Near the end of my PhD, my partner, an early career researcher, was being honoured by her professional society with a career award. We travelled interstate to a conference and to attend the fancy conference dinner together, where she was to deliver a short speech on stage in front of a couple hundred of her […] … learn more→

It will probably come as little surprise that recent surveys have found the majority of adults in Europe think that international terrorism is the most pressing threat to the continent. Though this is valuable information about what adults think, little is known about what children and young people perceive as the greatest threats to life […] … learn more→

The development and evolution of the chemical industry is directly responsible for many of the technological advancements that have emerged since the late 19th century. However, it was not until the 1980s that the environment became a priority for the chemical industry. This was prompted largely by stricter environmental regulations and a need to address […] … learn more→

It really is interesting how the other half lives, particularly when it comes to the Poo Bahs who rule over our institutions. Their lives are just so…different. I worry about losing my job, because that would be a major problem for me. I want to move closer to my university, but it’s a major risk: […] … learn more→

Imagine, for a second, that the slice of delectable cake melting in your mouth was made with flour ground from insects not grains. Or that your most alluring perfume – a special gift, perhaps – contained reclaimed ingredients once excreted audibly from someone else’s bowels. The visceral, gut reaction you might experience in these scenarios […] … learn more→

I’m what you might call a career contract researcher. This wasn’t what I always envisaged from my academic career, but at the same time, it is the product of active choices on my part, where, at least some of the time, alternative options did and do still exist. I’ve been a jobbing researcher since I […] … learn more→

Peter Piot was a young researcher training in virology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp in 1976 when some unusual samples from Central Africa arrived at the Belgian lab. They had been taken from a Catholic missionary who had died from an unknown disease in a remote village in the Democratic Republic of the […] … learn more→

When Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, he surely didn’t anticipate that children would end up becoming some of its main users. Most start using the internet at the average age of three – and as recent research shows, children now spend more time playing and socialising online than watching television programmes. Given this […] … learn more→

By 2025, absolute water scarcity will be a daily reality for an estimated 1.8 billion people. In a world where vital resources are increasingly scarce, nations cannot afford to flush them down the drain. But that is exactly what we do. After we use water in our homes and businesses, it is washed away, and […] … learn more→

“Are you on drugs?” –common response to an individual exhibiting strange behavior. It seems a fair question to ask most students on campus today. Every day we get to see another example of insanity on campus, and while I usually blame it on the student loan scam, another explanation comes to mind: More than 25 […] … learn more→