There’s an anecdote in Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants where Mother Fey hands her daughter two booklets to prepare her for her first period. On the (not-so) auspicious occasion of Fey’s menarche, the limitations…
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Cancer has been a National Health Priority Area since 1996 because of the burden it places on the Australian community. Of course, cancer isn’t just a health and economic burden – it takes an enormous…
Any parent will tell you the meaning of the saying “slept like a baby” is completely opposite to reality. Thankfully, many parents succeed in establishing a routine to their baby’s initial erratic sleep…
Hopes and fears of an alliance between Timor-Leste’s two major political parties, CNRT (National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction) and FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor…
Last week I attended the 24th Annual Conference of the Chinese Economics Society of Australia (CESA), a network of mostly Australian academics with research expertise in the Chinese economy. At this conference…
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are just around the corner, and promise to be a great global spectacle. At the same time, the organising committee are promising the most sustainable Olympics…
London 2012 is already seeing fierce competition for meme supremacy. Memes, especially in the form of captioned images - or image macros - are an increasingly mainstream form by which people comment on…
Medicine has long been the subject of vigorous debate about the control of social resources. The formation of modern medicine in the mid-19th century was itself the result of a century long fight for legitimacy…
World Cup qualifiers in South America are renowned for their ferocity. For Uruguayans, there is more at stake than national pride. Even a “friendly” against Argentina or Brazil is a chance for revenge…
As iconic sporting images go, there are few finer specimens than the picture of Brazilian genius Pele shaking hands with England captain Bobby Moore, after their teams battled to a 1-0 victory for Brazil…
July 1 has rolled past and Australia has a carbon tax. As Government Ministers prepare to hit the road to spruik the benefits of the tax, it’s worth shining a spotlight on the kinds of messages they love…
My wife says she has a sweet tooth. But doesn’t everyone? It’s universal to the human condition (as well as the human palate) to like something sweet. It may even be an evolutionary advantage to seek out…
As the Tour de France enters its final week, riders have already negotiated some of the toughest climbs in Europe, and have some major climbs still to go. So what makes some of those riders successful…
Buried away in the correspondence columns of last week’s Sunday Age, a former history teacher’s letter “Where’s our history?” started an intense and confused debate about a “threat” by the national curriculum…
When a 17-year-old girl, with a potentially life-threatening heart disorder, recently presented to me with an abnormally fast and irregular heart rhythm, I wondered how the natural history of her disease…
We once thought no-one could run a mile in less than four minutes – and yet the current world record stands at three minutes, 43 seconds. So will records keep tumbling as people get fitter and technology…
One of the more interesting outcomes the 2011 Census produced was the figures concerning the housing market. The reason for this interest is how the results contrasted with the idea that Australia currently…
One of the most controversial aspects of the Olympic Games is whether regular punters can get tickets to events. So can they? When the ticketing strategy for London’s Olympic Games was launched in 2011…
For seven years, the London Olympics Organising Committee has been striving to live up to the sustainability vision it set itself. It’s been a long, honest fight. On the eve of the Games, how well have…
The latest fatal shark bite on a surfer, north of Perth, is another in a string of terrible and random tragedies that have befallen Western Australia in the past two years. This seems to be an escalating…
The attack on the authority, integrity and judgement of the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Greg Medcraft, by the shadow minister for financial services and superannuation…
If you think that economics is all theory without real world applications, think again. The Conversation has been running an excellent six-part series by La Trobe University lecturer, Liam Lenten called…
Governments and their partisans are usually reluctant to admit that they might be unpopular for a reason. Labor partisans have offered many explanations for the unpopularity of the Gillard government…
National parks are among Australia and New Zealand’s most precious assets. But we don’t account for them properly, so they’re struggling. It’s time for a rethink. The assets managed by the parks agencies…
Scientific and medical articles, and websites by Crohn’s disease associations give similar definitions of the illness: “Crohn’s disease is a chronic, inflammatory disorder which may involve any part of…