China’s President Xi Jinping was swift to send his condolences to King Charles III on the passing of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II last week. Noting that the Queen was the first member of the Royal family to visit China in 1986, Xi also pointed to his hope for productive bilateral relations in the years ahead.
But with the significant shift in British leadership underway— not only a change in the royal monarch, but also with a new Prime Minister, Liz Truss coming into the role—what are the prospects for the UK-China relationship going forward?
At best, it’s likely that the relationship will continue to follow the unsurprisingly uneven path worn by successive leaders. Britain will no doubt continue some form cautious engagement with the more assertive China on global issues, while seeking to maintain the precarious balance between security interests and economic opportunity, including in the Indo-Pacific.
China, on the other hand, showing signs of re-engaging with the post-Covid world, appears to be shoring up support for its global leadership role in other parts of the world.
A complicated relationship
While Queen Elizabeth’s visit to China was a highlight in the uneasy relationship, other royal visits have been few and far between.
King Charles’ engagement with China over past decades reveals the complexities at play. He has never been to mainland China, though he did attend the handover ceremony for Hong Kong in 1997. Notably, he sidestepped Chinese state visits to Britain, first in 1999 and again in 2015, although on the latter occasion did meet privately with Xi Jinping and his wife. Some suggest his friendship with the Dalai Lama and concerns about human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, have complicated his view of China’s leadership.
By contrast, his brother Prince Andrew has been a more enthusiastic supporter of the UK’s engagement with China. Though not in a royal capacity. As Britain’s Special Envoy for Trade and Investment (2001-2011) he visited China several times, with the primary focus of building economic ties.
Heir to the throne, Prince William also generated much excitement amongst Chinese audiences during his 2015 visit. With scheduled appointments ranging from an audience with Xi Jinping to attending the Chinese premieré of the movie Paddington, he also took the opportunity, from an elephant sanctuary in Yunnan to call on China to change its stance on ivory trade.
As he takes to the throne, there are signs that Charles—perhaps considering his own legacy—will cultivate engagement. Speaking to influential Chinese government and corporate audiences over the past year—he is actively highlighting China’s role and advocating for its leadership on the big global issues of the day—especially those that are a priority for him: climate change and biodiversity loss. Just how effective this charm offensive will be, is anyone’s guess.
U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss
Political tensions and the domestic agenda
Meanwhile, on the political scene, incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss has signalled that she is prepared to take more hawkish approach in advancing Britain’s relationship with China. It’s an approach that no doubt also reflects increased pressure from Britain’s transatlantic ally, the United States.
But there’s no straightforward path ahead for the conservative Truss. Deepening economic woes, cost of living pressures and a looming energy crisis mean that she will be under pressure to deliver better outcomes for British households as a priority. Maintaining a healthy trade relationship with China—including through lucrative international education and tourism services—is a likely to be critical piece in her agenda.
Amidst the current leadership turbulence, Chinese diplomats remain sanguine. Whether Xi Jinping receives or accepts an invitation to the Queen’s state funeral next week—an event likely to attract some 500 foreign dignitaries from across the glove—is likely to be of little consequence.
Looking ahead however, pressure on the bilateral relationship is set to intensify. As they move past the 50-year anniversary of diplomatic relations, leaders on both sides will be thinking closely about what this milestone now signifies in the context of their shifting domestic narratives and global ambitions.
Author
Professor Caitlin Byrne is Pro Vice Chancellor (Business) at Griffith University. Caitlin began her professional career as a diplomat with the Australian Government and has worked across senior leadership roles in government, industry and community to become recognised as one of Australia’s leading academic-practitioners with a focus on international policy and diplomatic practice.
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Blending science with indigenous knowledge of changing wetlands
Like much of the world, wetlands in Australia face unprecedented challenges due to climate change and other human activities. Invasive species, increase in temperatures, variability in rainfall and water extraction are all negatively affecting wetland health and people’s relationship to the environment.
With the health and expanse of wetlands in decline worldwide, there is an urgent need to improve their management and bolster restoration activities. At a minimum, wetlands deemed of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands require baseline assessment of their baseline and ongoing monitoring. Satellite earth observations and drones can be powerful tools for this type of wetlands monitoring; however, they do have limitations when it comes to spatial range and availability over time.
A key way to confront these limitations and help improve the success wetland management and restoration is to bring together a western scientific analysis of changes in wetland water, soil and vegetation, with indigenous long-term knowledge of the landscape that can fill information gaps.
Our current research shows how a spatial imagery visualisation tool that detects long-term (1988 – 2021) changes to wetland coverage, when combined with indigenous knowledge, can improve our understanding of the baseline wetland conditions, how the wetlands have changed over time and provides a means for their ongoing monitoring.
In various wetlands around Australia, we compared the results obtained using a spatial imagery tool with the local observations of Traditional Owners and found that the two forms of information followed similar trends and complemented each other, providing a very valuable monitoring tool to manage the problems wetlands like those on Stradbroke Island are currently facing.
Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island)
Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), a sand island of high wetland diversity, is the home of the Nunukul, Ngugi and Goenpul people who have inhabited the island for over 25,000 years. Due to the natural filtering capacity of the island’s sand and its healthy wetlands, the water the island produces is of very high quality, requiring little treatment. For this reason, SEQWater sources more than 50% of the water needed for Redlands Council from Minjerribah, a whopping 8,250 ML every year. With the population continuing to grow the Elders of Minjerribah are concerned about the effects this water extraction is having on the wetlands. They are especially concerned about those of cultural importance like Bummiera or Brown Lake, one of the few unique dune or perched lakes of eastern Queensland, which they have reported to be diminishing in size.
Bummiera (Brown Lake) 1998 – 2021
We used our spatial visualisation tool to confirm the Elders observations that the open water area and aquatic vegetation cover of the lake decreased since a strong and long Millennial drought occurred in Australia between 2001-2009. While Elders suspect water extraction is the primary culprit, it is only one of a number of possibilities. Recent increases in the lake and vegetation coverage following the heavy rainfalls of the past three years shows how difficult it is to disentangle climatic variations from anthropogenic pressures and natural cycles of wetlands. In these circumstances, continuous monitoring of lakes like Bummiera with our visualisation tool is crucial in helping resolve the cause these changes to the lake and subsequently inform the Traditional Owners of the island on how best to manage their water resources and the appropriate water extraction levels for the island.
” … seeing with both eyes”; the merging of scientific spatial visualisation tools with indigenous knowledge. The combination is a clear example of how lived experiences complements photographic imagery … “
This is an example of the concept known as “seeing with both eyes”; the merging of scientific spatial visualisation tools with indigenous knowledge. The combination is a clear example of how lived experiences complements photographic imagery and demonstrates how wetlands have changed in an easily understood visually engaging way. It’s only after clearly understanding how wetlands have changed and the driving forces behind it, that we can best determine how to act upon this change, with suggested solutions and long-term ongoing monitoring.
The spatial visualisation tool we helped develop with our partners in Geosciences Australia is a way of addressing the challenges that wetlands are facing in the times of climate change and is a valuable monitoring tool and is an essential early warning of changing water levels and aquatic plant coverage necessary if we are to avoid catastrophic changes in wetlands.
The combining of both indigenous and scientific knowledge will be crucial to support decision-making around the threats the worlds wetlands will face in the near future, the potential solutions to implement, and the subsequently monitoring any management actions taken to ensure success.
Author
Dr. Fernanda Adame Vivanco is a Research Fellow working at the Coastal & Marine Research Centre, Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University. She works collaboratively with the Department of Environment and Sciences, Queensland Government, creating science that is useful for the management, conservation and restoration of wetlands. She graduated from the National Autonomous University in Mexico, where she is originally from, and obtained her PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia. The main focus of her work is the ecosystem services that wetlands provide, such as: carbon sequestration, improvement of water quality, and the protection from tropical storms and flooding. Her current projects include the role of wetlands to improve water quality in the Great Barrier Reef Region and restoration of mangroves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and Mexico.
Dr Colin Hutchins is an environmental scientist turned science communicator. He has more than 15 years’ multi-disciplinary research experience in a broad range of environmental sciences, from ecotoxicology to biogeochemistry and genomics, with a focus on the chemistry of contaminants and their consequences. Dismayed at the expanding gap between the academic and public/government/industry understanding of research, he transitioned into science communications. With a Masters degree in Science Communications (University of Queensland), he has worked for Griffith University, Australian Rivers Institute, the Making Good Alliance, the Ningaloo Turtle Program and others developing communication strategies and content.
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A key research group within Griffith’s Climate Action Beacon used the backdrop of a popular Gold Coast arts event to ask the community big questions about how climate change will impact their favourite recreational activities.
This series featured a community event at the 2022 Swell Sculpture Festival, held annually along the Currumbin beachfront, that focused on coastal recreation activities and the impacts climate change could have on them.
“It’s sometimes easy to slip into the thinking that climate change is something that affects our planet or only certain parts of it in certain ways,” she said.
“But we are seeing the impacts of global warming right here on our doorstep, on the very beaches on which we play and stay.
“For beachgoers, those impacts are felt differently. Those who fish may see more of species they don’t usually or catch less of the ones that they’re used to.
“For surfers, this could mean more dramatic wave conditions due to altered currents pushing sand into different areas and affecting their local breaks.
“Even for those beachgoers who just love an afternoon stroll along the sand, an increase in climate-driven destructive weather systems could mean that their favourite coastline is heavily eroded and difficult to access.”
Sea Changes: Finding new fish in the warming waters of South East Queensland was presented by University of Tasmania marine ecologist Professor Gretta Pecl, who focused on our marine environment and climate changed futures, followed by an in-conversation with local experts including Griffith’s Professor Rodger Tomlinson, Professor Kylie Pitt and PhD Candidate Maggie Muurmans, and community leaders.
Representatives from the Gold Coast surfing, fishing, diving, surf lifesaving and indigenous communities also attended to discuss the big question: What can we do to ready ourselves — and our weekends — for climate altered futures?
The public lecture was opened with Glenn Barry (Gamilraay), Griffith Council of Elders and PhD candidate and SWELL Board of Directors, playing didgeridoo with an acknowledgement of country.
A mini army of swimmers from Griffith University will descend upon Melbourne in December for the 2022 World Short Course Championships.
Queensland athletes will be represented in force with 67 per cent of the team coming from the sunshine state, 78 percent females and 56 per cent males.
The coaching staff will be flying the maroon flag as four Queenslanders have been selected as a team coach, including Griffith High Performance Swimming Squad coach Michael Bohl.
Griffith Sports College Manager Naomi McCarthy OAM
Manager of Griffith Sports College Naomi McCarthy OAM said seven Griffith Swim Squad athletes will be part of the team, the largest university contingent for the championships.
“Emma McKeon will be coming off the back of a stellar Commonwealth Games campaign, so it will be great to see her in the pool again,” Ms McCarthy said.
“The Dolphins team will also see Mack Horton competing, along with Clyde Lewis, Kaylee McKeown, Emilie Muir, Lani Pallister and Brendon Smith.
“This is a brilliant line up of swimming talent showcasing just how formidable our swimmers are.”
Ms McCarthy said it was no surprise to see the Griffith Swim Squad represented so strongly at the upcoming championships.
“Our elite swimming program has an incredible depth of talent, and it will be great to see their performances in the pool in Melbourne, and who knows what records could potentially be smashed.”
The 16th FINA World Swimming Championships will run from 13-18 December at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.
Griffith swimmers competing include:
Mack Horton — Griffith Swim Squad
Emma McKeon AM — Alumnus — B Public Health and Griffith Swim Squad
Kaylee McKeown — Griffith Swim Squad
Lani Pallister — Student — B Biomedical Science and Griffith Swim Squad
Brendon Smith — Griffith Swim Squad
Emilie Muir — B Biomedical Science and Griffith Swim Squad
Clyde Lewis — Griffith Swim Squad
Griffith University has named five winners at its prestigious Outstanding Alumni Awards 2022, with an acclaimed Aboriginal author taking out the top award.
Bachelor of Public Policy (Honours) graduate Melissa Lucashenko was bestowed the Outstanding Alumni Award at a ceremony on the Gold Coast for her work paving the way for other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia’s literary scene.
The proud Bundjalung woman is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and short story writer, as well as being a fierce advocate for levelling the playing field for Indigenous and underclass youth.
Outstanding Alumnus recipient Melissa Lucashenko receives her award from Vice Chancellor and President Professor Carolyn Evans
The Outstanding First Peoples Alumni Award was given to Professor Dennis Foley, a Bachelor of Business and MBA graduate, for his commitment to First Nations education and Indigenous business and entrepreneurship development.
Professor Foley was Australia’s first Professor of Indigenous Entrepreneurship and the founding director of the NSW Indigenous Chamber of Commerce.
He was the first in his family to get an undergraduate degree, doing so “at the ripe old age of 45”, and went on to be a Fulbright Scholar and a double Endeavour Fellow.
First Peoples Alumnus recipient Professor Dennis Foley accepts his award from GBS PVC Professor Caitlin Byrne
Beny Bol OAM, a refugee from South Sudan, was given the title of Outstanding Young Alumnus for 2022, for his work with African youths in South East Queensland.
Young Alumnus of the Year Beny Bol OAM receives his award from Chancellor Henry Smerdon AM DUniv
The Bachelor of Arts (International Relations and Asian Studies) and Master of International Law alumnus established the African Youth Support Council, which has already grown to employ 15 mentors across Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan and runs early intervention programs in schools, as well as rehabilitation strategies at juvenile detention centres.
Master of Arts, Journalism and Mass Communication alumnus Dr Antoni Tsaputra and Doctor of Philosophy / Master of Science and Public Health graduate Dr Di Jiangli were jointly presented with the Outstanding International Alumni Award.
Born with a profound physical disability, Dr Tsaputra has been a wheelchair user his whole life. Growing up in Indonesia, he struggled with inadequate health care and received extremely limited support to aid him to live a mobile life.
Dr Tsaputra’s Master’s degree set the foundation for a career dedicated to improving the lives of others. He completed his PhD in Australia and has been recognised globally for his advocacy work to empower individuals and organisation to implement policies and procedures to support those with disability.
Joint winners of the Outstanding International Alumnus Dr Antoni Tsaputra and Dr Di Jiangli. pic.twitter.com/73M2Fe7RiF
Dr Di, China CDC Women and Health Centre deputy director and principal researcher, plays a key role in national maternal and child health initiatives, and is part of various research teams addressing women’s health issues.
She also continues to be heavily involved in China’s COVID-19 prevention and control work, even playing piano in an aged care facility during the height of the pandemic to spread positivity.
Topics ranging from developmental language disorders to understanding the role of colour in music notation and koala conservation were part of the 2022 instalment of Griffith University’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation final.
Twelve current PhD confirmed candidates presented their research study summing up years of work of more than 80 thousand words into a succinct three minute ‘elevator pitch’ to the three-person judging panel.
Judges praised the high quality presentations from all candidates awarding top prize to Shaun Ziegenfusz from the School of Health Sciences and Social Work for his stunning summation of his thesis looking at Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
PhD Candidate Shaun Ziegenfusz presented with his 3MT Winner’s award by Professor Andrew O’Neil, Dean, Griffith Graduate Research School (GGRS)
“It’s a hidden disability in Australian classrooms” said Shaun, who became the second Speech Pathology PhD student to take out the top award after Simone Howells was successful in 2018.
“Speech pathologists are excellent communicators so I very much enjoy presenting my research and shining a light on DLD which unfortunately sees one in 14 Australian school students affected by this language disorder.
Shaun now heads to the 3MT Asia-Pacific Final in October looking to become Griffith’s first ever winner of the regional decider.
The runner-up prize was awarded to Queensland Conservatorium’s Jacqui Cuny for her presentation ‘Searching for Synergy .. Finding the X factor’, while the People’s Choice Award (voted by the audience) was taken out by Tori Seydel from Department of Marketing (GBS) for her presentation on using social media tools and engagement to protect koala wildlife.
People’s Choice Award winner Tori Seydel and DVC (Research) Professor Lee Smith
3MT Final Runner-Up Jacqui Cuny with DVC (Research) Professor Lee Smith
The full list of finalists were:
Jacqui Cuny from the Queensland Conservatorium with her presentation, ‘Searching for synergy… Finding the X factor!’
Peter Clark from the School of Health Sciences and Social Work and his presentation, ‘Making data standards, standard.’
Rebecca Cozens from the Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources with her presentation, ‘Exploring the impact of online global experiences on students’ career identity.’
Michelle Hobbs from the School of Environment and Science with her presentation, ‘Are the clams happy? Why rivers need shellfish.’
Frankie Dyson Reilly from the Queensland Conservatorium and her presentation, ‘Colour music: understanding the role of colour in music notation.’
Chloe Hurrell from our School of Applied Psychology and her presentation, ‘From education to action: facilitating pro-environmental behaviour through virtual reality and mindfulness.’
Corie Duff from our Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources and his presentation, ‘Who holds the message stick to success.’
Melissa Hill from the School of Environment and Science with her presentation, ‘Brain traffic.’
Alena Kazmaly from the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science with her presentation, ‘Does language really shape your personality?’
Tori Seydel from the Department of Marketing and her presentation, ‘Let’s get ‘koala-fied’.’
Shaun Ziegenfusz from the School of Health Sciences and Social Work and his presentation, ‘Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): the hidden disability in Australian classrooms.’
Andria Ostrowski from the School of Environment and Science with her presentation, ‘Stress test: transforming multiple stressor science to better protect our coasts.’
Behaviour experts will converge on Griffith University’s South Bank campus as the Change Conference makes its comeback.
The conference moved online for the past two years due to the pandemic, but experts are champing at the bit to be back in person.
At a time when people are desperate for stability and change may seem futile, Social Marking @ Griffith Director Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele said COVID-19 taught us that people can come together and agree on what needs to happen in the face of a threat.
Social Marketing @ Griffith Director Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele.
“We saw a lot of action and fast,” Professor Rundle-Thiele said.
“During the pandemic we learned we can move at a global level.
“Now that we know we can move any mountain, all we need to do is agree on an initial set of actions and from there we’ll know we can make any change we want to see as a global village.”
Change 2022, a two-day conference, hosted by Social Marketing @ Griffith, will deliver a blend of science, research and real-life case studies, demonstrating to participants how they can support change.
“The word change is used a lot and we need to be clear about what we mean,” Professor Rundle-Thiele said.
“Change can be applied for the common good, and in its simplest form the common good is about ensuring people’s health and wellbeing while simultaneously looking after the planet.”
Social marketing is used to campaign for positive change — like smoking cessation, reducing road toll or drink driving, recycling, or even protecting koala numbers.
Delegates will hear from experts in change.
Professor Rundle-Thiele said the biggest challenge to change is people themselves.
“In so many cases we do know what we need to do and for some reason we aren’t seeing positive changes happening fast enough,” she said.
“I think most of us want to make our world a better place and we shouldn’t be scared, or too tired, to make a few positive changes that leave us feeling better while also helping our environment.
“It is important find what will move and motivate most to step up and make a difference and sometimes the solutions aren’t what we know.
“People really are the experts of their own world and its incumbent on us all to operate with a reflexive approach and work with people. Bringing people with you really is the way to go.”
Find out more and register for Change 2022, 20-21 October 2022.
A team of Indonesian and Australian archaeologists co-led by Griffith University academics has unearthed the skeletal remains of a young hunter-gatherer whose lower left leg was amputated by a skilled prehistoric surgeon 31,000 years ago.
The remains with left foot missing. Credit: Tim Maloney
The discovery, published in Nature, is thought to be the earliest known evidence for a complex medical act, pre-dating other instances of stone age ‘operations’ found at sites across Eurasia by tens of thousands of years.
Professor Maxime Aubert from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, co-leader of the research project undertaken with Indonesia’s Centre for Archaeology, Language and History, said the new finding was brought to light in 2020 during an archaeological excavation at Liang Tebo.
Liang Tebo is a limestone cave in the remote Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat region of eastern Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, which is accessible only by boat at certain times of the year.
The archaeological excavation was overseen by Griffith researcher Dr Tim Maloney, along with Dr India Ella Dilkes-Hall (University of Western Australia) and Mr Andika Priyatno (Balai Pelestarian Cagar Budaya), with the field team surprised to observe that the human skeleton was missing its left foot and lower leg.
Analysis by palaeopathologist Dr Melandri Vlok (University of Sydney) confirmed tell-tale bony growths related to healing, suggesting the limb was surgically
An impression of the individual. Credit: Jose Garcia
amputated several years earlier when the individual was a child.
“In fact, it was a huge surprise that this ancient forager survived a very serious and life-threatening childhood operation, that the wound healed to form a stump, and that they then lived for years in mountainous terrain with altered mobility — suggesting a high degree of community care,” Dr Vlok said.
Previously, archaeological research across Eurasia and the Americas had uncovered human bones that bore signs of prehistoric surgeries, including holes drilled in skulls (trepanation).
Up until now, however, the oldest evidence yet revealed for amputation surgery had comprised the 7,000-year-old skeleton of an elderly male Stone Age farmer from France, whose left forearm had been carefully amputated just above the elbow.
“Dating the remains directly turned out to be a challenging task,” said Associate Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Head of the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group at Southern Cross University, who was given the task to calculate the age of the fossil.
By measuring the amount of radiation received by the tooth enamel during burial, Associate Professor Joannes-Boyau was able to confirm that the individual died some 31,000 years ago, in agreement with the radiocarbon age of the sediment.
“In light of the much younger age of these prior findings, the discovery of a 31,000-year-old amputee in Borneo clearly has major implications for our understanding of the history of medicine,” Dr Maloney said.
Scholars had assumed that humans lacked the expertise and technology to perform difficult procedures like surgical amputation, until tens of thousands of years later after the emergence of farming communities and villages transformed human society within the last 10,000 years.
Dr Tim Maloney. Credit: Tim Maloney
“It was thought the shift from foraging to farming at the end of the ice age gave rise to previously unknown health problems that stimulated the first incremental advances in medical technology, including the earliest attempts at stone age ‘surgery’,” Dr Maloney said.
“What the new finding in Borneo demonstrates is that humans already had the ability to successfully amputate diseased or damaged limbs long before we began farming and living in permanent settlements,” Professor Aubert said.
“This is also in keeping with the evidence that ice age foragers in Indonesia had sophisticated cultural lifeways, as demonstrated from the early dates on cave art in Borneo and the adjacent island of Sulawesi,” said team member Mr Adhi Agus Oktaviana — a Griffith University PhD student based in Jakarta at the Centre for Archaeology, Language and History.
The team says the surgeon(s) who performed the operation 31,000 years ago must have had detailed knowledge of limb anatomy and muscular and vascular systems to expose and negotiate the veins, vessels, and nerves and prevent fatal blood loss and infection.
The excavation team in the Borneo cave site. Credit: Tim Maloney
Intensive post-operative nursing and care would also have been vital, and the wound would have had to have been regularly cleaned and disinfected to prevent infection.
The medical skill and proficiency demonstrated by this amputation contrasts with the litany of horrors that awaited patients of medieval surgeons in Europe, while modern medicine only reached regular amputation success following the discovery of antiseptics at the turn of the previous century.
According to Dr Maloney, it remains an open question whether the Liang Tebo find is simply the first known evidence for the hitherto unrecognised complexity of hunter-gatherer medical cultures that were much more widespread at this early period of human prehistory, or if the foraging communities inhabiting Borneo 31,000 years ago — then part of the Eurasian supercontinent Sunda — had acquired an unusually advanced degree of proficiency in this area.
“One possibility is that rapid rates of infection in the hot and humid tropics prompted early foragers in this region to tap into the rainforests’ ‘natural pharmacy’ of medicinal plants, leading to an early flourishing in the use of botanical resources for anaesthetics, antiseptics, and other wound-healing treatments,” Dr Dilkes-Hall said.
Griffith University researchers have played a key role in investigating a new molecule that protects bacteria against viruses and is associated with bacterial infection of plants.
Dr Thomas Ve, a lead researcher at Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics andco-senior author on the newScience paper, said bacteria are on the watch for viral infections and have evolved a large repertoire of defence systems to protect themselves.
Mr Eduardo Vasquez Alarcon, Dr Thomas Ve, Dr Tamim Mosaiab and Dr Yun Shi
“Studying such defence systems have in the past led to powerful molecular tools that may one day be used for new treatments of diseases,” Dr Ve said.
The aim of the study was to look at bacterial enzymes that cleave a ubiquitous nucleotide called NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and produce new signalling molecules.
“These signalling molecules take part in a virus defence system called Thoeris,” Dr Ve said.
“Surprisingly, our research shows one of these molecules – called 3’cADPR – is not only an activator of the Thoeris defence system but is also associated with suppression of the immune system in plants.”
The researchers used a suite of structural biology techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance, cryo-electron microscopy and x-ray crystallography to reveal the chemical structures of these signalling molecules and how they are produced and function.
“We were able create three dimensional snapshots of how they are produced and how they activate the Thoeris defence system,” Dr Ve said.
“Time will tell if this basic research leads to new technologies with the potential to treat or prevent diseases.”
Institute for Glycomics Director Professor Mark von Itzstein AO
Institute Director, Professor Mark von Itzstein AO said this fundamental research brings substantial new insight to complex biology.
“This study published in the world-leading journal Science provides atomic level detail of an intricate biological process,” Professor von Itzstein said.
“The study outcomes open up new areas of endeavour that could have significant biological impact.”
Dr Ve’s team worked in collaboration with the groups of Professor Bostjan Kobe at University of Queensland, Professors Aaron DiAntonio and Jeffrey Milbrandt at Washington University, St Louis, USA, Assistant Professor Ming Guo at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, and Professor Murray Grant at the University of Warwick, UK.
Griffith Asia Institute member and Head of School of Government and International Relations, Professor Juliet Pietsch’s latest research has just been published by Cambridge Elements as part of the Global Development Studies series.
Much of the scholarship in development studies focuses on developing countries. However, many of the same issues can be seen in developed countries, where migrants now constitute a sizeable proportion of the poor and politically disenfranchised. In immigrant-receiving countries such as Australia, temporary migrants in low-income households are most at risk of poor social and health outcomes.
The circumstances of Australia’s disenfranchised migrants, trapped in social and political conditions with limited financial resources, were made clear at the onset of Melbourne’s second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-2020. After struggling through the first wave with relatively little attention, on a grey mid-winter’s Saturday afternoon, thousands of new migrants in the Flemington public housing towers in Melbourne’s inner north were placed into a hard lockdown, with no warning. Many of the residents of the locked down towers were from non-English-speaking backgrounds, with a significant proportion from war-torn and traumatised backgrounds. Even as the lockdown got underway, there was little to no consultation or deliberation with the residents about the logistics and potential health impacts.
This research explores the experiences of temporary migrant workers from Southeast Asia in Australia, demonstrating that migrant workers, on the whole, live without a political voice or clear pathway to permanent residency and citizenship. The research is informed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s theoretical framework of capabilities.
According to Professor Pietsch:
“One of the most critical capabilities is having a sense of political agency and control over one’s environment.”
Given the significant increase in temporary migration flows around the world, this Element, titled “Temporary migrants from Southeast Asia in Australia” draws attention to the necessity of migrants to be provided with political capabilities.
Professor Caitlin Byrne is Pro Vice Chancellor (Business) at Griffith University. Caitlin began her professional career as a diplomat with the Australian Government and has worked across senior leadership roles in government, industry and community to become recognised as one of Australia’s leading academic-practitioners with a focus on international policy and diplomatic practice. 
Dr Colin Hutchins is an environmental scientist turned science communicator. He has more than 15 years’ multi-disciplinary research experience in a broad range of environmental sciences, from ecotoxicology to biogeochemistry and genomics, with a focus on the chemistry of contaminants and their consequences. Dismayed at the expanding gap between the academic and public/government/industry understanding of research, he transitioned into science communications. With a Masters degree in Science Communications (University of Queensland), he has worked for Griffith University, Australian Rivers Institute, the Making Good Alliance, the Ningaloo Turtle Program and others developing communication strategies and content.
