Australian building codes don't expect houses to be fire-proof - and that's by design
Jan 14, 2020 23:30 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
More than 2,000 homes have been destroyed in Australia since the start of the bushfire season. More will certainly be destroyed before the season ends in March. Could these houses have been built to better withstand...
Car accidents, drownings, violence: hotter temperatures will mean more deaths from injury
Jan 14, 2020 23:29 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
What we suspected is now official: 2019 was Australias hottest year on record. The countrys average maximum temperature last year (30.69℃) was a scorching 2.09℃ hotter than the 1961-1990 average. For the whole planet,...
Jan 14, 2020 23:29 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics
Since the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the immediate crisis appears to have dissipated. However, the wider ramifications pose a worrying precedent for international affairs. For many, the...

Australia's bushfires could drive more than 700 animal species to extinction
Jan 14, 2020 23:29 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
The scale and speed of the current bushfire crisis has caught many people off-guard, including biodiversity scientists. People are scrambling to estimate the long-term effects. It is certain that many animal species will...

Some say we've seen bushfires worse than this before. But they're ignoring a few key facts
Jan 14, 2020 23:28 pm UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Every time a weather extreme occurs, some people quickly jump in to say weve been through it all before: that worse events have happened in the past, or its just part of natural climate variability. The recent bushfire...

A new recycling technique breaks down old tires into reusable materials
Jan 14, 2020 23:27 pm UTC| Insights & Views Technology
Approximately three billion automobile tires were produced worldwide in 2019 alone. Automobile tires are the classic example of a high-volume product derived from non-renewable petroleum resources that is designed for...

At a performance of The White Album, I found the community I needed in a time of crisis
Jan 14, 2020 23:26 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Joan Didion, The White Album Theatre can be many things. It can provide a catalyst to action, help us make sense of the world, make us feel part of a broader human...