We sometimes see memory as a video camera, recording our lives accurately and without bias – but this is a myth. Instead, our childhood memories are intricately shaped by our family and culture.
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Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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Sap from one tree collected in hollows in the bark, and natural yeast fermented the liquid to an alcoholic drink used by Aboriginal people. Europeans called the tree a cider gum because of the taste.
Why is jewellery so important to the story of human evolution? Because it provides a public message – even to people we don’t know.
To better detect gravitational waves, we need to build the quietest and most isolated thing on Earth. And make sure we don’t drop those 40kg mirrors.
A body in an Italian museum reveals that Egyptians living 1,500 or more years before the Pharaohs already knew how to preserve bodies.
The planets we can see in the sky were known to the ancient Greeks as ‘wandering stars’. But they appeared much earlier in the stories and traditions of Australia’s Indigenous people.
The broad and ill-defined new powers outlined in the government’s new telecommunications bill are neither necessary nor proportionate – and contain significant scope for abuse.
In May-August each year, giant Australian cuttlefish gather and mate over a narrow stretch of rocky coastline in South Australia. At their peak you see literally one cuttlefish per square metre.
The succession of data access legislation in the Australian parliament is fast becoming a Mad Hatter’s tea party. We need better oversight, and fast.
The Meg has all the typical monster movie cliches including some terrifically bad dialogue. But what about the science?
Educators and technologists must work together to design better education apps – particularly those used without a teacher present.
Research has shown that large social platforms like Facebook can reinforce problematic social hierarchies and prejudices around gender, sexuality and race.
Bees and wasps can recognise people’s faces – despite having less than one million brain cells, compared to 86,000 million brain cells that make up a human brain.
Those who speak of the inevitability of war in space will fuel a race to the bottom, and see even more energy towards an arms race in space.
Jupiter’s bands are one of its most striking features – and can be seen from Earth – but they only go so deep within the giant planet. Now scientists think they know why.
Malicious and criminal attacks were the cause of 59% of data breaches in the last three months, according the latest reported figures.
Zirconia is a mineral with a crystal structure made from the elements zirconium and oxygen. It looks pretty like diamond, but is only worth a fraction of the value.
Compared to Earth, more “oomph” is required to bring magma to the surface of Mars, and this is probably why we haven’t seen any recent eruptions on the red planet.
Sapphires and rubies are both crystals of the mineral corundum - but with different impurities to create blue and red hues. Australian sapphires are renowned for being inky blue.
If we want My Health Record data to be made available for medical research we need to make it opt in, not opt out. We’ll have a smaller dataset, but at least it will be ethically defensible.
We know of about 900 valid dinosaur species that existed. ‘Valid’ means scientists know the dinosaur from enough of the skeleton bones to feel pretty sure that it differs from other known dinosaurs.
Mobile networks will soon go through a significant change due to the roll out of 5G. But the service we will receive depends on the providers. Are they ready?
Caught in the middle: Lombok and Bali are exposed to earthquake and tsunamis risk due to a tectonic plate boundary to the south, but also a unique zone of activity that thrusts to the north.
Aboriginal Australians have effectively been on their country for as long as modern human populations have been outside of Africa. We have a limit as to how long ago that was: around 50,000 years.
University students don’t always mix outside their own area of study or cultural cliques. But that can change with a little encouragement, and food helps.