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AAD In the Southern Ocean about 4,000 kilometres from Perth lies a truly extraordinary place. Known as the Heard Island and McDonald islands, they are among the most remote places on Earth: a haven for marine life amid the vast ocean, virtually undisturbed by human pressures. But as our...

Shutterstock Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference associated with specific experiences and characteristics. For decades, autism research has focused on behavioural, cognitive, social and communication difficulties. These studies highlighted how autistic people face issues with everyday...

Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock Since the review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) released its recommendations in December, there has been a series of Town Hall events to discuss them around the country – but no actual changes. Today the government introduced a new bill to make way...

Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a breakthrough in xenotransplantation – when an organ, cells or tissues are transplanted from one...

Frederic Legrand, Comeo/Shutterstock The recent revelations about the Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnosis highlight a crucial aspect of cancer detection – the disease’s sometimes silent nature. Silent cancers are those without noticeable symptoms. They pose a unique challenge in early...

Nattakorn_Maneerat/Shutterstock How much were prices rising in January when Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor said inflation was “rampant”? The prices that give us a good steer on inflation were falling, by 0.4%. That’s the change that month in what the Bureau of Statistics calls the consumer...

Wikimedia/State Library of Queelsand Australia’s coffee culture – a source of great national pride – is usually associated with the wave of Greek and Italian migrants who settled in Melbourne and Sydney following the second world war. But it was very likely in regional Queensland that one of...

gruizza/Getty Over the last two years, growth in wages and salaries have not kept up with rises in the cost of living. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates the cost of living for the average “employee household” rose by 16.7% in the two years up to December 2023. In contrast...

anon_tae/Shutterstock Influenza is a common respiratory infection. Although most cases are relatively mild, flu can cause more severe illness in young children and older people. Influenza virtually disappeared from Australia during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic when public health...

Dean Lewins/AAP Droughts can have dramatic effects in Australia – decimating agriculture, threatening water resources and devastating the environment. Much of Australia is drought-prone, and the risk is expected to increase as global warming continues. That’s why it’s important for Australia...

A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv. Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons , CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy communion. The view in Constantinople was the bread for the eucharist must be sourdough. But...

Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards by six months. The legislation was introduced to parliament on Wednesday. The government says the new...

Lukas Coch/AAP A few years ago, I turned some real estate advertisements into poems by adding line breaks: I was interested, among other things, in asking what happens when we compare the language of real estate copy with more obvious forms of poetry. If you read a real estate ad with the...

IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those in the solar industry, and guarding against supply...

Michael Smith ITWP, Shutterstock Thousands of bus-sized humpback whales are currently on their way to Australian waters. They’ve spent the summer feeding in the cold waters of Antarctica before heading north to breed and calve. You can see humpback whales as they travel along Australia’s east...

Stockphoto For You/Shutterstock Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have bitten over the past few years. So too have...

Getty Images If older women move through the world with a sense of being unseen, in the world of books, and especially in contemporary fiction, they have all but been erased. So pervasive is their absence, it is nearly possible to draw up a list of novels featuring older women as the main...

Max4e Photo/Shutterstock Look at these pictures. Can you see a cube on the left and a face on the right? What do you see? Derek Arnold / Adobe Stock Can you imagine seeing things in your mind? Can you hear an inner voice when you think or read? One of the authors, Loren Bouyer, cannot do...

Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels So Mum or Dad has died, or moved to aged care, and now you’ve got to pack up their house. It’s a huge job and you’re dreading it. It’s normal to feel grief, loss, guilt, exhaustion or even resentment at being left with this job. So how can you look after...

Shutterstock The Victorian government has recently announced a plan to trial electronic monitoring devices for young people on bail and abandon proposed reforms to bail laws for young people. This is at odds with their recent bail reforms in the adult system. The reforms in the adult system...