The Latest Breaking News from the Australian Research Council

This article is part of our series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report later this month,…

Tree-changers opting for a rural lifestyle can get a bad rap for not managing their properties well. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted thousands more city-based Australians to buy property in the regions. So will this lead to more absentee neighbours who, in the eyes of some, don’t know what they’re doing?

First Nations cultures and languages are being revitalised around the country. More non-Indigenous Australians are becoming interested in what Indigenous knowledges can teach us today.

Over the past 12 months, the news has been full of serious and negative news such as the war in the Ukraine, the surge in the cost of living, interest rate rises, and the climate crisis.

Many of the giant marsupials and birds that roamed ancient Australia had vanished by 40,000 years ago. While the duration and drivers of these extinctions remain debated, fossils clearly show the continent lost a host of creatures which would have dwarfed humans, such as short-faced kangaroos, diprotodons, “thunder birds” and…

In 2009, when our team first found a human skull and jaw bone in Tam Pà Ling Cave in northern Laos, some were sceptical of its origin and true age.

Reducing the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care is a priority of the national Closing the Gap targets.

From August 2023, Australian beer, wine, spirits and pre-mixed drinks have to warn of the harms of drinking alcohol while pregnant. But they don’t have to mention the other harms of alcohol for the wider population.

The Black Summer megafires engulfing south-eastern Australia in 2019–2020 were so intense they burned habitats rarely exposed to fire, such as southern warm temperate rainforest.

Like something out of a spy movie, thermal cameras make it possible to “see” heat by converting infrared radiation into an image. They can detect infrared light given off by animals, vehicles, electrical equipment and even people – leading to specialised applications in a number of industries.

Kangaroos are an enduring symbol of Australia’s uniqueness. To move, they do what no other large mammals do: they hop along on oversized hind legs. So you may be surprised to learn that some kangaroos live in trees, and are among the most endearing and threatened of all marsupials.