Shi Xuejun gestures during a class at Nanjing School for the Deaf
in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province. PHOTO: XINHUA
NANJING (XINHUA) – Born in 1970, Shi Xuejun has been teaching hearing-impaired students for about 30 years, during which she developed a set of effective teaching methods on her own.
The courses Shi gives are tailored to best serve the development needs of each child.
She develops physics experiment classes where students can explore simple mechanisms such as fruit batteries, ward call systems and camera structures.
Students are also organised to visit museums as a way to improve their social skills and enrich their school lives.
Shi Xuejun gestures during a class at Nanjing School for the Deaf in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province. PHOTO: XINHUAXuejun with her students in a physics experiment class. PHOTO: XINHUA
A wastepicker walks past a pile of garbage at a landfill in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: AP
AP – The amount and proportion of the powerful heat-trapping gas methane that humans spew into the atmosphere is rising, helping to turbocharge climate change, a new study found.
The study found that in 2020, the last year complete data is available, the world put 670 million tonnes (608 million metric tonnes) of methane in the air, up nearly 12 per cent from 2000. An even more significant finding in the study in Environmental Research Letters was the source of those emissions: those from humans jumped almost 18 per cent in two decades, while natural emissions, mostly from wetlands, inched up just two per cent in the same time.
Methane levels in the air are now 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times, the study said. Methane levels in the air had plateaued for a while in the early 2000s, but now are soaring. Humans cause methane emissions by burning fossil fuels, engaging in large-scale agriculture and filling up landfills.
“Methane is a climate menace that the world is ignoring,” said study lead author Rob Jackson, head of the Global Carbon Project, which is a group of scientists who monitor greenhouse gas emissions yearly. Methane has risen far more and much faster than carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is still the biggest threat, said Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist. Humans, mostly through the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, put 60 times more CO2 in the air than methane and it lasts thousands of years.
Because methane leave the atmosphere in about a decade, it’s a powerful “lever” that humans can use to fight climate change, Jackson said. That’s because cutting it could yield relatively quick benefits.
A wastepicker walks past a pile of garbage at a landfill in Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia. PHOTO: APCows stand together in a meadow in Wehrheim, near Frankfurt, Germany. PHOTO: APPHOTO: ENVATO
In 2000, 60 per cent of the methane spewed into the air came from direct human activity. Now it’s 65 per cent, the study found.
“It’s a very worrying paper, but actually not a big surprise unfortunately,” said climate scientist and chief executive officer of Climate Analytics Bill Hare, who wasn’t part of the research.
He said for the world to keep warming to an agreed-upon limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) since pre-industrial times, the world needs to cut CO2 emissions nearly in half and methane by more than one-third. But Jackson said the current trend with methane emissions has the world on target for warming of 3°C, twice the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Jackson’s study mostly focused on where the methane is coming from, both by location and source.
Geographically, everywhere but Europe is increasing in human-caused methane emissions, with large jumps in Asia, especially China and India, Jackson said.
In the last 20 years, methane emissions from coal mining, oil and gas have jumped 33 per cent, while landfill and waste increased 20 per cent and agriculture emissions rose 14 per cent, according to the study. The biggest single human-connected source of emissions are cows, Jackson said.
Cornell University climate scientist Robert Howarth faulted the study for not sufficiently emphasising methane emissions from the boom in shale gas drilling, known as fracking. He said that boom began in 2005 and coincided with a sharp rise in methane emissions, including a spike of about 13 million tonnes (11.7 million metric tonnes) in the United States alone since then.
Jackson said the rise in natural methane from tropical wetlands was triggered by warmer temperatures that caused microbes to spew more gas. He called it disturbing because “we don’t have any way of reducing” those emissions.
In 2021, countries promised to do something about methane, but it’s not working yet, Jackson said. – Seth Borenstein
ABOVE & BELOW: A man walks on a railway track littered with plastic and other waste materials in Mumbai, India; and a volunteer picks up trash on a river covered with trash in Pecatu, Bali, Indonesia. PHOTO: AP
AP – The world creates 57 million tonnes of plastic pollution every year and spreads it from the deepest oceans to the highest mountaintop to the inside of people’s bodies, according to a new study that also said more than two-thirds of it comes from the Global South.
It’s enough pollution each year – about 52 million metric tonnes – to fill New York City’s Central Park, United States (US), with plastic waste as high as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom (UK). They examined waste produced on the local level at more than 50,000 cities and towns across the world for a study in the journal Nature.
The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment, not plastic that goes into landfills or is properly burned. For 15 per cent of the world’s population, government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study’s authors said – a big reason Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That includes 255 million people in India, the study said.
Lagos, Nigeria, emitted the most plastic pollution of any city, according to study author Costas Velis, a Leeds environmental engineering professor. The other biggest plastic polluting cities are New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan and Al Qahirah, Egypt.
India leads the world in generating plastic pollution, producing 10.2 million tonnes a year (9.3 million metric tonnes), far more than double the next big-polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often villainised for pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste, Velis said. Other top plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight nations are responsible for more than half of the globe’s plastic pollution, according to the study’s data.
The US ranks 90th in plastic pollution with more than 52,500 tonnes (47,600 metric tonnes) and the UK ranks 135th with nearly 5,100 tonnes (4,600 metric tonnes), according to the study.
ABOVE & BELOW: A man walks on a railway track littered with plastic and other waste materials in Mumbai, India; and a volunteer picks up trash on a river covered with trash in Pecatu, Bali, Indonesia. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APNina Gomes recovers a discarded plastic bag from ocean waters, near Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. PHOTO: AP
In 2022, most of the world’s nations agreed to make the first legally binding treaty on plastics pollution, including in the oceans. Final treaty negotiations take place in South Korea in November.
The study used artificial intelligence to concentrate on plastics that were improperly burned – about 57 per cent of the pollution – or just dumped. In both cases incredibly tiny microplastics, or nanoplastics, are what turn the problem from a visual annoyance at beaches and a marine life problem to a human health threat, Velis said.
Several studies this year have looked at how prevalent microplastics are in our drinking water and in people’s tissue, such as hearts, brains and testicles, with doctors and scientists still not quite sure what it means in terms of human health threats.
“The big time bomb of microplastics are these microplastics released in the Global South mainly,” Velis said. “We already have a huge dispersal problem. They are in the most remote places… the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe and what we eat and what we drink.”
He called it “everybody’s problem” and one that will haunt future generations.
“We shouldn’t put the blame, any blame, on the Global South,” Velis said. “And we shouldn’t praise ourselves about what we do in the Global North in any way.”
It’s just a lack of resources and ability of government to provide the necessary services to citizens, Velis said.
Outside experts worried that the study’s focus on pollution, rather than overall production, lets the plastics industry off the hook. Making plastics emits large amounts of greenhouse gas that contribute to climate change.
“These guys have defined plastic pollution in a much narrower way, as really just macroplastics that are emitted into the environment after the consumer, and it risks us losing our focus on the upstream and saying, hey now all we need to do is manage the waste better,” said senior director of science and policy Neil Tangri at GAIA, a global network of advocacy organisations working on zero waste and environmental justice initiatives.
“It’s necessary but it’s not the whole story.”
Theresa Karlsson, science and technical advisor to International Pollutants Elimination Network, another coalition of advocacy groups on environment, health and waste issues, called the volume of pollution identified by the study “alarming” and said it shows the amount of plastics being produced today is “unmanageable”.
But she said the study misses the significance of the global trade in plastic waste that has rich countries sending it to poor ones. The study said plastic waste trade is decreasing, with China banning waste imports. But Karlsson said overall waste trade is actually increasing and likely plastics with it.
She cited European Union waste exports going from 110,000 tonnes (100,000 metric tonnes) in 2004 to 1.4 million tonnes (1.3 million metric tonnes) in 2021. Velis said the amount of plastic waste traded is small. Kara Lavender Law, an oceanography professor at the Sea Education Association who wasn’t involved in the study, agreed, based on US plastic waste trends. She said this was otherwise one of the more comprehensive studies on plastic waste.
Officials in the plastics industry praised the study.
“This study underscores that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is the largest contributor to plastic pollution and that prioritising adequate waste management is critical to ending plastic pollution,” International Council on Chemical Associations council secretary Chris Jahn said in a statement. In treaty negotiations, the industry opposes a cap on plastic production.
The United Nations projects that plastics production is likely to rise from about 440 million tonnes (400 million metric tonnes) a year to more than 1,200 million tonnes (1,100 million metric tonnes, saying “our planet is choking in plastic”.
A pregnant dengue fever patient, Josselyn Caqui, sits under a mosquito net at the Sergio Bernales National Hospital in the outskirts of Lima, Peru. PHOTO: AFP
AFP – A global network of doctors and laboratories is working to pinpoint emerging viral threats, including many driven by climate change, in a bid to head off the world’s next pandemic.
The coalition of self-described “virus hunters” has uncovered everything from an unusual tick-borne disease in Thailand to a surprise outbreak in Colombia of an infection spread by midges.
“The roster of things that we have to worry about, as we saw with COVID-19, is not static,” said infectious disease expert Gavin Cloherty, who heads the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition.
“We have to be very vigilant about how the bad guys that we know about are changing… But also if there’s new kids on the block,” he told AFP.
The coalition brings together doctors and scientists at universities and health institutions across the world, with funding from healthcare and medical devices giant Abbott.
By uncovering new threats, the coalition gives Abbott a potential headstart in designing the kinds of testing kits that were central to the COVID-19 response.
And its involvement gives the coalition deep pockets and the ability to detect and sequence but also respond to new viruses.
A pregnant dengue fever patient, Josselyn Caqui, sits under a mosquito net at the Sergio Bernales National Hospital in the outskirts of Lima, Peru. PHOTO: AFPABOVE & BELOW: An adult tick with a nymph (young tick); and a mosquito. PHOTO: AFPPHOTO: AFP
“When we find something, we’re able to very quickly make diagnostic tests at industry level,” Cloherty said.
“The idea is to ringfence an outbreak, so that we would be able to hopefully prevent a pandemic.” The coalition has sequenced approximately 13,000 samples since it began operating in 2021. In Colombia, it found an outbreak of Oropouche, a virus spread by midges and mosquitoes that had rarely been seen there before.
Phylogenetic work to trace the strain’s family tree revealed it came from Peru or Ecuador, rather than Brazil, another hotspot.
“You can see where things are moving from. It’s important from a public health perspective,” said Cloherty.
More recently, the coalition worked with doctors in Thailand to reveal that a tick-bourne virus was behind a mysterious cluster of patient cases.
“At the time, we didn’t know what virus caused this syndrome,” said associate professor Pakpoom Phoompoung of infectious disease at Siriraj Hospital.
Testing and sequencing of samples that dated back as far as 2014 found many were positive for severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTSV).
“Less than 10 patients had (previously) been diagnosed with SFTSV in Thailand… we don’t have PCR diagnosis, we don’t have serology for this viral infection diagnosis,” Pakpoom told AFP.
“Diagnosing it is difficult, labour intensive and also is costly.”
And there is a growing need to track these threats as climate change expands the range of infectious disease globally.
The link between climate change and infectious disease is well-established and multi-faceted.
Warmer conditions allow vectors like mosquitoes to live in new locations, more rain creates more breeding pools, and extreme weather forces people into the open where they are more vulnerable to bites.
Human impact on the planet is also driving the spread and evolution of infectious disease in other ways: biodiversity loss forces viruses to evolve into new hosts, and can push animals into closer contact with humans.
Phylogenetic analysis of the SFTSV strain in Thailand gives a snapshot of the complex interplay.
It showed the virus had evolved from one tick with a smaller geographic range into the hardier Asian longhorned tick.
The analysis suggested its evolution was driven largely by pesticide use that reduced the numbers of the original tick host. Once the virus evolved, it could spread further in part because Asian longhorned ticks can live on birds, which are travelling further and faster because of changing climate conditions.
“It’s almost like they’re an airline,” said Cloherty.
MANILA (AFP) – Philippine authorities have detained more than 250 people, most of them foreign nationals, in a raid on a suspected online scam farm in Manila, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Police and other authorities raided the office building late Thursday to find staff with hundreds of phones, computers, and pre-registered international and local SIM cards, the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission said. “These are red flags of love scamming that victimises foreign nationals,” the commission said in a statement, referring to schemes in which scammers pretend to have romantic feelings for their victims in order to earn their trust and eventually steal their money.
International concern has been growing over similar scam farms in Asia, often staffed by victims of trafficking who were tricked or coerced into promoting bogus crypto investments and other cons.
In July, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos outlawed all forms of offshore gaming operators, including internet gaming licence holders, after the gambling industry was found to be linked to financial scams, kidnapping, prostitution, human trafficking, torture and murder.
AFP – Infections of drug-resistant superbugs are projected to kill nearly 40 million people over the next 25 years, a global analysis predicted, with the researchers urging action to avoid this grim scenario.
Superbugs – strains of bacteria or pathogens that have become resistant to antibiotics, making them much harder to treat – have been recognised as a rising threat to global health.
The analysis has been billed as the first research to track the global impact of superbugs over time and to estimate what could happen next.
More than a million people died from the superbugs – also called antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – per year across the world between 1990 and 2021, according to the GRAM study in The Lancet journal.
Deaths among children under five from superbugs actually fell by more than 50 per cent over the last three decades, the study said, due to improving measures to prevent and control infections for infants.
However, when children now catch superbugs, the infections are much harder to treat. And deaths of over-70s have surged by more than 80 per cent over the same period, as an ageing population became more vulnerable to infection.
Deaths from infections of MRSA, a type of staph bacteria that has become resistant to many antibiotics, doubled to 130,000 in 2021 from three decades earlier, the study said.
The researchers used modelling to estimate that, based on current trends, the number of direct deaths from AMR would rise by 67 per cent to reach nearly two million a year by 2050.
It would also play a role in a further 8.2 million annual deaths, a jump of nearly 75 per cent, according to the modelling.
Under this scenario, AMR will have directly killed 39 million people over the next quarter century and contributed to a total of 169 million deaths, it added.
But less dire scenarios are also possible. If the world works to improve care for severe infections and access to antimicrobial drugs, it could save the lives of 92 million people by 2050, the modelling suggested. The researchers looked at 22 pathogens, 84 combinations of drugs and pathogens, and 11 infectious syndromes such as meningitis.
The study involved data from 520 million individual records across 204 countries and territories.
“These findings highlight that AMR has been a significant global health threat for decades and that this threat is growing,” said study co-author Mohsen Naghavi of the United States-based Institute of Health Metrics.
Head of Infectious disease policy Jeremy Knox at the United Kingdom-based health charity the Wellcome Trust warned that the effects of rising AMR rates would be felt across the world.
“An increasing AMR burden at the scale described in the GRAM report would represent a steady undermining of modern medicine as we know it, as the antibiotics we rely upon to keep common medical interventions safe and routine could lose their effectiveness,” Knox told AFP.
Brunei LNG senior officials with SPHI Marine officers taking a group photo in front of the company's first escort terminal tug, the m/v SOFEA. PHOTO: AJEEMH
Brunei LNG senior officials with SPHI Marine officers taking a group photo in front of the company’s first escort terminal tug, the m/v SOFEA. PHOTO: AJEEMHPlaque signing by Yang Berhormat Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Shamhary bin Pengiran Dato Paduka Haji Mustapha as the guest of honour to commemorate the event. PHOTO: AJEEMH
The 1st October 2024 was another truly historic and momentous occasion in the midstream integrated gas industry with the official commencement of Brunei Darussalam’s first fleet of locally owned, financed and flagged escort terminal tugs servicing the A Class LNG Tankers at Brunei’s Lumut LNG Terminal.
Minister of Transport and Infocommunications, Yang Berhormat Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Shamhary bin Pengiran Dato Paduka Haji Mustapha officiated the ceremony as the guest of honour.
In his officiating speech, the minister congratulated the directors, shareholders and management of SPHI Marine Sdn Bhd on the delivery and commencement of its locally owned, flagged and operated escort terminal tugs.
As one of the major contributors to Brunei Darussalam’s export revenues, Brunei LNG has maintained a reputation as one of the safest and most reliable LNG suppliers in the world. Coupled with strong commitment to their valued customers for further sustainability, Brunei LNG continues to improve the delivery performance of its LNG through the operations of their four A Class vessels since 2011.
The minister stated that the Government of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam is therefore proud that a locally owned, Brunei company, for the very first time since the commencement of LNG export operations in 1972, has been given the responsibility to continue supporting LNG tanker loading and delivery schedules continuously throughout the year and ensure that this entire process is performed safely and efficiently without incident, for these large LNG tankers.
The ceremony commenced with the recital of Al-Fatihah and Doa Selamat by the imam. This was followed by a welcoming speech by the managing director of SPHI Marine Hj Ibrahim Khalili Bin PD Hj Abd. Rahman.
SPHI Marine is a locally owned and managed offshore support vessel company (OSV) providing OSV services to Brunei LNG and Brunei Shell Petroleum Company Sdn Bhd.
The three escort terminal tugs are the latest, state of the art 32-metre tugs, designed by world class naval architects with a bollard pull capacity of 80 tons. The first two escort terminal tugs, m/v SOFEA and m/v MAY ROSA were delivered to Brunei LNG on 1st July 2023. The third Terminal Tug, m/v MARYAM was delivered in April 2024.
Haji Ibrahim in his speech stated the milestone not only provides opportunities to SPHI Marine and the local Bruneians working both on the vessels and also onshore in the offices, but also ensures that local business development in this critical industry has continued progressing forward and given an opportunity to gain new knowledge, and ultimately, pride, to all stakeholders especially His Majesty’s Government, knowing that Brunei companies are able to rise to the occasion to the challenges set when given an opportunity.
The officiating ceremony was followed by the cutting of the ceremonial ribbons by Yang Berhormat Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Shamhary; Yang Mulia Mr Gbolahan Adeleye Falade, Managing Director of Brunei LNG; as well as SPHI Marine Technical Director Hj Jameel Ahmed Hj Basheer Ahmed.
Guest of honour with government senior officials, Brunei LNG MD and SPHI Marine directors. PHOTO: RAFI ROSLIGuest of honour on board SPHI Marine’s latest addition to the company fleet, the m/v Maryam. PHOTO: AJEEMH
This was followed by a tour of one of the two escort terminal tugs by the guest of honour.
Amongst the attendees were senior government officials from His Majesty’s Government, the deputy CEO of Baiduri Bank, senior Brunei LNG stakeholders as well as directors and shareholders of SPHI Marine.
AP – Many people have seen dogs fetch, but cats like to get into the game too. Despite their very different hunting and play styles, fetching appears to combine elements of predatory and social behaviour for both species.
Although their domestication histories and natural behaviours are very different, cats and dogs share many similarities. Both species are predators, live closely with humans and are capable of enjoying rich social experiences with us.
In our newly published study, we found that more than 40 per cent of cats described in our survey data played fetch, compared with almost 80 per cent of dogs.
We also outlined several possible reasons for fetching, including play, selection during domestication, and learning effects.
SCANT RESEARCH
Our research group sat up and took note when British researchers published a study in 2023 that explored some key characteristics of fetching in cats. The scientists surveyed 924 owners of cats that fetched, and they found that the cats would retrieve a wide variety of objects, from pet toys and balls of paper to pens, bottle caps and even shoes.
Perhaps most intriguing was the fact that the cats generally were not trained to fetch – they offered the behaviour spontaneously. Cats also preferred to be the one to start the fetch game and were more likely to play when they brought a toy to their human, rather than the human tossing a toy.
Prior to this study, fetching behaviour in cats hadn’t received much scientific attention. But because this review surveyed only owners of cats that fetched, there was no way to compare those animals with cats that didn’t. We wondered whether there was something about the cats themselves that made some more likely to fetch than others.
And what about dogs? Fetching is one of the most common forms of play between dogs and humans. Many dogs have been bred and selected specifically for assisting human hunts by retrieving prey. We expected to find abundant research about fetching behaviour in dogs, but we learned that it was rarely addressed in dog behaviour studies.
PHOTO: FREEPIKPHOTO: FREEPIK
FLUFFY, GET THE BALL!
To help fill this gap, our group teamed with University of Pennsylvania researcher James Serpell, who developed two survey-based tools to assess dog and cat behaviour. The surveys include basic questions about each animal’s breed, age and living environment, followed by dozens of questions about their behaviour, including traits such as predatory behaviour, sociability with humans, activity level and fearfulness. Both surveys also included questions about fetching.
Using these survey results, we analysed data from thousands of cat and dog owners to explore just how common fetching is and what characteristics of a cat or dog and their environment are likely to predict fetching.
We found that fetching was much more common in cats than we anticipated. Over 40 per cent of cat owners had a cat that “sometimes, usually, or always” fetched.
For comparison, we also provided the first estimate of the prevalence of fetching behaviour in dogs.
Almost 78 per cent of dogs represented in the data were reported to fetch.
Interestingly, being male was associated with increased fetching in both species. Being older and having health problems decreased the likelihood that either cats or dogs would be fetchers. And for both species, sharing a home with a dog also made the animal represented in the survey less likely to fetch.
There were breed differences too, especially among dogs. Breeds known for being responsive to human instructions and taking interest in toys, such as German shepherd dogs, golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers, were among the most likely breeds to fetch.
In contrast, hounds and livestock guard dogs were among those least likely to fetch.
Fetching was correlated with trainability in dogs, regardless of breed, pointing to the potential importance of early selection of dogs to be human helpers, long before we started developing dog breeds.
There are far fewer breeds of cats than dogs, and fewer purebred cats were represented in our study compared with dogs. Still, we also found breed differences among cats. Siamese, Tonkinese, Burmese and Bengals were the most likely cats to fetch.
Fetching was correlated with activity level: Cats that were more likely to run, jump, engage with new items in the home and initiate play with their owners were also more likely to fetch.
FROM HUNTING TO PLAYING CATCH
The roots of fetching behaviour lie in both species’ hunting practices. Cats are known as stalk-and-rush hunters, meaning that they sneak up on their prey and pounce at an opportune moment. Dogs are believed to be pursuit predators that chase prey over longer distances.
Development of breeds has altered dogs’ typical predatory behavior sequence, which goes like this: orient, eye, stalk, chase, grab-bite, kill-bite.
Dog breeds that have been bred for exaggerated or increased “chase and/or grab-bite” behaviour – such as pointers and retrievers – are more likely to fetch and less likely to complete the predatory sequence and “kill-bite”.
But both cats and dogs will carry prey items away from the kill site, which may also partially explain how a behaviour such as fetch could arise.
Although cats often are viewed as independent and aloof, recent studies have found that cats can show attachment to humans, pick up social cues from humans and even recognise their owner’s voice.
We hope that our study further encourages people to understand that cats are capable of loving relationships with humans, especially when these popular pets are well socialised and provided with an enriched and safe environment. Including fetching, if your cat is so inclined.
For all of the differences between dogs and cats, we think it’s charming that they have converged on a similar behaviour – fetching.
Fetching also highlights the effect of the human-animal relationship. Humans clearly play an important role in fetching behaviour, even if dogs and cats simply perceive us as the thing that makes the toy move so they can chase it. – Mikel Delgado
BERNAMA-DPA – Do you find yourself constantly watching the clock, eagerly waiting to shut down your computer and head home, craving something more fulfilling?
Are you feeling exhausted at work despite doing just the bare minimum? You might be experiencing boreout.
While burnout is often the bigger concern, boreout can be just as harmful to your job satisfaction and well-being.
Career coach Heidie Steinberger offers three key tips to help you break free from this slump and regain a sense of purpose at work.
1. SELF-REFLECTION
If you think you’re suffering from boreout, the first thing to do is to engage in meaningful reflection. Try to truly understand why you feel frustrated at work, Steinberger wrote in a post on Xing.
The expert recommended taking some time out of your day to actively write down what has been bothering you. Also try to figure out what motivates you at work, she said.
You need to be aware of your own needs before you can take further steps, Steinberger said.
2. TACKLE NEW CHALLENGES
It may be hard, but next, try to force yourself out of your comfort zone, the career coach said. She recommended looking for a challenging project, even if it doesn’t fit your profile.
Start by approaching your boss and ask them for new tasks, Steinberger said.
Trainings or workshops are another great way to give you new perspective and boost motivation, even if they are not primarily related to your field.
What counts is that you shake up your routine, according to Steinberger.
3. PLAN YOUR NEXT CAREER MOVE
If you simply can’t picture a future at your current job, it may be time to consider more drastic change, the career coach said.
Actively “taking the reigns” is important when planning your next career move, Steinberger said.
If you don’t want to leave the company, changing departments or applying for a different position could also be an option.
Whatever you decide, Steinberger recommended to make a plan that lays out your goals for the next six months.
MADRID (AFP) – The number of men taking paternity leave in football-mad Spain rose during the 2022 World Cup, according to a study published on Thursday, suggesting watching matches was their main motive for taking time off.
Since 2021 both mothers and fathers in Spain are entitled to 16 weeks paid leave which can be taken in several spells during the first 12 months after a birth.
During the 2022 World Cup between November 20 and December 18 in Qatar there was “a daily excess of more than 1,000 men on paternity leave” registered with authorities compared to the previous and following years, according to a study by the Barcelona School of Economics.
There was no comparable rise in maternity leave during this period, or in paternity leave among self-employed workers who have a more flexible schedule, added the study titled Fathers’ Time-Use While on Paternity Leave: Childcare or Leisure?
“We interpret these results as direct evidence that (at least a fraction of) fathers take advantage of their paternity leave spells for activities unrelated to childcare,” the paper by three economists said.
“This may imply that these types of benefits are only partially effective at increasing gender balance in unpaid care work, and suggest that additional policies may be needed to effectively increase men’s contribution to childcare.”
Football is wildly popular in Spain, which has four daily newspapers dedicated to the sport. Spain won the World Cup in 2010 and are reigning European Champions.
