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Editor's note
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Youth suicide is a problem in Australia, and there’s no doubt the government is doing its best to put in measures that will improve young people’s mental health. One way it could do so, which has been shown to work, is to legalise same-sex marriage. It won’t affect everyone, but we know young people in LGBTI communities are at higher risk of mental health problems and suicide than their heterosexual peers.
And, as Jo Robinson, Pat McGorry and Eleanor Bailey write, in countries where marriage equality exists, that gap is much lower.
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Sasha Petrova
Deputy Editor, Health + Medicine
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Health + Medicine
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In Australia, same-sex attracted young people are six times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than their heterosexual peers.
from shutterstock.com
Jo Robinson, University of Melbourne; Eleanor Bailey, University of Melbourne; Pat McGorry, University of Melbourne
Same-sex attracted people have poorer mental health than their heterosexual peers, but In jurisdictions that have legalised same-sex marriage, the gap between the two is much smaller.
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Women are vigilant about avoiding alcohol and smoking during pregnancy, but what about stress?
Camila Cordeiro/Unsplash
Monique Robinson, University of Western Australia
Most pregnant women are aware of the advice to quit smoking, avoid alcohol, and fear soft cheese, but much less is done to avoid stress during pregnancy, despite its harms.
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Politics + Society
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Christians who call on the Bible to support their arguments against marriage equality are on shaky ground.
Shutterstock/The Conversation
Robyn J. Whitaker, University of Divinity
For Christian groups to claim the Bible speaks against same-sex marriage is simply a misreading of biblical values.
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Australia’s first memorial to Indigenous service people.
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, University of South Australia
Many of our public commemorations honour people and incidents that brought great harm to others. We need to look at what that says about us, and how we build more inclusive public memorials.
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Podcasts
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John Gerrard says a developed city like Sydney could not cope with an epidemic of the scale of the recent Ebola outbreak.
UNMEER/Martine Perret/Flickr
William Isdale, University of Melbourne
William Isdale speaks to Dr. John Gerrard about the constant threat of infectious diseases and what we can do to prevent a deadly pandemic from establishing itself in Australia.
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Advertising through online influencers is shaping consumer law, business models and people’s careers.
Nico Aguilera/Flickr
Jenni Henderson, The Conversation; Josh Nicholas, The Conversation; Nadia Isa, The Conversation
Even though online influencers might not be overtly endorsing a product, advertisers will still pay a lot to have something featured, even subtly, in a post.
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Cities
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Much of what is being built is straightforward ‘investor grade product’ – flats built to attract the burgeoning investment market.
Bill Randolph
Bill Randolph, UNSW
The inexorable logic of the market will create suburban concentrations of lower-income households on a scale hitherto only experienced in the legacy inner-city high-rise public housing estates
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Green space, easily accessible to everyone no matter what their income, should be a priority in designing high-density residential areas.
Marcus Jaaske from www.shutterstock.com
Susan Thompson, UNSW; Gregory Paine, UNSW
Being crowded into poor-quality high-density units harms residents' health, but design features that are known to promote wellbeing can make a big difference to the lives of low-income households.
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Business + Economy
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New rules will curb Chinese property development in Australia.
Shutterstock
He Weiping, Monash University
The Chinese government is curtailing outbound investment. While this will affect the Australian property industry, the rest of the economy should be unaffected.
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Bank lending standards need to be more consistent to avoid borrowers shopping around to find the lender that offers them the highest loan amount.
Paul Miller/AAP
Harry Scheule, University of Technology Sydney
It's not likely the Australian appetite for property will change but this means we need to hedge our bets against any risks by improving diversification and the way banks finance mortgages.
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Arts + Culture
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Heritier Lumumba describes his experience of racism at Collingwood Football Club in Fair Game.
SBS
Chelsea Bond, The University of Queensland
Héritier Lumumba played for Collingwood Football Club until 2014, where his teammates called him "Chimp". His experience mirrors that of many other black men in Australia, particularly in the workplace.
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Claire Danes as CIA agent Carrie Mathison in Homeland: in one episode, she stops taking her medication in order to solve the puzzle of who is attempting to kill her.
Teakwood Lane Productions, Cherry Pie Productions, Keshet Broadcasting
Rebecca Beirne, University of Newcastle
A spate of recent TV shows feature protagonists whose mental health condition gives them special skills. But these are often accessed by rejecting medication.
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Science + Technology
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Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, now in 3D.
StudioCanal
Michael Milford, Queensland University of Technology
It's more than 25 years since Arnold Schwarzenegger returned in the Terminator 2: Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Now he's back in glorious 3D, so how does the story and the science stack up today?
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The Plimpton 322 tablet.
UNSW/Andrew Kelly
Daniel Mansfield, UNSW; Norman Wildberger, UNSW
A 3,700-year old Babylonian clay tablet reveals an ancient method of constructing right-angled triangles that makes it the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table.
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Environment + Energy
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Enough blue-sky thinking: economists back the emissions policy that Alan Finkel has put on the table.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
Bruce Mountain, Victoria University
A panel of leading economists has given its majority verdict on Alan Finkel's proposed Clean Energy Target: it may not be the best possible emissions policy, but we should get on with it anyway.
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Methane is produced in landfill when organic waste decomposes.
Shutterstock
William Clarke, The University of Queensland; Bernadette McCabe, University of Southern Queensland
Landfills produce huge amounts of methane. Many of the bigger operators capture it to turn into energy, but they’re wasting about 80% of what’s available. It’s time Australia stepped up.
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Education
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The National School Chaplaincy Program, introduced in 2007, is available in more than 3,000 Australian schools.
from www.shutterstock.com
Renae Barker, University of Western Australia
Religious education offered in Australian state schools has variations in the quality of delivery and limited provisions for the students who opt out.
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About 30% of all Australian schools are affiliated with a religion, and 94% of private schools.
Shutterstock
Emma Rowe, Deakin University
Religion in schools has always been contentious and especially so in Australia, where there is a commitment to secular principles.
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Featured jobs
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AITSL — Melbourne, Victoria
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University of Melbourne — Parkville, Victoria
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RMIT University — Melbourne, Victoria
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Swinburne University of Technology — Hawthorn, Victoria
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Featured events
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Elisabeth Murdoch Building, Spencer Rd, Parkville VIC 3052, Parkville, Australian Capital Territory, 3010, Australia — The Conversation
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Allan Scott Auditorium, Hawke Building, UniSA City West Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia — The Conversation
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Alliance Française Brisbane, 262 Montague Road, West End 4101, Brisbane, Queensland, 4101, Australia — The Conversation
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Level 6, 14–20 Blackwood Street, North Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, 3051, Australia — Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation
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