Is there a funnier university-related Twitter account than ‘Shit Academics Say‘? Sarcasm even seeps into its bio disclaimer: Retweets are not endorsements. They are performative engagement markers that intentionally confound direct alignment with ironic promotion, ambivalent reflection, or personal brand ...

The American dictionary website, www.merriam-webster.com, regularly features words that are trending in dictionary searches. One recent example was gaslighting – not in the sense of the outdated mode of illuminating our city streets, but in the more recent definition of ...

How often do I react rather than pausing and reflecting? What are the positive and negative things I do in the workplace? Can you give me feedback about my leadership style? These are examples of questions Ben Foote, chief executive ...

Davis moves on after 14 years Australia’s longest-serving VC, Professor Glyn Davis, has left his post at the University of Melbourne. Davis, UniMelb’s 19th VC, took the job in 2005 after a stint as Griffith VC and president. Davis will ...

We think of unicorns as imaginary, mythical creatures, so you may be surprised to learn they actually exist. In the world of business, it’s the name given to startup companies valued at more than US$1 billion. Venture capitalist Aileen Lee coined ...

It began – as the cliché goes – with a list on a napkin. Associate Professor Inger Mewburn, director of research training at ANU and founder of blog The Thesis Whisperer, was lunching with a colleague when the discussion turned to ...

Capital letters create alternative forms for each character in the Roman alphabet. They help to mark the particular functions of certain words: those that start a sentence or identify proper nouns for persons (e.g. Quentin Bryce) or places (e.g. Australia), ...

Retiring after 67 years at UQ The University of Queensland’s Emeritus Professor Edward White, better known as Ted, from the School of Chemical Engineering, is about to hang up his academic gown. Ted has been a fixture of UQ for a ...

In classical Greek, anamorphosis meant “transformation”, and was first applied by Renaissance artists to a highly regarded technique of manipulating the perspective on an image. It presented an apparently distorted drawing of an object, which when seen reflected in a ...

Masstige is defined as ‘a class of mass-produced, relatively inexpensive goods which are marketed as luxurious or prestigious’. It started out as a specialist marketing term at least 20 years ago, particularly in the beauty and fashion industries, but has ...