Keywords: Science Fiction
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ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 18 October 2021
15 Comments
In July this year the UN ranked Australia dead last out for climate action out of more than 170 countries surveyed. Yes, our federal government’s climate policies are literally the worst in the world. But while Australia is a global laggard in reducing pollution, we’re something of a leader in covering up this failure and getting away with it.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Earl Livings
- 30 March 2021
2 Comments
Bird darts every day sometimes twice to the high bath. Perches, hops around the rim. Snaps its gaze side to side, up, down, behind. Calls out, sharp, insistent.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Robertson
- 17 April 2020
9 Comments
I can’t be the only one who has, in recent weeks, found myself reaching for my dog-eared copy of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, a fictional re-telling of the 1665 great plague of London.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Earl Livings
- 24 February 2020
2 Comments
I circle the huge granite standing stone sunwise three times, as my ancestors did long before the designs of cranes and coins, of theory. ‘Tell me how and what they thought.’ No answer but the wheeling murmuration of a thousand starlings. A stubble field.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Tim Robertson
- 16 October 2019
8 Comments
Chinese interference in Australian politics is an issue of genuine concern. But why is the hysteria exclusive to China? Like the outrage surrounding the awarding of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan, accused of working within the bounds of China's censorship program, why don't we hold our own government to the same level of scrutiny?
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INTERNATIONAL
- Kate Galloway
- 24 April 2019
8 Comments
Scientists recently revealed they had 'brought to life' the brain cells of slaughtered pigs, research said to have potential application in resolving brain injuries, disorders and diseases. While there need be no doubt the experiment was carried out in accordance with the relevant ethical research protocols, this rather misses the point.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 17 April 2019
4 Comments
This journey outwards is threatened by demagoguery. The UN's treaty declaring 'celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes' has been challenged by sabre-rattling by Donald Trump, with his declaration that 'it is not enough to have American presence in space; we must have American dominance'.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 22 February 2019
1 Comment
More Human Than Human's exploration of the history and present reality of artificial intelligence is not a tale of terror. It is a thoughtful and nuanced engagement with the people who are making, using, or thinking about AI; those who have been touched by its life-changing potential, or come a-cropper of its more sinister aspects.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Deanne Davies
- 16 July 2018
2 Comments
Movements of time — Farewell to ancient granite. Greetings to gleaming streams and striating ribbons of colour.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 16 March 2018
2 Comments
Kane insists God doesn't make mistakes: 'That's what makes him God.' Lena retorts with reference to the Hayflick limit — the naturally occurring limit on the number of times cells can divide. Never mind cancer; the very fact of ageing, she says, comes down to a flaw in our DNA. It's a telling scene, pointing to a scientifically enlightened humanity at odds with its own physiology.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 11 October 2017
3 Comments
So considerable are its strengths that Blade Runner 2049 is a future classic, to be discussed and dissected for decades. That it will become so while blithely reinforcing the primacy of the white male gaze in popular culture is to be regretted.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Francine Crimmins
- 19 September 2017
11 Comments
In a ball of fire, Cassini's 20-year journey across the solar system came to an abrupt finale last week. The spacecraft's odyssey soon revealed not 12 but 62 moons orbiting the gas giant. The most significant of these is Titan, which harbours large quantities of liquid water, considered to be essential to the existence of life. Meanwhile back on Earth ...
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