The University of Canberra is ranked among the top 100 young universities in the world. The University specialises in delivering professional education, with a focus on practical skills, and applied research as well as maintaining links with industry.
Earlier this month the Hon Nicola Roxon asked the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) to conduct an inquiry into the Government’s proposals for a major revamp of Australia’s…
A small number of countries competing at the Olympic Games will win a large proportion of the medals available. There are 80 countries competing in London who have yet to win a single medal in the Olympics…
Recent news that HSBC executives admitted to allowing Iran, terrorists and drug dealers to launder nearly USD$16 billion over a six-year period would make earth underneath you shake. How is that the bank’s…
The Victorian government has introduced bounties for foxes and wild dogs, $10 for the scalp of a fox, and $50 for that of a dog. Bounties have been tried before, and failed to control these pests, but…
If it involved the record industry we’d call it payola: undisclosed kickbacks to radio station executives, owners and disk jockeys to boost broadcasts and thus record sales. In the pharmaceutical industry…
My ANU colleague John Rayner’s excellent recent article on the physics of music seemed to touch a nerve with the readership of The Conversation. Although beautifully framed by the personal and anecdotal…
In the “age of the social graph”, it is possible to profile people by tracking their relationships with friends and associates rather than by looking at the content of their communications. Debate about…
It is fair to say that, in the eyes of the Australian public at least, the view of our politicians is currently at a very low ebb. The tone of the Australian Parliament is at its most toxic for a generation…
In 1992-93, 168 countries including Australia and New Zealand signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) acknowledging an urgent need to halt ongoing decline in the planet’s biodiversity. In its…
We’re in for another round of the biotech patent wars, with announcement the Productivity Commission will inquire into the compulsory licensing of patents. If adopted, compulsory licensing could increase…
In an era of under-resourced and sometimes rather timid regulators, it’s unsurprising that marketers obey the logic of the market, engaging in practices that provoke a response by consumer advocates. Regulatory…
Bioethicists, human rights advocates and criminal lawyers are watching another outbreak of the “circumcision wars”, after yesterday’s decision by a provincial court in Cologne, Germany, that circumcision…
In a recent speech, Bank of England executive director Andy Haldane has said that peer-to-peer (P2P) lending through online sites has the potential to eventually replace old-fashioned banking. It was followed…
Pills made from “wild krill” (apparently so much better for you than domestic krill)? Antioxidants from exotic plants, chlorophyll or the “Sicilian Blood Orange”? Promises of extra vitality, vim and vigour…
The issue of human overpopulation has fallen out of favour among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become a taboo topic. The silence around…
The secretary-general of the United Nations’ (first) Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Maurice Strong, famously declared that if our planet is to remain a hospitable and sustainable home for the human species…
AUSTRALIA BY NUMBERS: Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first batch of its 2011 census data. We’ve asked some of the country’s top demographers and statisticians to crunch the…
Over the weekend, local leaders from around the world gathered together in Belo Horizonte, an hour’s flight from Rio de Janeiro at the ICLEI World Congress. The aim was to galvanise their case for a decade…
Amid indications that Fairfax is going into the corporate death spiral – ongoing disinvestment resulting in smaller market share - we’re asking the wrong questions about the future of the Australian media…
Mental health problems cause profound suffering and are worthy of attention for that reason alone. But despite policy and service reform, such problems remain as common, expensive and disabling as they…