In June, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stated that some athletes at the London Olympics, though legally female, may be subject to testing to see if their bodies produce an above-average quantity…
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During the London Olympics, and beyond, many endurance athletes will attempt to increase their muscle glycogen stores by carbohydrate loading. This is because, despite its importance, glycogen is a fuel…
Finally, perhaps the time has come. The Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders and the Australian Teacher Performance and Development Framework, both signed off…
Whenever I hear dire predictions concerning the social impact of new technologies, I recall a similar prediction made nearly 2,500 years ago. In the Phaedrus, Plato recounts a myth, according to which…
Welcome to Part Two of Professor Andrew Campbell’s special report on the troubling plight of irrigation research and development in Australia. In part one, Professor Campbell argued that despite an unprecedented…
In the late 1990s, American writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich spent a year working in low end jobs in the United States documenting the pitifully low wages, the oppression, and barriers to upward…
Now, as at the time of the Vietnam war, the global primacy of the United States is increasingly being questioned. Among the reasons are its role in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the continued and…
Australia is facing an epidemic of chronic lifestyle-related diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and chronic lung disease. We have many treatments for these that aren’t necessarily…
Defence Minister Stephen Smith has been saying long and loud that there are no US military bases in Australia, and that anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. Last week, after Australian media reported…
The built and natural environments are now changing so rapidly that our language and conceptual frameworks have to work overtime just to keep up. Under the intertwined impacts of global development, rising…
As Australian economists and thought leaders continue to ponder what will happen when the resources boom ends, declining productivity levels are causing alarm. According to the global survey by the Economist…
A horse is a horse is a horse, right? Not so at the Olympics, where the equestrian events are unique among sports. Equestrian is the only discipline in which the human athlete relies on another living…
For many decades humans have pursued work to characterise the human genome. Today, publicly available references to genome sequences are available and have been instrumental in effecting recent advances…
As politics heightens in the decreasing count down to the 2013 Federal election, the opposition is laying its cards on the table. Always on the cards since the Institute for Public Affairs, a right-wing…
The world catches too many tuna. Thanks to our high levels of fishing, some tuna species are under threat. Everyone involved in the fishing industry agrees that fishing effort needs to be reduced. But…
“Events over the past couple of years have raised profound questions about the ways in which banks and businesses contribute to society. For both to play their full part, they must restore trust and become…
Backward running is the latest craze to hit the health and fitness world. After the seven-minute mile was recently cracked, advocates are campaigning for its inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games. So what…
Everybody hurts, but not everybody keeps hurting. The unlucky few who do end up on a downward spiral of economic, social and physical disadvantage. While we don’t know why some people don’t recover from…
Does the Tasmanian Parliament have the power to pass a law permitting same-sex marriage? The short answer is yes. But the more difficult question is whether that law will be effective or whether it will…
After releasing my report, Graduate Winners: Assessing the public and private benefits of higher education, the question I have most been asked is: if university fees go up, will students still come? It’s…
At 3.31pm today (AEST) the NASA control room in Pasadena, California erupted after people heard these three simple words: “touchdown signal detected”. This diminutive sentence signalled that the Curiosity…
The Mars Science Laboratory, otherwise known as the Curiosity rover, has safely landed on the red planet. While NASA engineers can now breath a sigh of relief, for a small army of people, the work on Mars…
_The Conversation, in conjunction with the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA), presents the monthly findings of the Shadow Board, prior to the meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia Board…
As the AFL season draws closer to the grand final, clubs are already looking to off-season training opportunities to prepare players for 2013. Several high-profile clubs are forking out big money to send…
In his recent visit to Australia, the prime minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, called for an end to sanctions against his country. Australians may wonder why his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC…