When East Timor’s outgoing president, Jose Ramos-Horta, won office in 2007 by a crushing 69 per cent, many outsiders attributed the victory to his high profile as a campaigner for the country during the 24 years of Indonesian occupation. There is no doubt that Ramos-Horta was well known and well liked within East Timor, as […] … learn more→

James Cook University is the first university in the world to install a Bio-Regen unit, a machine that takes food scraps and turns them into a liquid bio-fertiliser. The system, installed at JCU’s Townsville campus, is compact, efficient and overcomes the problems associated with commercial composting systems. The Bio-Regen system has the potential to revolutionise […] … learn more→

Biodiversity and farming go head to head in two R&D projects that I have a hand in. The struggles to both feed the swelling ranks of humanity and save our continent’s natural splendour are so often at odds, but we need to find a way to marry the two. The projects I’m involved in are: […] … learn more→

The permanent way to prevent diarrhea from killing an average of 4,000 children a day worldwide would be for governments to step in and provide safe, clean water for their people to drink. But that prospect appears to be years away. In the meantime, Harvard economist Michael Kremer is among those working on alternative solutions, […] … learn more→

The first study into rarely-documented ground nest-building by wild chimpanzees has offered new clues about the ancient transition of early hominins – our “human-like” ancestors – from sleeping in trees to sleeping on the ground. While most apes build nests in trees, the study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, focused on a […] … learn more→

The time diaries of working age men and women in the UK reveal that women in the 2000s who went to college or university spent more time doing paid work and did less housework compared with similarly educated women in the 1970s. The study also shows that there has been a sharp drop in the […] … learn more→

Imagine a six-sided die with four red faces, one green face and one blue face. I am going to roll the die, and before rolling I will ask you to predict which colour it will land on: red, green or blue? If you predict correctly you will win a dollar. Which colour would you predict? […] … learn more→

If you had asked me that question just a year ago, I probably would have expressed skepticism. I have covered climate change as a science journalist for more than two decades and care deeply about the issue. But I’ve always thought of it as problem to be solved on the national or international level. So, […] … learn more→

Little things can mean a lot to sustain our living. My mind has been racing with all kinds of sub-topics to develop about water – hydro electricity, hydro power, and even that sensitive issue on energy versus water. I’m running out of time and wanting to deliver, I’ve come up with a close-to-the-heart topic – […] … learn more→

When chemists look at a drinking glass filled with water and a few ice cubes, it\’s not clear to them whether the glass is more like the water or the ice. Glass is one of civilization\’s most valuable and versatile materials. To scientists, it\’s also one of the most intriguing, because it displays properties of […] … learn more→