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.
Athens is no longer considered by scholars as the birthplace of democracy but all of a sudden it has become the epicentre of a powerful political earthquake rocking the foundations of every democracy in…
Smokers who quit with the assistance of a text messaging service are nearly twice as likely to be smoke-free six months later than smokers with no support, according to a study published this week in The…
With political debate dominated by carbon and mining taxes, the recent stirrings by Peter Reith about industrial relations may have come as a bit of a surprise – out of left field, if you will excuse the…
Ritual slaughter is an important part of Islamic and Jewish belief systems but, as recent TV footage showing cattle being butchered in Indonesian abattoirs demonstrated, there is great variation across…
I have some very fond memories of the mid 1980s. The fluoro shirts, the feathered haircuts, dancing to Wham! at the local blue light disco. But this week I’m having a disturbing ‘80s industrial relations…
Australia has done well by international comparison in addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) over the past fifty years and while there remains much to do, we could play a leading role in the upcoming…
One hundred and ten years after Federation, the Senate today helps to ensure that the Australian Parliament more closely reflects the will of the people. But despite assurances by Bob Brown in his speech…
On Sunday 5 June 2011, 8000 people reportedly turned up to demonstrate support for the Government’s proposed carbon tax. By Sydney standards this amounts to a large public display of support for Government…
The concept of death duties reared its controversial head publicly recently, with Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon quizzed on party policy by the ABC’s political editor Chris Uhlmann. Greens leader Bob Brown…
Industry self-regulation has failed to change the amount of fast food advertising targeting Australian children, according to new research from the Prevention Research Collaboration and NSW Cancer Council…
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has just issued a warning letter about the safety of CSL’s influenza vaccine, Fluvax. The letter follows FDA’s latest annual inspection of CSL laboratories and…
What’s the fastest thing you can see? Events that play out over a scale of minutes or seconds are easy to see. Events at much smaller timescales — milliseconds and shorter — can be entirely invisible to…
The SensaSlim company’s recent defamation suit against Dr Ken Harvey of La Trobe University highlights some of the regulatory problems facing complementary products in Australia. Dr Harvey initiated a…
The fanfare around Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s announcement yesterday that the government would fund 13 new medicines on the PBS is a reminder of the power and influence involved in the selection and…
Some 3.8 billion years ago a star in the constellation of Draco wandered a little too close to a nearby black hole. The star was violently torn apart by the black hole’s tidal forces, creating two massive…
We welcome the move by the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) of the Stockholm Convention to eliminate the insecticide endosulfan from the global market, although some exemptions have…
It’s normal to feel down in the dumps from time to time, so drawing a line between low moods and mental illness is understandably fraught. But are health professionals treating normal sadness as a clinical…
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” These words, the Biblical creation of the universe, are quite…
Those debating Australia’s future, and its immigration policy would do well to consider a lesson from the past. Anybody can establish a successful state, the real difficulty is maintaining its success…
Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s visit to Canberra earlier this week didn’t prove particularly effective in swaying the government on its freshly drafted mineral resources rent tax (MRRT) legislation. But the…