The Latest Breaking News from Australian Research Council

Would you send your child to school in a skyscraper? Vertical schools could revitalise our cities

When we think of what Australian schools look like, we probably think of large grounds with single or double storey buildings. They’re usually in suburban areas on relatively flat blocks.

The Conversation · Jul 29, 2024

Landmark new research shows how global warming is messing with our rainfall

The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows.

The Conversation · Jul 25, 2024

Strong progress – from a low base: here’s what’s in NSW’s biodiversity reforms

The laws designed to protect the environment in New South Wales are completely ineffective, according to the scathing Henry Review in 2023.

The Conversation · Jul 18, 2024

Booktopia, Australia’s biggest online bookseller, is poised for collapse. That doesn’t mean bookshops are in trouble

At its height, Australia’s largest online bookseller, Booktopia, had a A$2.4 million turnover, 5 million customers, and sold a book “every 3.9 seconds”. This week, it entered voluntary administration, a month after announcing the axing of 50 jobs and resignation of senior staff, including its chief executive. Shares had fallen…

The Conversation · Jul 4, 2024

Found in a cave in Indonesia, we can now show the world’s oldest figurative art is 51,200 years old

Figurative rock art – art that presents lifelike representations of subjects – provides visual insights into ancient cultures, beliefs and societal practices, offering a direct window into human cultural evolution.

The Conversation · Jul 3, 2024

Oldest living culture: our new research shows an Indigenous ritual passed down for 500 generations

We often hear that Aboriginal peoples have been in Australia for 65,000 years, “the oldest living cultures in the world”. But what does this mean, given all living peoples on Earth have an ancestry that goes back into the mists of time?

The Conversation · Jul 1, 2024

‘I don’t really wanna consume his content’: what do young Australian men think of Andrew Tate?

Public debates at the moment are awash with concerns about young men’s sexist and unsafe behaviour online. This includes reports of school students making AI deep fake pornography of their peers, ranking female classmates as well as anxieties about the “manosphere” radicalising young men into misogyny.

The Conversation · Jul 1, 2024

More than half of Australian young people are using strangulation during sex: new research

We recently surveyed thousands of young Australians about their experiences of strangulation (or choking) during sex and found more than half (57%) reported being strangled by a partner during sex. About half (51%) said they had strangled their partner during sex.

The Conversation · Jul 1, 2024

We mapped the entire bilby genome – and now we can use poo to save Australia’s ‘Easter bunny’ from extinction

Commonly known as Australia’s “Easter bunny” due to its large ears and hopping movement, the greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is the last of its kind. Today we published its reference genome – all 3.66 billion pieces of it.

The Conversation · Jul 1, 2024

Devastating coral bleaching will be more common, start earlier and last longer unless we cut emissions

Coral bleaching is becoming much more common as a result of increasingly severe and frequent marine heatwaves. Four global mass bleaching events have happened since 1998. Two of these were in the past decade.

The Conversation · Jun 26, 2024