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This paper reports on one part of a larger longitudinal empirical study (2021–2023) that responds to the call for Religious Education (RE) to address religious plurality in the context of senior Catholic schooling within an Australian Archdiocese where students represent multiple faith traditions or no traditions. The research focuses on the level of satisfaction by students across Topics, Pedagogies, and Outcomes within a new and innovative senior school curriculum, Religion Meaning and Life (RML) based on national RE guidelines. Participants included 276 students across 17 schools who completed an online survey with 32 of these students participating in focus group interviews. Data analysis of quantitative data was both descriptive and inferential, and qualitative data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Topics of most interest were Ethics and Other World Religions; pedagogies entailing dialogue and use of media and technologies were rated highly; and learning outcomes entailed awareness of school mission, the religious dimension of the school, and pastoral care. Inferential statistical analyses confirm four core topics, pedagogies, and outcomes as significant to levels of satisfaction and in combination accounted for 42% of the variance of satisfaction with RML. Theoretical propositions for what matters most in senior secondary RE were advanced through four integrating principles (educational, formative, social, communitarian) and practice implications that preference Catholic tradition, and reference religious plurality.

Abstract Threatened species are frequently patchily distributed across small wild populations, ex situ populations managed with varying levels of intensity and reintroduced populations. Best practice advocates for integrated management across in situ and ex situ populations. Wild addax (Addax nasomaculatus) now number fewer than 100 individuals, yet 1000 of addax remain in ex situ populations, which can provide addax for reintroductions, as has been the case in Tunisia since the mid‐1980s. However, integrated management requires genetic data to ascertain the relationships between wild and ex situ populations that have incomplete knowledge of founder origins, management histories, and pedigrees. We undertook a global assessment of genetic diversity across wild, ex situ and reintroduced populations in Tunisia to assist conservation planning for this Critically Endangered species. We show that the remnant wild populations retain more mitochondrial haplotypes that are more diverse than the entirety of the ex situ populations across Europe, North America and the United Arab Emirates, and the reintroduced Tunisian population. Additionally, 1704 SNPs revealed that whilst population structure within the ex situ population is minimal, each population carries unique diversity. Finally, we show that careful selection of founders and subsequent genetic management is vital to ensure genetic diversity is provided to, and minimize drift and inbreeding within reintroductions. Our results highlight a vital need to conserve the last remaining wild addax population, and we provide a genetic foundation for determining integrated conservation strategies to prevent extinction and optimize future reintroductions.

The Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) is patchily distributed across parts of Africa and Arabia. In Oman, it is one of the few free-ranging wild mammals found in the central and southern regions. Its population is declining due to habitat degradation, human expansion, poaching and fragmentation. Here, we investigated the population's genetic diversity using mitochondrial DNA (D-loop 186 bp and cytochrome b 487 bp). We found that the Nubian ibex in the southern region of Oman was more diverse (D-loop HD; 0.838) compared with the central region (0.511) and gene flow between them was restricted. We compared the genetic profiles of wild Nubian ibex from Oman with captive ibex. A Bayesian phylogenetic tree showed that wild Nubian ibex form a distinct clade independent from captive animals. This divergence was supported by high mean distances (D-loop 0.126, cytochrome b 0.0528) and high FST statistics (D-loop 0.725, cytochrome b 0.968). These results indicate that captive ibex are highly unlikely to have originated from the wild population in Oman and the considerable divergence suggests that the wild population in Oman should be treated as a distinct taxonomic unit. Further nuclear genetic work will be required to fully elucidate the degree of global taxonomic divergence of Nubian ibex populations.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterised by problems with social communication, social interaction and repetitive or restricted behaviours. ASD is comorbid with other disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, epilepsy, Rett syndrome and Fragile X syndrome. Neither the genetic nor the environmental components have been characterised well enough to aid diagnosis or treatment of non-syndromic ASD. However, genome-wide association studies have amassed evidence suggesting involvement of hundreds of genes and a variety of associated genetic pathways. Recently, investigators have turned to epigenetics, a prime mediator of environmental effects on genomes and phenotype, to characterise changes in ASD that constitute a molecular level on top of DNA sequence. Though in their infancy, such studies have the potential to increase our understanding of the aetiology of ASD and may assist in the development of biomarkers for its prediction, diagnosis, prognosis and eventually in its prevention and intervention. This review focuses on the first few epigenome-wide association studies of ASD and discusses future directions.