The Latest Breaking News from the Australian Research Council

There has been much excitement since Australia signed a landmark agreement with the United States last month to expand cooperation on critical minerals and rare earth elements.

As Earth’s population grows, we will need more food. According to one estimate, we may need to nearly double our crop yields in the next century to keep up.

Salt is an essential nutrient for the human body. But hundreds of millions of years before the first humans, salt minerals once shaped entire landscapes. They even determined where early life on Earth could thrive.

Misinformation has become a routine part of daily life, shaping public discourse and distorting perceptions. A new report reveals that in the two weeks prior to the 2025 federal election, almost two-thirds (60%) of adults reported coming across election misinformation. Only 19% didn’t come across it and 21% were unsure.

Housing was a key issue during the 2025 federal election. In a campaign fought on the cost of living, rising housing costs – rents, mortgage repayments and house prices – were issues that all parties had to address.

Imagine you’re at the grocery store, standing before a selection of snacks. Seemingly without thinking, you skip over the rice crackers to pick out a bag of chips.

Australians rely on their phones and the internet for education, business, socialising and in emergencies. And as Optus’ recent Triple Zero outage highlights, the consequences of a network outage can be fatal.

Australia was once a nation where the great Australian dream was owning a home with ample space for a lawn and a garden. But by the 1990s, the dream had shifted, at least politically, with then prime minister Paul Keating famously saying there was “more to life than the quarter…

To a newly-arrived red fox, the abundant rolling grasslands and swamps of Wadawurrung Country, around what is now called Port Phillip Bay, must have seemed like a predator’s paradise.