Editor's note
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Australia’s energy policy has been stuck in political deadlock for far too long, but it’s hoped that Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s report into the National Electricity Market, which suggests improving security and modestly reducing emissions, will garner bipartisan support.
You can read the key points of Finkel’s recommendations here and analysis from David Blowers of the Grattan Institute here, as well as our expert panel.
And finally, thank you to the 3,200+ of you who generously donated to our annual reader campaign. Your tax-deductible donation has directly supported knowledge-based, ethical journalism. We think that matters now more than ever. Thank you.
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Michael Hopkin
Environment + Energy Editor
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Environment + Energy
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The Finkel Review is scientifically modest but politically deft.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Hugh Saddler, Australian National University; Alan Pears, RMIT University; David Karoly, University of Melbourne
Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has attempted to address the energy 'trilemma': electricity that's cheap, reliable and low-emissions. Has he succeeded? Our expert panel weighs in.
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The Finkel review’s recommendations would put pressure on coal while encouraging gas and renewable energy
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
David Blowers, Grattan Institute
A Clean Energy Target and a swathe of measures to improve the security and reliability of the electricity grid are among the recommendations of the keenly awaited Finkel Review.
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Multimedia
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The Finkel review aims to introduce certainty into Australia’s energy market.
Reuters/Tim Wimborne
Michael Hopkin, The Conversation; Madeleine De Gabriele, The Conversation; Wes Mountain, The Conversation
The Finkel review is designed to create a coherent and realistic plan for a low-emissions future. Here are the details you need to know.
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Northern Territory has the highest proportion of Indigenous school students.
Neda Vanovac/AAP
Claire Shaw, The Conversation; Wes Mountain, The Conversation; Jamal Ben Haddou, The Conversation
Indigenous students who graduate from university have slightly higher full-time employment prospects than their non-Indigenous peers.
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FactCheck
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Cape York Partnership founder Noel Pearson, speaking on Q&A.
Q&A
Thalia Anthony, University of Technology Sydney
Cape York Partnership founder Noel Pearson told Q&A that Indigenous Australians were 'the most incarcerated people on the planet Earth'. Is that right?
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Education
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In some Aboriginal communities, over 50% of adults say they do not have the literacy they need for everyday tasks.
Literacy for Life Foundation/Adam Sharman
Bob Boughton, University of New England; Jack Beetson, University of New England
The children who are least likely to attend school regularly – and do well – grow up in households where the adults themselves have very poor literacy skills.
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Why has such little progress been made over the past 50 years in Indigenous education?
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Melitta Hogarth, Queensland University of Technology
Indigenous peoples have very little power when it comes to education policy. Goals, targets and strategies are instead set by the government.
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Cities
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Bicycles are the main form of transport around the Burning Man Festival and are recycled or gifted afterwards.
stuartlchambers/flickr
Bree Trevena, University of Melbourne
The annual Burning Man Festival creates a temporary city in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. In many ways, it's an innovation lab for rethinking cities.
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Sydney’s bus services are a mix of public and private-operated routes, which complicates any estimates of potential cost savings.
Dean Lewins/AAP
John Stanley, University of Sydney; David Hensher, University of Sydney
Estimated cost savings for rail and bus franchising from Infrastructure Australia and PwC will have government treasurers salivating. Problem is, the figures are almost certainly far too high.
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Science + Technology
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Just like us, but different: recently-discovered Homo sapiens fossils have a modern face, but an ancient brain case.
Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig
Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University
New paired research papers have pushed back by 100,000 years the time frame in which humans (Homo sapiens) are thought to have lived in Africa.
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Blade Runner’s Roy Batty tried to escape death, despite being a replicant.
Screenshot from Blade Runner/Warner Brothers
Siobhan Lyons, Macquarie University
Robots, replicants, Time Lords and other "non-humans" fear death, so what does that say about us?
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Politics + Society
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Controversies over sport, gambling and TV have tended to overshadow changes to the anti-siphoning scheme.
AAP/Julian Smith
David Rowe, Western Sydney University
The proposed anti-siphoning changes certainly shift the economic balance from free-to-air to pay-TV, as well as from government intervention in the sport TV market to more open market play.
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The perceptual process that creates funny mondegreens has the potential to cause wrongful convictions.
shutterstock
Kate Burridge, Monash University
From cussing McDonald's Minions to wrongful conviction, mishearing what is said can be funny but also very serious.
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Health + Medicine
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We tend to consider certain people or roles as privileged and resilient.
from shutterstock.com
Alex Broom, UNSW
If we want doctors to listen, be empathetic, solve complex problems, we need to invest seriously in their well-being.
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In Australia we still vaccinate against polio, but not tuberculosis. Why, and how do we decide?
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Rebecca Chisholm, University of Melbourne; Nicholas Geard, University of Melbourne
Vaccinating against an infectious disease can stop once the threat of future transmission is deemed sufficiently low.
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Business + Economy
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Cryptocurrencies are still the only usecase for the blockchain.
Shutterstock
Philippa Ryan, University of Technology Sydney
The blockchain has been successful when it comes to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but we haven't yet figured out other uses.
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The New York Times continues to invest in its newsrooms and expand internationally (it has journalists filing stories from over 150 countries), while Fairfax continues to chop newsroom jobs.
Elaine To/AAP
Merja Myllylahti
While digital revenue streams may be delivering, there's still a strong reliance on print for revenue and research shows readers engage more with print.
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Arts + Culture
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90s sister Sophie Lee in Patricia Piccinini’s
Psychogeography 1996, printed 1998.
from the Psycho series 1996.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Optus Communications Pty Limited, Member, 1998 (1998.252) © Patricia Piccinini
Sally Breen, Griffith University
The 1990s was once the forgotten decade of the 20th century but no longer.
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Chinese ceramics recovered from the 9th century Belitung shipwreck in Indonesia, now held at the Asian Civilisations Museum (Singapore)
ArtScience Museum Singapore
Natali Pearson, University of Sydney
Archaeologists this week found that more than half of of HMAS Perth, a WWII wreck in Indonesia, has disappeared. It's now a race to protect the millions of other wrecks and sunken cities lying under the oceans.
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Featured jobs
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University of Melbourne — Parkville, Victoria
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RMIT University — Bundoora, Victoria
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Monash University — Clayton, Victoria
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Australian National University — Acton, Australian Capital Territory
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Featured events
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Meat Market, 5 Blackwood St, Melbourne, Victoria, 3051, Australia — IMPACT7
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Sydney Law School, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia — University of Sydney
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Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia — University of Sydney
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Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia — University of Sydney
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