Sep
24
2025
Australia leads the world in rooftop solar. About one-third of all Australian houses have rooftop solar installed and recently there has been a surge in demand for home batteries, so solar power can be stored and later used or sold. Yet some home-owners can’t afford or simply don’t want a solar system, others live in …read more
Sep
3
2025
The global arms race between cybersecurity experts and scammers is still raging and increased digital literacy is needed to ensure all Australians can securely navigate digital systems, according to experts at an Optus and Australian Financial Review roundtable. Developments such as voice-activated technology could make digital navigation easier for Australians who lacked digital literacy, said …read more
Aug
20
2025
More than 2,000 full-time and part-time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are now studying at the University of Newcastle in NSW, the highest number enrolled at any university in Australia. The university’s Wollotuka Institute has been a haven for Indigenous students for 42 years, making it one of the oldest institutes of this type …read more
Aug
20
2025
Matt Dun has devoted his career to researching the rare and most fatal of childhood cancers including acute myeloid leukaemia and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (known as DIPG), a paediatric brain cancer. Dun’s young daughter died of DIPG, a disease which is almost always fatal within a matter of months. As Professor of Paediatric Haematology …read more
Aug
6
2025
Buying into so-called alternative investments – often collectables – can be a chancy business, warns Capital Partners principal and financial adviser Rakesh Shah. “While it’s true that some investors have made fortunes in this space, these success stories are the exception rather than the norm,” he adds. One client’s collectable coins had been properly valued, …read more
Jun
25
2025
From listening to doctor-patient conversations and writing up the medical notes, to creating multi-level lesson plans for a high-school class, to offering to make text messages “funnier” – generative artificial intelligence is everywhere and evolving at speed. The modern professional needs to understand the scope and potential pitfalls of genAI to take full advantage of …read more
Jun
18
2025
Australian schools are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools for assessment and teacher assistance; to help provide individualised feedback to students and create new ways of learning. However, the take-up has been patchy, says Therese Hopfenbeck, director of the Assessment & Evaluation Research Centre (AERC) at the University of Melbourne, adding: “From a research perspective, we …read more
Jun
16
2025
It took just 72 hours for Aspen Medical to set up a comprehensive clinic to support fleeing Afghan nationals after the Taliban overran Afghanistan in August 2021. The chaotic mass evacuation known as the Kabul Airlift began within days of the Taliban takeover, and the Australian department of foreign affairs (DFAT) contracted Aspen Medical to …read more
Jun
15
2025
Pharmacists now have to tread a fine line with parents who seek health advice on social media. Online parenting groups can foster a distrust of the health profession and so-called Big Pharma, and pharmacists have to take care to gently persuade parents to consider the benefits of evidence-based medicine. Reduced fact-checking and minimal content moderation …read more
Jun
11
2025
Angela Gadaev arrived in Australia in 1991 with one suitcase and one dollar. Born in Belarus, 100 kilometres from Chernobyl, she had degrees in mathematics and computer science from Francisk Skorina Gomel State University in her home country, a passion for technology and the performing arts, and not much English. She knew, though, she wanted …read more