A university course teaches students why people believe false and evidence-starved claims, to show them how to determine what’s accurate and real and what’s neither.
Burnt bushland, the Blue Mountains, December 2019.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Searching for animals thought to be extinct – or fictional – is difficult, painstaking and often disappointing. But new technology like drones offer hope of a boom in biological discovery.
A ex parrot: one of the few Night Parrots collected in the 1870s in South Australia.
Marie Meister, Museum of Zoology, Strasbourg
The Night Parrot has been called the “world’s most mysterious bird”. First discovered in 1845, it was rarely seen alive for most of the next hundred and seventy years, but it has been rediscovered in 2013…
Woodenbong at sunrise: could a Yowie really be lurking in the surrounding woods?
Flickr/gaw101 (Greg Wilson)
You might think the idea of a Yeti is far-fetched, but don’t tell that to Oxford University Professor Bryan Sykes - or to the locals in Australian towns like Kilcoy and Woodenbong. Sykes created a global…
The recent DNA testing of two hairs, purportedly from a yeti, has raised a lot of public interest. Does the evidence really show that yetis exist? Well, not just yet. The test looked at mitochondrial DNA…
Drop bears (Thylarctos plummetus) are a species of carnivorous Australian marsupial, renowned for preying on tourists in the bush. Infamous for their mode of attack, new technology is now shedding light…
Claims of mysterious creature sightings dominate cryptozoology – but where is the evidence?
Chi-Yun
All forms of science are reliant on facts, hard evidence and statistics to maintain relevance and credibility. But what of the legitimacy of the so-called “pseudosciences”? A warning: I’m going to pick…