We’re awarding the Order of Australia to the wrong people
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Gruen, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology Sydney It’s almost Australia Day and hundreds of us are in line for an award. Sadly, as unpublished research by my firm Lateral Economics reveals, many will get it for little more than doing their job. And the […]
Read More →To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Salmon, Professor of Human Factors, University of the Sunshine Coast Artificial intelligence can play chess, drive a car and diagnose medical issues. Examples include Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo, Tesla’s self-driving vehicles, and IBM’s Watson. This type of artificial intelligence is referred to as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) […]
Read More →New research reveals our complex attitudes to Australia Day
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Pennay, Campus Visitor, ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University In the cultural warfare over whether January 26 should be retained as Australia Day, survey results are deployed like guided missiles. But what do Australians really think about the continuing debate? A recent […]
Read More →Why people born between 1966 and 1994 are at greater risk of measles – and what to do about it
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristine Macartney, Professor, Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney Australia was declared free of measles in 2014. Yet this summer we’ve seen nine cases of measles in New South Wales, and others in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland. High vaccination rates in […]
Read More →The stubborn high-pressure system behind Australia’s record heatwaves
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia If you think the weather this month has been like Groundhog Day (albeit much hotter), you’d probably be right! Much like a stuck record, weather systems seem to have stalled over most of the country. Brisbane residents are […]
Read More →Throw a sea cucumber on the barbie: Australia’s trade history really is something to celebrate
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics, UNSW The sea cucumber is a marine animal that has a leathery skin but soft body. Its shape and size resembles a cucumber. In Australia we commonly call it trepang, adopted from a Malayan word. It was Australia’s first export […]
Read More →Hidden women of history: Mary Jane Cain, land rights activist, matriarch and community builder
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney For the communities of Coonabarabran in New South Wales and her grasslands Gomeroi people, Mary Jane Cain is a revered figure. Cain lived from 1844 to 1929. In the late 1880s, she successfully advocated […]
Read More →Grattan on Friday: Liberals stir the culture war pot but who’s listening?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As a new round of the culture wars bubbles, West Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith has urged that we should legislate to “protect” the January 26 date of Australia Day. Smith came to national prominence as one of the small […]
Read More →I’ve Always Wondered: is rain better than tap water for plants?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au You might have noticed how bright green your plants look after rain. Or […]
Read More →Animal activists v private landowners: what does the law say?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia This week, an animal rights charity, Aussie Farms, unveiled an interactive map of factory farms, slaughterhouses and other “animal exploitation” facilities across Australia. The group’s website says the map is an effort to force […]
Read More →My possessions spark joy! Will the KonMari decluttering method work for me?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Norberg, Associate Professor in Psychology, Macquarie University Australia is the sixth-largest contributor of household waste per capita in the world. We spend more than $A10.5 billion annually on goods and services that are never or rarely used. One-quarter of Australians admit to throwing away clothing after […]
Read More →How genes and evolution shape gender – and transgender – identity
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics, La Trobe University Mismatch between biological sex and gender identity, culminating in its severest form as gender dysphoria, has been ascribed to mental disease, family dysfunction and childhood trauma. But accumulating evidence now implies biological factors in establishing gender identity, and […]
Read More →New research reveals how the marriage equality debate damaged LGBT Australians’ mental health
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stefano Verrelli, PhD Scholar, University of Sydney Although Australia has now achieved marriage equality, the topics of sexuality and gender identity continue to spark heated – and often discriminatory – public debates. Most recently, the issues of religious freedoms and anti-discrimination laws, the Safe Schools program, and […]
Read More →How safe is Australia? The numbers show public attacks are rare and on the decline
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University The murder last week of International student Aiia Maasarwe has again drawn attention to the safety of women in Australia, and people in general. The focus is on safety at night in public spaces. Maasarwe’s murder has gained national […]
Read More →When to seek help after taking a pill
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian de Jonge, Lecturer in Paramedic Science , CQUniversity Australia With more suspected drug-related deaths at festivals this summer, the debate around testing these illegal drugs to check their purity and for contaminants has flared up once more. But from a user perspective, when should a person […]
Read More →Here’s how a 100% renewable energy future can create jobs and even save the gas industry
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney The world can limit global warming to 1.5℃ and move to 100% renewable energy while still preserving a role for the gas industry, and without relying on technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage, […]
Read More →‘Growth’ of community housing may be an illusion. The cost-shifting isn’t
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Darcy, Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University Southern Cross Housing, a non-profit community housing provider, took over management of just under 1,000 public housing dwellings on the New South Wales South Coast last October. This transfer from the NSW Department of […]
Read More →Low income, no assets, large credit-card debt: why more older Australians are declaring bankruptcy
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Ramsay, Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne Bankruptcy is affecting more and more older people. About 2,400 of the almost 17,000 new bankruptcies in Australia in 2017-18 were aged 60 or more, information from the bankruptcy regulator suggests. Since 2002 the proportion of bankrupts being […]
Read More →Decoding the music masterpieces: Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, an apocalyptic descent into madness
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ewans, Conjoint Professor, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle Alban Berg’s Wozzeck is arguably the most important opera composed in the first half of the 20th century. It is certainly one of the most powerful, and its emotional impact remains as strong today […]
Read More →Record US government shutdown harms Trump’s ratings, plus Brexit chaos and Australian Essential poll
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne The current US government shutdown began on December 22, and is still going. At 32 days, it is the longest shutdown in US history, beating the previous record of 21 days in a 1995-96 shutdown. […]
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