Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia’s first tertiary education institution. It is committed to maximising the potential of its students, teachers and researchers for the benefit of Australia and the wider world.
If you noticed a person in grave danger would you act first and think later in order to save them? New research suggests people who put their own lives in danger to help others make the decision to do…
How much should taxpayers pay to subsidise the running of political parties and their campaigns? If the NSW government gets its way, the answer is going to be quite a lot more. While its proposed changes…
On the surface, Joe Hockey’s analysis of the imposition by Chinese authorities of tariffs on coal imported from Australia as good old-fashioned protectionism seems straightforward. That at least is what…
Ireland has this week moved to change its tax law, closing the “double Irish” tax avoidance technique widely used by multinational enterprises including Google and Microsoft. In very broad terms, the current…
Now entering its third week, its numbers dwindling but its determination and purpose still remarkably strong, the umbrella uprising in Hong Kong has shown its playful side, by bringing ping-pong to the…
There is a tendency in academic job applications to refer to the “prestigious x prize (or fellowship)” that a candidate has been awarded. It’s a phrase that turns out to be self-contradictory, since all…
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Alexandra Hansen, The Conversation
The federal government has released its National Industry Investment and Competitiveness Agenda, committing around A$400 million towards “industry growth centres”, new tax incentives for employee share…
In early 2004, I downloaded The Grey Album, created by a then unknown producer named Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse). Like many others I did so as a result of the Grey Tuesday protests sponsored by cyber…
After his speech about party renewal last week, I went to Labor Senator John Faulkner’s Facebook page. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner…
While invisible, dark matter completely dominates our Milky Way, recent measurements of just how much dark matter there is have revealed a bit of a mystery. In a paper published today in the Astrophysical…
Many incidents of violence and harassment directed at Australian Muslims have been reported recently. These are visible confirmation of fears expressed by their community, that support for the government’s…
Mental health disorders are the greatest contributor to the burden of disability and the third largest contributor to the burden of disease after all cancers and all cardio-vascular diseases. But unlike…
Suggestions the Ebola virus could “mutate” into a form that is transmissible by the respiratory route are speculative, and the likelihood of it happening are low. Nonetheless, the idea appears to have…
One moment: one recent Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on the top deck of a red London bus, watching a sea of shoppers flood over Oxford Circus. The cream of the British high street have their flagship…
Are we consumers or are we citizens? Clearly most of us are both. In a capitalist economy people get much of what they need through competitive markets. Yet we also live within a society and have reasonable…
Why is Opera Australia staging The King and I? The Rodgers and Hammerstein favourite is currently playing at the Sydney Opera House and has been a remarkably successful choice, commercially speaking. Even…
When I used to tell people that I did my PhD on the politics of shark attacks, they would ask, “Is there a politics to shark attacks?” Nobody asks that any more. Now they just say, “Oh, like in Western…
More than 80% of Australian paediatricians believe mandatory detention of asylum seeker children constitutes child abuse, according to survey results published today in the Medical Journal of Australia…
The heritage shortlist for this year’s Australian Institute of Architects’ (AIA) 2014 National Architecture Awards – to be awarded on November 6 – highlights a new trend in heritage conservation projects…
The clock is ticking down to the end of year deadline Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has given for sign off on a free trade agreement with China. In this China-Australia FTA series we explore what…