LATEST ARTICLES

Dietmar Muller, geophysicist

Dietmar Muller, geophysicist

Dietmar Muller’s primary research focus is the physical fabric of the world and how it has evolved over more than a billion years, reaching back to a time when life as we know it didn’t exist. Using the latest advances in machine learning and computing technology, the Sydney University geophysicist and his colleagues use the geophysical …read more

Charles Hunt, political scientist

Charles Hunt, political scientist

More “robust” peacekeeping by United Nations peacekeepers working to calm or resolve conflicts comes with its own dangers, and it’s fertile ground for Charles Hunt’s research. Once, UN peacekeepers were strictly prohibited from ever using force for anything other than self-defence, no matter the provocation. Hunt, now an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT university, …read more

Maria Forsyth, research chemist

Maria Forsyth, research chemist

It took Maria Forsyth a while to settle on her real research interests. Beginning with a broad foundation of study in materials engineering and chemistry, she sailed through her doctorate at Monash University. With a questing mind, she worked on materials for new optic fibres and chemistries for improved in-vitro fertilisation methods, before her focus moved …read more

Buoyed by hope in the midst of crisis

Buoyed by hope in the midst of crisis

Dr Xiaoling Liu, the newly appointed chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology, is well-placed to advise on the coronavirus crisis engulfing Australian universities. Born Chinese, she worked as a metallurgist and executive for Rio Tinto for many years before retiring from her executive position and later joining company boards.

The weight of the world

The weight of the world

Children from Hong Kong and China are not immune to the global epidemic of obesity. About one in five Hong Kong schoolchildren are now classed as overweight or worse, according to the Hong Kong Department of Health’s latest survey, released last year. They were not eating enough fruit and vegetables, but eating too much salt …read more

Ramsay Centre: Wollongong denies secrecy over Western studies course

Ramsay Centre: Wollongong denies secrecy over Western studies course

Flatly denying the Ramsay Centre deal for a Western civilisation course at Wollongong University has been kept a secret, the university’s executive dean of law, ­humanities and the arts, Theo Farrell, insists he had been discussing the idea with colleagues since 2017. “Some colleagues have gone public saying there has been no consultation,” Professor Farrell …read more

Tarnished monster of rock ’n’ roll

Tarnished monster of rock ’n’ roll

All tight black leather trousers, a black leather vest and multiple loops of swinging gold chain, Gary Glitter was rocking on. The 1973 concert at Sydney’s endearingly shabby (even then) Hordern Pavilion was so awful it was almost good, in a stand back and marvel at the spectacle sort of way. And of course the …read more

The future of farming is here

The future of farming is here

Tiny sensors that stick to crop leaves and transmit health data. Robot buggies that trundle up and down orchard rows. Hyperspectral scanners to assess tree health. Smartphone-operated virtual cattle fences. Gene manipulation to transform crops so they’re a different colour or last longer, or bear fruit in a more convenient way.

Fossil fat reveals planet’s first known animal

Fossil fat reveals planet’s first known animal

In a breakthrough discovery, scientists from the Australian National University have found molecules of animal fat in a fossil more than 558 million years old, making the “Dickinsonia” the world’s first ­confirmed animal.

Whaling on the high seas

Whaling on the high seas

At the right time every season, Australians gather at whale-watching points along the east and west coasts, or take to the water in boats and canoes in the hopes of seeing the giants of the deep, mostly humpback whales, making their way up and down the coast, travelling to and from their breeding grounds.