Latest news with #Echidna
The Advertiser
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Can AI really write music you might want to listen to?
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to I want to disagree with Garry Linnell. In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine. "If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly. To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history. As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background. I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering. But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience. So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs? The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed. It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense. Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind. Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative. But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music. One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow. Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine? HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@ . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views. SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer. - Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. - US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app. THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians." Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on." Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair." Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to I want to disagree with Garry Linnell. In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine. "If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly. To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history. As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background. I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering. But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience. So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs? The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed. It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense. Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind. Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative. But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music. One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow. Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine? HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@ . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views. SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer. - Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. - US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app. THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians." Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on." Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair." Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to I want to disagree with Garry Linnell. In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine. "If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly. To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history. As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background. I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering. But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience. So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs? The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed. It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense. Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind. Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative. But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music. One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow. Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine? HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@ . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views. SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer. - Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. - US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app. THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians." Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on." Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair." Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to I want to disagree with Garry Linnell. In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine. "If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly. To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history. As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background. I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering. But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience. So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs? The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed. It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense. Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind. Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative. But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music. One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow. Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine? HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@ . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views. SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer. - Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. - US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app. THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians." Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on." Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair." Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
The Advertiser
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Advertiser
When a rabid MAGA makes sense, the world really has gone mad
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It's been disturbing for sure. Sleep is fitful. A hyperactive brain hungry for the next development nags me to get up and check the phone. The rolling coverage is consulted. There's the usual horror. More missiles, apartment blocks in ruins, ominous warnings, burning flags, chants of "Death to America". All that I can deal with. What really terrifies me is I find myself agreeing with one of the worst nut jobs in Trump's America, Marjorie Taylor Greene. You read that correctly. MTG, the ranting Georgia Republican who makes our own Clive Palmer look like a paragon of good sense. The person who once blamed destructive American wildfires on Jewish space lasers, who thinks in four or five generations, everyone will be gay or trans. As I tossed and turned before dawn yesterday, it dawned on me. I agree with this ratbag. Not about space lasers, or our gay and trans future, or the "gazpacho" police rounding up the January 6 rioters (she meant gestapo). No, it was the much more recent pronouncements she'd made about the folly of US involvement in foreign wars and its pursuit of regime change. "There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if [its prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer," she posted on X. In another post she wrote: "Now what has been done is done and Americans now fear Iranian terrorists attacks on our own soil and being dragged into another war by Netanyahu when we weren't even thinking about any of this a week ago." Two entirely reasonable viewpoints from a person I'd always dismissed as a raving loony and probably still do in most regards. MTG's posts reveal the deep misgivings in Trump's MAGA base about his decision to get involved in the dispute between Israel and Iran. The president's musing about regime change on his Truth Social platform wouldn't have calmed the waters. If the red hat brigade were aware of how we'd arrived at this point in history, they'd be even more alarmed. But they'd to read about it and that would be a stretch for most. Ian, a regular Echidna contributor, reminded me of the absurdity that has driven us to the brink of a widening war. It was regime change in Iran seven decades ago that got us here. In 1953, elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was toppled in a coup sponsored by the US and UK. Mossadegh's mistake was to nationalise his country's vast oil reserves. In his place, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reinstalled on the Peacock Throne as the Shah, a staunch Western ally. The oil flowed again and Iran's nuclear program was begun with US support, including in 1967 the provision of a five megawatt reactor along with a supply of enriched uranium to power it. The intention was peaceful but the trouble always was that the regime change the US initiated was dodgy from the outset. The Shah was a tyrant. His secret police - the SAVAK - rounded up thousands of dissidents and subjected them to horrific torture; they were particularly fond of amputations. By 1979, the Iranians had had enough and staged their Islamic revolution. The nuclear program the Americans helped establish and are now intent on destroying was inherited by the ayatollahs. Regime change led to a nuclear program under a despot, which led to despotic regime change and a nuclear program the West doesn't want and renewed calls for regime change. As Ian wrote, "With every Western intervention the situation just gets worse and worse." Dizzying, isn't it? But not as unsettling as sitting bolt upright in the dark, realising you've found common ground with Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's the stuff of nightmares. HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you support the idea of regime change in Iran? Can you name a place where US-sponsored regime change has had a favourable outcome? Is Australia right to back the US bombing or should it have maintained its earlier neutral stance? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declined to say whether the United States made use of an Australian military base for its attack on Iran, while confirming his government's support. - Almost seven in 10 private housing tenants worry about asking for repairs in case they face a rent increase. A survey of more than 1000 renters across Australia has also found a third would be unable to afford a 5 per cent increase on what they're currently paying. - Pakistan has condemned the strikes ordered on its neighbour Iran by Donald Trump, a day after Islamabad had said it would nominate the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. THEY SAID IT: "You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it." - Colin Powell YOU SAID IT: The hypocrisy is hard to miss. The Israeli PM condemning a missile attack on a hospital while a few kilometres away his own government has systematically levelled much of Gaza. "The doublespeak from all sides since the beginning (whenever that was) of whatever this is, has been, ironically, consistent," writes Ian. "As for Iran, we're led to believe, plausibly but without evidence, that they are close to having a nuclear weapon, which we're also told they wouldn't hesitate to use (again plausibly, being religious cranks that apparently believe that murdering infidels in large numbers is rewarded in heaven). Then again, is this another 'WMD that can't be found' moment?" Kristine writes: "I completely agree. Further, consider the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of global nuclear arms control. Israel has never signed it. Under NPT rules, signatories who did not possess nuclear weapons before 1967 are forbidden from developing them. Had Israel joined, it would have had to disarm. Instead, it remained outside the treaty, free to develop its capabilities while demanding others comply. The global non-proliferation regime, led by the United States and its Western allies, preaches equality under international law. Yet the treatment of Israel's nuclear program reveals a dangerous hypocrisy that undermines both the credibility of this regime and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East." "Solid gold reflective commentary in honest reporting, incisive cartoon, and reader responses," writes Charlie. "All give hope that we may face the truths. Too many pollies have been kowtowing to unprincipled power (political and wealth), playing game shows with our real lives. Time for leadership to address our vital universal crises." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It's been disturbing for sure. Sleep is fitful. A hyperactive brain hungry for the next development nags me to get up and check the phone. The rolling coverage is consulted. There's the usual horror. More missiles, apartment blocks in ruins, ominous warnings, burning flags, chants of "Death to America". All that I can deal with. What really terrifies me is I find myself agreeing with one of the worst nut jobs in Trump's America, Marjorie Taylor Greene. You read that correctly. MTG, the ranting Georgia Republican who makes our own Clive Palmer look like a paragon of good sense. The person who once blamed destructive American wildfires on Jewish space lasers, who thinks in four or five generations, everyone will be gay or trans. As I tossed and turned before dawn yesterday, it dawned on me. I agree with this ratbag. Not about space lasers, or our gay and trans future, or the "gazpacho" police rounding up the January 6 rioters (she meant gestapo). No, it was the much more recent pronouncements she'd made about the folly of US involvement in foreign wars and its pursuit of regime change. "There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if [its prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer," she posted on X. In another post she wrote: "Now what has been done is done and Americans now fear Iranian terrorists attacks on our own soil and being dragged into another war by Netanyahu when we weren't even thinking about any of this a week ago." Two entirely reasonable viewpoints from a person I'd always dismissed as a raving loony and probably still do in most regards. MTG's posts reveal the deep misgivings in Trump's MAGA base about his decision to get involved in the dispute between Israel and Iran. The president's musing about regime change on his Truth Social platform wouldn't have calmed the waters. If the red hat brigade were aware of how we'd arrived at this point in history, they'd be even more alarmed. But they'd to read about it and that would be a stretch for most. Ian, a regular Echidna contributor, reminded me of the absurdity that has driven us to the brink of a widening war. It was regime change in Iran seven decades ago that got us here. In 1953, elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was toppled in a coup sponsored by the US and UK. Mossadegh's mistake was to nationalise his country's vast oil reserves. In his place, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reinstalled on the Peacock Throne as the Shah, a staunch Western ally. The oil flowed again and Iran's nuclear program was begun with US support, including in 1967 the provision of a five megawatt reactor along with a supply of enriched uranium to power it. The intention was peaceful but the trouble always was that the regime change the US initiated was dodgy from the outset. The Shah was a tyrant. His secret police - the SAVAK - rounded up thousands of dissidents and subjected them to horrific torture; they were particularly fond of amputations. By 1979, the Iranians had had enough and staged their Islamic revolution. The nuclear program the Americans helped establish and are now intent on destroying was inherited by the ayatollahs. Regime change led to a nuclear program under a despot, which led to despotic regime change and a nuclear program the West doesn't want and renewed calls for regime change. As Ian wrote, "With every Western intervention the situation just gets worse and worse." Dizzying, isn't it? But not as unsettling as sitting bolt upright in the dark, realising you've found common ground with Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's the stuff of nightmares. HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you support the idea of regime change in Iran? Can you name a place where US-sponsored regime change has had a favourable outcome? Is Australia right to back the US bombing or should it have maintained its earlier neutral stance? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declined to say whether the United States made use of an Australian military base for its attack on Iran, while confirming his government's support. - Almost seven in 10 private housing tenants worry about asking for repairs in case they face a rent increase. A survey of more than 1000 renters across Australia has also found a third would be unable to afford a 5 per cent increase on what they're currently paying. - Pakistan has condemned the strikes ordered on its neighbour Iran by Donald Trump, a day after Islamabad had said it would nominate the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. THEY SAID IT: "You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it." - Colin Powell YOU SAID IT: The hypocrisy is hard to miss. The Israeli PM condemning a missile attack on a hospital while a few kilometres away his own government has systematically levelled much of Gaza. "The doublespeak from all sides since the beginning (whenever that was) of whatever this is, has been, ironically, consistent," writes Ian. "As for Iran, we're led to believe, plausibly but without evidence, that they are close to having a nuclear weapon, which we're also told they wouldn't hesitate to use (again plausibly, being religious cranks that apparently believe that murdering infidels in large numbers is rewarded in heaven). Then again, is this another 'WMD that can't be found' moment?" Kristine writes: "I completely agree. Further, consider the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of global nuclear arms control. Israel has never signed it. Under NPT rules, signatories who did not possess nuclear weapons before 1967 are forbidden from developing them. Had Israel joined, it would have had to disarm. Instead, it remained outside the treaty, free to develop its capabilities while demanding others comply. The global non-proliferation regime, led by the United States and its Western allies, preaches equality under international law. Yet the treatment of Israel's nuclear program reveals a dangerous hypocrisy that undermines both the credibility of this regime and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East." "Solid gold reflective commentary in honest reporting, incisive cartoon, and reader responses," writes Charlie. "All give hope that we may face the truths. Too many pollies have been kowtowing to unprincipled power (political and wealth), playing game shows with our real lives. Time for leadership to address our vital universal crises." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It's been disturbing for sure. Sleep is fitful. A hyperactive brain hungry for the next development nags me to get up and check the phone. The rolling coverage is consulted. There's the usual horror. More missiles, apartment blocks in ruins, ominous warnings, burning flags, chants of "Death to America". All that I can deal with. What really terrifies me is I find myself agreeing with one of the worst nut jobs in Trump's America, Marjorie Taylor Greene. You read that correctly. MTG, the ranting Georgia Republican who makes our own Clive Palmer look like a paragon of good sense. The person who once blamed destructive American wildfires on Jewish space lasers, who thinks in four or five generations, everyone will be gay or trans. As I tossed and turned before dawn yesterday, it dawned on me. I agree with this ratbag. Not about space lasers, or our gay and trans future, or the "gazpacho" police rounding up the January 6 rioters (she meant gestapo). No, it was the much more recent pronouncements she'd made about the folly of US involvement in foreign wars and its pursuit of regime change. "There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if [its prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer," she posted on X. In another post she wrote: "Now what has been done is done and Americans now fear Iranian terrorists attacks on our own soil and being dragged into another war by Netanyahu when we weren't even thinking about any of this a week ago." Two entirely reasonable viewpoints from a person I'd always dismissed as a raving loony and probably still do in most regards. MTG's posts reveal the deep misgivings in Trump's MAGA base about his decision to get involved in the dispute between Israel and Iran. The president's musing about regime change on his Truth Social platform wouldn't have calmed the waters. If the red hat brigade were aware of how we'd arrived at this point in history, they'd be even more alarmed. But they'd to read about it and that would be a stretch for most. Ian, a regular Echidna contributor, reminded me of the absurdity that has driven us to the brink of a widening war. It was regime change in Iran seven decades ago that got us here. In 1953, elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was toppled in a coup sponsored by the US and UK. Mossadegh's mistake was to nationalise his country's vast oil reserves. In his place, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reinstalled on the Peacock Throne as the Shah, a staunch Western ally. The oil flowed again and Iran's nuclear program was begun with US support, including in 1967 the provision of a five megawatt reactor along with a supply of enriched uranium to power it. The intention was peaceful but the trouble always was that the regime change the US initiated was dodgy from the outset. The Shah was a tyrant. His secret police - the SAVAK - rounded up thousands of dissidents and subjected them to horrific torture; they were particularly fond of amputations. By 1979, the Iranians had had enough and staged their Islamic revolution. The nuclear program the Americans helped establish and are now intent on destroying was inherited by the ayatollahs. Regime change led to a nuclear program under a despot, which led to despotic regime change and a nuclear program the West doesn't want and renewed calls for regime change. As Ian wrote, "With every Western intervention the situation just gets worse and worse." Dizzying, isn't it? But not as unsettling as sitting bolt upright in the dark, realising you've found common ground with Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's the stuff of nightmares. HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you support the idea of regime change in Iran? Can you name a place where US-sponsored regime change has had a favourable outcome? Is Australia right to back the US bombing or should it have maintained its earlier neutral stance? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declined to say whether the United States made use of an Australian military base for its attack on Iran, while confirming his government's support. - Almost seven in 10 private housing tenants worry about asking for repairs in case they face a rent increase. A survey of more than 1000 renters across Australia has also found a third would be unable to afford a 5 per cent increase on what they're currently paying. - Pakistan has condemned the strikes ordered on its neighbour Iran by Donald Trump, a day after Islamabad had said it would nominate the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. THEY SAID IT: "You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it." - Colin Powell YOU SAID IT: The hypocrisy is hard to miss. The Israeli PM condemning a missile attack on a hospital while a few kilometres away his own government has systematically levelled much of Gaza. "The doublespeak from all sides since the beginning (whenever that was) of whatever this is, has been, ironically, consistent," writes Ian. "As for Iran, we're led to believe, plausibly but without evidence, that they are close to having a nuclear weapon, which we're also told they wouldn't hesitate to use (again plausibly, being religious cranks that apparently believe that murdering infidels in large numbers is rewarded in heaven). Then again, is this another 'WMD that can't be found' moment?" Kristine writes: "I completely agree. Further, consider the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of global nuclear arms control. Israel has never signed it. Under NPT rules, signatories who did not possess nuclear weapons before 1967 are forbidden from developing them. Had Israel joined, it would have had to disarm. Instead, it remained outside the treaty, free to develop its capabilities while demanding others comply. The global non-proliferation regime, led by the United States and its Western allies, preaches equality under international law. Yet the treatment of Israel's nuclear program reveals a dangerous hypocrisy that undermines both the credibility of this regime and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East." "Solid gold reflective commentary in honest reporting, incisive cartoon, and reader responses," writes Charlie. "All give hope that we may face the truths. Too many pollies have been kowtowing to unprincipled power (political and wealth), playing game shows with our real lives. Time for leadership to address our vital universal crises." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It's been disturbing for sure. Sleep is fitful. A hyperactive brain hungry for the next development nags me to get up and check the phone. The rolling coverage is consulted. There's the usual horror. More missiles, apartment blocks in ruins, ominous warnings, burning flags, chants of "Death to America". All that I can deal with. What really terrifies me is I find myself agreeing with one of the worst nut jobs in Trump's America, Marjorie Taylor Greene. You read that correctly. MTG, the ranting Georgia Republican who makes our own Clive Palmer look like a paragon of good sense. The person who once blamed destructive American wildfires on Jewish space lasers, who thinks in four or five generations, everyone will be gay or trans. As I tossed and turned before dawn yesterday, it dawned on me. I agree with this ratbag. Not about space lasers, or our gay and trans future, or the "gazpacho" police rounding up the January 6 rioters (she meant gestapo). No, it was the much more recent pronouncements she'd made about the folly of US involvement in foreign wars and its pursuit of regime change. "There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if [its prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer," she posted on X. In another post she wrote: "Now what has been done is done and Americans now fear Iranian terrorists attacks on our own soil and being dragged into another war by Netanyahu when we weren't even thinking about any of this a week ago." Two entirely reasonable viewpoints from a person I'd always dismissed as a raving loony and probably still do in most regards. MTG's posts reveal the deep misgivings in Trump's MAGA base about his decision to get involved in the dispute between Israel and Iran. The president's musing about regime change on his Truth Social platform wouldn't have calmed the waters. If the red hat brigade were aware of how we'd arrived at this point in history, they'd be even more alarmed. But they'd to read about it and that would be a stretch for most. Ian, a regular Echidna contributor, reminded me of the absurdity that has driven us to the brink of a widening war. It was regime change in Iran seven decades ago that got us here. In 1953, elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was toppled in a coup sponsored by the US and UK. Mossadegh's mistake was to nationalise his country's vast oil reserves. In his place, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reinstalled on the Peacock Throne as the Shah, a staunch Western ally. The oil flowed again and Iran's nuclear program was begun with US support, including in 1967 the provision of a five megawatt reactor along with a supply of enriched uranium to power it. The intention was peaceful but the trouble always was that the regime change the US initiated was dodgy from the outset. The Shah was a tyrant. His secret police - the SAVAK - rounded up thousands of dissidents and subjected them to horrific torture; they were particularly fond of amputations. By 1979, the Iranians had had enough and staged their Islamic revolution. The nuclear program the Americans helped establish and are now intent on destroying was inherited by the ayatollahs. Regime change led to a nuclear program under a despot, which led to despotic regime change and a nuclear program the West doesn't want and renewed calls for regime change. As Ian wrote, "With every Western intervention the situation just gets worse and worse." Dizzying, isn't it? But not as unsettling as sitting bolt upright in the dark, realising you've found common ground with Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's the stuff of nightmares. HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you support the idea of regime change in Iran? Can you name a place where US-sponsored regime change has had a favourable outcome? Is Australia right to back the US bombing or should it have maintained its earlier neutral stance? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declined to say whether the United States made use of an Australian military base for its attack on Iran, while confirming his government's support. - Almost seven in 10 private housing tenants worry about asking for repairs in case they face a rent increase. A survey of more than 1000 renters across Australia has also found a third would be unable to afford a 5 per cent increase on what they're currently paying. - Pakistan has condemned the strikes ordered on its neighbour Iran by Donald Trump, a day after Islamabad had said it would nominate the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize. THEY SAID IT: "You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it." - Colin Powell YOU SAID IT: The hypocrisy is hard to miss. The Israeli PM condemning a missile attack on a hospital while a few kilometres away his own government has systematically levelled much of Gaza. "The doublespeak from all sides since the beginning (whenever that was) of whatever this is, has been, ironically, consistent," writes Ian. "As for Iran, we're led to believe, plausibly but without evidence, that they are close to having a nuclear weapon, which we're also told they wouldn't hesitate to use (again plausibly, being religious cranks that apparently believe that murdering infidels in large numbers is rewarded in heaven). Then again, is this another 'WMD that can't be found' moment?" Kristine writes: "I completely agree. Further, consider the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of global nuclear arms control. Israel has never signed it. Under NPT rules, signatories who did not possess nuclear weapons before 1967 are forbidden from developing them. Had Israel joined, it would have had to disarm. Instead, it remained outside the treaty, free to develop its capabilities while demanding others comply. The global non-proliferation regime, led by the United States and its Western allies, preaches equality under international law. Yet the treatment of Israel's nuclear program reveals a dangerous hypocrisy that undermines both the credibility of this regime and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East." "Solid gold reflective commentary in honest reporting, incisive cartoon, and reader responses," writes Charlie. "All give hope that we may face the truths. Too many pollies have been kowtowing to unprincipled power (political and wealth), playing game shows with our real lives. Time for leadership to address our vital universal crises."
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mesmerizing Video Shows Cardiac Cells Building a Heart
Scientists have caught the intricate dance of cardiac cells coming together to build a heart, in a mesmerizing new timelapse taken during the development of a mouse embryo. The images were captured using a technique called light-sheet microscopy (LSM). Essentially, LSM involves scanning a sample with a thin sheet of light, creating sharp, detailed, three-dimensional images of living tissue without damaging it. Researchers from University College London (UCL) and the Francis Crick Institute in the UK used the method to track how mouse embryo cells begin to specialize into roles, divide, and arrange themselves into the structure of a heart. The team tagged the different types of cells with fluorescent markers, then captured images of them every two minutes for up to 41 hours. The resulting timelapse shows a ragtag group of nondescript cells coming together to form a living, beating mouse heart in a way that's truly captivating to watch. It's not just beautiful; it helped the team uncover new details about cardiac development. Surprisingly, individual cells seemed to already 'know' where they need to go and which roles they'll end up playing, even as early as four or five hours after the first embryonic cell divided. "Our findings demonstrate that cardiac fate determination and directional cell movement may be regulated much earlier in the embryo than current models suggest," says Kenzo Ivanovitch, developmental biologist at UCL. "This fundamentally changes our understanding of cardiac development by showing that what appears to be chaotic cell migration is actually governed by hidden patterns that ensure proper heart formation." While it's a long way off from any practical benefits, a better understanding of this process could potentially lead to new treatment options for congenital heart defects, the team says. The research was published in The EMBO Journal. Scientists Peered Inside The Echidna's Mysterious 'Pseudo-Pouch' Bizarre Three-Eyed Predator Hunted The Ocean Half a Billion Years Ago Earth's Rotation Is Slowing Down, And It Might Explain Why We Have Oxygen
