Writing in the ancient world

The art of writing may be about to wither now anyone can autogenerate empty AI slop at the touch of a button, but it flourished in the ancient world despite the primitive technology of its production.

Party like it’s 1999 BC

Australia’s summer party season is over, but however much fun you had over the holidays, it probably wasn’t a patch on the ancient Greeks.

5 ancient lessons in science

The “natural philosophers” of Greece and Rome who laid the foundations of modern science and critical thinking would be amazed at the extent of knowledge today, and appalled that these proven approaches remain under assault from so many directions.

Star of wonder

The New Testament’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are fragmentary, contradictory and unlikely to bear much resemblance to what really happened, but if “magi” really did follow a star to the east, what were they observing?

Where did all the hobbits go?

A diminutive sub-species of humans nicknamed ‘hobbits’ mysteriously disappeared 50,000 years ago but a new study has revealed that climate changes may have contributed to their extinction.

What Robert McNamara learned from the war

Relying on newly disclosed diaries and letters, and recent interviews, in McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman paint a fresh picture of this controversial figure, disclosing his professional and personal vulnerabilities. They also provide valuable insights into the lessons that McNamara took away from Vietnam.

Whitlam in Timor

As we remember 50 years of the infamous constitutional crisis and Whitlam’s dismissal and celebrate the positive aspects of his legacy like Medibank, we need to also remember the much darker stories that are rarely told – including Whitlam’s betrayal of the Timorese people.

A twist in the tale

Dogs think treat their owners as gods because they given them food, water and shelter, while cats consider themselves gods for exactly the same reason, so how did cats come to dominate our homes?

A glimpse into Sydney’s deep past

Maritime archaeologists at Flinders University have produced a striking 3D reconstruction of Sydney Harbour as it appeared thousands of years ago, when sea levels were much lower than today.

The ghost of aviation

Amelia Earhart remains an iconic figure, not least because her disappearance over the Pacific almost 90 years ago remains unsolved, despite the ongoing efforts by teams of amateur sleuths to find some trace of her.

50 years on from the ‘dismissal’

The dismissal of Gough Whitlam as Australia’s Prime Minister 50 years ago remains seared in the memory of many Australians who were adults or even children at the time, and was a life-changing day for everyone in Canberra’s Parliament House.

The ballad of the feathered front

While farmers successfully drove the Tasmanian tiger and many other native animals to extinction, the Great Emu War failed to eradicate emus from the wheatbelt of Western Australia in 1932, despite the best efforts of Royal Australian Artillery soldiers to mow down the flightless birds with lewis guns.