1. What was the purpose of the AusIndoArch project?

We had two days to design a range of small bamboo structures and installations and present them to our client, to be used in an annual arts and culture festival.  Each group was assigned a project to design and build. The projects varied from entry and exit gates, to seating and bamboo housing proposals.

2. You partnered with Indonesian students and locals. What did you learn about the Indonesian way of life?

I was already reasonably familiar with Indonesian culture and language, having studied there briefly and previously majoring in Indonesian studies and language. My experience on this trip highlighted the differences between their way of life and western culture and values and how everyone can learn from each other.  When we all arrived for the opening night, so many locals from nearby came and shared dinner with us.  Not too many could speak English, or even Indonesian, but would rather converse in Javanese.  Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world – Eid Al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan) was just the week before that, so the locals were extra joyous and kind to us during our time there.

3. Why is it important for architecture students to learn how to work with bamboo?

Bamboo is quite economic and sustainable – however it is rarely able to be utilised here due to restrictions in Australia’s building code. I have seen it so commonly used in Indonesia and other countries in South East Asia in such diverse ways – from weaving and making musical instruments; to plumbing, scaffolding, and building entire structures with it. The more interest there is in bamboo as a construction material, the more innovatively we can implement it in design and construction.

4. What was the most interesting experience you had as part of the trip?

A bizarre experience for me and I’m sure for the other Australian students too… one day our site became completely filled with people coming to be part of a local singing competition. The birds were judged on how loud, how melodic, or how long they could sing for. Other stand-out experiences included our nightly ‘open air’ lectures given by the master architects right next to a river – it’s so different from being in a lecture theatre that typically doesn’t have windows. Locals would sometimes sit by a fire on the other side of the river listening on.  The concluding night was a party by the river – loud music, lots of people and lots of dancing, which was quite a contrast to the typical calmness of the area.

5. You and the students worked with bamboo masters, what does this mean?

All of the master architects that attended this trip are passionate about sustainable design. Quite a few had extensive experience with designing with bamboo in different ways, others with experience in designing in tropical climates or remote communities. I also consider the local labourers who helped construct our projects with us as bamboo masters – they had extensive experience constructing with bamboo. Their skills and knowledge were admirable and fundamental for our practical learning, especially since bamboo was a completely new material for the Australian students.  I don’t think our projects would have gotten very far without them!

6. Is getting ‘hands-on’ vital to the architecture process?

I think it’s an absolutely integral part of studying architecture. There are so many things that you can’t simply learn in a classroom or from a textbook. Having had barely any experience building anything in my life, this practical hands-on experience was invaluable to me.

7. Did the trip change your perspective on architecture?

It reminded me how challenging comparatively simple design and construction can be compared to what western architecture students might be used to. It also very much demonstrated that simplicity in both technique and space can have just as much of a profound effect as the complex and modern.

8. What would you say to students thinking about studying architecture at UON?

We are lucky to have a design studio that is completely our own and that encourages collaboration and sharing between year groups – no other student cohorts have something like this. The teachers enable students to learn how to incorporate other interests and disciplines into their designs, encourage individuality and provide them with the tools to achieve a diverse range of career goals within architecture.  

Note: this project was a collaboration which involved students from University of Newcastle, Charles Darwin University, the University of Melbourne, Universitas Gadjah Mada and Universitas Kristen Duta Wacana (Indonesia) and Aachen University (Germany). Michael Chapman was one of eight Australian mentors including Andrea Nield (who organised this incredible elective), Professor Lawrence Nield, Joanna Best (Troppo Architects), Brendan Meney, Ken Yeh (Marra +Yeh), Nici Long (Cave Urban) and Dave Hodgkin. They were kindly hosted on the riverfront homestay of talented local architect Yohana Raharjo. In addition to Yohana, the Indonesian mentors included Lintang Rembulan, Yoshi Fajar, Aryanto Sudjarwo, Medy Krisnany-Samedyastoety and Eko Prawoto.

Connect with Archilife at UON:

https://www.facebook.com/uonarchitecture/

https://www.instagram.com/uonarch/

Laureate Professor John Aitken

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Health and Medicine

“These are unchartered waters. Throughout the election campaign Trump has been light on details and policy specifics. To my knowledge he has not articulated a particular position on the funding of research in general or medical research in particular. He has also not released a detailed higher education policy that might have clarified his attitude towards Universities. In all probability education and research will not be priority areas for a Trump administration. Thus while ‘the art of deal-making’ may feature prominently in the curriculum of Trump University, we will have to wait for some time before coherent policies emerge in the wake of his unexpected victory.”

Professor Catharine Coleborne

Head of School, Humanities and Social Science, Faculty of Education and Arts

“The Post-Trump election commentary will likely illustrate new tensions between generations of voters. During the election campaign we saw the politics of gender and ethnicity play out – indeed, blow up – in ways that were not always illustrated by the vote itself. But, like Brexit, the results of the vote highlight an emerging distance between young and older voters, and in perceptions of power and society, and of access to social capital.

In Higher Education, we should all be alert to the likely diminution of access to minorities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds to universities, as well as distinct attacks, possibly violent, on critical appraisals of social and cultural phenomena and change such as those framed and examined by the Humanities and Social Science disciplines. That has happened under other conservative US governments. The perception of a privileged role for education in general, and healthcare, is attenuated.

My own major concern about the result lies in the way social debates have become so crude and simplistic – leaving scholars far less room to create meaningful conversations around really vital social problems in an anti-intellectual media landscape.”

Professor John Fischetti

Head of School/Dean, School of Education/Faculty of Education and Arts

“Results of the US Presidential election will mean significant advancement of three educational movements that have been undertaken not only in the US, but also in the UK. In addition to a probable scaling back of the Federal Department of Education, Mr. Trump and the likely Secretary of Education, Dr. Ben Carson (a former opponent of Trump), will advance the conservative positions on:

1) Local control of public schools

2) Parental choice and

3) Removing “political correctness” from the K-12 and higher education curriculum.

The philosophical bent of the initiatives will be to let parents and markets decide where students attend school, including advancing initiatives in privatisation and charter schools. Higher educators will be scrutinized for political correctness in courses, doctrine and research.

These initiatives began in the Reagan administration in the 1980s and have led to increasing gaps in student achievement between children from wealthy families and those from lower socio economic means. These policies have also led to equity initiatives being back shelved in favour of high stakes testing regimens and punitive teacher/principal accountability schemes.

With education funding already in jeopardy in nearly all of the states that supported Trump, it will interesting to watch how low income citizens, minority groups and disenfranchised Whites react to a lack of investment in public education that will continue under a Trump presidency. Ironically, many of the elite Whites who voted for Mrs. Clinton in those same states already arrange their children’s schooling in wealthy suburbs or private schools as Mr. Obama did himself.”

Dr Melanie James

Interim Head of School,Design, Communication & Information Technology, Faculty of Science & Information Technology

“The way that Donald Trump self-positioned as the man who would make America great again both rallied and divided the population. We still have much to learn about the way self-positioning works. It’s clear it is an ongoing task requiring continuous attention and maintenance, not just by an individual but also from networks.  Communities who perceived their lives weren’t as ‘great’ as they once were could tie Trump’s ‘great again’ narrative to their own hopes for better times. This meant Trump’s self-positioning was amplified across their networks.

 As Trump transitions into the Presidency his position as ‘fixer’ may become more secure and he’ll be less reliant on his supporting network. However, if his supporters don’t see him deliver ‘the fix’, he will need their network support more than ever, and it’s unlikely to remain strong.  This presidency will be fertile ground for examining personal and network positioning-power in communication and PR.”

Dr Amy Maguire

Senior Lecturer and Indigenous Student Liaison, Newcastle Law School, Faculty of Business and Law

“In a mass protest vote against the established political forces of our time – globalisation, free trade and neoliberalism – Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States.

Trump’s platform is explosive. He plans to build an “impenetrable wall” along the Mexican border, exploit trillions of dollars of untapped fossil fuels, ensure a conservative Supreme Court, undermine a rising China, and massively increase US military forces to create “an America that WINS”.

Already, the US shapes the extent to which the international community can respond to wicked global problems. Trump’s ‘America First’ platform pivots his country away from global collaboration. His vision depicts immigrants as threats, conflicts as solvable so long as enough force is applied, and climate change as a fiction. The now-likely US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will cripple international efforts to curb global temperature rise. An exclusionary approach to migration will feed growing international resentment towards the vulnerable millions seeking sanctuary from conflict, persecution and environmental destruction. And all people devoted to gender equality are left to wonder how the most powerful office in the world can be handed to a publicly sexist candidate.”

Professor Roland Boer

School of Humanities and Social Science, Faculty of Education and Arts

“Donald Trump may well be good news for China and Russia, two countries that are forging increasingly close ties. Trump has vowed to work with Russia in defeating ISIS, and his focus inwards on the United States means that there will be less interference by the United States in the Asian sphere. In short, while Clinton would have been the most aggressive American president seen for a while, Trump is a signal of a world order with far less American engagement. It may well be read as the sign of the decline of the American empire. The fact that Russia and China (with some qualifications) have welcomed Trump’s presidency speaks volumes.”

The sinister part is the slow progressing breathing disorder that develops over many years due to excessive lung inflammation and scarring that is triggered by coal mine dust. This disease, coal workers’ pneumoconiosis or black lung, is preventable and was widely considered a thing of the past in Australian miners.

But just before Christmas 2015, people were shocked to hear about newly confirmed cases of black lung in Queensland miners. Governments responded swiftly to investigate the problem, with inquiries established by the Queensland government and the federal senate.

The Department of Natural Resources and Mines has released some interim findings outlining poor documentation of confirmed cases, a lack of preventive measures taken where confirmed cases were found and too few screening tests being performed.

There is no cure for black lung. The review has recommended a greater focus on prevention and early detection, and ongoing surveillance.

Preventing black lung

Prevention involves managing exposure by monitoring dust levels and actively taking steps to reduce coal dust exposure in miners. Mining practices have progressively improved over the years, but overseas experience tells us not applying standards can result in cases of black lung.

There are no uniform standards for acceptable levels of dust exposure throughout Australia. Authorities permit Queensland miners to be exposed to coal dust levels higher than those in the United States, where the exposure limit is set at two micrograms per cubic metre.

Prevention also involves regular screening of exposed workers and having the results looked at by experts. The screening procedure requires imaging the lung with X-rays and assessing for possible lung impairment with breathing tests and focused clinical assessment. Each of these steps has to be quality controlled in order to successfully detect the subtle changes of black lung as early as possible.

The very early changes of black lung are an increase in dots and lines on the X-ray. The problem is the blood vessels and airways in the normal lung also show up as dots and lines, and so it takes expert training to tell when things become abnormal.

Fortunately, there are ongoing improvements in imaging technology, and there are now suggestions that a low-dose CT scan may make early detection easier and more reliable. Measuring impairment of lung capacity is very accurate when done in a quality controlled lung function laboratory, and this is the standard needed when trying to detect the changes of black lung as early as possible.

Of course, these assessments are useless if they’re not acted on. This means it is not only important to assess the results of individual workers, but to take a helicopter view of larger numbers of workers.

Given the significance of the issue and the potential implications, the peak professional body, the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand believes this is best done at a national level, and independent of mining companies. There is also value in making the results of monitoring and screening accessible, so that the process is transparent.

Why has black lung returned?

Efforts in the 20th century to eradicate the disease including setting occupational exposure limits, introducing personal protective equipment, and improvements in dust management and health monitoring dramatically reduced the numbers of miners with black lung.

But in 2013, there were 25,000 deaths globally recorded from black lung. State-run mines in China now report black lung in between 4% and 17% of workers, and in Colombia, a growing coal producer, 36% of miners were recently found to have black lung.

Black lung is has been classified by Safe Work Australia as a deemed disease. This means the disease is caused by specific work-related activities, in this case prolonged exposure to coal dust. We don’t know exactly what has happened to cause black lung to reappear, but statements in the Queensland mines inspectorate report of 2014-15 indicating significant dust exposure above recommended limits are highly concerning.

There are now even recorded increases of black lung in the United States. It appears that just as the coal economy is a multinational activity, so are its risks. Black lung is just one of many diseases that can develop in miners. Conditions such as silicosis, occupational COPD (colloquially called emphysema), bronchitis and occupational lung cancer all require evaluation.

Our gastrointestinal tract, or gut, is sometimes described as our “second brain”. This is because it is controlled by its own complex nervous system comprising hundreds of millions of neurons – more than all the nerves in your spinal cord.

The gut and brain talk to each other through nerve signals, the release of gut or stress hormones, and other pathways. We have long known that emotions can directly alter gut function.

But lately we’ve been discovering that it works the other way too: our gut actually has an effect on our brain. And because it’s easier (and generally safer) to manipulate the gut than the brain, this knowledge provides the possibility that doing so could treat some chronic psychological and brain diseases.

How your brain affects you gut

Think of a time you had to do an exam and had “the runs” (diarrhoea) or felt anxious and developed butterflies in your stomach. This is your brain driving your gut. If you are stressed or anxious, you even change the production of stomach acid through nerve connections.

Traditionally it was thought gut symptoms came about from an underlying psychological disorder, such as anxiety. Anxiety changes gut function. Over time, this can lead to unpleasant symptoms such as pain, diarrhoea, bloating or excessive fullness.

Many people who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or severe indigestion are anxious, for instance. And doctors have investigated antidepressants and psychological treatments in these disorders with variable success.

But actually many signals go up to the brain from the gut as well as in the downward direction. So could it be that in some cases, changes in the gut are actually driving anxiety experiences rather than the other way around? Accumulating evidence suggests this is likely to be the case.

How the gut changes your brain

We followed 1,002 people over a 12-year period in Sydney and found about 50% of the participants with chronic gut issues had been anxious first and then developed their gut problems.

But the other 50% developed the gut disorder before the psychological problems arose. In other words, their gut appeared to get sick first and this led to brain dysfunction manifesting as anxiety, not the other way around.

We later observed similar findings – that psychological distress can predict later onset of gut disorders and vice versa – in a large study in the United Kingdom.

We know that some people with IBS have mild gut inflammation. We have also identified that some people with IBS have elevated levels of cytokines in their blood. These are byproducts of inflammation; part of the immune response.

One study showed a clear increase of certain cytokines in people with both anxiety and IBS. Higher anxiety levels strongly correlated with higher cytokine levels. Based on this new information, we concluded that gut inflammation releases cytokines that may cause anxiety in IBS.

How the bugs in your gut alter your brain

Everyone’s gut is chock a block full of bugs (trillions of them) that can be good, bad or indifferent. They hang out all the way from the mouth through to the end of the bowel.

The bugs talk to the nervous system through pathways, including the immune system, that keeps them in check. Experimental work suggests an imbalance in these bugs can affect the brain and, in some cases, may lead to anxiety or depression.

Altering gut bacteria is a new way to treat many diseases of the gut and possibly the brain, including through diets (changing your diet rapidly changes your gut bugs), or by providing “good” bacteria and suppressing “bad” bacteria, that can be done with probiotics. Other methods include transplanting stool from healthy people to those in need.

Intriguing observations could also unlock new ways to manage currently incurable degenerative nervous diseases. For instance, altered gut function manifesting as constipation is often the first symptom of Parkinson’s disease.

And studies are currently exploring the role of the gut in neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

But for the moment, new evidence suggests when the gut is inflamed, it may affect the brain and lead to psychological dysfunction.

By Laureate Professor Nicholas Talley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research (Acting) and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Health and Medicine. This article was first published in The Conversation.

If this is you, it’s probably time to get off the diet roller coaster and make some bigger changes to the way you eat, drink and think about food.

Here are six tips to help you get started.

1. Improve your diet quality score

When trying to lose weight, it might be tempting to quit carbs, dairy or another food group altogether.

But to stay healthy, you need to meet your requirements for important nutrients like iron, zinc, calcium, vitamins B and C, folate and fibre. These nutrients are essential for metabolism, growth, repair and fighting disease.

Our review of diet quality indexes used to rate the healthiness of eating habits found that eating nutritious foods was associated with lower weight gain over time.

Improving your diet quality means eating more fruit and vegetables, lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, legumes, dried beans, wholegrains and dairy (mostly reduced fat).

Rate your diet quality and get brief feedback using our online Healthy Eating Quiz www.healthyeatingquiz.com.au.

2. Mum was right – eat your veggies

Fruit and veg are high in fibre, vitamins and phytonutrients, but low in total kilojoules. So eating more can help you manage your weight.

A study of more than 130,000 adults found that those who increased their intake of fruit and vegetables over four years lost weight. For each extra daily serve of vegetables, there was a weight loss of 110 grams over the four years. It was 240 grams for fruit. Small, but it all adds up.

Drilling down to specific fruit and veg gets interesting. Increasing cauliflower intake was associated with a four-year weight reduction of about 620 grams, with smaller reductions for capsicum (350g), green leafy vegetables (230g) and carrots (180g). The reduction was 620g for blueberries and 500g for apple or pears.

It was not good news all round, though. Corn was associated with a weight gain of 920g, peas 510g and mashed, baked or boiled potatoes 330g.

3. Limit your portion size

If you are served larger portions of food and drinks, you eat more and consume more kilojoules. That sounds obvious, yet everybody gets caught out when offered big portions – even when you’re determined to stop when you’re full.

Research shows offering larger portions leads adults and children to consume an extra 600 to 950 kilojoules (150-230 calories). This is enough to account for a weight gain of more than seven kilograms a year, if the kilojoules aren’t compensated for by doing more exercise or eating less later.

4. Watch what you drink

A can of softdrink contains about 600 kilojoules (150 calories). It takes 30-45 minutes to walk those kilojoules off, depending on your size and speed.

Children and adolescents who usually drink a lot sugary drinks are 55% more likely to be overweight.

Switch to lower sugar versions, water or diet drinks. A meta-analysis of intervention studies (ranging from ten weeks to eight months) found that adults who switched had a weight reduction of about 800 grams.

5. Cue food

Our world constantly cues us to eat and drink. Think food ads, vending machines and chocolate bars when trying to pay for petrol or groceries. Food cues trigger cravings, prompt eating, predict weight gain and are hard to resist. They can make you feel hungry even if you are not.

Try to minimise the time you spend in highly cued food environments. Avoid food courts, take a list when you go to the supermarket and take your own snacks to places where highly palatable food is advertised, like the movies.

This will reduce autopilot eating, which sabotages your willpower.

6. Resist temptation

A treatment for food cue reactivity is called exposure therapy. With the help of a psychologist or health professional, you expose yourself to the sight and smell of favourite foods in locations that commonly trigger overeating, like eating chocolate when watching TV. But, rather than eat the chocolate, you only have a taste without eating it.

Over time, and with persistence, cravings for chocolate reduce, even when cues such as TV ads or people eating chocolate in front of you are present.

You can also draw on your brain’s own self-management skills to resist temptation, but it takes conscious practice. Try this food cue acronym, RROAR (remind, resist, organised alternative, remember and/or reward), to train your brain to resist temptation on autopilot.

When you feel yourself pulled by cues to eat or drink:

• Remind yourself that you are the boss of you, not a food cue.
• Resist the tempting food or drink initially by turning your back on the cue. (This gives you time to think about next steps.)
• Have a pre-Organised Alternative behaviour to use against food cues. Grab a drink of water, walk around the block, check your phone messages, read, take a walk in the opposite direction. Diversion works.
• Remember what your big-picture goal is. Do you want to eat better to help you feel better, reduce medications, lower blood pressure, improve diabetes control or manage your weight?

You can add another R for Reward. Financial incentives help change behaviour. Each time you complete your organised alternative behaviour put $1 in a jar. When it builds up, spend it on something you really want.

You need a plan

The journey off the diet roller coaster needs a cunning plan. Here’s how you can put it all together.

1. Start by assessing your diet quality using the Healthy Eating Quiz.
2. Next, plan weekly meals, drinks and snacks. Write a grocery list and buy extra fruit and vegetables.
3. Swap to small plates, cups and serving utensils. You’ll serve and eat less without thinking.
4. Aim for half your plate covered with vegetables and salad, one-quarter lean protein (trimmed meat, chicken, fish, legumes) and one-quarter grains or starchy vegetables (potato, peas, corn).
5. Change your food environment to avoid constant prompts to eat.
6. Minimise the places you allow yourself to eat and drink to reduce food cue exposure (not in front of TV or computer, at a desk, or in the car).
7. Keep food out of sight (unless it is fruit and vegetables). Store in opaque containers.
8. Remove workplace food displays, such as food fundraisers.
9. Plan driving and walking routes that do not take you past fast-food outlets or vending machines.
10. Prerecord TV shows and fast-forward food ads.

Dr Clare Collins is professor in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle. This article was first published in The Conversation.

Initially viewed as a mild and seemingly innocuous disease, discussion of Zika is now invoking fear similar to that of Ebola and other outbreaks. While not yet proven, Zika virus has been implicated in tragic pregnancy outcomes including miscarriages, stillbirths and neurological conditions, particularly microcephaly – where babies are born with obviously small heads and brain damage. Add in reports that Zika may also cause Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a creeping paralysis, and you have a virus that may become this decade’s polio or thalidomide.

For Australians, the messages are fairly simple. If you go to a place that has Zika, don’t get bitten by mosquitoes. If you’re pregnant, think twice about going at all.

For those who live in countries in the midst of a Zika outbreak, the message is much more to the point: “don’t get pregnant”.

This advice, lasting for periods of six months to two years, has been given by health officials in El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador and, unofficially, in Brazil; all countries with Zika outbreaks. Jamaica, which hasn’t yet had its first confirmed case, has followed suit.

Abstinence, contraception and abortion

This pregnancy advice could have a profound societal impact, well beyond public health. Many of these countries are largely Roman Catholic; Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic community in the world.

Will Latin America become the global leaders in abstinence, no longer known for their “Latin Lovers” but rather as the folks who “Just say no”? There is also some evidence to show that Zika might be able to be transmitted by sex. So will the Pope provide contraceptive dispensation, allowing the faithful to practise love in the time of Zika?

Would this have a ripple effect to other practising Roman Catholics, who might demand equality in contraceptive rights? Some women, when faced with the heartbreaking realisation that their babies might have a life-threatening deformity, may choose abortion. Always a contentious issue, in Zika-affected countries it will become more so.

Some of the affected countries have abortion laws that are among the most restrictive in the world. In El Salvador, abortion is illegal with no exceptions. Faced with the prospect of thousands of babies with malformations, will abortion policies change?

The missing babies

If the advice to not get pregnant for the next two years is followed, the number of babies born in these countries will be drastically reduced; a potential reduction of almost six million children in Brazil alone.

Imagine the impact on maternity hospitals, child care, schools, teachers and makers of baby products. Supermarket shelves empty of nappies and baby formula. This two-year gap in missing children will move in time, affecting firstly nurseries and child-care, then pre-schools, schools and universities. Obstetricians, midwives and paediatricians may feel some economic pain.

Will the births of that missing cohort of babies be merely delayed for two years, or will there be a permanent reduction in the number of babies, further impacting declining birth rates? Will there be a surge in pregnancy-induced migration as middle-class women head to Zika-free countries for their pregnancies, making babies the prerogative of only those rich enough to afford such an extended stay?

Women who ignore the guidance and do choose to get pregnant may be viewed as flouting convention and undertaking unacceptably risky behaviour; in much the same way as society views pregnant women who continue to smoke and drink.

Those who do follow the guidance will be freed from baby-making for two years. What will women do with those additional two years? What will the impact be on the workforce? Will the glass ceiling finally come within reach?

Global impacts

One-third of the world’s population lives in areas at risk of Zika. The World Health Organisation predicts that Zika will soon spread across all of the Americas, with the exception of Canada and mainland Chile, eventually reaching all countries where Aedes mosquitoes, the main transmission vector for Zika, are found.

As a virus that already has a penchant for migration, moving from Africa to Southeast Asia to the Pacific to the Americas, the scenario of Zika spreading to population-dense countries such as India and China is a very real one. If China and India, the most populous nations in the world, also advise their populations to delay pregnancies, the impact on population trends at the global level could be substantial.

The good news is that Zika is unlikely to be a major problem in Australia. The only place in Australia with Aedes mosquitoes is North Queensland, and they’ve had plenty of experience at controlling these mosquitoes during outbreaks of Dengue, a virus related to Zika.

This article was first published in The Conversation.

It was disappointing to see complex university admissions data being misrepresented both here and across NSW to present a picture of declining standards. At a time of pride for so many applicants and families, celebrating the offer of a place for admission to university, seeing their achievements undermined by distortions in the interpretation of UAC admissions data is extremely unfortunate.

It is important to clarify at the outset: the University of Newcastle will never admit a student to a degree that we do not believe is capable of succeeding in their studies. The data on which assertions of slipping standards are being made is incomplete: first, they relate only to the main round of offers, so exclude approximately half the offers we have made to applicants. Drawing conclusions about percentages of students admitted to programs based on incomplete data is misleading.

Secondly, the ATARs quoted appear to be ‘raw’ ATAR data, which is a simple rank calculated by an algorithm. Each admission is based on more than an algorithm. It is a complex judgement about an applicant’s track record, accomplishments and – most importantly – their potential, complexity that has been largely ignored in the hyperbolic headlines of the past week.

Raw ATAR is not a reliable guide to someone’s capacity to achieve success in higher education. It is a part of a system developed in the days when universities had a capped quota of places available to applicants, which is no longer the case under the demand-driven system. Now, we admit any student with the talent and commitment to succeed. How can it be, when over 60% of University of Newcastle applicants to undergraduate degrees are not current school leavers? Their raw ATAR does not reflect their life experience, their professional skills, their work ethic – so our admissions system must.

The University evaluates each applicant by giving them a selection rank. The raw ATAR is part of this, but the rank also takes account of many other factors including school recommendations, the impact of an applicant’s location on their performance in school, particular subject achievements that are known to be indicators of success, auditions, portfolios and interviews for Indigenous applicants.

If the University chose to use ATARs as the sole basis for admitting students, it would unfairly preference those fortunate enough to go to the very best schools. The University of Newcastle is a university for everyone with the talent to succeed.

Accounting for the many factors that make successful student allows us to make well-informed judgements on our admissions, but we also have other options for those who may need additional preparation. The University’s enabling programs, which have a record of success over more than 40 years, and our pathways through from TAFE and other educational institutions provide important alternative pathways for many students.

We warmly welcome our commencing students to the next stage of their educational journey. You should be proud of your achievements in joining a university ranked in the top 300 worldwide. We look forward to working with you as you fulfil your potential.

Professor Andrew Parfitt is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Newcastle.

This piece originally appeared in the Newcastle Herald.

The 28-year-old University of Newcastle student has just returned from the adventure of a lifetime to Antarctica, where she journeyed aboard the Aurora Australis as part of her studies in Physics.

“It was so peaceful,” she said.

“You just go out there and it’s completely silent. You can look one way and there’s the ocean, and then you turn the other and it’s just white and completely flat… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Rhea was responsible for calibrating the magnetometers on Casey Base, which are owned by the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Space Physics, with whom she is completing her Honours year.

“Most days I was up at 4 or 5 o’clock, because generally the quietest times magnetically were local mornings… You’d get this constant twilight phase where the sun didn’t quite set it would just skim across the horizon and light up the icebergs in this pinky-orange hue – it was surreal.”

Initially, she and her colleagues were supposed to stay at base for eight days, however weather conditions meant they extended their time to 10.

“We had a couple of days where the wind was gusting at 60 knots, so the ship actually had to leave and come back… You couldn’t actually walk against the wind. You would try and move your leg and it wouldn’t go anywhere, it was that strong!”

Not only did they experience gale-force winds, but the large swells caused a few rattled nerves and turned stomachs.

“We had one day where we were tipping at 40 degrees the swell was so huge. It was the day after we had our Christmas and New Year celebration, so there were a few people that were a little bit under the weather!”

Rhea travelled with around 30 other people, including a plankton researcher, a researcher monitoring pollutants in ice, and drone operator. After a total of 30 days at sea and on land together, tight knit bonds formed between the travellers.

“Everyone was really nice. I think when you spend that much time with such a small group of people it’s hard not to end up close. Everyone had really interesting stories and of a night time people would do presentations so you could see why they were on the Aurora.”

Rhea’s work at Casey Base helped to ensure the maintenance of the magnetometers, which are measurement devices used to store and send data from their location. Having developed her love for science later in life and followed an alternate pathway into the University of Newcastle, Rhea is happy with the direction she’s headed.

“To be able to get out and do something a little more practical and more hands on… that was a really good experience. It has just made me realise just how much I do love doing Physics, and how many opportunities there are in this field.”

Now with her feet firmly back on Newcastle soil, she’s already lusting after the next adventure.

A more accurate statement might be that Australian snakes are the best mouse killers in the world: they’re able to kill the most mice with the smallest amount of venom. While that’s clearly bad news for mice, how does it translate into human risk?

The occurrence and severity of a snake bite depends on a complex interaction between snake behaviour, venom toxicity and human behaviour. Significant factors include how toxic the venom is; how much of it is injected by the snake; and how humans encounter and interact with snakes.

Toothless tigers?

Australian snakes have very toxic venoms but inject tiny amounts at a time because most have short fangs. The only evidence of a brown snake bite may be a small scratch, for instance, but the venom is so toxic that it quickly results in the person’s blood failing to clot, which puts them at risk of bleeding to death.

Mulga snakes (King Brown) can deliver larger amounts of venom, but have one of the less toxic venoms of dangerous Australian snakes.

Historically, tiger snakes and death adders were responsible for most deaths. They’re widely distributed throughout Australia and their bites cause paralysis.

Before the advent of modern intensive care, paralysis was – more often than not – fatal. But with the development of antivenom in the 1930s and 1950s, and machines that can breathe for people, paralysis from snakebite has become uncommon.

Taipans also cause paralysis, but are a rare cause of snakebite in Australia (in contrast to Papua New Guinea where they cause much havoc).

In modern times, brown snake bites have become more common and now cause the majority of such deaths in Australia. This group of snakes appears to have thrived despite human invasion and the destruction of natural habitats. Brown snakes are now the most common cause of severe snake envenoming in Australia, according to the Australian Snakebite Project.

They cause the majority of the one to five deaths from snakebites each year, usually from early collapse and cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, antivenom is unlikely to help these people because cardiac arrest happens within 30 minutes of the bite. Early basic life support from bystanders is most important for snake bites because this can keep someone alive until they’re transported to hospital.

Treating bites

Severe snake envenoming is actually quite rare in Australia, with only about 100 cases each year. After brown snakes, red-bellied black snake bites are the next most common, but they rarely cause severe envenoming and occur only in eastern Australia.

Tiger snakes, which continue to account for a significant number of bites in southern Australia, are one of three snakes found in Tasmania and account for almost all serious snake bites in Victoria. They cause all three major types of toxicity: coagulopathy (making a person’s blood unable to clot), neurotoxicity (paralysis) and myotoxicity (muscle damage).

Snake bites are treated with antivenom, which needs to be given as soon as possible after a bite to be effective. The Australian Snakebite Projecthas demonstrated that only one vial of antivenom is required to treat all cases of snake envenoming.

But many of the effects of snake envenoming are irreversible in the short term (muscle damage, for instance, and paralysis), so antivenom won’t help for these. Instead, treatment in intensive care will support the patient while the body repairs. This is why antivenom needs to be given early.

Using antivenom comes with the risk of an allergic reaction, so it’s important that only people with envenoming be treated. Recent researchmeasuring snake venom enzymes in blood appears to identify envenoming early. It is hoped that development of bedside testing of these enzymes will improve early recognition.

Although the effects of venom are reasonably well understood, why they cause severe toxicity in humans remains unclear. After all, we are not prey for snakes; small reptiles (such as skinks) or small mammals (such as marsupial rats) are their primary targets.

The toxicity we see in humans, such as venom’s clotting effects that commonly occur with brown snake, tiger snake and taipan bites, is most likely a chance occurrence. This idea is supported by recent research that shows many animals, including rodents and skinks, are highly resistant to the clotting effect of snake venom. But they’re highly susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of snake venoms.

In most other parts of the world, vipers, which have much larger fangs, are much more common. They inject ten or more times as much venom as Australian snakes, but have less toxic venoms. The other major difference is that vipers can cause local skin and tissue damage and, in some cases, this can lead to amputation. Unlike the human impact of Australian snakes, viper envenoming is a huge public health issue worldwide.

This article was first published in The Conversation.

Geoff Isbister is the Director of the Clinical Toxicology Research Group and Senior Research Fellow at Australia’s first Centre for Research Excellence in Translational Venom and Antivenom Research at the University of Newcastle.

The Honours student will spend her birthday, Christmas and New Year aboard a ship bound for Casey Base, where she will work helping calibrate magnetometers – devices used to measure microscale changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Ms Barnett will have 20 days at sea and eight days on the base working with the technology. She is incredibly excited for the trip, which will expand her skills working with sophisticated instrumentation and ultimately broaden her knowledge in the field.

“I actually remember seeing photos at an orientation day of a student down in Antarctica, and I was like ‘Wow, that’s really, really cool.’ I never thought I would get the chance to do it, and now it’s happening!” she said.

Ms Barnett is undertaking her Honours project in collaboration with the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Space Physics, which owns and coordinates the magnetometers she will be working on.

The Centre’s Professor Fred Menk said the opportunity is a wonderful one for Rhea, who is more than deserving of the experience.

“Our instruments at the Antarctic bases provide vital information on space weather processes which affect modern technological systems. Many students have contributed to this work, which also provides wonderful life experience,” Professor Menk said.

Ms Barnett’s relationship with science has completely changed since her time at school on the Central Coast, where she wasn’t as focused on her education.

“I actually didn’t do a lot of high school so I don’t even have my school certificate. I left quite young and I came to the University of Newcastle through Open Foundation when I was 24.

“In school I hated science – really didn’t enjoy it. Later in life I did Maths and Chemistry when I was doing Open Foundation and I really enjoyed it… I ended up doing Physics and I was like ‘yeah, this is really cool I’m going to give it a go’.”

Her new found love for Physics is pushing her in a great direction and, although she isn’t currently pursuing a specific goal for the future, hopes to end up continuing her work in physics through academia.

“I feel like whenever you try and plan stuff like this, it doesn’t work out, so I just roll with the punches and see what happens.”

Listen to Rhea on ABC1233.