• Neuroscience

    Doughnuts and decision making


    Lauren Claire Fong |  April 12, 2026


    The next time you find yourself in line at the bakery, know that your brain has already been quietly gathering evidence toward your baked good of choice, and that choice happens a little faster than you realise.


  • Education and Training

    Who’s reading your paper?


    Christopher J Watterson |  April 12, 2026


    The research produced by Western universities is routinely shared with or stolen by hostile authoritarian states, forcing the sector to reconcile their dual roles as producers of confidential defence and security research and development on one hand and as open hubs of global knowledge exchange on the other.


  • Society

    The crucible of early life


    Open Forum |  April 12, 2026


    On the shores of the west coast of Australia lies a window to our past: the stromatolites and microbial mats of Gathaagudu (Shark Bay). To the untrained eye they look like a collection of rocks and slime – but they are in fact teeming with microbial life. And these stromatolites are living “relics” of ancient […]


Latest Story

  • 4 visions of our future in space

    Priyanka Dhopade     |      April 11, 2026

    NASA’s flight around the moon is a welcome reminder of its technical achievement and human ambition and in the background, decisions about what happens next and who benefits are already taking shape.

  • An uncertain alliance

    Fergus Ryan     |      April 11, 2026

    Australian hasn’t yet been seriously tested by the second Trump administration. If or when it is, regardless of which option Australia chooses, one thing is clear: there’s no going back to how the world used to be.

  • Know when to go

    Peter Edwell     |      April 11, 2026

    It’s a truism that all political careers end in failure as leaders always meet eventual disaster or cling to power too long, but the unique example of Roman emperor Diocletian suggests a graceful retreat is possible.

  • Walking with a ghost

    Tommaso Durante     |      April 10, 2026

    Virtual influencers are early indicators of a much deeper structural shift, one already reshaping how power, culture and identity work in a connected world.

  • Chalk and cheese

    Michelle Grattan     |      April 10, 2026

    The Liberals are losing voters to One Nation’s surge and have no strategy to reclaim urban seats lost to the teals, while One Nation is cannibalising the Nationals in rural seats, so can their new leaders work together to save their Coalition?

  • Some of our black holes are missing

    Open Forum     |      April 10, 2026

    When an international team of scientists, led by Monash University, working with the global network of gravitational-wave detectors measuring tiny ripples in spacetime, recently examined the masses of merging black holes, they noticed something strange – a gap where black holes should exist, but don’t.

  • Perpetual peace – perpetual relevance

    Roger Chao     |      April 9, 2026

    18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant remains a central figure in modern philosophy, but his argument that ethics and governance should be rooted in reason rather than self-interest or superstition is threatened even in the Western world by the current resurgence of nationalism, authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism.

  • Why Taiwan matters

    Marc Ablong     |      April 9, 2026

    The fate of Taiwan is not a peripheral issue but sits at the intersection of global trade, advanced technology, democratic values and regional security. As China gears up for its long-threatened invasion, what happens there will shape Australia’s prosperity, security and way of life for decades.

  • The gold standard?

    John Hawkins     |      April 9, 2026

    Bob Hawke remains the longest serving and most successful Labor Prime Minister but a new book explores whether the Hawke government was really the ‘gold standard’ for reform?

  • Goodbye is the hardest word

    Aoife Lynam     |      April 8, 2026

    Life is short and grieving those we lose along the way is a natural part of human existence, but it remains an individual process, rather than a set of stages everyone must pass through.

  • A rising of the lights

    Seth Robinson     |      April 8, 2026

    Steve Toltz’s new novel offers some ideas about the place of humans in a world redefined by AI and the precious solace of personal connection.

  • The social rat race

    Craig Donaldson     |      April 8, 2026

    New UNSW research shows social media platforms do not need to addict users to keep them – they just need to make leaving worse than staying.