The Latest Breaking News from the Australian Research Council

Australian freshwater turtles support healthy wetlands and rivers. Yet one in three turtle species is threatened with extinction. And there is still much we don’t know about them.

As of November 17, 49 women have been killed in Australia this year as a result of violence; 28 were allegedly killed at the hands of a male intimate or ex-intimate partner. That’s according to the activist project Counting Dead Women Australia, which collects these figures based on media-reported crimes.

Australia’s abysmal rates of extinctions and land clearing since European colonisation are infamous globally. Our national environmental legislation has largely failed to protect biodiversity, including many threatened plants, animals and ecological communities. But change is afoot.

Today, Australia is home to 17 species of hawks and eagles. But the fossil record shows some other, rather special raptors were present in the relatively recent past.

Ask any parent and it’s likely they’ll tell you they’re worried about their kids’ screen time. A 2021 poll found it was Australian parents’ number one health concern for their kids – ahead of cyberbullying and unhealthy diets. But how worried should parents be?

Does ChatGPT ever give you the eerie sense you’re interacting with another human being?

For almost ten years, debate has raged over the book Dark Emu by Aboriginal historian Bruce Pascoe. In it, Pascoe argues many pre-colonial Aboriginal groups were farmers, pointing to examples like eel aquaculture in Victoria, and grain planting and threshing of native millet in the arid centre.

Our planet has warmed by about 1.2°C since 1850. But this warming is not uniform. Warming at the poles, especially the Arctic, has been three to four times faster than the rest of the globe. It’s a phenomenon known as “polar amplification”.

The relationships between tenants and landlords are often fraught, but it’s fair to expect a house to meet basic standards, like having a back door.

Women coastal scientists face multiple barriers to getting into the field for research. These include negative perceptions of their physical capabilities, not being included in trips, caring responsibilities at home and a lack of field facilities for women. Even if women clear these barriers, the experience can be challenging.

Right now, there’s something big spinning off the coast from Sydney – a giant rotating vortex of sea water, powerful enough to dominate the ocean currents off south-eastern Australia.