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Louis Nowra’s inspired biography of Sydney starts with a surprise visit to the city. He grew up in a housing commission estate in Melbourne. In 1959, while on a trip with his father to Wollongong in a truck to pick up a load of coke (for fireplaces, not drinking), his…

The 2022 word of the year from the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary is “goblin mode”. Voted by the public and coming in at 93%, “goblin mode” – a phrase, rather than a word, to be precise – expresses a state of being or mindset.

“Future chips may be 10 times faster, all thanks to graphene”; “Graphene may be used in COVID-19 detection”; and “Graphene allows batteries to charge 5x faster” – those are just a handful of recent dramatic headlines lauding the possibilities of graphene. Graphene is an incredibly light, strong and durable material…

This book speaks to a disenchanted present.

On November 4 1922, a young Egyptian “water boy” on an archaeological dig is said to have accidentally stumbled on a stone that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the limestone bedrock.

Do you believe in ghosts? Every year, Halloween serves up the usual images of spooks, skeletons and witches – but these ideas aren’t just the domain of fiction or trick-or-treating. There is also a philosophical concept that embraces ghosts.

The most life-changing books can seem like they have always been there. What they say may seem obvious, once we’ve read them. But that’s only because they’ve reshaped how we look at things.

Science writer Mick West examines alleged UFO sightings. He finds that they almost always have far more obvious explanations.

From the day it first graced our screens, the Game of Thrones franchise became infamous for depicting rather shocking and taboo sexual proclivities. From incest and necrophilia, to sadism and borderline-cannibalism, viewers have truly been exposed to (an often disturbing) range of erotic desires. Yet, even after a decade on…