Axie Infinity: online games where people earn as they play are transforming gaming

By Drew Cattanach

The ultimate point of playing video games has always been to have fun. Whether its Space Invaders or Sonic or Red Dead Redemption, you hit the start button and do your thing until game over and then you probably wipe the...

Surfing makes its Olympic debut – and the waves should be world-class thanks to wind, sand and a typhoon or two

By Sally Warner

For the first time, surfing is on the Olympic stage. The surfing event will last for three days and has to run within the dates from July 25 to August 1. The reason for this window? Not all waves are created equal, and...

Forget the medals, the real game of the Olympics is soft power — and the opening ceremony is key

By Caitlin Vincent Et Al

The Olympic Games are often hailed as a neutral celebration of athletic achievement. The Olympic Games are not about politics, wrote the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, in the Guardian last...

To watch or not watch? The Tokyo Games raises difficult questions for fans

By Adam Karg Et Al

When the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games officially begin on Friday night, they will do so with the host city under a state of emergency due to COVID-19. For the first time in history, all Olympic events will take place in...

Unis are killing the critical study of religion, and it will only make campuses more religious

By Christopher Hartney

Global developments in tertiary education suggest the critical scientific study of religion is endangered. One of the departments slated for extinguishment amid the pandemic-related upheavals was my own at the University...

Pandemic has teens feeling worried, unmotivated and disconnected from school

By Leah M. Lessard

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, many U.S. teens were more worried about the disruption to their education than the possibility of getting sick. A May 2020 survey of high school students found that they reported...

How the rollout of South Africa's renewable energy plan is failing communities

By Zoheb Khan

South Africas over-reliance on coal-fired power plants places the country among the worlds top carbon emitters and does huge damage to the health of its citizens. The country has also struggled to maintain a stable energy...

'Cyborg soil' reveals the secret microbial metropolis beneath our feet

By Edith Hammer

Dig a teaspoon into your nearest clump of soil, and what youll emerge with will contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. We know this from lab studies that analyse samples of earth scooped from the...

Canceling student loan debt will barely boost the economy, but a targeted approach could help certain groups

By William Chittenden

At the end of June 2021, 43 million borrowers or about 14% of all adults in the U.S. owed approximately US$1.59 trillion in outstanding federal student loans. Although in many cases the media has focused on borrowers...

We're paying companies millions to roll out COVID vaccines. But we're not getting enough bang for our buck

By Lesley Russell

How we roll out vaccines is recognised as more important to the success of vaccination programs than how well a vaccine works. And the last mile of distribution to get vaccine into peoples arms is the most...

Australia's government gives more support to fossil fuel research than is apparent

By Will McDowall

Australian governments direct billions to fossil fuel companies. Among the projects funded by Commonwealth and state governments are work on coal ports, railways and power stations, and research into clean coal or coal...

Can we cancel 'cancel culture'?

By Dino Sossi

Alexi McCammonds journalism career was rapidly ascending. She was a political reporter for Axios and a fixture on cable news. Jeffrey Toobin was an award-winning lawyer-turned-journalist. He wrote for The New Yorker,...

Insulin was discovered 100 years ago – but it took a lot more than one scientific breakthrough to get a diabetes treatment to patients

By James P. Brody

Diabetes was a fatal disease before insulin was discovered on July 27, 1921. A century ago, people diagnosed with this metabolic disorder usually survived only a few years. Physicians had no way to treat their diabetic...

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin: can they be more than 'space' joyrides for millionaires?

By Ian Whittaker

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and his team successfully flew to the edge of space on the Unity 22 mission aboard a Virgin Galactic plane on 12 July. The event was hailed as the start of space tourism, narrowly...

How 'In God We Trust' bills are helping advance a Christian nationalist agenda

By Kristina M. Lee

City vehicles in Chesapeake, Virginia, will soon be getting religion. At a meeting on July 13, 2021, city councilors unanimously voted in favor of a proposal that would see the official motto of the U.S., In God We...

Tokyo 2020: with no spectators, local sponsors lose out

By Seth I. Kirby

After much deliberation over whether spectators would be allowed, a new COVID-19 state of emergency in Japan sealed the deal: this years Olympic Games will have no domestic or foreign spectators. Despite this, the Tokyo...

Generation COVID: pregnancy, birth and postnatal life in the pandemic

By James Clifford Kent Et Al

What was it like to be pregnant, to give birth and to look after a baby in the middle of a pandemic? For this Insights article, photographer and researcher of visual cultures James Clifford Kent teamed up with...

Travelling through deep time to find copper for a clean energy future

By Dietmar Müller Et Al

More than 100 countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, have committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The world is going to need a lot of metal, particularly copper. Recently, the...

Apple's Siri is no longer a woman by default, but is this really a win for feminism?

By Eleonore Fournier-Tombs

As of March 31, 2021, when Apple released the iOs 14.5 beta update to its operating system, Siri no longer defaults to a female voice when using American English. Users must now choose between two male and two female...

Big Pharma's COVID-19 reputation boost may not last — here’s why

By Sibo Chen

The race for developing effective COVID-19 vaccines has put the pharmaceutical industry in the spotlight. Over the past few months, the world has witnessed rapid clinical trials and approvals of several highly effective...

Digital learning is real-world learning. That's why blended on-campus and online study is best

By Elizabeth Johnson

Social distancing and lockdowns have disrupted university study for the past 18 months. Students are understandably stressed as shown by a dramatic drop in student satisfaction across Australia reported in the annual...

RBA starts three-year countdown to lift in interest rates

By Isaac Gross

In line with expectations, the Reserve Bank of Australia has announced it will keep official interest rates on hold at 0.10%. But is also ready to start tapering off its unconventional monetary policy measures...

Thinking of getting a minor cosmetic procedure like botox or fillers? Here's what to consider first

By Simone Buzwell Et Al

At a dinner party recently, my friend Kaity whispered, Ive been staring at my face in Zoom meetings and I look tired. Im considering Botox. What are the risks? I shouldnt have been surprised; Kaity isnt alone in...

The 'madness' of Julia Banks — why narratives about 'hysterical' women are so toxic

By Camilla Nelson

On Monday night, former Liberal MP Julia Banks spoke to Laura Tingle on 7.30. In the detailed interview about her new book, Power Play, she described how Scott Morrisons office began backgrounding against her when Banks...

Supreme Court strikes down California's nonprofit donor disclosure requirements: 4 questions answered

By Dana Brakman Reiser

The Supreme Court tossed out a California law requiring nonprofits to report their major donors to state officials. I n a 6-3 ruling, the court said the law, intended to fight fraud, subjected donors to potential...

How well do COVID vaccines work in the real world?

By David Henry Et Al

Many Australians will be weighing up whether to be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is widely available, or to wait for Pfizer later in the year. There are many factors to consider. One is how well these...

Vaccine Rollout 2.0: Australia needs to do 3 things differently

By Stephen Duckett Et Al

Australias vaccine rollout started just over four months ago. It has not gone well, to put it mildly. To date, only 24% of the population have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and nearly 5% 1.2 million people have...

Yes, lockdowns are costly. But the alternatives are worse

By Patrick Abraham Et Al

Lockdowns are costly. They damage businesses and livelihoods. Victorias recent lockdown cost about $100 million a day in lost economic activity, according to Victorian Treasury. NSWs current lockdown will cost about...

The Communist Party claims to have brought prosperity and equality to China. Here's the real impact of its rule

By Chongyi Feng

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in full swing to prepare for the 100th anniversary of its founding this week, with an intense publicity push to crow about its achievements. However, the CCP has little to celebrate...

Australians are embracing 'mindful drinking' — and the alcohol industry is also getting sober curious

By Tamara Bucher Et Al

In 2020, Australias first non-alcoholic bar opened in Brunswick. Sydney quickly followed suit. Major liquor retailers are dedicating more and more shelf space for the growing range of no-alcohol and low-alcohol...

Record-breaking temperatures mean we must change the way we talk about the climate emergency

By Kamyar Razavi

New normal. Record-breaking. Unprecedented. In recent days, as Western Canada and the United States have been broiling under a climate-fuelled heat crisis, all sorts of superlatives have been used to describe...

Settled status deadline: what's next for EU citizens in the UK?

By Catherine Barnard Et Al

Today, June 30, is the deadline to apply for EU Settled Status. All EU, EEA and Swiss citizens living in the UK (before December 31 2020), as well as their non-EU family members, needed to submit an application to the EU...

How football and COVID-19 are both triggers for a surge in online gambling

By Agnes Nairn Et Al

Euro 2020 is one of the biggest events in football, a festival of goal scoring and glory seeking and for many, yet another opportunity to gamble. Anyone following the action whether its at a stadium, on TV or online ...

The fight against economic fraud: how African countries are tackling the challenge

By Nataliya Mykhalchenko Et Al

The COVID-19 pandemic has stifled many sectors of the global economy. But it has apparently boosted the business of fraudsters. Experts note that some fraudsters have taken advantage of the new opportunities of the...

How to help entrepreneurs adopt cutting edge technologies to grow their businesses

By Sean Kruger Et Al

Entrepreneurs are known to drive innovation and progress in various fields. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has provided an unprecedented platform to do so. This global concept was coined in 2016 by Professor Klaus...

What happens when black holes collide with the most dense stars in the universe

By Martin Krause

For the first time, a faint signal caused by the merging of two almost equally mysterious objects a black hole and a neutron star has been recorded on Earth. On January 5 2020, when the world was first learning of the...

Tour de France crash: Legal action not worth disrupting the long history of fan involvement

By Steve Greenfield

Calamity marred the opening stage of the 2021 Tour de France, with two harrowing crashes in the final 45km of the stretch from Brest to Landernau. The second of the two was a normal cycling crash one riders wheels...

Scott Morrison's AstraZeneca 'hand grenade' turns into cluster bomb

By Michelle Grattan

The debate about the vexed vaccination rollout on Wednesday exploded into an extraordinary free-for-all, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison under fire and health experts arguing among themselves. Morrison had hoped by...

How women's experience of birth during COVID-19 can help improve childbirth in future

By Janet Greenlees Et Al

Over the past 15 months we have avoided hugs and handshakes, stayed at home and quarantined, and experienced important life events alone. We have been reduced to family bubbles keeping away from friends, acquaintances and...

Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn't

By David Miguel Gray

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to fellow Republicans on June 24, 2021, stating: As Republicans, we reject the racial essentialism that critical race theory teaches … that our institutions are racist...

An expert on search and rescue robots explains the technologies used in disasters like the Florida condo collapse

By Robin R. Murphy

Texas AMs Robin Murphy has deployed robots at 29 disasters, including three building collapses, two mine disasters and an earthquake as director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue. She has also served as a...

Pentagon UFO report: No aliens, but government transparency and desire for better data might bring science to the UFO world

By Chris Impey

On June 25, 2021, the Pentagon released a much-anticipated report on UFOs to Congress. The military has rebranded unidentified flying objects as unidentified aerial phenomena UAPs in part to avoid the stigma that has been...

To make agriculture more climate-friendly, carbon farming needs clear rules

By Laura van der Pol Et Al

As the effects of climate change intensify and paths for limiting global warming narrow, politicians, media and environmental advocates have rallied behind carbon farming as a mutually beneficial strategy for society, the...

China's 'one-child policy' left at least 1 million bereaved parents childless and alone in old age, with no one to take care of them

By Lihong Shi

A childs death is devastating to all parents. But for Chinese parents, losing an only child can add financial ruin to emotional devastation. Thats one conclusion of a research project on parental grief Ive conducted in...

When a Black boxing champion beat the 'Great White Hope,' all hell broke loose

By Chris Lamb

An audacious Black heavyweight champion was slated to defend his title against a white boxer in Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910. It was billed as the fight of the century. The fight was seen as a referendum on racial...

Today's intense workplace culture can be traced back to a forgotten Soviet coal miner – podcast

By Bogdan Costea Et Al

This episode of The Conversations In Depth Out Loud podcast features the story of a young Soviet miner named Alexei Stakhanov, and how the work ethic he embodied in the 1930s has been invoked by managers in the west ever...

Tokyo 2021: how COVID risks taking the fun out of the games

By Jo Batey

Eating alone, daily testing, no talking at mealtimes the COVID rules recently announced for athletes competing in the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games are challenging, to say the least. On top of the rules, there is the...

Jacob Zuma isn't a man with a cause. Just a wily politician trying to evade the law

By Mcebisi Ndletyana

South Africas Constitutional Court ruling to imprison the countrys former president, Jacob Zuma, was unprecedented. But it wasnt unexpected. The author of the majority judgment, Justice Sisi Khampepe, captured the...

Academic freedom is paramount for universities. They can do more to protect it from China's interference

By Yun Jiang

A report from Human Rights Watch released yesterday found students and academics critical of Chinas Communist Party are being harassed and intimidated by supporters of Beijing. Human Rights Watch interviewed 24...

One third of migrant and refugee women experience domestic violence, major survey reveals

By Marie Segrave Et Al

A third of migrant and refugee women in a new survey said they experienced some form of domestic and/or family violence. And temporary visa holders consistently reported proportionately higher levels of domestic and...