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Australians need better planning to cope with extreme heat. Mike Blake/Reuters Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest natural hazard, but a recent survey has found that many vulnerable people do not have plans to cope with extreme heat. Working with the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre and the Bureau of Meteorology, my colleagues and I surveyed 250 residents and 60 business managers in Western...

With so many varieties, it’s hard to know which bread is the most nutritious. Wholemeal, wholegrain, multigrain, sourdough, rye, white, high fibre white, low GI, low FODMAP, gluten free. With so many choices of bread available, how are we to know which is best for our health? Bread has always been a dietary staple in Australian households. It’s a...

Waking up to this every morning would surely give you more will to live. Pet owners will often swear their beloved pooch or moggie does wonders for their wellbeing, and now we have empirical proof. A new study has found dog ownership is linked to improved heart health for humans. This is an important finding, given heart disease is the leading cause...

Many of the challenges faced by social media companies come down to failures of design. shutterstock.com Facebook last week announced a redesign of its news feed to prioritise posts from friends and family over those of news publishers. While struggling news organisations are likely to take a hit on their social traffic, the move suggests that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been paying...

 Milky Way star map by Bill Yidumduma Harney,  Senior Wardaman Edler. Bill Yidumduma Harney Four stars in the night sky have been formally recognised by their Australian Aboriginal names. The names include three from the Wardaman people of the Northern Territory and one from the Boorong people of western Victoria. The Wardaman star names are Larawag, Wurren and Ginan in the Western constellations...

Expectant mothers have long complained of  inattention, forgetfulness and reduced cognitive functioning during pregnancy.  They weren’t wrong So-called “baby brain” refers to increased forgetfulness, inattention, and mental “fogginess” reported by four out of five pregnant women. These changes in brain function during pregnancy have long been recognised in midwifery folklore, but our new study has confirmed “baby brain” is a very real phenomenon, and also...

  NZ Labour had been polling in the mid-20s before Jacinda Ardern became its leader and eventually won the 2017 election. In 2018 there will be elections in the Australian states of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, as well as in Italy, the US and Mexico. Essential has released polling for the five mainland Australian states, conducted from October to December....

Former film and camera maker Kodak has launched a new blockchain for photography. AAP It’s easy to be a bit amused about Kodak’s new blockchain and cryptocurrency, the KodakOne. The old photography company is the classic case of a firm that failed to keep up with technological change. But now Kodak is exploiting one of the most interesting characteristics of the blockchain (the...

Lalin in Western Australia is   ‘married turtle season’. Brian Gratwicke/Flickr On Wangkumarra land, in the corner-country near the borders of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, stands an ancient stone arrangement. It has been placed to the side of a huge complex, rivalling Stonehenge, featuring megaliths polished, carved and placed to balance precariously on each other. They should fall,...

Craig McLachlan (centre),playing the role of Frank-N-Furter, rehearses with the cast of the Rocky Horror Show in 2015. Paul Miller/AAP Where do the boundaries lie between exploring every possibility an acting role offers and still behaving appropriately, with respect to other performers? This week Victoria Police confirmed they were investigating allegations of indecent assault and sexual harassment involving actor Craig McLachlan in his lead...