Latest Story
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Should you mind your Ps and Qs?
Richard Morris | January 18, 2026While being polite to AI chatbots doesn’t really spike their energy use, data centres already account for a significant share of global electricity consumption, with demand rising rapidly as AI workloads grow.
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Genomic screening could save thousands of lives
Open Forum | January 18, 2026A national genomic screening program could save thousands of Australians from preventable cancer and heart disease.
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Tackling endometriosis
Roger Chao | January 18, 2026Endometriosis is more than “just bad periods” and more effort is required to understand and tackle the health consequences of a disease which affects one in seven women during their lives.
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AI x $ = Ads
Nathan Sanders | January 17, 2026Desperate for returns on its gargantuan investments, the AI industry is now taking a page from the social media playbook and has set its sights on monetizing consumer attention by integrating advertising into their chatbot interactions.
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The problem with bullbars
Milad Haghani | January 17, 2026The proliferation of large utes and 4x4s sporting massive bull bars to protect themselves and intimidate other road users in Australia’s cities is contributing to an increasing road toll among pedestrians and cyclists.
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Driving in circles
Roger Chao | January 17, 2026Australia’s reluctance to recognise foreign accreditations means that immigrants are often relegated to semi-skilled tasks despite labour market shortages across the country.
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Capturing the narrative
Alexandra Vassar | January 16, 2026A new UNSW research project shows how the internet and social media have become a closed loop of AI slop in which bots invent lies to trigger emotional responses from humans, manufacturing a false reality in which they can shift votes as well as products.
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Living in the visitors’ kitchen
Roger Chao | January 16, 2026Governments and hospitals should invest in family accommodation near children’s hospitals to allow regional parents to stay close to their sick children without risking financial ruin.
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You’ll eat what you’re sold
Uri Gal | January 16, 2026AI was supposed to cure cancer, but what it’s actually being used for is to market and sell products to consumers in ever more intrusive and less-transparent ways.
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Will the new ‘hate speech’ law work?
Open Forum | January 15, 2026The government has responded to the horror of the Bondi terror attack and public demands to address rising antisemitism by proposing new laws curbing racial vilification, so what are they and will they work?
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Is China a superpower?
John West | January 15, 2026China’s economic power, military modernisation and aggressive foreign policy towards Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific may not be enough to grant it super power status, according to a new book by historian Frank Dikotter.
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My hands, in plain sight
Roger Chao | January 15, 2026Recent scandals have raised concerns about all men working in early childhood education but a country that can’t trust men to care for children will end up with fewer carers, more exhausted women, deeper workforce shortages, and children quietly educated into fear.
