Friday essay: family as 'brand' – the rise of the digital mumpreneur “TAYLEN HAS BECOME a brand,” says Angelica Calad, the mumpreneur behind the #influencer account #taylensmom. Taylen Biggs, age five, has more than 150,000 followers. In an era of advertising ennui, #influencers like Taylen’s mother can collect more than 3,000
Author: The Conversation
Video-of-the-week: Shopping bag options, what are the best?
So, what are the best replacements for single-use plastic bags? GIVEN THAT REUSABLE bags are much sturdier, how many times must we use them to compensate for their larger environmental impact? The simple answer is that there is no simple answer. However, a kind of research called “life cycle assessment” can help
Ten of Australia’s best literary comics
The Turnbull government is all but finished
and the Liberals will now need to work out who they are. A RELATIONSHIP OF mutual convenience between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the federal Liberal Party is drawing to a close. Each used the other for practical purposes. Turnbull used the Liberal Party as his vehicle to enter parliamentary politics and
Crunch time for Turnbull’s energy plan
Two articles from The Conversation examine the federal government's domestic energy landscape Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull dearly needs a political win, especially after the July ‘Super Saturday’ by-election results, but his proposed national energy guarantee (NEG) is looking shaky heading into crucial talks with the States and Territories in August. Victorian minister
Bees get stressed at work too (and it might be causing colony collapse)
By Amélie Cabirol, University of Trento and Andrew Barron, Macquarie. EVER BEEN OVERWORKED, tired and felt muddle-headed? Research now shows honey bees suffer from the same thing – and we understand why. A honey bee’s life is hardly relaxing. Every day forager bees make many trips, travelling long distances, to gather vital
Tongue-tied horses
THE WIDESPREAD USE of tongue-ties in horse racing in Australia has recently come under fire. Proponents of the tongue-tie – a strap that immobilises a horse’s tongue – argue that it prevents breathing issues during races, increasing performance and improves the rider’s control of the horse. Over 20% of Australian horses race
Trust me, I’m an expert: ‘Dancing out of depression’
How Syrian refugees are using exercise to improve mental health A GROWING BODY of research is drawing a link between mental and physical health – and the connection is much stronger than you might realise. Simon Rosenbaum, a senior research fellow in school psychiatry at UNSW, had been researching the role of
Is your genome really your own?
The public and forensic value of DNA WHEN JOSEPH DeANGELO was arrested in the United States last month over a series of 30-year-old murders and assaults, attention quickly focused on how the suspect was found. In their search for the so-called “Golden State Killer”, police looked for DNA matches on a public
Island-hopping study shows the most likely route the first people took to Australia
THE FIRST AUSTRALIANS were among the world’s earliest great ocean explorers, undertaking a remarkable 2,000km maritime migration through Indonesia which led to the discovery of Australia at least 65,000 years ago. But the voyaging routes taken through Indonesia’s islands, and the location of first landfall in Australia, remain a much debated