Apr
29
2020
Dr Xiaoling Liu, the newly appointed chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology, is well-placed to advise on the coronavirus crisis engulfing Australian universities. Born Chinese, she worked as a metallurgist and executive for Rio Tinto for many years before retiring from her executive position and later joining company boards.
Apr
1
2020
A professor of chemistry at the age of 32, Brigid Heywood knows how hard it can be to forge a career in the male-dominated world of science. Even so, the forthright new vice-chancellor of the University of New England doesn’t think quotas for women academics are the answer.
Jan
15
2020
It can be hard to get into the University of Hong Kong these days. Physically hard. Two of the entrances from the local subway station were shuttered last week – due to “vandalism”, according to a station notice. Most visitors travelled up an escalator, then up in a lift and along a passageway to the …read more
Jan
10
2020
Fears of eroding press freedom have gripped Australian media, most recently hammered home by a respected senior journalist warning of an “unacceptable step down the road to authoritarianism”. Industry luminary Kerry O’Brien said in his speech at the prestigious Walkley awards event that Australia’s government, led by prime minister Scott Morrison, had resisted appeals for freedom …read more
Dec
11
2019
The federal government has backtracked and funded four of the 11 Australian Research Council grant applications that were secretly vetoed by Simon Birmingham as education minister in 2017 and last year.
Oct
9
2019
Writers once travelled through Asia in a leisurely fashion, steamers gently rolling between Bangkok and Batavia, rickshaws wheeling through the streets of Singapore, pleasure boats pulling into Penang. European wanderers, adventurers and authors drank gin slings while waiting for sumptuous dinners; colonial matrons sipped tea on hotel balconies; and the business of empire rumbled on.
Sep
25
2019
Professor Felicity Baker has seen music carve through the thick fog of an elderly person’s dementia and bring them back to reality, to a world where they can again recognise their children and, in the best cases, even communicate with them.
Sep
25
2019
Professor Adam Slipinski is passionate about beetles. Now immersed in the massive task of identifying and classifying thousands of Australian species for the definitive CSIRO catalogue on these insects, he says a proper understanding of beetles is crucial. Although they can be serious pests, he says, beetles also provide essential environmental services – they are pollinators, …read more
Sep
25
2019
When she was a kid in the Mallee in Victoria, Dr Julie Arblaster spent a lot of time outside, swimming in the Murray and roaming in the bush. Weather has always been an important part of her life, and these days it has become central to her profession.
Sep
6
2019
Children from Hong Kong and China are not immune to the global epidemic of obesity. About one in five Hong Kong schoolchildren are now classed as overweight or worse, according to the Hong Kong Department of Health’s latest survey, released last year. They were not eating enough fruit and vegetables, but eating too much salt …read more