River regulation and climate change reduce river flows to major Australian floodplain wetland.

Freshwater ecosystems, including rivers and floodplain wetlands, face severe stress from unsustainable water resources development, with climate change exerting further pressure. This study compares the relative effects of river regulation and projected climate change on river flows to the semi-arid Lowbidgee Floodplain (3250 km), the largest wetland ecosystem on the heavily regulated Murrumbidgee River, Australia's second longest river, within the Murray-Darling Basin. We modelled annual natural streamflow in the lower Murrumbidgee River before major dam constructions and water diversions (1890-1927), linking river flows to runoff from the upper Murrumbidgee catchment.

I Can But I Shall Not Always Be Empathic.

Empathy, a core process for social interactions, is the capacity to understand and share others' mental states and emotions. Each individual is thought to have a maximum level of empathy (empathic ability) and a spontaneous tendency to express it (empathic propensity), which can be affected by multiple factors. Two within-subject studies were conducted to assess the malleability of empathy by modulating contextual factors and measuring their interaction with psychological characteristics.