Guest Work

Dr Lucy Stewart Chairing talk sessions at conferences can be a weird gig. It’s a skill we expect people to learn by observation, but we rarely talk about how to do it well. Instead, we bolt our lunch while grousing about yet another overrun session, as if it had been caused by uncontrollable forces of nature. But that’s … Read More

Peter Mills, Assistant Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics I arrived in Hong Kong on Monday lunchtime for the second ‘international summit’ on genome editing amid stories circulating that gene-edited twin girls had been born to a Chinese couple. The editing, it was claimed, had targeted the CCR5 gene, with the aim of introducing a variant that confers immunity to HIV … Read More

Linda Nordling In February of last year, 64 healthy adult Kenyans checked into a university residence in the coastal town of Kilifi. After a battery of medical tests, they proceeded, one by one, into a room where a doctor injected them with live malaria parasites. Left untreated, the infection could have sickened or even killed them, since malaria claims hundreds … Read More

David Weintraub, Vanderbilt University The closest place in the universe where extraterrestrial life might exist is Mars, and human beings are poised to attempt to colonise this planetary neighbour within the next decade. Before that happens, we need to recognise that a very real possibility exists that the first human steps on the Martian surface will lead … Read More

Elizabeth Preston, Undark Research shows that while satire does carry some risks, it can be an effective tool for communication. Scientists are giving it a go. “We do not care about planet Earth,” four French scientists declared in February in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. If humans are exhausting the planet’s resources, they wrote, it’s … Read More

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Helen Dickinson, UNSW and Catherine Smith, University of Melbourne If you have seen science fiction television series such as Humans or Westworld, you might be imagining a near future where intelligent, humanoid robots play an important role in meeting the needs of people, including caring for children or older relatives. The reality is that … Read More

Jessica C Lai, Victoria University of Wellington Adulterated honey and fake mānuka honey have repeatedly made headlines in recent years. The arguments around adulterated honey are relatively simple. These honeys are diluted with cheaper syrups and their lack of authenticity is unquestionable. The discourse around mānuka honey is different, as there are serious questions about what … Read More

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Laura Hobbs, Carly Stevens, and Jackie Hartley, Science Hunters Building volcanoes, caves, and other features in an “open-world” computer game is an engaging way to teach the next generation about Earth. Imagine yourself in a world where everything is made up of cubes. Colorful blocks represent rocks, trees, water, and animals. An erupting volcano produces blocks … Read More

Julia Jabour, University of Tasmania Antarctica is owned by no one, but there are plenty of countries interested in this frozen island continent at the bottom of the Earth. While there are some regulations on who can do what there, scientific research has no definition in Antarctic law. So any research by a country conducted in or about … Read More

Ingfei Chen Numerous studies suggest conflicts of interest are damaging nutrition science. But with federal funding in short supply, what’s a researcher to do? For nutrition scientists in academia, career advancement hinges on winning grant money to do research and publishing the results in prestigious journals. There’s stiff competition, however, for limited federal funding. Though the numbers … Read More

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