Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Suzy Freeman-Greene, Books + Ideas Editor, The Conversation

The first sentence of Anna Karenina is now a literary cliche, yet contains a nub of truth. “All happy families,” writes Leo Tolstoy, “resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Literature brims with thwarted parents wreaking havoc in unique ways. We’ve considered the worst fathers. Now we look at troubling mothers.

A recent contender here is Arundhati Roy’s depiction of her tyrannical, infuriating yet seductive mother Mary in her new memoir.

But my choice for worst mother is a fictional character, also a Mary. In US author Sapphire’s arresting 1996 novel, Push, Mary is a violent, jealous woman who follows her husband in sexually abusing their teenage daughter, “Precious”. Amid poverty and deprivation, Mary challenges every maternal stereotype.

Here are our experts’ picks.

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Stuff – Joy Williams

Your adult son has just informed you he has terminal lung cancer. Do you:

A) Say, “Oh, well.”

B) Demand he speak quietly so as not to disturb your roommate, Debbie, who is playing dystopian video games.

C) Disagree with the assessment that Gnosticism is a flawed religion incapable of forming any kind of true moral community.

D) Drink a stinger the bright green of antifreeze.

E) Kick him out because your radical silence class is about to begin.

F) Do all of the above: You are a mother in the hilarious void of Joy Williams’ story Stuff.

– Alex Cothren

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Medea – Euripides

A princess of Colchis, she betrayed her own people to help Jason, leader of the Argonauts, capture the Golden Fleece, and then ran off with him and started a family. She kept her sorcery under wraps until Jason dumped her in favour of a princess of Corinth. This betrayal sparked a massive overreaction on Medea’s part. Not only did she murder the new bride, and the bride’s father. She slaughtered her own children and then, with the help of her divine granddad (the sun god Helios), skipped off to Athens to start a new life.

– Jen Webb

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Daisy Buchanan, The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Classic literature is lavishly adorned with bad mums. I’m going with a sleeper hit — Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, aka the love of Jay Gatsby’s life. Daisy studiously neglects her daughter Pammy, a child of about two, throughout the novel. She says she hopes Pammy will grow up to be a “beautiful little fool”, and so, frankly, do the readers, just so poor Pam won’t ever know her mother cheated on her father with a guy who ends up murdered in his own swimming pool, after being mistaken for Pammy’s own father Tom. And here’s hoping Pammy won’t know her mom Daisy killed her dad Tom’s lover Mabel in a hit-and-run accident, while drunk driving someone else’s car.

– Sophie Gee

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May Callaghan, I for Isobel – Amy Witting

The mother in Amy Witting’s I for Isobel simmers with a rage that shapes the whole Callaghan family. But it is the bright, bookish younger daughter, Isobel, who attracts most of May Callaghan’s venom. Isobel feels her mother’s anger as “a live animal tormenting her”. May denies nine-year-old Isobel a birthday celebration; she labels her “a born liar”. Isobel wrests back power by learning to withhold her desire to scream: “She wants me to scream. I do something for her when I scream.”

At her mother’s death, Isobel feels only relief.

– Carol Lefevre

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The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek

Erika Kohut’s Mother intrudes on every aspect of her adult daughter’s life – her movements, her body, her finances. The claustrophobic Viennese apartment they share is a site of domestic interrogation and terror, with Mother looming over Erika like a one-woman tribunal: part inquisitor and part executioner. This is domination, not maternal care, isolating Erika and driving her toward secrecy and spirals of self-harm.

In characteristically relentless and sardonic prose, Jelinek presents this relationship as a miniature of Austria’s refusal to confront its troubling political past. This is a household where desire is policed and traumatic history repressed until it sporadically erupts into terrible violence, shattering the illusions of bourgeois respectability and revealing how repression, left unchecked, becomes cannibalistic.

– Alexander Howard

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The Watch Tower – Elizabeth Harrower

Selecting a worst mother from literature has been hard – I know they’re out there, but my brain refuses to decide on one, perhaps subconsciously rejecting the notion. I have settled on a bit-character in a novel with a truly grotesque patriarchal figure at its centre: Elizabeth Harrower’s 1966 novel The Watchtower.

The unnamed mother in this novel abandons her daughters with not a thought for their wellbeing, leaving them in the hands, and financial trap, of the cruel and contemptuous Felix Shaw. I know the world criticises mothers much more harshly than fathers for abandoning their children – in literature as in life – but this abandonment struck a chord in me that I cannot intellectualise. How easily Clare and Laura’s mother wipes her hands of them and how vulnerable they are in the world as a result.

– Edwina Preston

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Serena Joy, The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

My pick for worst mother is controversial. Throughout both Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its sequel The Testaments we don’t get to see Serena Joy Waterford mothering, which, I think, is a mercy. But I’ve chosen Serena, the wife of a Commander in the republic of Gilead, because she is instrumental in destroying the very notion of what it is to be a mother, which is that of deep and compassionate care. Serena sees children as a right and a prize for religious piety – at the expense of the child and all who care for them. As Sheila Heti has written, “The whole world needs to be mothered.”

Just not by Serena.

– Natalie Kon-yu

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Nina, Heartsease – Kate Kruimink

In Tasmanian writer Kate Kruimink’s exquisite novel Heartsease, the twentysomething Ellen (Nelly) is a daughter both made by her mother Nina and trying to remake herself against her. Nelly remembers every childhood slight and hurt, especially the many ways she disappointed her mother as an example of young womanhood: dishevelled, shy, awkward and unlike the elegant, socialite Nina in most ways. Nelly can’t show her mother or ask her questions about incidents from the past, can’t ask why it is she’s never met her maternal grandmother. For Nina died when Nelly was a teenager, and a dead mother really is the worst.

– Jane Messer

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Helen, Oh Joseph, I’m so tired – Richard Yates

Richard Yates frequently drew on his personal history in his fiction, and so it’s unsurprising that he repeatedly returns to his turbulent relationship with his own mother, the erratic Ruth “Dookie” Maurer. Dookie appears in various forms in many of Yates’s novels and stories, but is perhaps best realised as the frustrated sculptor Helen in Oh Joseph, I’m so tired from Yates’ collection Liars in Love. The story is unsparing in its depiction of her awful self-centredness and bigotry, but also captures her fragility and desperate need to maintain her delusions of imminent success. Helen’s self-deception is depicted as heart-breaking and absurd, but it also briefly transforms the grim lives of her children into something more privileged and magical.

– Julian Novitz

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Maggie, Bodies of Light – Jennifer Down

I can’t entertain a “worst” case scenario for any literary mother because the trope of the monstrous mother is alive and well and continues to cause damage. Rather, I draw attention to the complex, deeply flawed character of Maggie in Jennifer Down’s 2022 Miles Franklin winner, Bodies of Light. The survivor of a childhood marked by drug addiction, grief and abuse, Maggie’s humble attempt at conventional marriage and motherhood fails miserably when three of her babies die in her care. Sound familiar? Down’s achievement here is to show us how the idea of monstrous mothers endures in our culture. The cost is real.

– Julienne van Loon

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Mrs Bannerman, The Last House on Needless Street – Catriona Ward

There is no shortage of horrible parents in fiction, but few have horrified me more than Ted’s mother, Mrs Bannerman, in Catriona Ward’s acclaimed The Last House on Needless Street. Her evil is conveyed to the reader via flashbacks that may or may not lead us to conclude that an adult Ted may or may not also be evil. In a suspenseful novel full of ambiguity and uncertainty, there’s nothing vague or uncertain about the abuse that the young mother subjects her son to and the pleasure that she derives from hurting him. Not one for the squeamish.

– Ali Alizadeh

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Muriel Cleese, So, anyway … John Cleese

Most accounts of a “bad mother” are complicated by the familiar ambivalence of love-hate relationships. This isn’t the case in John Cleese’s autobiography So, Anyway …. Here the author castigates his mother as “self-obsessed and anxious”, associating this with “her extraordinary lack of general knowledge”, and accusing her of being a person who “had no information about anything that was not going to affect her life directly in the immediate future”. This led to “a constant state of high anxiety” and a desperation to have everything “her own way”. The coruscating nature of Cleese’s unmitigated bile is oddly refreshing.

– Paul Giles

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Mrs Skewton, Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens

Dickens’ mothers generally fail by dying romantically or miserably before the action of the novel begins. So it is with the first Mrs Dombey in Dombey and Son. The second Mrs Dombey’s mother, however, is a more durable monster of vanity and manipulativeness. “Cleopatra” (her preferred name) Skewton is the freeze-dried belle of Leamington Spa, decayed and held together by cosmetics. Her aim is to sell her statuesque daughter, Edith, in marriage for the best available price. In succeeding, she finishes the job of destroying Edith’s sense of her own value. Fortunately, Edith has enough hauteur (an Australian might call it mongrel) to fight back.

– Robert Phiddian

Do you have a nomination for the worst mother – or father – in literature? If so, let us know by scrolling to the end of this article and adding your choice in the comments.

– ref. Who are the worst mothers in literature? Our experts weigh in – https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-worst-mothers-in-literature-our-experts-weigh-in-263816

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Margaret Murray, Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Swinburne University of Technology

The popularity of matcha continues to boom. But recent videos on social media have suggested it could be bad for you if you have low iron.

One Sydney woman recently told media she had “no idea” her daily matcha latte could affect her health until she started experiencing headaches, and noticed her hair and nails were brittle and she was bruising easily. Blood tests found she was severely low in iron.

Similar videos on TikTok show women in hospital getting iron transfusions – and blaming their matcha habit.

So, let’s unpack this. How healthy is matcha? And can it really cause low iron?

What is matcha?

Matcha is a fine powder made from dried and ground-up green tea (Camellia sinensis) leaves. It has recently gained popularity as a drink and a flavour variety in many different foods.

Matcha contains many beneficial compounds (for example, dietary fibre and polyphenols) as well as being a source of caffeine.

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Read more:
Matcha is having a moment. What are the health benefits of this green tea drink?

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Including matcha, or green tea, as part of a balanced diet may provide health benefits such as supporting healthy brain function and blood pressure.

However despite its health benefits, research has shown that drinking a lot of green tea is linked to lower levels of iron in the blood.

We need iron – but can’t make it

Iron is an essential micronutrient that helps transport oxygen around the body, as well as supporting many other important biological processes.

Our bodies can’t make iron, so we need to get it from our diet to support these functions. But even if we eat a lot of iron-rich foods, other things in our diet – such as coffee, red wine, calcium-rich foods and yes, matcha – can interfere with absorbing the iron.

So people with low iron levels need to be careful.

In particular, women who menstruate have an increased risk of low iron because of iron lost through bleeding.

You may have an iron deficiency if your iron falls below certain levels – typically for adults, less than 30 micrograms of iron per litre of blood. There are different cut offs for children.

Iron deficiency anaemia is a condition where very low levels of iron affect the functioning of red blood cells. It is diagnosed based on levels of haemoglobin in the blood (these cutoffs vary by age, sex and pregnancy status).

What does matcha do to iron levels?

There are two main components in green tea that stop us absorbing iron. These are polyphenols and phytic acid (also known as phytate).

Both polyphenols and phytic acid have their own health benefits, for example, protecting against chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. But they also bind to iron and prevent it from being absorbed into the body.

So, if you have a lot of food or drink that contains these components – especially in combination with iron-rich foods – they can reduce iron absorption.

However, it’s not only matcha that can interfere. Phytic acids are also found in other teas and many plant foods, such as nuts, cereals and legumes. Tea, coffee, berries, and other fruits and vegetables are also high in polyphenols.

How much matcha will affect your iron levels?

This varies between people.

One study showed people who drink three or more cups of green tea a day had lower blood iron levels than those who drink less than one a day. But they didn’t experience iron deficiency any more often.

However other research has linked moderate green tea consumption (two cups a day) to iron deficiency anaemia.

Whether or not your matcha latte will contribute to an iron deficiency depends on many other factors, including your existing iron levels.

So, what about matcha-flavoured foods?

In these – for example, matcha ice cream – the actual amount of green tea powder is very low. This means it’s unlikely to significantly affect iron absorption.

But it’s not just about quantity – when you drink your matcha also matters.

To reduce the impact on iron absorption, it’s recommended you have green tea separately from meals – at least one hour between eating and drinking tea.

What else to keep an eye on

Multiple other factors in your diet can influence iron absorption. What you eat may either exacerbate or counteract the effects of your matcha latte on iron absorption.

Overall, balance is key to ensure you are getting the full spectrum of nutrients the body requires.

To support iron levels, you can incorporate iron-rich foods (such as beans, lentils, meat, fish and fortified cereals) into a healthy diet.

Eating vitamin C-rich foods (such as capsicum, broccoli, kiwifruit and other fruit and vegetables) along with foods that contain iron can help to enhance iron absorption.

If you are concerned about your iron levels, you should speak to a health-care professional – especially if experiencing symptoms of iron deficiency (such as tiredness, weakness or dizziness).

A blood test can diagnose low iron levels. If you have an iron deficiency, your GP or dietitian will help you manage symptoms and work out what is right for you.

Margaret Murray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is TikTok right? Should I avoid matcha if I have low iron? – https://theconversation.com/is-tiktok-right-should-i-avoid-matcha-if-i-have-low-iron-264261

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, School of Media and Strategic Communications, Oklahoma State University

From Paris and Rome to Jakarta, Indonesia, and New York, a curious banner has appeared in protest squares. With hollow cheeks, a broad grin and a straw hat with a red band, the figure is instantly recognizable and has been hoisted by young demonstrators calling for change. In Kathmandu, Nepal, where anger at the government boiled over in September 2025, the flag became the defining image as flames spread through the gates of Singha Durbar, Nepal’s ornate palace complex and seat of power.

The image, usually adorning a flag with a black background, comes from “One Piece,” a much-beloved Japanese manga.

And what began as a fictional pirate crew’s emblem almost three decades ago has become a powerful symbol of youth-led resistance, appearing in demonstrations from Indonesia and Nepal to the Philippines and France.

As a scholar of media and democracy, I see the spread of the Jolly Roger of the Straw Hats Pirates – which has gone from manga pages to protest squares – as an example of how Gen Z is reshaping the cultural vocabulary of dissent.

Pop culture as political expression

“One Piece” arrived at the birth of Gen-Z, created in 1997 by Japanese manga artist Eiichiro Oda.

Since then, it has sold more than 500 million copies and has a Guinness World Record for its publishing success.

It has spawned a long-running TV series, live-action films and a more-than-US$20 billion industry, with merchandise licensing alone generating about $720 million each year from Bandai Namco, the company best known for creating Pac-Man and Tekken.

At its core, “One Piece” follows Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as they challenge a corrupt world government while seeking freedom and adventure.

For fans, the “One Piece” flag is not a casual decoration but an emblem of defiance and perseverance. Luffy’s ability to stretch beyond physical limits after consuming a magical fruit has become a powerful metaphor for resilience, while his unwavering quest for freedom against impossible odds resonates with young people navigating political environments marked by corruption, inequality and authoritarian excess.

When protesters adopt this flag, they are not simply importing an aesthetic from popular culture, but are drawing on a narrative already legible to millions.

The flag began cropping up in protests over the past few years. It was being waved at a “Free Palestine” protest in 2023 in Indonesia and in the same year in New York during a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

But it was in Indonesia in August 2025 that the flag’s political life truly took hold. There, protesters embraced it to voice frustration with government policies and mounting discontent over corruption and inequality. The timing coincided with government calls for patriotic displays during independence celebrations, sharpening the contrast between official nationalism and grassroots dissent.

The movement gained momentum when authorities responded with strong criticism of the flag’s use, inadvertently drawing more attention to the symbol. Government officials characterized the displays as threats to national unity, while protesters viewed them as legitimate expressions of political frustration.

Why the flag travels

The speed with which the “One Piece” Jolly Roger flag spread across borders reflects the digital upbringing of Gen Z. This is the first cohort to grow up fully online, immersed in memes, anime and global entertainment franchises. Their political communication relies on what scholars call “networked publics” – communities that form and act through digital platforms rather than formal organizations.

Solidarity in this setting does not require party membership or ideology. Instead, it depends on shared cultural references. A meme, gesture or flag can instantly carry meaning across divides of language, religion or geography. This form of connection is built on recognizable cultural codes that allow young people to identify with each other even when their political systems differ.

Social media gives this solidarity reach and speed. Videos of Indonesians waving the flag were clipped and reshared on TikTok and Instagram, reaching audiences far beyond their original context. By the time the symbol appeared in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, in September, it already carried the aura of youthful defiance.

Crucially, this was not simple imitation. In Nepal, the flag was tied to anger at youth unemployment and at the ostentatious wealth of political dynasties displayed online. In Indonesia, it reflected disillusionment with patriotic rituals that felt hollow against a backdrop of corruption. In both cases, the Jolly Roger flag worked like open-source code – adaptable locally but instantly legible elsewhere.

Part of the flag’s effectiveness comes from its ambiguity. Unlike a party logo, the “One Piece” Jolly Roger flag originates in popular culture, which makes it difficult for governments to suppress without appearing authoritarian. During the latest protests in Indonesia, authorities confiscated banners and labeled them treasonous. But such crackdowns only amplified public frustration.

Fiction as reality

The “One Piece” flag is not alone in being reimagined as a symbol of resistance.

Across movements worldwide, pop culture and digital culture have become a potent resources for activists. In Chile and Beirut, demonstrators wore Joker masks as a visual shorthand for anger at corruption and inequality. In Thailand, demonstrators turned to “Hamtaro,” a children’s anime about a hamster, parodying its theme song and waving plush toys to lampoon political leaders.

This blending of politics, entertainment and personal identity reflects a hybrid media environment in which symbols drawn from fandom gain power. They are easy to recognize, adapt and defend against state repression.

Yet cultural resonance alone does not explain the appeal. The “One Piece” flag caught on because it captured real-life grievances. In Nepal, where youth unemployment exceeds 20% and migration for work is common, protesters paired the emblem with slogans such as “Gen Z won’t be silent” and “Our future is not for sale.”

In Indonesia, some protesters argued that the national flag was “too sacred” to be flown in a corrupt system, using the pirate banner as a statement of disillusionment.

The spread of the flag also reflects a broader shift in how protest ideas move across borders. In the past, what tended to travel were tactics such as sit-ins, marches or hunger strikes. Today, what circulates fastest are symbols, visual references from global culture that can be adapted to local struggles while remaining instantly recognizable elsewhere.

The flag goes global

The flag’s journey from Asian streets to protests in France and Slovakia demonstrates how the grammar of dissent has gone global.

For today’s young activists, culture and politics are inseparable. Digital nativity has produced a generation that communicates grievances through memes, symbols and cultural references that cross borders with ease.

When protesters in Jakarta, Kathmandu or Manila wave the “One Piece” Jolly Roger flag, they are not indulging in play-acting but transforming a cultural icon into a living emblem of defiance.

Nuurrianti Jalli is affiliated with Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Yusof Ishak Institute Singapore as Non Residential Visiting Fellow for Media, Technology and Society Program.

– ref. From anime to activism: How the ‘One Piece’ pirate flag became the global emblem of Gen Z resistance – https://theconversation.com/from-anime-to-activism-how-the-one-piece-pirate-flag-became-the-global-emblem-of-gen-z-resistance-265526

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

The US government has announced controversial guidance on the prevention and treatment of autism in children.

New health recommendations aim to discourage pregnant women from taking the painkiller paracetamol – also known as acetaminophen and by the brand name Tylenol – to prevent autism.

The recommendations also include using the drug leucovorin to treat speech-related difficulties that children with autism sometimes experience.

So what is leucovorin and what does the science say about its ability to treat autism?

What is leucovorin?

Leucovorin is a form of folic acid, a B vitamin our bodies usually get from foods such as legumes, citrus fruits and fortified grains.

The medication is most often used in cancer treatment. It’s typically used alongside the chemotherapy drug fluorouracil, a cancer treatment that stops cancer cells from making DNA and dividing. Leucovorin enhances the effects of fluorouracil.

Leucovorin is also used to reduce the toxic side effects of methotrexate, another chemotherapy drug.

Methotrexate works by blocking the body’s use of folate, which healthy cells need to make DNA. Leucovorin provides an active form of folate that healthy cells can use to make DNA, thereby “rescuing” them while methotrexate continues to target cancer cells.

Because methotrexate is also used to treat the skin condition psoriasis, leucovorin can also be used as a rescue agent during treatment for this autoimmune condition.

Why is folate important?

Because folate is essential for making DNA and other genetic material, which cells need to grow and repair properly, it’s especially important during pregnancy.

This is because insufficient folate is linked to the development of spina bifida, a condition where a baby’s spine does not develop correctly. For this reason, women are advised to take folic acid supplements before conception and during the early months of pregnancy.

Folate is also important for supporting the production of red blood cells and overall brain function.

Why is it being considered to treat autism?

The recommendation to use leucovorin to treat autism seems to stem from a theory that low levels of folate in the brain can lead to a condition called cerebral folate deficiency.

Children with cerebral folate deficiency don’t usually display symptoms for the first two years. Then they show signs of speech difficulties, seizures and intellectual disability.

As the signs of autism are similar and it usually presents at around the same age, some people have proposed a link between cerebral folate deficiency and autism.

What does the evidence say?

So can giving children folate, in the form of leucovorin, help them to function better with autism? The evidence says maybe yes, and here’s what we know so far.

A review of the evidence in 2021 analysed the results of 21 studies that used leucovorin for autism or cerebral folate deficiency. Children who took the drug generally had improved autism symptoms. But the authors also said more studies were needed to confirm the findings.

Since then, a small 2024 study involved about 80 children aged two to ten years with autism. Half took a daily maximum dose of 50mg of folinic acid (similar to leucovorin), the other half took a placebo. Children given folinic acid showed more pronounced improvement when compared with those who took the placebo.

A similar 2025 study examined the same dose of folinic acid given to Chinese children with autism. Those given folinic acid had greater improvement in a type of social skill known as social reciprocity when compared with children given placebo.

While promising, none of these trials are at the level to change medical practice. We’d need further, larger studies before doctors can make a proper recommendation.

Like all drugs, leucovorin has side effects. The most serious or common are severe allergic reactions, seizures and fits, and nausea and vomiting.

In a nutshell

Overall, the latest health recommendations are not yet backed by sufficient evidence.

While the US Food and Drug Administration will now allow doctors to prescribe leucovorin to treat autism symptoms, the Australian government should not change its prescribing guidance.

Support for people with autism should continue to follow evidence-based best practice until the data from clinical trials of leucovorin is more robust.

Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd (a medical device company) and was previously a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. He is a member of the Haleon Australia Pty Ltd Pain Advisory Board. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design and testing.

Jasmine Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What is leucovorin, the drug the Trump administration says can treat autism? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-leucovorin-the-drug-the-trump-administration-says-can-treat-autism-265849

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Robyn Arianrhod, Affiliate, School of Mathematics, Monash University

The Irish mathematician and physicist William Rowan Hamilton, who was born 220 years ago last month, is famous for carving some mathematical graffiti into Dublin’s Broome Bridge in 1843.

But in his lifetime, Hamilton’s reputation rested on work done in the 1820s and early 1830s, when he was still in his twenties. He developed new mathematical tools for studying light rays (or “geometric optics”) and the motion of objects (“mechanics”).

Intriguingly, Hamilton developed his mechanics using an analogy between the path of a light ray and that of a material particle. This is not so surprising if light is a material particle, as Isaac Newton had believed, but what if it were a wave? What would it mean for the equations of waves and particles to be analogous in some way?

The answer would come a century later, when the pioneers of quantum mechanics realised Hamilton’s approach offered more than just an analogy: it was a glimpse of the true nature of the physical world.

The puzzle of light

To understand Hamilton’s place in this story, we need to go back a little further. For ordinary objects or particles, the basic laws (or equations) of motion had been published by Newton in 1687. Over the next 150 years, researchers such as Leonard Euler, Joseph-Louis Lagrange and then Hamilton made more flexible and sophisticated versions of Newton’s ideas.

“Hamiltonian mechanics” proved so useful that it wasn’t until 1925 – almost 100 years later – that anybody stopped to revisit how Hamilton had derived it.

His analogy with light paths worked regardless of light’s true nature, but at the time, there was good evidence that light was a wave. In 1801, British scientist Thomas Young had performed his famous double-slit experiment, in which two light beams produced an “interference” pattern like the overlapping ripples on a pond when two stones are dropped in. Six decades later, James Clerk Maxwell realised light behaved like a rippling wave in the electromagnetic field.

But then, in 1905, Albert Einstein showed some of light’s properties could only be explained if light could also behave as a stream of particle-like “photons” (as they were later dubbed). He linked this idea to a suggestion made by Max Planck in 1900, that atoms could only emit or absorb energy in discrete lumps.

Energy, frequency and mass

In his 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, where light dislodges electrons from certain metals, Einstein used Planck’s formula for these energy lumps (or quanta): E = hν. E is the amount of energy, ν (the Greek letter nu) is the photon’s frequency, and h is a number called Planck’s constant.

But in another paper the same year, Einstein introduced a different formula for the energy of a particle: a version of the now-famous E = mc ². E is again the energy, m is the mass of the particle, and c is the speed of light.

So here were two ways of calculating energy: one, associated with light, depended on the light’s frequency (a quantity connected with oscillations or waves); the other, associated with material particles, depended on mass.

Did this suggest a deeper connection between matter and light?

This thread was picked up in 1924 by Louis de Broglie, who proposed that matter, like light, could behave as both a wave and a particle. Subsequent experiments would prove him right, but it was already clear that quantum particles, such as electrons and protons, played by very different rules from everyday objects.

A new kind of mechanics was needed: a “quantum mechanics”.

The wave equation

The year 1925 ushered in not one but two new theories. First was “matrix mechanics”, initiated by Werner Heisenberg and developed by Max Born, Paul Dirac and others.

A few months later, Erwin Schrödinger began work on “wave mechanics”. Which brings us back to Hamilton.

Schrödinger was struck by Hamilton’s analogy between optics and mechanics. With a leap of imagination and much careful thought, he was able to combine de Broglie’s ideas and Hamilton’s equations for a material particle, to produce a “wave equation” for the particle.

An ordinary wave equation shows how a “wave function” varies through time and space. For sound waves, for example, the wave equation shows the displacement of air, due to changes in pressure, in different places over time.

But with Schrödinger’s wave function, it was not clear exactly what was waving. Indeed, whether it represents a physical wave or merely a mathematical convenience is still controversial.

Waves and particles

Nonetheless, the wave-particle duality is at the heart of quantum mechanics, which underpins so much of our modern technology – from computer chips to lasers and fibre-optic communication, from solar cells to MRI scanners, electron microscopes, the atomic clocks used in GPS, and much more.

Indeed, whatever it is that is waving, Schrödinger’s equation can be used to predict accurately the chance of observing a particle – such as an electron in an atom – at a given time and place.

That’s another strange thing about the quantum world: it is probabilistic, so you can’t pin these ever-oscillating electrons down to a definite location in advance, the way the equations of “classical” physics do for everyday particles such as cricket balls and communications satellites.

Schrödinger’s wave equation enabled the first correct analysis of the hydrogen atom, which only has a single electron. In particular, it explained why an atom’s electrons can only occupy specific (quantised) energy levels.

It was eventually shown that Schrödinger’s quantum waves and Heisenberg’s quantum matrices were equivalent in almost all situations. Heisenberg, too, had used Hamiltonian mechanics as a guide.

Today, quantum equations are still often written in terms of their total energy – a quantity called the “Hamiltonian”, based on Hamilton’s expression for the energy of a mechanical system.

Hamilton had hoped the mechanics he developed by analogy with light rays would prove widely applicable. But he surely never imagined how prescient his analogy would be in our understanding of the quantum world.

Robyn Arianrhod 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. 100 years before quantum mechanics, one scientist glimpsed a link between light and matter – https://theconversation.com/100-years-before-quantum-mechanics-one-scientist-glimpsed-a-link-between-light-and-matter-261551

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Suzy Freeman-Greene, Books + Ideas Editor, The Conversation

Literature has long portrayed messed-up families. As poet Philip Larkin famously wrote, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do.”

In honour of this rich vein of dysfunction, we asked experts to nominate the worst literary fathers and mothers. Today we delve into dads. Tomorrow, we turn to mothers.

Of course, complex characters – neither wholly good nor bad – are the best sort. Author Andrew O’Hagan has spoken eloquently about striving to humanise even his most unpleasant creations, to fully amplify a novel.

Still, some characters are awfully hard to like. My least favourite dad might be Shug Bain, a cruel, violent man who abandons his wife and kids in Douglas Stuart’s Booker Prize-winning novel. Shug is appalled by his son Shuggie’s feminine mannerisms. “Look how twisted you’ve made him,” he tells his wife.

Here are our experts’ picks.

James Mortmain, I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith

Perhaps the worst parent is not an obvious “monster”, but one you can all too easily imagine as your own. In Dodie Smith’s I Capture The Castle, James Mortmain, a once-successful writer in the grip of decade-long writer’s block, threatens his first wife with a cake knife and assaults a neighbour. His younger daughter, Cassandra, softens Mortmain’s awfulness with disarming humour. In court, she writes, everyone was being very funny, but “Father made the mistake of being funnier than the judge … he was sent to prison for three months.” The self-focused Mortmain condemns his family to penury in a crumbling castle, where he reads detective novels in the gatehouse and Cassandra captures their plight in her journal.

– Carol Lefevre

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Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

For me, Heathcliff even beats bad-dads King Lear and Agamemnon. Most readers won’t remember that Heathcliff is a dad at all, which is part of what makes him so bad. The sadistic, dysfunctional passion between Heathcliff and Catherine dominates Brontë’s novel, leaving young Linton, the kid Heathcliff has with another woman, Isabella, neglected, abused and dominated by his terrifying father.

Heathcliff doesn’t even meet his son until he’s 13, after Isabella dies. Linton is then forced to live in tormented isolation and tortured into marrying his first cousin, Cathy. All this so Heathcliff can take revenge on Cathy’s father Edgar, who married his beloved Catherine Earnshaw.

– Sophie Gee

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Zeus, the Iliad

Zeus wakes up in book 15 of the Iliad, having been lulled to sleep by Hera with sex and potions. Poor Zeus – with his sneaky wife, bickering, divine siblings and children, all trying to manipulate the war at Troy – and he is only trying to keep the Olympian show on the road. Seriously? Who started the family games? And, if he had canned the swan costume and not raped Leda (or the dozens of other nymphs he “manifested himself” to), no Helen, no war, no problems.

He really is the paterfamilias of toxic patriarchy.

– Robert Phiddian

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Reunion – John Cheever

The last time you see your father, I hope he is not drunk on Beefeater Gibsons. I hope he doesn’t clap at the wait staff or demand they speak languages they do not know. I hope he doesn’t get you removed from four restaurants in a single afternoon. Walking away as he curses at a newsstand clerk, I hope you don’t mourn his flaws as “your future and your doom”. But, were this all to occur, I hope it’s happening inside a John Cheever story, where the comic and tragic mix like flesh and blood, or gin and vermouth.

– Alex Cothren

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Kev, Last Ride – Denise Young

I’m not in favour of binaries of any kind, so I’m not comfortable with “best” vs “worst”. Rather, I contribute a father figure from Australian literature who may be both/and best/worst. I’m thinking of Kev, the father in Denise Young’s astonishingly moving novel, Last Ride, who takes his ten-year old son, Chook, with him on the run from the law across outback NSW after committing a brutal murder. Kev is among the worst, because: who would drag a kid into that? But Kev is simultaneously among the best, because his love for Chook, and his deep-seated impulse to protect him from another man’s abuse, is as genuine and moving as the paternal instinct gets. Kev wields fatherhood as double-edged sword. I feel for him.

– Julienne van Loon

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Albion Gidley Singer, Dark Places – Kate Grenville

The worst father in literature is an easy one for me, though it has been decades since I have read his story. I first encountered the incestuous father Albion Gidley Singer in Kate Grenville’s novel Lilian’s Story, in which he is a somewhat shadowy but menacing figure. But it’s in Dark Places that Albion’s evil is brought fully to bear. I can’t remember the details of the book, but I can remember all too well the feeling of suffocation that came from being too close to Albion, to his thoughts and his feelings. A tremendous book I never want to read again.

– Natalie Kon-yu

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Sam Pollit, The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead

In Christina Stead’s exhilarating and suffocating semi-autobiographical The Man Who Loved Children, the naturalist and patriarch Sam Pollit is nicknamed by his wife Henny “the Great Mouthpiece” for his endless maxims and sickening Pollit-“fambly” patois. He claims to love his many children but mocks, cajoles, and insults them; even has them spy on each other. Family life is so bad that the novel’s heroine, the adolescent Louisa, believes her only hope of escape from the squalor and tyranny is through murder.

– Jane Messer

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My pick is a towering figure in Australian fiction: Sam Pollit of Christina Stead’s 1940 masterpiece The Man Who Loved Children. Sam’s oppressive sunniness, his maniacal refusal to look reality in the face, and his demand that his family play along with his ego-fantasy force them to absorb cruelty, mockery and contempt, all the while descending into more and more perilous poverty at his hands. He is a modern day narcissist par excellence, but also a grotesquerie or travesty of optimism as a virtue in the world. In Sam, “positivity” is transformed into dangerous and delusional thinking that steamrolls everything before it and leaves destruction in its wake.

– Edwina Preston

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Allie Fox, The Mosquito Coast – Paul Theroux

Charismatic, brilliant and narcissistic, Allie Fox drags his family off to live in an isolated part of Honduras’ Mosquito Coast to escape what he has persuaded himself is the impending end of the world. Like any colonist, he takes over a village and attempts to introduce Western technology and ideas. It all ends in catastrophe of course, and his wife and children barely escape with their lives. Allie is the exemplar of the charming destroyer and is at the top of my “bad dad” list.

– Jen Webb

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Captain Ahab, Moby-Dick – Herman Melville

Herman Melville, a great American author, was a lamentable father and an erratic provider for his family, who drove his son Malcolm to shoot himself in his bedroom in his parents’ house in 1867 after a row about the 18-year-old’s late hours. Melville’s fictional character Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick behaves even more reprehensibly, abandoning his own wife and son to focus obsessively on a doomed quest for a white whale that ultimately leads his whole crew to destruction. Ahab takes his name from the worst king of Israel in the Old Testament, and the author of this epic novel trains his gaze not just on one bad father, but the whole nature of patriarchy.

– Paul Giles

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Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

The worst father in fiction has to be one of the first fathers in the horror genre, the eponymous figure in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). Victor, of course, does not beget the monstrous creature via the conventional method of procreating with a female, and he fashions his infamous progeny out of corpses, but he is very much a horrible dad when he denies his ghastly son his love. The Swiss medical genius is the true Gothic monster here, not the hapless and unsightly creature who just wants to be loved.

– Ali Alizadeh

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My dear Victor,

I should address you Father, but how can I? I do not have your own creator’s Miltonic power to throw moral injunction at you, as Satan did to God: “Did I request thee … from darkness to promote me?” Was there ever a son whose “being” (your own word) is not named but de-named as monster, dreaded spectre, fiend, vile insect, abhorred devil? I have entered literature as a hideous progeny, as an abortion and an anomaly. You never gave me love but do not forget, Father, that my form is “a filthy type of yours, more horrid from its very resemblance”.

Your son.

– Vijay Mishra

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The novel’s horror is set in motion not just by Victor’s transgressive hubris as a scientist, but also by his refusal to accept responsibility. Victor abandons his “monster” at almost the moment after its birth, and repeatedly rejects its appeals for compassion and empathy. Victor’s attempts to disavow his legacy are ultimately futile, as his creation relentlessly pursues his “father” to the end of his days.

– Julian Novitz

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Thomas Sutpen, William Faulkner – Absalom, Absalom!

“They feared him and they hated him because of his ruthlessness.” Thomas Sutpen is truly one of William Faulkner’s most terrifying creations: a man who arrives in Mississippi with nothing and wills a dynasty into being. Everything – his marriage, his children, his land – is subsumed by his amoral “design,” which he pursues at any cost and with no concern for those who get in his way.

When a hidden fact about his first marriage comes to light, he casts aside his wife and child, setting in motion a cycle of vengeance that consumes the Sutpen line. In Faulkner’s hands, this ghastly patriarch ultimately becomes a figure for the antebellum South itself – built on inhumanity, colonialism and slavery, unwilling to reckon with the horrors of the reality it has brought into being.

– Alexander Howard

Do you have a nomination for the worst father – or mother – in literature? If so, let us know by scrolling to the end of this article and adding your choice in the comments.

– ref. Who are the worst fathers in literature? Our experts make the tough call – https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-worst-fathers-in-literature-our-experts-make-the-tough-call-263815

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

United States President Donald Trump is well advanced in his systematic campaign to undermine the American media and eviscerate its function of holding him and others in power to account.

Since the late 18th century this function has often been called the fourth estate. It’s the idea the media is a watchdog over the other three estates which, in modern democracies, are parliament, the executive government and the judiciary.

In the US, Trump has had considerable success in weakening the other three.

His Republican Party controls both Houses of Congress, and they have shown no sign of wishing to restrain him.

He has stacked the executive government with cronies and ideological fellow travellers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr (and his anti-vaccination agenda) as secretary of health, a brief stint by Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.

He has secured the support of the Republican Party to stack the Supreme Court with politically aligned judges who have routinely struck down lower court decisions against Trump, most notably in the matter of deporting migrants to countries other than their homelands.

Pulling funding, applying pressure

The fourth estate’s turn started in March, when Trump stripped federal funding from Voice of America, a public broadcasting service with a global reach, because it was “anti-Trump” and “radical”.

These cuts also hit two other projections of American soft power, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.

In July, he cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in a move that ended all federal support for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting service and their member stations.

Now he has turned to the private sector media. He does not have the power to cut their funding, so he is taking a different approach: financial shake-downs and threats to the foundations of their business.

In October 2024, even before he was elected, Trump sued the Paramount company for US$10 billion (about A$15 billion). He alleged an interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election campaign had been “deceptively edited” by the CBS television network, a Paramount subsidiary.

In February 2025, after he had been sworn in as president, Trump upped the ante to US$20 billion (A$30 billion).

The case was considered by lawyers to have no legal merit, but at that time, Paramount was anxious to merge with Skydance Media, and this was subject to regulatory approval from the Trump administration.

So Paramount was vulnerable to, how shall we say? Blackmail? Extortion? Subornation?

A busy, dangerous July

On July 2, Paramount settled with Trump for US$16 million (A$24 million), which ostensibly is to go towards funding his presidential library.

On July 17 Paramount’s CBS network announced its longtime Late Show would be cancelled from May 2026 after its presenter Stephen Colbert, an outspoken critic of Trump, condemned the corporate cave-in. The Trump administration approved the merger shortly after.

Subsequently the House of Representatives Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees announced an investigation into whether the $16 million settlement constituted a bribe.

Also in July, Trump sued Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for defamation arising from an article linking Trump to the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He claimed the now-familiar amount of US$10 billion (A$15 billion) in damages.

Legal experts in the US say Trump has next to no chance of winning. In the US, public figures who sue for defamation have to prove that the publisher was motivated by malice, which means they published either knowing the material to be untrue, or not caring whether it was true or not.

This case is never likely to end up in court, nor is it likely that Trump will see a red cent of Murdoch’s money. The two men need each other too much. To borrow a phrase from the Cold War, they are in a MAD relationship: Mutually Assured Destruction.

Coming to heel, one by one

Rupert Murdoch was a guest at Windsor Castle at the recent banquet given for Trump by King Charles.

Considering Murdoch’s bitter history with the Royal Family, it is difficult to imagine Buckingham Palace inviting him without Trump’s urging. It may have been a sign of rapprochement between the two men.

Meanwhile Trump has set his sights on The New York Times, suing it for defamation and claiming US$15 billion (A$27 billion).

Referring to the Times’ endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, he said it had become a “mouthpiece for the Radical Left Democrat Party”.

This case faces the same difficulties as his suit against the Wall Street Journal. The question is whether the Times will stand its ground or whether, like Paramount, it caves.

Among the big three US newspapers, the Times is the only one so far not to have been intimidated by Trump. The other two, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, refused to endorse a candidate at the election on instructions from their owners, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong respectively, both of whose wider business interests are vulnerable to Trumpian retribution.

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Read more:
Two of the US’s biggest newspapers have refused to endorse a presidential candidate. This is how democracy dies

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The Post’s decision was condemned as “spineless” by its celebrated former editor Marty Baron.

Now Disney is in the firing line. It owns another of the big four US television networks, ABC. On September 17, it pulled its late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Kimmel had responded to White House accusations that leftists were responsible for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, saying:

we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.

In what had all the hallmarks of a preemptive buckle, ABC and two of its affiliate networks took Kimmel off air indefinitely after Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said his agency might “take action” against the network because of Kimmel’s comments.

Kimmel is returning to TV, but the damage is already done.

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Read more:
Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation is the latest sign we’re witnessing the end of US democracy

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Over at cable network MSNBC, its senior political analyst Matthew Dowd was fired after he had uttered on air the blindingly obvious statement that Kirk’s own radical rhetoric may have contributed to the shooting that killed him.

This cable network is no longer part of the main NBC network, so it can’t be said that NBC itself has yet come to heel.

Within 24 hours of Brendan Carr’s veiled threat, Trump stripped the veil away and made the threat explicit. Trump said of the national networks:

All they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed, they’re not allowed to do that. They’re an arm of the Democrat party. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.

Whether cancelling a licence would breach the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, is a question that might ultimately come before the Supreme Court. Given the present ideological proclivities of that court, the outcome would be by no means certain.

So Trump now has two out of three national newspapers, and two out of the big four national television networks, on the run.

Only one national newspaper and two national networks to go, and one of those is Murdoch’s Fox News, Trump’s most reliable cheerleader.

Denis Muller 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. Lawsuits, cancellations and bullying: Trump is systematically destroying press freedom – https://theconversation.com/lawsuits-cancellations-and-bullying-trump-is-systematically-destroying-press-freedom-265848

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lister Staveley-Smith, Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), The University of Western Australia

Most of the ordinary matter in the universe is hydrogen. But surprisingly, less than 20% of this hydrogen sits inside galaxies. The rest lies in the vast spaces between them – the so-called intergalactic medium.

This cosmic reservoir is thought to fuel the birth of new stars, as gas slowly falls into galaxies over billions of years. Yet much of that material doesn’t stay put: supernova explosions and powerful outflows from supermassive black holes can fling gas back out into intergalactic space.

The push-and-pull between inflows and outflows is central to understanding how galaxies grow and change over cosmic time. Probing this balance is one of the aims of the WALLABY survey, carried out using the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.

A new discovery from WALLABY, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, sheds new light on the cosmic cycle of matter into, through and out of galaxies.

What is WALLABY?

Despite its name, WALLABY isn’t about animals. It’s a somewhat contrived acronym – Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY – for a large survey of neutral hydrogen (the atomic form of hydrogen) across nearly half the southern sky. The ASKAP telescope is sensitive enough to detect hydrogen in and around galaxies up to a billion light years away.

Because it’s a “blind” survey, WALLABY doesn’t target known galaxies. Instead, it scans huge patches of sky – each night covering an area about 150 times the size of the full Moon.

A galactic bridge

We then use automated algorithms to search for signs of hydrogen in the resulting data. One such search revealed an unusual gas bridge linking two otherwise unremarkable galaxies on the outskirts of the Virgo cluster, in the constellation Virgo. The bridge, at least 160,000 light years long, likely formed through tidal interactions between two dwarf galaxies known as NGC 4532 and DDO 137.

These tides are the cosmic equivalent of Earth’s ocean tides, but on a vastly larger scale and made of hydrogen rather than water. Gas pulled from the galaxies now stretches between them, filling the surrounding intergalactic space.

Such bridges are hard to detect because they contain few stars. But we have a local example: the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, are joined by a 70,000-light-year-long gas bridge.

An extraordinary tail

The newly discovered bridge also helps explain a long-standing puzzle: an enormous gas tail streaming away from the dwarf galaxies NGC 4532 and DDO 137, first detected more than 30 years ago with the Arecibo telescope. This tail is ten times longer than the bridge and is the largest ever observed from a galaxy system.

New observations suggest that while tidal forces created the bridge and the envelope of gas around the galaxies, the spectacular tail was produced by another process.

As the pair of galaxies plunges into the Virgo cluster, they encounter extremely hot, thin gas that fills the cluster. The galaxies’ motion through this medium produces ram pressure – much like the resistance felt when cycling into a strong headwind – which strips gas from them and sweeps it out behind.

Remarkably, the gas density required for this effect is only around ten atoms per cubic metre, a value consistent with new measurements from the eROSITA X-ray telescope. Thanks to the galaxies’ high infall speed – more than 800 kilometres per second – this sparse medium is enough to create the vast tail.

The bigger picture

These two galaxies are just a fraction of the 200,000 WALLABY expects to detect by the end of its survey. Each discovery adds to our picture of how gas flows in and out of galaxies, enriching the intergalactic medium and shaping galactic evolution.

Together, they will help astronomers untangle the so-called baryonic cycle – the continuous recycling of matter between galaxies and the space around them.

Lister Staveley-Smith receives research funding from ICRAR, the Western Australian government, and the University of Western Australia.

– ref. What a newly discovered gas bridge between galaxies tells us about the cosmic cycle of matter – https://theconversation.com/what-a-newly-discovered-gas-bridge-between-galaxies-tells-us-about-the-cosmic-cycle-of-matter-265760

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nicholas Wood, Professor, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Clinical School, University of Sydney

United States President Donald Trump has urged pregnant women to avoid paracetamol except in cases of extremely high fever, because of a possible link to autism.

Paracetamol – known as acetaminophen or by the brand name Tylenol in the US – is commonly used to relieve pain, such as back pain and headaches, and to reduce fever during pregnancy.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration today re-affirmed existing medical guidelines that it’s safe for pregnant women to take paracetamol at any stage of pregnancy.

Paracetamol is classified as a Category A drug. This means many pregnant women and women of childbearing age have long used it without increases in birth defects or harmful effects on the fetus.

It’s important to treat fevers in pregnancy. Untreated high fever in early pregnancy is linked to miscarriage, neural tube defects, cleft lip and palate, and heart defects. Infections in pregnancy have also been linked to greater risks of autism.

How has the research evolved in recent years?

In 2021 an international panel of experts looked at evidence from human and animal studies of paracetamol use in pregnancy. Their consensus statement warned that paracetamol use during pregnancy may alter fetal development, with negative effects on child health.

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Read more:
Take care with paracetamol when pregnant — but don’t let pain or fever go unchecked

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Last month a a group of researchers from Harvard University examined the association between paracetamol and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in existing research.

They identified 46 studies and found 27 studies reported links between taking paracetamol in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders in the offspring, nine showed no significant link, and four indicated it was associated with a lower risk.

The most notable study in their review, due to its sophisticated statistical analysis, covered almost 2.5 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019, and was published in 2024.

The authors found there was a marginally increased risk of autism and ADHD associated with paracetamol use during pregnancy. However, when the researchers analysed matched-full sibling pairs, to account for genetic and environmental influences the siblings shared, the researchers found no evidence of an increased risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability associated with paracetamol use.

Siblings of autistic children have a 20% chance of also being autistic. Environmental factors within a home can also affect the risk of autism. To account for these influences, the researchers compared the outcomes of siblings where one child was exposed to paracetamol in utero and the other wasn’t, or when the siblings had different levels of exposure.

The authors of the 2024 study concluded that associations found in other studies may be attributable to “confounding” factors: influences that can distort research findings.

A further review published in February examined the strengths and limitations of the published literature on the effect of paracetamol use in pregnancy on the child’s risk of developing ADHD and autism. The authors noted most studies were difficult to interpret because they had biases, including in selecting participants, and they didn’t for confounding factors.

When confounding factors among siblings were accounted for, they found any associations weakened substantially. This suggests shared genetic and environmental factors may have caused bias in the original observations.

Working out what causes or increases the risk of autism

A key piece to consider when assessing the risk of paracetamol and any link to neurodevelopmental disorders is how best to account for many other potentially relevant factors that may be important.

We still don’t know all the causes of autism, but several genetic and non-genetic factors have been implicated: the mother’s medication use, illnesses, body mass index, alcohol consumption, smoking status, pregnancy complications including pre-eclampsia and fetal growth restriction, the mother and father’s ages, whether the child is an older or younger sibling, the newborn’s Apgar scores to determine their state of health, breastfeeding, genetics, socioeconomic status, and societal characteristics.

It’s particularly hard to measure the last three characteristics, so they are often not appropriately taken into account in studies.

Other times, it may not be the use of paracetamol that is important but rather the mother’s underlying illness or reason paracetamol is being taken, such as the fever associated with an infection, that influences child development.

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Read more:
Autism is not a scare story: What parents need to know about medications in pregnancy, genetic risk and misleading headlines

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I’m pregnant, what does this mean for me?

There is no clear evidence that paracetamol has any harmful effects on an unborn baby.

But as with any medicine taken during pregnancy, paracetamol should be used at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time.

If you’re pregnant and develop a fever, it’s important to treat this fever, including with paracetamol.

If the recommended dose of paracetamol doesn’t control your symptoms or you’re in pain, contact your doctor, midwife or maternity hospital for further medical advice.

Remember, the advice for taking ibuprofen and other NSAIDS when you’re pregnant is different. Ibuprofen (sold under the brand name Nurofen) should not be taken during pregnancy.

Nicholas Wood previously received funding from the NHMRC and has held a Churchill fellowship.

Debra Kennedy 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. It’s OK to use paracetamol in pregnancy. Here’s what the science says about the link with autism – https://theconversation.com/its-ok-to-use-paracetamol-in-pregnancy-heres-what-the-science-says-about-the-link-with-autism-265768

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University

In today’s world, we barely think about picking up a fork. It is part of a standard cutlery set, as essential as the plate itself. But not that long ago, this now-ordinary utensil was viewed with suspicion, derision and even moral outrage.

It took centuries, royal marriages and a bit of cultural rebellion to get the fork from the kitchens of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) onto the dining tables of Europe.

A scandalous utensil

Early versions of forks have been found in Bronze Age China and Ancient Egypt, though they were likely used for cooking and serving.

The Romans had elegant forks made of bronze and silver, but again, mainly for food preparation.

Eating with a fork – especially a small, personal one – was rare.

By the 10th century, Byzantine elites used them freely, shocking guests from western Europe. And by around the 11th century, the table fork began to make regular appearances at mealtimes across the Byzantine empire.

In 1004, the Byzantine Maria Argyropoulina (985–1007), sister of Emperor Romanos III Argyros, married the son of the Doge of Venice and scandalised the city by refusing to eat with her fingers. She used a golden fork instead.

Later, the theologian Peter Damian (1007–72) declared Maria’s vanity in eating with “artificial metal forks” instead of using the fingers God had given her was what brought about divine punishment in the form of her premature death in her 20s.

Yet by the 14th century, forks had become common in Italy, thanks in part to the rise of pasta.

It was far easier to eat slippery strands with a pronged instrument than with a spoon or knife. Italian etiquette soon embraced the fork, especially among the wealthy merchant classes.

And it was through this wealthy class that the fork would be introduced to the rest of Europe in the 16th century by two women.

Enter Bona Sforza

Born in into the powerful families Sforza of Milan and Aragon of Naples, Bona Sforza (1494–1557) grew up in a world where forks were in use; more, they were in fashion.

Her family was used to the refinements of Renaissance Italy: court etiquette, art patronage, ostentatious dress for women and men, and elegant dining.

When she married Sigismund I, king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania in 1518, becoming queen, she arrived in a region where dining customs were different. The use of forks was largely unknown.

At courts in Lithuania and Poland, cutlery use was practical and limited. Spoons and knives were common for eating soups and stews, and the cutting of meat, but most food was eaten with the hands, using bread or trenchers – thick slices of stale bread that soaked up the juices from the food – for assistance.

This method was not only economical but also deeply embedded in courtly and noble dining traditions, reflecting a social etiquette in which communal dishes and shared eating were the norm.

Bona’s court brought Italian manners to the region, introducing more vegetables, Italian wine and, most unusually, the table fork.

Though her use of it was likely restricted at first to formal or court settings, it made an impression. Over time, especially from the 17th century onwards, forks became more common among the nobility of Lithuania and Poland.

Catherine de’ Medici comes to France

Catherine de’ Medici (1519–89) was born into the powerful Florentine Medici family, niece of Pope Clement VII. In 1533, aged 14, she married the future King Henry II of France as part of a political alliance between France and the Papacy, bringing her from Italy to France.

Catherine de’ Medici, introduced silver forks and Italian dining customs to the French court.

Like in the case of Bona Sforza, these arrived in Catherine’s trousseau. Her retinue also included chefs, pastry cooks, and perfumers, along with artichokes, truffles and elegant tableware.

Her culinary flair helped turn court meals into theatre.

While legends exaggerate her influence, many dishes now claimed as French, trace their roots to her Italian table: onion soup, duck à l’orange and even sorbet.

The ‘right’ way to eat

Like many travellers, the curious Englishman Thomas Coryat (1577–1617) in the early 1600s brought tales of fork-using Italians back home, where the idea still seemed laughably affected.

In England, using a fork in the early 1600s was a sign of pretension. Even into the 18th century, it was considered more masculine and more honest to eat with a knife and fingers.

But across Europe, change was underway. Forks began to be seen not just as tools of convenience, but symbols of cleanliness and refinement.

In France, they came to reflect courtly civility. In Germany, specialised forks multiplied in the 18th and 19th centuries: for bread, pickles, ice cream and fish.

And in England, the fork’s use eventually became a class marker: the “right” way to hold it distinguished the polite from the uncouth.

As mass production took off in the 19th century, stainless steel made cutlery affordable, and the fork became ubiquitous. By then, the battle had shifted from whether to use a fork to how to use it properly.

Table manners manuals now offered guidance on fork etiquette. No scooping, no stabbing, and always hold it tines down.

It took scandal, royal taste, and centuries of resistance for the fork to win its place at the table. Now it’s hard to imagine eating without it.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski receives funding from the National Science Centre, Poland as a partner investigator in the grant “Polish queen consorts in the 15th and 16th centuries as wives and mothers” (2021/43/B/HS3/01490).

– ref. The thousand-year story of how the fork crossed Europe, and onto your plate today – https://theconversation.com/the-thousand-year-story-of-how-the-fork-crossed-europe-and-onto-your-plate-today-260704