A New Democratic Enlightenment?

By John Keane

This is the slightly rewritten text of my address to the opening plenary session, New Enlightenment Neue Aufklrung, at the European Forum Alpbach, Alpbach, Austria, 28 August 2016. European Forum Alpbach,...

BP in the Bight: why the planned oil spill response is too slow to protect the coast

By Andrew Hopkins

Australias offshore petroleum industry regulator is set to rule next week whether to grant oil giant BPs application to drill in the Great Australian Bight. But BPs environmental plan, released last week, suggests that...

Business moves on climate as the Paris Agreement gets closer to sealing the deal

By Wei Sue

The Paris climate agreement is getting closer to coming into force. This week 31 countries ratified the deal, including Brazil (the worlds 12th-largest greenhouse gas emitter), the United Arab Emirates and...

Lowe makes the case for 'good' government debt

By Richard Holden

Vital Signs is a weekly economic wrap from UNSW economics professor and Harvard PhD Richard Holden (@profholden). Vital Signs aims to contextualise weekly economic events and cut through the noise of the data impacting...

Everything you wanted to know about US elections but were afraid to ask

By Brendon O'Connor

US presidential elections are more than politics: they are now part of global popular culture, gaining a place in the publics diary of must-see events alongside those other two major quadrennial events the FIFA World Cup...

Why the Japanese economy is stuck in a holding pattern

By Shino Takayama

The Bank of Japan is pulling yet another new monetary policy out of its bag of tricks in a bid to combat deflation, this time its yield-curve control. This is the latest in a history of unusual monetary policy, such as...

The Great Barrier Reef's 'new normal' is a forlorn sight

By Lesley Hughes

Images of this years coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef shocked the world. Some tour operators expressed concern that the extensive and sometimes simplistic media coverage would hurt their businesses. The reef...

Superbugs evolve in waste water, and could end up in our food

By Serena Caucci

We are heading into a post-antibiotic era, where common infections could once again be deadly. A phenomenon known as antimicrobial resistance threatens the heart of modern medicine. Antimicrobial resistance occurs when...

ASEAN goal to eradicate drugs in the region leads to disregard for human life

By Asmin Fransiska

Four years ago member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations adopted the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. Yet today the region is seeing a worrying backward trend in human rights protection in the name of a...

Scientist at work: Tracking melt water under the Greenland ice sheet

By Joel T. Harper

During the past decade, Ive spent nearly a year of my life living on the Greenland ice sheet to study how melt water impacts the movement of the ice. What happens to the water that finds its way from the melting ice...

Refugees, migration addressed in first-time UN summit: What was accomplished?

By Jeffrey H. Cohen Et Al

This week the United Nations General Assembly held the first-ever Summit for Refugees and Migrants. According to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the summit represented a watershed moment to strengthen governance of...

The NFL joins the data revolution in sports

By Galen Clavio

In some potentially game-changing news for the way we understand professional football, the National Football League began the 2016 preseason by placing tracking sensors in its footballs for the first time. The chips are...

Is Philippine President Duterte a threat to the peace in Southeast Asia?

By John Ciorciari

U.S. efforts to promote peace and stability in the South China Sea are facing a new challenge. This time, the difficulty comes not from China but from the leader of a U.S. treaty ally President Rodrigo Duterte of the...

How do antibiotic-resistant bacteria get into the environment?

By Valerie Harwood Et Al

Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health problem. The United Nations recently acknowledged this as one of the biggest threats to modern medicine, dedicating a high-level meeting to the issue at the 2016 General...

Was the Fed right to delay raising interest rates? Two scholars react

By Mark Sniderman Et Al

The Federal Reserve decided to leave its target interest rate unchanged at a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent while suggesting a hike later in the year was very likely. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC),...

Genetic studies reveal diversity of early human populations – and pin down when we left Africa

By George Busby

Humans are a success story like no other. We are now living in the Anthropocene age, meaning much of what we see around us has been made or influenced by people. Amazingly, all humans alive today from the inhabitants of...

More women are running the world, so why aren't more men doing the dishes?

By Alice Evans

Globally, women are triumphing in historically male-dominated areas. 2017 may begin with women at the helm of Germany, Liberia, Norway, South Korea, the UK, the US, General Motors, the IMF, YouTube and possibly the United...

The vital rules which meant a double murderer nearly escaped justice

By Jeremy Robson

Christopher Halliwells conviction for the murder of Becky Godden has, it is hoped, finally brought some closure to her family. They have waited many years to see her killer face justice. Halliwell, a 52-year-old former...

No, fitness trackers do not make you fat and they don't make losing weight harder

By David Glance

The headlines say it all. From Fitness trackers dont help weight loss through to claims that fitness trackers can make users fatter and thatThat Fitness Tracker Might Actually Make Losing Weight Harder. These...

By focusing on its nuclear weapons and disasters, the West misses a lot about North Korea

By Alexander Dukalskis

North Korea essentially has two international images: the bellicose nuclear provocateur run by a mad dictator, and the impoverished country in dire need of humanitarian aid. At the moment, both faces are on depressing...

Industrial accidents in Bangladesh are another symptom of an unequal society

By Palash Kamruzzaman

Bangladesh, once dismissed as a basket case for development, has made remarkable progress in many aspects of human and economic development in the last couple of decades. The people of Bangladesh are a key element in...

Beware of undercooked chicken livers

By Sarah O'Brien Et Al

An increasing number of food-poisoning outbreaks in Britain are being caused by undercooked chicken livers. This increase has occurred at the same time as some celebrity chefs are advocating cooking livers for only a short...

Is 30% of Northern Territory farmland and 22% of Tasmanian farmland foreign-owned?

By Bill Pritchard Et Al

There is no story of modesty here as the government is trying to frame it; 30% of the Northern Territorys farmland is now foreign-owned, 22% of Tassie; thats extraordinary. Katters Australian Party federal MP Bob Katter,...

LSD - dangerous, mystical or therapeutic?

By Julaine Allan

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a synthetic chemical made from a substance found in a fungus that grows on rye and other grains, called ergot. In 1943, Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann who was interested in the...

People with 'obesity gene' can still lose weight

By John Mathers

Its been one of the most astonishing changes in human anatomy. In just one generation, people all over the world have got a lot bigger. Although were also gradually getting a bit taller, the really big change has been in...

In an age of rhetoric, Australian politics is missing the American flair

By Chris Mackie

The busy schedule of elections and plebiscites in the Anglophone world has brought with it an increased interest in rhetoric the art of public speaking. In particular, the recent Democratic convention in Philadelphia saw...

Gen Y carers don't want a free ride, so welfare reform shouldn't single them out

By Shirley Jackson

The federal governments most recent plan to overhaul Australias welfare system focuses on welfare dependency among younger parents, carers and students. The Minister for Social Services Christian Porter in announcing the...

How the Asia-Pacific can lead the way on migrants and refugees

By Tri Nuke Pudjiastuti Et Al

September has seen a surge of international summits. First came the G20 in Hangzhou, then ASEAN and the East Asia Summit in Vientiane, plus the Pacific Islands Forum in Pohnpei. And, on consecutive days this week, the...

Harvard study: Policy issues nearly absent in presidential campaign coverage

By Thomas E. Patterson

Years ago, when I first started teaching and was at Syracuse University, one of my students ran for student body president on the tongue-in-cheek platform Issues are Tissues, without a T. He was dismissing out of hand...

Botswana at 50: the end of an African success story?

By James Kirby

It is 50 years since Botswana attained independence from British rule. Over the decades, the small landlocked country has been regarded as a role model for success in Africa. It has achieved political stability, democratic...

Why Britain should play the long game with its Brexit strategy

By Kim Kaivanto

Britains Brexit negotiating position imposing limits on freedom of movement, while simultaneously seeking free single market access in goods and services is difficult, if not impossible, to square with the four freedoms...

How poor NHS testing and antibiotic use is creating super-strength cystitis

By James Malone-Lee

Urinary tract infections also known as cystitis are extremely common. Around 150m people are affected worldwide each year and one in every three women is expected to suffer at least one attack before they are 24. But...

If Donald Trump takes control of the US drone fleet ...

By Tom F.A Watts

When future historians look back on his presidency, Barack Obama will be remembered for many things but among them all, perhaps the most stark is his open embrace of unmanned aerial systems, popularly referred to as...

The $4.8 trillion dollar question: will an 'investment approach' to welfare help the most disadvantaged?

By Peter Whiteford

Social Services Minister Christian Porter on Tuesday released a report on the lifetime costs of the social security system for the Australian population, putting it at close to A$4.8 trillion. The report was an...

Could Clinton win Utah?

By Bryan Cranston

The last time Utah gave its Electoral College votes to a Democratic presidential candidate was 1964. This was also the last time the Republican Party nominated a nationalist candidate who was unpalatable to a majority of...

"Not fit to be President": Hillary Clinton and our problem with older women

By Michelle Smith

Since Hillary Clinton launched her first US Presidential campaign in 2007, the vitriol directed towards her has been heavily grounded in sexism. Former President Barack Obama recently commented on the key challenge to...

If you love me, don’t feed me bacon

By Clare Collins

A friend reckons he has it good. His partner cooks a bacon-hash-brown-fry-up for breakfast every day. Are you sure? I said. Cause thats exactly what I would feed my partner if I wanted to bump him off! It is easy to...

The future of the US Supreme Court is at stake no matter who wins in November

By Felicity Turner

At a recent rally of Donald Trump supporters in North Carolina, Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence said the result of the November presidential election would determine the shape of the US Supreme Court for...

Migrants are sacrificing their working rights because of greedy governments

By Giovanni Di Lieto

Governments want all the benefits of the free movement of goods, capital, services, ideas and labour, but tend to neglect the rights of workers. This imbalance may mean countries lose the benefits of globalised labour...

The rise of a conspiracy candidate

By Lauren Griffin

The political and social climate in the United States has become increasingly fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Leading the charge is Donald Trump, a candidate who has promoted a laundry list of factually...

Memo to next president: Here's how to avoid our history of energy policy mistakes

By Michael E. Webber

With all of the hubbub surrounding this years presidential election, something important has slipped by with little notice: Despite the fact that it affects our economy, environment and national security, the candidates...

How ZIP codes nearly masked the lead problem in Flint

By Richard Casey Sadler

I write this as we approach the first anniversary of my involvement in the Flint Water Crisis, an ongoing catastrophe and basic failure of government accountability that will soon approach three years. On Sept. 25,...

What is terrorism, and is it getting worse?

By Frederic Lemieux

A bomb exploded in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday, injuring 29 people. Police discovered a second explosive device nearby. Like the bomb used in the Boston Marathon attack, these devices were built from...

Suffering from Fed rate hike anxiety? You're not the only one

By Alexander Kurov

I saw one of my undergraduate students reading the Wall Street Journal the other day. Im a finance professor, so this was a welcome sight. Whats happening in the markets? I asked. He said he wanted to learn more about...

Why extremists use violence in their quest for significance

By Arie Kruglanski

The recent attack in New York, which left 29 persons wounded, the bombings in New Jersey and the knife attack in Minnesota serve as a grim reminder that this year of blood and fury carries on. We have every reason to...

Invasive predators are eating the world's animals to extinction – and the worst is close to home

By Tim Doherty Et Al

Invasive species are a threat to wildlife across the globe and invasive, predatory mammals are particularly damaging. Our research, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that...

Explainer: what are cataracts?

By Jason Yosar

Nearly one-third of Australians aged 55 or over (or around 1.5 million people) have an untreated cataract. In 2013-14, there were 229,693 hospital admissions for cataract surgeries, making cataracts one of the most...

Academics are unhappy – it's time to transform our troubled university system

By Kristen Lyons Et Al

Australian academics are an unhappy lot. Numerous surveys, books and articles have drawn attention to this over the years. The primary complaint is employment insecurity. This applies particularly to the reserve army of...

Nigeria should tackle poverty rather than hound hawkers off the streets

By Nzubechukwu Okeke

Street hawking is a growing problem in developing countries like Nigeria due to its associated risks. In Nigeria, the increasing scourge of poverty and worsening economic condition means there has been a drastic rise in...

America's legendary ignorance about Africa persists

By Julius A. Amin

Fifty six years ago, John F. Kennedy made 479 references to Africa during the US presidential campaign. He observed that America had lost ground on the continent because of failures to meet the need and aspirations of the...