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.
Michele Bachmann’s unfounded statement about HPV vaccination and mental retardation couldn’t be further from the truth. But the damage her statements may cause is even more disturbing than what she says…
So, you’ve got your father’s blonde hair and you were raised in a cricket-mad household and you like cricket. But is it your genes or your childhood that’s responsible for your love of cricket or your…
What can we expect from the Tax Forum at Parliament House today and tomorrow? We may anticipate consensus that the tax system should be efficient, fair, understandable and effective in raising the revenue…
Sleeping is normally when our body sticks itself back together. Your breathing and your heart rate slow down, and gradually your body repairs itself, undoing all the damage you’ve done to yourself during…
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams…
Scientists – myself included – are increasingly frustrated by the outmoded academic publishing system. The situation as it stands made sense in the pre-internet era, when one needed a printing press to…
Voltaire was right when he said “doctors prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less”. Almost 300 years later, this still rings true for depression. Antidepressants…
Most people have taken an online or magazine quiz promising to reveal information about their true personality, interests, or attitudes. These tests can be harmless fun. But there is a serious side to…
Non-communicable diseases – Professor Stephen Leeder looks at what came out of the UN meeting on NCDs. Despite the lack of definite goals and targets, the United Nations High-Level Meeting in New York…
We need to stop thinking about food security as an economic problem. Food security is largely discussed in terms of increasing demand pressures and worsening constraints on supply. These discussions miss…
Eugenics — the science of improving the race —was a powerful influence on the development of Western civilisation in the first half of the twentieth century. And Melbourne’s elite were among its chief…
Australia’s population is ageing, presenting an economic challenge to look after the most vulnerable members of our society. The Productivity Commission released a report last month recommending a complete…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s rally to the Labor faithful on Friday called for party reform. It’s become a familiar pattern of introspection within the ALP, starting with the Hawke Wran Review in 2002…
In August, Liberal MP Peter Phelps delivered a passionate rant in the NSW Upper House in which he called traffic lights a “Bolshevist menace”. He argued that traffic lights are on par with state repression…
Five senior executives of the Chinese-owned investor Hanlong Mining have had assets frozen after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) launched an investigation into alleged insider…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) remains the most important player in global health despite growing problems with its structure and funding. Australia is in an excellent position to help modernise the…
Welcome to Peer Review, a series in which we ask leading academics to review books written by people working in the same field. Here Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney…
“We are fortunate to be alive at this moment in history. Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats…
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is currently in a battle with potentially preventable and treatable tuberculosis, as reported in today’s Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. The disease has increased in the…
Imagine for a moment that you could gain everyone’s trust in an instant – you could sell more, love more and accomplish more than you ever imagined. Or so says the online marketing spiel for the drug oxytocin…