Reading Whistler’s Nocturne in Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge as a piece of music
Nocturne in Blue and Gold Old Battersea Bridge by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1872-5). Tate/Canva, CC BY-SA In 1877 the American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) achieved notoriety when he exhibited his recent...
Choking during sex: many young people mistakenly believe it can be done safely, our study shows
Lysenko Andrii/Shutterstock Around 50% of Australian young people have engaged in choking, or strangulation, during sex. This practice involves one person putting pressure on the neck of another, restricting breathing or...
Whalesong patterns follow a universal law of human language, new research finds
A humpback whale mother and calf on the New Caledonian breeding grounds. Mark Quintin All known human languages display a surprising pattern: the most frequent word in a language is twice as frequent as the second most...
Friday essay: a reinvention of self – the pleasure of literary journeys
Penguin In the hiatus that was COVID lockdown, the novelty of staying put had a peculiar grace and delight. To limit ones trajectory to five kilometres meant homing in on the small and the local: the seasonal repetitions...
‘A relentlessly dull world’ – the case for adding more colour to NZ’s grey prisons
Prisons are not colourful places. Typically, they are grey or some variation of a monochrome colour scheme. But increasingly, such a limited palette is being questioned for its impact on health and rehabilitation. As the...

Rebels are continuing their march in eastern Congo – what is their long-term goal?
In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of about 2 million people on the border with Rwanda in the...

DRC conflict: talks have failed to bring peace. Is it time to try sanctions?
The crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) escalated at the end of January 2025 when Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu, fell to Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The civilian population is paying a...