Yesterday, 10,500 New Zealand farmers voted to allow Fonterra, one of the world’s leading dairy cooperatives, to be exposed to outside investors for the first time. 66.45% of Fonterra members voted for…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Home – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 48651 - 48675 of 52383 articles
Urinary incontinence, or the uncontrolled leakage of urine, is a common problem among women: it affects almost one in two women at some time in their life. It’s understandably a condition most women are…
Last week, the Commonwealth Attorney-General Nicola Roxon introduced a bill establishing the Australian Military Court as a constitutional court. If the bill passes, it will bring Australia into line with…
The $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has just passed the Senate and is now law. For all the attention it has received you may not have noticed, but a new industrial revolution is afoot…
In the late 1700s, French scientist Antoine Lavoisier proved that the mechanism behind burning is oxidation. Lavoisier’s discovery killed off an eternity of dogma involving a non-existent substance called…
There is a lot going on in the media industry at present. It is not a surprise that newspapers (the paper kind) are struggling to survive in the age of the internet. It is more of a surprise, therefore…
Pills made from “wild krill” (apparently so much better for you than domestic krill)? Antioxidants from exotic plants, chlorophyll or the “Sicilian Blood Orange”? Promises of extra vitality, vim and vigour…
AUSTRALIA BY NUMBERS: The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first batch of its census data. We’ve asked some of the country’s top demographers and statisticians to crunch the numbers on…
In part 13 of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Mark Diesendorf argues that it is high time we got smart about power: how we generate it and how we deliver it. Global challenge 13: How…
A national apology to Australian mothers who experienced forced adoptions was announced by Attorney General Nicola Roxon last weekend. This apology will follow those made to the Stolen Generations, Forgotten…
Humans have always had a deep affinity with the night sky. Over millennia the stars have guided us in our travels, provided a grand canvas for the great stories of mythology and invoked a sense of wonder…
The Rio+20 summit has raised a number of difficult questions about law and technology: what is the relationship between intellectual property and the environment? What role does intellectual property play…
Outbreaks of pimples, blackheads and cysts are a cause of enormous anxiety and embarrassment among teens and young adults. If you’re part of the 20% of Australians who have experienced severe acne, you’ve…
In the swathe of important debate that’s occurred in the last week about the massive changes underway in the Australian media, there’s a piece of the puzzle that’s been ignored. Indeed, it’s a piece that…
Australian universities compete with providers all over the globe. The stakes are high and it is hard to ignore world rankings. In The Conversation recently, however, University of Southern Queensland’s…
In part 12 of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Jacqui Baker argues that the ugly truth of organised crime is that governments and their agencies are a fundamental part of it. Global challenge…
An article published recently in Science sheds new light on paintings found in 11 cave sites in Spain. At 40,800 years old, some of these paintings could be among the oldest anywhere in the world. But…
In response to a recent South Australian coroner’s finding that three babies died from preventable causes, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has said she will close a loophole in national health laws that…
The issue of human overpopulation has fallen out of favour among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become a taboo topic. The silence around…
This week’s unfolding print news crisis may have taken newspaper workers by surprise, but it has an inevitable feel to those who’ve been studying the latest phase of restructuring in our digital media…
We are most of the way through a very long budget season this year, beginning with Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells in May and is not due to end till Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls delivers his first budget…
Economists are regularly criticised for worrying about gross domestic product (GDP) and similar measures. The classic statement of the case was by Robert F Kennedy: “Too much and too long, we seem to have…
We all know corporations do bad things. Big corporates have been publicly named and shamed for their participation in causing harm to people and the planet, and they are not always held to account. As…
The secretary-general of the United Nations’ (first) Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Maurice Strong, famously declared that if our planet is to remain a hospitable and sustainable home for the human species…
Early on in my career I was part of the process of closing down large-scale institutions for people with disabilities. My first experience of institutions was as a student. I visited Swanbourne Hospital…