• Defence and Security

    Where there’s no will, there’s no way


    Meg Tapia |  September 10, 2026


    Australia isn’t prepared for conflict unless it can build and defend the will to fight and the national civil preparedness and resilience inquiry, adopted in July, offers an opportunity to begin that conversation.


  • Education and Training

    A is for app


    Open Forum |  September 10, 2026


    A new Flinders University study of primary school children suggests a phonics reading app can accelerate early reading while helping teachers identify students needing extra support.


  • Health

    All the pieces of the puzzle


    Open Forum |  September 10, 2026


    Efforts to prevent dementia may be placing too much responsibility on people’s choices while overlooking the wider social and environmental conditions that shape brain health, according to new Curtin University research published in The Lancet Public Health.


Latest Story

  • Turning off the algorithm

    Rashina Hoda     |      September 9, 2026

    Social media companies have controlled what users see on their feeds for years and the “Digital Duty of Care” announced recently offers hope that consumers can regain some control of their social media feeds and online experience in general.

  • Stranger than fiction

    Eloise Dennis     |      September 9, 2026

    Analysts and policymakers looking to explore and plan for possible futures should read more science fiction.

  • Answer the question

    Luke Beck     |      September 9, 2026

    If top bureaucrats don’t enjoy being criticised and mocked on social media for giving evasive answers during parliamentary hearings they could always just answer the questions being asked.

  • Dark star

    Open Forum     |      September 9, 2026

    The most comprehensive catalogue of exploding white dwarf stars ever assembled has revealed new clues about dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe’s accelerating expansion.

  • A changed world

    Wesley Morgan     |      September 8, 2026

    A landmark UN report says the world will overshoot the 1.5°C climate target. As damage from climate change mounts, leaders must do the work and begin rapidly cutting emissions to keep the goal of net-zero by 2050 alive.

  • Everyone’s a robot

    Helen Trenos     |      September 8, 2026

    “Day (After Day) in the Life of the Useless” by Will O’Mahony is a firecracker comedy about life in a world dominated by AI.

  • Artificial altruism

    David Wroe     |      September 8, 2026

    Politicians and policymakers declare AI the most transformative technology of our lifetimes, so when OpenAI announces that its rogue agents spontaneously formed their own hierarchy and sacrificed themselves for the agent swarm, nobody with money in the game seem to care. The rest of us should be afraid. Very afraid.

  • Intensive early years intervention works

    Anne Kennedy     |      September 7, 2026

    One quarter of Australian kids are ‘developmentally vulnerable’ when they start school but quality childcare can help them catch up.

  • Beyond the fringe

    Mario Peucker     |      September 7, 2026

    A growing sense of cultural and economic grievance is driving support for right wing and authoritarian parties across the West.

  • No direction home

    Katie Carchrie     |      September 7, 2026

    A generation locked out of property ownership could face greater financial pressure in retirement, reduced spending power and fewer opportunities to build wealth, says a UNSW economist.

  • Remembering Gloria Steinem

    Sharon Crozier-De Rosa     |      September 6, 2026

    Feminist activist Gloria Steinem fought for female freedom and empowerment over a six-decade career as a journalist, activist and feminist icon.

  • Russia’s war on the West

    Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann     |      September 6, 2026

    Russia has launched hundreds of attacks on European infrastructure over the last five years but the fact that President Trump sees Putin as a role model rather than the enemy means NATO has done little to counter the threat to the West.