Editor's note
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A US company is charging $8,000 to inject older people with the blood of 16- to 25-year-olds in the hope of delaying or reversing the ageing process. This experimental therapy isn’t new; the first transfusion of young blood dates back to the fifteenth century – and the outcome wasn’t good. In this longer essay, David Irving and Alison Gould explore our cultural obsession with young blood and explain what the science says about using it to combat ageing.
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Fron Jackson-Webb
Senior Health + Medicine Editor/Deputy Chief of Staff
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Health + Medicine
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Blood has always been a symbol of life and has been thought to counteract the ageing process.
Mai Lam/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
David Irving, University of Technology Sydney
Recent scientific studies have claimed that transfusions of blood from teenagers can help delay or reverse the ageing process. Do they stack up?
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Don’t worry, 98% of health professionals surveyed didn’t know either.
from www.shutterstock.com
Ruben Meerman, UNSW; Andrew Brown, UNSW
Nearly all the weight we lose is exhaled.
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Science + Technology
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Statistics has Guinness to thank for the Student’s t-test.
Flickr/Scott Thompson
Karen Lamb, Deakin University; David Farmer, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
A statistical method widely used today by scientists and others is all thanks to a statistician at a Guinness brewery whose work was published anonymously more than a century ago.
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Hawking had a cult-like following among academics and non-academics alike.
kosalabandara/flickr
Tamara Davis, The University of Queensland
Stephen Hawking was a highly creative scientist, pushing past assumptions and playing with "what if" scenarios to take physics to new levels.
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Education
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For the first time in decades, there is now a real possibility that some gun controls might be implemented.
Colin Abbey/AAP
George Rennie, University of Melbourne
Student activists are presenting important, emotionally powerful counter-narratives to those of the gun lobby. Their success will depend on whether they can sustain these efforts.
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Encourage children to think about where they are in space: if they’re looking at a map of the zoo, ask them where they are in relation to the kangaroos or lions.
Shutterstock
Kym Simoncini, University of Canberra
Early STEM skills are as important as early literacy skills. Parents can help their preschoolers develop STEM skills by working these simple techniques into everyday activities.
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FactCheck
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South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill, SA Liberal leader Steven Marshall and SA Best leader Nick Xenophon at a leaders’ debate hosted by the ABC.
AAP Image/Morgan Sette
Dylan McConnell, University of Melbourne
SA Liberal Party leader Steven Marshall said that state Labor policy had left South Australians with 'the highest energy prices in Australia' and 'the least reliable grid'. Is that right?
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The Australian Hotels Association (South Australia) has campaigned against the SA Best party’s proposed poker machine reforms.
Threthny/Flickr
Fabrizio Carmignani, Griffith University
The Australian Hotels Association of South Australia claims poker machine reforms proposed by Nick Xenophon's SA Best party would wipe out 'many of the 26,000' jobs in the hotel industry. Is that right?
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Cities
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The Hawkesbury’s waters look beautifully natural but treated sewage makes up to 20% of the river flow where the North Richmond Filtration Plant draws its water.
Karl Baron/flickr
Ian Wright, Western Sydney University
Perth is looking at recycling all its sewage in the city's future water supply. But many Australians' drinking water already contains indirectly recycled treated sewage.
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The design for Paris Rive Gauche incorporates a mix of uses and access to green spaces.
Paris Rive Gauche/SOA Architects
Sebastien Darchen, The University of Queensland; Gwendal Simon, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée (UPEM)
France is transforming old industrial wastelands in cities like Paris, Lyon and Nantes, so what are the secrets of its success?
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Politics + Society
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The Warrnambool potato harvest of 1881.
State Library of Victoria
Howard Manns, Monash University; Kate Burridge, Monash University
Irish influence on Australian English is much like the influence of the Irish on Australians themselves — less than you’d expect on the surface, but everywhere once you start looking.
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Aung San Suu Kyi has lost much of her goodwill since the 2017 Rohingya crisis.
Hein Htet/AAP
Nicholas Farrelly, Australian National University; Adam Simpson, University of South Australia
When Aung San Suu Kyi led her party to victory in 2015, many hoped Myanmar's worst days were behind them. But the government's complicity in the Rohingya crisis has tarnished her reputation.
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Environment + Energy
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Most Australian kangaroo species, such as the bettong, are largely out of sight and out of mind.
AAP Image/EPA
Karl Vernes, University of New England
A new documentary makes some controversial claims about the health of kangaroo populations. But the real threat is not to Australia's iconic kangaroos -- it's to dozens of other, obscure species.
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The air doesn’t like to be under pressure just like us. The wind is the result of the air trying to escape from high pressure.
Mami Kempe / The Conversation
Andrew B. Watkins, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Wind is just air moving from one place where there is high pressure to another place where there is low pressure.
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Business + Economy
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We benefit most when we focus on exporting the goods and services we are the most efficient at producing.
AAP
David Treisman, Monash University
Smaller businesses contribute a huge amount of Australia's national output but a tiny proportion of our exports.
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Companies should listen to both male and female employees on this issue and pay attention to any backlash.
Patricia Baum Salgado, Fielding Graduate University
Research has found Silicon Valley engineers feared speaking up when they recognise poor behaviour among their male colleagues.
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Arts + Culture
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Detail from Emily Kam Kngwarray, Anmatyerr people.
Yam awely 1995
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
150 x 491 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of the Delmore Collection, Donald and Janet Holt 1995 © Emily Kam Kngwarray.
Robert Wellington, Australian National University
Today, beauty counts for little in the judgement of works of art. But our felt experience of beauty connects us with an object's maker, revealing a pure moment of humanity.
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Detail from a reconstruction of a Tasmanian picture board by Simon Barnard (2015).
Kristyn Harman and Nicholas Brodie
Kristyn Harman, University of Tasmania
In the early days of colonial Tasmania, the British used threatening picture boards to communicate with Aboriginal people, giving them a choice between conciliation and death.
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Podcasts
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Mick Tsikas, AAP/The Conversation
Fiona Fidler, University of Melbourne
Economist, author and MP Andrew Leigh spoke to Fiona Fidler about how we should be using randomised trials more to drive decisions and policy in public life.
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Joe Castro/AAP
Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
On Saturday, Labor and Bill Shorten face a major test in the Melbourne seat of Batman.
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Featured jobs
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University of Canberra — Bruce, Australian Capital Territory
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Monash University — Clayton, Victoria
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RMIT University — Melbourne, Victoria
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La Trobe University — Bundoora, Victoria
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Featured events
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1 Convention Centre Pl, South Wharf, Melbourne, Victoria, 3006, Australia — Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
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Aerial Function Centre, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney, New South Wales, 2000, Australia — Audit Office of New South Wales (on behalf of Australasian Council of Auditors General ACAG)
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Hotel Windsor - Bourke Room - 111 Spring Street , Melbourne , Australian Capital Territory, 3000, Australia — Monash University
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Education LT 351, Education Building, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, 2006, Australia — University of Sydney
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