Japan relies on nuclear power for about 30% of its electricity. It has few natural resources and imports large quantities of coal, gas and oil at an ever increasing cost. Some Japanese people are not in…
Late nights and jet-lag see us fighting our body clocks, but can we ever win?
fmgbain/Flickr
Do we control our body clocks or do those clocks, ticking imperceptibly, control us? It’s the kind of question that keeps sleep scientists awake at night. Rhythms are a good place to start. They are a…
Cattle grazing in Alpine National Park is not supported by science.
foxypar4 on flickr
In January, 400 cattle were released into Victoria’s Alpine National Park as part of a research trial to investigate the influence of strategic grazing as a tool to reduce fuel loads and bush fire risk…
Should we be able to better “manage” extreme events?
Kimimasa Mayama/EPA
What lessons can we learn from the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami? Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We can, of course, question the wisdom of placing nuclear power plants in coastal locations…
The purpose of universities is to generate knowledge.
Don Pugh Flickr
Foundation Essay – Universities are at permanent risk of getting a bad rap.. They are too remote, too elitist, too unworldly, too expensive (especially in the US). They are ‘irrelevant’ to the needs and…
Technical myopia - sometimes experts fail to see the bigger picture.
National Institutes of Health via Wikimedia Commons
In 2002 when I visited Santa Barbara, I went to a grocery store called Trader Joe’s. It had its own line in milk. Trader Joe’s Vitamin D Milk (Grade A, pasteurized, homogenized) had some ‘nutrition facts…
Age-related macular degeneration is responsible for almost half of all cases of legal blindness in Australia.
Caduser
What is the bionic eye? Often when we talk about the bionic eye, people get the idea of some sort of artificial eye implanted to replace visual function. In reality, the “eye” comprises a series of components…
Nuclear safety comes at a price that may make the industry unviable.
AAP
While the Japanese earthquake aftershocks will stop in a few months time, allowing Japan to recover, the shocks may prove terminal for the green nuclear renaissance. In the week since Japan was rocked…
It is inevitable that we will one day venture into space beyond the moon not just with robots but in person. Exploration is part of the human psyche: we are risk-takers with an insatiable curiosity. No…
Did music precede language for Homo sapiens?
Spuz/Flickr
All human cultures and social groups that we know of respond to music and dance. The type of music may vary but the underlying, fundamental principles of making music are the same. Our recognition of…
Why is science so hard to communicate?
Andrew Huff/Flickr
Foundation Essay – Getting certain points across can be difficult. And yet democracies don’t function properly in the absence of broad, public discussion based on well-sourced information. Especially when…