The following does not contain typos: disengaged 24-year-olds cost taxpayers $69 billion over a lifetime. This is one of the major findings of the Mitchell Institute’s new report, Counting the costs of lost opportunity in Australian education. The Institute, based ...
More »Paleontologists discover kangaroo-sized flying turkey
It wasn’t a bird, nor a plane. It would’ve been a grey kangaroo-sized giant, flying turkey. A team of paleontologists from Flinders University have discovered the remains of five extinct megapodes – medium-to-large chicken-like birds with small heads – one ...
More »USYD’s brave new humanoid world
China’s largest consumer humanoid robotics company, UBTECH, has partnered with the University of Sydney to establish the UBTECH Sydney Artificial Intelligence Centre. Based at the university’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, the centre is dedicated to research into intelligent ...
More »What keeps university leaders up at night?
I’m not at all confident that the university or anything like its current form will be here for even 20 years. Australia has too many universities for its population. So what is the biggest shaping force in Australian higher education? ...
More »Influx of foreign students continues
Foreign students are flocking to our (mostly) sunny shores in increasing numbers, government data has revealed. In the first quarter of this year, international students increased by 15 per cent, to 480,092. A third were from China; followed by 11 ...
More »Antidepressant linked to increased risk of birth defects
Fluoxetine, the antidepressant in drugs such as Prozac and Lovan, has been found to increase the risk of birth defects when taken during pregnancy. A meta-analysis of 16 studies, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, determined that fetuses ...
More »RMIT students have the rights stuff
Five RMIT juris doctor students have made a robust case for improved human rights protections in Australia. The students, Brigette Rose, Frank Aloe, Helen Metzger, Luke Fowler and Veronica Snip worked under the supervision of staff at the Centre for ...
More »Poo Tube creator gets science communication gong
Honey and poo are an unlikely combination, but it was these substances, together with her communication skills, that won Dr Nural Cokcetin best young Australian science communicator. Cokcetin, a microbiologist and honey expert, clinched first prize at the national round ...
More »Fish and microbeads study becomes fishier
Did you or someone you know shun microbeads, common in skin exfoliants, last year? If so, it was probably due to a widely-reported study, published in esteemed journal Science, that found these tiny plastic particles harmed damselfish larvae. Now, following ...
More »The march of the stupid
Academics and experts must go on the offensive when spin and vested interests threaten to rule the day. Science is under attack and research is easily mocked – and a large proportion of our population are easily persuaded to believe ...
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