• Artificial Intelligence

    Can AI speak up for science?


    Jon Whittle |  April 30, 2024


    AI tools are already being widely used in science. But can they, and the science they help produce, be trusted?


  • Transport

    Airfares are staying sky-high


    David Beirman |  April 30, 2024


    The post-pandemic surge in airfares is easing, but a return to the halcyon days of relatively cheap flight tickets abroad might be over for good.


  • Health

    Down the plughole


    John Coyne |  April 30, 2024


    Wastewater analysis shows that Australia’s consumption of a range of illicit drugs continues to climb, despite the best efforts of law enforcement and harm minimisation schemes.


Latest Story

  • Failure to launch

    Laura Woodbridge     |      April 29, 2024

    The lack of women in the national legislature suggests our political system is misfiring, and this inequality of gender representation also undermines the democratic notion of government being for the people, by the people.

  • Boardroom blitz

    Open Forum     |      April 29, 2024

    A new report has revealed the extent to which Australian universities’ governing bodies have become stacked with unelected big business appointees.

  • Plastic planet

    Open Forum     |      April 29, 2024

    An international team of researchers has found that more than half of branded plastic pollution in the environment is linked to just 56 companies.

  • Filling in the blanks

    Neil Sipe     |      April 28, 2024

    The housing crisis created by Australia’s high rate of immigration mean that governments and developers are eying every square inch of under-used land in our cities, but plans for ‘in-fill’ development are often slow to materialise in reality.

  • The political thought of Xi Jinping

    John West     |      April 28, 2024

    Like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping has established himself as China’s absolute dictator but his policies of internal repression and external aggression are motivated by ideology as well as personal power and nationalism.

  • The great art robbery

    Oliver Bown     |      April 28, 2024

    AI threatens to replace real human artists, just as machines have replaced people in a host of other activities, but AI models were trained on artists’ works without permission or payment.

  • Palaeo-conservation

    Lachlan Gilbert     |      April 27, 2024

    Novel rewilding projects by scientists, ecologists and conservationists could give hope to critically endangered animals around the world fresh hope of survival.

  • The end of the ice

    Annie Foppert     |      April 27, 2024

    In 1897, the former whaling ship RV Belgica left Antwerp in Belgium on first voyage of what would become known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. As so many ships before, it became trapped in polar ice, at a location which is now open water.

  • The war on women

    Danielle Cave     |      April 27, 2024

    A spate of murderous attacks on women around Australia has heightened calls for the Australian government to establish a Royal Commission into gender-based violence.

  • Science needs to tell its story

    Peter Doherty     |      April 26, 2024

    In one sense, Trump has done the world of intellectual inquiry a service: He is forcing those fighting disinformation to engage on a much broader front than just relying on critical thinking and a respect for evidence.

  • America alone

    John West     |      April 26, 2024

    America’s foreign policy has always been a battleground between isolationist and internationalist forces, according to Charles Kupchan. The tussle continues to this very day, and could intensify if Donald Trump wins the next US Presidential election.

  • Universities face a cash crunch

    Anthony Welch     |      April 26, 2024

    Government plans to reduce the number of overseas students are forcing the Australian universities which have come to depend on their fees to contemplate opening more branches abroad.