Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia’s first tertiary education institution. It is committed to maximising the potential of its students, teachers and researchers for the benefit of Australia and the wider world.
Pity the humble transport researcher who tries to understand how much Australian governments spend on roads and public transport! In this country, figuring out who gets most is next to impossible. The…
Economists and physicists may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but then opposites often attract. Their union has recently produced a peculiar baby, a field of research known as “econophysics”. Physicists…
The lives of millions of people in the Arab-speaking world are changing. Often for the first time, women and men have jumped, danced, kissed strangers and sung in the streets. There is talk of dignity…
This morning Fairfax newspapers delivered a savage hit to the reputation of Paul Howes, National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the country’s best-known union leader. The story carried…
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott today announced $430 million in to boost support mentally ill Australians in the workforce with employment services, research and professional development. It’s an…
Do scientists have a language problem? Do policy makers have hearing issues? It would certainly seem so. Of late there have been frequent lamentations about scientists’ failure to make their case to the…
Towards the end of the ABC-TV historical drama Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo,* a party is thrown to celebrate the magazine’s third anniversary. Cleo had launched in November 1972, the same month that…
Long before men asked themselves “What’s the meaning of life?”, they were scratching their heads and wondering “How do I get the girl?” And it’s not just humans who have been consumed with this question…
Over the last few days, union officials past and present have strafed the Gillard government. Senator Doug Cameron felt compelled to attack the free trade agreement with the USA that Gillard’s government…
Australian science institutions and scientists must retain the confidence of the public and Australian governments. By blurring facts, disrespecting other institutions’ research processes and turning their…
In 1998, Professor Muhammad Yunus was the inaugural recipient of Australia’s only international award for peace, the Sydney Peace Prize. Almost nine years later, in December 2006, he received the Nobel…
No amount of AFL passes in the Oval Office during Prime Minister Gillard’s visit to Washington last month could disguise the real issue facing Australia, the US and the rest of the world: the rise of China…
FOOD SECURITY - Soils can help us solve two of the most pressing problems of the coming decades: climate change and food shortage. There is more fresh water in the world’s soils than in all its lakes and…
Some 150 years ago, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for evolutionary change; but is there something beyond natural selection driving evolution? My colleagues and I think so, and we believe it has come…
On a recent long-haul flight, with very limited movie options, I watched the Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp movie The Tourist (two thumbs firmly down). A particular scene on a train to Venice did catch…
We know a lot about what the universe looks like and how it works. But what we’ve been able to figure out about the cosmos is dwarfed by all the things we don’t know. How do galaxies, stars and planets…
For the public, the jury is still out on nanotechnology – the media simultaneously extols its promise and warns of the potential calamity facing humanity. But what is it? How does it work? Is it dangerous…
No parent decides to make their child obese. Yet one in five children will be overweight or obese by the time they reach primary school. We now know that excessive weight gain actually begins much earlier…
This week’s change of leadership at Woolworths has managed to temporarily deflect the vitriolic criticism being heaped on Australia’s two grocery retailers as they engage in their so-called ‘milk’ wars…
Australia has many world class universities but some are failing their students by not providing the on-campus, life changing experiences available elsewhere. Many students live a protected life at home…