Editor's note
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Is US politics making you sick? If so, you might find the vomitorium of ancient Rome an appealing notion. Legend has it that this special room was set aside for feasting elites to bring up their dinner – in order to make room for more food. But, as Caillan Davenport and Shushma Malik write, this legend may say more about us than the Romans.
And with the Australian summer of sporting events in full swing, we’ve taken a closer look this week at issues of access to, and equality in, sport. Catch up on the series here.
And finally, Donald Trump has been inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Keep an eye out for our rolling coverage across the weekend.
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Suzy Freeman-Greene
Arts and Culture Editor
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Arts + Culture
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A Roman Feast by Roberto Bompiani (late 19th century).
via Wikimedia Commons
Caillan Davenport, The University of Queensland; Shushma Malik, The University of Queensland
Roman decadence reached its peak with the vomitorium: a room where feasting elites threw up to make room for more food. Or so the story goes ...
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Tim Laman was the overall winner of the Wildlife Photography Competition for his series Entwined Lives.
Supplied
Mathew Berg, Deakin University; Jessica Williams, University of Melbourne
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition features sumptuous images: from giant cuttlefish courting to a vertigo-inducing portrait of an orangutan taken with a GoPro camera.
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Politics + Society
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Mike Baird is to resign as NSW premier and retire as a state MP.
AAP/Paul Miller
Gregory Melleuish, University of Wollongong
Mike Baird is the fifth New South Wales premier in ten years, and only one of them lost their job to an election. There's little time, it seems, to learn and grow as a political leader.
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Survey data show men are more likely to participate in sport for fun or enjoyment than women.
shutterstock
David Rowe, Western Sydney University
There is much work to do if Australia is to eradicate various barriers to participation in sport.
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Health + Medicine
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Screening and sterilisation processes mean human breast milk can be safely collected and frozen for use at a later time.
www.shutterstock.com
Jacqueline Miller, Flinders University; Carmel Collins, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute
Banked breast milk is a safe source of shared human milk, and can be a life-saver for very premature babies.
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It’s pretty astounding to know we don’t know how many people die in our hospitals.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Philip Clarke, University of Melbourne; Peter Sivey, RMIT University
Information on hospital deaths hasn't always been so hard to find. Back in the 1860s Melbourne's one hospital published regular stats on the number of patients dying.
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Science + Technology
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What is it that gives us a voice?
Shutterstock/Sergey Nivens
Noel Hanna, UNSW Australia
We humans are capable of vocalising many different words in a range of languages. But what is it that gives us a remakable and variable voice?
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The superheated plasma inside the fusion reactor is twisted by magnetic fields.
IPP, Matthias Otte
Matthew Hole, Australian National University
Fusion power, if it works, offers vast amounts of clean energy and almost zero carbon emissions. A new experimental fusion reactor has come online, and it uses a curious twisted stellarator design.
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Education
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There is often more than one factor at play when a student drops out of a university course.
from www.shutterstock.com
Tim Pitman, Curtin University
Lower completion rates for rural and remote universities are not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the educational experience they provide, but reflect the demographics of their students.
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Phonics helps teach children how to merge separate sounds together to make it one word.
from www.shutterstock.com
Hua-Chen Wang, Macquarie University
Phonics instruction gives children letter-sound knowledge, a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.
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Energy + Environment
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Sydneysiders cool off in heatwave conditions gripping eastern Australia in January 2017.
AAP Image/Joel Carrett
Liz Hanna, Australian National University; Kathryn Bowen, Australian National University; Mark Howden, Australian National University
2016 is the third consecutive hottest year on record. How can we adapt?
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Testing soils in back yards.
Mark Taylor
Marek Rouillon, Macquarie University; Louise Kristensen, Macquarie University; Mark Patrick Taylor, Macquarie University; Paul Harvey, Macquarie University; Steven G George, Macquarie University
Lead contamination remains a persistent issue in urban soils.
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Business + Economy
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Why isn’t new technology reflected in our productivity stats?
Shutterstock.com
Roy Green, University of Technology Sydney; Renu Agarwal, University of Technology Sydney
Since the 1990s productivity has been slowing in Australia and elsewhere. We aren't really sure why this is, but here are a couple of theories that could explain it.
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New minister for industry, innovation and science, Arthur Sinodinos, is fond of the term innovation.
Paul Miller/AAP
Jesse Adams Stein, University of Technology Sydney
New minister Arthur Sinodinos seems all for the innovation catch-cry but perhaps it's time he dropped it.
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FactCheck
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Simon Birmingham said the Turnbull government has ‘already had great success in terms of reducing the rate of price growth’.
AAP/Alex Murray
Ben Phillips, Australian National University
The education minister says that under Labor there were child care price spikes of up to 14% over a 12 month period, but under the Coalition those have fallen to "around 6% on average". Is that right?
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