Booking a GP appointment is a routine task, yet for many people it’s a source of frustration. Long waits, confusing systems and impersonal processes have become all too familiar. While much attention has been paid to how difficult it is to get an appointment, less research has asked a more fundamental question: what do patients actually want from their general practice?
To answer this, my colleagues and I reviewed 33 studies that were a mixture of study designs, and focused on patients’ expectations and preferences regarding access to their GP in England and Scotland.
What people wanted was not complicated or cutting edge. People were looking for connection; a friendly receptionist and good communication from the practice about how they could expect to make an appointment. And they wanted a general practice in their own neighbourhood with clean, calm waiting rooms. So far, so simple.
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People wanted booking systems that were simple and user-friendly, without long automated phone menus (“press one for reception”). Preferences varied. Some patients valued the option to book appointments in person at the reception desk, while others preferred the convenience of online booking.
Regardless of how they booked, patients wanted shorter waiting times or, at least, clear information about when they could expect an appointment or a callback.
Ideally, general practice would be open on Saturdays and Sundays for those who cannot attend during the week.
Remote consultations – by phone, video or email – have become more common since the pandemic, and many patients found them helpful. For those with caring responsibilities or mobility issues, they offered a convenient way to access care without needing to leave home.
However, remote appointments weren’t suitable for everyone. Some patients lacked privacy at work, while others – particularly those with hearing impairments – found telephone consultations difficult or impossible to use.
What patients consistently wanted was choice, particularly when it came to remote consultations. While in-person appointments were seen as the gold standard, many recognised that telephone or video consultations could be useful in certain situations. Preferences varied widely, which made the ability to choose the type of consultation especially important.
Patients also wanted choice over who they saw, especially for non-urgent issues or when managing ongoing health conditions.
In today’s general practice, care is often delivered by a range of professionals, including nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists. While many patients were open to seeing different healthcare professionals, older adults and people from minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely to prefer seeing a GP.
Overall, patients wanted the option to choose a GP over another healthcare professional – or at least be involved in that decision.
Satisfaction at all-time low
Unsurprisingly, what patients want from general practice varies, reflecting different lifestyles, needs and circumstances. But what was equally clear is that many people are not able to get what they want from the appointment system.
According to a recent British Social Attitudes survey, patient satisfaction with general practice is at an all-time low, with just below one in three people reporting that they are very or quite satisfied with GP services.
Some elements of the UK government’s recently announced ten-year plan for the NHS in England may address some of these concerns, but it remains far from certain. The emphasis on the NHS app as a “doctor in your pocket” does not align with what many patients are asking for: genuine choice over whether they access care online or in person.
The proposal to open neighbourhood health centres on weekends could benefit those who need more flexible access. However, simply increasing the number of appointments misses the point: patients want more than just availability. They want care that is accessible, personalised and responsive to their individual needs.
The evidence is clear and the solutions simple, yet patient satisfaction remains at an all-time low. The government must stop assuming technology is the answer and start listening to what patients are actually telling them. The cost of ignoring their voices is a healthcare system that serves no one well.
Helen Atherton receives funding from the National Institute for Health Research and the Research Council of Norway.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex
Georgia was once considered a post-Soviet success story. After years of authoritarian rule, followed by independence which brought near state collapse, corruption and chaos, Georgia appeared to have transitioned to democracy.
In a period after independence in 1991 and before 2020, elections were regularly held and were deemed mostly free and fair, the media and civil society were vibrant and corruption levels had diminished significantly.
The “Rose revolution” in 2003 ushered in an era of unprecedented reform and suggested a move towards democracy and a closer relationship with the west. Georgians were full of hope for the country’s future, and prospects of joining the European Union – or at least moving closer to Europe.
Fast forward two decades and Georgia has fully returned to authoritarianism. Six opposition leaders are in prison or facing charges and now thinktank leaders are being targeted with investigations that could land them in prison. Typically these charges centre around accepting foreign funding or criticising the government.
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In moves in line with other authoritarian regimes around the world, opposition organisations such as thinktanks are being told to produce financial documents in short timeframes, and accused of financial mismanagement and threatened with prosecution if they don’t.
In May 2024, Georgia passed a Russian-inspired foreign agent law — which would require non-governmental organisations (NGOs) receiving foreign funding to register themselves and face restrictions. Protests erupted each time Georgia’s parliament debated this measure, but eventually the pro-RussianGeorgia Dream party prevailed. More than 90% of NGOs receive funding from abroad, so the new law cripples the efforts of some 26,000 of them.
Many Georgians were outraged that the passage of the bill may end dreams of one day becoming a European Union candidate country. Regular surveys have found that about 80% of Georgians have aspirations for their country to join the EU.
Though Georgia faces a host of economic problems, the Georgia Dream party has campaigned on delivering a return to traditional values. Like Russia they have also passed a series of laws in 2024 that target the LGBTQ+ community, such as banning content that features same-sex relationships and stripping same-sex couples of rights, such as adoption.
Parallels with Russia?
Georgia Dream also passed legislation making treason a criminal offence, a clear attempt to eliminate political opponents. Any insults of politicians online are also considered a criminal offence.
Also, in June of this year civil society organisations in Georgia received court orders requiring them to disclose highly sensitive data. Meanwhile, members of the Georgia Dream party were accused of assaulting opposition party leader Giorgi Gakharia suffering a broken nose and a concussion, which they denied.
In another effort to exercise greater control over the state, since the beginning of this year more than 800 civil servants have been dismissed. Similar to the purges that took place in Turkey — this is not being done in the name of efficiency, but to ensure that the bureaucracy is loyal to wishes of the Georgia Dream government.
This hasn’t happened overnight, as the laws had already changed several times to weaken legal protections for civil servants.
During its time in government, the Georgia Dream party has moved the country much closer to Russia, often by portraying the nation as locked in a cultural struggle against the west. Despite this, 69% of Georgians still see Russia as Georgia’s main enemy, up from 35% in 2012.
Though the Georgia Dream party faces increasing public opposition to its rule, it gained nearly the same amount of votes in the 2024 elections as it did in 2012 – when it was at its peak of popularity. The election result in October 2024 may be partly explained by accusations of fraud and other irregularities.
How did this happen?
One of the first big threats to Georgia’s democracy came in August 2008 when Russia invaded the country to offer support for two breakaway regions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia which declared themselves independent from Georgia. The international community did little to censure Russia, giving Russian president Vladimir Putin the confidence to engage in further acts of aggression.
Russia has maintained troops in South Ossetia, only about 30 miles from Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, and continues to play an important role in Georgian politics, undermining democracy.
The next threat came from within. Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili was elected prime minister of Georgia in 2012 as the leader of Georgia Dream. despite the fact that he officially stepped down from this position in 2013, he has wielded power behind the scenes and is still widely considered to be the de facto leader of Georgia.
Though Georgia did not immediately slide towards autocracy under the Georgia Dream party, today there are few remnants of democracy left. The major opposition parties are banned, opposition politicians and journalists are spied on, and protests are repressed by the police.
Cameras are now installed on the streets of Tbilisi as part of a crackdown on protest and fines for protesting have increased. Elections are no longer considered to be free and fair by the European Union and others as the Georgia Dream party uses its access to the state resources to dole out patronage to its supporters and intimidate voters.
In just over two decades, Georgia has managed to plunge back to authoritarianism. Once hailed as a beacon of democratic reform, the country is now gripped by a Russian-influenced ruling party that has consolidated power through repression, surveillance and manipulation.
But while the Georgia Dream party has tried to dismantle the country’s democratic institutions, support for resistance is high. According to a poll in 2025, more than 60% of respondents supported protests against the government and 45% identified as active supporters. And 82% feel Georgia is in crisis, with 78% blaming Georgian Dream.
It appears that Russia may have succeeded in undermining democracy in Georgia, but not in shaping hearts and minds.
Natasha Lindstaedt 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sander Hölsgens, Assistant Professor, Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University
At a school in Malmö, Sweden, skateboarding is on the curriculum. John Dahlquist, vice principal of Bryggeriets High School, teaches skate classes and brings lessons from skateboarding into other subjects. By encouraging teenagers to have fun together through skating and beyond, he notices that they want to attend school. Writing in a recent book I co-edited on skateboarding and teaching, Dahlquist notes that he even sees students longing to be back in the classroom after the weekend.
Skateboarding is creative, requiring ingenuity in adapting to new environments. It’s collaborative and social: skaters cheer each other on when they try to learn something new, acknowledging that everyone operates at a different level and faces a distinct challenge.
When skateboarding is done well, individual growth takes place among a community of care and mutual support. And it requires a willingness to fail. There’s no way to master a trick without trying and failing, over and over again.
My colleagues and I have researched the value of a skateboarding philosophy in schools, and how teachers can bring it into their classrooms.
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Take Dahlquist’s teaching in Malmö. He notes that interweaving skate classes with other subjects has multiple noteworthy effects. The physical activity of skateboarding improves levels of concentration. Some students even say that they’d never been successful in any other learning environment. Elsewhere, they’d be unable to focus on the task at hand.
What’s more, a skateboarding mindset – being prepared to learn difficult tricks in unfamiliar settings – equipped students with the capacity to master other kinds of new skills.
Able to fail
The process of overcoming the anxiety to fail is crucial. Skaters cannot be afraid to fall if they want to learn new tricks. The motivation to learn through repeated efforts helps skaters in other areas of life, too. Skaters at Bryggeriet aren’t worried as much about failing grades, precisely because they see it as an opportunity to learn and move forward.
As Dahlquist says, “At the end of my classes, I usually have to throw my students out of the classroom. A lot of them beg for three more tries: ‘I’ve got this, just give me three more tries. I promise I will learn.‘”
This mindset decreases grades as education’s cornerstone and, by extension, enhances students’ mental health. My colleague Esther Sayers, who conducted fieldwork at Bryggeriets, found another effect. Teachers help students to develop the skills to get motivated, to reach a point of feeling inspired – or what skaters call “stoke”.
Bryggeriets High School isn’t the only place where skateboarding is helping teach people how to learn. Reaching beyond its historical status as a self-regulated street culture, skateboarding now plays an important role in building engaged learning communities across the globe. Berlin-based skate organisation Skateistan hosts skate classes, gives young people access to education and offers funds for young and upcoming community leaders.
Concrete Jungle Foundation co-builds skateparks with young people in Peru, Morocco and Jamaica, in order to exchange knowledge and drive local ownership and apprenticeship. Similarly, the New York-based Harold Hunter Foundation runs skate workshops that also provide mentoring and career guidance.
Colleagues Arianna Gil and Jessica Forsyth have studied working class black and Latin American skate crews, run by genderdiverse community organisers. They found that skate crews such as Brujas and Gang Corp mobilise skaters according to the “for us, by us” spirit.
Challenging institutional models of authority, these skate crews develop services based on the hopes and aspirations of their communities – ranging from teach-ins to recreational programmes. This includes a talk on the history and meaning of hoodies, and modules on the power of storytelling and the danger of propaganda. The crux, here, is to learn about stuff you encounter in your daily lives.
Skaters who experience poverty and oppression create their own ecosystem for learning from one another, from being out of an educational system that is organised in a top-down way. This means creating a grassroots school model where skate crews choose what and how they want to learn. Rather than grades and degrees, education here is structured around the process of learning from your peers – with the idea of passing on this knowledge in the near future.
The effects of this approach are threefold. First, it centers mentorship and apprenticeship, resulting in intergenerational knowledge exchange. Second, skateboarding’s DIY spirit can help overcome access barriers. By embracing grassroots teaching practices and formats, education can be tailored to the specific needs and desires of a community, rather than following standardised learning objectives.
Third, rather than focusing on memorising facts or learning for grades, this new ecosystem is structured around problem-based learning. Presented with worldly problems such as human rights violations and hostile architecture, skaters learn not just how to analyse their surroundings, but also how to cope with and engage oppressive societal structures.
As formal education faces incremental budget cuts and deepened governmental influence, skateboarding shows us new ways to organise our learning spaces. Schools and teachers can engage their students by integrating aspects of a learning culture that decentres evaluations and assessments and celebrates attempts, rather than just successes.
Sander Hölsgens received a ‘starting grant’ from OCW, The Netherlands. He is affiliated with Pushing Boarders, a platform tracing the social impact of skateboarding worldwide.
Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Susanne Schindler, Research Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard Kennedy School
Activists in Seattle gather signatures to put a social housing initiative on the ballot. In early 2025, voters passed the measure, which implements a payroll tax on high incomes to fund the program.House Our Neighbors, CC BY-SA
The expected revenue – estimated to amount to $52 million dollars annually – would go toward funding a public development authority named Seattle Social Housing, which would then build and maintain permanently affordable homes.
The city has experienced record high rents and home prices over the past two decades, attributed in part to the high incomes and relatively low taxes paid by tech firms like Amazon. Prior attempts to make these companies do their part to keep the city affordable have had mixed results.
As a trained architect and urban historian, I study how capitalist societies have embraced – or rejected – housing that’s permanently shielded from market forces and what that means for architecture and urban design.
To me, Seattle’s social housing initiative shows that the country’s traditional, “either-or” housing model – of unregulated, market-rate housing versus tightly regulated, income-restricted affordable housing – has reached its limits.
Social housing promises a different path forward.
The rise of the ‘two-tiered’ system
After World War I, amid a similarly dire housing crisis, journalist Catherine Bauer traveled to Europe and learned about the continent’s social housing programs.
She publicized her findings in the 1934 book “Modern Housing,” in which she advocated for housing that would be permanently shielded from the private real estate market. High-quality design was central to her argument. (The book was reissued in 2020, reflecting a renewed hunger for her ideas.)
Early New Deal programs supported “limited-dividend,” or nonprofit, housing sponsored by civic organizations such as labor unions. The Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia exemplified this approach: The government provided low-interest loans to the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers, which then constructed housing for its workers with rents set at affordable rates. The complex was built with community rooms and a swimming pool for its residents.
However, the 1937 U.S. Housing Act omitted this form of middle-income housing. Instead, the federal government chose to support public rental housing for low-income Americans and private homeownership, with little in between.
Historian Gail Radford has aptly termed this a “two-tiered system,” and it was problematic from the start.
Funding for public housing in the U.S. – as well as for its successor, private-sector-built affordable housing – has always been capped in ways that fall far short of demand, with access to the homes largely restricted to households with the lowest incomes. Private-sector-built affordable housing depends on dangling tax credits for private investors, and rent restrictions can expire.
In Austria’s culturally vibrant capital, today half of all dwellings are permanently removed from the private market. Roughly 80% of households qualify to live in them. The buildings take a range of forms, are located in all neighborhoods, and are built and operated as rental or cooperative housing either by the city or by nonprofit developers.
Rents do not rise and fall according to household income, but are instead set to cover capital and operation expenses. These are kept low thanks to long-term, low-interest loans. These loans are funded through a nationwide 1% payroll tax, split evenly between employers and employees. Renters also make a down payment, priced in relation to the size and age of the apartment, which keeps monthly rents down. To guarantee access to low-cost land, the municipality has pursued an active land acquisition policy since the 1980s.
Vienna’s Pilotengasse Housing Estate, a social housing development featuring low-rise buildings with abundant greenery, was completed in 1992 and serves a range of income groups. Viennaslide/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images
Housing shielded from the private market
The inequities created by the two-tiered system – along with the absence of viable options for moderate- and middle-income households – are what social housing advocates in the U.S. are trying to address today.
In 2018, the think tank People’s Policy Project published what was likely the first 21st-century report advocating for social housing in the U.S., citing Vienna as a model.
Across the U.S., social housing is being used to describe a range of programs, from limited equity cooperatives and community land trusts to public housing.
They all share a few underlying principles, however.
First and foremost, social housing calls for permanently shielding homes from the private real estate market, often referred to as “permanent affordability.” This usually means public investment in housing and public ownership of it. Second, unlike the ways in which public housing has traditionally operated in the U.S., most social housing programs aim to serve households across a broader range of incomes. The goal is to create housing that is both financially sustainable and appealing to broad swaths of the electorate. Third, social housing aspires to give residents more control over the governance of their homes.
Social housing doesn’t all look the same. But thoughtful design is key to its success. It’s built to be owned and operated in the long-term, not for short-term financial gain. Construction quality matters, and developers realize it needs to be appealing to a range of tenants with different needs.
Early successes
In recent years, there have been significant wins for the social housing movement at the state and local levels.
Many of these programs were directly inspired by affordable housing initiatives in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Since 2021, the county’s housing authority has used a $100 million housing fund to invest in new mixed-income developments. Through these investments, the county retains co-ownership and has been able to bring down the cost of development enough to offer 30% of homes at significantly below market rents, in perpetuity. If Vienna is the global paragon for social housing, Montgomery County has become its domestic counterpart.
In Seattle, social housing will mean homes delivered and permanently owned by Seattle Social Housing, which is funded through the payroll tax on high incomes. The initiative envisions developments featuring a range of apartment sizes to meet the needs of different family sizes, built to high energy-efficiency standards. Homes will be available to households earning up to 120% of area median income, with residents paying no more than 30% of their income on rent. In Seattle, that means that a single-person household making up to $120,000 will qualify.
Despite these successes, many Americans remain skeptical of social housing.
Sign up for a webinar on the topic, and you’ll hear participants question the term itself. Isn’t it far too “socialist” to be broadly adopted in the U.S.? And isn’t this just “old wine in new bottles”?
Join a housing task force, and established nonprofits will be the ones to push back, arguing that they already know how to build and manage housing, and that all they need is money.
Some housing activists also question whether using scarce public dollars to pay for mixed-income housing will yet again shortchange those who most need governmental assistance – namely, the poor. Others point to the need to provide more ways to build intergenerational wealth, especially for racial minorities, who have historically faced barriers to homeownership.
Urban planner Jonathan Tarleton has highlighted another important issue: the danger of social housing reverting over time to private ownership, as has been the case with some cooperatives in New York City. Tarleton stresses the need for “social maintenance” – the importance of telling and retelling the story of whom social housing is meant to serve.
These debates raise important questions. Social housing may be a confusing term and an aspirational concept. But it is here to stay: It has galvanized organizers and policymakers around a new approach to the design, development and maintenance of housing.
Social housing keeps prices down through long-term public investment, ensuring that future generations will still benefit. Developers can design and provide homes that respond to how people want to live. And in an increasingly polarized country, social housing will allow people of various backgrounds, incomes and ideological persuasions to live together again, rather than apart.
Whether it’s the kind found in Seattle, in Maryland or somewhere in between, I believe social housing is needed more than ever before to address the country’s twin problems of affordability and a lack of political imagination.
In 2019, a rare and shocking event in the Malaysian peninsula town of Ketereh grabbed international headlines. Nearly 40 girls age 12 to 18 from a religious school had been screaming inconsolably, claiming to have seen a “face of pure evil,” complete with images of blood and gore.
Experts believe that the girls suffered what is known as a mass psychogenic illness, a psychological condition that results in physical symptoms and spreads socially – much like a virus.
I’m a social and behavioral scientist within the field of public health. I study the ways in which individual behavior is influenced by prevailing social norms and social network processes, across a wide range of behaviors and contexts. Part of my work involves figuring out how to combat the spread of harmful content that can shape our behavior for the worse, such as misinformation.
Mass psychogenic illness is not misinformation, but it gives researchers like me some idea about how misinformation spreads. Social connections establish pathways of influence that can facilitate the spread of germs, mental illness and even behaviors. We can be profoundly influenced by others within our social networks, for better or for worse.
The spreading of social norms
Researchers in my field think of social norms as perceptions of how common and how approved a specific behavior is within a specific network of people who matter to us.
These perceptions may not always reflect reality, such as when people overestimate or underestimate how common their viewpoint is within a group. But they can influence our behavior nonetheless. For many, perception is reality.
Social norms and related behaviors can spread through social networks like a virus can, but with one crucial caveat. Viruses often require just one contact with a potential host to spread, whereas behaviors often require multiple contacts to spread. This phenomenon, known as complex contagion, highlights how socially learned behaviors take time to embed.
Watch the people in this video and see how you react.
For many millennials like me, you may react to a friend engaging in this resurrected trend by cringing and lightly teasing them. Yet, after seeing them don those denim parachutes on multiple occasions, a brazen thought may emerge: “Hmm, maybe they don’t look that bad. I could probably pull those off.” That’s complex contagion at work.
This dynamic is even more evident on social media. One of my former students expressed this succinctly. She was looking at an Instagram post about Astro Boy Boots – red, oversize boots based on those worn by a 1952 Japanese cartoon character. Her initial skepticism quickly faded upon reading the comments. As she put it, “I thought they were ugly at first, but after reading the comments, I guess they’re kind of fire.”
Moving from innocuous examples, consider the spread of misinformation on social media. Misinformation is false information that is spread unintentionally, while disinformation is false information that is intentionally disseminated to deceive or do serious harm.
Research shows that both misinformation and disinformation spread faster and farther than truth online. This means that before people can muster the resources to debunk the false information that has seeped into their social networks, they may have already lost the race. Complex contagion may have taken hold, in a malicious way, and begun spreading falsehood throughout the network at a rapid pace.
One way to combat harmful contagion is to draw on an idea first used in the 1960s called pre-bunking. The idea is to train people to practice skills to spot and resist misinformation and disinformation on a smaller scale before they’re exposed to the real thing.
The idea is akin to vaccines that build immunity through exposure to a weakened form of the disease-causing germ. The idea is for someone to be exposed to a limited amount of false information, say through the pre-bunking with Google quiz. They then learn to spot common manipulation tactics used in false information and learn how to resist their influence with evidence-based strategies to counter the falsehoods. This could also be done using a trained facilitator within classrooms, workplaces or other groups, including virtual communities.
Then, the idea is to gradually repeat the process with larger doses of false information and further counterarguments. By role-playing and practicing the counterarguments, this resistance skills training provides a sort of psychological innoculation against misinformation and disinformation, at least temporarily.
Importantly, this approach is intended for someone who has not yet been exposed to false information – hence, pre-bunking rather than debunking. If we want to engage with someone who firmly believes in their stance, particularly when it runs contrary to our own, behavioral scientists recommend leading with empathy and nonjudgmentally exchanging narratives.
Debunking is difficult work, however, and even strong debunking messages can result in the persistence of misinformation. You may not change the other person’s mind, but you may be able to engage in a civil discussion and avoid pushing them further away from your position.
Spreading facts, not fiction
When everyday people apply this with their friends and loved ones, they can train people to recognize the telltale signs of false information. This might be recognizing what’s known as a false dichotomy – for instance, “either you support this bill or you HATE our country.”
Another signal of false information is the common tactic of scapegoating: “Oil industry faces collapse due to rise in electric car ownership.” And another is the slippery slope of logical fallacy. An example is “legalization of marijuana will lead to everyone using heroin.”
All of these are examples of common tactics that spread misinformation and come from a Practical Guide to Pre-Bunking Misinformation, created by a collaborative team from the University of Cambridge, BBC Media Action and Jigsaw, an interdisciplinary think tank within Google.
This approach is not only effective in combating misinformation and disinformation, but also in delaying or preventing the onset of harmful behaviors. My own research suggests that pre-bunking can be used effectively to delay the initiation of tobacco use among adolescents. But it only works with regular “booster shots” of training, or the effect fades away in a matter of months or less.
Many researchers like me who study these social contagion dynamics don’t yet know the best way to keep these “booster shots” going in people’s lives. But there are recent studies showing that it can be done. A promising line of research also suggests that a group-based approach can be effective in maintaining the pre-bunking effects to achieve psychological herd immunity. Personally, I would bet my money on group-based approaches where you, your friends or your family can mutually reinforce each other’s capacity to resist harmful social norms entering your network.
Simply put, if multiple members of your social network have strong resistance skills, then your group has a better chance of resisting the incursion of harmful norms and behaviors into your network than if it’s just you resisting alone. Other people matter.
In the end, whether we’re empowering people to resist the insidious creep of online falsehoods or equipping adolescents to stand firm against peer pressure to smoke or use other substances, the research is clear: Resistance skills training can provide an essential weapon for safeguarding ourselves and young people from harmful behaviors.
Shaon Lahiri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Are people on the South Pole walking upside down from the rest of the world? – Ralph P., U.S.
When I was standing at the South Pole, I felt the same way I feel anywhere on Earth because my feet were still on the ground and the sky was still overhead.
I didn’t feel upside down, but there were some differences that still made the South Pole feel flipped over from what I was used to.
As someone who loves looking for the Moon, I noticed that the face of the man on the Moon was flipped over, like he went from 🙂 to 🙃. All the craters that I was used to seeing on the top of the Moon from Wisconsin were now on the bottom – because I was looking at the Moon from the Southern Hemisphere instead of the Northern Hemisphere.
After noticing this difference, I remembered something similar in the night skies of New Zealand, a country near Antarctica where my fellow travelers and I got our big red coats that kept us warm at the South Pole. I had looked for Orion, a constellation that in the Northern Hemisphere is viewed as a hunter holding a bow and drawing an arrow from his quiver. In the night sky of New Zealand, Orion looked like he was doing a handstand.
Everything in the sky felt upside down and opposite, compared with what I was used to. A person who lives in the Southern Hemisphere might feel the same about visiting the Arctic or the North Pole.
‘The Big Blue Marble’ photo, taken in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17. NASA
An out-of-this-world perspective
To understand what’s happening, and why things are really different but also feel very much the same, it might be useful to back up a bit from Earth’s surface. Like into outer space. On space missions to the Moon, astronauts could see one side of the Earth’s sphere at once.
If they had superhero vision, an astronaut would see the people at the South Pole and North Pole standing upside down from each other. And a person at the equator would look like they were sticking straight out the side of the planet. In fact, even though they might be standing on the equator, people in Colombia and Indonesia would also look like they were upside down from each other, because they would be sticking out from opposite sides of the Earth.
Of course, if you asked each person, they would say, “My feet are on the ground, and the sky is up.”
That’s because Earth is essentially a really big ball whose gravitational pull on every one of us points to the center of the planet. The direction that Earth pulls us in is what people call “down” all over the planet. Think about holding a baseball between your pointer fingers. From the perspective of your fingertips on the ball’s surface, both are pointing “down.” But from the perspective of a friend nearby, your fingers are pointing in different directions – though always toward the center of the ball.
These relationships between people on the Earth’s surface are good for a little bit of fun, though. While I was at the South Pole, I pointed my body in the same direction as my friends in Wisconsin – by doing a handstand. But if you look at the picture the other way around, it looks like I’m holding up the entire planet, like Superman.
This is the right way up: Abigail Bishop does a handstand at the ceremonial South Pole. Abigail Bishop
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Abigail Bishop receives funding from National Science Foundation Award 2013134 and has received funding from the Belgian American Education Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lesley Green, Professor of Earth Politics and Director: Environmental Humanities South, University of Cape Town
Urban water bodies – rivers, lakes and oceans – are in trouble globally. Large sewage volumes damage the open environment, and new chemicals and pharmaceutical compounds don’t break down on their own. When they are released into the open environment, they build up in living tissues all along the food chain, bringing with them multiple health risks.
The city of Cape Town, South Africa, is no exception. It has 300km of coastline along two bays and a peninsula, as well as multiple rivers and wetlands. The city discharges more than 40 megalitres of raw sewage directly into the Atlantic Ocean every day. In addition, large volumes of poorly treated sewage and runoff from shack settlements enter rivers and from there into both the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans.
Over almost a decade, our multi-disciplinary team, and others, have studied contamination risks in Cape Town’s oceans, rivers, aquifers and lakes. Our goal has been to bring evidence of contaminants to the attention of officials responsible for a clean environment.
Monitoring sewage levels in the city’s water bodies is essential because of the health risks posed by contaminated water to all citizens – farmers, surfers, and everybody eating fish and vegetables. Monitoring needs to be done scientifically and in a way that produces data that is trustworthy and not driven by vested interests. This is a challenge in cities where scientific findings are expected to support marketing of tourism or excellence of the political administration.
Cape Town’s official municipal responses to independent studies and reports, however, have been hostile. Our work has been unjustifiably denounced by top city officials and politicians. We have been subject to attacks by fake social media avatars. Laboratory studies have even received a demand for an apology from the political party in charge of the city.
These extraordinary responses – and many others – reflect the extent to which independent scientific inquiry has been under attack.
We set about tracking the different kinds of denial and attacks on independent contaminant science in Cape Town over 11 years. Our recently published study describes 18 different types of science communication that have minimised or denied the problem of contamination. It builds on similarstudieselsewhere.
Our findings show the extent to which contaminant science in Cape Town is at risk of producing not public knowledge but public ignorance, reflecting similar patterns internationally where science communication sometimes obfuscates more than it informs. To address this risk, we argue that institutionalised conflicts of interest should be removed. There should also be changes to how city-funded testing is done and when data is released to citizens. After all, it is citizens’ rates and taxes that have paid for that testing, and the South African constitution guarantees the right to information.
We also propose that the city’s political leaders take the courageous step of accepting that the current water treatment infrastructure is unworkable for a city of over 5 million people. Accepting this would open the door to an overhaul of the city’s approach to wastewater treatment.
The way forward
We divided our study of contaminant communication events into four sub-categories:
non-disclosure of data
misinformation that gives a partial or misleading account of a scientific finding
using city-funded science to bolster political authority
relying on point data collected fortnightly to prove “the truth” of bodies of water as if it never moves or changes, when in reality, water bodies move every second of every day.
We found evidence of multiple instances of miscommunication. On the basis of these, we make specific recommendations.
First: municipalities should address conflicts of interest that are built into their organisational structure. These arise when the people responsible for ensuring that water bodies are healthy are simultaneously contracting consultants to conduct research on water contaminants. This is particularly important because over the last two decades large consultancies have established themselves as providers of scientific certification. But they are profit-making ventures, which calls into question the independence of their findings.
Second: the issue of data release needs to be addressed. Two particular problems stand out:
Real-time information. Water quality results for beaches are usually released a week or more after samples have been taken. But because water moves all the time every day, people living in the city need real-time information. Best-practice water contamination measures use water current models to predict where contaminated water will be, given each day’s different winds and temperatures.
Poor and incomplete data. When ocean contaminant data is released as a 12-month rolling average, all the very high values are smoothed out. The end result is a figure that does not communicate the reality of risks under different conditions.
Third: Politicians should be accountable for their public statements on science. Independent and authoritative scientific bodies, such as the Academy of Science of South Africa, should be empowered to audit municipal science communications.
Fourth: Reputational harm to the science community must stop. Government officials claiming that they alone know a scientific truth and denouncing independent scientists with other data closes down the culture of scientific inquiry. And it silences others.
Fifth: The integrity of scientific findings needs to be protected. Many cities, including Cape Town, rely on corporate brand management and political reputation management. Nevertheless, cities, by their very nature, have to deal with sewage, wastes and runoff. Public science communication that is based on marketing strategies prioritises advancing a brand (whether of a political party or a tourist destination). The risk is that city-funded science is turned into advertising and is presented as unquestionable.
Finally, Cape Town needs political leaders who are courageous enough to confront two evident realities. Current science communications in the city are not serving the public well, and wastewater treatment systems that use rivers and oceans as open sewers are a solution designed a century ago. Both urgently need to be reconfigured.
Next steps
As a team of independent contaminant researchers we have worked alongside communities where health, ecology, livestock and recreation have been profoundly harmed by ongoing contamination. We have documented these effects, only to hear the evidence denied by officials.
We recognise and value the beginnings of some new steps to data transparency in Cape Town’s mayoral office, like rescinding the 2021 by-law that banned independent scientific testing of open water bodies, almost all of which are classified as nature reserves.
We would welcome a dialogue on building strong and credible public science communications.
This study is dedicated to the memory of Mpharu Hloyi, head of Scientific Services in the City of Cape Town, in acknowledgement of her dedication to the health of urban bodies of water. Her untimely passing was a loss for all.
This article also drew on Masters theses written by Melissa Zackon and Amy Beukes.
Lesley Green has received funding from the Science for Africa Foundation; the Seed Box MISTRA Formas Environmental Humanities Collaboratory; and the Science For Africa Foundation’s DELTAS Africa II program (Del:22-010).
Cecilia Yejide Ojemaye receives funding from the University of Cape Town Carnegie DEAL Sustainable Development Goals Research Fellowship and the National Research Foundation for the SanOcean grant from the South Africa‐Norway Cooperation on Ocean Research (UID 118754).
Leslie Petrik received funding from National Research Foundation for the SanOcean grant from the South Africa‐Norway Cooperation on Ocean Research (UID 118754) for this study.
Nikiwe Solomon received funding at different stages for PhD research from the Water Research Commission (WRC) and National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), in collaboration with the South African Humanities Deans Association (SAHUDA). Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the WRC, NIHSS and SAHUDA.
Jo Barnes and Vanessa Farr 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.
This week, astronomers spotted the third known interstellar visitor to our Solar System.
First detected by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on July 1, the cosmic interloper was given the temporary name A11pl3Z. Experts at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) have confirmed the find, and the object now has an official designation: 3I/ATLAS.
There are a few strong clues that suggest 3I/ATLAS came from outside the Solar System.
First, it’s moving really fast. Current observations show it speeding through space at around 245,000km per hour. That’s more than enough to escape the Sun’s gravity.
An object near Earth’s orbit would only need to be travelling at just over 150,000km/h to break free from the Solar System.
Second, 3I/ATLAS has a wildly eccentric orbit around the Sun. Eccentricity measures how “stretched” an orbit is: 0 eccentricity is a perfect circle, and anything up to 1 is an increasingly strung-out ellipse. Above 1 is an orbit that is not bound to the Sun.
3I/ATLAS has an estimated eccentricity of 6.3, by far the highest ever recorded for any object in the Solar System.
Has anything like this happened before?
An artist’s impression of the first confirmed interstellar object, 1I/‘Oumuamua. ESO/M. Kornmesser, CC BY
The first interstellar object spotted in our Solar System was the cigar-shaped ‘Oumuamua, discovered in 2017 by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii. Scientists tracked it for 80 days before eventually confirming it came from interstellar space.
The second interstellar visitor, comet 2I/Borisov, was discovered two years later by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov. This time it only took astronomers a few weeks to confirm it came from outside the Solar System.
This time, the interstellar origin of 3I/ATLAS has been confirmed in a matter of days.
How did it get here?
We have only ever seen three interstellar visitors (including 3I/ATLAS), so it’s hard to know exactly how they made their way here.
However, recent research published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests these objects might be more common than we once thought. In particular, they may come from relatively nearby star systems such as Alpha Centauri (our nearest interstellar neighbour, a mere 4.4 light years away).
Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, from the triple star system Alpha Centauri. ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY
Alpha Centauri is slowly moving closer to us, with its closest approach expected in about 28,000 years. If it flings out material in the same way our Solar System does, scientists estimate around a million objects from Alpha Centauri larger than 100 metres in diameter could already be in the outer reaches of our Solar System. That number could increase tenfold as Alpha Centauri gets closer.
Most of this material would have been ejected at relatively low speeds, less than 2km/s, making it more likely to drift into our cosmic neighbourhood over time and not dramatically zoom in and out of the Solar System like 3I/ATLAS appears to be doing. While the chance of one of these objects coming close to the Sun is extremely small, the study suggests a few tiny meteors from Alpha Centauri, likely no bigger than grains of sand, may already hit Earth’s atmosphere every year.
Why is this interesting?
Discovering new interstellar visitors like 3I/ATLAS is thrilling, not just because they’re rare, but because each one offers a unique glimpse into the wider galaxy. Every confirmed interstellar object expands our catalogue and helps scientists better understand the nature of these visitors, how they travel through space, and where they might have come from.
A swarm of new asteroids discovered by the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
This is an astonishing preview of what’s to come. With its wide field of view and constant sky coverage, Rubin is expected to revolutionise our search for interstellar objects, potentially turning rare discoveries into routine ones.
What now?
There’s still plenty left to uncover about 3I/ATLAS. Right now, it’s officially classified as a comet by the IAU Minor Planet Center.
But some scientists argue it might actually be an asteroid, roughly 20km across, based on the lack of typical comet-like features such as a glowing coma or a tail. More observations will be needed to confirm its nature.
Currently, 3I/ATLAS is inbound, just inside Jupiter’s orbit. It’s expected to reach its closest point to the Sun, slightly closer than the planet Mars, on October 29. After that, it will swing back out towards deep space, making its closest approach to Earth in December. (It will pose no threat to our planet.)
Whether it’s a comet or an asteroid, 3I/ATLAS is a messenger from another star system. For now, these sightings are rare – though as next-generation observatories such as Rubin swing into operation, we may discover interstellar companions all around.
Kirsten Banks 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.
Deep-sea mining promises critical minerals for the energy transition without the problems of mining on land. It also promises to bring wealth to developing nations. But the evidence suggests these promises are false, and mining would harm the environment.
The practice involves scooping up rock-like nodules from vast areas of the sea floor. These potato-sized lumps contain metals and minerals such as zinc, manganese, molybdenum, nickel and rare earth elements.
Technology to mine the deep sea exists, but commercial mining of the deep sea is not happening anywhere in the world. That could soon change. Nations are meeting this month in Kingston, Jamaica, to agree to a mining code. Such a code would make way for mining to begin within the next few years.
On Thursday, Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, released research into the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining. It aims to promote better environmental management of deep-sea mining, should it proceed.
We have previously challenged the rationale for deep-sea mining, drawing on our expertise in international politics and environmental management. We argue mining the deep sea is harmful and the economic benefits have been overstated. What’s more, the metals and minerals to be mined are not scarce.
The best course of action is a ban on international seabed mining, building on the coalition for a moratorium.
The Metals Company spent six months at sea collecting nodules in 2022, while studying the effects on ecosystems.
Managing and monitoring environmental harm
Recent advances in technology have made deep-sea mining more feasible. But removing the nodules – which also requires pumping water around – has been shown to damage the seabed and endanger marine life.
CSIRO has developed the first environmental management and monitoring frameworks to protect deep sea ecosystems from mining. It aims to provide “trusted, science-based tools to evaluate the environmental risks and viability of deep-sea mining”.
Scientists from Griffith University, Museums Victoria, the University of the Sunshine Coast, and Earth Sciences New Zealand were also involved in the work.
The Metals Company Australia, a local subsidiary of the Canadian deep-sea mining exploration company, commissioned the research. It involved analysing data from test mining the company carried out in the Pacific Ocean in 2022.
In a media briefing this week, CSIRO Senior Principal Research Scientist Piers Dunstan said the mining activity substantially affected the sea floor. Some marine life, especially that attached to the nodules, had very little hope of recovery. He said if mining were to go ahead, monitoring would be crucial.
We are sceptical that ecological impacts can be managed even with this new framework. Little is known about life in these deep-water ecosystems. But research shows nodule mining would cause extensive habitat loss and damage.
Do we really need to open the ocean frontier to mining? We argue the answer is no, on three counts.
How does deep-sea mining work? (The Guardian)
1. Minerals are not scarce
The minerals required for the energy transition are abundant on land. Known global terrestrial reserves of cobalt, copper, manganese, molybdenum and nickel are enough to meet current production levels for decades – even with growing demand.
There is no compelling reason to extract deep-sea minerals, given the economics of both deep-sea and land-based mining. Deep-sea mining is speculative and inevitably too expensive given such remote, deep operations.
Claims about mineral scarcity are being used to justify attempting to legitimise a new extractive frontier in the deep sea. Opportunistic investors can make money through speculation and attracting government subsidies.
But deep-sea mining will not necessarily displace, replace or change mining on land. Land-based mining contracts span decades and the companies involved will not abandon ongoing or planned projects. Their activities will continue, even if deep-sea mining begins.
Deep-sea mining also faces many of the same challenges as mining on land, while introducing new problems. The social problems that arise during transport, processing and distribution remain the same.
3. Common heritage of humankind and the Global South
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international seabed is the common heritage of humankind. This means the proceeds of deep-sea mining should be distributed fairly among all countries.
Deep-sea mining commercial partnerships between developing countries in the Global South and firms from the North have yet to pay off for the former. There is little indication this pattern will change.
For example, when Canadian company Nautilus went bankrupt in 2019, it saddled Papua New Guinea with millions in debt from a failed domestic deep-sea mining venture.
The Metals Company has partnerships with Nauru and Tonga but the latest deal with the US creates uncertainty about whether their agreements will be honoured.
European investors took control of Blue Minerals Jamaica, originally a Jamaican-owned company, shortly after orchestrating its start up. Any profits would therefore go offshore.
Given the threat of environmental harm, the evidence suggests deep-sea mining is not worth the risk.
Justin Alger receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
D.G. Webster receives funding from the National Science Foundation in the United States and various internal funding sources at Dartmouth University.
Jessica Green receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Kate J Neville receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Stacy D VanDeveer and Susan M Park 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.
The Story Bridge, with its sweeping steel trusses and art deco towers, is a striking sight above the Brisbane River in Queensland. In 2025, it was named the state’s best landmark. But more than an icon, it serves as one of the vital arteries of the state capital, carrying more than 100,000 vehicles daily.
But a recent report revealed serious structural issues in the 85-year-old bridge. These included the deterioration of concrete, corrosion and overloading on pedestrian footpaths.
But this example – and far more tragic ones from around the world in recent years – have also sparked a broader conversation about the safety of ageing bridges and other urban infrastructure. A simple, proactive step known as structural health monitoring can help.
A number of collapses
In January 2022, the Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States collapsed and injured several people. This collapse was caused by extensive corrosion and the fracturing of a vital steel component. It stemmed from poor maintenance and failure to act on repeated inspection recommendations. These problems were compounded by inadequate inspections and oversight.
Three years earlier, Taiwan’s Nanfang’ao Bridge collapsed. Exposure to damp, salty sea air had severely weakened its suspension cables. Six people beneath the bridge died.
In August 2018, Italy’s Morandi Bridge fell, killing 43 people. The collapse was due to corrosion in pre-stressed concrete and steel tendons. These factors were worsened by inspection and maintenance challenges.
In August 2007, a bridge in the US city of Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. This collapse was primarily due to previously unnoticed problems with the design of the bridge. But it also demonstrated how ageing infrastructure, coupled with increasing loads and ineffective routine visual inspections, can exacerbate inherent weaknesses.
A technology-driven solution
Structural health monitoring is a technology-driven approach to assessing the condition of infrastructure. It can provide near real-time information and enable timely decision-making. This is crucial when it comes to managing ageing structures.
The approach doesn’t rely solely on occasional periodic inspections. Instead it uses sensors, data loggers and analytics platforms to continuously monitor stress, vibration, displacement, temperature and corrosion on critical components.
This approach can significantly improve our understanding of bridge performance compared to traditional assessment models. In one case, it updated a bridge’s estimated fatigue life – the remaining life of the structure before fatigue-induced failure is predicted to occur– from just five years to more than 52 years. This ultimately avoided unnecessary and costly restoration.
The cost of structural health monitoring systems varies by bridge size and the extent of monitoring required. Some simple systems can cost just a few thousand dollars, while more advanced ones can cost more than A$300,000.
These systems require ongoing operational support – typically 10% to 20% of the installation cost annually – for data management, system maintenance, and informed decision-making.
Additionally, while advanced systems can be costly, scalable structural health monitoring solutions allow authorities to start small and expand over time.
A model for proactive management
The design of structural health monitoring systems has been incorporated into new large-scale bridge designs, such as Sutong Bridge in China and Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in the US.
But perhaps the most compelling example of these systems in action is the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Canada.
Opened in 1930, it shares design similarities with Brisbane’s Story Bridge. And, like many ageing structures, it faces its own challenges.
Opened in 1930, the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, Canada, shares design similarities with Brisbane’s Story Bridge. Pinkcandy/Shutterstock
However, authorities managing the Jacques Cartier Bridge have embraced a proactive approach through comprehensive structural health monitoring systems. The bridge has been outfitted with more than 300 sensors.
Satellite-based radar imagery adds a remote, non-intrusive layer of deformation monitoring, and advanced data analysis ensures that the vast amounts of sensor data are translated into timely, actionable insights.
Together, these technologies demonstrate how a well-integrated structural-health monitoring system can support proactive maintenance, extend the life of ageing infrastructure – and ultimately improve public safety.
A way forward for Brisbane – and beyond
The Story Bridge’s current challenges are serious, but they also present an opportunity.
By investing in the right structural health monitoring system, Brisbane can lead the way in modern infrastructure management – protecting lives, restoring public confidence, preserving heritage and setting a precedent for cities around the world.
As climate change, urban growth, and ageing assets put increasing pressure on our transport networks, smart monitoring is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity.
Andy Nguyen receives funding from the Queensland government, through the Advance Queensland fellowship. He is on the executive committee of Australian Network of Structural Health Monitoring.
