9 articles from SUNDAY 10.7.2022

Portugal battles forest fires amid heatwave

Around 1,5000 firefighters were battling multiple forest fires and several bush fires in central and northern Portugal Sunday following a punishing heatwave, prompting the government to implement a "state of contingency".

We take it for granted, but a long childhood is what makes us Earth’s most complex animal | Brenna Hassett

Children spend the same amount of time growing up as bowhead whales – yet they live for hundreds of yearsOne of the things that makes Homo sapiens so unique as a species seems so mundane, so everyday, that we rarely stop to question it. But seen from the perspective of every other animal on the planet, our long childhood is an extreme outlier. We remain children longer than any of them. To put...

Have a biscuit and shut up ... now psychologists have found ‘hanger’ is a real thing, here’s how to deal with it

Study reveals what we already suspected: if we’re hungry, we’re not happy. So keep calm and eatIs this article already annoying you? I can only apologise. But also, may I ask whether you’ve skipped breakfast or lunch? Because that might explain it. You’re not really peevish. You’re just peckish.Those who get a bit snappy on an empty stomach will be pleased to know that being “hangry”...

‘Extinct’ parrots make a flying comeback in Brazil

The Spix macaw, a bird that had once vanished in the wild, is now thriving in its South American homeland after a successful breeding programmeTwenty years ago, the future of the Spix’s macaw could not have looked bleaker. The last member of this distinctive parrot species disappeared from the wild, leaving only a few dozen birds in collectors’ cages across the globe. The prospects for...

Evidence grows of lockdown harm to the young. But we act as if nothing happened | Martha Gill

Falling educational standards and immature behaviour point to a Covid deficitAt a university reunion recently, my friends and I cornered the dean in charge of pastoral care and tried to make him tell us how much cooler we had been than students these days. We had heard they had no sex, did no drugs, never went out, spent all day in the library and all night applying for internships with...

Against a surging Omicron adept at immune escapism, boosters and masks are Australia’s best weapons | Catherine Bennett

Omicron is holding the pandemic centre stage. If everyone eligible for a booster went out and had it tomorrow, we might keep a lid on the latest waveLiving with Covid has taken on a whole new meaning in 2022.We had been prepared for the virus remaining in our communities, but Omicron has taken this to a different level. This is what “vaccine-escape” looks like. Continue...