By Xiangyu Liu, Research Fellow, School of Environment and Science and Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University
It’s 7:45am. You grab a takeaway coffee from your local cafe, wrap your hands around the warm cup, take a sip, and head to the office.
To most of us, that cup feels harmless – just a convenient tool for caffeine delivery. However, if that cup is made of plastic, or has a thin plastic lining, there is a high chance it’s shedding thousands of tiny plastic fragments directly into your drink.
In Australia alone, we use a staggering 1.45…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief senators at the US Capitol, Washington DC, January 7, 2026. © 2026 Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Photo New reporting that US forces used an aircraft painted to appear civilian for a lethal strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2, 2025—killing 11 people—raises new questions about the erosion of internal safeguards on US military operations.According to The New York Times, officials briefed on the strike said the aircraft had no visible military markings and carried its weapons concealed inside its fuselage.…
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By Shukriya Bradost, Ph.D. Researcher, International Security and Foreign Policy, Virginia Tech
The demands of Iran’s ethnic minorities differ from many of those in Tehran, and they have reason to fear the return of the Pahlavi monarchy.
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By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Under Donald Trump, the US is fundamentally remaking the rules of the global trade system, provoking an existential crisis in the WTO.
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By Maximilian Dröllner, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University; Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University
Milo Barham, Associate Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University
Australia’s iconic red landscapes have been home to Aboriginal culture and recorded in songlines for tens of thousands of years. But further clues on just how ancient this landscape is come from far beyond Earth: cosmic rays that leave telltale fingerprints inside minerals at Earth’s surface.
In…
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Tuesday, January 13, 2026
As anti-government demonstrations continue across Iran, the UN human rights chief said on Tuesday that he was horrified at the mounting violence directed by security forces against protestors, with reports of hundreds killed and thousands arrested.
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By Kyle Rich, Associate Professor of Sport Management, Brock University
Ryan Storr, Research fellow, Swinburne University of Technology
The Canadian TV show Heated Rivalry recently went viral and garnered a worldwide audience far beyond its domestic market. Based on the popular novel by Rachel Reid, the series follows the secret romance between two professional hockey players, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, in a fictitious league.
The queer hockey romance was reported as the most watched original series on Crave and one of the top-rated non-animated series on HBO Max.
The…
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By Dylan A Mordaunt, Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Health, and Psychological Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Flinders University; The University of Melbourne
After two cyber incidents in as many weeks, attention has focused on how the hacks happened. The harder question is how to prevent a repeat.
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By Ievgeniia Kopytsia, Research Associate in the Law Faculty, University of Oxford
Russia’s war in my home country Ukraine has caused environmental damage on a vast scale. Roughly 2.4 million hectares of agricultural land – an area almost the size of Wales – are now littered with unexploded ordnance. Thousands of oil, chemical and ammunition facilities have also been damaged, releasing toxic substances into rivers, wetlands and the Black Sea.
The 2023 destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River alone flooded 600 sq km of land,…
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By Emre Tarim, Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences, Lancaster University
The president wants to see low interest rates to boost economic activity – but a spending spree could leave Americans facing runaway prices.
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