The earthquake that struck roughly 400km off the coast of Sumatra on Wednesday reminded us all that our planet hasn’t gone to sleep. Big earthquakes can happen at any time and often have severe consequences…
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Watching the Q&A “debate” between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell made me realise, for the first time, why Professor Dawkins has become so impatient and intolerant when expressing his atheism…
There are polarising views on the subject of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM). This website has recently published numerous article about the efficacy and regulation of CAM, the placebo effect…
There’s been plenty of commentary recently on the “numeracy crisis” threatening the economies of many developed nations, including Australia. A 2009 report by the National Academies in the US was not the…
The Coalition state premiers going to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting today smell blood. The Gillard government is in a weak position with constant leadership speculation, the Craig…
TRANSPARENCY AND MEDICINE – A series examining issues from ethics to the evidence in evidence-based medicine, the influence of medical journals to the role of Big Pharma in our present and future health…
What is the music of trees? German artist Bartholomäus Traubeck spun slices of logs on turntables that translate their textures and annual rings into music. Traubeck calls the result Years, and I played…
Poverty is definitely not some bucolic ideal that we should romanticise. It is ugly, brutal and should be fought against. But there are lessons from the poor that we, in affluent (and frequently complacent…
The ability to see through walls and other objects Superman-style is surely high on the wish-list for many children. Sadly, with the purchase of a child’s first pair of novelty X-ray glasses, such dreams…
This weekend thousands of so-called “New Atheists” will converge on Melbourne for the second Global Atheist Convention. Last month Alain de Botton, a European popular philosopher, received copious coverage…
Sound and its use in communication have shaped the ecology, evolution, behaviour, and ultimately the success of many animal species. But are animals the only lifeforms to communicate with sound? Do plants…
The Gillard Government’s health reform legislation passed through parliament without too much fanfare last year, marking the end to the political debates around health reform. Importantly, the legislation…
What do the following people have in common? Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, former Australian deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, HRH Prince Charles, OECD chief…
We should all be concerned about our laws on illegal drugs because they affect all of us – people who use drugs; who have family members using drugs; health professionals seeing people for drug-related…
TRANSPARENCY AND MEDICINE – A series examining issues from ethics to the evidence in evidence-based medicine, the influence of medical journals to the role of Big Pharma in our present and future health…
In March, North Korea’s external propaganda mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency announced the impending launch of a satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-3, during a four-day launch window timed to correspond…
The penis. It comes in so many different shapes and sizes … and that’s just in humans. As you would imagine, different species have very different penises. The males in most mammal species, including cats…
Dashing the opposition’s hopes, Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba last month ended up resembling that of his predecessor John Paul II fourteen years prior. The island’s leaders emerged from both visits…
The initial impressions most people have of waste-reduction campaigns and calls for greater recycling are that they must be good. After all, most of us are taught from a very early age that waste is a…
UPDATE: The Chinese nationals have now elected to stay in Australia, where they will seek asylum. A group of ten Chinese people fleeing persecution in their home country has presented Australian authorities…
The head of the Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes has called on the Federal government to urgently review the Charter of the Reserve Bank of Australia, suggesting its current policy setting is…
More than ten years ago, the Australian public and policymakers overreacted to 9/11 and created a set of laws that went beyond what was needed to protect us against terrorism. With the recent release of…
In future, women could remain fertile for longer by undergoing an ovarian tissue transplant, according to paper published this week by American and Danish researchers. The Reproductive Biomedicine paper…
The evidence for a rapid shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere-ocean system over the last two centuries (see figure 1) requires a deep time perspective, beyond events of the day. Tracing the original…
Ten days ago, British business magnate Richard Branson announced a new Virgin venture - Virgin Volcanic: an expedition to the centre of Earth through an active volcano. As you probably guessed, it was…