• Culture

    Stranger than fiction


    Eloise Dennis |  September 9, 2026


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


  • Politics and Policy

    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.


  • Space

    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.


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.

  • 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.

  • Why Howard’s battlers now fight for One Nation

    Michelle Grattan     |      September 6, 2026

    White working class anger over unchecked immigration has sent support for One Nation skyrocketing in recent months, threatening Labor as well as the Liberals across the country in previously safe seats and changing the nation’s political agenda.

  • Rediscovering Lesbia Harford

    Jeff Sparrow     |      September 5, 2026

    Lesbia Venner Harford was a woman who knew she’d die young but became a revolutionary all the same in both her private life and radical politics during and after the First World War.

  • Star Trek at 60

    Open Forum     |      September 5, 2026

    An endless slew of Star Trek schlock in recent years has tarnished its reputation, but the original series remains one of the most important TV series ever made, as the adventures of the Enterprise not only explored the galaxy but what it means to be human.