Future of Coal Series

Is coal the only way to deal with energy poverty in developing economies?

Jun 14, 2016 08:30 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature Economy

As the world moves to combat climate change, its increasingly doubtful that coal will continue to be a viable energy source, because of its high greenhouse gas emissions. But coal played a vital role in the Industrial...

Climate Change Series

The Paris climate agreement needs coordinated carbon prices to be successful

Jun 14, 2016 08:16 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

The Paris climate agreement was an important success for climate diplomacy as nation states showed a strong will to cooperate on climate action. But instead of imposing binding national emission targets, the Paris...

Trollied: serves you (just) right

Jun 14, 2016 08:13 am UTC| Insights & Views Entertainment

For the comic protagonist, the literary critic Northrop Frye once observed, life is something you get through. While tragic characters die in plangent splendour, and Marvel superheroes vanquish tech-spangled foes, the...

Microsoft sees integration opportunities in LinkedIn purchase - but will users care?

Jun 14, 2016 07:47 am UTC| Insights & Views Technology

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has explained the rationale behind the tech companys plans to buy LinkedIn for US$26.2 billion. In a letter to staff, Nadella said he believes that access to LinkedIn customers will benefit...

AI Revolution Series

Climate Change Series

Climate change makes a comeback – with the help of social media

Jun 14, 2016 07:44 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

In what has been shaping up as the election that forgot climate change, there are signs emerging in the Coalitions election campaign that it is starting to listen to polls, its own focus groups and social media chat on...

Is nicotine really as safe as e-cigarette supporters make out?

Jun 14, 2016 07:09 am UTC| Insights & Views Health

A core platform of the massive promotion of e-cigarettes has been the argument that because these products involve no combustion but only vapourisation, they must be substantially less dangerous than smoked tobacco. Few ...

Computing gives us tools to preserve disappearing languages

Jun 14, 2016 06:58 am UTC| Insights & Views Technology

In 100 years, many of the worlds 7,000 languages could be extinct. Hundreds of years of oral storytelling will disappear in the space of a couple of generations. The knowledge and beauty locked up in these languages is...