While you may have heard about the increasing threat that climate change and rising seas pose to Pacific islands — already forcing some communities to move — Australia has its own group of islands that…
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The work of art is that mysterious process that transforms pigment and canvas into an object of great beauty. Depicting that moment of creative inspiration has been a challenge for filmmakers since the…
3D printing is predicted to transform the business landscape of design-led innovation. But how well protected are Australian designs from unauthorised use? IP Australia – which administers Australia’s…
The government’s proposed changes to higher education are a platform on which Labor can fight the next election. The strategy is simple: don’t try to modify the package, or offer new solutions. Just shoot…
2014 is turning into a grim year for public broadcasting. In June, Hubert Lacroix, the president of Canada’s public broadcaster CBC, announced an unprecedented series of job cuts. One-quarter of the staff…
Life-threatening brain injuries are thankfully rare in cricket and other sports, even those that involve collisions. But Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes’ tragic accident yesterday shows how little…
The announcement Monday evening in the US that there would be no charges against a policeman over the shooting of a teenager is puzzling and already the target of critique. It’s not just the decision itself…
There is no shortage of shouting and dire warnings about the state of the climate and our need to phase out fossil fuels. But there is a more silent revolution happening too — in micropower. Small-scale…
Despite the huge and belated praise now surrounding John Williams’ novel Stoner (1965), much less attention has been cast to his earlier novel, Butcher’s Crossing (1960). Still, it’s been rightly hailed…
As UN Security Council president for November, Australia’s major initiative was to promote the centrality of civilian policing in UN peace operations. Noting Australia’s experiences with police peacekeeping…
Infrastructure projects are ripe for political point scoring. None more so than Private Public Partnerships (PPPs), which allow private companies to profit from key infrastructure. Yet political debate…
To have a healthy democracy, it is not enough to hold regular elections, or for every person to get one – and only one – vote. At the heart of democracy is the idea that by voting for a particular party…
In Australia, around a billion cups of coffee a year are consumed in cafés, restaurants and other outlets. Even Britain, a nation famous for its fondness for tea, has in recent years seen a dramatic rise…
Is the ABC trying to make itself redundant? Because that appears to be its strategy. Here’s why. The ABC is expensive. In 2013 it was allocated more than A$1 billion of taxpayer funds. The ABC claims…
Behind the flag-waving and cheers surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Australia are serious questions about the safety and security implications of Australia’s agreement to…
Following a fortnight of intense Australian international engagement in APEC and the G20, last week saw the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of negotiations with China over a much-anticipated free…
Tolstoy’s opening line in Anna Karenina was: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same can be said of most businesses – the recipe for success is simple…
Health workers returning to their home countries after working in Ebola-affected areas are being asked to place themselves in quarantine for 21 days. This period is important because it’s the maximum time…
There’s a trend you might have noticed emerging in an array of Australian popular cultural forms at the moment. It announces the return of locally-grown pride: albeit one taken through the route of irony…
Computers have shaken up how we create and listen to music, and there is more radical transformation to come. The potential for digital music to be interactive is leading to new ways to experience and…
The Victorian election is just days away and the campaigning is reaching a final crescendo. Both the Labor and Liberal parties are saturating the local airwaves with advertisements. All of the polls point…
The Victorian Labor opposition’s recent promise to change the state’s licence plates to “Victoria: the education state” is emblematic of the way both Labor and the Napthine Coalition government have made…
Welcome to CSIRO Inventions, a series looking at the discoveries and innovations borne from Australia’s national science agency. In this first instalment, we outline the story behind the plastic money…
Less than a week out from Victoria’s state election, both major parties have been largely silent on environmental policy. Neither the Coalition nor Labor has released comprehensive documents. It also seems…
It’s twice as common as type 1 diabetes. It kills more Australians than HIV. One in every 100 of us lives with hepatitis C, but the disease receives little attention. Worldwide, around 150 million people…