Yesterday’s Federal Court ruling that Optus customers are able to view sporting matches minutes after they are streamed live without breaching copyright is a landmark decision that alters our understanding…
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Car travel is becoming a victim of its own success. If we in the West had only kept cars for ourselves, automobility could have survived much longer. But we shared them with the rest of the world, and…
Facebook announced overnight that it’s going to sell US$5 billion of shares in its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). Company executives filed the official paperwork to get the IPO process underway…
For parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the diagnostic process can be a long and stressful journey. Behavioural signs of ASD can appear around the child’s first birthday when he fails…
A recent study shows that mutations in the “breast cancer genes” BRCA1 and BRCA2 – which increase the risks of breast and ovarian cancers among others – also increase fertility. This is an extraordinary…
Australia is home to a many diasporas: communities of migrants and their descendants who maintain a spiritual or material connection to their mythical or physical homelands, be it their place of birth…
As the Commonwealth Government’s community consultation period for mental health reform comes to an end this week, health bureaucrats will begin finalising Australia’s Ten year roadmap for national mental…
News that Gina Rinehart has reportedly attained a 12.8% stake in Fairfax Media (and is seeking just under 15%) is bad for the Australian media environment: it potentially puts yet another billionaire in…
Medicare is one of the cornerstones of the Australian health care system, but there are serious questions about some aspects of the program. Over time, government reforms have created some perverse incentives…
The Productivity Commission has just released a report on Government Services 2012 containing a 177 page chapter on corrective services. It found one third of Victorian prisoners were held in private prison…
When it comes to finding ways out of the European sovereign debt crisis, views appear to range widely. At last week’s World Economic Forum Martin Wolf, chief economic commentator for the Financial Times…
This past Christmas, Darwin waited with unnecessary nervousness as Cyclone Grant developed to our north. It missed us, but on Boxing Day it dumped 385mm of rain into the Edith River. The resulting flood…
The impact of junk food advertising on childhood obesity is a topic often debated in the media. One side calls for banning junk food advertising during children’s television viewing times while the other…
Australia and New Zealand could be on the brink of a major scientific coup. In roughly a month’s time, the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will be announced. Australia and New…
Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has moved to increase her stake in Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and a number of radio stations. Rinehart has already shown her desire…
Mosquito-borne diseases remain one of the greatest global threats to human health. Genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes hold great potential to reduce the burden of disease but as research moves from the…
Amid tough trading conditions and intense competition, Coles has fired the latest salvo in its ongoing supermarket war with Woolworths, announcing it will reduce the price of some fruit and vegetables…
Australia’s Biodiversity Fund was announced in July 2011 as part of the “Clean Energy Future” package. We welcome the expenditure of almost a billion dollars over the next six years on biodiversity conservation…
The great burden of death and disease caused by the malaria parasite often goes unnoticed in the developed world. But it’s the leading cause of death in children under five years old in many sub-Sahara…
It usually begins mid-way through their university career. My office begins to fill with panicked journalism students who have seen the dismal job vacancies in their field and are starting to think their…
A white paper was released this week stating that “Gen Y” employees could be better engaged and motivated by applying “game dynamics” to the workplace. Bunchball, the company behind the paper, would say…
Not so long ago, when economic commentators thought about unemployment and the Australian labour market, their main question was: How low can it go? The global financial crisis was a setback to this improving…
The coming of the new year was not auspicious for Nigeria. Despite being rich in oil, the country is overwhelmed by corruption and violence. The north of the country has been torn apart by terrorist attacks…
In the US, as in Australia, debate about the merits of alternative gases has been heated. In the US the contentious gas is shale, rather than coal seam. But at least one source of conflict is the same…
Marcello Costa is a co-founder of “Friends of Science in Medicine”, an organisation established to campaign against university health-care courses that are not adequately supported by scientific evidence…