freelance science journalist and author
From Medscape Medical News, 14 February 2025: Junior doctors in Australia’s largest state are on the brink of strike action over working conditions, after a hospital administrator derided them as “clinical marshmallows [sic]” in a leaked email. The email from an administrator at John Hunter Hospital in New Lambton Heights, Australia, was commenting on a … Continue reading Australian junior doctors protest working conditions
From The Saturday Paper, 8 February 2025: In less than three weeks since he took office, United States President Donald Trump has thrown the global powerhouse of American science and medical research into disarray. The impact is spreading to Australian researchers, whose concerns range from their access to funding and ability to collaborate, to the … Continue reading US censorship, funding cuts stymie Australian science research
From Medscape, 22 January 2025: More than half of psychiatrists working in public mental health in Australia’s largest state have resigned in response to what they say is years of unresolved workforce shortages and underresourcing. The mass resignations encompass more than 180 of the nearly 300 psychiatrists in New South Wales. The clinicians left their … Continue reading Australian public psychiatrists resign en masse
From The Saturday Paper, 18 January 2025: Psychiatrist Prachi Brahmbhatt likens the current state of public mental healthcare in New South Wales to battlefield medicine. “When the clinical leader is so pushed that they don’t have time to stop and think about the decisions that they’re making… while you’re trying to do seven things at … Continue reading The crisis in the NSW mental health system
From The Saturday Paper, 7 December 2024: A soot-smeared man clutches his dog and weeps in relief. A grazier stands defeated before a field strewn with dead cattle. A woman tries desperately to grab a koala picking its way through flaming debris. A fleeing kangaroo is silhouetted against an inferno. In every disaster, some of … Continue reading Planning to protect animals during natural disasters
From the Guardian, 8 December 2024: My vegetable garden is a jungle. The grass is waist-high, the weeds have consumed my gardening tools and representatives from all classes of the animal kingdom – possibly also a jabberwocky – are enjoying a comfortable existence in there, eating my salad greens and each other. Letting things go … Continue reading ‘Let things go feral’: how to do carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard
From the BMJ, 5 December 2024: Children and young people aged under 16 will be banned from a range of social media platforms in Australia within a year, after the federal parliament passed a law to “deliver greater protections for young Australians during critical stages of their development.” The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum … Continue reading Australia bans under-16s from social media “to protect their development”
From The Saturday Paper, 2 November 2024: In 2018, the Australian government conducted a simulated pandemic stress test of how well federal departments on the frontline of a major health crisis would cope. It found they would perform well enough for shorter or “ordinary” crises but were not equipped for a significant, near-existential crisis dragging … Continue reading Covid-19 inquiry finds key failings in pandemic response
One of the great privileges of being a science journalist is getting to talk to fascinating, passionate, engaged, brilliant scientists. So when the State Library of New South Wales, Australia asked if I was interested in being the interviewer for an oral history project they were interested in establishing, focusing on women in STEM in … Continue reading Women in STEM NSW oral history project
From the Guardian, 27 August 2024: I call it “the hill of death”: a steep uphill section of dirt road towards the end of an otherwise pleasant and not-too-taxing walk in the scenic Blue Mountains. It’s challenging enough to get up it walking forwards but my friend and I both feel pretty cocky about our … Continue reading Be kind, rewind: is backwards walking any better than walking forwards?
Bianca Nogrady 