Detroit is in turmoil, officially bankrupt and home to some of America’s poorest citizens. But 50 years ago it was thriving, boasting a booming manufacturing sector and a steadily growing educated middle-class…
US President Barack Obama speaks during the Climate Summit 2014 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 23 September 2014.
JUSTIN LANE/EPA
Speaking with Nick Watts, Director of the The Global Climate & Health Alliance, from the UN Climate Summit in New York. Listen in as he explains the links between climate and health, what we have to…
The LGBTI community has unique needs that are often overlooked during the response and recovery stages of a natural disaster event.
euphoriadev via Flickr
When natural disasters strike, the impact varies significantly across different social groups, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities are poorly accounted for in disaster…
‘I wouldn’t call it a miracle, I’d call it an accident’ – Gessen on Putin’s formative experience with the KGB.
Christchurch City Libraries
Russian-American writer and LGBT activist, Masha Gessen has covered every major development in Russian politics and culture of the past two decades. She is the author of Words Will Break Cement: The Passion…
Social and digital media perform a function that is humanising by connecting people and allowing freedom of expression.
Icons from Shutterstock
Is social media really delivering on its promise of democratising communication? Or have we just replaced one model that privileges those with power for another? Dr Andrea Carson speaks with Professor…
‘Shoehorning your imagination into the condition of another human being is the A game in songwriting.’
Mark Seymour, AAP/ MG Promotions
At the Melbourne Writers’ Festival this week, a panel of poets, writers and performers will read and reflect on the poetry of the first world war. Among them is Mark Seymour, the former frontman of Hunters…
Ruth Reichl, the former restaurant critic of The New York Times and author of best-selling gourmet memoirs Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples, is known for describing, in vivid detail, how food…
Australia’s housing market is among the most expensive in the world.
AAP Image/Joel Carrett
In the past six months the federal government has cut the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) and announced an inquiry into foreign investment in residential real estate. In both cases the government…
Andrew Lock personifies the meaning of ‘grit’.
Melbourne Writers' Festival
Andrew Lock is the most accomplished high-altitude mountaineer in Australian history. He is the only Australian, the first person in the Commonwealth, and just the 18th man in the world to climb all 14…
American comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black.
Foxtel
Over the past decade we have witnessed the rise and rise of long form television – from The Sopranos to The Wire, Game of Thrones to Orange Is the New Black – and no one has been watching this transformation…
Chris Hadfield spent nearly five months on the International Space Station.
NASA
Colonel Chris Hadfield is one of the most famous astronauts on Earth. Through the creative use of social media, he’s made space exciting and accessible to new generations of enthusiasts, most notably through…
Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz says Australia should make sure its international “brand name” is for its high-quality services.
EPA/Arne Dedert
Nobel Laureate and renowned economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz has been packing out lecture theatres in Australia in the past week. During his whirlwind tour, he’s talked about why inequality matters…
Musicians often have curious minds, and the pianist and composer Horace Silver was no exception. An often overlooked musician in the public eye, Silver wrote some of the most performed jazz standards of…
Shadow Minister for Families & Payments, Jenny Macklin, says the HILDA survey contradicts Joe Hockey’s claims that Australia’s welfare spending is out of control.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Charis Palmer, The Conversation and Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
The latest instalment of the long running Housing, Income and Labour Dynamics Survey from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research was released today, with many commentators using…
The drongo and babbler look different, but one can masterfully impersonate the other.
Tom Flowers
In Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf, the boy warns farmers of imaginary wolves threatening their flocks just to laugh at the sight of them running to the rescue for no reason. Of course, when the…
Neil Young has big plans to improve the sound of digital audio – but how realistic are they?
Phillipe Put
There’s a diagram that does the rounds online that neatly sums up the difference between the quality of equipment used in the studio to produce music, and the quality of the listening equipment used by…
Charming, dissolute, devious: Guy Burgess.
PA Archive
Guy Burgess was, at various times and often simultaneously, a radio producer for the BBC, an informer for MI5, a propagandist for MI6, a diplomat for the FBI and a spy for the KGB. In the book which I…
Is it reasonable to expect juries to spend the time needed to check police transcripts against the audio when lawyers themselves do not?
Shutterstock/Everett Collection
Today, we take it for granted that police interviews with suspects will be electronically recorded and independently transcribed. That hasn’t always been the case. Police were once allowed to testify…
Ever wondered why remastered compilations sound so awful? John Maynard Keynes may have the answer.
Affendaddy
Music fans may have noticed something odd when their favourite artists release new “best-of” compilations or remaster back catalogues for CD or iTunes. Over successive reissues, the same songs sound worse…
