News

Hundreds of journalists killed or arrested, rising numbers of female media workers targeted, floods of misinformation and hate speech and ineffectual or hostile governments unable or unwilling to protect the public’s right to know. The 2021 press freedom index released recently by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) makes for grim reading.

The recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow served the interests of rich, industrialised nations over those of the poor and climate vulnerable countries.

As Americans and their elected representatives debate who should be allowed to vote and what rules should govern eligibility and registration, one key issue isn’t getting much attention: the ability for people to vote in languages other than English.

The Standard Model explains the fundamental physics of how the universe works. It has endured over 50 trips around the Sun despite experimental physicists constantly probing for cracks in the model’s foundations.

In recent weeks, a buildup of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border has rattled Western leaders fearful of an incursion similar to, or perhaps even more wide-ranging than, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

President Joe Biden has outlined plans to massively ramp up COVID-19 testing in an effort to curb – or at least slow – the spread of the highly infectious omicron variant across the U.S.

On Dec. 31, people from cultures all around the world will be raising a toast to welcome in A.D. 2022. Few of them will think about the fact that A.D. signals “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.” In A.D. temporality – the one acknowledged by most...

The highest-selling sports card in history is one that features Honus Wagner, which sold for $6.6 million in August 2021.

The fact that it’s hard to escape Christmas music might account for the eye-rolling that greets it every year. It’s understandable that we might recoil from the sound of yet more Slade and sleigh bells in the context of overflowing car parks and endless queues.

More than 40% of the world’s population play video games. But besides being entertaining, digital games are a product. The need to bring in money from players is integral to game design.

Young people in Australia, the UK, Nordic countries and North America have, on average, been drinking significantly less alcohol than their parents’ generation did when they were a similar age.

After Madelyn Allen has been returned to her family, her kidnapper has appeared in court asking to spend Christmas with his children.

While other states are ruling their citizens with a heavy hand, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he wants to treat Australians like adults.

Emissions from cars, utes and vans have continued to increase even though the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme has been in place for 14 years and has added a “carbon levy” of around 10-15 cents per litre to petrol and diesel.

While many have looked forward to seeing their families as soon as they can Virgin Australia and Jetstar flights had other plans.

Log4Shell, an internet vulnerability that affects millions of computers, involves an obscure but nearly ubiquitous piece of software, Log4j. The software is used to record all manner of activities that go on under the hood in a wide range of computer systems.

If everything goes according to plan on December 25, we will enter a new era of astronomy with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It’s an event that has been anticipated for a decade – it will be the largest and most expensive and complex telescope ever...

The Formula One duel between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen was resolved in sensational – and controversial – style on the final lap of the last race of 2021.

Glance at the headlines and you might be forgiven for wondering if the UK has moved on a year. A debate has been raging about how tough the restrictions must be to combat the latest wave of COVID, while the UK’s withdrawal from the EU is far from over.

Just over a year ago, material from the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission to Asteroid (162173) Ryugu arrived back on Earth . And this week, the first two papers reporting analysis of the material have been published in Nature Astronomy.

Epidemiologist believes that Australia should administer booster shots in the time frame of three months rather than 5 months.

If omicron is as severe as some projections suggest, then a post-Christmas lockdown is very much on the cards. If that happens, more government support will need to be forthcoming.

Nickel oxide is interesting because when you expose it to hydrogen gas, its crystalline structure subtly changes and more electrons become available to generate an electrical current.

Sometimes cells can forget what type of cell they are and stop functioning correctly. This commonly happens in cancer, in which mature cells lose aspects of their identity and become more susceptible to begin dividing uncontrollably.

No country has a higher diversity of sharks than Australia. That means we have a special responsibility to protect them from threats such as fishing and damage to their marine habitat.

After going missing for five days, Madelyn Allen was found at a home about 140km away from her University.

WA did not hold a referendum on federation in 1898 and 1899 when the other colonies did. But public sentiment soon shifted.

Researchers sequence DNA to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks, or nucleotides, that make it up: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine.

Meta, née Facebook, had a rough year in 2021, in public opinion if not financially. Revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen, first detailed in a Wall Street Journal investigative series and then presented in congressional testimony, show that the company was aware of the harm it was causing.

The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons debated the question of banning autonomous weapons at its once-every-five-years review meeting in Geneva Dec. 13-17, 2021, but didn’t reach consensus on a ban.

Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, accounting for about 80% of cancers diagnosed in Australia each year. Most skin cancers are caused by exposure to UV radiation from the sun.

Like many cities across the world, Glasgow – host to the UN climate conference COP26 – has a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This is a massive undertaking for any city. It means emissions from homes, businesses, waste and transport have to be reduced or...

The average investor is a little older than eight-year-old Virginia, but this is the time of year when they raise their own doubtful version of this question – namely, will there be a “Santa Claus rally” before the end of the year?

Closures, remote work, supply chain issues and changing priorities have affected almost everyone’s lives at some point during the nearly two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

Britain was keen to include the kingdom in its sphere of control, and in 1897 took the opportunity of the murder of some European traders to annex the territory and sack Benin City.

Summer in Australia is synonymous with seafood, from fish and chips at the beach to prawns on the barbie. But how do we know if the seafood is sustainable – that is, harvested from healthy stocks with minimal negative environmental impacts?

It has been a bad few weeks for Boris Johnson and the Conservative government. It began with allegations that Christmas parties had been held in Downing Street during the lockdown of 2020 and has escalated into open conflict between the prime minister and his backbenchers.

One surprise from COP26 – the latest UN climate change conference in Glasgow – was an agreement between world leaders on a new set of rules for regulating carbon markets. This would allow countries to trade the right to emit greenhouse gases.

The children aged 11 and 12 were celebrating their end of year school party.

By the grim metric of fatalities in the first 10 years of a dictator’s rule, Kim Jong Un has yet to match the records set by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, or father, Kim Jong Il – the two tyrants who reigned by terror in North Korea before him.

Lawyers and judges, for instance, were key in settling claims related to asbestos, lead paint, Agent Orange and tobacco. More recently, they have dealt with the fallout of the U.S. opioid epidemic, which is linked to the deaths of some 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.

The Biden administration has released a plan to accelerate removal of lead water pipes and lead paint from U.S. homes.

Unvaccinated mother, 27, dies with coronavirus as her father calls for fines for people who refuse jab.

Coal is likely to be completely gone from Victoria’s electricity system by 2032 with most other parts of Australia not far behind, a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) declared last week.

Shark bite incidents are rare but traumatic. They’re usually followed by calls for mitigation strategies, some of which are dangerous or lethal to sharks – despite the fact most sharks are timid and actively avoid people.

When it comes to solar energy, Australia has a huge natural advantage with an abundance of sun and vast, flat expanses of land. This makes it relatively easy to build solar farms across the continent.

With Christmas around the corner and COVID-19 case numbers rising, it’s important to keep getting tested when you have symptoms, have been exposed to the virus, or are going to a high-risk environment.

A South Australian personal trainer falsely claimed to be an accredited dietician and those who made use of his advice can potentially face detrimental affects.

In October, the UK government released two different strategies on how to achieve its net zero emissions target by 2050 – the net zero strategy and the heat and buildings strategy.

One of the main concerns raised by critics of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan is that it will drive up inflation, which is already running at the fastest pace in four decades.