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March 16, 2026

Climate finance has failed Africa twice over – how to fix it

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lisa Sachs, Director, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, Columbia University

The effects of climate change are no longer a future risk for Africa. They are a present crisis.

Floods are destroying infrastructure that took decades to build. Droughts are collapsing harvests and displacing communities. Extreme heat is eroding labour productivity and straining health systems. Coastal communities are losing ground to rising seas and storm surges.

The case for massive investment in adaptation and resilience is overwhelming. In the infrastructure, agriculture, water systems, and coastal protections that help communities survive a climate that has already changed. But adaptation only buys limited time. Only deep, rapid cuts to the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet can prevent those impacts from escalating beyond the reach of any response.

The global response to this dual challenge has been woefully inadequate, with particularly devastating consequences for the countries that contributed least to global warming yet are most profoundly affected.

First, despite continued pledges to increase adaptation finance, the financing gap remains massive. Africa is receiving less than US$14 billion per year in adaptation finance against an estimated need of more than US$100 billion. And more than half of what does flow arrives as interest bearing loans.

Second, the growing attention to adaptation has crowded out the increasingly urgent imperative of deep decarbonisation. Investing in decarbonisation has become more, not less, urgent as global warming reaches the 1.5°C threshold, with emissions still rising. Deep decarbonisation is the only way to stop climate-related risks from rising to unmanageable levels.

Resilience becomes increasingly ineffective as emissions and temperatures continue to rise. We cannot adapt to many extreme events, or their impacts on food systems, livelihoods and health. Tipping points are irreversible.

Third and most profoundly, the global financial architecture is failing Africa on multiple levels simultaneously, with cascading impacts for both mitigation and adaptation. Investing in decarbonised energy and transport systems and in building resilience to the increased impacts of climate change requires access to long-term affordable capital.

Yet Africa remains trapped in a cycle of perceived risk and access only to limited and expensive financing. This has made it prohibitively difficult to finance critical investments, exacerbating African countries’ vulnerability, increasing perceived risk, and raising the cost of capital. Debt sustainability frameworks, credit rating systems, multilateral lending practices, and global market rules and conventions reinforce each other. They constrain access to capital that is needed for critical climate-related investments, channelling capital away from the places and sectors that need it most.

Understanding how those failures interact is essential to fixing them.

For two decades at Columbia University, as my colleagues and I have worked with governments and partners around the world, we have seen these failures play out directly. In the investment decisions that don’t get made and the infrastructure that doesn’t get built. We have watched risks mount, even as the pathways to decarbonisation were known. Already, we are seeing mounting risks and liabilities. There are increased liabilities, more profound trade-offs, and accumulated borrowing from future generations to cover losses today.

The single most important imperative is to lower the cost of capital for African borrowers, both sovereign and non-sovereign, to invest in modern, decarbonised infrastructure and in resilience at scale, for the benefit of the region and the world.

Fundamentally, this means reformed debt sustainability frameworks, liquidity mechanisms, risk assessments and credit ratings. Sovereigns, project developers and investors should also align around coherent, rigorous least-cost energy system modelling, so that investment pipelines are integrated with economy-wide planning.

Then strategic risk-allocation mechanisms at every level of the system, complementing fundamental reforms at the global level, will allow private capital to flow to hundreds of viable projects across the continent.

Failures on the mitigation front

Only mitigation – the deep decarbonisation of the world’s energy, transport, land and industrial systems – reduces the drivers of climate change. All other financing – for resilience, insurance and disaster recovery – manages the consequences of unmitigated climate risk. It does not reduce the underlying hazard.

That we are failing to decarbonise the world’s economy rapidly and at scale is inexcusable. We have the technology, capital and known pathways to achieve rapid deep decarbonisation. Tremendous technological gains mean that the economics increasingly support low-carbon solutions across the built environment, mobility and energy systems.

Energy consumers that have been passive offtakers can now act as storage on grids, stabilising energy demand, lowering system costs, creating new revenue streams, and lowering costs for downstream consumers. Distributed energy systems allow distinct locales to pool and share their energy, so that system disruptions have more limited impacts. Energy generated from the wind and sun are not subject to political capture or fossil fuel price volatility, the only means of truly securing energy security and economic sovereignty.

The current frameworks and institutions for global decarbonisation were built for a different era. Net-zero plans and mitigation targets obscure the way in which energy systems have transformed, expanding opportunities and enabling emissions reductions through systems optimisation.

Rather than insisting on net zero plans and mitigation commitments, we need:

rigorous technical analyses to identify least-cost pathways to decarbonised, optimised energy systems, considering how integration across sectors and regions unlocks efficiencies and reduces cost
coordination among diverse actors to support technological diffusion across interconnected systems
risk-sharing mechanisms to manage the financing risks that deter private capital at the early stages of transition.

The world is also failing Africa in particular. Africa holds 60% of the world’s best solar resources.

Some 600 million people on the continent still lack access to electricity. Modern infrastructure, properly planned and coordinated, represents an extraordinary development opportunity; energy system investments will power industrial growth, digital connectivity, health and education.

Yet Africa receives just 2% of global clean energy investment, a tiny fraction of the financing needed to build clean energy and mobility systems at scale.

This mismatch reflects the profound bias of the international financial system.

A broken international financial system

The cost of borrowing determines whether an energy system is financeable, and especially whether it is more competitive than fossil-based energy. In Africa’s power sector, the average cost of borrowing to build clean energy infrastructure is 15%-18% on average, compared to 2%-5% in Europe and the United States. At these high costs of capital, clean energy infrastructure is simply not financeable.

Those borrowing costs do not reflect genuine investment risk. They reflect a compounding set of structural constraints and misperceived risks.

GDP per capita is de facto the most decisive determinant of a country’s creditworthiness. A low-income country has virtually no path to investment-grade status regardless of its growth trajectory, governance quality, or returns on public investment.

As of late 2025, only three of 34 rated African countries held investment-grade status. Not a single low-income country held that status.

The IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework compounds the damage. Based on their institutional methodologies, the IMF and World Bank discourage the long-term public borrowing that African governments need to invest in infrastructure, human capital and climate resilience.

Recent European Central Bank research shows how these failures add up. Climate disasters directly raise sovereign borrowing costs. The ECB analysis shows that the effect is largest and most persistent in developing countries.

A major storm can push bond yields up by more than 140 basis points in an emerging economy, versus roughly 66 in a typical advanced economy. This means the cost of borrowing rises sharply at precisely the moment a country most needs resources to recover and rebuild. Financial breathing room shrinks precisely when climate impacts demand the greatest response.

The ECB analysis further shows that countries with slow energy transitions face a growing transition risk premium. The slower one transitions, the more costly it is to borrow. But the trickle of financing for clean energy in Africa is itself the result of high borrowing costs. So African countries are penalised for facing high borrowing costs for not having adequate public resources to build resilience to the climate impacts they did not cause.

Diagnose and target risk

The structural determinants of this problem are well understood. African governments must be able to access affordable, long-term capital to build clean energy and mobility systems, to invest in resilient cities, agriculture and coastlines, and to develop the institutions, health systems and education on which everything else depends.

That requires credit rating methodologies that stop treating poverty as a self-fulfilling proxy for default risk. And a debt sustainability framework that stops discouraging the public investment African economies need to grow. African countries that can make these critical investments at scale will grow far faster than the world’s wealthy economies. The international financial architecture must reflect that – urgently, before adaptation becomes an increasingly inadequate response to risks we had every opportunity to contain.

Lisa Sachs 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.

– ref. Climate finance has failed Africa twice over – how to fix it – https://theconversation.com/climate-finance-has-failed-africa-twice-over-how-to-fix-it-278117

March 16, 2026

Why long-term climate choices are hard to make – a philosopher explains

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Luke Elson, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Reading

A philosophical puzzle can help explain why some people and governments aren’t acting quickly enough to tackle climate change.

In 1990, American philosopher Warren Quinn posed the puzzle of the self-torturer. Imagine you’ve had an electrical device fitted to you. It has a dial, and every week you’re offered £10,000 to turn that dial up a notch. Doing this causes a tiny but permanent increase in electrical current flowing through your body, an increase you either can’t or can barely feel.

Each week, this seems like an excellent deal: a lot of money for (at worst) a negligible pain increase. But if you keep taking the money, the device will reach high settings and you’ll be full of agony and regret. It seems like you should stop at some point, but when?

Theories of self-torture vary, but many philosophers (including Quinn) agree that it’s a mistake to only consider each dial-turn in isolation. Instead, they claim the rational strategy is to consider the whole sequence, and perhaps employ some kind of decision procedure to pick a reasonable point and stop there.

I’d take £50,000 for an occasional ache in my arm. But there is some arbitrariness here, because rationality doesn’t tell us precisely when to stop. £40,000 or £60,000 would also be reasonable.

People pick goals or targets arbitrarily all the time, often settling on salient numbers. Eight hours sleep, not 7 hours 55 minutes; 2,000 calories not 2,003; 2°C of global warming. There may be scientific or other reasons for choosing roughly these numbers, but these reasons are often vague – not precise enough to forbid a small increase or decrease.

So how does this connect to climate change? In the example of self-torture, there’s a “clear and repeatable reason” to turn the dial (in Quinn’s words). And this reasoning is also commonplace about the climate.

The American philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that global warming is not “my fault”. He imagines taking a gas-guzzling car for a drive for fun. The drive brings some pleasure and, in normal circumstances, causes no meaningful harm via the atmosphere. It’s a drop in the ocean, some might say.

yellow bakcground, black line with knotted lines, straight black line coming out from side — Decisions often hinge more on short-term benefits than longer-term problems.
Victoria Nevzorova/Shutterstock

Canadian philosopher Chrisoula Andreou and others have noticed the similarities between environmental damage and self-torture. Every day people are offered food, flights and air conditioning in return for tiny increases in greenhouse gas levels. Each emission or turn of the dial is negligible in isolation, but taken together they have awful consequences: agony and a wrecked climate.

But if climate change is a version of Quinn’s thought experiment, it’s far more challenging than the original. The payoff is not just money. At present, some greenhouse gas emissions are essential to our lives. Much of our food, energy, flights and even medication currently rely on fossil fuels. Witness the surprisingly high emissions of gases commonly used in anaesthesia.

Overwhelm is real

Because our personal environmental footprints are negligible in a global context, many (including Sinnott-Armstrong) suggest climate change is a problem for governments, not citizens. Certainly, a government can determine health service policy, energy policy and so on.

But the challenge is bigger than that. The climate is so vast that even particular government policies can seemingly make no difference to the overarching crisis. The temptation to turn the dial recurs at a political and policy level too. This relates to us all in our role not as drivers (tempted to go for a drive) but as voters tempted to vote against fuel tax rises, for example.

As former UK prime minister Tony Blair wrote in a 2025 report by his thinktank, the Institute for Global Change: “In developed countries, voters feel they’re being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal.”

The puzzle of the self-torturer shows the truth in this claim. Many policies by themselves make no meaningful difference to the climate, but impose real sacrifices on citizens. If a small increase in British aviation taxes leads to fewer flights or even a regional airport closing, then some people will lose their jobs.

And even though air travel is one of the most carbon-intensive things most of us will ever do, one medium-sized country slightly reducing the number of flights in its territory will make negligible difference to the climate overall.

But the self-torture thought experiment shows why considering each policy in isolation like this is a mistake, just as it’s a mistake to consider every dial turn in isolation.

As many of us learn every new year, agreeing a goal is the easy part – not backsliding when trade-offs begin to bite is much harder. Even if we know that, just like eight hours of sleep, our agreed climate target is somewhat arbitrary and could have been a bit higher or lower, we should stick to it.

Much of the world has agreed to limit global warming. If the analogy with the puzzle of the self-torturer holds, then doing this requires that we – both individual people and governments – need to endure some painful sacrifices, even when they appear to have individually negligible benefits.

Luke Elson is a member of the Labour Party and occasionally does some leafleting.

– ref. Why long-term climate choices are hard to make – a philosopher explains – https://theconversation.com/why-long-term-climate-choices-are-hard-to-make-a-philosopher-explains-277040

March 16, 2026

Senegal’s crisis: why debt restructuring may be the least bad option

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Abdoulaye Ndiaye, ensiengnant-chercheur, New York University

Senegal is facing a serious debt crisis. The IMF estimated the country’s debt at 132% of GDP at the end of 2024. Debt servicing costs are projected at 5.5 trillion CFA francs (about $9.1 billion) this year, eating up a growing share of tax revenue.

A restructuring of the debt seems necessary but Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has ruled out this option. Instead, government has announced the shutdown of 19 agencies to save an estimated 55 billion CFA francs (about US$97.95 million) over three years.

A recent report examines the main implications of two options: trying to repay the debt at all cost or defaulting. In an interview with The Conversation Africa, Abdoulaye Ndiaye, one of the authors of the report, breaks down what each path could mean for the country.

How did Senegal’s debt crisis come about?

In September 2024, the new government announced that it found irregularities in debt reports. In response, the IMF froze its US$1.8 billion credit facility for Senegal in October 2024.

A few months later, in February 2025, Senegal’s Court of Auditors, the country’s supreme auditor of public finances, found that the deficit had been underestimated by 5.6% of GDP per year between 2019 and 2023. As a result, the debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 74% to 100%. Between March 2025 and October 2025, despite several visits to the country, the IMF program remained on hold.

The government later published a revised 2025 budget and medium-term outlook. It then estimated the debt at 120% of GDP. A month later, an IMF visit was extended by two weeks. Tension between the IMF and the Senegalese government became public. As a direct consequence, government bonds collapsed. Under pressure, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko pledged to do everything in his power to avoid default.

What does Senegal’s current strategy rely on?

Repaying at all costs means making two assumptions. The first is achieving massive budget consolidation in record time. In simple terms, it’s like running a marathon at sprint speed. Going from a primary deficit of roughly 14% of GDP in 2024 to a 2% surplus is something few countries have achieved. This usually requires a big natural resource windfall, as was the case in Antigua and Barbuda.

The second gamble is hoping key players, including the IMF, will agree that Senegal’s debt is sustainable and keep lending during this hard times.

To cover its current deficit and repay its debts due between 2026 and 2028, the government needs to raise 15 trillion CFA francs (US$25 billion).

If not the IMF, who could lend to Senegal and at what cost?

The IMF is the most suitable institution to support countries in crisis. Its programs are designed for these situations. They unlock other low-cost loans and offer zero-interest lending to low-income countries. Our analysis suggests that’s unlikely.

Under its own rules, the IMF can only approve a programme if its debt analysis shows the debt is sustainable.

If the IMF cannot lend, others might step in. For example, Egypt and Kenya] got loans in 2024 from emerging lenders like the United Arab Emirates despite doubts about their solvency. But this support comes at a price. The riskier the loan, the tougher the conditions, including painful privatisations.

Does Senegal have other options?

A third option would be to rely on regional financial markets. In 2025, regional banks lent to Senegal over 4 trillion CFA francs (US$6.7 billion) . They could continue to do so, but probably not as much. If they do, they would squeeze lending to the private sector and, above all, could expose the banking sector to increasing risk.

This strategy of paying back the debt at all cost might work. But it’s a big gamble. It carries two serious risks – either the fiscal adjustment fails, or no lender steps forward.

How can Senegal negotiate with creditors without hurting future investments?

Another path is negotiating with creditors under the G20’s Common Framework. This process was devised to reduce debt owed by developing countries to bilateral creditors. This option is not easy either. That said, Ghana and Ethiopia moved faster than Zambia in negotiating with creditors?.

The international community should treat Senegal as a test of possible cooperation. China and France together hold about 70% of Senegal’s bilateral debt. They should clearly show their support by committing to fixing the debt as quickly as possible.

Dealing with private creditors adds another layer of complexity. Their primary goal is to minimise losses which tends to make negotiation’s lengthy and adversarial. If the restructuring involves reducing or rescheduling payments, the country’s bond would usually be rated as “in default” by credit agencies, taking a temporary hit to its financial reputation. Default is not the end of the road. Countries can regain access to financial markets after a default. The key is making the debt cut deep enough to restore sustainability.

International institutions should step in with new loans. This would help Senegal keep investing despite its limited access to international markets. Finally, to minimise economic costs, debts denominated in CFA francs should be excluded from the restructuring scope to avoid destabilising the regional monetary zone.

What is the best path forward?

In any case, the lessons of this crisis must go beyond Senegal. Debt transparency and banking oversight across the region need to be strengthened. As European countries did during the Greek crisis in 2010, the West African Economic and Monetary Union will have to reform and build additional safety nets.

Experience shows that delaying a default is costly. It is better to negotiate early to reduce the impact on exports and growth. Both options – repaying and restructuring – are challenging, and can cause serious damage to the economy. Our analysis shows that without access to large amounts of cheap money, trying to repay would be more dangerous and more costly than restructuring.

Restructuring carries short-term costs mostly during the negotiation period of two to three years. A failed repayment would bring much deeper and more lasting damage to economic stability. That outcome should be avoided.

This article was commissioned in French and later translated.

Abdoulaye Ndiaye 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.

– ref. Senegal’s crisis: why debt restructuring may be the least bad option – https://theconversation.com/senegals-crisis-why-debt-restructuring-may-be-the-least-bad-option-276663

March 16, 2026

Microbes in Antarctica survive the freezing and dark winter by living on air

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ry Holland, Research Fellow in Microbial Ecology, Monash University

Holtedahl Mountains, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. Ry Holland

Winter in Antarctica is long and dark. Temperatures remain well below freezing. In many places, the Sun sets in April and does not rise above the horizon again until August. Without sunlight, photosynthetic life such as plants, mosses and algae cannot make energy.

But that’s not to say all life stops.

In a new study published in The ISME Journal, my colleagues and I show that Antarctic microbes make energy from the air at temperatures as low as –20°C. This finding improves our understanding of how life survives at temperature extremes in Antarctica – and how climate change will affect this important process.

How to make energy from air

In 2017, scientists showed that a large number of Antarctic microbes can generate energy from atmospheric gases present at very low concentrations.

This process is called “aerotrophy”. By using enzymes that are very finely tuned to “sniff out” the hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, these microbes have found a way to make energy from the air itself – a huge advantage in Antarctica’s nutrient-poor desert soils.

What remained unknown until now was the temperature limits of this process. Could aerotrophy be a way to power the continent’s soil communities through the winter?

Yellow tents pitched on white snow, with rocky mountains in the background. — Field camp in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica.
Braydon Moloney/Northern Pictures

Taking the lab down south

Measuring how quickly these microbes consume such a small amount of fuel can be difficult.

From 2022–24, we collected surface soil samples from different areas across East Antarctica and analysed them in our lab.

We measured how quickly they can use the atmospheric gases. We also extracted all the DNA from the soil microbes and sequenced it. This tells us what microbes are present, what genes they have, and what they are capable of using as energy sources.

We showed aerotrophy happening in the lab at representative summer (4°C) and winter (–20°C) temperatures. This means hydrogen and carbon monoxide are a viable food source not just over the summer months, but year-round. What was even more surprising though, was the upper temperature limit.

Soil temperatures in Antarctica rarely rise above 20°C. Yet we found microbes in these soils that continued to generate energy from hydrogen up to a staggering 75°C. It seems as though microbes in Antarctic soils are well adapted to the continent’s cold temperatures, but not restricted to them. It’s a bit like seeing a penguin thrive in a tropical jungle.

We also wanted to see this process occurring in Antarctica itself, so two years ago we brought the lab down south. We collected fresh soil samples, sealed them in the glass vials, and took gas samples.

For the first time, it was clear that under real-world conditions these soil microbes were still munching their way through hydrogen.

A researcher wearing a beanie and puffy jacket, sitting on snow in front of a tray of vials. — Ry Holland measuring gas consumption of soil microbes.
Braydon Moloney/Northern Pictures

The primary producers of Antarctica

DNA sequencing has showed us that the vast majority of microbes in Antarctic soils encode the genes to gain energy from hydrogen. Many of these bacteria also have genes to take carbon from the atmosphere.

These aerotrophs are “primary producers”, generating new biomass from the air itself.

In most land-based ecosystems, photosynthesis is thought to be the bottom of the food chain. Photosynthesis takes energy from sunlight and carbon from the atmosphere and turns it into yummy organic compounds.

It’s what makes plants grow. Plants are primary producers that are eaten by herbivores, which are then eaten by carnivores.

In Antarctica’s desert soils, photosynthesis is relatively rare. Instead, we hypothesise that aerotrophy fulfils the primary producer role in many places.

This makes sense because, unlike sunlight-dependent photosythesis, we now know that aerotrophy can happen year-round. Another benefit is that it doesn’t require liquid water, whereas photosynthesis does.

A set of glass vials each containing small amounts of soil, sealed at the top and with a needle and stopcock sticking out of each one. The vials are arranged in a rack sitting on the snow. — Soil samples were incubated in glass vials in Antarctica, to show the microbes consuming atmospheric gasses under real world conditions.
Ry Holland

Hydrogen in a heating world

Aerotrophy clearly has an important role in Antarctic ecosystems. So next, we wanted to determine how global warming might affect this process.

Under low-emissions scenarios, we predict a 4% increase in how quickly aerotrophs use atmospheric hydrogen. Under very high-emissions scenarios, this increase rises to 35%. The numbers are similar for carbon monoxide.

Although hydrogen isn’t a greenhouse gas itself, it is important because it affects how long some greenhouse gases, including methane, hang around in the atmosphere.

Soils (including the microbes that live in them) are responsible for 82% of all hydrogen consumed on Earth globally. In other words, they are a hydrogen sink. This is a crucial component in the global hydrogen cycle.

There are a lot of factors that determine how microorganisms will respond to climate change. Temperature is just one of them. This study is an important piece of the puzzle as scientists figure out how resilient Antarctica’s unique microbal ecosystems are.

Ry Holland is a Research Fellow at Monash University funded by the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative ‘Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future’ (SAEF). Their field work has been supported by the Australian Antarctic Division and White Desert. They are affiliated with the Australian Society for Microbiology and the International Society for Microbial Ecology.

– ref. Microbes in Antarctica survive the freezing and dark winter by living on air – https://theconversation.com/microbes-in-antarctica-survive-the-freezing-and-dark-winter-by-living-on-air-276384

March 16, 2026

Largest ever Parkinson’s study shows how symptoms differ between men and women

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lyndsey Collins-Praino, Associate Professor, School of Biomedicine, Adelaide University

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder, with over 10 million cases worldwide. Up to 150,000 Australians currently live with the disease and 50 new cases are diagnosed each day.

The number of people living with Parkison’s is projected to more than triple between 2020 and 2050.

Yet despite the immense impact on those living with Parkinson’s and their loved ones, and the staggering cost to our economy – at least A$10 billion a year – there is still a lot we don’t know about how this disease presents and progresses.

A recent large-scale study of nearly 11,000 Australians living with Parkinson’s disease provides some critical insights into symptoms, risk factors and how these affect men and women differently. Let’s take a look.

First, what is Parkinson’s disease?

Parkinson’s is a progressive disease in which cells that produce the chemical messenger dopamine in a part of the brain called the “substantia nigra” begin to die. This is accompanied by multiple other brain changes.

It is usually considered a movement disorder. Common motor symptoms include a resting tremor, slowed movement (bradykinesia), muscle stiffness and balance issues.

But Parkinson’s also involves a variety of lesser known non-motor symptoms. These may include:

mood changes
difficulties with memory and cognition (including slower thinking, challenges with planning or multitasking and difficulty paying attention or concentrating)
sleep disturbances
autonomic dysfunction (such as constipation, low blood pressure and urinary problems).

While these are sometimes referred to as the “invisible” symptoms of Parkinson’s, they often have a greater negative impact on quality of life than motor symptoms.

So, what does the new research tell us?

The study used data collected as part of the Australian Parkinson’s Genetics Study led by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. After a pilot study in 2020, it was launched as an ongoing, nationwide research project in 2022.

Some 10,929 Australians with Parkinson’s were surveyed and provided saliva samples for genetic analysis. This is the largest Parkinson’s cohort studied in Australia and the largest active cohort worldwide.

There were several key initial findings.

1. Non-motor symptoms are common

The study reinforced how common non-motor symptoms are, with loss of smell (52%), changes in memory (65%), pain (66%) and dizziness (66%) all commonly reported.

Notably, 96% of participants experienced sleep disturbances, such as insomnia and daytime sleepiness.

2. A better picture of risk factors

The study also provided insights into what can influence Parkinson’s risk.

This is important because we don’t completely understand what causes the dopamine producing cells in the substantia nigra to die in the first place.

Age is the primary risk factor for Parkinson’s. The new study found the average age for symptom onset was 64, and for diagnosis, 68.

3. Genes and environment both play a role

In the recent study, one in four people (25%) had a family history of Parkinson’s. But only 10–15% of Parkinson’s cases are caused by – or strongly linked to – mutations in specific genes.

It’s important to remember that families don’t only share genes but often their environment.

Multiple environmental factors, such as pesticide exposure and traumatic brain injury, also increase risk of Parkinson’s.

The majority (85–90%) of cases of Parkinson’s are likely due to complex interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors, and advancing age.

The study showed environmental exposures linked to Parkinson’s risk were common:

36% of people reported pesticide exposure
16% had a prior history of traumatic brain injury
33% had worked in high-risk occupations (such as agriculture, or petrochemicals or metal processing).

These exposures were significantly higher in men than in women.

4. Differences between the sexes

The disease is 1.5 times more common in men. In the new study, 63% of those surveyed were male.

Parkinson’s also presents and progresses differently in males and females.

The study found women were younger than men at time of symptom onset (63.7 versus 64.4 years) and diagnosis (67.6 versus 68.1 years), and more likely than men to experience pain (70% versus 63%) and falls (45% versus 41%).

Men experienced more memory changes than women (67% versus 61%) and impulsive behaviours, particularly sexual behaviour (56% versus 19%) – although most participants exhibited no or only mild impulsivity.

What we still don’t know

The large-scale study and its comprehensive survey shed valuable light on people living with Parkinson’s in Australia.

But it’s still only a sliver of the population. More than 186,000 people with Parkinson’s were invited to participate and just under 11,000 took part – a less than 6% response rate.

Of these participants, 93% had European ancestry. So this sample may not be fully representative of Parkinson’s disease.

The information we have about symptoms also relied on self-reports by the study’s participants, which are subjective and can be biased or less reliable than objective measurements of function. To address this, the researchers are planning to use smartphones and wearable devices to collect more comprehensive data.

Finally, while this provides a snapshot of the current cohort, it’s not clear how participants compare to people of a similar age without Parkinson’s, or how their symptoms may change over time.

These are important areas of future research for this ongoing study.

What all this means

Studies like this provide crucial insights into risk factors linked to Parkinson’s. They also help us better understand the symptoms people experience.

This is important because the way Parkinson’s presents varies from person to person. Not everyone will experience the same symptoms to the same extent.

Similarly, the way the disease progresses over time differs between people.

A better understanding of the factors that influence this can lead to earlier identification of who’s at risk and more personalised ways of managing this disease.

Lyndsey Collins-Praino receives funding from the National Health and Medical Council, the Medical Research Future Fund, the Australian Research Council and various philanthropic organisations. In addition to her academic role, she is affiliated with the Dementia Australia Research Foundation Scientific Panel, the MS Australia Research Management Council and the Hospital Research Foundation – Parkinson’s SA Board of Governors.

– ref. Largest ever Parkinson’s study shows how symptoms differ between men and women – https://theconversation.com/largest-ever-parkinsons-study-shows-how-symptoms-differ-between-men-and-women-277730

March 16, 2026

Why Donald Trump is losing the war at home

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

No US president in living memory has gone to war with less public support than Donald Trump has for the war in Iran. Even Barack Obama’s much-maligned Libyan intervention began with 60% of Americans in support in 2011. There is no poll that shows a majority of Americans supporting the Iran war, and multiple polls showing clear majorities against it. And wars usually lose public support as they go on.

Trump did not make a public case for the war before it began, because he preferred quick, surprising strikes preceded by theatrical suspense. He presented the vast military buildup in the Persian Gulf as a high-pressure negotiating tactic in the short-lived bargaining sessions over Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Trump was undoubtedly emboldened by the tactical success of his removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, though that too was not very popular with Americans.

Wars are not necessarily better when the US government invests a huge effort in justifying them. The justification for the disastrous Iraq War, after all, was based on misperceptions, distortions and falsehoods. But by completely disregarding US public opinion before the war, Trump now finds himself in all kinds of trouble as he tries to fight it.

Americans don’t like seeing themselves as aggressors

Political scientist Bruce Jentleson argued that public support for war in the United States depends not just on how the war is going, but on the public’s understanding of the war’s aims. The US public is much more likely to support wars aimed at imposing restraints on aggressive powers than wars aimed at bringing political change to other countries.

That theory explains why the Bush administration made such an effort to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks, even though “regime change” was the aim of the Iraq war.

Regime change is also, quite clearly, the aim of the Iran war. Trump has been talking about it for months, and is still talking about it.

It was only after the bombs started falling on Iran that Trump and his administration began to make the case that Iran was an “imminent threat” to the US. It wasn’t very convincing.

After all, Trump had been boasting until recently that he had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program the year before. In a video released shortly after the attacks, Trump complained about the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, the 1983 Hezbollah attack on US marines in Beirut, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which he said Iran was “probably involved in”.

It was left to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make the convoluted argument that the US was acting in preemptive self-defence, because it knew Israel was going to strike Iran, and that Iran would retaliate against Americans in the Middle East.

That did not play well in a country increasingly wary of Israel. A Gallup poll released just before the war began showed that, for the first time this century, more Americans said their sympathies were with Palestinians than Israelis. Recently, the biggest drop in support for Israel has been among political Independents, whose views have shifted significantly during the Gaza War.

Tucker Carlson, the loudest critic of the Iran war on the right, immediately labelled it “Israel’s war”. Joe Rogan, an influential figure among Trump’s 2024 support base of disillusioned young men, said they felt “betrayed” by the war.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tried to sell the war to Americans by gloating about the death, destruction and fear being inflicted on Iran. Even as investigations show the US military was responsible for the bombing of a school that killed more than a hundred children, he dismisses rules of military engagement as “stupid”. The most recent Quinnipiac Poll showed Hegseth’s approval rating at 37%.

Americans are unprepared for sacrifice

Despite high-profile opponents like Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump still has most of the MAGA base with him for now. They were never really opposed to foreign wars. What they hated was losing foreign wars, and Trump is promising them swift victory in Iran.

But Trump has not prepared them or anyone else, including his own cabinet, for the costs this war will incur. Especially the disruption to global oil markets, which the International Energy Agency is calling the largest in history, and which will elevate the cost of everything from travel to food.

Trump’s rhetoric about the price of war has hardly been Churchillian. One night he posted on social media that a short term increase in oil prices is “a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

But the next day he was forced to calm markets by claiming the war was nearly over.

The Iranian regime, whose main goal is survival, is well aware of the political and economic vulnerabilities of the US and its Middle Eastern allies, and these appear to be what it is targeting.

At the beginning of the war, Iran’s seemingly scattered attacks on infrastructure, embassies and hotels in Gulf states were a source of mirth for some American commentators. But these were eventually enough to shut down large swathes of energy production and shipping, and inflict far more pain than Trump or his supporters were expecting.

Trump was already facing the same domestic problem that Joe Biden faced. It doesn’t matter how much you tell Americans about positive GDP, stock market and employment numbers; if they are struggling with the cost of living, their view of both the economy and the President will be bleak.

Trump’s glib dismissals of the price of oil are sounding a lot like his airy reassurances at the beginning of the pandemic.

Few Republicans in Congress have been prepared to stand up to Trump over the war. But as midterm elections approach, many of them will be silently praying he finds an excuse to end it as soon as possible.

David Smith 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.

– ref. Why Donald Trump is losing the war at home – https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-is-losing-the-war-at-home-278079

March 15, 2026

The Pink Pill: New documentary exposes the long battle to bring Addyi — the first libido drug for women — to market

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Treena Orchard, Associate Professor, School of Health Studies, Western University

Ever wonder why there are 26 medications for male sexual disorders and only one drug for women who experience low libido? Perhaps it’s because this glaring example of medical sexism has not been widely discussed in popular media. Not until now, that is.

The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control, a gripping new documentary film, blends archival footage, interviews with physicians and advocates and intimate reflections from women to reveal the uphill battle getting the drug Addyi (flibanserin) to market. This so-called “pink pill” is a prescription medication for treating low libido or hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women.

Directed by award-winning Canadian filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee, the film follows Cindy Eckert, the trailblazing founder of Sprout Pharmaceuticals who developed Addyi. Habitually dressed in pink, a symbol of her unwavering determination to champion women’s health, she is a force to be reckoned with.

A trailer banner for a movie with a woman sticking her tongue out with a pill on it. — The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control, directed by award-winning Montreal filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee, had its North American theatrical release on March 6.
(Paramount +)

As a sexual wellness researcher and women’s health advocate knowledgeable about gender and sexual inequities, I was deeply moved by this film. Women’s bodies and reproductive rights have not — at least not in my lifetime — been more threatened than they are today.

Addyi’s story is a vital testament to what smart and determined women in science can do for other women. Well-researched and inclusive of multiple perspectives, it shows us the collective change required to keep moving the medical needle toward a place where women’s health receives the same funding, marketing and support as men’s.

We’re not there yet, but The Pink Pill provides a road map for how to successfully advocate for women’s health and sexual autonomy.

The overlooked science of women’s desire

Low sexual desire impacts 13 to 40 per cent — or between 536 million and 1.65 billion — of women globally.

Despite these numbers and many negative effects — including relationship strain, shame, depression and body image issues — the film reveals an alarming gap in medical knowledge and training. Medical students are still not trained in women’s sexual health; not even at the top schools in the United States, as one physician in the documentary adds. The clitoris was excluded from instructional materials, another shares.

The medical and moral disdain surrounding female pleasure directly impacts how women with low libido are treated by their doctors, many of whom engage in medical gaslighting. The “oh, it’s just in your head” trope has haunted women for centuries, and doctors routinely advised patients with low sexual desire to take baths, plan date nights or submit to “duty sex.”

As Eckert says, after disclosing her own struggles with HSDD:

“We’re conditioned to not fight for it.”

This was echoed in her first meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop and market flibanserin in early 2010, when a male board member asked: “What do we need a bunch of horny women running around for?”

The research behind the “pink pill”

Later that year, German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim released very promising results from a flibanserin clinical trial involving women affected by HSDD.

However, in October 2010, the company halted the pursuit of FDA approval because, as Eckert said: “They didn’t want to take on women and sex.” That’s when she bought the rights to the drug and stepped up to be its champion.

Eckert began by naming it Addyi after the Grey’s Anatomy character Addison Montgomery, who is widely admired for her staunch support of other women and for living life on her own terms.

After reviewing the brain scans of women with and without HSDD, Eckert discovered a scientific smoking gun. There were striking differences in the hypothalamus — the brain’s “sex centre” — between the samples, with the low-libido women exhibiting far less activity.

This was evidence that low desire isn’t in women’s heads, it’s biological.

Eckert’s team went ahead and launched the largest clinical trial in women’s health history for an FDA filing — involving more than 13,000 participants. However, as revealed in the documentary, despite the data clearly demonstrating Addyi’s positive impact on women’s sexual desire, in 2013 the FDA turned down the application to take the drug to market.

Moderate success and dangerous side effects were cited, including the patronizing notion that “a woman might take Addyi the night before and fall asleep the next morning while driving her kids to school.”

When a drug became a movement

Undeterred, Eckert and her team spent over US$1 million conducting a driving study that revealed enhanced reaction times among women taking Addyi. Eckert also created the Even the Score campaign that brought Sprout’s mission of sexual health equity for women into public conversations in a new and powerful way.

Influential physicians came on board for medical credibility, and so did women who’d taken Addyi. They protested, they supported Sprout and their local women’s health agencies, and they provided testimony when Eckert applied for FDA approval again.

Their heartbreaking stories of divorce, self-doubt and soul-numbing frustration with being ignored or told their sexual lives are irrelevant are difficult to watch. But they were also incredibly inspiring.

As Eckert said:

“When we fought, other women fought.”

In August 2015, Sprout Pharmaceuticals won by a vote of 18-6. Two days later, Eckert sold Addyi to Valeant Pharmaceuticals for mass distribution for $1 billion. Valeant, however, then raised the price and imposed restrictions on the drug’s sale, placing it beyond the reach of most women financially, and many physicians refused to prescribe it.

Spurred into action once again, Sprout Pharmaceuticals filed a lawsuit against Valeant. The case was dropped and Eckert bought Addyi back for $0 — a remarkable turnaround.

A pill bottle next to its box. — Addyi is a prescription medication for treating low libido or hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. Taken at bedtime, it acts on brain serotonin and dopamine receptors to increase desire.

Why the Addyi story matters

The Pink Pill is a galvanizing film that exposes how medical sexism contributes to the dismissal of women’s sexuality. Low desire, especially in midlife, is a real condition worthy of scientific research and pharmaceutical development.

Using a documentary film as the medium to tell this story is, as producer Julie Bristow said in an interview, “a very powerful way of getting people to engage.” It’s an emotionally compelling film, but it’s also educational.

This is a central goal for Bristow, who said: “What I hope women take away from this, and men, is that men and women’s sexual health is dealt with completely differently and in the wider health-care system as well.”

By combining scientific debate, personal testimony and political activism, The Pink Pill makes a persuasive case that women’s sexual health has long been treated as a medical afterthought — that changing this truth requires cultural progress too.

Treena Orchard 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.

– ref. The Pink Pill: New documentary exposes the long battle to bring Addyi — the first libido drug for women — to market – https://theconversation.com/the-pink-pill-new-documentary-exposes-the-long-battle-to-bring-addyi-the-first-libido-drug-for-women-to-market-276473

March 15, 2026

Dogs can overdose too: Naloxone training can save pets’ lives as well as humans

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Colleen Dell, Professor and Research Chair in One Health & Wellness, University of Saskatchewan

Administer naloxone right away if you suspect your dog is experiencing an opioid overdose. (Unsplash/Luke Macgillivray)

Opioid-class drugs are commonly prescribed as powerful pain medications in both humans and animals, though they can also be accessed or used illicitly. These substances carry a significant risk of overdose in people and in pets because they slow the central nervous system. At high doses, this effect can slow the respiratory system to the point of stopping breathing.

While any pet can experience opioid toxicity, dogs are particularly at risk because they rely heavily on their noses to explore their surroundings. This means they are more likely to directly inhale a substance through their nose, ingest it through their mouth or be exposed indirectly through contamination on their feet and fur.

We know this as a veterinarian, a specialist in the human-animal bond and as trainers in opioid overdose response. The number of reported incidents of dogs ingesting opioids is low, because the risk of exposure is low and dogs possibly have a higher tolerance compared to humans. But when they do overdose, it is likely at a concerningly high dose.

The most common illicit fentanyl exposure formulation in dogs reported to a North American Veterinary Poison Control Centre from 2019 to 2023 was powder/crystals (30 per cent). However, fear of reporting cases involving illicit opioids may result in under-reporting.

Opioid crisis in Canada

Approximately one in 10 Canadian households includes an individual prescribed an opioid.

Over the past decade, Canada has seen a sharp rise in potent opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanyl in the unregulated drug market, leading to increased overdoses. From 2016-24, there were 53,821 reported apparent opioid toxicity deaths nationwide.

These trends increase the likelihood that pets may gain access to opioids, putting them at risk of drug-related harms and potentially fatal overdose.

Naloxone use in humans

Naloxone is a safe and effective medication used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. In Canada, naloxone does not require a prescription and is available in two forms — intramuscular injection or nasal spray.

Publicly funded Take Home Naloxone programs were launched nationwide from 2012 to 2017, providing naloxone kits to community members at no cost and without a prescription. Community-based training for Take Home Naloxone is available to everyone to support emergency response during an overdose. Naloxone kits contain standardized doses that are considered safe for human adults, children and infants. Administering naloxone will not cause harm if a person has not consumed opoids.

Once trained, anyone can administer naloxone safely, and while naloxone can reverse the harms of an overdose within minutes, multiple doses may be required with more potent opioids. Different guidelines apply to first responders and when naloxone is used in clinical settings.

In Canada, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act provides legal protection from simple drug possession charges for individuals who seek emergency help during an overdose or who are at the scene when help arrives. According to Health Canada, naloxone has saved thousands of lives.

Naloxone use in dogs

Naloxone has been used off-label in dogs, meaning it is not formally approved in Canada for use in companion animals. However, it is commonly administered in certain situations, particularly with police working dogs who face a higher risk of accidental opioid exposure while on duty.

In a 2023 study involving working dogs who had been administered fentanyl, an opioid frequently used in veterinary hospitals for pain relief and sedation, naloxone was effective in reversing sedation using either intramuscular or intranasal doses. While generally considered safe, its use should still be monitored for any adverse reaction.

Administration of naloxone to your own animal or providing first aid to an animal in an emergency do not fall within the regulated practice of veterinary medicine; if naloxone is administered, the pet owner should seek immediate veterinary care.

Signs of opioid poisoning

Slow or absent breathing is the most critical and life-threatening sign of an opioid overdose in dogs. It may be accompanied by extreme lethargy, a blank stare, unconsciousness, unresponsiveness, pale gums, pinpoint (very small) pupils and vomiting.

In humans, not every sign of an overdose needs to be present before administering naloxone.

The same is true for dogs: if breathing is impaired and there is any possibility of opioid exposure, it is appropriate to administer naloxone and contact a veterinarian for further care.

If you suspect your dog has ODed, administer naloxone

Administer naloxone right away if you suspect your dog has overdosed. If possible, wear gloves before handling the animal. The dog should also be taken to a veterinarian as soon as possible for immediate emergency medical attention.

To give naloxone in the nose, hold the dog’s snout closed, spray the medication into one nostril, and then cover the nose with a towel to reduce the chance of the dog sneezing and spreading opioid residue to the person administering.

For an injectable dose, inject it in the front portion of the upper thigh into the muscle tissue.

Because these methods require physical contact, wash your hands immediately afterward and avoid touching your face in case any opioid residue remains on your skin.

Additional doses may be needed for larger dogs or when the amount of opioid consumed is significant, so anticipate administering a second dose. Due to the high potency of many opioids, more than one dose is often necessary to fully reverse their effects.

In humans, a second dose is recommended two to three minutes after the first if there is no improvement in breathing or responsiveness. Doses can be repeated at two- to three-minute intervals until the person or animal shows signs of responsiveness or until additional medical assistance is available.

In a dog’s body, naloxone is shorter-lived than many opioids, meaning overdose symptoms can return 30-90 minutes after initial improvement. So it is essential to seek immediate veterinary care and ensure the dog is monitored closely for several hours.

Never perform mouth-to-snout resuscitation on a dog with a suspected opioid overdose unless you have a breathing barrier, as there is a strong chance that the dog inhaled the opioid. A study evaluating human exposure during intranasal and intramuscular naloxone treatment emphasizes always using protective equipment, such as gloves, a towel to block sneezing, and a breathing barrier for rescue breaths.

Clean up thoroughly afterwards to reduce the risk of secondary opioid transfer to the human responder: wash hands and face with warm soapy water, change and wash clothing, and wash the floor and any other surfaces that might contain traces of the substance. Opioid drugs in powder or pill form cannot be absorbed through human skin, only though mucous membranes (mouth, nose and eyes).

Keeping your pet safe

There are several important ways to help keep your dog and other pets safe.

Store medications securely: Keep all human and pet medications out of reach of pets.
Recognize poisoning signs: Learn the symptoms of opioid poisoning in dogs so you can act quickly.
Seek help promptly: if you suspect opioid exposure, seek immediate veterinary care. You can also contact a 24/7 resource like the Pet Poison Helpline (fee: US$89) or APSCA Poison Control hotline (fee: US$95).
Be prepared: Complete naloxone training for humans and advocate for including information on dogs. Add a ready-made presentation deck to naloxone training.
Know other risks: Everyday hazards, such as chocolate, grapes, cannabis and other toxic substances can also endanger your pet.
Monitor surroundings: This news report describes a dog’s fentanyl overdose and naloxone reversal.
Using naloxone: Naloxone does not reverse the effects of non-opioid sedatives used in veterinary medicine, or street drugs such as cocaine.
Follow prescriptions: Always give medications exactly as prescribed and consult your veterinarian if you have questions.
Dispose properly: Ensure safe disposal of both human and pet unused or expired medications by returning them to a pharmacy.

Contributing funding received by Colleen Dell for the Office of the Research Chair in One Health & Wellness, University of Saskatchewan & by Barb Fornssler and Maryellen Gibson from the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation, Mobilize Grant.

Barbara Fornssler, Jennifer Loewen, and Maryellen Gibson 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.

– ref. Dogs can overdose too: Naloxone training can save pets’ lives as well as humans – https://theconversation.com/dogs-can-overdose-too-naloxone-training-can-save-pets-lives-as-well-as-humans-274852

March 15, 2026

Is HR really there to help employees? What early-career workers should know about it

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jason Walker, Program Director & Associate Professor Master of Psychology Health and Wellness & Master of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Adler University

Early in your career, you’ll probably hear this piece of advice: “If something goes wrong, go to HR.” It sounds practical and reassuring, but that advice is missing some critical nuance.

A difficult lesson many people learn later — often through experience — is that HR is not primarily structured to advocate for individual employees. Instead, it’s main function is to protect the organization it works for.

This can make people uncomfortable, but it’s not meant as a criticism of the people who work in HR. Most HR professionals are thoughtful, well-meaning practitioners who care about fairness and employee well-being.

The issue is less about individuals and more about organizational structure. HR’s main function is to manage organizational risk, which includes reducing legal exposure, ensuring compliance with regulatory bodies, hiring and firing employees, and managing internal issues.

Professional bodies reflect this framing. The Society for Human Resources Management, the largest professional HR body in the world, frames the role of HR landing squarely in compliance, workforce risk management and organizational effectiveness.

What these frameworks don’t claim is that HR’s primary mandate is to protect individual employees when their interests conflict with the organization.

When employee well-being and performance align with organizational goals, HR can be extremely helpful. But when those interests diverse, the organization’s priorities typically comes first. Understanding this early is an important part of navigating your career.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

Read more from Quarter Life:

HR is not a neutral party

It’s common for early-career professionals to assume that HR functions like a neutral mediator designed to resolve workplace disputes, but it’s important to understand this isn’t the case.

In practice, HR sits inside the corporate hierarchy. Human resources officers typically report to senior leadership, and their performance is measured by how effectively they are able to manage institutional risk.

Because of this structural position, HR professionals are responsible for balancing employee concerns with the organization’s broader legal, financial and reputational risks.

When conflicts involve routine interpersonal issues or policy misunderstandings, HR can intervene and resolve things quickly. But when complaints involve highly productive employees or senior leaders, the incentive can become more complicated.

Research shows that employees who generate revenue, prestige or hold influence may receive greater protection from leadership — even when their behaviour is harmful — because they are perceived as valuable organizational assets.

Speaking up can carry risks

In recent years, many organizations have promoted “speak-up” cultures, encouraging employees to report misconduct when it arises.

In principle, these initiatives reflect an important commitment to accountability. But the data tells a more complicated story.

According to the 2023 Global Ethics Survey, nearly half of employees who reported misconduct said they experienced some form of retaliation afterward.

Retaliation is not always explicit. It may take the form of declining career opportunities, exclusion from critical projects, damaged professional relationships or negative performance evaluations.

Even when retaliation is subtle or indirect, its effects can ripple through an organization. When colleagues observe retaliation from speaking up, they become less likely to report concerns. This creates a silencing effect where concerns about misconduct remain unreported despite formal reporting mechanisms.

Reporting misconduct is important, but it’s wise to understand the potential risks and protections that exist before doing so.

Internal investigations protect the institution

Workplace investigations offer another example of HR’s structural role. These investigations are formal processes HR conducts when allegations of misconduct, harassment or policy violations arise.

These investigations typically focus on determining whether internal policies or legal obligations were violated. In practice, that means the question often becomes, “Did someone violate policy?” rather than the more important question, “Was someone harmed?”

HR professionals are often responsible for conducting these internal investigations. While many are experienced in employee relations, most have little to no formal investigative training.

As a result, investigations are often conducted by professionals whose expertise lies primarily in HR management rather than formal investigative practice.

Research on corporate compliance systems suggests that internal compliance procedures typically serve as mechanisms to ensure legal defensibility and reduce organizational liability, rather than to deliver justice to employees.

In other words, once a workplace issue becomes a formal investigation, the process is often shaped by legal and organizational risk considerations.

HR can still be an ally

None of this means HR professionals are your enemy in the workplace. In organizations where leadership prioritizes ethical conduct, psychological safety, accountability and fairness, HR can absolutely be an ally.

For instance, HR sets policies that define unacceptable behaviour, delivers training programs that explain those standards to employees and establishes reporting channels for complaints.

Still, even the most committed HR professionals operate within a structural mandate to protect their institution. Understanding this distinction can help you can approach workplace challenges with clear expectations.

If you need to raise concerns with HR, it can be helpful to document incidents carefully, understand your company’s policies and know your rights as an employee. Recognize when external reporting channels may be required and familiarize yourself with those processes.

Wherever possible, try to resolve problems early before they become formal HR issues. Once a matter enters HR channels, the focus frequently shifts toward documenting the issue and managing potential legal or organizational risk.

Once you understand how organizations actually work, you can stop navigating your career with assumptions and start navigating it more strategically.

Jason Walker 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.

– ref. Is HR really there to help employees? What early-career workers should know about it – https://theconversation.com/is-hr-really-there-to-help-employees-what-early-career-workers-should-know-about-it-277718

March 15, 2026

What bite marks on a dinosaur fossil tell us about the T. rex’s eating habits

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Taia Wyenberg-Henzler, PhD Candidate, Paleontology, University of Alberta

For decades, dinosaurs, especially the Tyrannosaurus rex, have captured the imaginations of the public and paleontologists alike. In many instances, pop culture has depicted the T. rex as the giant and fearsome hunter that lorded over other dinosaurs.

However, paleontologists have historically disagreed on whether this was actually the case. More recently, scientists have come to the conclusion that, like many modern animals, T. rex was not only an active predator that hunted other dinosaurs for its meals, it also scavenged for its dinner.

What was on the menu? How would a T. rex have caught its food? How did they eat?

Looking at fossils recovered from the same rocks as T. rex, we can say that plant-eating dinosaurs, such as the horned Triceratops or the duck-billed Edmontosaurus, likely comprised a portion of T. rex’s diet. T. rex bite marks on Triceratops and Edmontosaurus bones certainly support this.

However, answering questions about hunting or feeding behaviour is often a lot harder than this. In many cases, it involves some detective work. In some instances, fossilized footprints or bones with bite marks can provide relatively direct evidence of dinosaurs interacting with each other and the environment around them.

However, even with these types of fossils, we are often without answers as to how T. rex would have hunted. A recently published study by paleontologist John Scannella and me on a nearly complete Edmontosaurus skull might finally begin to answer this question.

Bite marks on a skull

On display at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont. is a nearly complete Edmontosaurus skull that provides a fascinating glimpse into T. rex hunting and feeding behaviour. The skull was discovered in 2005 in eastern Montana, on lands managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

What’s interesting about this particular Edmontosaurus is that a partial tooth tip penetrates directly through the top of the snout into the animal’s nasal cavity, and there are numerous bite marks on both sides of the skull.

The penetrating nature of the tooth indicates a powerful bite was delivered to its face. The lack of healing around the embedded tooth suggests that it was embedded after the animal died or, potentially, shortly before it died.

CT scans reveal the exact positioning of the tooth within the skull of the Edmontosaurus. Based on its orientation, it appears the tooth broke off when the Edmontosaurus came face-to-face with its attacker.

In modern animals, these types of encounters typically result in the death of the animal being bitten. When you combine this with the lack of healing around the tooth and the amount of force needed for the tooth to become lodged into bone, this suggests the Edmontosaurus was unlikely to have survived the encounter.

Who bit this Edmontosaurus?

Identifying carnivores from bite marks alone is often extremely difficult because the marks rarely preserve information that is specific enough. This is why many bite mark studies often struggle with identifying a specific carnivore. However, carnivorous dinosaur teeth are often more diagnostic, with some teeth being unique to a particular species.

Comparing the shape of the serrations and overall size of the tooth to all carnivorous dinosaurs that lived alongside the Edmontosaurus tells us that a Tyrannosaurus was responsible.

How big was the Tyrannosaurus? We answered this by comparing the size of the serrations on the embedded tooth to the serrations of teeth still attached in the skulls of different Tyrannosaurus individuals paleontologists have unearthed. We found that the tooth would have come from an adult Tyrannosaurus, with a skull about one metre long.

What do these bite marks tell us?

The presence of bite marks on the skull suggests that the Edmontosaurus wasn’t just killed by the Tyrannosaurus. It was eaten too.

Looking at the position of the bite marks provides information about the behaviour of the carnivore that produced them. On the Edmontosaurus skull, the bite marks are located on the right side of the skull, in the region behind the eye, while on the left side bite marks are located along the back third of the bottom jaw.

In duck-billed dinosaurs like the Edmontosaurus the back third of the skull is where most of the major chewing muscles are located and would have been the area with the greatest amount of flesh on the skull after the rest of the soft tissue on the body had been eaten.

Modern carnivores typically eat the parts of a carcass that have the greatest amount of flesh, such as the limbs and internal organs, and gradually work their way to areas with the least amount of flesh, such as the skull and feet.

Because the Edmontosaurus is represented by only the skull, this suggests that the Tyrannosaurus would have removed most of the flesh off the carcass before parts of it became washed away and buried.

To have direct fossil evidence that a dinosaur had likely been killed and then eaten, and to be able to say it was a Tyrannosaurus that killed it, is exceptionally rare. A fossil like this gives us an important glimpse into the potential hunting behaviours of large carnivorous dinosaurs.

Taia Wyenberg-Henzler 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.

– ref. What bite marks on a dinosaur fossil tell us about the T. rex’s eating habits – https://theconversation.com/what-bite-marks-on-a-dinosaur-fossil-tell-us-about-the-t-rexs-eating-habits-276946