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The Latest Breaking News from Australian Research Council

On a tiny Australian island, snakes feasting on seabirds evolved huge jaws in a surprisingly short time

When we think of evolution, we tend to picture slow changes occurring over very long periods of time, typically millions of years. However, evolution can actually happen much faster, over only a few generations: think COVID-19 strains, for example. And this fast evolution isn’t just restricted to viruses and microbes.

The Conversation

Is it OK to kick a robot dog?

Last Saturday night, a young woman out on the town in Brisbane saw a dog-shaped robot trotting towards her and did what many of us might have felt an urge to do: she gave it a solid kick in the head.

The Conversation

As international students flock back, they face even worse housing struggles than before COVID

Australia is welcoming back international students in much greater numbers this year. Some predict new enrolments in 2023 could even be higher than the pre-COVID record in 2019. Student visa applications in the second half of 2022 were up 40% on the same period in 2019.

The Conversation

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Why Pacific Islanders are staying put even as rising seas flood their homes and crops

Climate change is forcing people around the world to abandon their homes. In the Pacific Islands, rising sea levels are leaving communities facing tough decisions about relocation. Some are choosing to stay in high-risk areas.

The Conversation

Bland warehouses hide the heart of a city

What makes cities work? It is not the historic monuments or grand architecture but something far more prosaic.

360info

Top 10 tips to keep cool this summer while protecting your health and your budget

With energy prices and temperatures both rising, keeping cool in summer is an increasingly costly challenge for many Australians. Energy bills are predicted to increase by 50% over the next two years, adding to the cost-of-living crisis. For some, this creates stark choices between paying energy bills or putting food…

The Conversation

For Australia to lead the way on green hydrogen, first we must find enough water

Australia is well-positioned to be a global leader in green hydrogen production. Green hydrogen is produced using a renewable power source such as solar or wind. As a substitute for fossil fuels, it will help to meet growing renewable energy needs.

The Conversation

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The historic COP15 outcome is an imperfect game-changer for saving nature. Here's why Australia did us proud

Billed as the event that’ll determine the fate of the entire living world, the United Nations’ COP15 nature summit has wrapped up in Canada with a historic deal, which includes protecting roughly a third of nature by 2030.

The Conversation

Phosphorus supply is increasingly disrupted – we are sleepwalking into a global food crisis

Without phosphorus food cannot be produced, since all plants and animals need it to grow. Put simply: if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. As such, phosphorus-based fertilisers – it is the “P” in “NPK” fertiliser – have become critical to the global food system.

The Conversation

Aboriginal people have spent centuries building in the Darling River. Now there are plans to demolish these important structures

Apart from managing the land, Indigenous people have also managed waterways, including the Murray River and the Darling/Baaka River, for thousands of years.

The Conversation

Without Indigenous leadership, attempts to stop the tide of destruction against nature will fail

At the crucial COP15 nature summit in Canada, almost 200 countries are reckoning with the world’s extraordinary loss of the variety of life. Climate change, mining, urban development and more are threatening Earth’s biodiversity to an extent never before witnessed in human history.

The Conversation

For the first time ever, we have a complete skull description of a true fossil giant wombat

The place we call Australia today was in many ways vastly different 80,000 years ago.

The Conversation

Women are 50–75% more likely to have adverse drug reactions. A new mouse study finally helps explain why

Compared to men, we know much less about how women experience disease.

The Conversation

'I would like to go to university': flexi school students share their goals in Australia-first survey

Flexi schools cater to young people who have been pushed out of mainstream schools. Some students may have been expelled or struggled to fit in. Some may have been bullied or have learning needs the mainstream system could not meet.

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Our laws fail nature. The government’s plan to overhaul them looks good, but crucial detail is yet to come

The Albanese government has just released its long-awaited response to a scathing independent review of Australia’s environment protection law. The 2020 review ultimately found the laws were flawed, outdated and, without fundamental reform, would continue to see plants and animals go extinct.

The Conversation

Homeless numbers have jumped since COVID housing efforts ended – and the problem is spreading beyond the big cities

The numbers of people who are homeless have risen sharply across Australia, with soaring housing costs emerging as the biggest driver of the increase. The Australian Homelessness Monitor 2022, released today, reports that the average monthly number of people using homelessness services increased by 8% in the four years to…

The Conversation

Territories free to make their own voluntary assisted dying laws, in landmark decision. Here's what happens next

Voluntary assisted dying will soon be an option for the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory, now the Senate has just passed a landmark bill.

The Conversation

Astronomers witness the dying flare of a star torn apart by a black hole halfway across the Universe

Some stars just get unlucky. There are billions of stars within a typical galaxy. Yet once every 100,000 years or so, one of those stars will wander too close to the supermassive black hole lurking at the galaxy’s centre and be torn apart. These cosmic behemoths weigh in at millions…

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The Conversation

The Galactica AI model was trained on scientific knowledge – but it spat out alarmingly plausible nonsense

Earlier this month, Meta announced new AI software called Galactica: “a large language model that can store, combine and reason about scientific knowledge”.

The Conversation

Many forests will become highly flammable for at least 30 extra days per year unless we cut emissions, research finds

Without strong climate action, forests on every continent will be highly flammable for at least 30 extra days per year by the end of the century – and this fire threat is far greater for some forests including the Amazon, according to our new study.

The Conversation

As more biometric data is collected in schools, parents need to ask these 10 questions

A Sydney high school recently introduced fingerprint technology to “help narrow down” students who were vandalising school toilets.

360info

Australia’s fight against corruption risks failure

When fighting official corruption, prevention can be the cure. But what does that look like?

The Conversation

Thinking of breaking up with Twitter? Here’s the right way to do it

After a few chaotic weeks it’s clear Elon Musk is intent on taking Twitter in a direction that’s at odds with the prevailing cultures of the diverse users who call it home.

The Conversation

Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests

Global inequities in access to COVID vaccines have turned out to be a “catastrophic moral failure”, just as the World Health Organization warned they would in January 2021. Yet it took 20 months of negotiations for members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to agree to a limited relaxation of…

The Conversation

If you care about nature in Victoria, this is your essential state election guide

If we learnt anything from the past federal election, it’s that Australians care about climate change and nature. A survey released this week suggests the same dynamic is at play as we head into the Victorian state election.

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