Latest Story
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Speaking up for women in sport
Catherine Ordway | May 17, 2024As Australia grapples with a “national crisis” of violence against women, what can men in sport do to help? A minute’s silence is fine in itself but being quiet isn’t enough.
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Review bombing
Nick Hajli | May 17, 2024Customer reviews on the internet have long been corrupted by shills, Google’s advertising schemes and SEO optimisation, but a tsunami of AI generated garbage is now rendering them useless unless users exercise great care.
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Natural philosophy
Open Forum | May 17, 2024Public policy should be based on scientific evidence – but scientists often lament the gap between science and policy, while policy-makers feel that scientists don’t deliver the evidence that is needed, so perhaps philosophical expertise can help close the gap between research and policy.
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Crime waves
Virginia Comolli | May 16, 2024Economic diversification is exposing Pacific islands countries to new criminal threats, according to the latest report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
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The discrete charms of the analogue world
Michael Beverland | May 16, 2024The backlash against digitisation, artificial intelligence and the appropriation of human culture by a handful of technology giants is exemplified by a growing interest in classic analogue synths, rather than their soulless digital successors.
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Only the astronauts
Tony Hughes-d'Aeth | May 16, 2024Adrift in outer space, a motley crew of human-made objects tell their tales, making real history a little sweeter and stranger, in the new collection of short stories by Ceridwen Dovey.
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Chalmers’ budget giveaway
Stephen Bartos | May 15, 2024Jim Chalmers has produced a benign third budget aimed at soothing hard-pressed voters agitated about their high cost of living and punishing interest rates without making things worse by over-stoking the economy.
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Under siege
Geoff Heriot | May 15, 2024The growing cyber, foreign interference, and disinformation threat from hostile state and non-state actors motivates a call for Australia to use all tools of statecraft to help shape the information space.
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Is there any AI out there?
Michael Garrett | May 15, 2024Every technological breakthrough or environmental issue – from nuclear weapons to climate change – has been trumpeted as the reason we haven’t detected intelligent alien life, and AI isn’t about to miss the party.
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Australia in the global supply chain
Ian Satchwell | May 14, 2024The Albanese government’s “A Future Made in Australia policy” should be understood with a bit more nuance than its name implies.
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Cleaning up the chemical industry
Open Forum | May 14, 2024The global chemical industry is a major fossil fuel consumer and climate change contributor; however, new Curtin University research has identified how the sector could clean up its green credentials by “getting dirty”.
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A bright future for dark matter
Harry Desmond | May 14, 2024While the ‘dark matter’ theory remains unsatisfactory in many ways, recent scientific observations seem to undermine one of its main rivals to explain discrepancies in our view of the universe.
