Emma Kowal, Deakin University and Misty Jenkins, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
The SBS documentary DNA Nation tracks three people on their ‘individual genetic journey’. But for Indigenous Australians in particular, genetic testing is a can of worms - politically, ethically and technically.
Printer George Howe shows the first edition of the Sydney Gazette to Governor Philip Gidley King, in a feature window at the Mitchell Library.
Reproduced with permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Digital Order Number: a6509002
What science issues did Australia’s first newspaper - edited by a convict - discuss in its letter pages? The same ones we talk about today: the environment, education and health.
During his 1966 visit to South Africa, US Senator Robert F Kennedy met with ANC leader Chief Albert Luthuli.
Shoreline Productions
Fifty years ago US Senator Robert F Kennedy visited South Africa. A new documentary about RFK’s visit puts the spotlight on an important part of the country’s history.
In memoriam: Holocaust monument on the banks of the Danube in Budapest.
Neil via Flickr
Was Ned Kelly a Robin Hood warrior or a lone wolf/dangerous criminal/whacko? Given enough cultural oxygen, outlaws are apt to become folk heroes - something today’s shock jocks might care to remember.
A scene from Heathers the Musical based on the 1988 film.
Kurt Sneddon
Eighties culture is big, from nostalgic TV dramas to tours by ageing pop stars. But it’s time for a clear-eyed assessment of the decade, which prized excess and economic rationalism along with synth pop and big hair.
Eastman Johnson’s ‘A Ride for Liberty’ (ca. 1862) depicts a family of slaves galloping for the safety of the North in the early morning light.
Brooklyn Museum
With Freedom on the Move, historians hope to reveal patterns of escape and capture, while giving anyone the chance to learn about the individual heroism of runaway slaves.
A podcast on time: telling it, perceiving it, doing it and travelling through it.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was the result of secret deliberations between British civil servant Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Georges-Picot.
Wikimedia Commons
The Sykes-Picot Agreement created the modern Middle East. It represents one of the first installments in a long line of modern European – and subsequent American – meddling in the region.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement divided up the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire into zones of direct and indirect British and French control.
By Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons
Over the years the words Sykes-Picot have taken on two meanings – one significant, the other less so.
The promise of recently explored oilfields dictated British interest in Mesopotamia (roughly, modern-day Iraq) during the Sykes-Picot Agreement negotiations.
Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani
Sentimental, high-class illustrators – or a revolution in British art?
Do the divisions within the Liberal Party reflect differences of personality and tactical emphasis? Or do they come down to differing worldviews?
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The decline in Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity and the increasingly explicit critiques of his leadership have raised the question of whether the Liberal Party has a unifying ideology.
During the 1990 budget speech.
National Archives of Australia
Surgical makeovers might seem a modern phenomenon but they have a long and disturbing history: from 16th century skin grafts done without anaesthesia to reductions of “primitive” large breasts.