Southern Cross University (SCU) is an Australian public university, with campuses at Lismore and Coffs Harbour in northern New South Wales, and at Coolangatta, the most southern suburb of the Gold Coast in Queensland.It is ranked in the top 100 young universities in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
The rise of AI agent frameworks has introduced agent skills, modular packages containing instructions and executable code that dynamically extend agent capabilities. While this architecture enables powerful customization, skills execute with implicit trust and minimal vetting, creating a significant yet uncharacterized attack surface. We conduct the first large-scale empirical security analysis of this emerging ecosystem, collecting 42,447 skills from two major marketplaces and systematically analyzing 31,132 using SkillScan, a multi-stage detection framework integrating static analysis with LLM-based semantic classification. Our findings reveal pervasive security risks: 26.1
This study investigates how green and non-green goods, energy transition, digitalization, economic growth, and population affect the material footprint of G-7 countries from 1990 to 2023. Using an extended STIRPAT framework, we show that green and non-green goods increase material footprint, demonstrating the resource intensity associated with production and consumption patterns. Economic growth and population further intensify resource demands, underscoring structural environmental pressures. On the other hand, energy transition and digitalization reduce material footprint, indicating that renewable energy and digital technologies enhance resource efficiency. Overall, the findings highlight the trade-off between economic expansion and material sustainability in technologically advanced economies. Policy implications include reducing the material intensity of green goods through circular economy practices, expanding clean energy investment, and leveraging fintech to support more sustainable consumption, thereby enabling G-7 nations to better align prosperity with material sustainability.
BackgroundFollowing Australia's landmark 2023 decision to approve psilocybin and MDMA for clinical use, psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is beginning to emerge within regulated mental health settings. This study investigates psychologists' views on the relevance of psychedelic therapists' lived-living experience (LLE) with psychedelics. While discussion around LLE is growing, little is known about how psychologists perceive its role in clinical preparedness for PAT.MethodsTwenty Australian psychologists were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews explored perceptions of LLE in therapist training and practice. Data were coded and thematically analyzed to identify patterns in how experiential knowledge is valued within PAT.ResultsParticipants highlighted potential benefits of LLE, including greater empathy, confidence, and therapeutic rapport, particularly amid lingering stigma. They emphasized PAT's unique demands due to its intense, altered states, requiring deeper therapist familiarity. LLE was seen as uniquely improving therapists' insight and credibility beyond standard training. Most advocated for optional, safe, and structured inclusion of LLE in formal training, respecting safety and ethical considerations.ConclusionPsychologists viewed LLE as a valuable addition to PAT training, though not mandatory. Findings reflect growing professional openness to experiential learning, suggesting structured LLE may be valuable for preparing psychedelic therapists.
ABSTRACT The fungal pathogen of amphibians Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is the leading cause of disease‐related extinctions in vertebrates globally. The fungus has a biphasic lifecycle, and the free‐living infectious motile zoospore stage can remain viable in moist environments. This contributes to indirect and cross‐species transmission, as well as temporal persistence and spatial spread of the pathogen. Despite over two decades of surveillance of Bd in hosts, a better understanding of the ecology of this fungus also requires examining how environmental factors shape its temporal and spatial dynamics in water bodies. While environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have previously been used to detect Bd, few studies have applied this approach under extreme or shifting climatic conditions. We used eDNA to quantify Bd across 31 rainforest streams in Australia, providing rare insight into Bd dynamics during a period of unforeseen drought followed by record‐breaking rainfall. We collected water samples across four sampling periods during the breeding season of stream‐dwelling frogs. There was a high geographic variation in both detection and quantity of Bd. Bd eDNA was detected in 75 out of 222 water samples, with the greatest percentage of the 31 streams testing positive during spring (Sept. 2019). We detected Bd eDNA in most of the streams surveyed, particularly in areas where amphibians are known to have declined. Detection proportion and Bd eDNA quantity were both positively influenced by elevation and cumulative rainfall, with detection greatest at higher elevations and following increased rainfall. Bd eDNA quantity was positively related to water temperature, but declined at temperatures above 19.5°C. However, Bd eDNA detection also varied within samples, with low correlation between positive qPCR results. Through sampling Bd eDNA, we can expand our understanding of the ecology of a lethal pathogen, but our results highlight the need for multiple spatial, temporal and technical replicates to improve reliability of eDNA for Bd surveillance.
Tissue-specific anthocyanin pigmentation is observed in rapeseed (Brassica napus L. AACC, 2n = 38) as well as in its ancestral diploids Brassica rapa (AA, 2n = 20) and Brassica oleracea (CC, 2n = 18). We previously identified the MYB genes BnaPAP2.A7b and BnaPAP2.C6a as key regulators of anthocyanin biosynthesis. Here we uncover an antagonistic regulatory mechanism in leaves involving their paralog BnaPAP2.C2. Unlike the pigmentation-associated genes, BnaPAP2.C2 is constitutively expressed in both green and purple leaves, regardless of anthocyanin levels. Its promoter contains two enhancers (463 and 486 bp) that synergistically regulate transcription. Competitive binding studies reveal that BnaPAP2.C2, although lacking activation capacity, sequesters BnaTT8 and outcompetes BnaPAP2.A7b, thereby suppressing anthocyanin biosynthesis. Under environmental stress, elevated expression of BnaPAP2.A7b promotes anthocyanin biosynthesis, whereas BnaPAP2.C2 is downregulated. This paralog-specific molecular antagonism provides new insight into the evolution of MYB-bHLH interaction specificity. Together, these findings uncover a novel inhibitory mechanism within the anthocyanin regulatory hierarchy of polyploid rapeseed, highlighting competitive binding as an evolutionary innovation driving functional diversification of duplicated MYB regulators.
