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October 1, 2025

Violent acts in houses of worship are rare but deadly – here’s what the data shows

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University

A church program lies on the ground near the family reunification area after the shooting in Grand Blanc, Mich., on Sept. 28, 2025. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

On Sept. 28, 2025, at least four people were killed and eight others injured during a Sunday service at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Just a month earlier, two people died and 21 were injured during a Mass for students at the Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis.

These tragedies may feel sudden and senseless, but they are part of a longer pattern that we have been tracking.

We are criminologists who have studied violence for decades. In 2023, we created a public database of homicides that occur in houses of worship across the United States. It now spans nearly 25 years of incidents, documenting how often these attacks happen, who perpetrates them, what weapons are used, when and where they occur, and how deadly they are.

What the numbers show

From 2000 to 2024, the dataset records 379 incidents and 487 deaths at religious congregations and religious community centers. Most involved a single victim, but some – like the recent shootings in Michigan and Minnesota – killed or injured many people.

About 7 in 10 incidents involved firearms, accounting for three-quarters of the deaths. Firearm cases averaged about 1.4 deaths each, compared with 1.1 for nonfirearm cases.

Handguns were the most common weapon, linked to more than 100 incidents and 147 deaths. But semiautomatic rifles, though used in only seven cases, killed 46 people — more than six per attack, on average.

The deadliest year was 2017, when 47 people were killed at places of worship, 42 of them with firearms. Twenty-six of those people were killed in a single catastrophic shooting at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas.

‘Mass shootings’

Mass shootings are often defined as attacks that kill four or more people. Using that threshold, the data shows 10 incidents since 2000 at houses of worship. Lower the bar to three killed, and there are 14; at two killed, 40.

Definitions shape perception. Most people associate mass shootings with high-profile tragedies like the massacres at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 or Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018. But many other attacks, like the tragedy at Annunciation in Minneapolis, involve two or three deaths. Each represents a profound loss for a community.

A man with a white beard, wearing a black sports cap and a cross necklace, somberly holds up a lit candle amid a crowd outside. — Attendees attend a vigil at Holy Redeemer Church in Burton, Mich. on Sept. 28, 2025, following a shooting at a nearby chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
AP Photo/Jose Juarez

In the cases where four or more people were killed, every perpetrator was a man in his 20s to 40s, with an average age of 32. Compared with other homicides at worship sites, these shooters were far more likely to have a history of mental health problems: 60% vs. 18%. They were also far more likely to have been thinking about or planning suicide – 70% vs. 17% – and to die by suicide during or after the attack: 60% vs. 10%.

There were other similarities, too. Among attackers who killed four or more people, 20% had served in the military, and 60% had a criminal background. Among attackers who killed fewer people, those numbers were 4% and 43%. Deadlier shooters more often leaked their plans or showed signs of being in crisis beforehand.

When and where

Violence is most likely to strike on Sundays – a quarter of all cases – followed by Saturdays. That reflects worship patterns: Sundays are the busiest day for most Christian denominations, while Saturdays are common for Jewish services.

Incidents cluster around mornings and nights, with mornings most common — the prime window for weekly services. And despite headlines about shootings inside sanctuaries, 71% of homicides occurred outside – in parking lots, courtyards or on steps – when people were gathering or leaving.

In two-thirds of cases, it was unclear whether the perpetrator had a connection with the congregation. Most of the other cases, though, involved attackers with clear ties, including members, relatives, pastors and employees. In dozens of cases, domestic disputes spilled into worship settings. Because services are routine, predictable gatherings, they can become flash points for private conflicts that turn deadly.

Attacks happened across the nation, but were concentrated in the South. The region tends to have more frequent attendance at religious services and looser firearm laws – a combination that helps explain the South’s overrepresentation, though no region is untouched.

Which faiths are affected

Ninety-seven percent of deadly incidents occurred at Christian churches, reflecting how many there are in the United States.

But, adjusting for the number of congregations, the data underscores other faiths’ vulnerability to targeted violence. Jewish and Muslim houses of worship, community centers and cemeteries, for example, contend with frequent threats and vandalism.

Only one incident at a gurdwara – a Sikh temple – appears in the dataset. Because there are so few in the U.S., though, that single case translates into the highest rate for any faith tradition, once the total number of congregations are taken into account. Stabbings or shootings also occurred at six Jewish synagogues and community centers, further suggesting disproportionate risk.

Two incidents involved mosques. Yet that contrasts with data showing high levels of Islamophobia in the U.S., suggesting that most violence against Muslims may occur in other settings.

A woman's face is illuminated by the candle she holds, and she and a man beside her stand in a crowd at night. — People attend a vigil on Aug. 5, 2013, to mark the one-year anniversary of a shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Why this research matters

Homicides in houses of worship remain rare, but when they occur, firearms make them deadlier. Victims have included pastors, rabbis, imams, monks, congregants, staff and children.

Numbers cannot capture the grief of families in Grand Blanc or Minneapolis, or the trauma that survivors carry. But they can reveal patterns that ground conversations about safety and prevention.

Houses of worship are meant to be open spaces of peace and refuge. The challenge is balancing this higher purpose with practical security. By studying these past tragedies, Americans may better prepare for the future – and prevent more families from enduring the heartbreak of recent weeks.

James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, Joyce Foundation, and Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.

Jillian Peterson has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, Joyce Foundation, and Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.

– ref. Violent acts in houses of worship are rare but deadly – here’s what the data shows – https://theconversation.com/violent-acts-in-houses-of-worship-are-rare-but-deadly-heres-what-the-data-shows-266328

October 1, 2025

Poor sleep may make your brain age faster – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Abigail Dove, Postdoctoral Researcher, Neuroepidemiology, Karolinska Institutet

We spend nearly a third of our lives asleep, yet sleep is anything but wasted time. Far from being passive downtime, it is an active and essential process that helps restore the body and protect the brain. When sleep is disrupted, the brain feels the consequences – sometimes in subtle ways that accumulate over years.

In a new study, my colleagues and I examined sleep behaviour and detailed brain MRI scan data in more than 27,000 UK adults between the ages of 40 and 70. We found that people with poor sleep had brains that appeared significantly older than expected based on their actual age.

What does it mean for the brain to “look older”? While we all grow chronologically older at the same pace, some people’s biological clocks can tick faster or slower than others. New advances in brain imaging and artificial intelligence allow researchers to estimate a person’s brain age based on patterns in brain MRI scans, such as loss of brain tissue, thinning of the cortex and damage to blood vessels.

In our study, brain age was estimated using over 1,000 different imaging markers from MRI scans. We first trained a machine learning model on the scans of the healthiest participants – people with no major diseases, whose brains should closely match their chronological age. Once the model “learned” what normal ageing looks like, we applied it to the full study population.

Having a brain age higher than your actual age can be a signal of departure from healthy ageing. Previous research has linked an older-appearing brain to faster cognitive decline, greater dementia risk and even higher risk of early death.

Sleep is complex, and no single measure can tell the whole story of a person’s sleep health. Our study, therefore, focused on five aspects of sleep self-reported by the study participants: their chronotype (“morning” or “evening” person), how many hours they typically sleep (seven to eight hours is considered optimal), whether they experience insomnia, whether they snore and whether they feel excessively sleepy during the day.

These characteristics can interact in synergistic ways. For example, someone with frequent insomnia may also feel more daytime sleepiness, and having a late chronotype may lead to shorter sleep duration. By integrating all five characteristics into a “healthy sleep score”, we captured a fuller picture of overall sleep health.

People with four or five healthy traits had a “healthy” sleep profile, while those with two to three had an “intermediate” profile, and those with zero or one had a “poor” profile.

When we compared brain age across different sleep profiles, the differences were clear. The gap between brain age and chronological age widened by about six months for every one point decrease in healthy sleep score. On average, people with a poor sleep profile had brains that appeared nearly one year older than expected based on their chronological age, while those with a healthy sleep profile showed no such gap.

We also considered the five sleep characteristics individually: late chronotype and abnormal sleep duration stood out as the biggest contributors to faster brain ageing.

A year may not sound like much, but in terms of brain health, it matters. Even small accelerations in brain ageing can compound over time, potentially increasing the risk of cognitive impairment, dementia and other neurological conditions.

The good news is that sleep habits are modifiable. While not all sleep problems are easily fixed, simple strategies: keeping a regular sleep schedule; limiting caffeine, alcohol and screen use before bedtime; and creating a dark and quiet sleep environment can improve sleep health and may protect brain health.

Woman looking at her phone in bed. — Put down that phone!
Ground Picture/Shutterstock.com

How exactly does the quality of a person’s sleep affect their brain health?

One explanation may be inflammation. Increasing evidence suggests that sleep disturbances raise the level of inflammation in the body. In turn, inflammation can harm the brain in several ways: damaging blood vessels, triggering the buildup of toxic proteins and speeding up brain cell death.

We were able to investigate the role of inflammation thanks to blood samples collected from participants at the beginning of the study. These samples contain a wealth of information about different inflammatory biomarkers circulating in the body. When we factored this into our analysis, we found that inflammation levels accounted for about 10% of the connection between sleep and brain ageing.

Other processes may also play a role

Another explanation centres on the glymphatic system – the brain’s built-in waste clearance network, which is mainly active during sleep. When sleep is disrupted or insufficient, this system may not function properly, allowing harmful substances to build up in the brain.

Yet another possibility is that poor sleep increases the risk of other health conditions that are themselves damaging for brain health, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Our study is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, benefiting from a very large study population, a multidimensional measure of sleep health, and a detailed estimation of brain age through thousands of brain MRI features. Though previous research connected poor sleep to cognitive decline and dementia, our study further demonstrated that poor sleep is tied to a measurably older-looking brain, and inflammation might explain this link.

Brain ageing cannot be avoided, but our behaviour and lifestyle choices can shape how it unfolds. The implications of our research are clear: to keep the brain healthier for longer, it is important to make sleep a priority.

Abigail Dove receives funding from Alzheimerfonden, Demensfonden, and the Loo and Hans Osterman Foundation for Medical Research.

– ref. Poor sleep may make your brain age faster – new study – https://theconversation.com/poor-sleep-may-make-your-brain-age-faster-new-study-265309

October 1, 2025

Plants are incredibly sensitive – what we learned about their response system could help protect humans

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Miguel de Lucas, Associate Professor in Biosciences, Durham University

At first glance, plants may seem passive – but beneath their stillness lies a world of complexity and constant activity. Plants are highly sensitive to their surroundings, continuously monitoring environmental signals to adapt and survive. Think of them as nature’s nosy neighbours, always alert to what’s happening around them.

From subtle shifts in light and temperature to the presence of pollinators, microbes, or changes in soil salinity, plants can detect a range of cues. In response, they can alter growth direction, delay flowering or produce protective chemicals.

My colleagues and I have created a cell-by-cell map of how plants respond to signals from the soil. The map offers insight into plant behaviour in an unprecedented level of detail. It could change our understanding of how living things adapt to their environment and help plants survive climate change.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.

This article is part of a series, Plant Curious, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.

First it’s important to understand how genes work within an organism.

The human genome contains roughly 20,000 genes. But, like other animals and plants, not all these genes are active at the same time or in every cell. It’s called selective gene expression. For years, scientists believed that selective gene expression was the main explanation for why our skin cells differ from muscle cells even though they carry the same genetic blueprint. Each cell type activates a unique set of genes, producing proteins that define its structure and function.

But scientific discoveries over the last decade or so have been revealing that there’s more to the story. It is becoming clearer that the function of a cell is also determined by what happens to those proteins afterwards.

Once a protein is made, it can undergo chemical modifications that alter its behaviour. Think of it like using a tool. If you need to see far away, you might pick up a telescope. You’re still the same person, but now with enhanced vision. Similarly, a protein can be “upgraded” with a tag that boosts its activity. On the flip side, imagine being fitted with a ball and chain – your movement is restricted. Cells do something similar to proteins they produce, attaching molecules that either activate or suppress their function.

This process, known as post-translational modification (PTM), adds a new layer of complexity to biology. The first PTM identified was phosphorylation in 1906. Scientists have since identified over 500 types of these modifications. For example, ubiquitination, a tag that often marks proteins for destruction. It’s the cell’s way of cleaning house, disposing of proteins that are no longer needed, much like washing and storing your coffee mug after use (though some of us are better at that than others!).

These tiny molecular tweaks help cells respond to changing conditions, regulate their internal machinery and maintain the organism’s health.

Most PTMs involve complex processes that take place in different parts of the cell, making them difficult for scientists to track and understand. But sumoylation, a type of PTM, relies on a simpler set of enzymes. And researchers believe this streamlined system is closely tied to its role in helping cells respond to their environment.

This is especially important in plants, where environmental cues like light,
temperature, humidity and drought influence developmental stages such
as germination, flowering and leaf shedding. These cues also affect structure, like root complexity and stem branching. Understanding how plants use sumoylation to interpret and respond to these signals could pave the way for smarter, more sustainable agricultural practices.

To unravel how sumoylation operates in plants, a group of scientists in the
UK – supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council – formed a research consortium. This initiative brought together experts (including me) from four universities: Durham, Nottingham, Cambridge and Liverpool.

The consortium’s first hurdle was to build a system that could track the
activity of every enzyme involved in SUMO production within the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Many people also know this plant as thale cress and it is common to find it in the edge of roads and walking paths. This plant was chosen for its simple structure, well-studied genetic makeup, and predictable responses to environmental changes – making it ideal for studying complex biological processes.

Small white flowers sprouting out of a rock. — Thale cress is often used in research.
Petr Szymonik/Shutterstock

This system allowed my colleagues and I to monitor when and where each component of the SUMO machinery was active, alongside the proteins it modifies. The platform also enabled deeper molecular analysis, such as identifying previously unknown molecular partners.

The next challenge was to explore how each component of the SUMO system
behaves when plants face environmental stress. The team focused on drought, saltiness of soil or water and pathogen attack. Since roots are often the first part of the plant to sense and respond to these threats, we zoomed in on this organ to understand its role in stress adaptation.

Our findings revealed that drought stress triggers SUMO signalling deep within the root’s inner tissues, while salt stress is sensed at the outer layers. And pathogen attacks activate responses in the root’s dividing cells. Dividing cells are those that have just been made and have not reached maturity. All these stress signals appear to converge on a single protein, SCE1. This protein helps attach SUMO to molecular hubs that guide cellular changes.

This makes SCE1 a promising candidate for developing new strategies to boost plant resilience. If we enhance SCE1’s function, it may be possible to help plants respond more swiftly to drought and initiate protective mechanisms to conserve water before damage becomes irreversible.

Understanding how PTMs shape cell adaptation and protein function opens new avenues for tackling stress in plants. But the implications go far beyond agriculture. The same principles apply to animal and human health, where PTMs play critical roles in immunity, development and disease resistance. Unlocking their secrets could change how we approach everything from crop resilience to medical therapies.

Miguel de Lucas receives funding from BBSRC

– ref. Plants are incredibly sensitive – what we learned about their response system could help protect humans – https://theconversation.com/plants-are-incredibly-sensitive-what-we-learned-about-their-response-system-could-help-protect-humans-264937

October 1, 2025

Caffeine pouches deliver a fast hit – and hidden risks

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

Caffeine pouches contain micro-ground caffeine and flavourings, which dissolve in saliva and release caffeine molecules directly into the bloodstream. Natalia Bohren/Shutterstock

A new caffeine craze is brewing on social media – no kettle required. Caffeine pouches promise a fast, discreet hit of energy without the faff of brewing coffee or cracking open an energy drink. But while they may look like a harmless pick-me-up, experts warn they carry real risks, especially for teenagers and people with underlying health conditions.

Caffeine pouches look and work a lot like nicotine pouches or snus. Each small, pillow-shaped packet contains micro-ground caffeine, flavourings and sometimes herbs or vitamins. Slip one under your lip and the caffeine goes straight into the bloodstream through your gums – bypassing the digestive system. The result? A jolt of energy that lands far quicker than a cup of coffee or tea.

Caffeine perks us up by blocking adenosine, a brain chemical that makes us feel sleepy. People have long used coffee, tea and energy drinks to stay awake, sharpen focus and boost performance. Pouches simply offer a hands-free, no-spill shortcut. Some gym-goers and shift workers like the convenience, while athletes value caffeine’s ability to increase endurance by making the brain register less fatigue and pain.

Their discreet design is also a selling point for teenagers, who may use them to stay alert in class or during exams. That worries experts: some fear caffeine pouches could be a gateway to nicotine or other stimulants, and some young users are even pairing them with nicotine pouches, doubling the stimulant load. TikTok has super-charged their popularity, with influencers showing them off in classrooms, gyms and gaming sessions.

Potent little packets

Depending on the brand, each pouch delivers 25mg to more than 200mg of caffeine. For comparison, a typical mug of instant coffee contains about 100mg, a mug of tea 75mg and a can of cola around 40mg. Some pouches therefore pack the caffeine punch of two cups of coffee in one hit.

How much is too much? For healthy adults, the recommended daily limit is around 400mg. Pregnant women are advised to stay below 200mg per day because higher intakes can increase the risk of complications such as low birth weight or pregnancy loss.

There’s little data on safe levels for children, but the European Food Safety Authority recommends a lower limit of 3mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight – roughly 45–150mg per day depending on age and size. Children’s smaller bodies and developing systems make them more sensitive to caffeine’s effects.

A single pouch with 200mg of caffeine can easily push a teenager well beyond that limit. And because the drug is absorbed so quickly, side-effects, such as jitteriness, anxiety, insomnia and heart palpitations, can hit harder. Caffeine may give a short-term buzz, but it can also disturb sleep, create a cycle of fatigue and lead to dependence.

Who’s most at risk

Moderate caffeine is generally safe for most adults, but certain groups are more vulnerable. People with mental health conditions may be especially sensitive.

By blocking adenosine and boosting dopamine activity, caffeine can worsen anxiety or psychosis and even increase the risk of relapse in conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It can also make other addictive substances feel more rewarding, potentially nudging people toward substance use disorders. The science isn’t yet clear enough to set a safe limit for these groups.

Those with heart problems also need to be cautious. Caffeine temporarily raises heart rate and blood pressure, adding stress to the heart. Some people experience palpitations, and athletes who mix high doses of caffeine with intense exercise may face an elevated risk of heart issues.

Extreme cases are rare, but there have been documented caffeine-related deaths, usually involving supplements or highly concentrated products: reminders of how potent this commonplace stimulant can be.

A regulatory blind spot

In the UK, caffeine pouches occupy a legal grey zone. They’re neither food nor medicine, so they escape the usual safety checks and labelling rules. Shoppers can’t always be sure how much caffeine they’re getting – or what other ingredients might be mixed in. Health experts are calling for clearer warnings and age restrictions, particularly as many brands use fruity flavours and bright packaging designed to catch the eye of younger consumers.

Caffeine pouches may be fashionable and convenient, but their rapid absorption and high potency make it easy to overshoot safe limits, especially for teens. An occasional pouch might not be harmful for most adults, but they’re no risk-free substitute for coffee or tea. As with any stimulant, moderation isn’t just sensible, it’s essential.

Dipa Kamdar 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. Caffeine pouches deliver a fast hit – and hidden risks – https://theconversation.com/caffeine-pouches-deliver-a-fast-hit-and-hidden-risks-263933

October 1, 2025

Even a government shutdown that ends quickly would hamper morale, raise costs and reduce long-term efficiency in the federal workforce

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Gonzalo Maturana, Associate Professor of Finance, Emory University

Congress failed to reach a deal in time, leaving the federal government shut down. AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

The U.S. government shutdown couldn’t come at a worse time for federal workers.

With a government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed – sent home without pay until funding resumes. And ahead of the shutdown, President Donald Trump suggested that a prolonged lapse in funding could open the door to “irreversible” changes, such as reducing parts of the federal workforce.

The shutdown marks another difficult moment this year for a federal workforce that has so far shed more than 300,000 jobs. This is largely due to ongoing Trump administration efforts to downsize parts of the federal government and restructure or largely eliminate certain government agencies with the stated aim of increasing efficiency.

As a team of financial economists who study labor markets and public sector employment and have examined millions of federal personnel records spanning such government shutdowns in the past, we have found that the consequences reach far beyond the now-familiar images of closed national parks and stalled federal services. Indeed, based on our study of an October 2013 shutdown during which about 800,000 federal employees were furloughed for 16 days, shutdowns leave an enduring negative effect on the federal workforce, reshaping its composition and weakening its performance for years to come.

What happens to workers

Millions of Americans interact with the federal government every day in ways both big and small. More than one-third of U.S. national spending is routed through government programs, including Medicare and Social Security. Federal workers manage national parks, draft environmental regulations and help keep air travel safe.

Whatever one’s political leanings, if the goal is a government that handles these responsibilities effectively, then attracting and retaining a talented workforce is essential.

Yet the ability of the federal government to do so may be increasingly difficult, in part because prolonged shutdowns can have hidden effects.

When Congress fails to pass appropriations, federal agencies must furlough employees whose jobs are not deemed “excepted” – sometimes commonly referred to as essential. Those excepted employees keep working, while others are barred from working or even volunteering until funding resumes. Furlough status reflects funding sources and mission categories, not an individual’s performance, so it confers no signal about an employee’s future prospects and primarily acts as a shock to morale.

Importantly, furloughs do not create long-term wealth losses; back pay has always been granted and, since 2019, is legally guaranteed. Employees therefore recover their pay even though they may face real financial strain in the short run.

A cynical observer might call furloughs a paid vacation, yet the data tells a different story.

A sign in front of a national memorial. — National Parks are among the federal services that typically close during a shutdown, as happened in 2013.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Immediate consequences, longer-term effects

Using extensive administrative records on federal civilian workers from the October 2013 shutdown, we tracked how this shock to morale rippled through government operations. Employees exposed to furloughs were 31% more likely to leave their jobs within one year.

These departures were not quickly replaced, forcing agencies to rely on costly temporary workers and leading to measurable declines in core functions such as payment accuracy, legal enforcement and patenting activity.

Further, we found that this exodus builds over the first two years after the shutdown and then settles into a permanently lower headcount, implying a durable loss of human capital. The shock to morale is more pronounced among young, female and highly educated professionals with plenty of outside options. Indeed, our analysis of survey data from a later 2018-2019 shutdown confirms that morale, not income loss, drives the exits.

Employees who felt most affected reported a sharp drop in agency, control and recognition, and they were far more likely to plan a departure.

The effect of the motivation loss is striking. Using a simple economic model where workers can be expected to value both cash and purpose, we estimate that the drop in intrinsic motivation after a shutdown would require a roughly 10% wage raise to offset.

Policy implications

Some people have argued that this outflow of employees amounts to a necessary trimming, a way to shrink government by a so-called starving of the beast.

But the evidence paints a different picture. Agencies hit hardest by furloughs turned to temporary staffing firms to fill the gaps. Over the two years after the shutdown we analyzed, these agencies spent about US$1 billion more on contractors than they saved in payroll.

The costs go beyond replacement spending, as government performance also suffers. Agencies that were more affected by the shutdown recorded higher rates of inaccurate federal payments for several years. Even after partial recovery, losses amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars that taxpayers never recouped.

Other skill-intensive functions declined as well. Legal enforcement fell in agencies that became short of experienced attorneys, and patenting activity dropped in science and engineering agencies after key inventors left.

Official estimates of shutdown costs typically focus on near-term GDP effects and back pay. But our findings show that an even bigger bill comes later in the form of higher employee turnover, higher labor costs to fill gaps, and measurable losses in productivity.

Shutdowns are blunt, recurring shocks that demoralize the public workforce and erode performance. These costs spill over to everyone who relies on government services. If the public wants efficient, accountable public institutions, then we should all care about avoiding shutdowns.

After an already turbulent year, it is unclear whether a shutdown would significantly add to the strain on federal employees or have a more limited effect, since many who were considering leaving have already left through buyouts or forced terminations this year. What is clear is that hundreds of thousands of federal employees will experience another period of uncertainty.

This story was updated on Oct. 1, 2025, to include details of the shutdown.

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

– ref. Even a government shutdown that ends quickly would hamper morale, raise costs and reduce long-term efficiency in the federal workforce – https://theconversation.com/even-a-government-shutdown-that-ends-quickly-would-hamper-morale-raise-costs-and-reduce-long-term-efficiency-in-the-federal-workforce-265723

October 1, 2025

We teach young people to write. In the age of AI, we must teach them how to see

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

From the earliest year of school, children begin learning how to express ideas in different ways. Lines across a page, a wobbly letter, or a simple drawing form the foundation for how we share meaning beyond spoken language.

Over time, those first marks evolve into complex ideas. Children learn to combine words with visuals, express abstract concepts, and recognise how images, symbols and design carry meaning in different situations.

But generative artificial intelligence (AI), software that creates content based on user prompts, is reshaping these fundamental skills. AI is changing how people create, edit and present both text and images. In other words, it changes how we see – and how we decide what’s real.

Take photos, for example. They were once seen as a “mirror” of reality. Now, more people recognise their constructed nature.

Similarly, generative AI is disrupting long-held assumptions about the authenticity of images. These can appear photorealistic but can depict things or events that never existed.

Our latest research, published in the Journal of Visual Literacy, identifies key literacies at each stage of the AI image generation process, from selecting an AI image generator to creating and refining content.

As the way people make images changes, knowing how generative AI works will let you better understand and critically assess its outputs.

Textual and visual literacy

Literacy today extends beyond reading and writing. The Australian Curriculum defines literacy as the ability to “use language confidently for learning and communicating in and out of school”. The European Union broadens this to include navigating visual, audio and digital materials. These are essential skills not only in school, but for active citizenship.

These abilities span making meaning, communicating and creating through words, visuals and other forms. These abilities also require adapting expression to different audiences. You might text a friend informally but email a public official with more care, for example. Computers, too, demand different forms of literacy.

In the 1960s, users interacted with computers through written commands. By the 1970s, graphical elements like icons and menus emerged, making interaction more visual.

Generative AI is often a mix between these two approaches. Some technologies, like ChatGPT, rely on text prompts. Others, like Adobe’s Firefly, use both text commands and button controls.

The user interface of Adobe Firefly shows eight photorealistic images, generated by AI, seemingly depicting the Sydney Opera House in Sydney Harbour. — Adobe Firefly provides a suite of options for adjusting visual output, including whether the visual style is photorealistic, whether the image orientation is square, horizontal, or vertical, and whether any visual effects are desired.
T.J. Thomson

Software often interprets or guesses user intent. This is especially true for minimalistic prompts, such as a single word or even an emoji. When these are used for prompts, the AI system often returns a stereotypical representation based on its training data or the way it’s been programmed.

Being more specific in your prompt helps to arrive at a result more aligned with what you envisioned. This highlights that we need “multimodal” literacies: knowledge and skills that cut across writing and visual modes.

What are some key literacies in AI generation?

One of the first generative AI literacies is knowing which system to use.

Some are free. Others are paid. Some might be free but built on unethical datasets. Some have been trained on particular datasets that make the outputs more representative or less risky from a copyright infringement perspective. Some support a wider range of inputs, including images, documents, spreadsheets and other files. Others might support text-only inputs.

After selecting an image generator, you need to be able to work with it productively.

If you’re trying to make a square image for an Instagram post, you’re in luck. This is because many AI systems produce images with a square orientation by default. But what if you need a horizontal or vertical image? You’ll have to ask for that or know how to modify that setting.

What if you want text included in your image? AI still struggles with rendering text, similarly to how early AI systems struggled with accurately representing human fingers and ears. In these cases, you might be better off adding text in a different software, such as Canva or Adobe InDesign.

Many AI systems also create images that lack specific cultural context. This lets them be easily used in wider contexts. Yet it might decrease the emotional appeal or engagement among audiences who perceive these images as inauthentic.

A humanoid robot holds a newspaper with a headline about the economy. — AI often struggles with rendering text. Here’s how AI did with a request to create an image that included this headline, ‘Give the A.I. Economy a Human Touch.’
The authors via Midjourney, CC BY-NC-SA

Working with AI is a moving target

Learning AI means keeping pace with constant change. New generative AI products appear regularly, while existing platforms rapidly evolve.

Earlier this year, OpenAI integrated image generation into ChatGPT and TikTok launched its AI Alive tool to animate photos. Meanwhile, Google’s Veo 3 made cinematic video with sound accessible to Canva users, and Midjourney introduced video outputs.

These examples show where things are headed. Users will be able to create and edit text, images, sound and video in one place rather than having to use separate tools for each.

Building multimodal literacies means developing the skills to adapt, evaluate and co-create as technology evolves.

If you want to start building those literacies now, begin with a few simple questions.

What do I want my audience to see or understand? Should I use AI for creating this content? What is the AI tool producing and how can I shape the outcome?

Approaching visual generative AI with curiosity, but also critical thinking is the first step toward having the skills to use these technologies intentionally and effectively. Doing so can help us tell visual stories that carry human rather than machine values.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

Daniel Pfurtscheller previously received funding from the Tyrolean Science Fund and the Austrian Science Fund, for research unrelated to this article.

Katharina Christ works in a project funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation. This research is unrelated to the content of this article.

Katharina Lobinger has previously received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Federal Office of Communications in Switzerland.

Nataliia Laba has previously received Research Training Program funding from the Australian Government Department of Education.

– ref. We teach young people to write. In the age of AI, we must teach them how to see – https://theconversation.com/we-teach-young-people-to-write-in-the-age-of-ai-we-must-teach-them-how-to-see-259283

October 1, 2025

Kamala Harris’ candid memoir reveals her ‘ideal’ vice president – and why she thinks she lost

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

It is downright eerie to read, right now, Kamala Harris’ memoir of her 2024 presidential campaign. These events feel so far away now, when we read them from within the frequent shocks of the Trump presidency, from troops on the streets of Washington to the indictment of former FBI director James Comey. But the chapter titles – beginning “July 21. 107 Days to the Election” – remind us the election was just last year.

“It says a lot about how traumatised we both were by what happened that night that Doug and I never discussed it with each other until I sat down to write this book,” Harris reflects about election night: her campaign at an end and Trump triumphant.

The book is not the whole story – not by a long shot. But her words about these events resonate with a ring of truth.

Book review: 107 Days – Kamala Harris (Simon & Schuster)

The first chapter, Sunday July 21, covers the day Joe Biden – who disintegrated before our eyes in his catastrophic debate with Trump – withdrew from the race, with no road to victory.

He did want to endorse Harris, but “not for a day, maybe two”. She told him that would be “ruinous”. She argued that she was not just “the candidate in the strongest position to win”, but “the only person” who would preserve Biden’s legacy. “At this point, anyone else was bound to throw him – and all the good he had achieved – under the bus.”

She draws on her call notes to supply the reactions of various senior Democrats to the news that day, from Bill Clinton (“Oh my god, I’m so relieved!”) to Gavin Newsom:

Hiking. Will call back. (He never did.)

Throughout, Harris is relentlessly sharp in recollecting the campaign – and very candid on all the principals, including the love of her husband, Doug Emhoff.

It takes courage to write about such an agonising, devastating defeat – after an historic, exhilarating campaign – so quickly and so personally. Memoirs are rarely written this quickly. (We are still waiting, five years later, for the second volume of Barack Obama’s memoirs.)

In writing this book, she got by with a little help from a “special friend”: Pulitzer prize winning Australian author Geraldine Brooks. Harris’ acknowledgements note her deep appreciation of working with Brooks, whose “ferocious and brilliant artistic insights were indispensable.”

The book fully reflects that. And who knows? Brooks one day might collaborate with Kamala on an inaugural address.

Candid, but loyal about Biden

Harris is candid about Biden’s decline, but still essentially loyal.

“On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump at his best,” she writes. “There was a distinction between his ability to campaign and his ability to govern.”

Bob Woodward, the dean of presidential journalists, reached the same conclusion in his last book, War.

Harris writes:

of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out. I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition.

The choice, she says, should not “have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

In other words, this was a decision his family and associates did not want to make. But it was imperative the national interest be placed above Biden’s personal interest.

The Harris campaign kept the core of Team Biden. “I didn’t have time to build a new plane; I had to fly the aircraft available.”

One of Biden’s closest advisors, Mike Donilon (criticised in Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s recent Biden book, Original Sin) left Harris’ campaign two weeks in.

She describes him, during Biden’s 2024 campaign, filtering poll data and presenting “the numbers in soothing terms […] really there was nothing to see here”. At these briefings (which “made no sense to me”), she writes, “Doug had wanted to stop sitting next to me because he got tired of me kicking him under the table when I asked a question and got a nonanswer.”

Pete Buttigieg ‘too big of a risk’ as VP

Harris delivers the goods on her vice-presidential search. She admits Pete Buttigieg (a personal friend) was her first choice and the “ideal partner” – but the then transportation secretary, with his husband and children, was “too big of a risk” for “a Black woman married to a Jewish man”.

Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, came across to her as wanting a co-presidency. “At one point, he mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision […] I had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two.”

She viewed senator and retired astronaut Mark Kelly of Arizona very favourably, but was afraid the Trump attack machine would try to take him down on his (excellent) military service record – just like the Republicans did to John Kerry in 2004. The man who led that effort, Chris LaCivita, was now a top Trump campaign aide.

Could a captain, used to deference and respect, adapt to an opponent’s national campaign specifically designed to disrespect him, to cut a hero down to something small?

Of course, the military service slander she feared with Kelly was employed against her eventual choice. Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who served in the National Guard for 24 years, was accused by vice president JD Vance of “stolen valor” for his misstatement, while arguing for an assault weapons ban, that “these weapons of war that I carried in war” had no place on civilian streets, though he didn’t serve in combat.

Harris found the chemistry she wanted with the “genuinely self-deprecating” Walz: an all-American decent guy next door, with great values and common sense. “He had no fixed ideas about what the role of vice president would be, saying he would do whatever I found was most useful for him to do.”

She writes that her senior staff favoured Walz, “to a person”, as did her sister – while husband Doug Emhoff, interestingly, leaned towards Shapiro.

We will never know if Shapiro or Kelly would have carried their swing states, perhaps changing the outcome of the election.

‘Don’t ever let them make you cry’

Trump’s outrages on the campaign trail were rife. Harris takes us behind the scenes to reveal her reactions to key moments, like Trump’s infamous statement to the National Association with Black Journalists: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.” (Her mother is Indian; her father Jamaican.)

To campaign aide Brian Fallon, who wanted her to “punch back with a big speech about my racial identity”, she retorted:

Today he wants me to prove my race. What next? He’ll say I’m not a woman and I’ll need to show my vagina?

Harris takes us into her July 25 meeting with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu during her campaign. She also tells us she believes Israel was right to respond to “the atrocities of October 7”, but criticises the “ferocity” of Netanyahu’s response, including “the number of innocent Palestinian women and children killed and his failure to prioritize the lives of the hostages”. She was tough.

“I interrupted to reiterate the need for an immediate ceasefire and a day-after plan that gave Palestinians some kind of political horizon.” Netanyahu did not like what he was hearing – especially from her. “He wanted Trump in the seat opposite him. Not Joe. Not me.”

Harris does acknowledge Biden gaffes, like when he put on the MAGA hat of a Trump supporter he was joking with, who offered it to him. Her internal monologue went: “Don’t take it […] Don’t put it on.” Then: “He put it on.” That photo carried the caption, “Biden endorses Trump over Harris.” A bad day on a trail that had only 107 days.

When Harris talks about being a woman in politics, she sounds a lot like Julia Gillard.

“As any woman in a public-facing job knows, it takes us longer,” she writes about the two hours she needed to get ready on the campaign trail – make-up, hairstyling, “more complicated apparel choices”. Women are still judged on these seeming trivialities, she writes, over “the consequential matters we’re engaged in”.

She relates a conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel. “They used to call me this – this ugly bird. And at first it hurt me deeply.” Angela leant towards Kamala. “Don’t ever let them make you cry.”

Harris never does.

‘I know Donald Trump’s type’

Harris’ speeches hit Trump where it hurts. As California’s attorney general, she told crowds:

I took on predators of all kinds […] Predators who abused women, who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game. So hear me when I say […] I know Donald Trump’s type.

The crowds “exploded” at this line, she writes.

There are phrases in English that do a lot of work for you. “I know his type” is one of them. We’ve all said it about someone of low character whom we’ve personally known.

She had big rallies. And big money. She was fully competitive.

Harris told America what Day One of President Kamala Harris would look like. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities on what I will get done for the American people.”

By contrast: “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list.” Does anyone following American politics today doubt that?

By her own account, the wisest advisor in her campaign was David Plouffe, who ran Barack Obama’s successful 2008 campaign. But like a Shakespearean ghost, Plouffe’s warnings haunt this play. He counselled her Trump was doing better than in 2016 and 2020, and the assassination attempt had pushed his turnout up 20%. “Whatever you think his turnout will be, add ten per cent.”

Her campaign strategists were not happy about Harris’ continued praise for Biden in her speeches, urging her to stop. Plouffe put it bluntly: “People hate Joe Biden.” Harris quotes those words twice.

Why does she believe she lost?

This is her verdict: “One hundred and seven days were not, in the end, long enough to accomplish the task of winning the presidency.”

Maybe.

Trump got three million more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020. Harris got six million fewer votes than she and Biden did in 2020.

All that Harris was proud of – the landmark legislation on infrastructure, health care and clean energy – would not deliver their full benefits before the election. In the run up to November, she writes, inflation and interest rates were high, and there was no immediate relief.

Harris wanted to talk directly to Trump supporters, but it never happened. She wrote:

I wished I could ask every one of them. What are you angry about? What about me makes you angry? Is it your health care, your grocery bills, a backbreaking job that doesn’t pay what you’re worth – and what can I do to help you?

She did not reach them.

She combated Trump’s strength on immigration and border issues, and the issue of Gen Z facing a future without good prospects. An anti-trans campaign ripped across the country: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” It was reported more than US$21 million was spent by Trump and Republicans on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ television ads as of October 9 2024.

Harris peaked in mid-September. She never had a lead clear of the polls’ margin of error.

On election day, she believed she would win.

Bruce Wolpe donated to the Biden-Harris campaign. He has served on the staffs of the Democrats in Congress and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

– ref. Kamala Harris’ candid memoir reveals her ‘ideal’ vice president – and why she thinks she lost – https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-candid-memoir-reveals-her-ideal-vice-president-and-why-she-thinks-she-lost-266047

October 1, 2025

How safe is your face? The pros and cons of having facial recognition everywhere

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher, Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University

Walk into a shop, board a plane, log into your bank, or scroll through your social media feed, and chances are you might be asked to scan your face. Facial recognition and other kinds of face-based biometric technology are becoming an increasingly common form of identification.

The technology is promoted as quick, convenient and secure – but at the same time it has raised alarm over privacy violations. For instance, major retailers such as Kmart have been found to have broken the law by using the technology without customer consent.

So are we seeing a dangerous technological overreach or the future of security? And what does it mean for families, especially when even children are expected to prove their identity with nothing more than their face?

The two sides of facial recognition

Facial recognition tech is marketed as the height of seamless convenience.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the travel industry, where airlines such as Qantas tout facial recognition as the key to a smoother journey. Forget fumbling for passports and boarding passes – just scan your face and you’re away.

In contrast, when big retailers such as Kmart and Bunnings were found to be scanning customers’ faces without permission, regulators stepped in and the backlash was swift. Here, the same technology is not seen as a convenience but as a serious breach of trust.

Things get even murkier when it comes to children. Due to new government legislation, social media platforms may well introduce face-based age verification technology, framing it as a way to keep kids safe online.

At the same time, schools are trialling facial recognition for everything from classroom entry to paying in the cafeteria.

Yet concerns about data misuse remain. In one incident, Microsoft was accused of mishandling children’s biometric data.

For children, facial recognition is quietly becoming the default, despite very real risks.

A face is forever

Facial recognition technology works by mapping someone’s unique features and comparing them against a database of stored faces. Unlike passive CCTV cameras, it doesn’t just record, it actively identifies and categorises people.

This may feel similar to earlier identity technologies. Think of the check-in QR code systems that quickly sprung up at shops, cafes and airports during the COVID pandemic.

Facial recognition may be on a similar path of rapid adoption. However, there is a crucial difference: where a QR code can be removed or an account deleted, your face cannot.

Why these developments matter

Permanence is a big issue for facial recognition. Once your – or your child’s – facial scan is stored, it can stay in a database forever.

If the database is hacked, that identity is compromised. In a world where banks and tech platforms may increasingly rely on facial recognition for access, the stakes are very high.

What’s more, the technology is not foolproof. Mis-identifying people is a real problem.

Age-estimating systems are also often inaccurate. One 17-year-old might easily be classified as a child, while another passes as an adult. This may restrict their access to information or place them in the wrong digital space.

A lifetime of consequences

These risks aren’t just hypothetical. They already affect lives. Imagine being wrongly placed on a watchlist because of a facial recognition error, leading to delays and interrogations every time you travel.

Or consider how stolen facial data could be used for identity theft, with perpetrators gaining access to accounts and services.

In the future, your face could even influence insurance or loan approvals, with algorithms drawing conclusions about your health or reliability based on photo or video.

Facial recognition does have some clear benefits, such as helping law enforcement identify suspects quickly in crowded spaces and providing convenient access to secure areas.

But for children, the risks of misuse and error stretch across a lifetime.

So, good or bad?

As it stands, facial recognition would seem to carry more risks than rewards. In a world rife with scams and hacks, we can replace a stolen passport or drivers’ licence, but we can’t change our face.

The question we need to answer is where we draw the line between reckless implementation and mandatory use. Are we prepared to accept the consequences of the rapid adoption of this technology?

Security and convenience are important, but they are not the only values at stake. Until robust, enforceable rules around safety, privacy and fairness are firmly established, we should proceed with caution.

So next time you’re asked to scan your face, don’t just accept it blindly. Ask: why is this necessary? And do the benefits truly outweigh the risks – for me, and for everyone else involved?

Joanne Orlando receives funding from NSW Department of Education and previously from office of eSafety Commissioner.

– ref. How safe is your face? The pros and cons of having facial recognition everywhere – https://theconversation.com/how-safe-is-your-face-the-pros-and-cons-of-having-facial-recognition-everywhere-265753

October 1, 2025

The 5 big problems with Trump’s Gaza peace plan

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Middle East Studies, Australian National University

The 20-point plan announced by US President Donald Trump at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes close to living up to Trump’s hype. It is a bold attempt to address all of the issues that need to be resolved if there is to be lasting peace in Gaza.

Could it work? Both sides are tired of the war. Throughout history, quite a number of wars have simply come to an end when both sides were too exhausted to continue. Two-thirds of Israelis want the war to end, and though polling of Palestinians is difficult, they clearly want the devastation and suffering in Gaza to stop, too.

So, this plan, despite its limitations, could come at the right time.

However, there are many outstanding questions about the feasibility of the plan and to what extent it is likely to be successful. Given the Middle East’s violent history, it’s impossible to be optimistic at this point.

Here are five main reasons for concern.

1. Trust is lacking

There’s zero trust between both sides right now. And several aspects of the plan are so vague, there is a big risk both sides could accuse the other of breaking their promises.

The last ceasefire between the two sides only lasted two months before Netanyahu backed out, blaming Hamas for not releasing more hostages before negotiations on the next phase could proceed.

2. The plan is asymmetrical

The deal favours Israel more than it does Hamas. Hamas is essentially being asked to give up all of the remaining Israeli hostages it holds and all of its weapons at the same time, rendering it entirely defenceless.

Hamas, with its lack of trust in Israel and Netanyahu, in particular, may fear the Israeli leader could use this as an opportunity to attack it again without worrying about harming the hostages.

Hamas was also not invited to negotiate the terms of the agreement. And it now faces an ultimatum: accept the terms or Israel will “finish the job”.

Given the asymmetry of the plan, Hamas may decide the risks of accepting it outweigh the potential benefits, despite its offer of amnesty for Hamas fighters who lay down their arms.

Israel is being asked to make some compromises in the plan. But how realistic are these?

For example, the deal envisions a future when the Palestinian Authority (PA) can “securely and effectively take back control of Gaza”. Netanyahu has previously said he would not accept this.

Likewise, it would also be very difficult for Netanyahu to accept “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”, as outlined in the plan. He has firmly rejected this in the past, most recently in his defiant address to the UN General Assembly last week.

3. Important details are lacking

The implementation strategy of the plan is extraordinarily vague. We know nothing at this stage about the “International Stabilisation Force” that would take the place of the Israeli military after it withdraws from Gaza.

Which countries would participate? It would obviously be a mission fraught with danger to the personnel involved. Netanyahu has previously mentioned an Arab force taking over in Gaza, but no Arab states have yet put their hands up for this.

There is also no timeframe in the plan for the Palestinian Authority reforms, nor any details on what these reforms would entail.

Presumably, there would need to be new elections to install a credible leader in place of current President Mahmoud Abbas. But how that would be done and whether the people of Gaza would be able to take part is still unknown.

In addition, the details of the civil authority that would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza are very unclear. All we know is that Trump would appoint himself chair of the “Board of Peace”, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would also somehow be involved.

This board would need the absolute confidence of the Netanyahu government and Hamas to be effective. Trust is always in short supply in the Middle East.

4. No mention of the West Bank

The West Bank is clearly a flashpoint. There are disputes and clashes every day between the Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents, which are only likely to get worse.

Just last month, the Israeli government gave final approval to a controversial plan to build a new settlement that would effectively divide the West Bank in two, making a future, contiguous Palestinian state unviable.

The West Bank must be central to any overall settlement between Israel and Palestine.

5. Israel’s right-wing cabinet remains an obstacle

This could be the ultimate deal breaker: the hardline right-wing members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have said they will not accept anything less than the complete destruction and elimination of Hamas.

And although Hamas would be disarmed and politically sidelined under this plan, its ideology would remain intact, as would a significant number of its fighters.

So, does it have a chance?

If Hamas accepts Trump’s plan, we could soon have the answers to several of these questions.

But it is going to require a great deal of work by the United States to maintain the pressure on Israel to stick to the deal. The chief Palestinian mediators, Qatar and Egypt, would also need to maintain pressure on Hamas so it doesn’t breach the conditions, as well.

Netanyahu is likely assuming there will be sufficient off-ramps for him to get out of the agreement if Hamas doesn’t live up to it. Netanyahu has already done this once when he backed out of the ceasefire in March and resumed Israel’s military operations.

In his forceful speech to a partially empty UN General Assembly hall last week, Netanyahu didn’t indicate he was thinking of walking away from any of the red lines he had previously set to end the war. In fact, he condemned the states recognising a Palestinian state and vowed, “Israel will not allow you to shove a terror state down our throats.”

Given this, Netanyahu would not have agreed to Trump’s plan at all if the US leader hadn’t put pressure on him. At the same time, Trump said at his news conference with Netanyahu that if Hamas fails to live up to the agreement or refuses to accept it, Israel would have his full backing to finish the job against Hamas.

This promise may be enough for Netanyahu to be able to persuade Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to support the plan – for now.

Ian Parmeter 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 5 big problems with Trump’s Gaza peace plan – https://theconversation.com/the-5-big-problems-with-trumps-gaza-peace-plan-266355

October 1, 2025

12,000-year-old rock art marked ancient water sources in Arabia’s desert

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Maria Guagnin, Director, Ha’il Archaeology Identification Project, University of Sydney; Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

About 12,000 years ago, high up on a cliff in the desert of northern Arabia, an artist – or perhaps artists – was hard at work.

Standing on a narrow ledge and with primitive tools, they engraved into the rock an image of a life-sized camel. This wasn’t the first artwork of its kind: in fact, there was already an entire row of fresh camel engravings on the 39-metre-high cliff face, below which a shallow lake sparkled in the sunshine.

Over thousands of years, these engravings weathered the elements. They gradually eroded until they were almost invisible and had been forgotten.

That is, until our international team discovered them and more than 170 others while on a field trip to the region, which sits near the southern edge of the Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia, roughly two years ago.

As we explain in a new study, published today in Nature Communications, the engravings would have marked important desert water sources – and demonstrate the resilience and innovation of people who lived in such a harsh, arid environment.

A barren, rocky desert under a clear blue sky. — The engravings are near the southern edge of the Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia.
Sahout Rock Art and Archaeology Project

Searching for clues

Our earlier research had shown that between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago Arabia was much wetter than it is today.

Grasslands had spread into areas that are now desert, and cattle herders used these pastures for their herds.

The rock art they left behind is well known from two UNESCO World Heritage sites.

We could see there was also older rock art at these UNESCO sites. It was much larger and more detailed, showing life-sized and naturalistic camels and wild donkeys. But it was not clear how old it was. So in May 2023 we set out to find more of this ancient rock art in the hope of finding clues about its age.

A sand-coloured rock face, featuring an engraving of a large camel. — The newly discovered engravings include 130 images of large, life-sized animals – camels, ibex, wild donkeys, gazelles and aurochs.
Sahout Rock Art and Archaeology Project

Life-sized engravings

In total, we identified more than 60 rock art panels containing 176 engravings in three previously unexplored areas – Jebel Arnaan, Jebel Mleiha and Jebel Misma. The engravings include 130 images of large, life-sized animals – camels, ibex, wild donkeys, gazelles and aurochs. Some are almost three metres long and more than two metres high.

We reached the first panel via a long off-road track which cut through a beautiful mountain landscape. A cool breeze made the heat of the emerging Saudi summer bearable.

The rock art panel showed two large camels, one on top of the other. The older camel looked as though it was in motion and about to stand up, the other like it was striding across the rock surface.

We were excited to find undisturbed archaeological layers directly beneath the engraved camels. In one sealed layer we even found an engraving tool that was once used to make rock art.

Luminescence dating – a dating method that measures when sediment was last exposed to sunlight – revealed the layer in which the tool was found is about 12,000 years old.

The same layer also contained artefacts that are typical for this time, including small arrowheads, stone beads and even a bead made from a seashell.

A hand holding a small arrowhead. — An arrowhead uncovered during excavations.
Michael Petraglia

A far-reaching network

These artefacts tell us the people who made the rock art were part of a far-reaching network. They used the same stone tools and jewellery as communities in the Levant, 400 kilometres further north.

Significantly, our team also discovered the rock art was placed near ancient seasonal lakes.

At the end of the last ice age, during the Last Glacial Maximum, the climate was extremely dry.

These lakes, dated at roughly 15,000 years, are the first evidence of surface water returning to Arabia following the extremely arid period. And they move the timeline of the returning humid conditions back thousands of years, enlarging the opportunity window for humans to settle in these dry inland conditions.

Our results show 12,000 years ago, humans were able to use these seasonal lakes to survive in the desert. They marked these water sources, and the paths leading to them, with monumental rock art.

We don’t know why they did this. But even for us today, the camel is a striking symbol for survival in the desert.

Maria Guagnin received funding from a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (SRG2223231473) for fieldwork and research.

Ceri Shipton, Frans van Buchem, and Michael Petraglia 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. 12,000-year-old rock art marked ancient water sources in Arabia’s desert – https://theconversation.com/12-000-year-old-rock-art-marked-ancient-water-sources-in-arabias-desert-266144