World consumption of animal protein is everywhere on the rise. Meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 284 million tons in 2009, more than doubling annual consumption per person to over 90 pounds. The rise in consumption of milk and eggs is equally dramatic. Wherever incomes rise, so does meat consumption. As […] … learn more→

Making students repeat a year when they’re not doing well socially or academically is not uncommon in Australia. About 8-10% of students repeat a grade at some point in school life. But there is a major assumption underlying the practice – it is thought that retaining students in a grade for an extra year provides […] … learn more→

I have arrived in Ottawa, Canada, as a visiting professor hosted by the Audio Visual Lab for the Study of Culture and Society, and only a few hours ago delivered my first public seminar about the transnational practices of migrants in multicultural societies. I was interviewed by local radios on the broader topic of migrant […] … learn more→

Duke University researchers have found that pre-teen girls may not be any better at friendships than boys, despite previous research suggesting otherwise. The findings suggest that when more serious violations of a friendship occur, girls struggle just as much and, in some ways, even more than boys. The girls in this study were just as […] … learn more→

In the first statewide climate change outlook for New York, scientists say that the state may suffer disproportionate effects in coming decades compared with other regions, due to its geography and geology. The report paints a harsh picture, including possible extreme temperature and sea-level rises, downpours, droughts and floods. The changes are projected to affect […] … learn more→

There’s plenty of information available on how to kill yourself violently, so why does the Australian government so vigorously censor information on peaceful methods? Voluntary euthanasia societies have long been pushing to legalise death with dignity. According to opinion polls, a strong majority of Australians support legalisation, yet Australian governments have been unreceptive. When the […] … learn more→

Translating poetry from one language to another is tricky and often unsuccessful, as some things rarely convert correctly from one set of colloquialisms to the next. Translating Chaucer from Middle English, for example, is no easy task because English has changed considerably in the last 600 years or so, to the point that Middle English […] … learn more→

The Institute of International Education (IIE) OpenDoorsin New York released its annual ‘Open Doors’ report on student mobility to and from the US this week. It is funded by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The inward mobility data are for the academic year 2010-11 and study-abroad data are for 2009-10. The […] … learn more→

A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to two Princeton University reports that reject the prevailing theory that the extinction was caused by a single large meteorite. […] … learn more→

Ask any biomedical scientist whether they manage to keep on top of reading all of the publications in their field, let alone an adjacent field, and few will say yes. New publications are appearing at a double-exponential rate, as measured by MEDLINE – the US National Library of Medicine’s biomedical bibliographic database – which now […] … learn more→