By Oyewale Tomori, Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Science
As the news spread about the outbreak of Ebola in mid-May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report about pandemics. The title was: A World on the Edge: Priorities for a Pandemic-Resilient Future.
The document was prepared by the WHO’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. It sets out why the world isn’t better prepared for pandemics a decade after Ebola exposed dangerous…
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By Mehebub Sahana, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, University of Manchester
Bayes Ahmed, Associate Professor in Risk and Disaster Science, UCL
Bangladesh has just approved one of the largest river engineering projects its history: the Padma Barrage, a vast river-control project intended to restore water in the country’s drought-prone southwest.
It comes at a dangerous moment for South Asia’s rivers. China is building the world’s largest hydropower dam upstream on the Brahmaputra, India is accelerating its own dam-building…
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By Fiona Handyside, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Exeter
As we approach the centenary of Monroe’s birth, the image that endures in the public imagination has been largely stripped of voice and agency.
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By Nurbek Bekmurzaev
The North Aral is the only remaining heir to the once mighty and plentiful Aral Sea, deserving of every effort to save it - even without long-term assurances.
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By Jared Mondschein, Director of Research, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
The Quad leaders may not meet again this year, but that doesn’t mean the partnership is any weaker than it used to be.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A man stands on the debris at the site of a drug rehabilitation hospital destroyed in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani airstrike on Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17, 2026. © 2026 Sayed Hassib/Reuters (New York) – Ten years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286 was adopted to protect health care in armed conflict, attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers continue, Human Rights Watch said today.Resolution 2286, unanimously adopted on May 3, 2016, obligates countries to “prevent and address” attacks on health. A decade later, a new report by…
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By Jessica Balanzategui, Associate Professor in Media, RMIT University
Bradley J. Dixon, Lecturer in Media Studies, RMIT University
Picture the scene: you kick back to enjoy some silly sketch comedy after a long day. You’re instead invited to play a choose-your-own-adventure game. You make a choice. It’s the wrong one. Now you’re stuck watching an unskippable, 40-minute real-time walk around Melbourne.
This is Bandersketch,…
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By Cameron McTernan, Lecturer of Media and Communication, Adelaide University
The mega-wealthy buying into Australia’s increasingly concentrated media industry is nothing new – and it is a critical issue for democracy.
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By Andrew Trevor-Jones, Technical Officer, Australian Museum
Graham Short, Research Associate, Australian Museum
The red pipefish (Notiocampus ruber) is a rare relative of seahorses and seadragons found only in Australia.
While the species occurs across southern Australia from Western Australia to New South Wales, its incredible camouflage means until now only one person had ever photographed it in the wild.
In Gamay (Botany Bay) it has been observed hiding among feathery red algae, but elsewhere the red pipefish has been recorded on rocky reefs. Its colour and slender body allow it to disappear almost completely against its surroundings.
For decades, scientists…
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By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation
Sooner or later in every armed conflict, someone will trot out the well-worn aphorism that “Truth is the first casualty of war.” And certainly, in the Iran war truth beat a hasty retreat as soon as the…
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