Looking after loved ones with mental illness puts carers at risk themselves. They need more support

By Jaelea Skehan Et Al

Victorias royal commission into mental health today turns its attention to the families and carers of people living with mental illness. An estimated 2.8 million Australians provide practical day-to-day and emotional...

Design and repair must work together to undo our legacy of waste

By Tom Lee Et Al

Design has been one of the big words of the twentieth century. To say that an object has been designed implies a level of specialness. Designer items are invested with a particular kind of expertise that is likely to make...

Friday essay: the Australians who pioneered self-sufficiency, generations before Nimbin

By Rachel Goldlust

The term self-sufficiency commonly evokes images of communes, yurts and 1970s hippies, most likely living off the land in northern New South Wales. More recently, it has been linked to an explosion of interest in solar...

When does getting help on an assignment turn into cheating?

By Peter Hurley

Students whether at university or school can get help from many places. They can go to a tutor, parent, teacher, a friend or consult a textbook. But at which point does getting help cross the line into...

We create 20m tons of construction industry waste each year. Here's how to stop it going to landfill

By Salman Shooshtarian Et Al

The Australian construction industry has grown significantly in the past two decades. Population growth has led to the need for extensive property development, better public transport and improved infrastructure. This...

Arctic ice loss is worrying, but the giant stirring in the South could be even worse

By Nerilie Abram Et Al

A record start to summer ice melt in Greenland this year has drawn attention to the northern ice sheet. We will have to wait to see if 2019 continues to break ice-melt records, but in the rapidly warming Arctic the...

How Muslim women break stereotypes by mixing faith and modesty with fashion

By Anoosh Soltani Et Al

Ardern, wearing a hijab, is depicted on the worlds tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. EPA, CC BY-ND Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns decision to wear a headscarf following the Christchurch mosque attacks in...

How heat waves increase your craving for sodas: findings from Mexico

By Lisa Oberlander Et Al

Unseasonably hot weather hit Europe this June, giving residents and visitors a taste of what could possibly become common in the near future. With ongoing climate change, temperatures are predicted to rise by 0.3-0.7C by...

London to be as hot as Barcelona by 2050? I research urban heat, and I'm sceptical

By Robert Wilby

Barcelona just had a week of temperatures above 30℃. Its a few degrees hotter than the long-term average, but no heatwave. In winter, Spains second largest city is typically a mild 15℃ or so. With its climate regulated by...

How your diet contributes to nutrient pollution and dead zones in lakes and bays

By Donald Scavia

Every year in early summer, scientists at universities, research institutions and federal agencies release forecasts for the formation of dead zones and harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay and...

Plastic poses a major environmental threat: but is it being over-stated?

By Peter Ryan

There is no doubt that plastic affects the environment badly. But a trend has developed in the reporting on the impact of plastics thats not only selective but also borders on panic mongering rather than impartial analysis...

Food waste: using sustainable innovation to cut down what we throw away

By Mehrnaz Tajmir Et Al

Our appetite for food is a serious problem. The huge amount of energy, land and water used to fill our supermarket shelves mean that modern overproduction and excessive consumerism are rapidly depleting resources and...

The environmental cost of abandoning your tent at a music festival

By Aurore Julien

After years of depressing images of huge fields strewn with abandoned tents and rubbish in the aftermath of music festivals, it was heartening to hear Glastonbury Festival organisers claim that 99% of festival-goers tents...

Modern Slavery Act is having unintended consequences for women's freedom in Sri Lanka

By Sandya Hewamanne

The Modern Slavery Act was seen as a big achievement for combating the issue of forced labour. But since it was passed by the UK government in 2015, many have pointed out its shortcomings. In particular, how the...

Why states and cities should stop handing out billions in economic incentives to companies

By Nathan Jensen

U.S. states and cities hand out tens of billions in taxpayer dollars every year to companies as economic incentives. These businesses are supposed to use the money, typically distributed through economic development...

Commercial supersonic aircraft could return to the skies

By Iain Boyd

Flying faster than the speed of sound still sounds futuristic for regular people, more than 15 years after the last commercial supersonic flights ended. The planes that made those journeys, the 14 aircraft collectively...

How did people clean their teeth in the olden days?

By Jane Cotter

Dental hygiene has come a long way since the days of wine-soaked toothpicks and the urine mouthwash once thought to disinfect mouths and whiten teeth. Some of the earliest tooth-cleaning artifacts archaeologists have...

An invisible government agency produces crucial national security intelligence, but is anyone listening?

By Gregory F. Treverton Et Al

This year marks the 40th anniversary of a little-known U.S. organization that has provided crucial intelligence and analysis to presidents for all those decades: the National Intelligence Council. Right after World War...

Wimbledon: Johanna Konta interview and the problems with viewing sports stars as public figures

By Kieran File

After her loss to Barbora Strycova in the Wimbledon quarter finals, British tennis player Johanna Konta reacted somewhat angrily to a line of questioning from a journalist that appeared to hold her to account for her loss....

Northern Ireland: as Marching season begins, a new political force is on the rise

By Drew Mikhael Et Al

There was a worrying increase in violence during the Protestant Orange marches of July 2018, a traditional flashpoint between Northern Irelands Nationalist and Unionist communities. The marches commemorate the victory of...

BA's record fine could help make the public take data security more seriously

By John McAlaney

British Airways (BA) has received a record fine of 183m after details of around 500,000 of its customers were stolen in a data breach in summer 2018. The fine was possible thanks to new rules introduced last year by the...

What Love Island can tell us about the history of love

By David Geiringer

Last summer, the apparently scandalous statistic that more young people applied for the reality TV series Love Island than applied for Oxbridge rippled through the commentariat, eventually featuring in Prime Ministers...

'Guaranteed to lose money': welcome to the bizarro world of negative interest rates

By John Hawkins

In 1960 DC Comics introduced the Bizarro planet of Htrae. Created with a duplicating ray, the planets inhabitants are all imperfect versions of Superman and Lois Lane, doing opposite of all Earthly things. Adventure...

Understanding dog personalities can help prevent attacks

By Paul McGreevy

The news of a fatal dog-bite incident in Melbourne last night has shocked dog lovers around the country. A 61 year old man was dead by the time police arrived at the property in Mill Park; his 58 year old wife is in...

The stark truth about UK government climate action: there is no one in charge

By Rebecca Willis

The UKs climate change targets are world-leading. Yet there is no clear plan in place to achieve them. That is the stark message of a new progress report from the governments official advisers, the Committee on Climate...

In the remote Cambodian jungles, we made sure rare Siamese crocodiles would have enough food

By Paul McInerney

For nine hours, my colleague Michael Shackleton and I held onto our scooters for dear life while being slapped in the face by spiked jungle plants in the mountains of Cambodia. We only disembarked either to help push a...

Living with rats involves understanding the city as an ecosystem

By Chelsea Himsworth

Rats! They eat our food, chew through our property and spread all sorts of nasty diseases. And they are gross (right?), with those naked tails and quick, unpredictable movements. Rats invade our homes our castles! the...

How to exercise in the summer without heat exhaustion

By Scott Lear

With a kilometre to go, triathlete Sarah True was pulled from the 2019 Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt, Germany, due to heat exhaustion. She was in the lead by seven minutes after having swum, biked and run...

At a New York City garden, students grow their community roots and critical consciousness

By Jennifer D. Adams Et Al

Iris, a high school student in New York City, took a course aimed at preparing public school students for college. As part of the course, she visited the Park Slope Food Coop, among the oldest member-owned businesses in...

Solar weather has real, material effects on Earth

By Michael Batu

On Sep. 1, 1859, solar astronomer Richard Carrington witnessed sunspots that suddenly and briefly flashed brightly before they disappeared. Just before dawn the next day, auroras erupted over most of the Earth, reaching as...

Deeming rates explained. What is deeming, how does it cut pensions, and why do we have it?

By Peter Martin1

Now its the Coalition thats being accused of a retiree tax. As interest rates have come down over the past four years, the rate that retirees are deemed to have earned for the purpose of the pension income test hasnt...

The world has a hard time trusting China. But does it care?

By Graeme Smith

As China grows more powerful and influential, our New Superpower series looks at what this means for the world how China maintains its power, how it wields its power and how its power might be threatened. Read the rest of...

The new Mabo? $190 million stolen wages settlement is unprecedented, but still limited

By Thalia Anthony

The Queensland governments in-principle agreement to pay A$190 million in compensation for the wages withheld from more than 10,000 Indigenous workers is a watershed moment for the stolen wages movement. Indigenous...

Most adults have never heard of TikTok. That's by design

By Milovan Savic Et Al

TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms on the planet, with more than 500 million active users. Only YouTube, Facebook and Instagram boast more. TikTok allows users to create short videos with music,...

Most people think playing chess makes you 'smarter', but the evidence isn't clear on that

By Graeme Gardiner Et Al

Chess has long been an important part of school culture. Many people believe chess has a range of cognitive benefits including improved memory, IQ, problem solving skills and concentration. But there is very little...

From hospital to homeless: Victoria’s mental health system fails the most vulnerable

By Tony Dalton Et Al

People experiencing homelessness and poor mental health are among Australias most vulnerable citizens. Without secure housing and an accessible mental healthcare system, recovery from mental illness is seriously...

The 2019 flu shot isn't perfect – but it's still our best defence against influenza

By Lauren Bloomfield

Over recent months, reports of a horror flu season causing serious illness and death have dominated the headlines. The high number of cases has led some people to question the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, and...

Mexican president López Obrador has a woman problem

By Luis Gómez Romero Et Al

After the leftist firebrand Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the Mexican presidency in a landslide last year, he vowed to govern for all, starting with the poor. In Mexico, the poor includes many women, who...

On the job with a ‘Wikipedian in residence’

By Alexandre Hocquet

While on a fellowship at Philadelphias Science History Institute, I worked for the first time with a Wikipedian in residence, Mary Mark Ockerbloom. I am assisting her with the monthly WikiSalons organized at the institute,...

Ghana aims for safer skies with new aviation laws

By Julia Selman Ayetey

Ghana recently spent $275 million expanding and modernising Kotoka International Airport located in the capital city, Accra. This is part of its plan to attract eight million tourists annually by 2027. A significant...

Why South Africa should revert to greater protection for some of its industries

By David Richard Walwyn

After years of relative silence, debates about the pros and cons of tariffs in international trade have become a regular feature. The renewed interest has been sparked by the actions of US President Donald Trump, the first...

Graffiti in Cyprus paints a rich and complex picture of a divided society

By Billy Tusker Haworth Et Al

All too often, graffiti is categorised as either art or vandalism, when in fact its so much more than that. When read with special attention, graffiti can offer deep insights into societies experiencing rapid social and...

At least 2% of US public water systems are like Flint's – Americans just don't hear about them

By Laura Pangallozzi

More than five years after Flints water crisis first hit the news, the city has successfully lowered the lead levels in its water. The most recently available testing, from the second half of 2018, puts the lead in...

Selecting groceries ahead of time helps some shoppers make healthier choices

By Anya Samek

I often toss items into my grocery cart that I have vowed to never buy again. Maybe I cave into my 3-year-olds demands for sugary cereal and cookies. Or perhaps I fail to resist my own urge to snack on chocolate-covered...

Asbestos in schools: what you need to know

By Andrew Watterson

The Department for Education referred nearly 700 schools in England to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as they did not provide evidence that they were managing asbestos in line with regulatory requirements. Of the...

Six-packs and bulging biceps – how appearance pressures take their toll on men's mental health

By Glen Jankowski

Over recent years, body dissatisfaction or shame about ones appearance has been on the rise in men. This isnt something just affecting young men either, its extensively reported across a range of age groups. And its...

UK ambassador leaks: Donald Trump's reaction to Kim Darroch's criticism reeks of double standards

By Dan Lomas

Donald Trump has hit out again at the British ambassador to Washington, Kim Darroch, following the leak of highly critical diplomatic cables about the White House and the president. In another Twitter outburst, Trump...

Five ways to be a responsible wildlife tourist

By Tracie McKinney

Imagine walking through a lush tropical forest. You hear a rustle overhead, and a half-eaten fruit plops onto the trail. You lock eyes with a howler monkey, before he gives a soft grunt and moves higher into the trees....

How the conservative right hijacks religion

By Dr. Mike Sosteric

Democrats are beginning to challenge the Republican grip on the language of religion and faith in the United States. Democrat Sen. Chris Coons, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, recently wrote an essay for The Atlantic,...

Cannabis: Misinformation about CBD can be life-threatening

By Tyler Marshall Et Al

Hyperbole can be rampant in health news, particularly with respect to cannabis. One recent headline declared: CBD is effective in treating heroin addiction. Another proclaimed: New study finds CBD could curb heroin...