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Farewell to the jumbo-jet
Nancy Schneider | August 2, 2020With flights grounded and Australia’s borders shut, Qantas has retired its final Boeing 747 several months earlier than initially planned. The jumbo jet was pivotal in reducing Australia’s tyranny of distance.
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The brave new world of agriculture
Open Forum | July 31, 2020Advanced automation and genetic technologies need to be adopted globally in each region to deliver local food production capability that can provide secure sources of food in future pandemics.
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Women in STEM still fall short of workplace equality
Alan Finkel | July 29, 2020In 2016, women represented just 29% of workers with university qualifications in science, technology, engineering or maths. And that was before the pandemic disruption.
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$12m in government seed funding for SMEs
Open Forum | July 16, 2020The Morrison Government is calling on the nation’s small and medium sized businesses to help develop innovative solutions to solve national environmental challenges.
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Smart solutions need the human touch
Open Forum | July 15, 2020A lot of supposedly ‘smart’ software doesn’t take human needs into account, or is designed to fit commercial imperatives rather than empower consumer choices.
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Meet your new robot health coach
Nicole Robinson | July 9, 2020New research shows “social robots” can help people lose weight by delivering multiple sessions of advice and support without the need for human intervention.
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Science needs to look inward to move forward
Andrew Trounson | July 8, 2020Robust science depends on encouraging and incentivising more open and transparent practices in research – now, metascientists are looking at what works and what doesn’t.
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The future of virtual reality in tourism
Open Forum | July 4, 2020Tourism has been brought to a standstill around the world, but new doors are opening for virtual and augmented reality to reshape the industry as it edges towards recovery.
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Watch the skies!
Alan Stevenson | June 30, 2020The release of footage from US Navy jets tracking fast moving, unidentified craft has rekindled interest in the possibility of alien visitors from distant worlds.
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Beware the digital butler
Alan Stevenson | June 23, 2020Digital personal assistants from Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech giants may offer a degree of convenience, but users should be wary of them taking an ever greater interest in our personal affairs.
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Facing up to facial recognition
Niels Wouters | May 26, 2020Facial recognition technology is one tool in the fight against COVID-19, but once the pandemic ends, is surveillance tech going to entrench itself in our society?
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Bring “bio-hackers” into the fold
Andrew Lapworth | May 13, 2020Biohackers and other ‘connoisseurs of science’ have important social and scientific contributions to make and should be accepted into the established scientific community.