Author: Editorial Board

“To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.” “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work,” painter Chuck Close memorably scoffed. “Show up, show up, show up,” novelist Isabelle Allende echoed in her advice to aspiring writers, “and after a while the muse…

In a 2013 blog post, the great Ursula K. Le Guin quotes a London Times Literary Supplement column by a “J.C.,” who satirically proposes the “Jean-Paul Sartre Prize for Prize Refusal.” “Writers all over Europe and American are turning down awards in the hope of being nominated for a Sartre,” writes J.C., “The Sartre Prize…

In 1874, Stepan Andreevich Bers published The Cookbook and gave it as a gift to his sister, countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstaya, the wife of the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy. The book contained a collection of Tolstoy family recipes, the dishes they served to their family and friends, those fortunate souls who belonged to the…

Quantum optics specialist and ANU alumna Professor Elanor Huntington has been appointed Dean of the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS). Professor Huntington is the current Head of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra, located at the Australian Defence Force Academy. She completed her PhD in experimental quantum optics…

The bush capital is losing its large old native trees so fast it may have none left within 120 years, an ANU study has found. Researchers have surveyed trees in green spaces across Canberra and projected their future numbers. “We predict there will be a considerable decline in the number of large old trees in…

Bugs Bunny, that carrot-chomping, cross-dressing rascal, might have been created by Tex Avery in the 1940 cartoon A Wild Hare, but he really came into his own under the direction of Chuck Jones. In cartoons like What’s Opera, Doc and Rabbit Season, Jones refined Bugs’ character, turning him into someone who was witty, resourceful and,…

The Great Barrier Reef grew during the last ice age, even though the water temperatures were four to five degrees colder than today, a team of international scientists has found. “It was right at the colder limit of what corals can take, but the reef grew and developed from there,” said Dr Helen McGregor, from…

Feelings about James Joyce’s Ulysses tend to fall roughly into one of two camps: the religiously reverent or the exasperated/bored/overwhelmed. As popular examples of the former, we have the many thousand celebrants of Bloomsday—June 16th, the date on which the novel is set in 1904. These revelries approach the level of saints’ days, with re-enactments…

A flying squad of public health specialists has been officially launched in Melbourne, bringing together Australia’s best experts who can rush to emergencies and disasters around the country and the world to stop the spread of infectious disease. The group of specialist epidemiologists has already shown its value, with several experts sent to respond to…

By new regulations, all teaching students in NSW will have to pass a ”tough” literacy and numeracy test before they can graduate, because there are concerns some new teachers struggle to explain maths and grammar concepts to their students. The new online test will be introduced by 2016. Students who fail it will not be…

How to melt “the frozen sea within us.” “Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy,” E.B. White wrote while contemplating the future of reading in 1951. Indeed, the question of why books matter and what reading does for the human spirit has…

A new cost-effective technology to treat mining wastewater and reduce sludge by up to 90 per cent has been used for the first time at a commercial mine. The technology, called Virtual Curtain, was used to remove metal contaminants from wastewater at a Queensland mine and the equivalent of around 20 Olympic swimming pools of…

Scientists have sequenced the genetic code of the eucalypt for the first time, revealing how the Australian icon became the world’s favourite hardwood. The work also gives insights into the formation of the complex essential oils produced by eucalypts, which can help koala preservation efforts, minimise pest damage to plantations and could one day lead…

It may look like just dots on a page, but an image of distant galaxies taken last week represents a huge step forward for CSIRO’s Australia SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia. ASKAP is developing and proving technologies for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, which will start construction in Australia and…