Welcome to If I had a blank cheque I’d … a new series in which leading researchers reveal what they could do in their discipline if money were no object. Today we hear from Malcolm Walter, professor of…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Science + Tech – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 6376 - 6400 of 6559 articles
This weekend, approximately 200 of the world’s best cyclists will begin competing in one of the most challenging sporting events in the world: Le Tour de France. Le Tour is widely regarded as the most…
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+. Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – How do pokies cause harm? People addicted to the pokies lose one hell of a lot of money. Because they lose one hell of a lot of money they do not eat well, get into debt, lose their…
The Earth energy balance – the difference between energy/heat absorbed by the Earth from solar radiation and the energy/heat emitted back to space – is currently offset by the cooling effect of sulphur…
GAMBLING IN AUSTRALIA – Some say “punting is a mug’s game”. But is this always true, or can an astute gambler make long-term profits? Certainly not from casino games. Casinos make profits by paying less…
We’ve all received them: emails offering special prices on Viagra, offering fortunes we didn’t know we had, offering links to fantastic websites we simply must visit right away. Annoying as! But the technology…
More than 200 million people are infected annually with the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and around 800,000 people die every year of the mosquito-borne disease, most of them children. As reported…
The quest for physical beauty holds powerful sway, driving us to spend billions annually on a dizzying array of cosmetic procedures to improve on the hand that nature dealt us. But could it affect our…
Infidelity between sexual partners is ubiquitous – almost as prevalent as the tight and long-lasting social bonds that couples form. But thanks to a recent German study of Australian zebra finches, a cheating…
The Apple iPhone feature of logging and storing users’ location information has attracted worldwide attention. But discussions about location privacy aside, a more basic question needs to be asked: how…
Welcome to In Conversation, our series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life. In this, the second instalment, Rod Lamberts, deputy director of the Australian…
What’s the fastest thing you can see? Events that play out over a scale of minutes or seconds are easy to see. Events at much smaller timescales — milliseconds and shorter — can be entirely invisible to…
Cyber security has been in the news a lot lately. Corporate giants have had their data stolen, intelligence agencies have had their websites taken down and hacker groups have become household names. Closer…
A volcanic ash cloud produced by Chile’s Puyehue volcanic eruption has circumnavigated the globe and floated over Australia twice, disrupting flights and leaving over 120,000 passengers stranded. The Conversation…
Workers in high-pressure, safety-critical jobs – such as air traffic controllers or traffic incident operators – need high levels of concentration and focus to do their jobs effectively. When concentration…
We’re all familiar with web address suffixes such as .com and .org but from January next year, we could see the emergence of a whole host of different address endings. In a meeting in Singapore yesterday…
Some 3.8 billion years ago a star in the constellation of Draco wandered a little too close to a nearby black hole. The star was violently torn apart by the black hole’s tidal forces, creating two massive…
After many years of debate and deliberation Australia might finally be about to receive an R18+ rating for video games. On July 21 and 22 the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) meeting will…
Welcome to Peer Review, a new series in which we ask leading academics to review books written by people in the same field. Here Mark Elgar, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Melbourne…
The West Australian government’s decision to reject a proposal to establish a coal mine near the Margaret River in the state’s south came after a drawn-out application and approval process that was anything…
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” These words, the Biblical creation of the universe, are quite…
CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Director of the Global Change Institute, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg submits some climate “sceptics” to peer-review and finds them wanting. Peer review is the basis of modern scientific…
Computer hacker group LulzSec are in the news again. The team has carried out successful hacks on the PlayStation Network, PBS and the US Senate but the latest – which took down the CIA website for several…
For Olympic swimmers, the blink of an eye can be the difference between first and forgotten. Everyone wants an edge, which is why elite athletes train relentlessly and why coaches push them hard. Alongside…