A healthy future? Let’s put medical science under the microscope
The past is prologue, or so we should hope for biomedical research. Australia has a proud history with four Nobel Prizes for Physiology or Medicine given for work done here
What Do We Owe to Future Generations?
Although steps have been taken over the past 150 years or so to protect ‘heritage areas’ of great natural beauty, the idea that we have some long-term obligation to future generations has not resonated in the human discourse and is rarely, for example, enshrined in any substantial body of behavior, practice or law
What Have the Humanities Ever Done For Us?
The case for public funding of scientific and technological research in Australia, as in most countries in the world, is generally regarded as self-evident and axiomatic. Without sustained and curiosity-driven research, as everyone knows, bridges might well fall down, cheap fuels remain undiscov- ered, new viruses spread unchecked from country to country
First Knowledges Health: Spirit, Country and Culture
Health explores concepts that are not tied to Western practices, as it delves into birthing, end-of-life care and other Indigenous cultural rituals. The authors highlight the role of Aboriginal leadership and Eldership in decision making about health care and explore the strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resistance and resilience
Escaping drugs and alcohol
Alcohol and drugs: Why do people take them, what do they hope to get out of taking them? Why do things go wrong sometimes? How do people get into trouble? The history of substance use in Australia is rich and colourful. White Australia was settled with our first soldiers, the Rum Corps, being paid in alcohol
Success, Trends and Influence of Social Media in Mainstream Media
At the New News conference at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne in October 2015, run under the auspices of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at Melbourne University, I chaired a session on the various ways in which organisations and individuals are using social media to reach audiences
What’s the use of worrying? Strategies for breaking the worry habit
Worry has been described as an attempt to engage in mental problem-solving on an issue whose outcome is uncertain. We think about bad things that could happen and how we might respond to them if they should occur. People worry about all sorts of things, including the possibility of physical harm, rejection or disapproval by others, failure, loss, harm to loved ones or simply not coping with future demands
Facebook Versus Ghaddafi: Social Networking as a Tool for Democratic Change in Libya
The emergence of the Internet is one of the most significant leaps in the history of humanity. Information, knowledge and culture are exchanged among masses of people through interconnected information platforms.These platforms enable our culture to be analysed and rewritten, and fundamentally opens our perceptions to a wide variety of concepts and beliefs.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
There is no more fundamental human rights issue than a threat to life on this planet as we know it. There are only two such threats that international policy failure can make real. One is global warming, and the other is annihilation by the most destructive and indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented. And nuclear weapons can kill us a lot faster than CO2
Gene therapy – personalised medicine in action
We all begin life as a single cell that divides and develops until we are a fully grown human being. Inside this cell, our DNA carries the complete set of instructions for this to happen. However, if your DNA sequence harbours an alteration — even a small, seemingly insignificant single-base sequence change — it can have detrimental consequences: inherited genetic disease