For more than 50 years, La Trobe University has been transforming people and societies and has earned a global reputation for research that addresses the major issues of our time. With a dual emphasis on excellence and diversity, La Trobe has seven campuses across Victoria and New South Wales. Through innovations in teaching and learning, strong graduate employment outcomes and leading research, La Trobe consistently rates among the world’s best.
The environmental crisis has never loomed so large nor been so extensively debated as in the last few years. But at the same time we have never heard less about environmental ethics - the bio-inclusive…
Monika Merkes, La Trobe University and Rob Buttrose, The University of Melbourne
The documentary Maximum Tolerated Dose (showing in Melbourne tonight and Sydney on February 12) offers a “look inside modern animal experimentation with the animals who lived through it and the people…
Last week, prime minister Julia Gillard told the Australian public they’d be able to tell the difference between campaigning and governing during this election year. Over the following days, which saw…
Everyone knows what a yabby is, don’t they? Well, you would be surprised. Those charming little critters with nippers in your local dam may belong to the species Cherax destructor, also known as the common…
Much of the commentary surrounding the resignations of Nicola Roxon and Chris Evans has interpreted the departures as yet another episode in the neverending disaster that is the Rudd-Gillard government…
Two interesting and intersecting events occurred at the Australian Open this week. First, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga questioned women’s ability to control their emotions while playing tennis at a press…
If you had to guess what creature in the world had the largest testes, I doubt you would guess that the prize belonged to a cricket. The testes of the tuberous bush cricket (Platycleis affinis) are an…
The current review over the regulation of trustee companies has revealed significant problems with how trustee companies are paid for managing charitable trusts. Submissions to the review claim that the…
Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day’s work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap? That’s how MP Andrew Laming responded to recent violence in Logan between Aboriginal and Pacific…
Being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex is joyous! Make no mistake, it’s the experience of homophobia and transphobia that can destroy lives and often leads to depression, anxiety and poor…
There seems little doubt that Families Minister Jenny Macklin’s office attempted to “fix up” her extraordinary faux pas last Tuesday – her claim that yes, she could live on the daily income of $35 received…
Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico and American ambassador to the United Nations and Google chairman Eric Schmidt have recently arrived in North Korea on a well-publicised private mission to…
By now, most of you have probably heard of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – courses by universities like MIT and Stanford that are available for free online. But what about Massive Open Online Kindergartens…
Australia has some of the world’s most unusual biological specimens. We have plants that look like animals, animals that look like plants, a fish that looks like a frog, a mole that does not dig tunnels…
Alzheimer’s disease is more common among older people but it’s not a normal part of ageing. And as the global population ages, the rate of Alzheimer’s is expected to rise – from 36 million to 115 million…
My cat caught a starling this week. By the time I intervened, the poor bird’s leg was broken, the kitchen floor was strewn with feathers, and I had to make one of those awful decisions. Was I to leave…
Last week, the UN held its first-ever business and human rights forum in Geneva. It’s part of a growing awareness that multinationals have a big impact on human rights. Opening the forum, the UN’s human…
Murray crayfish never fail to impress. When you pull up the hoop nets from the murky depths and those large white claws start waving about, the uninitiated invariably recoil, sometimes even threatening…
The International Olympic Committee’s drastic step of suspending the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for alleged breaches of the Olympic Code and corrupt election processes has already sent reverberations…
As the first anniversary of Great Leader Kim Jong Il’s death approaches, North Korea again stands poised to launch another rocket carrying its Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite into space. According to Korean…