Nov
22
2020
Qing dynasty treasures, including a carved white jade figure of the star god of longevity, Shulao, are scheduled for auction in Hong Kong on November 30 in a sale titled Imperial Glories from the Springfield Museums Collection.
Mastering teaching the way to a new career in post-Covid world
Nov
13
2020
The Covid-19 upheaval has combined with global trade scuffles to lift the number of professionals eyeing school-teaching as a potential career-changer. In uncertain economic times, thousands of Australians swing towards teaching as a secure career, and this year has been no exception.
There’s a healthy interest in nursing masters’ and allied fields
Nov
13
2020
David Bruce is one of thousands of Australians choosing to further their nursing careers with a master’s degree in nursing or in the allied health professions. With the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating the need for health services and disrupting the economy, many have decided to boost their qualifications or retrain to find a more secure career …read more
A bittersweet history
Oct
1
2020
Considered an important medicine in China for 2,000 years, rhubarb has been discovered over and over again in its long history. Full of oxalic acid, rhubarb leaves might have poisoned a US president; smuggling valuable rhubarb root warranted death in Russia, and, centuries later, when the heavily sugared stalks were used in desserts, rhubarb was mercilessly …read more
Dietmar Muller, geophysicist
Sep
24
2020
Dietmar Muller’s primary research focus is the physical fabric of the world and how it has evolved over more than a billion years, reaching back to a time when life as we know it didn’t exist. Using the latest advances in machine learning and computing technology, the Sydney University geophysicist and his colleagues use the geophysical …read more
Charles Hunt, political scientist
Sep
24
2020
More “robust” peacekeeping by United Nations peacekeepers working to calm or resolve conflicts comes with its own dangers, and it’s fertile ground for Charles Hunt’s research. Once, UN peacekeepers were strictly prohibited from ever using force for anything other than self-defence, no matter the provocation. Hunt, now an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at RMIT university, …read more
Maria Forsyth, research chemist
Sep
24
2020
It took Maria Forsyth a while to settle on her real research interests. Beginning with a broad foundation of study in materials engineering and chemistry, she sailed through her doctorate at Monash University. With a questing mind, she worked on materials for new optic fibres and chemistries for improved in-vitro fertilisation methods, before her focus moved …read more
Champion of the cause
Aug
14
2020
A group of wealthy and respectable middle-class Sydney women gathered in a tea room in the 1890s, where they “sat by favour of that Chinese gentleman” Quong Tart while they considered how best to fight for the right to vote, a movement that was gaining ground in England.
Plucked from obscurity
Jul
16
2020
The wiry bird scuffling around in the mountainous jungles near the northern Thailand-Myanmar border doesn’t look like much, but this scrawny red jungle fowl has been tapped as the primary ancestor of the modern world’s all-important domestic chicken.
Dior’s dolls in couture echo post-war miniature fashion show
Jul
8
2020
French couture house Dior has this week remembered a time of crisis 75 years ago, when the bloody upheaval of WWII pushed French fashion designers to dig deep to revive the French fashion industry. Rising to the challenge, in 1945 post-war French couturiers dressed miniature mannequins in high fashion collections and sent them on a tour …read more