fri, 4 March 2022

Images from Pixabay

IT'S a healthy thing to reflect on the past to appreciate where we are today; in our own lives, in our professions, and in our world.

In terms of medicine and understanding the human body, we have come a long way as a human race. Yvonne Slater from Glasgow Science Centre and Kirsty Earley from The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow are looking to the past, present and future of healthcare and the human body.

So much of the past is reflected in current clinical practice, influencing not only the physical, but also the emotional and spiritual components of healthcare. Take it back to the Ancient Greeks with the Hippocratic Oath, an ethical code that many practitioners hold to today, or the theory of antisepsis, which was discovered in Glasgow in 1867 and underpins our understanding of the importance of hygiene. Or how about the discovery of anaesthesia in the mid-1800s, or the foundation of medical imaging through the discovery of X-radiation in 1895? It is through the lens of history that we are able to appreciate these fundamental components of clinical practice on another level. Without the pioneering work of individuals such as Joseph Lister in antisepsis and infection control, Marie Curie in radiation and medical imaging, and William Macewen in brain surgery, we would be stuck in the past where tradition trumped evidence.


READ MORE: Glasgow Science Centre: The unexpected reason that love really is written in the stars

Throughout the rapid medical advances of the 20th Century we continued to fight infection, with the discovery of penicillin and further antibiotics, the delivery of effective vaccination programs and an increased understanding of the immune system. We harnessed the potential of radiation therapy and chemotherapy as treatments for cancer and developed new ways to see under the skin and explore the human body with ultrasound, MRI and other non-invasive scanning technologies. We successfully carried out life-saving organ transplants, extended the average human lifespan and moved the focus from surviving disease to keeping healthy.

The 20th century also brought another change in approach. Increasing access to international travel and rapid worldwide communication meant scientists and clinicians could more easily share ideas and knowledge. Teamwork and collaboration have become vital, moving us away from a focus on individual pioneers. But it is still on their shoulders that we are standing today. We still look to the past to ground us in today and to allow us to glimpse into the future.

READ MORE: Glasgow Science Centre: Step outside and look up for the ultimate festive light show

Today, keywords in modern healthcare are DNA, data and digital. We can swallow a camera pill and track its progress through the digestive system as it sends back images and data about our gut health. We can train computer algorithms with large amounts of data so that they can quickly analyse and recognise patterns. This application of artificial intelligence will speed up the process of diagnosis and treatment decisions, through the rapid scanning of x-rays and images to accurately detect fractures, certain cancers or acute stroke, for example. The possibilities of personalised medicine are coming ever closer, where having knowledge of patients’ DNA means that treatment can be tailored for the individual, delivering the most appropriate medicine at the right dose and at the right time.

And looking to the future, we are living longer, exploring further. Many of us already use wearable digital devices that track our sleep, our heart rate and level of activity. In future, wearing smart sensors may enable people with long term conditions, and their care team, to more closely monitor their health and allow earlier identification of risks and intervention. With longer lifespans, the use of smart technology, coupled with the advance of personalised medicine will help us support more independent living in later life.

We are planning to return to the Moon and establish long term missions to explore its surface, with the added possibility of sending astronauts from there to Mars. Through studying the health of astronauts, we are learning what happens to the human body after long periods in space and how we might adapt in future. Maybe some of us alive today will spend time living on other planets in the future and will be the ones reflecting on the medical challenges this has brought for the next generation of scientific pioneers to solve.

You can explore these stories of healthcare and the human body with Glasgow Science Centre’s online festival, Curious About: The Human Body, from 9 – 11 March 2022. Join in live talks or delve into a wealth of activities and videos by visiting the Curious About website HERE.

Ancient underwater landslide caused huge tsunami ‘and could serve as a warning’


Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, 28 February 2022,

The find suggested that an ancient landslide caused a tsunami. (Getty)

An ancient underwater landslide which caused a huge tsunami could serve as a warning for many nations in the Middle East.

A huge chasm in the seafloor was caused by a landslide 500 years ago which unleashed a tsunami in the area.

A researcher from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have warned that future movement of the seabed could unleash more tsunamis in the area in countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Earth scientist Sam Purkis, professor and chair of the Department of Marine Geosciences, spent four weeks aboard the OceanXplorer research vessel in the region.

As he and a fellow scientist were ascending from 3,000 feet during a submersible dive, Purkis noticed a startling break in the seabed.

It was an unexpected find, although not out of the question for the Red Sea, which was formed by the separation of the African and Arabian tectonic plates 30 million years ago.

Purkis said: “Immediately, I realised that what we were looking at was the result of some geological force, which had broken the seafloor.

He took rock samples, which revealed that it had been created by a landslide that likely occurred 500 years ago.

He was also able to find evidence from sediment collected north of the chasm, which showed that it probably spawned a tsunami.

Purkis warns that the nations along its coasts—including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel—need to ensure that early warning systems are in place for both earthquakes and tsunami.

“Just a little shake in the wrong place and the whole wall could fail, leading to a much larger tsunami than occurred 500 years ago,” Purkis said.

“That area of Egypt, as well as Saudi Arabia, which are urbanising so rapidly, have certain hazards which haven’t been previously recognized, but they need to be, to avoid a future catastrophe.”

In 2018, geographers working in Shetland found evidence of two previously unknown tsunamis that hit the islands - hinting that Britain could face a far higher tsunami risk than previously believed.

Previously, it had been believed that the devastation unleashed by the ‘Storegga Slide’, an underwater landslide off Norway 8,000 years ago, had been a near-unique event.

Sue Dawson, from the University of Dundee, said, "We found sands aged 5,000 and 1,500 years old at multiple locations in Shetland, up to 43 feet above sea level.

"These deposits have a similar sediment character as the Storegga event and can therefore be linked to tsunami inundation."

The researchers analysed sand debris in lochs in Shetland to make their conclusion.

Earth’s coldest forests are shifting northwards and it could make climate change even worse


Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, 28 February 2022

Boreal forests are moving northwards (Getty)

The coldest forests on our planet are shifting northwards, due to climate change - and the shift could cause new dangers.

Researchers have warned that the movement of conifer forests to the north is visible on satellites and could lead to increased wildfires and new risks to biodiversity.

The researchers also warn that the change could have knock-on effects which could accelerate climate change.

The boreal forest is a belt of cold-tolerant conifer trees that stretches nearly 9,000 miles across northern North America and Eurasia.

Read more: Why economists worry that reversing climate change is hopeless

The boreal forest accounts for almost a quarter of the Earth's forest area and is the coldest forest - though mostly rapidly warming.

Logan Berner, assistant research professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) at Northern Arizona University, says: "There is emerging evidence that climate change is causing boreal trees and shrubs to expand into arctic and alpine tundra, while at the same time causing trees to become more stressed and die along the warm southern margins of the boreal forest.

"These dynamics could lead to a gradual northward shift in the geographic extent of the boreal forest biome, but the extent to which such changes are already underway has remained unclear."

The researchers used 40 years of satellite observations and various geospatial climate-related datasets of the boreal forest and assessed where and why vegetation greened and browned during recent decades.

Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right

"Greening" indicates higher rates of vegetation growth, which can happen when climate warming promotes growth of trees and shrubs.

"Browning" indicates lower rates of vegetation growth and potentially vegetation death, such as when hotter and drier conditions suppress tree growth and kill trees.

Vegetation became greener across much of the cold northern margins of the boreal forest; warmer conditions led to increased vegetation growth and enabled trees and shrubs to expand into arctic and alpine tundra.

Vegetation became browner along parts of the warm southern margins of this biome as a result of hotter, drier conditions increasing tree stress and death.

Co-author Scott Goetz, Regents' professor and director of the GEODE Lab, said, "The boreal forest ecosystem is changing in many ways over recent decades, and those changes are often linked with increasing fire disturbance.

"Here we intentionally focused on areas that were not recently disturbed by fire so we could tease out the effect of climate change.

“Our hypotheses about what would happen were verified by this analysis - forests are getting more productive in the cooler northern and higher elevation areas, and they're getting less productive as a result of hot air masses and drying in the warmer and more southerly areas. We fully expect that will continue and probably intensify in the years to come."

Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space

Changes in vegetation could affect both plant and animal biodiversity, especially species like caribou and moose, which have specific foraging preferences like deciduous shrubs and trees.

Changes in vegetation also impact the stability of carbon-rich permafrost soils and absorption of solar energy by the land surface in ways that could accelerate climate warming.

Increasing tree mortality could have widespread implications for forest products while also leading to further degradation of semi-continuous and sporadic permafrost.

Berner said, "Fundamentally, greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing Earth's climate to warm, which in turn is leading the boreal forest to shift northward, as well as impacting other ecosystems across the planet"

"To minimise adverse impacts of climate change, efforts are needed to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially related to fossil fuel consumption and deforestation.

“Furthermore, northern communities need to plan for potential changes in vegetation that could impact resource availability (e.g. wildlife, timber) and wildfire risk."

UK

'Silenced!' Muslim MP shut down in Parliament while asking about 'government's disgusting racism'

Nadine Batchelor-Hunt
·Political Correspondent - Yahoo News UK
23 February 2022·

A Muslim MP was cut off in the House of Commons while asking why a senior Conservative MP was promoted amid allegations of Islamophobia.

Mark Spencer was made Commons Leader earlier this month despite an investigation being carried out into allegations made by Tory MP Nusrat Ghani.

Spencer identified himself as the whip at the centre of a row over whether Ms Ghani was told her “Muslimness” was a factor in losing a ministerial role in 2020.

Spencer has strongly denied the claims, calling them "completely false" and "defamatory".

Addressing Boris Johnson during prime minister's questions on Wednesday, Labour MP Imran Hussain referenced the situation, and remarked on Johnson's own controversial comments - in which he has previously compared Muslim women to "letterboxes and "bankrobbers".

"The member for Sherwood [Mark Spencer] is currently under investigation for Islamophobia following accusations he told a fellow MP that her being a Muslim MP was making colleagues uncomfortable," Hussain said.

Labour MP Imran Hussain was shut down by speaker Lindsay Hoyle for asking about accusations of Islamaphobia on the part of Commons Leader Mark Spencer (Parliament.TV)

"How did the government punish this behaviour? With a promotion that puts the accused member in charge of the complaints procedure.

"And, of course, Mr Speaker - we know the prime minister himself is no stranger to derogatory comments remarks about Muslim women."

However, as Hussain began to ask a question, Hoyle stopped him, saying: "This is not the appropriate place to be raising that".

The Speaker then moved on to another MP amid jeers of approval from Tory MPs. The prime minister did not have to respond to the question.

An outraged Hussain said after the incident: "Today I raised the serious issue of Islamophobia at the top of the Conservative Party.

"I was silenced in Parliament, but they can't stop me speaking out against this Government's disgusting racism - so I ask here: If you can't call out Islamophobia at #PMQs then where can you?"

Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani in January claimed she was sacked from a role in the cabinet in 2020 because of her 'Muslimness'. (Getty Images)

Ghani made the initial allegations in January, telling the Sunday Times: "At the post-reshuffle meeting with the whips I asked what the thinking was behind the decision to fire me... I was told that at the reshuffle meeting in Downing Street ‘Muslimness’ was raised as an ‘issue’."

A spokesperson for the prime minister at the time said Ghani had flagged the issue and had not subsequently begun a formal complaints process. Shortly after, Number 10 announced they would investigate the allegation.

Spencer, who was chief Conservative whip during the time Ghani claimed the incident happened, has fiercely denied the claims, saying: "I have never used those words attributed to me."

In February the prime minister promoted Spencer to Leader of the House of Commons.

The exchange follows an investigation into the Conservative Party on Islamophobia after reports of multiple incidents in the party, as as well as Johnson's own comments about Muslim women.

Senior Muslim Conservative politician Sayeeda Warsi said in May last year after the report was published: "The findings of this report show clearly that the Conservative Party is institutionally racist".

Conservative MP Mark Spencer was promoted to Leader of the House of Commons by Boris Johnson despite allegations of Islamophobia. (Getty Images)

Johnson has previously said he is "sorry for offence taken" for his own remarks, but stopped short of apologising claiming they were a feature of journalism.

"I do know that offence has been taken at things I’ve said, that people expect a person in my position to get things right, but in journalism you need to use language freely," he said.

"I am obviously sorry for any offence taken."

Tell Mama, which tracks anti-Muslim hate crimes in the UK, say incidents jumped by 375% following the prime minister's remarks.

When asked whether Hoyle's decision to cut Hussain off was appropriate, and whether Muslim MPs have the right to challenge the prime minister on the issue in the House of Commons, a spokesperson for Labour said: "It is legitimate question to ask about Islamophobia within the Conservative Party. Whether the Prime Minister’s question time was the right place to do it… that’s a matter for the Speaker to put on what’s appropriate in the House of Commons.”

A House of Commons spokesperson said: "Members should not make accusations about the conduct of other Members as a ‘sideswipe’ as part of a question. In other words, any accusation about a Member’s conduct should only be done in the form of a substantive motion, and not just in passing’."

Women’s History Month: 5 groundbreaking researchers who mapped the ocean floor, tested atomic theories, vanquished malaria and more

The Conversation
March 05, 2022

Tu Youyou shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015.

Claudio Bresciani/AFP

Behind some of the most fascinating scientific discoveries and innovations are women whose names might not be familiar but whose stories are worth knowing.

Of course, there are far too many to all fit on one list.

But here are five profiles from The Conversation’s archive that highlight the brilliance, grit and unique perspectives of five women who worked in geosciences, math, ornithology, pharmacology and physics during the 20th century.


Marie Tharp with an undersea map at her desk. Rolled sonar profiles of the ocean floor are on the shelf behind her.

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the estate of Marie Tharp



As late as the 1950s, wrote Wesleyan University geoscientist Suzanne OConnell, “many scientists assumed the seabed was featureless.”




An illustration of Marie Tharp’s mapping process. (a) Shows the position of two ship tracks (A, B) moving across the surface. (b) Plots depth recordings as profiles. (c) Sketches features shown on the profiles.
The Floors of the Ocean, 1959, Fig. 1

Enter Marie Tharp. In 1957, she and her research partner started publishing detailed hand-drawn maps of the ocean floor, complete with rugged mountains, valleys and deep trenches.

Tharp was a geologist and oceanographer. Aboard research ships, she would carefully record the depth of the ocean, point by point, using sonar. One of her innovations was to translate this data into topographical sketches of what the seafloor looked like.

Her discovery of a rift valley in the North Atlantic shook the world of geology – her supervisor on the ship dismissed her idea as “girl talk,” and Jacques Cousteau was determined to prove her wrong. But she was right, and her insight was a key contribution to plate tectonic theory. That’s part of why, OConnell writes, “I believe Tharp should be as famous as Jane Goodall or Neil Armstrong.”

2. Sympathetic observation of bird behavior

Margaret Morse Nice was a field biologist who got into the minds of her study subjects to garner new insights into animal behavior. Most famously she observed song sparrows in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Rochester Institute of Technology professor of science, technology and society Kristoffer Whitney recounted what Nice called her “phenomenological method,” acknowledging the obvious “affection and anthropomorphism” you can see in her descriptions.
“When I first studied the Song Sparrows,” Nice wrote, “I had looked upon Song Sparrow 4M as a truculent, meddlesome neighbor; but … I discovered him to be a delightful bird, spirited, an accomplished songster and a devoted father.”

Despite earning no advanced degrees and being considered an amateur, Nice promoted innovations like the “use of colored leg bands to distinguish individual birds,” gained the respect of her better-known peers and enjoyed a long, successful career.

3. A medical researcher in Maoist China


Tu Youyou in a pharmacology lab with a colleague in the 1950s.
Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

At the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, a young scientist named Tu Youyou headed a covert operation called Project 523 under military supervision. One of her team’s goals was to identify and systematically test substances used in traditional Chinese medicine in an effort to vanquish chloroquine-resistant malaria.

Historian Jia-Chen Fu described how “contrary to popular assumptions that Maoist China was summarily against science and scientists, the Communist party-state needed the scientific elite for certain political and practical purposes.”

Tu followed a hunch about how to extract an antimalarial compound from the qinghao or artemisia plant. By 1971, her team had successfully “obtained a nontoxic and neutral extract that was called qinghaosu or artemisinin.” In 2015, she was honored with a Nobel Prize.

4. A mathematician who wouldn’t be diverted

Not everyone gets called a “creative mathematical genius” by Albert Einstein. But Emmy Noether did.
Mathematician Tamar Lichter Blanks wrote about the roadblocks Noether faced as a Jewish woman who wanted to pursue a math career in early 1900s Germany. For a while, Noether supervised doctoral students without pay and taught university courses listed under the name of a male colleague.

All the while, she conducted her own research in theoretical physics, contributing to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Her most revolutionary work was in ring theory and is still pondered by mathematicians today.

Noether died less than two years after emigrating to the U.S. to escape the Nazis.

5. Testing nuclear theories one by one


A 2021 U.S. postage stamp featuring Chien-Shiung Wu.
U.S. Postal Service

While sometimes called the “Chinese Marie Curie” in her home country, nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu is less well-known in the U.S., where she did the bulk of her work. Rutgers University-Newark physicist Xuejian Wu considered Chien-Shiung Wu (no relation) “an icon” who inspired his own career path.

As a grad student, Wu traveled by steamship to California in 1936, where she fell in love with atomic nuclei research at UC Berkeley, home of a brand new cyclotron. She worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Among her many accomplishments, Wu’s careful experimental work discovered what’s called parity nonconservation – that is, that a physical process and its mirror reflection are not necessarily identical. Her colleagues who focused on the theoretical side of this breakthrough won the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics, but Wu was overlooked.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Maggie Villiger, Senior Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

IRELAND
Government must act on women’s equality issues, rally told


David Young
Sat, 5 March 2022

People take part in a National Women’s Council of Ireland rally outside Leinster house in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)

A rally in Dublin has heard calls for government action to accelerate progress on women’s equality issues in Ireland.

Hundreds of people attended the “No Woman Left Behind” demonstration outside Leinster House.

The rally was organised by the National Women’s Council (NWC) of Ireland ahead of International Women’s Day on Tuesday.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald speaks at a National Women’s Council of Ireland rally outside Leinster House in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)


The crowd heard calls for decisive action to tackle violence against women, as well as demands for more to be done to improve provision of childcare and and access to abortion services.

Particular challenges faced by one-parent families and traveller, migrant, trans and disabled women were also highlighted.

Access to state housing was also cited as a major problem.

Addressing the crowds from the platform, NWC director Orla O’Connor said: “It’s an important day for all of us to be here. Today is the day that we want our voices to be heard and it’s time for the government to listen and to take action on the issues affecting our lives.”

She added: “You have told us loud and clear that the key issues affecting women’s equality are not advancing and progress is much, much too slow.”

People take part in the Dublin demonstration (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)

The lead up to the event attracted controversy after it emerged that Government ministers were not on the list of political speakers invited to address the rally.

Organisers defended the move, arguing the event was an opportunity for the Government to listen to the messages being delivered by women.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was among opposition politicians who did speak at the rally.

She told the event: “We demand the right to decent work, to fair pay, to equal pay, we demand the right to live and raise our families without constant choices to be made between heating the room and feeding a hungry mouth, the right to learn and grow, to explore every horizon, to reach for very dream, we demand the right to be free, to be ourselves, without fear, without apology and without humiliation – the right to live a full and free life together.

“The political system can choose to listen or not, they may choose to look the other way but be very clear sisters – the old Ireland is gone and change is coming.”

Labour TD Ivana Bacik addresses the rally (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)

Ms McDonald also expressed solidarity with the women of Ukraine amid the ongoing war.

“The scenes of horror that we witness daily are matched only by the expressions of incredible courage and bravery as civilians go toe to toe with the Russian aggressor,” she said.

Labour TD Ivana Bacik also used the rally to voice support for Ukraine.

“In a peaceful Dublin city centre I know all our thoughts and all our solidarity are with the women, children and people of Ukraine as they endure the brutal bombardment and assault from Russian troops and Russian forces,” she said.

“At this, their darkest hour, we stand with them and we condemn this appalling and brutal invasion.”

PATRIARCHY IS FEMICIDE
Male violence against women is about so much more than toxic masculinity

Sonia Sodha
Sun, 6 March 2022

Photograph: Ian West/PA

The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer a year ago prompted a wave of national shock. Her brutal abduction, rape and killing pierced the public consciousness to such a degree that feminist campaigners wondered if this tragedy might move us from seeing violence as something society has to live with to something that can be significantly reduced.

Today, those hopes look misplaced. A single statistic shows how little has changed: since Sarah’s murder, at least 125 women have been killed by men. Some, like Sabina Nessa, were murdered in a public place by a man they didn’t know; many more behind closed doors, often by their partners. The question, after having read report after report, is why, for all the never agains and pledges to do more, have we failed so badly to reduce violence?

Any analysis of violence has to begin with the stark difference between the sexes. The vast majority of violence is committed by men – more than four-fifths of violent crime and an even greater proportion of sex offences. While men are also more likely to be victims of violent crime, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of severe domestic abuse. (One of the reasons single-sex spaces have become the norm in prisons, hospital wards and refuges: it is a simple rule of thumb to safeguard against male violence.)

Interestingly, the difference in physical aggression between the average man and the average women is moderate – to put it in context, about a quarter as significant as average sex differences in height. The big difference comes at the extremes of the distribution: there are many more very violent men than women.

What underpins this difference? In animals, scientists have found a clear link between testosterone levels and male aggression. But this is not replicated in humans, leading experts to believe that the complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors – the way children are socialised – plays a much greater role


A UK project has shed the feminist attachment to the idea that the key to reducing violence is teaching men to be better

And there are noticeable differences in the way boys and girls are socialised. Children’s worlds are infused with harmful gender stereotypes – the idea that girls are sweet and boys are tough – in everything from behaviour expectations to their toys and clothes. There are some school-based programmes that try to tackle damaging masculine stereotypes, which draw on evidence of the effectiveness of peer-based programmes to tackle bullying in encouraging friends to call each other out on unhealthy behaviour towards girls. It can only be a good thing to challenge the stereotypes that are corrosive to boys and girls.

Perpetrator programmes for violent men have also run with this idea of reprogramming masculinity. That makes sense when you consider that, a few decades ago, the only people interested in reducing domestic violence were grassroots feminists who understood male violence primarily as a symptom of patriarchy: the age-old structural power imbalance between men and women that socially constructed itself out of differences between the sexes. They developed the Duluth model, named after the Minnesota city where it was conceived in the 1980s, which included a curriculum that aimed to educate the patriarchy out of perpetrators.

It is used widely today in the US, the UK and Australia, but evidence of its effectiveness is equivocal at best. That is not altogether surprising: the idea that attending a weekly support group will transform lifelong patterns of violent behaviour for most men seems far-fetched.

The difference between the sexes is a vital starting point for understanding violence, but cannot be the endpoint. Just as important are differences between men: why are some more violent than others? Some will have the kinds of personality disorders that mean they are incapable of feeling empathy. But longitudinal research finds that adverse childhood experiences – such as parental or domestic abuse, having a father in prison or growing up around alcohol or substance abuse – are associated with poorer outcomes in adulthood for boys and girls and one of those outcomes for some boys is a greater propensity to violence.

Yet the services that exist to support children with trauma have been cut to the bone over the past decade. It is not to excuse adult violence to say that some perpetrators have been resoundingly failed as children.

This difference between men has also been elided when it comes to perpetrator programmes. One of the most effective is a UK project called Drive, developed by two domestic abuse charities. It has shed once and for all the feminist attachment to the idea that the key to reducing serious violence is teaching men to be better. It works with the highest-risk domestic abusers. They are all assigned a case manager, who can help them access the support they need, such as housing or mental health services.

But it also functions as a surveillance system for dangerous men: they are monitored on an ongoing basis and case managers bring in other agencies such as the police and social services to disrupt their violent behaviour. The results are stunning: an 82% and 88% sustained drop in physical and sexual abuse respectively. But just 1% of serious domestic abuse perpetrators get funnelled into targeted interventions. If we were serious about reducing violence, we would be channelling money into a national rollout of this programme in the same way we spend vast sums on counter-terrorism.


Long-standing research shows that alcohol restrictions produce beneficial health outcomes and reduce violence

This idea that we need to disrupt rather than try to fix dangerous men has other implications. There is longstanding research that shows that alcohol restrictions – policies such as minimum pricing, limits on sales of strong alcohol in violence hotspots and timing restrictions – produce not only a range of beneficial health outcomes, but reduce violence. Of course they are a superficial lever and there is much they don’t address, but they reduce harm. Which raises the question: why don’t we use them more?

I ended up in a different place than I imagined I would when I embarked on a new documentary for Radio 4. Of course, you cannot understand violence without understanding differences between the sexes, but male violence is about much more than toxic masculinity. And we need to put the same effort into disrupting violent men from killing their partners as we do in stopping them from committing dreadful acts of terrorism.

• Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist

AUSTRALIA

‘We will not be silent’: prominent women press Morrison government for violence and harassment reform

Katharine Murphy and Daniel Hurst
Sat, 5 March 2022

Grace Tame
Australian activist

Prominent women, including the former Australian of the year Grace Tame and the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, are launching a fresh call for the Morrison government to implement significant policies to protect women and children from violence, harassment and discrimination.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, the new coalition – which includes Christine Holgate, Lucy Turnbull, the former Liberal MP Julia Banks, as well as the film-maker and Indigenous advocate Larissa Behrendt, the youth advocate Yasmin Poole, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Michele O’Neil, the businesswoman Wendy McCarthy, the consent activist Chanel Contos, the Paralympic gold medalist Madison de Rozario, and The Parenthood’s Georgie Dent – has launched a social media campaign to press for reforms.

Related: NSW to revisit economic gender disparity in the wake of Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins

The high-powered group is calling on the government to implement the central recommendation of the Respect@Work report – imposing a positive duty on employers to safeguard their staff from sexual harassment.

In addition, the call is for 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave, full implementation of the National Plan for First Nations Women and Girls, ensuring effective employment programs for women with disability, enacting stronger and consistent child sexual assault laws, and legislative measures to address the gender pay gap.

The group is also seeking the provision of free, accessible and quality early childhood education and care, expansion of paid parental leave, and embedding respectful relationships and consent education in schools, universities, workplaces and homes.

In a new video message fronted by members of the coalition, the women make it clear they want to continue the momentum of 2021 – an extraordinary year where thousands of Australian women and their allies took part in public demonstrations triggered by a #MeToo moment in the Australian parliament.

In February, Scott Morrison, along with other political leaders, apologised for the “terrible things” that happened in parliament workplaces and acknowledged a culture of bullying, abuse, harassment “and in some cases even violence” built up over decades.

Morrison’s apology followed a landmark review by Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, in 2021 into federal parliament’s culture.

The Jenkins review, which recommended a significant overhaul of the workplace culture, found one in three staffers interviewed had been sexually harassed. That inquiry was constituted after Higgins, a former government adviser, alleged she was raped by a colleague after hours in a Parliament House ministerial office in March 2019.

The new social media campaign video opens with Tame, a survivor of sexual assault, declaring: “Australia – we need to talk”.

The women note that 2021 “wasn’t the first year that women in Australia were harassed or unsafe or ignored or disrespected”.

“It wasn’t even the first year that women spoke up about these things. But in 2021 more Australians started to listen to women of different ages, occupations and beliefs, who stood up and spoke out, exposing discrimination, harassment, sexism, disrespect and intimidation,” they say. “And the more people listened, the more familiar the story became”.

In a joint statement, members of the coalition noted one in five Australian women would be sexually assaulted or raped in her lifetime, and one in three women would encounter workplace sexual harassment.

Brittany Higgins triggered parliament’s #MeToo reckoning. 

Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Poole, Plan International’s national ambassador and advocate for girls’ rights, noted: “If you’re a First Nations woman, a woman of colour, have a disability or identify as LGBTIQ+, those statistics are even worse.”
Morrison governments announces funding

Separately, the Morrison government announced on Sunday it would spend $189m over five years on strengthening prevention and early intervention efforts in family, domestic and sexual violence.

The pledge includes $104m over five years for the primary prevention organisation Our Watch, which will help it to drive change in the corporate sector and raise awareness about gendered violence.

The minister for women, Marise Payne, said Our Watch would also develop safety programmes for use in Tafes, universities, the media, workplaces and sports organisations.

“Our Watch will also boost its efforts in prevention for LGBTIQA+ Australians, Australians with disability and migrant women and develop further resources to educate young people about consent,” Payne said.

The government will fund two new campaigns to run across mass media channels, including television, cinema, social media and bus stops.

One of the campaigns will be adapted from Scotland’s “Don’t Be That Guy” initiative and will ask men to consider “how they can hold each other to account because sexual violence should not be considered a women’s problem to solve”.

The other government-funded campaign will target young people 12 and older and their parents.

The minister for women’s safety, Anne Ruston, said new research showed while almost nine in 10 Australians polled agreed “adults should talk to young people more about the topic of consent”, almost half of Australians were confused about the issue of sexual consent. That led them to actively avoid the topic.

“Today we are also making the announcement to fund a survey of secondary school-age students so that we can understand what are the issues that they are confronted with as they make their journey through life and to make sure that they have a better understanding of consent,” Ruston said.

Related: Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins: nine key moments from the sellout press club event

The Australian Human Rights Commission will develop the survey in partnership with coalition member Contos, who is the founder of Teach Us Consent.

Ruston said the government was committed to making Australia “a country where everybody lives free from fear of violence and free from violence”.

Patty Kinnersly, the chief executive of Our Watch, said the organisation was seeing “record demand for our support and services in universities, workplaces and sporting clubs and organisations” and community sentiment was changing.

“We are now talking about consent, we are now talking about violence against women being in the public domain, we are now giving people in the community to be bystanders and not let the sexist joke go past,” Kinnersly said.

The numbers that expose the horrifying extent of the UK’s rape crisis: The government is failing women

Women carry placards during the London Reclaim the Night march, protesting against sexual violence, and violence against women and girls. 

(Hollie Adams/Getty Images)

Matilda Long
19 February 2022

In June 2021, the government apologised to rape victims.

Launching an "end to end" review of how cases of sexual assault and violence are handled, ministers said they were "deeply ashamed" of the way survivors had been failed and let down.

The then justice secretary Robert Buckland acknowledged "systemic failings" meant victims, most of whom are women, were not seeing justice, and pledged that he "would not rest until real improvements are made."

As part of the rape review, the government promised a "reversal of the trends of the last five years", pledging to return the number of cases prosecuted to the levels seen in 2016/17.

Despite these promises, the latest data shows that little has improved for victims, with experts warning that "the picture for how rape is treated in the criminal justice system remains the same".

The scale of the issue is huge, with analysis of official statistics suggesting that hundreds of thousands of women were raped last year. However, a lack of confidence in the system means that only a small proportion of victims come forward.

Yahoo News UK has analysed the latest data, finding that the justice system is showing no signs of improving.
Reported rapes higher than ever

The number of rapes and sexual assaults recorded by police in England and Wales are at a record high, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Some 170,973 sexual offences were recorded by police in the year to September 2021, 63,136 of which were rape.

This represents a 12% year-on-year increase in the the number of recorded sexual offences.

Recorded rapes in England and Wales are at a record high (Yahoo News UK/Flourish/ONS)

According to the ONS, there are multiple likely factors behind the the increase, including an increase in the number of victims, as well as the impact of high-profile incidents, such as the rape and murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens.

Such incidents can encourage members of the public to come forward and report crimes they have experienced.

The ONS cautions that the figures are by no means a true representation of the scale of the problem, with data suggesting that fewer than one in six victims of rape or assault by penetration report the crime to the police. This suggests that more than 350,000 people were raped in England and Wales last year.

And, for the victims who do come forward, more often than not their bravery is not rewarded.
Almost all rape reports do not result in a charge

On the same day the ONS released its record figures, Home Office statistics revealed the proportion of reported rapes leading to a charge is lower than ever.

In the year to September 2021, fewer than one in 75 of reported rapes led to a charge.

Less than one in 75 reported rapes lead to a charge in 2021 (Yahoo News UK/Flourish/Home Office)

The proportion dropped from 9.7% in 2016 to 1.3% in 2021, the lowest figure ever recorded.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called the latest figures "truly appalling".

"Shocking crime figures out today show the rape prosecution rate has got even worse." she said.

"The Conservative government is completely failing to tackle violence against women and girls."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called the latest Home Office figures on rape prosecutions "truly appalling". (PA Images)

The woeful numbers of prosecutions for rape prompted the victims' commissioner to say that rape has been "effectively decriminalised".

In her 2019/20 report, Dame Vera warned: "We are enabling persistent predatory sex offenders to go on to reoffend in the knowledge that they are highly unlikely to be held to account."

Since she wrote the report, the prosecution rate has dropped further.

Furthermore, Home Office data shows that a large proportion of cases are being dropped because the victim withdraws their support.

This, according to Dame Vera, is often because "they cannot face the unwarranted and unacceptable intrusion into their privacy".

The rape review included promises to make the process of reporting a rape less traumatic for victims, such as ending the practice of the "digital strip search" of all their communication, and returning their phone within 24 hours.

Despite this, in 2021, two in five rape offences (42%) were closed because the victim did not support further police action.

Victims withdrew their support in almost half of rape cases in the year to September 2021 (Yahoo News UK/Flourish/Home Office)

The rape review pledged to bring prosecutions and conviction numbers back to levels recorded in 2016.

The latest data from the CPS shows that, while there have been small increases in the overall numbers since 2020, these are far below the level needed to meet the government's own targets.

Rape prosecutions and convictions are far below 2016 levels

 (Yahoo News UK/Flourish/CPS)

The true extent of rape

While police recorded cases of rape make for concerning reading, research by the ONS suggests these represent just 17% of rapes taking place, due to victims' reluctance to come forward.

The most recent Crime Survey for England and Wales found that fewer than one in six victims reported the assault to the police.



Boris Johnson says he cannot guarantee Rape Review targets to improve prosecution and conviction rates will be met by 2024

Boris Johnson has said he cannot guarantee that targets to improve rape prosecution and conviction rates set out in the government's Rape Review will be met.

An ONS spokesperson said: "Sexual offences are often hidden crimes that are not reported to the police.

"Therefore, data held by the police can only provide a partial picture of the actual level of crime experienced.

And, while younger women were more likely to be a victim of rape or sexual assault, they were less likely to report the crime.

Some 12.9% of women aged 16 to 19 experienced sexual assault in the year to March 2020 

(Yahoo News UK/Flourish/ONS)

In for the year ending March 2020, 12.9% of women aged 16 to 19 reported being a victim of sexual assault, and 2.7% reported being raped.

However, just 10% of 16 to 19-year-olds reported their assault to the police, compared with 27% of 35 to 44-year-olds.

The reasons cited by women for not reporting their crimes reveal a deep mistrust in the police to properly handle their case.

Asked their reasons for not reporting to the police, a shocking 25.2% said they didn't think officers would believe them.

Some 38.7% said they didn't think the police could help, and 14.9% thought the police would not be sympathetic.

Almost a third of women who were raped, 30.9%, didn't tell anyone at all, with 45.6% citing embarrassment, and 24.8% saying they didn't think anyone would believe them.

Since this research was conducted, women's mistrust in police has worsened.

In a poll conducted after the rape, kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, nearly have of women said they had lost trust in the police.

The case of Sarah Everard, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, has damaged women's trust in policing, polls show

 (PA Images)

Rebecca Hitchen, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said: “Our justice system is broken and failing women. Despite continuous promises to improve and targets to meet, the system is completely stagnant when it comes to rape. Likewise, the alarming downward trajectory in charging, prosecuting and convicting in cases of domestic abuse requires urgent and serious attention.

"We can’t talk about rebuilding women’s trust in the police and justice system while there is no tangible positive change to the things that matter – seeing justice and getting the specialist support survivors need.

"Almost one year on from the public outcry following Sarah Everard’s murder, very little if anything has changed in the response to violence against women. Once again we’re calling on the government and CPS to give this deeply unjust issue the attention it warrants, demonstrate strong leadership and ensure proper accountability.”

A government spokesperson told Yahoo News UK: “We are committed to restoring faith in the justice system for rape victims.

"We are recruiting 20,000 police officers and more Independent Sexual Violence Advisors while consulting on a Victims’ Law – delivering on our commitment to transform our entire response to rape.”

"We are also sparing rape victims the stress of testifying in court, making investigations less intrusive for victims and have introduced new justice scorecards to hold justice agencies to account."

Caring roles block career advancement for three in five women

Donna Ferguson
Sat, 5 March 2022

Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

Research shows as many as 50% of ethnic minority carers say responsibilities hold them back from finding new positions

Three out of five women say their caring responsibilities for children and other vulnerable or elderly relatives are preventing them from applying for a new job or promotion, while only one in five men say the same, according to new research.

The poll of 5,444 people by Ipsos Mori and the charity Business in the Community (BITC) found that nearly half the workforce are combining paid work and care. Almost three in 10 adults have left or considered leaving a job because of difficulties in balancing work and care. The latter was particularly true of women.

The majority of those with care responsibilities in the UK are parents looking after children under the age of 18, but 36% of carers are responsible for an adult of working age or older.

Those from a black, Asian, mixed race or other ethnically diverse background were significantly more likely to say they have caring responsibilities than those from a white background. As many as 50% of carers from an ethnic minority say their caring responsibilities are holding them back from applying for promotions or new positions at work, compared to 39% of white carers.

BITC Gender Equality campaign director Charlotte Woodworth said the results showed the disconnect between what workers – particularly women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds – need from employers and what they experience in the labour market. “There’s a lot of competing ideas about how we should try to improve the lot of women, how we should try and create a more levelled-up society. This report tells us very clearly how significantly workplace policies and workplace cultures are undermining those efforts,” she said.

Workers on low incomes are among the most badly treated. While some 75% of those earning £26,000 or more said they felt supported by their employer to manage their caring responsibilities for children, this dropped to just one in two people earning less than that amount.

The research shows nearly one in 10 carers are “sandwich carers”, meaning they have caring responsibilities for both a child and an adult.

Instead of expecting women, for example, to somehow juggle it all, workplaces need to change, Woodworth says: “It’s very clear that some groups are much more dramatically affected than others, and have a much harder time than others, but it’s not about problematising those groups, it’s about the workplace shifting its expectations, its norms, its cultures to better reflect the needs of the people who are trying to engage with it.”

The charity wants the government and employers to offer new fathers more ring-fenced, paid time off to look after their children when they are born, so that childcare responsibilities can be shared more equally between couples from the start of a child’s life.

The research found that even among women who identify as joint carers, 52% say they do “more than my fair share”, in comparison to 10% of men. One in three men admit they do “less than my fair share”, in comparison to 4% of women. Women are also significantly more likely than men to say their day job has been interrupted because of caring responsibilities, with many women saying they do more than their fair share because their partner’s working pattern or culture is unsupportive of work and care.

She hopes employers and the government will see the pandemic as a watershed moment. “The pandemic was bad for a lot of people with care responsibilities, and it was particularly bad on the gendered front. When lockdown happened, women were more likely to be furloughed and working mothers were more likely to lose their jobs than working fathers.”

But at the same time, she says, the pandemic made everyone more aware of the challenges faced by working carers. “It did have the effect of making people more aware of how hard it is to combine paid work with care, and it challenged and debunked a lot of old-fashioned ideas around what effective and productive work looks like.”