
Uninformed comments on autism are resonant of dangerous ideas about eugenics
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary in the United States, held a recent news conference and made uninformed comments on autism. His remarks created an uproar, especially among people with autism...

AI models might be drawn to ‘spiritual bliss’. Then again, they might just talk like hippies
When multibillion-dollar AI developer Anthropic released the latest versions of its Claude chatbot last week, a surprising word turned up several times in the accompanying system card: spiritual. Specifically, the...

James Bradley’s thrilling, unsettling crime novel is set in a flooded Sydney in 2050
James Bradley is a brilliant writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His recent book Deep Water (2024) is an elegiac essay in response to the wonders of the planets oceans. It celebrates undersea mysteries and the...

During fieldwork in cities in China I came across a new marital practice, locally described as liang-tou-dun, literally two places to stay. A bride and groom, each an only child of their respective family, receive from...

From surprise platypus to wandering cane toads, here’s what we found hiding in NSW estuaries
Rivers up and down the north coast of New South Wales have been hammered again, just three years after devastating floods hit the Northern Rivers and Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley. The events of 2022 sparked our latest research...

Around half of teenage girls experience moderate to severe period pain. The mechanical force of the uterus contracting and inflammatory chemicals such as prostaglandins contribute to this pain. Moderate to severe period...

‘No support, no housing, no job’ – the vicious cycle pushing more women into prison
For too many women, prison is as good as it gets. New research based on interviews with 80 female prisoners in Western Australia reveals most of these women were criminalised by circumstances outside their control before...