freelance science journalist and author
From The Saturday Paper, 27 August 2022: They’re as familiar to Australians as a stop sign: the semicircular, multicoloured warning signs that indicate the level of danger posed by bushfire on any given day. But after more than half a century of use, the Australian fire danger rating system is being completely overhauled to bring … Continue reading Rethinking fire ratings
From WIRED, 23 August 2022: Arriving at the tidal wetlands of Mungalla Station on the coastline of northern Queensland, ornithologist Simon Kennedy from the not-for-profit BirdLife Australia is greeted by a welcome cacophony. “You start hearing honks and quacks and twitters and noises coming from there,” he says of the area’s diverse and thriving bird … Continue reading Flooding wetlands could be the next big carbon capture hack
From The Saturday Paper, 20 August 2022: When infectious diseases physician Dr Jonathan Volk learnt about monkeypox at medical school in the United States more than a decade ago, he was taught it was a mild, self-limiting illness. In the past few months, he’s diagnosed nearly 160 cases at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco medical … Continue reading Lessons for Australia’s monkeypox response
From The Saturday Paper, 9 July 2022: Today, James is feeling about a two out of five. The young lawyer is reasonably articulate on the phone. He might be able to read a single news article today, maybe even go for a short walk. On a “five out of five” day, he can do four … Continue reading Long Covid: After-effect hits up to 400,000 Australians
With Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gallivanting around the wilds of Tasmania, I stepped in to answer Australia’s science questions. And, as always, there was a question about bodily functions; this time, it was about asparagus wee.
From Nature, 6 April 2022: When Melody Smith began her fellowship in haematology and oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, she had no idea that she would soon be writing her own code, working with computational biologists and analysing faecal samples to understand the microbial composition — or microbiome — … Continue reading How gut reactions are shaping cancer treatment
From Australian Geographic, May 2022: “Never has a bodily organ been so adored as the brain – not since Narcissus looked at his face reflected in water and fell in love with it,” Professor George Paxinos says. “And never was there so little justification for it.” It’s a surprising comment from a man who’s spent … Continue reading Making sense of the brain
From The Saturday Paper, 9 July 2022: Today, James is feeling about a two out of five. The young lawyer is reasonably articulate on the phone. He might be able to read a single news article today, maybe even go for a short walk. On a “five out of five” day, he can do four … Continue reading Long Covid: After-effect hits up to 400,000 Australians
From the Guardian, 25 June 2022: Ben wants to quit vaping. He has a few times already. It’s easy, he says, despite the tremors and headaches, feeling hot then cold, the irritability. But then he says vapes – also known as e-cigarettes – containing nicotine are so easy to get despite being illegal to sell … Continue reading Teens and vaping: ‘We would have had a nicotine-free generation’
From WIRED, 14 June 2022: First came the drought. Then the bushfires. Then the floods. And then, on May 21, 2022, came the federal election. After nearly four years as Australian prime minister—a term in office marked by repeated and record-breaking natural disasters—the conservative Scott Morrison was ousted following a contest that hinged on climate … Continue reading Australia has finally woken up to climate change
Bianca Nogrady 