Opinion

Aluminium being smelted

We've smelted a billion tonnes of recyclable aluminium. Do we need to make more?

18 Nov 2021

Aluminium is hugely useful, but energy-intensive to produce. What if we didn’t have to smelt any more?

Group of women at an anti-vaccination protest, one holding a sign that says "No matter what the situation, remind yourself 'I have a choice'."

COVID vaccines don't violate the Nuremberg Code. Here's how to convince the doubters

18 Nov 2021

Emotive claims, like COVID vaccination being unethical or coercive, are more likely to be shared on social media. But we can fight back.

A sign that says "open"

Chief Scientist's open-access research plan isn't risk-free

17 Nov 2021

The idea is publicly funded Australian research should be free for the public to read when published. But if it means taking money from universities struggling for research funding, that poses risks.

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews

Victoria’s controversial pandemic bill: Six ways for the government to show it is serious about scrutiny

16 Nov 2021

With Victoria’s parliament expected to vote on the bill this week, four legal experts recommend ways to make it better.

Scott Morrison speaks at a function

Vital Signs: Marketing is getting in the way of markets that could get us to net-zero

12 Nov 2021

The prime minister road-tested an avalanche of slogans on Wednesday, some of them clearly false.

A sepia image of lush rainforest ferns

How landscape photographers reinvented the colonial project in Australia

12 Nov 2021

A study of more than 2000 early landscape photographs shows how nature was framed as a wilderness, empty of First Nations peoples.

Power station stacks shown emitting smoke under a cloudy sky

COP26 leaves too many loopholes for the fossil fuel industry. Here are five of them

12 Nov 2021

The COP26 summit has not lived up to the goal of reducing temperature rises because there are too many loopholes for the fossil fuel industry to exploit.

Six timber samples on a museum shelf, each with their common and scientific name written at the top.

Oil, wood, bark, exploitation: exhibition explores our relationship with the Eucalyptus

11 Nov 2021

Eucalyptusdom is a testament to the utilitarian and cultural life of a remarkable tree.

painting of small houses on a hill in parramatta around 1800

Parramatta’s archaeological past reveals the deep-time history of the heart of Sydney

10 Nov 2021

A review of studies of Parramatta demonstrates an extensive deep-time archive of Indigenous activity extending over 14,000 years.

pink underpants decorated with flowers hanging on a clothes line.

Just don't douche – what your vaginal biome can tell you about your health and pregnancy

10 Nov 2021

The complex and fascinating community of ‘bugs’ that live in the vagina have just been linked to a groundbreaking new test to identify the risk of preterm birth.

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