The story of Australia has been studied and explored many times by researchers. Look what they've revealed, so far.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
The discovery of a living coelacanth fish rocked the world in 1939, as scientists thought they had died out with the dinosaurs. A new study illuminates how its skull and tiny brain develop.
Usually, a minor language will adopt words from a dominant language, but NZ English bucks this trend. It has been borrowing a growing number of Māori words, not always to add meaning but to mark identity.
Why is it that some 'fake news' gets us remembering things that are not true? It depends on how our memory works, and there are ways we can avoid being duped.
Farming data collected by governments, agribusinesses and banks is regulated in a piecemeal fashion, and ends up beyond the reach of farmers.
Great areas of rubbish -- known as 'garbage patches' -- are known to form in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but not the southern Indian Ocean. Why is that?
It's not your intent that matters when you're considering your online behaviour – it's the consequences that create the impact.
We've had ten federal ministers with titular responsibility for science since 2007 – five under the coalition and five under Labor. That variation and a lack of consistent vision has an impact.
Scott Morrison has bragged about 'stopping the boats', but his government has failed to do anything meaningful to bolster cyber security and stop the malware.
Reports say that a new species of ancient human has been identified in a cave in The Philippines. But only a few bone and teeth fossil fragments have been found, so far.
To multiply two numbers by hand take a few steps but it's something we're taught in school. When dealing with big numbers, really big numbers, we need to a quicker way to do things.
New squid research north of New Zealand nearly doubles the known cephalopod diversity in the Kermadec region, where a proposal to create one of the world's largest marine reserves has stalled.
There are exciting synergies between western science and indigenous knowledge. Surprisingly, the success of our Australian predator conservation research was due entirely to its multicultural nature.
It was not until the late 1990s that the anatomy of the human clitoris was accurately described by Australia’s first female urologist. And now research in animals is starting to catch up.
Smart home technology promises to make our lives easier, but how much control do we want this tech to have over our lives? And do we really trust it?
Small wounds can usually heal by themselves, but larger wounds can be a problem. With a little help from a seaweed we can help the body regenerate new blood vessels.
Facial recognition is a crucial skill, but difficult to test accurately. Researchers are taking advantage of the popularity of Game of Thrones to test the limits of our ability to identify a familiar face.
Taking effective action against online sharing of graphic content isn't straightforward. But, yet again, the government's inclination seems to be to legislate first and discuss later.
Trapdoor spiders that build unique burrows are found only in small areas of Queensland. But they don't travel very far from their location, and that could put them at risk.
Life without pain might seem like a blessing. But pain plays an important role in protecting our bodies from further damage.
If you've never heard of a form of wave called a 'seiche' – which can occur in swimming pools during earthquakes – this is your chance to catch up.
Google+ is the latest online community to shut down, forcing users to seek other options. So why are organisations pulling away from user-generated content such as reviews, comments and debates?
The evolution of live birth from egg-laying is no mean feat. Now new research reports on the first known example where both eggs and a live birth come from the same lizard pregnancy.
Women represent just 22% of board chairs and 13% of CEOs across more than 60 Australian sporting organisations.
TikTok allows users to create and share short videos with music – there's a lot of lip synching.
On 27 March, India announced it had successfully conducted an anti-satellite missile test, Mission Shakti. India is now the fourth country in the world displaying this capability.
Estimating our ancestry is hard – because our backgrounds are much more mixed up than we thought. So don't take your DNA ancestry test results literally: they're just a prediction.
On its own it's just tin. But mix it with other elements and it turns into a material that helped shape the ancient world.
A forum of Australian tech companies this week was told the government's encryption laws could see Australian jobs moved overseas. Labor's promised to "fix" the laws, but that could be too late.
Feelgood, high-level data ethics principles are not fit for the purpose of regulating big tech. Applied ethics might be useful ... but stronger regulation is the preferred end goal.
Research and News
It's the last race for Winx this weekend and she's been an incredible race horse. But what makes a good race horse?
Astronomers say they have "seen what we thought was unseeable" in releasing the first image of a supermassive black hole. So how did we get to this historic observation?
Scientists turned Earth into one giant telescope to capture the uncapturable.
Labor’s 2019 NBN election policy will disappoint those hoping for a fast-tracked return to that party's 2009 vision of high-speed fibre for (almost) everyone.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the way we live, work, communicate and travel. So long as it's designed that way.
Year of the elements
The periodic table is one of the classic images of science that is found in labs as well as on t-shirts, mugs, even set to music. But what exactly is the periodic table?
On its own it's just tin. But mix it with other elements and it turns into a material that helped shape the ancient world.
How do you return Aboriginal remains to their place of origin when you have no record of where they came from? Look to a chemical element that's laid down in teeth as people grow up.
Curious Kids
When a sound is made, it spreads. And when it hits a hard surface that is far away, it bounces back and comes back to where the sound was made. That's what we call an echo.
When water turns from a gas into a liquid, it forms droplets. Whether those droplets are dew or rain depends on where the droplet forms.
Robots are not yet as good as humans at working with other humans or even working with other robots.
Shooting stars are not stars at all. They are tiny space adventurers who accidentally wander into our sky and get sucked toward us by Earth's gravity. Here's the story of a shooting star's journey.
There are three ways heat can be shared: conduction, convection and radiation. Find out which one lets heat travel through space.
We can't make it rain. But you are already helping if you don't use more water than you need. And you can talk to your parents about the planet getting warmer, because the heat makes drought worse.
As a police officer, I was involved in many pursuits, investigated serious accidents and later became a researcher. Here's what I've learned about how police make decisions in a pursuit.
As gas from your stomach comes up your food pipe, it makes the surface of the upper part of your oesophagus rattle and vibrate. It is a bit like windows that rattle during a windy storm.
Animals that evolved in cold parts of the world usually have lighter skin. If a light-skinned animal has blood vessels close to the surface of their ear skin, this will make the ears look pink.
Volcanologists study the formation and eruptions of volcanoes - surely one of the most interesting jobs around. However, it can also be very dangerous.
Scientists say humans are pretty similar to chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. So why don't we have fur like they do?
The students of class 3E, Ferny Grove State School, want to know if astronauts get space sick when travelling to the International Space Station.
X-rays are like light rays, but they can pass through more stuff. Some of the x-ray's energy is blocked by bone, which is why you can see bones so clearly on x-ray scans.
Ferns came along more than 200 million years before the dinosaurs walked the Earth. They were food for plant-eating dinosaurs and they're really great survivors. Heather, age 8, wants to know more.
While we move soap around, it lifts up invisible oil that holds germs onto your hand.
In the space of a few short years, deaf Nicaraguan school children created their own language. This example may give us a clue about how spoken language developed over thousands of years.
PhD scholarships
Research and Expert Database
Livestreaming
The Commonwealth Criminal Code now has two substantive new criminal offences aimed at limiting live streaming of crime. Both target technology companies, not terrorists.
The Facebook boss's calls for outside help to draft new rules on what is acceptable behaviour online should be welcomed. So what's his next step?
Do your Instagram viewing habits trigger joy or guilt? New research shows that viewing body positive content may actually improve women's body image – at least in the short term.
Invisible science
Sometimes photographic images are not able to capture and accurately represent science – especially at very tiny scales. This is where scientific visualisation comes in.
Pet psychology
Pets can be influenced by the personality traits of their owners, something veterinarians could use to help them diagnoise any pet problems.
Escalator rules
In many cities, convention holds that there's a lane for walking and a lane for standing on the escalator. But human systems engineers suggest this isn't the most efficient option for the system.
Cyberattack
For many of us, this hack seems to have come out of the blue. But cyber measures targeting Australian government infrastructure are the 'new normal'.
Pet welfare
If dogs are bred with known health disorders, what role should vets play in discouraging potential owners from animals that could cost them both financially and emotionally?
Not what it seems
Optical illusions appear when our brains have trouble moulding raw sensory data into shapes and patterns. Designers have been exploiting this process for centuries.
Sporty kids
Be careful before you rush your kids into so-called "talent identification" sports programs – you might be putting a whole lifetime of enjoyable exercise at risk.
Parkour
Run, leap, scramble...it's parkour! Science can help you run up walls more efficiently, and chose the best way to land from a height.
Online scams
When victims report cybercrime they want an offender arrested and prosecuted, but a report finds that rarely happens.
Girls in science
Large gaps in the representation of women in science careers later in life are not due to lack of ability in the classroom.
Tumblr
Sexual subcultures create space for critical social conversations and the formation of meaningful political alliances.
Space agency
The headquarters of the Australian Space Agency will be in Adelaide. So how did we get to this point? Here are ten essential reads to fill you in.
Job Board
Where experts find jobs
-
Skyhopper Research Associate Thermal Engineer
-
Associate Professor/Professor in Anatomy
-
Associate Professor/Professor
-
Ve Teacher Marketing & Communications
-
Injury Management Consultant
Events
-
Your Leadership Voice - Women In Focus (Classic) — Monash University
-
Gene therapy: miracle in our midst — University of Melbourne
How we are different
10 reasons
Most Read past week
- There’s no ‘garbage patch’ in the Southern Indian Ocean, so where does all the rubbish go?
- How fake news gets into our minds, and what you can do to resist it
- We scanned one of our closest cousins, the coelacanth, to learn how its brain grows
- Observing the invisible: the long journey to the first image of a black hole
- How much evidence is enough to declare a new species of human from a Philippines cave site?
Pitch an idea
Got a news tip or article idea for The Conversation?
Our Audience
The Conversation has a monthly audience of 10.7 million users, and reach of 38.2 million through Creative Commons republication.
Want to Write?
Write an article and join a growing community of more than 82,800 academics and researchers from 2,811 institutions.
Make a Donation
The Conversation relies on sector, government and reader support. If you would like to help us have even better conversations, then you may like to make a one-off or on-going donation.