Recent articles on perceptions of overweight and obese people have attracted a lot of attention from those with something to say about the overweight and the obese. One point that seems clear from the…
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Professor Michael Ashley recently returned from Antarctica where he was deploying a telescope to one of the most remote locations on Earth – a place known as Ridge A, 850km from the South Pole. This is…
The government finally got its bill on means-testing private health insurance rebates for high-income households through the House of Representatives this morning. Fortunately, the dire predictions about…
For major brands, the road to social media infamy is paved with what seemed like good ideas at the time. Just this week, Qantas succeeded in having Twitter suspend the well-known spoof account, @QantasPR…
We are poised at a pivotal moment for native forests, the wood products industry and climate change. Australia is moving away from a damaging native forestry industry - and a damaging conflict over its…
We humans have long looked to ants as models for our own societies, from Jean de La Fontaine’s tale of the grasshopper and the ant to modern uses of ant algorithms to solve computational and logistics…
Most forms of publishing across the globe are in a state of flux. But university-based scholarly publishing faces a set of challenges all of its own. How can an industry whose target audience is so highly…
In a recent visit to Australia, US Anthropologist Professor James McKenna claimed that under the right circumstances, breastfed babies could safely sleep in the same bed as their mothers. This was a perfectly…
Last week, the Reserve Bank defied market expectations to announce the 4.25% cash rate would remain unchanged. But the surprise decision by Australia’s Big Four banks to act independently of the Reserve…
Is the confinement of animals for human purposes akin to slavery? Are some animals slaves? Slavery is an evocative concept. Treating someone as a slave is one of the worst things you can do to them. Using…
Of all the tactics used by hacker collective [Anonymous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) in any of its “operations”, the release of their victims’ emails has been one that potentially could…
The 2008 global financial crisis and an impending “patent cliff” have had a profound impact on the profitability of the pharmaceutical industry – they have made it change how it works. So, to maintain…
The Gonski review of school funding promises to be a watershed in the history of Australian education. Much is at stake. There is a real chance to fundamentally change the way our divided school system…
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) recently recalled a number of do-it-yourself (DIY) teeth whiteners containing unsafe concentrations of peroxide that can cause painful chemical…
Late last week the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) announced they had successfully drilled into the elusive sub-glacial Lake Vostok, a body of water lying under nearly 4km of Antarctic…
When an Australian government is willing to risk losing an election over the way it funds our poorest, most disadvantaged schools, rather than our wealthy schools, only then will meaningful change be possible…
Australia is moving towards more energy-efficient houses. But are we doing enough? We think Australia could be aiming for zero-carbon homes; the tricky bit will be working out how to get there for the…
Globally, more than 800 million people are chronically undernourished. And some of these people live in Australia. Of course, these people do not live in desperate refugee camps; and most do not endure…
The word “open” has grown educational wings over the past decade. From the British Open University, which enrolled its first students in 1971, the concept has expanded to mean various ways of relaxing…
As Greek politicians approved a tough austerity package amid fierce protests, one question dominates: is an orderly exit from the Eurozone available for Greece? And just what might be the consequences…
Last year, revelations of cruelty to cows in Indonesian abattoirs led to outrage in Australia. The assumption was that these sorts of things could never happen here. Last week, a NSW abattoir was closed…
In a country where our households are giving more time to paid work, the issue of how we spend our time – and the amount we give to work and with what effect – is of growing significance. This is what…
You know the feeling: your heart’s beating faster, your pupils dilate, your palms are sweaty, and you’ve got a belly-full of butterflies. You’re in love and, yes, you’re “all shook up”. The euphoria of…
Last week in Baghdad, 17 men were executed. Nothing special to note here in the conflict ridden, post-US withdrawal landscape of Iraq, except that this time they were executed by an Iraqi court. This was…
Would you pay the equivalent of a coffee a day to guarantee a system whereby Australian children got the best start in life? From January this year, the Australian education system is changing its approach…