People are at their happiest at retirement age and their most miserable in their geriatric years, according to a study we published recently in the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation. Our findings…
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I’m a fan of the retention of pubic hair. I don’t much like the idea of breast implants. Thoughts of vaginoplasty coax me into an involuntary Kegel exercise. I’ve no idea why any woman would bleach her…
The tide of globalisation drives development, providing jobs and much needed dollars. But development and trade consumes local biodiversity, much of it in the iconic biodiversity hotspots of tropical countries…
Welcome to Peer Review, a series in which we ask leading academics to review books written by people working in the same field. Here Rob Brooks, Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of New…
The notion of walking backwards into the future describes the value we can derive from remembering and understanding our past, in order to best prepare for a better tomorrow. We can’t do this without properly…
The quest for equal pay between men and women represents one of the oldest battle lines for feminism. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) finds that women’s wages are now 17.4…
Politics, Independence and the National Interest: the legacy of power and how to achieve a peaceful Western Pacific I am honoured to be asked to make this speech. During the turbulent years of the 1970s…
The dispute between the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments over the approval of Gina Rinehart’s Alpha Coal Mine continues to escalate with the Prime Minister now backing her Environment Minister…
Whatever the outcome of the Egyptian presidential runoff scheduled for 16-17 June, Middle Eastern electoral politics are now conforming to a remarkable rule. When elections are held in a free and fair…
This week’s release of the NSW Health and Medical Research Strategic Review identifies many opportunities to strengthen research and ensure the community extracts the maximum possible benefit from its…
The halt in the Alpha Coal Project approval process shows the Commonwealth is taking very seriously UNESCO’s recent report threatening downgrading the status of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area…
Update: to observers on Australia’s eastern seaboard, the transit of Venus is now complete. The two time-lapse videos below, provided by the University of Queensland, show Venus first passing in front…
Does Anders Breivik deserve friends? The Norwegian justice system thinks so. It is often said that the humanity of a society can be judged by the way it treats its most disadvantaged citizens, even those…
Qantas has shocked the market with a 90% profit downgrade, causing shares to plunge to their lowest point since privatisation. Tony Webber, formerly the Qantas chief economist and now Associate Professor…
When it comes to engaging with industry, government and the broader community, there is one secret weapon that is often overlooked in the university sector – the humble story. The art of storytelling is…
The phrase “class warfare” has been thrown around a lot in the media and within political circles recently – usually without much basis. But in Victoria it is very real; the current Liberal Government…
Is there an explicit link between playing violent videogames and becoming a deadly killer? If we are to take seriously a new study published in the journal Communication Research, there seems to be. Cue…
Ageing is the sum of many processes acting in concert to produce the signs and symptoms we know as “getting old”. Of course, there’s no way to stop the ageing process, but a better understanding of the…
At current levels of funding, it is not possible to save all threatened species in Australia from extinction. Trade-offs are required. For example, managers could concentrate efforts on the most threatened…
A few weeks ago, a Deakin University academic, Martin Hirst, made some interesting comments about the politics and economics of class warfare and redistribution. He correctly noted that the accusations…
Amid the tumultuous economic climate in the US and Europe - not to mention the tumbling fortunes of our sharemarket - the Reserve Bank of Australia has followed market sentiment and cut the official cash…
Recent, unprecedented, climate-driven forest collapses in Western Australia show us that ecosystem change can be sudden, dramatic and catastrophic. These collapses are a clear signal that we must develop…
Two large multinational pharmaceutical companies are fighting for patents and monopoly pricing in Indian courts. The outcomes of the cases – involving Novartis and Bayer – are likely to determine the country’s…
In my previous article we discussed the “who, what, when, where and how” of the worldwide gravitational wave detection effort. The observant observer will have noticed we’re still missing the “why”. Why…
The hares are running on the proposition that the Fairfax Media board is considering a medium-term plan to give up on printed Monday to Friday editions of its main mastheads in favour of a digital-only…