News and views

A new survey looking at the impact of COVID-19 on Australia’s early- and mid-career researcher (EMCR) workforce has found significant effects on their mental health and productivity.

Karen Twigg has won the 2019-20 Mike Smith Student Prize with an essay exploring how water availability shaped women’s experience in rural Australia in the 1950s.

The needs of local communities are at risk of being overlooked as Australia grapples with how to adapt to climate change, according to leading climate change adaptation experts.

With much of the nation focused on the loss of lives and the destruction of property and wildlife from last summer’s bushfires, the significant damage to Australian soil may have gone unnoticed by many.

There’s no way to rush a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Nobel Laureate Professor Aaron Ciechanover. “In the end we shall develop [a vaccine]. There is no doubt about it, but the way, it’s very long and we have to test every step and make sure before we move to the next one, because lives of people are at stake.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped Australian delegates to the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting participating in four days of online discussion and debates with Nobel laureates and other young researchers from around the world at the Lindau Online Science Days. The delegates are recipients of the SIEF–AAS Fellowship to the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting, an annual gathering of bright young researchers from around the world and dozens of Nobel prize winners in Lindau, Germany

Australia’s investment in astronomy and our hosting of two of the world’s most powerful telescopes means we are well placed to contribute to more big international breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe, according to a new review.