How Hokusai's Great Wave came into the world

Jun 02, 2017 11:23 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

By the time Katsushika Hokusai painted The Great Wave he was already a celebrity in Japan. The iconic painting was produced in 1831 as part of a print series, Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji, when the Japanese artist was 71...

How our research is helping clean up coal-mining pollution in a World Heritage-listed river

Jun 01, 2017 14:03 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

The Wollangambe River in New South Wales is a unique gift of nature, flowing through the stunning Wollemi National Park, wilderness areas and the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains. Its an adventure tourism hotspot, with...

Let cities speak: reclaiming a place for community with sounds

May 22, 2017 13:55 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature

This is the second of two Let Cities Speak articles. While Western city soundscapes are increasingly homogeneous, these articles seek to explore the sounds that still define us and the ways in which we might discover new...

Understanding tornadoes: 5 questions answered

May 21, 2017 13:32 pm UTC| Nature

Editors note: May and June are typically peak months for tornadoes in North America. We asked Penn State meteorology professors Paul Markowski and Yvette Richardson to explain why tornadoes form, how to stay safe if youre...

Explainer: why we should be turning waste into fuel

May 19, 2017 05:41 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

The federal government recently announced that it is giving recycling company ResourceCo a loan of A$30 million to build two waste-to-fuel plants producing solid waste fuel. Waste-to-energy is an important part of the...

This South Pacific island of rubbish shows why we need to quit our plastic habit

May 19, 2017 04:42 am UTC| Nature

A remote South Pacific island has the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, our new study has found. Our study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,...

Sidelining God: why secular climate projects in the Pacific Islands are failing

May 19, 2017 04:32 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature

Unless you are cocooned in a tourist bubble, it is hardly possible to miss God when you visit the Pacific Islands. In every village and on every main street there seems to be a church or temple, packed to bursting point on...