Sustaining women in STEM

Women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and maths are still fighting an uphill battle in Australian workplaces, despite a spike in girls studying STEM subjects in schools and universities.

Extraordinary enzymes

Enzymes are proteins which act as biological catalysts in the cells of living things and accelerate the chemical reactions required to sustain life. Discovered and defined in the 19th century, they are now being harnessed by 21st century scientists in a host of ways in industry and the environment.

Rethinking research funding

Education Minister Jason Clare has just released a highly anticipated review into the federal legislation underpinning the Australian Research Council (ARC) and its funding of non-medical research in this country.

Most of us can’t see the stars

Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington once quipped that “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”, but even his Lordship would be hard put to glimpse many stars in today’s light polluted urban skies.

Machine dreams

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney have developed biosensor technology that will allow people to operate devices, such as robots and machines, solely through thought control.

Uncertain premises

Science is a process, rather than a body of knowledge, and the progress of knowledge means that many ideas which were once taught as facts have proven incomplete or entirely fallacious.

The other Hendrix

The third part of Mike Barraclough’s memoir remembers the radical changes new technology brought to newspaper production.

Open access science

Researchers can’t progress their work without access to very expensive scientific journals but the rebellion against the publishers and their fees has begun.

Four things you get wrong about quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics has some startling implications, but they’re not as weird as many people’s misconceptions about it.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Modern science tends to ignore outsiders but reductionist science is not the only way of knowing things and more attention should be paid to ancient knowledge, new ideas and ‘thinking outside the box’.

Eyes on the prize

Solving sustainability problems, protecting healthcare providers from COVID-19, and using technology to train next-gen pilots are among the achievements of award-winning STEM innovators recognised at the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Size matters – in science

Newspapers, university students and senior executives tend to focus on the headlines and ignore sample sizes when making judgements about new research findings, so researchers and scientists should be careful about misleading others when publicising their findings.