Budget-friendly ways to get your veggie fix as prices rise

By Sylvain Charlebois

The Food Price Report 2019, released by Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph in December, suggested vegetable prices will go up by as much as six per cent this year. Thats significant because, unlike meat or...

Routine blackouts in Haiti symbolize a loss of political power for its citizens

By Greg Beckett

Haitis public utility company just announced its reducing output again. The move comes after a series of blackouts throughout the country, some lasting weeks. The power outages are the result of a weeks-long fuel shortage...

Heartbreak becomes burnout for teachers when work is turbulent

By Astrid Helene Kendrick

Teaching is often known as a trial by fire profession. In many countries, well-prepared teachers leave the profession at alarming rates, including in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United...

Don't overlook residents' role in apartment building safety

By Matthew Bell

For many of us, the reality of Australian homes now sits many storeys up in the sky. High-rise apartment buildings have sprouted across the nations cities. In recent weeks on Christmas Eve at the Opal Tower building in...

In debates about drug use, fun is important

By Jennifer Power

Millions of Australians use, or have used, illicit substances at some point in their life, while millions more are regular users of legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or sleeping pills. While some people become heavy...

Why do parents kill their children? The facts about filicide in Australia

By Terry Goldsworthy

A six-month-old baby was killed earlier this week in what is suspected to be a murder-suicide. Police are investigating whether the child was killed by its father, after their bodies were found in a car on the Sunshine...

If needed, this man can and will cut rates during the election campaign

By Richard Holden

It was a great story. Philip Lowe had taken over as Reserve Bank governor after 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth. The Australian economy was transitioning nicely away from the countrys biggest-ever mining boom....

How the brain remembers amputated limbs – and continues to control them

By Harriet Dempsey-Jones

Most people who have lost a limb still feel its presence decades later. This phenomenon, dubbed phantom limb, has long been a mystery. But with new ultra-high resolution brain scanning, are now able to look inside the...

Rising seas: to keep humans safe, let nature shape the coast

By Iris Möller

Even under the most conservative climate change scenarios, sea levels 30cm higher than at present seem all but certain on much of the UKs coast by the end of this century. Depending on emission scenarios, sea levels one...

Should I stay or should I go? Brexit is forcing City firms to make some tough decisions

By Ioannis Glinavos

The City of London has not been as vocal as other industry sectors during the Brexit negotiations, but it is perceived to be dissatisfied. The UKs future relationship with the EU remains unclear and if theres one thing...

The World Bank needs deep reforms to reflect a changing world order

By Mzukisi Qobo Et Al

The sudden resignation of World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has rekindled debate about leadership succession and the mission of the international financial institution. US president Donald Trump has nominated his...

Brexit turmoil: five ways British MPs misunderstand the European Union

By Christoph Meyer

With Theresa May on her way back to Brussels in an attempt to renegotiate a Brexit deal that has already been agreed, its once again clear that she and the parliamentary colleagues who sent her on her journey still harbour...

Did academia kill jazz?

By Adam Gustafson

Jazz seems to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance among movie directors look no further than documentaries such as Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, biopics such as...

Journalism needs an audience to survive, but isn't sure how to earn its loyalty

By Jacob L. Nelson

Journalism is in the midst of an existential crisis: the profession has undergone decades of declines in readership, revenue and public trust, with no obvious end in sight. Many in the industry believe that the best way...

Why stop at plastic bags and straws? The case for a global treaty banning most single-use plastics

By Anastasia Telesetsky

Single-use plastics are a blessing and a curse. They have fueled a revolution in commercial and consumer convenience and improved hygiene standards, but also have saturated the worlds coastlines and clogged landfills. By...

Amazon HQ2: Texas experience shows why New Yorkers should be skeptical

By Nathan Jensen Et Al

New York offered Amazon close to US$3 billion to build a second headquarters in Long Island City on the promise of 25,000 jobs. Since the deal was joyfully announced in November, however, many local residents and some...

Vegan or Mediterranean diet – which is better for heart health?

By Markos Klonizakis

Cardiovascular disease is responsible for more than 30% of the total number of deaths worldwide, and every year more people are being diagnosed with the condition. In 2015, more than 85m people in Europe were living with...

Why are Australians still using Facebook?

By Deborah Lupton

This weeks marks 15 years since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg first set up the platform with his college roommate Eduardo Saverin. Since then, Facebook has grown into a giant global enterprise. The platform now has...

Tax breaks could soften the blow of a national pharmacare plan

By Jaden Brandt Et Al

The news last week that the federal government may include part of the cost of prescription drugs in the spring budget suggests Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may be planning to campaign on a narrow form of pharmacare...

Canadians are rightly worried about invasion of privacy in smart cities

By Sara Bannerman

In January 2019, Liberal MP Adam Vaughan argued that privacy concerns about the smart city proposed for Torontos waterfront should not be allowed to reverse 25 years of good, solid work and 40 years of dreaming on the...

For the love of technology! Sex robots and virtual reality

By Neil McArthur Et Al

Sex as we know it is about to change. We are already living through a new sexual revolution, thanks to technologies that have transformed the way we relate to each other in our intimate relationships. But we believe...

The collapse of the US-Russia INF Treaty makes arms control a global priority

By Ramesh Thakur

On October 20 2018, US President Donald Trump announced he intends to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) an arms control treaty with Russia that contributed to the end of the Cold...

What has Australia learned from Black Saturday?

By Kevin Tolhurst

Black Saturday was a day like no other; it will be forever remembered in the history of bushfire disasters in Australia. The fires burned about 300,000 hectares in a single day; 173 human lives were lost and more than...

How a bushfire can destroy a home

By Douglas Brown

Ten years after the devastation of Black Saturday, building design has largely been unrecognised as an area worthy of research. We have advanced our knowledge of the materials used in the construction of homes in...

Does microdosing improve your mood and performance? Here's what the research says

By Vince Polito

Microdosing means regularly taking very small doses of psychedelic substances such as LSD or psilocybin (magic mushrooms) over a period of weeks or months. The practice has made countless headlines over the past couple of...

Can bees do maths? Yes – new research shows they can add and subtract

By Scarlett Howard Et Al

The humble honeybee can use symbols to perform basic maths including addition and subtraction, shows new research published today in the journal Science Advances. Bee have miniature brains - but they can learn basic...

Where are the in-depth documentaries calling to account the institutions that are failing us?

By Steve Thomas

There is no shortage of documentary makers out there experienced and emerging who are ready and willing to bring Australian stories to worldwide audiences. But the ever shrinking pool of funding on which they can draw...

Mindful eating: the Victorian food trend that could help you lose weight and transform your health

By Lauren Alex O' Hagan

In recent years, mindfulness defined as a mental state or attitude in which one focuses ones awareness on the present moment has become embedded into our everyday language. Mindfulness has helped many people to develop...

Facebook ten year challenge: how our need to belong trumps our distrust of social media

By Ana Isabel Domingos Canhoto

When the ten year challenge began doing the rounds on social media, people rushed to post profile pictures of themselves from 2009, side by side with one from 2019, to highlight how much they had changed (or not) in the...

Venezuela: US sanctions hurt, but the economic crisis is home grown

By Thomas Purcell

There appear to be two distinct responses to the current crisis in Venezuela. Either an authoritarian regime (led by Nicolás Maduro) is clinging to power against the wishes of popular forces arrayed around the new...

Post-Brexit trade with Japan in jeopardy while uncertainty persists

By Julie Gilson

Nissan has said it will no longer be producing its new X Trail car at its Sunderland plant in north-east England. They will instead be produced in Japan. Although no current jobs are scheduled to be lost, the region was...

A democracy or a kleptocracy? How South Africa stacks up

By Roger Southall

South Africans have been held spellbound by the torrent of evidence of corruption emerging from two parallel commissions of inquiry into state capture, and the fitness to hold office of two senior officials of the...

South Africans are finally set to know who funds their political parties

By Mia Swart

South African President Ramaphosa has finally signed into law a new bill aimed at regulating the funding of political parties. It was approved by Parliament in June 2018. The Political Party Funding Bill, when it...

How Russia is growing its strategic influence in Africa

By Theo Neethling

Much has been made about Chinas role and profile in Africa and the factors underlying its activities on the continent. Less debated is the spread and depth of Russias contemporary presence and profile in Africa. There...

Deepfake videos could destroy trust in society - here’s how to restore it

By Garfield Benjamin

It has the potential to ruin relationships, reputations and our online reality. Deepfake artificial intelligence technology promises to create doctored videos so realistic that theyre almost impossible to tell from the...

Autocracies that look like democracies are a threat across the globe

By Richard Carney

Russias successful interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election may inspire other countries to do the same. These other countries dont look threatening. They look like democracies. But theyre not. Theyre a...

Why do people still use fax machines?

By Jonathan Coopersmith

The fax machine is a symbol of obsolete technology long superseded by computer networks but faxing is actually growing in popularity. Four years ago, I wrote a history of 160 years of faxing, saying my book covered the...

Green buildings must do more to fix our climate emergency

By Meg Holden Et Al

After more than three decades of talk about the potential of building green, weve still failed to change the way we design and construct buildings so that the built environment stops being a dominant contributor to runaway...

Venezuela: Denial of food is a human rights crime

By Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann

In early February, the Lima group, a coalition group of several Latin American countries and Canada, urged the Venezuelan military to sever ties with President Nicolás Maduro. The group called for the urgent...

Young people drowning in a rising tide of perfectionism

By Dr. Simon Sherry Et Al

We recently conducted one of the largest-ever studies on perfectionism. We learned that perfectionism has increased substantially over the past 25 years and that it affects men and women equally. We also learned that...

Brexit: David Trimble’s legal challenge to the Irish backstop is a hiding to nothing

By Colin Murray

There has always been something of Don Quixote about David Trimble, the awkward politician who never really shrugged off his persona as a legal academic. In 1998 no one could deny the urgency with which he sought to right...

Work in the ‘gig economy’: one-night stand or a meaningful relationship?

By Genevieve Shanahan Et Al

In Europe and around the world, many people are delivering fast food on bicycles or acting as taxi drivers in their own cars, not quite employees and not quite self-employed. Following recent legal judgements in France,...

What actually is populism? And why does it have a bad reputation?

By Octavia Bryant Et Al

No doubt thanks to Donald Trump, Brexit, and a string of anti-establishment leaders and parties in Europe, Latin America and Asia, everyone seems to be talking about populism. But populism is nothing new. Its long...

Cladding fires expose gaps in building material safety checks. Here's a solution

By Kevin Argus Et Al

A fire at the Neo 200 apartment building in Spencer Street, Melbourne, on Monday highlighted the risk to human safety from flammable cladding and other non-conforming building products. Building quality and safety are...

Our 'bee-eye camera' helps us support bees, grow food and protect the environment

By Adrian Dyer Et Al

Walking through our gardens in Australia, we may not realise that buzzing around us is one of our greatest natural resources. Bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of food for human consumption, and data on...

Five warning signs of overdiagnosis

By Alexandra Barratt Et Al

Weve had it drummed into us over decades that early detection is key to treating diseases early, before they have a chance to turn into something really nasty. But weve since learnt the flip-side of this is...

The meme-ification of politics: Politicians & their 'lit' memes

By Chris Tenove

In November, during a televised debate about electoral reform, British Columbia Premier John Horgan told the audience, If you were woke, youd know that pro rep is lit. By pro rep, he meant proportional representation,...

How analyzing patterns helps students spot deceptive media

By Claire Ahn

With the current pervasive use of online media for personal and academic reasons, its necessary for students to have skills to confidently filter and decipher what theyre reading. As such, educators have called for a...

Feedback loops and echo chambers: How algorithms amplify viewpoints

By Swathi Meenakshi Sadagopan

Whether its allegations of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka or the gilets jaunes protests in France, it is clear that social media platforms are helping spread divisive messages online at an...

Super Bowl ads played it safe, but we can still challenge toxic masculinity

By Dillon Thomas Browne

After this months online commotion about the #MeToo Gillette ad and a previous spot by Nike inspired by Black Lives Matter I was looking forward to seeing what socially conscious ads the Super Bowl LIII would bring ...