ANU was established, in 1946, to advance the cause of learning and research for the nation. It is consistently ranked among the world’s best universities and many ANU graduates go on to become leaders in government, industry, research and academia.
The science of human consciousness offers new ways of gauging machine minds – and suggests there’s no obvious reason computers can’t develop awareness.
The Australian government has at last produced a serious plan to control an introduced predator that is a big reason this country has one of the world’s worst records for species extinctions.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Former Reserve Bank and Treasury chiefs have gone on to run Westpac, the National Australia Bank, the ANZ, and Macquarie Bank. It makes regulating those banks hard.
A new study of the meteorite Erg Chech 002 makes it one of the most precisely dated space objects and changes our understanding of how elements were spread around the cloud of dust that formed the Sun and planets.
Dan Andrews, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Elyse Dwyer, Macquarie University
New research finds Australian industries are becoming concentrated with greater power to charge high prices. Unlike US firms, Australian firms are not required to report merger plans to authorities.
Introduced species and diseases can drive native species into smaller environmental niches – and that could mean change to how we work to conserve them.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Far from finding an ‘ageing time bomb’, the report paints a picture of a society in which the ratio of working Australians to dependents is little changed, with climate change the only big concern.
What do we know so far about this promising form of treatment and how it might help people with a range of neurological conditions? And is it living up to its promise for people with depression?
Leaders projecting command and control have long been the standard in Australian politics. But the trouble arises when strong and successful leaders hang on for too long.
It’s not just ocean temperatures that determine whether we have El Niño or La Niña. Air circulation also plays a role, and it’s changing in unexpected ways.
We can construct buildings that reduce atmospheric CO₂ by more than their lifetime emissions. They now don’t cost much more – and a project involving 1.2 million homes would drive costs down further.
Knowing the ‘next drought is just around the corner’, Australia’s Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is striking a new agreement to return water and health to the Murray-Darling Basin.
Fire frequency is increasing in all ecosystems studied. But in some places, fires were occurring so often it put entire ecosystems at risk of collapse.
Sam Passmore, Australian National University; Olena Shcherbakova, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Simon Greenhill, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
The idea a language should grow simpler if people need to learn it as adults has an intuitive appeal. But an analysis of more than 1,200 languages shows this doesn’t quite stack up.