Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia’s first tertiary education institution. It is committed to maximising the potential of its students, teachers and researchers for the benefit of Australia and the wider world.
OVER-DIAGNOSIS EPIDEMIC – Today Jacqueline Savard talks about the growing prevalence of genetic testing and what impact they have on over-diagnosis. Genetic testing and screening is increasingly becoming…
A dementia diagnosis can place extreme stress on patients and their families.
James McTaggart/Wikimedia Commons.
OVER-DIAGNOSIS EPIDEMIC – David Le Couteur discusses recent changes in the definition of dementia and their ramifications. The pattern of over-diagnosis is the same for many diseases: we screen healthy…
Market share: Two companies in Australia control more than half of the country’s bread and bakery business.
Flickr/looseends
The Federal Government’s current national food plan process is heavily dominated by business interests. It is built on flawed assumptions that the market can provide the solutions that our broken food…
With the rise of “SuperPACs”, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a fundraising advantage over President Barack Obama.
EPA/CJ Gunther
David Weisbrot of the University of Sydney explains where the money comes from with the rise of Super PACs in the US presidential elections, in collaboration with SBS Online.
US President Barack Obama with Prime Minister Julia Gillard on his first trip to Australia in November last year.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Brendan O'Connor from the University of Sydney discusses the foreign policy implications for Australia, Iran and China ahead of the US presidential elections, produced in collaboration with SBS Online…
For Team Obama, change is in the air. Not the hope-and-change fever of 2008. That, it’s safe to say, won’t be returning any time soon. But after a year in which Democrats could best be described as “grimly…
Locked out: many Americans may find it harder to cast their vote in the upcoming presidential elections in November.
EPA/Jay Laprete
With Mitt Romney getting only a small bounce from the Republican National Convention, the polls are currently showing a virtual dead heat between Romney and President Barack Obama just eight weeks from…
Can Mitt Romney form a bond with the American people?
Erik S Lesser
After the success of the Democratic National Convention, with its barnstorming speeches from former President Bill Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney’s performance at his convention can…
Barack Obama had a good convention, but it won’t win him the election.
EPA/Shawn Thew
The Democratic National Convention went about as well as the party could hope. The question is, in this partisan political climate, will it be enough to move the polls? The common narrative throughout…
Compensation candidate: The Yallourn power plant in the La Trobe Valley.
Flickr/Dallas75
In some respects, we should be relieved by the collapse of the Labor government’s negotiations to decommission some of the most polluting brown-coal electricity generation plants. The notion that decommissioning…
There are numerous allergic causes of hayfever symptoms in cities, including grasses in local parks.
Mislav Marohnić
Spring brings with it hay fever and red eyes for many inner-city residents and in absence of fields of flowering grasses, people turn their attention to other possible causes. The most suspicious candidate…
The blogosphere is a sewer of frothing, often anonymous, swill.
Flickr/joeshoe
The Charlotte Dawson troll saga shocked many Australians, with revelations of vile tweets, death threats and online intimidation. Nobody should have to endure this kind of abuse, but unfortunately it’s…
Dear reader, don’t let yourselves be fooled: whatever political charlatans, cynics or melancholics say to the contrary, democracy as we know it is turning green. There’s never been a period in the history…
Barack Obama needs to impress undecided and unlikely voters at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
EPA/Tannen Maury
“You know there is something wrong with the kind of job he has done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.” It was the best line of Romney’s convention speech and highlights…
President Obama addresses the American Latino Heritage Forum in Washington last year.
EPA/Olivier Douliery
In the first of The Conversation’s video explainer series - produced in collaboration with SBS Online - Dr David Smith from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney discusses the importance…
Nine weeks out, we’re in the home stretch of a presidential election that has been going on for well over a year. (At this point in 2011, the Republicans had already held three of their twenty debates…
The Gonski response: increased funding will be tied to concrete improvement in all schools.
AAP
Increased funding will be tied to concrete improvements in all schools under the government’s National Plan for School Improvement, announced on Monday in response to the Gonski Review. The government…
Mitt Romney and wife Ann greet the Republican convention.
EPA
Today in Florida, Mitt Romney formally accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States. In and of itself, this changes nothing. Since May we have known that Romney had the nomination…
The final pieces of the historical puzzle around the 1975 Whitlam dismissal are not as sensational as they first seem.
Image courtesy of National Archives of Australia. NAA: A6180, 13/11/75/33
Much hyperbole has been generated by the recent revelations concerning Sir Anthony Mason’s involvement in the 1975 dismissal, but for the most part it shows ignorance of the past. Earlier this week, The…
Office temperature regulations are bad for comfort and the environment.
Kim n Cris Knight
I have a challenge for the next time you’re at work. Take a look around at your colleagues. Now look at yourself. What are you wearing? It’s still winter (just), so if you’re in the southern states you…