The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a leading Australian research university and has an international reputation for excellence, innovation and enterprise. UWA is committed to the achievement of the highest quality research and scholarship at international standards of excellence.
Why should male genitalia be so variable? This problem has puzzled evolutionary biologists for decades. Even to the experts, it can be difficult to tell closely-related species apart just by looking at…
The recent announcement that a carbon tax would not be levied on petrol for cars or light vehicles used by motorists, tradespeople and small businesses is an interesting political statement. But this statement…
Since July 2012, Australia has had in place its carbon pricing scheme. It is commonly referred to as a “carbon tax”, but also as an “Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) with a fixed price”. And the plan is…
Google is hoping that the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again” will work out for them with Google+. Launched as a private beta version on Tuesday, Google+ is the search giant’s latest…
On June 30 Notre Dame University intends to host a lecture by Lord Christopher Monckton, one of the world’s most flamboyant climate change deniers. On learning of this I wrote an open letter to Notre Dame…
The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released its latest report on how much money the Commonwealth and State governments spend on the health of Indigenous Australians. Despite being…
Most people know the Burrup Peninsula - if they know it at all – from TV footage of gas tankers powering through the impossibly blue channels of the Dampier Archipelago, delivering gas to an energy hungry…
What do Chile’s recent volcanic eruptions and tomorrow morning’s total lunar eclipse have in common? Well … Just before sunrise, Earth’s shadow will totally hide the normally-bright moon for about 100…
Some people, including on this site, have suggested there’s a loophole in Apple’s new iCloud that will allow people who illegally download music to somehow “launder” their dirty music files, getting a…
Share markets in the US and around the world are expected to fall again this week following sharp declines on Wall Street last week. The Dow Jones industrial average closed on Friday down 2.3% for the…
Even as Australians are being warned to expect a dramatic fall in gross domestic product thanks to a larger than expected drop in the trade surplus, we still have a lot to be thankful for. Fundamentally…
Tourists from all over the world head to Borneo for orangutans, unspoiled ancient rainforests and an insight into the traditional way of life of the Dayak people. This ecotourism is based on an idyllic…
Today, and for the next month, four major planets are aligned above us: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Are we interested? Of course we are. From the very beginning of human history we’ve been obsessed…
The Gillard Government has reiterated its commitment to education in this year’s budget, and universities in particular. Universities with regional campuses were the biggest winners, receiving $110 million…
Alan Dench, The University of Western Australia and Slamet Setiawan, The University of Western Australia
The manifesto of the Foundation for Endangered Languages states, quite accurately, that “There is agreement among linguists that over half of the world’s languages are not being passed on to the next generation…
There has been a dramatic fall in the price of oil and some commodities over the last few days, with oil plunging by as much as 10% per cent in US trade overnight. The price has recovered somewhat this…
Infertility plagues one in six Australian couples, and in approximately half of these cases the problem lies in poor semen quality. The discovery that a man has poor semen quality can be emotionally challenging…
Debate about the controversial practice of mulesing is set to be reignited again with prominent animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announcing a new campaign targeting…
With global warming, carbon trading and record-high petrol prices in the news, not to mention the ever-looming spectre of peak oil, we need to find an environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable…
For some time, there has been growing disquiet that using GDP to measure our national progress does not capture what is most worthwhile in our lives. In a speech in September last year, former Treasury…