Nobel Peace Prize for journalists serves as reminder that freedom of the press is under threat from strongmen and social media
By Kathy Kiely
Thirty-two years ago next month, I was in Germany reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event then heralded as a triumph of Western democratic liberalism and even the end of history.
But democracy isnt doing so...
Student sex work is happening, and universities need to respond with health services
By Aaron Brown Et Al
As university and college semesters unfold, a small but increasing percentage of students will likely also be taking on a largely under-reported and overlooked form of part-time employment: sex work.
Over the past year,...
Taiwan: how the 'porcupine doctrine' might help deter armed conflict with China
By Zeno Leoni
Chinese president Xi Jinping made a pledge earlier this year to complete the reunification of China (with Taiwan). Coupled with recent violations of Taiwans sovereign airspace by Chinese warplanes, this has prompted...
No, COVID vaccines don't stay in your body for years
By Tatsuya Amano Et Al
As Australia strives to reach its national COVID vaccination targets, theres unprecedented focus on the biological effects of vaccines.
While theres an enormous amount of information available online, its increasingly...
Perseverance’s first major successes on Mars – an update from mission scientists
By Melissa Rice Et Al
In the short time since NASAs Perseverance rover landed in Mars Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, its already made history.
At the moment, Mars and the Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, and the two planets cannot...
How ancient water management techniques may help Prairie farmers experiencing drought
By Craig A. Harvey
This year witnessed one of the hottest and driest summers in recent history for Western Canada and the American Southwest. The resulting droughts adversely affected food supply and helped send meat prices rising three...
Boris Johnson wants to pay Stem teachers £3,000 – research shows incentives don't work
By Beng Huat See Et Al
The only policy announcement Boris Johnson made in his Conservative party conference speech, as many have pointed out, was a 3,000 levelling-up premium for teachers. The idea, to entice maths, physics, chemistry and...
We turned to Twitter to understand conditions on the ground in Cameroon
By Julius T. Nganji Et Al
For the past five years there has been conflict in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, with no solution or end in sight. There have been political, social and cultural differences and antagonisms for several...
Conservation works better when local communities lead it, new evidence shows
By Neil Dawson Et Al
We are currently facing a mass extinction of plants and animals. To remedy this, world leaders have pledged a huge expansion of protected areas ahead of the UN biodiversity summits to be held in October 2021 and May 2022...
The most influential climate science paper of all time
By Piers Forster
After the second world war, many of Japans smartest scientists found jobs in North American laboratories. Syukuro (Suki) Manabe, a 27-year-old physicist, was part of this brain drain. He was working on weather forecasting...
Facebook's own internal documents offer a blueprint for making social media safer for teens
By Jean Twenge
Right at the time social media became popular, teen mental health began to falter. Between 2010 and 2019, rates of depression and loneliness doubled in the U.S. and globally, suicide rates soared for teens in the U.S. and...
Hybrid working is fuelling demand for more tech and bigger homes – both are bad news for the planet
By Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs Et Al
Just 5% of employed people in the UK worked from home in 2019. The onset of the pandemic and the overnight shuttering of offices during the first lockdown meant 47% of employees were doing the same in April...
Instagram Kids: tech development must move from usability to safety
By Fiona Carroll Et Al
Facebook has announced that it is halting development on its Instagram Kids project. This follows reports that the social media giant had commissioned and kept secret internal research that found Instagram was...
5 ways Twitch's massive data leak might change live streaming as we know it
By Mark R Johnson
Yesterday a colossal data leak from live streaming platform Twitch.tv was posted on controversial internet forum 4chan by an anonymous user. Twitch hosts millions of users who stream their daily activities to a combined...
What is chaos? A complex systems scientist explains
By Mitchell Newberry
Chaos evokes images of the dinosaurs running wild in Jurassic Park, or my friends toddler ravaging the living room.
In a chaotic world, you never know what to expect. Stuff is happening all the time, driven by any kind...
Paid millions to hide trillions: Pandora Papers expose financial crime enablers, too
By Marc Tassé
The Pandora Papers investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit newsroom and network of journalists based in Washington, D.C., has revealed there are still some go-to...
No Time to Die: the problem with Bond villains having facial disfigurements
By Jessica Gibson
As the 25th James Bond film No Time to Die hits the cinemas, we are once again reminded of the way that disability is depicted negatively in Hollywood films. The new James Bond film features three villains, all of who have...
The hydropower industry is talking the talk. But fine words won't save our last wild rivers
By Jamie Pittock
Technologies to harness the power of water are touted as crucial for a low-emissions future. But over many decades, the hydropower industry has caused serious damage to the environment and peoples lives.
More than 500...
Emotional vaccine: 3 ways we can move from 'languishing' to 'flourishing' in these testing times
By Dougal Sutherland
If youre feeling uninspired, stagnant and joyless, youre not alone. A sense of languishing is one of the dominant emotions of 2021 as we navigate life in an ongoing pandemic and process other terrible world events...
More guns, pandemic stress and a police legitimacy crisis created perfect conditions for homicide spike in 2020
By Justin Nix
Homicides in the U.S. spiked by almost 30% in 2020.
That was the main takeaway from figures released on Sept. 27, 2021, by the FBI that showed almost uniform increases across America in the murder rate.
The fact that...
How Sen. Joe Manchin's support for natural gas could derail Biden's US climate plan
By Michael Oppenheimer
President Joe Biden has a goal for all U.S. electricity to come from zero-carbon sources by 2035. To get there, hes counting on Congress to approve an ambitious package of incentives and penalties designed to encourage...
German election sees centre-left eke out a slim victory over Angela Merkel's party
By James M. Skidmore
The best part of every German election actually occurs after the election. Results are tabulated very quickly once polls close at 6 p.m. local time.
By 8:15 p.m., following the evening news on ARD Channel 1, the...
Tweets, emails or hand-written notes? What gets politicians to speak up on climate
By Seth Wynes
With the United Nations-led climate negotiations set to occur in November, citizens around the world have reason to despair at their governments efforts to tackle climate change. Existing national policies put the planet...
Whistleblowers are key to fighting corruption in South Africa. It shouldn't be at their peril
By Monray Marsellus Botha
Numerous corruption scandals have been reported in South Africa in recent times. The extent of corruption in the country has been laid bare at the judicial commission probing allegations of state capture over the past...
What the objections to COVID-19 control measures tells us about personal freedom
By Timothy A. Carey
As the protracted global battle with SARS-CoV-2 continues to rage, objections to the measures being taken to combat the virus are increasing. Protests have been reported in countries such as the US, the UK, Australia,...
Merkel's caution has made Germany the great economic underachiever of our times
By Muhammad Ali Nasir
Germans are taking to the polls on September 26 to elect the members for the 20th Bundestag. For the first time in 16 years, there will be a new chancellor as Angela Merkel steps down. Germany has been through some...
Josh Frydenberg prepares ground for Scott Morrison to commit to 2050 climate target
By Michelle Grattan
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will prepare the way for Scott Morrison to take a target of net zero emissions by 2050 to Glasgow, when he warns on Friday capital inflow will be at risk if Australia is seen as a climate...
Some rich people will love at least one sweetener in Democrats' $3.5 trillion plan
By Brent W Ambrose Et Al
While liberal lawmakers look for ways to raise taxes on the rich to finance their US$3.5 trillion spending package, some House Democrats are aiming to lower them.
Specifically, several Democrats from high-tax states...
Colleges must choose whether to let athletes wear school gear for paid promotions
By John Holden
Just days after the NCAA changed it rules in June 2021 to let college athletes seek endorsement deals, a college quarterback in the South announced a sponsorship deal with a beverage company.
About the same time,...
Beyond Zoom, Teams and video lectures — what do university students really want from online learning?
By Dilani Gedera Et Al
As any university student, lecturer or tutor can attest, the pandemic has turned learning and teaching upside down. So its important we understand what happens for students when their learning shifts online with little to...
After AUKUS, Russia sees a potential threat — and an opportunity to market its own submarines
By Alexey D Muraviev
The global opinions on the new AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and the UK have been decidedly mixed. China and France immediately blasted the deal, while others, such as Japan and the Philippines, were more...
Can animals sense when an earthquake is about to happen?
By Anne Quain
Within minutes of Melbourne being rattled by yesterdays earthquake, my Victorian friends reported changes in the behaviour of their animals.
One friend wrote on social media that her dog Harvey stood in the hallway...
COVID-19 increases the chance of getting an autoimmune condition. Here's what the science says so far
By Magdalena Plebanski Et Al
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can sometimes cause the immune system to mistakenly attack the persons own body. This process, known as autoimmunity, can damage a number of different organs.
After COVID-19,...
Instagram can make teens feel bad about their body, but parents can help. Here's how
By Gemma Sharp Et Al
Last week Facebooks internal research revealed Instagrams toxic effects on some young peoples body image particularly girls.
One study by Facebook of teen Instagram users in the US and UK found more than 40% of those...
How will Delta evolve? Here's what the theory tells us
By Hamish McCallum
The COVID-19 pandemic is a dramatic demonstration of evolution in action. Evolutionary theory explains much of what has already happened, predicts what will happen in the future and suggests which management strategies are...
Land of opportunity: more sustainable Australian farming would protect our lucrative exports (and the planet)
By Frank Jotzo Et Al
The European Union is pressing ahead with carbon border levies charges on carbon-intensive goods from countries such as Australia that havent taken strong action to reduce emissions. The EU will impose such measures on a...
Progress stops when we create and dismantle infrastructure programs every federal election
By Kerry Black
According to the most recent Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, the state of our infrastructure is at risk in fact, its failing. And our approach to tackling infrastructure has remained stagnant for decades.
Mired in...
Nando’s chicken shortage: how the pandemic has made supply and demand tougher to predict
By John Boylan
Peri-peri chicken fans were disappointed and frustrated when Nandos announced the temporary closure of nearly 50 restaurants. A chicken shortage has been blamed, and while reactions to the closures were satirised on social...
Hospitals often outsource important services to companies that prioritize profit over patients
By Leonard L. Berry Et Al
Hospitals have long embraced the practice of outsourcing some services to specialized companies. Much of this outsourcing is for nonclinical tasks such as laundry, information technology and cybersecurity, and outsourcing...
After India's brutal coronavirus wave, two-thirds of population has been exposed to SARS-CoV2
By Rajib Dasgupta
Cases of COVID-19 are surging around the world, but the course of the pandemic varies widely country to country. To provide you with a global view as we approach a year and a half since the official declaration of the...
Afghanistan: progress on women's rights has been hard fought – now everything is at risk under the Taliban
By Sahar Maranlou
When the Taliban was in power between 1996 and 2001, womens rights to education and employment were brutally violated. They could only go out in public if accompanied by a male relative and, even then, had to be fully...
Pfizer vaccinations for 16 to 39-year-olds is welcome news. But AstraZeneca remains a good option
By Catherine Bennett
Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced the Pfizer vaccine would become available to all Australians aged 16 to 39 from August 30.
This represents a vote of confidence in our vaccine supply, which has been...
TikTok is partnering with a blockchain start-up. Here's why this could be good news for artists
By D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
On August 17, TikTok announced it will partner with Audius, a streaming music platform, to manage its expansive internal audio library.
Audius was not the obvious choice for partnering with the short video giant. A...
'OK Boomer': how a TikTok meme traces the rise of Gen Z political consciousness
By Crystal Abidin
The phrase OK Boomer has become popular over the past two years as an all-purpose retort with which young people dismiss their elders for being old-fashioned.
OK Boomer began as a meme in TikTok videos, but our research...
Should we give up on COVID-zero? Until most of us are vaccinated, we can't live with the virus
By Hassan Vally
Were currently in the midst of one of the most challenging times during the pandemic in Australia, and were all struggling.
Frustration with the situation is at an all-time high and questions are being raised about all...
Can a polite sign lead to political change? What kinds of protest work?
By Aidan Ricketts
Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently gave reporters in Canberra a lesson in what kinds of protest he thinks work best.
Last week, he condemned Extinction Rebellion protesters who sprayed graffiti on Parliament House...
8 out of 10 teachers think education news is negative and demoralising. Some have even left because of it
By Kathryn Shine
For many teachers, news coverage of education seems to be unrelentingly negative. They say this is particularly noticeable in reporting of results of standardised tests such as NAPLAN and the OECDs Programme for...
How ancient beliefs in underwater worlds can shed light in a time of rising sea levels
By Patrick D. Nunn
The small boat sliced its way through the waveless ocean. The Fiji air was warm and still, the silhouettes of distant islands like sentinels watching our progress. It seemed a perfect day to visit the Solo Lighthouse and...
As the Taliban's grip on Afghanistan tightens, New Zealand must commit to taking more refugees
By Alexander Gillespie
With a Defence Force Hercules now en route to Afghanistan to assist with rescue and evacuation, New Zealand joins a 60-country response to the unfolding calamity. Yet doubt still surrounds just who is eligible for the...
Metabolism may not slow after 20 – so why do we still gain weight?
By Janet Cade
For a long time, it was believed that after the age of 20 your metabolism decreased dramatically making it harder to lose weight and keep in shape. But a recent study has shown our metabolism also known as energy...
