Why public funding of the arts should always be temporary
May 16, 2016 23:54 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life
Last Friday, the Australia Council announced what it called a $112 million investment over four years to focus on small and medium sized arts companies. Lets skip past the misleading polly-speak use of the word investment...
The world health body you’ve never heard of – but should have
May 16, 2016 13:44 pm UTC| Insights & Views
In a world where physical goods and living things are moved around with increasing frequency to more places, the opportunities for diseases and pests to spread are multiplying all the time. The consequences of new...
Britain is no longer an island: a historian's take on the Brexit debate
May 16, 2016 13:37 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics
When, in 1962, Labour politician Hugh Gaitskell opposed joining the European Economic Community because it meant the end of a thousand years of (British) history, he was appealing to a well-entrenched mindset. This was...
Along with soulful gazes and key changes, politics is never far from Eurovision
May 16, 2016 13:27 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics
From now on, when people ask me why Eurovision is worth paying attention to, Im going to give them a short answer: 2016. This year the contest has given us disputes over political lyrics, exclusions due to bankruptcy,...
A brief history of telling time
May 16, 2016 13:23 pm UTC| Insights & Views Science
We live in a world where time is all important. Nanoseconds mark the difference between success or failure to make an electronic transaction and where we are continuously reminded of the time: of being early or late, of...
Reading for moral self-improvement or therapy can occasionally feel a little grim
May 16, 2016 13:12 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life
This weeks Sydney Writers Festival not only celebrates the art of writing, but the art of reading. Of course, it is difficult not to worry that this might be because the art of reading that is, deep, critical,...
Fairness on the agenda as UN begins job of strengthening the Paris climate deal
May 16, 2016 13:09 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
The dust has long settled from Decembers Paris climate summit, which hammered out the first truly global deal to reduce emissions. But the negotiations ended with widespread acknowledgement that the deal needs significant...
Gabon: post-coup dialogue has mapped out path to democracy – now military leaders must act
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects