Kamala Harris is riding another wave of support following her debate with Donald Trump
By Ronald W. Pruessen
Political commentators and flash polls are close to unanimous in declaring Vice President Kamala Harris the victor in her first presidential debate against Donald Trump.
Those wondering if she could sustain the...
Why Canada needs a national disability strategy
By Olaf Kraus de Camargo
At some point in our lives, many of us will experience disability, whether through illness, injury or the natural process of aging.
Advances in medical science have allowed us to live longer lives, but this often means...
YouTuber Nikocado Avocado’s extreme weight-loss hoax isn’t admirable – it’s fatness being exploited for engagement
By Emma Beckett
US internet personality Nikocado Avocado (Nicholas Perry) recently shocked the internet when he revealed his weight loss of 250 pounds (110kg).
Perry had been posting mukbang content, which involves eating large amounts...
Making fuels from plastics in Newaygo, Michigan, would be controversial – here’s why
By Anne McNeil Et Al
Humans generate a lot of plastic waste more than 400 million metric tons a year.
To bring this fact a bit closer to home, the U.S. produced an average of 0.75 pounds (0.34 kilograms) of plastic waste per person each...
Slow mining could be a solution to overconsumption in an increasingly fast-paced world
By Deborah Johnson Et Al
A fast approach to business characterized by overconsumption across supply chains has become almost ubiqutous in recent years.
Fast fashion is one of the most polluting industries globally, often relying on synthetic...
From runways to film: the untold story of trailblazing First Nations fashion designer Stephen FitzGerald
By Treena Clark
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people.
In August, I attended the Darwin Aboriginal Arts Fair to witness First Nations designers and...
Has AI hacked the operating system of human civilisation? Yuval Noah Harari sounds a warning
By Darius von Guttner Sporzyns
Just as artificial intelligence (AI) models are trained on vast data sets to learn and predict, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow have trained us to expect disruptive ideas...
Local papers are central to our democracy. We must do more to bring them out of crisis
By Kristy Hess
This is the second piece in a series on the Future of Australian media. You can read the first piece in the series here.
Australians who are unaware of stories about social disorder and crime gripping Alice Springs must...
Apple’s iPhone 16 launch shows AI is shaking up the tech giant’s core market
By Lewis Endlar
As someone who helped set up one of the first iPhones back in late 2007 on live TV, I found the launch of the first iteration of Apples smartphone an exciting time. At the launch in June of that year, a grinning Steve Jobs...
What remains of ‘Operation Car Wash’, Brazil’s historic anti-corruption probe?
By Manoel Gehrke Et Al
Ten years ago, in March 2014, prosecutors in the Brazilian city of Curitiba transformed a money laundering investigation into a historic anti-corruption probe known as Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash)....
Is America ready to elect a Black woman president?
By Emma Shortis
Its the big question that has loomed over Kamala Harris presidential campaign from the start: is the United States ready for a Black woman president?
I get asked this almost every time I speak about American politics....
91% of Australian teens have a phone – but many are not keeping their identity and location secure
By Yeslam Al-Saggaf Et Al
Most Australian teenagers have their own smartphone. According to a 2023 survey, 91% of young people between 14 and 17 owned a phone.
At the same time, there is huge community concern about young people being exposed to...
Murdoch to Musk: how global media power has shifted from the moguls to the big tech bros
By Matthew Ricketson Et Al
Until recently, Elon Musk was just a wildly successful electric car tycoon and space pioneer. Sure, he was erratic and outspoken, but his global influence was contained and seemingly under control.
But add the ownership...
How the oil and gas industry influences higher education
By Emily Eaton Et Al
As the climate crisis gets worse, global fossil fuel production is growing and oil and gas companies are making record profits.
While the powerful influence of the fossil fuel industrys lobbying on climate policy is...
Treasurer distances himself from his former boss’ Reserve Bank attack
By Michelle Grattan
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has distanced himself from the strident attack his one-time boss Wayne Swan launched on the Reserve Bank, which the former treasurer accused of putting economic dogma over rational...
The Boeing Starliner has returned to Earth without its crew – a former astronaut details what that means for NASA, Boeing and the astronauts still up in space
By Michael E. Fossum
Boeings crew transport space capsule, the Starliner, returned to Earth without its two-person crew right after midnight Eastern time on Sept. 7, 2024. Its remotely piloted return marked the end of a fraught test flight to...
Five disinformation tactics Russia is using to try to influence the US election
By Precious Chatterje-Doody
The White Houses recent exposure of Russian attempts to influence this years US presidential election will come as little surprise to anyone who followed disinformation tactics during the last US election.
During the...
How much does aging affect mental acuity? It’s debatable
By Donald Jurivich
I cringed recently while driving to the clinic where I specialize in geriatric medicine when I heard a young radio announcer refer to old people as wiggy, a pejorative for wacky.
As a doctor who has extensively...
Meteorite strike in South Africa: scientists offer clues about what it is and where it came from
By Roger Lawrence Gibson Et Al
On a Sunday morning in late August 2024 a nine-year-old girl named Eli-zé du Toit was sitting on her grandparents porch near a small town in South Africas Eastern Cape province, when she heard a long rumble, then...
The emotional toll of dating apps and why they’re no longer about finding love – podcast
By Gemma Ware1
Dating apps are having a rocky moment. In February, Bumble said it would lay off 30% of its workforce after disappointing results in 2023. Match Group, which has struggled to maintain paying subscribers for its most...
Could Bangladesh’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, be extradited to the country to stand trial?
By Raisul Islam Sourav
Former Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, fled to India in early August after a mass uprising forced her to step down. Her resignation followed weeks of unrest in which nearly 650 people were killed and many more...
Think you’re better at driving than most? How psychological biases are keeping our roads unsafe
By Gemma Briggs
You never have to look hard to find recent reports of fatal vehicle crashes on UK roads. After devastating events such as a crash in West Yorkshire in July 2024, where four adults and two children were killed, media...
The Earth’s inner core is a total mystery – here’s how we’re starting to solve it
By Alfred Wilson-Spencer
Deep beneath our feet, at a staggering depth of over 5,100km, lies Earths inner core a solid ball of iron and nickel that plays a crucial role in shaping the conditions we experience on the surface. In fact, without it...
How Sigmund Freud attempted to solve the ‘riddle’ of Leonardo da Vinci’s genius
By Luke Thurston
The idea that prowess in activities like playing chess or writing poetry might be fuelled by frustrated, unconscious sexual desire is fairly well known today. But writing more than a century ago, Sigmund Freud was...
How Australia’s new AI ‘guardrails’ can clean up the messy market for artificial intelligence
By Nicholas Davis
Australias federal government has today launched a proposed set of mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI alongside a voluntary safety standard for organisations using AI.
Each of these documents offer ten mutually...
If robots could lie, would we be okay with it? A new study throws up intriguing results
By Stine S. Johansen
Do you think a robot should be allowed to lie? A new study published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI investigates what people think of robots that deceive their users.
Their research uses examples of robots lying to...
How to get the housing we need: healthy, affordable and resilient to climate change
By Lyrian Daniel Et Al
Imagine coming home after a long day at work. It is winter. You step inside your home. It is warm, quiet and dry.
A storm is forecast to blow in tonight. Unprecedented rainfall, they are saying. But you are not worried....
GPS tracking is everywhere in pro sports but many AFLW players are uncomfortable with it
By Dr Paul Bowell Et Al
The 2024 AFLW season kicked off last week, continuing the growth of a variety of sports that were once considered only for men.
This growth has resulted in more women athletes entering elite sporting structures for the...
Are the far-left and far-right merging together?
By Shannon Brincat
When most of us think about politics, we think of different views as sitting on a spectrum. Left wing is at one end, right wing at the other. We all, therefore, sit somewhere on this straight line in the way we view the...
Meta has a new plan to keep kids safe online. Will it work?
By Toby Murray
Meta, which owns social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, has revealed its plans for keeping kids safe online. It wants companies like Apple and Google, who run mobile phone app stores, to force parents to...
National debt explained: What you should know about Canada’s deficit
By Sorin Rizeanu
By the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, Canadas total market debt is expected to surpass $1.4 trillion. Every day, this debt grows by more than $100 million, and every second, Canada pays more than $1,200 in...
드론 공격이 우크라이나 전쟁의 규칙과 비용을 어떻게 바꾸고 있는가
By Marcel Plichta
우크라이나가 새롭게 공개한 장거리 무기는 드론과 미사일 기술이 결합된 형태로, 키이우는 이를 통해 러시아군의 공격에 대처하는 능력을 크게 강화할 것으로 기대하고 있다.
우크라이나 홍보 자료에 따르면 이 로켓 드론은...
India’s new mega-dam will roil lives downstream with wild swings in water flow every day
By Parag Jyoti Saikia
Hey Rupam, open the door. Take this fish, a woman yelled from outside. I was sitting in the kitchen at my friend Rupams house in rural northeast India. It was the heart of monsoon season, and rain had been falling since...
Newspoll remains tied at 50–50, but Albanese’s net approval slumps
By Adrian Beaumont
A national Newspoll, conducted August 2630 from a sample of 1,263, had a 5050 two-party tie between Labor and the Coalition, unchanged from the previous Newspoll three weeks ago. This is the first time this term there have...
We found teenage girls don’t know vulvas from vaginas or when their menstrual cycle starts
By Felicity Roux Et Al
It is important for everyone but especially girls, women and people who menstruate to understand how ovulation and menstruation work.
The menstrual cycle is a key indicator of overall health and sadly, issues such as...
‘It’s time to give up on normal’: what winter’s weird weather means for the warm months ahead
By David Bowman
Heavy winds struck south-east Australia over the weekend as a series of cold fronts moved across the continent. It followed a high fire danger in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales last week, and a fire in...
Military veterans with PTSD face an agonising choice: the stigma of declaring it to employers or being denied support
By Richard O'Quinn Et Al
Australia is home to almost half a million military veterans, most of whom are in the workforce.
But most around 60% live with long-term health problems.
About half of these face enduring mental health challenges,...
Without sanctions, making companies disclose their environmental and social impacts has limited effect
By Charl de Villiers
As of last year, New Zealands largest companies and financial institutions have been required to disclose their climate-related risks and opportunities in their annual reports and regulatory filings.
This follows a...
Aluminium foil that can clean water: we’ve developed a coating which attracts and traps dangerous microbes
By Taufiq Ihsan
More than 2 billion people around the world do not have access to safe, uncontaminated drinking water. Around 418 million of them live in African countries.
The problem is most acute in rural communities, where peoples...
Is Iran’s anti-Israel and American rhetoric all bark and no bite?
By Shahram Akbarzadeh
On August 27, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, told the newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and his cabinet that talking to the enemy may be useful.
In a thinly veiled reference...
What is space made of? An astrophysics expert explains all the components – from radiation to dark matter – found in the vacuum of space
By Nilakshi Veerabathina
What is space made of what does gravity actually bend? Phil, age 12, Birmingham
What comes to mind when you think of space? Imagine a friend boasting about a spacious building, stadium or museum they recently...
Healthy soils are good for your gut, brain and wellbeing – here’s why
By Jose David Henao Casas
Often overlooked, soil is one of our planets largest living ecosystems and the foundation of our lives. It provides 95% of our food, supports global biodiversity and helps balance the climate by storing atmospheric...
Five notorious cyberattacks that targeted governments
By Rachael Medhurst
Warfare is no longer confined to physical battlefields. In the digital age, a new front has emerged cyberspace. Here, countries clash not with bullets and bombs, but with lines of code and sophisticated malware.
One of...
Home education: why are so many parents choosing it over mainstream school?
By Lucie Wheeler
There has been a notable rise in parents choosing to home educate their children over recent years, and particularly since the COVID pandemic.
Elective home education carrying out a childs education at home, outside...
Sudan is the world’s worst modern war
By Kagure Gacheche
Sudans war has been raging since April 2023. The country was on a bumpy road to democracy after mass uprisings in 2019 ousted long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir. This all came to a halt when troops from the Rapid Support...
Is ‘coaching’ a shortcut to mental health care? Not so fast − here are key differences
By Emily Hemendinger
Life coach, wellness coach, business coach, weight loss coach, breakup coach the list goes on and on. All are different titles for similar jobs, with the same limitation: Anyone can claim to be an expert.
Health...
If new technologies snarl your airline experience, here are old-school strategies to cope
By Christopher Schaberg
Ten years ago I wrote a book titled The End of Airports about how digital technologies and commercial air travel were on a collision course. Earlier this summer, I was proved right.
In July, a cybersecurity software...
Trump and Harris, with starkly different records on labor issues, are both courting union voters
By Robert Forrant
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump are in a tight race for the White House. Every voting bloc will count including members of labor unions and other people in their...
When cannabis is rescheduled, states can look to Colorado and Washington for ideas on how to regulate it
By Boyoung Seo
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has made moves to reclassify marijuana, making it a type of legal but regulated medicine, like Tylenol with codeine or some steroids.
With the reclassification, 26 states where...
DRC: fighting with rebels in the country’s east has intensified, sparking fears of a wider war
By Dale Pankhurst
Security forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been battling the M23 rebel group in the east of the country since 2012. However, there has been a major upsurge in fighting so far this year.
The M23...
