Media Files: Media companies are mad as hell at tech giants and don't want to take it anymore. But what choice do they have?

By Matthew Ricketson Et Al

Media companies around the world are in an existential funk. The tech giants - Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon - have built a better mousetrap for profiting from consumers attention than the traditional media can offer....

Trudeau's new cabinet: Gender parity because it's 2019? Or due to competence?

By Carol-Ann Rouillard Et Al

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will soon appoint his new cabinet, which he promises will once again be based on gender parity, the same as it was when he formed his first government in 2015. Women are in the minority in...

Demon disease, worse than HIV: Soweto women's views on breast cancer

By Emily Mendenhall

Low-income communities in South Africa have the lowest incidence of breast cancer in the country. But they also have the worst health outcomes. Black South African women are the least likely segment of the population to...

How the US military has embraced growing religious diversity

By Ronit Y. Stahl

In 1919, Lee Levinger buried four soldiers in France. The responsibility to preside over a funeral was not unusual for military chaplains. But during World War I, most Americans would have been surprised to learn that a...

Trump's charity woes are uncommmon if not unprecedented and could get more costly

By Philip Hackney

The Donald J. Trump Foundation is now defunct and the state of New York has ordered the president to give US$2 million to a group of nonprofits out of his own pocket as restitution for breaking the law by misusing...

Senators' silence suggests they may be taking their impeachment trial duty seriously

By Lynne H. Rambo

Several Republican senators have taken a vow of silence on the impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives. Maine Senator Susan Collins has described her position this way: I am very likely to be a juror so to...

What the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification have meant for educational inequality

By Markus Klein Et Al

When the Berlin wall fell 30 years ago, on November 9 1989, it marked the end of a 40-year divide between Germanys communist East and the free market system of the West. For people living either side of the wall, this...

In Berlin, hyper-gentrification has proved just how fast conflict-torn cities can change

By Jonathan Rock Rokem

Modern day Kreuzberg is one of Berlins most trendy and multicultural neighbourhoods. Its central location, dynamic mix of cafes, shops and nightlife, alongside residential streets and lucrative river views all fuse to...

Why Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew attacked the new media -- 50 years ago

By Thomas Alan Schwartz

Americans witnessed an unprecedented event 50 years ago: live television coverage on all three national networks of a speech by the vice president of the United States. Speeches by vice presidents never received such...

Running may help you live longer but more isn't necessarily better

By Željko Pedišić

Its free, requires no equipment and the scenery can be stunning its no wonder running is among the worlds most popular sports. The number of recreational runners in Australia has doubled from 2006 to 2014. Now more...

Thunberg and Obama: Did they interfere in the Canadian election?

By Marshall Palmer

Ahead of the 2019 Canadian federal election, many Canadians were concerned about the threat of foreign interference. Would foreign powers attempt to support one party over another? What sort of sensitive political...

California is living America's dystopian future

By Stephanie LeMenager

The Golden State is on fire, which means that an idea of American utopia is on fire, too. Utopias are the good places of our imagination, while dystopias are the places where everything goes terribly wrong, where evil...

Recycling plastic bottles is good, but reusing them is better

By Rachael Wakefield-Rann Et Al

Last week Woolworths announced a new food delivery system, in collaboration with US company TerraCycle, that delivers grocery essentials in reusable packaging. The system, called Loop, lets shoppers buy products from...

Asylum seekers left 'desperate' and 'helpless' when they try to find work in Australia

By Kiros Hiruy Et Al

Finding work can be a challenge for new migrants to Australia who often arrive with limited English skills and lack local contacts. But finding work for people seeking asylum can be even harder, as we found in a study...

What is ‘ecological economics’ and why do we need to talk about it?

By Anitra Nelson Et Al

This article is part of a series on rebalancing the humannature interactions that are central to the study and practice of ecological economics, which is the focus of the 2019 ANZSEE Conference in Melbourne later this...

Why is Japan's Olympic marathon shifting cities to avoid the heat? A sports physiologist explains

By Chloe Taylor

The International Olympic Committee last week decided to shift next years Olympic marathon from Tokyo to Sapporo to protect athletes from the heat. Tokyos average temperatures during the month of August exceed 30℃, with...

Why do young people join gangs? Members explain the appeal of risk taking

By Robert Hesketh

As the rate of knife crime continues to rise, there have been many attempts to investigate why some young people resort to potentially fatal violence: from problems at home, to a lack of opportunity or simply a desire to...

What 3,000-year-old Egyptian wheat tells us about the genetics of our daily bread

By Michael Scott

Human societies need food and that often means wheat, which was first cultivated more than 12,000 years ago. Today, around one in five calories consumed by humans is from wheat. Over this time, humans have moved wheat...

Climate crisis: the countryside could be our greatest ally – if we can reform farming

By Ian Boyd

Around 20% of the UKs farms account for 80% of the countrys total food production, and they do this on about half of all the farmed land there is. At least 80% of farms in the UK dont produce very much at all. In...

Virgin Galactic goes public and leads space tourism race

By Louis Brennan

Richard Branson rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on October 28 as Virgin Galactic became the first commercial spaceflight company to list on the stock market. It was valued at more than US$1 billion...

African countries can't industrialise? Yes, they can

By Wim Naudé

Narratives are essential. Humans are, after all, helpless story junkies. Business and economic success depend much more than is commonly acknowledged on getting the narrative right. And if there is a narrative where...

Violence in South Africa: the search for root causes

By Nicolette V Roman

South Africans are frequently reminded of just how violent the country is. Attacks on foreign nationals and the killing of women and children have been prominent in the news. The latest crime statistics show that between...

Lebanon: what protests against the sectarian elite mean for Hezbollah

By Adham Saouli

The national uprising that has engulfed Lebanon since mid-October is historic and revolutionary. Protests have continued across Lebanon, even after Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on October 29 saying he wanted to give...

UK election: who is standing down as an MP and will it change the campaign?

By Roger Awan-Scully

The days leading up to the 2019 general election campaign have brought numerous announcements of MPs deciding to leave parliament instead of contesting their seat. These include a significant number of people who are, or...

Why it's better to exercise before breakfast

By Rob Edinburgh

Exercise is recommended for people who are overweight or obese as a way to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But people dont always have time to exercise as much as they would...

As the coal industry shrinks, miners deserve a just transition – here's what it should include

By Ann Eisenberg

Murray Energy, one of the biggest private U.S. coal companies, has become the fifth coal company to file for bankruptcy in 2019. Union leaders and many elected officials worry that in addition to the 7,000 miners on...

Homicide is declining around the world – but why?

By Mateus Renno Santos Et Al

Americans are currently living in one of the lowest crime periods ever and so are many people in the rest of the world. Following decades of increasing crime during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, U.S. homicide rates declined...

Homeless: more than a third of people leaving prison say they have nowhere to go

By Graham Bowpitt

Imagine for a moment youre being released from prison after a 12-month sentence for theft. Youre clean, off drugs, its been tough, but youre looking forward to starting a new life. You leave prison and head to the nearest...

For a sustainable future, we need to reconnect with what we're eating – and each other

By Anna Davies Et Al

Eating alone, once considered an oddity, has become commonplace for many across the Western world. Fast food chains are promoting eating on the go or al desko. Why waste time in your busy day sitting down at a table with...

We asked 13 economists how to fix things. All back the RBA governor over the treasurer

By Peter Martin1

Thirteen leading economists have declared their hands in the stand off between the government and the Governor of the Reserve Bank over the best way to boost the economy. All 13 back Reserve Bank Governor Philip...

Is the Morrison government 'authoritarian populist' with a punitive bent?

By Carol Johnson

In a recent interview Malcolm Turnbull raised the possibility that these days many so-called conservatives in the Liberal Party might be better described as authoritarian populists. It would be easy to dismiss his...

Opioid dependence treatment saves lives. So why don't more people use it?

By Suzanne Nielsen

In Australia last year, 1,123 people died from opioids illicit drugs such as heroin, and pain relievers such as codeine, oxycodone and morphine. If used regularly, physical and psychological dependence can develop. In...

Strippers on film: battlers, showgirls and hustlers

By Ari Mattes

In her landmark 1975 essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey argues classical Hollywood style is built upon the fetishisation of the female body. Female characters are frequently photographed in wide,...

Caught red-handed: automatic cameras will spot mobile-using motorists, but at what cost?

By Ian J. Faulks

Over the years, advances in technology and transport policy have greatly impacted drivers. In the 1980s this came in the form of random breath testing, and more recently, mobile drug testing. A new policing tool under...

How we feel about our cars means the road to a driverless future may not be smooth

By Raul A. Barreto

There is a reasonable expectation that autonomous vehicles will dominate the future of transport. Utopian visions suggest these driverless vehicles will lead to dramatic changes to our cities and their...

Australia's only active volcanoes and a very expensive fish: the secrets of the Kerguelen Plateau

By James Dell

Stretching towards Antarctica lies a hidden natural oasis - a massive underwater plateau created when continents split more than 100 million years ago. Straddling the Indian and Southern Oceans, the Kerguelen Plateau is...

Another approach to online platforms is possible: cooperation

By Mélissa Boudes Et Al

So-called collaborative platforms have been popular since their appearance in the late 2000s, but there is growing societal concern. On the technological end, their are questions concerning their use of personal data as...

Gen Xers, millennials and even some Gen Zs choose vinyl & drive record sales up

By Marina Eckersley

Vinyl sales have been surging in the last few years, as CD sales stay flat and digital downloads decrease. In the United Kingdom, data from 2016 reveals that vinyl LP sales revenue surpassed that of digital downloads. And...

Canada needs a China strategy, and the western provinces should lead the way

By Robert J. Hanlon

Its now confirmed that Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus latest envoy to China has met with two detained Canadians at the heart of an ongoing diplomatic row between Canada and the Chinese. It was Ambassador Dominic Bartons...

What universities can do to keep students from dropping out

By Lenin Cavalcanti Guerra Et Al

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports that in 36 countries, only 39 per cent of bachelors degree students graduate within the expected duration of their program. Another 28 per cent do...

Gender inequality in education is still an issue in Kenya and South Africa

By Beatrice Akala

Women still arent fully represented in higher education in Kenya and South Africa, despite changes in law and policy over the years. This failure of the education sector to harness and develop womens talents curtails their...

The burden of showing Springbok support in the 21st century

By Francois Cleophas

The Rugby World Cup 2019 is done and dusted, with South Africa securing victory over England in the final match. But a question still lingers: was it a burden for some, maybe many, South Africans who supported their...

Mississippi governor's race taking place under Jim Crow-era rules after judge refuses to block them

By Gideon Cohn-Postar

A federal judge ruled on Nov. 1 that he would not stop Mississippi voters from electing a governor on Tuesday under an old, Jim Crow-era election law that a civil rights lawsuit argues perpetuates white supremacy and...

The UK's 2019 election cannot be a re-run of the 2017 campaign

By Christopher Kirkland

The UK is due to go to the polls on December 12 in an attempt to overcome parlaiments impasse over Brexit. Given the latest missed deadline of October 31, it seems inevitable that Brexit will dominate this campaign. Boris...

Three reasons why we need to talk about the mental health of political leaders

By Ian Hughes

As the impeachment investigation gathers pace on Capitol Hill, some commentators have argued that if Donald Trump remains the Republican presidential candidate in 2020, there is no way the election could be deemed...

Heart disease risk starts young – improving teenager health is essential

By Michaela James Et Al

Heart disease causes an estimated 31% of all deaths worldwide each year. While the condition is often associated with older adults, rising childhood inactivity and poor fitness levels mean that the risk factors associated...

"I risked my life in the back of a lorry to reach the UK from Iran"

By Forough Ramezankhah

Its still unclear what circumstances led to 31 men and eight women to climb inside a refrigerated lorry, headed to the UK, for what would become their last journey. And its not yet known if this was the work of people...

Yes, the research confirms: Managers shouldn't sleep with subordinates

By Vanessa K. Bohns

U.S. Rep. Katie Hill recently stepped down after information about an affair with a campaign staffer, and allegations of one with a congressional staffer, came to light. The second affair would violate the House of...

Five ways commuting on the London Underground has and hasn't changed in the last century

By James Fowler

The London Underground opened in 1863, more than 150 years ago. A lot has changed since then but a lot of the gripes about travelling on the tube remain the same. A pretty standard list of current complaints includes: its...

How failing power utility is fuelling South Africa's economic crisis

By Mark Swilling

South Africas state power utility Eskom is the biggest challenge facing the country. Mess up Eskom, and you mess up the country. And it looks as though key players are doing just that. The past two weeks will be...