The apparent failure of the latest Australian government's tender for market-based water recovery is a stark warning that like oil, politics and good water policy don’t mix according to Professor Quentin Grafton, an environmental and resource economist at The Australian National University.

Universities need to commit themselves to attracting indigenous students to science and incorporating indigenous knowledge in curricula, according to the University of Sydney's Dr Diana Day.

One measure of an advanced and advancing country is what it puts into its science, and by that yardstick Australia continues to fall short. In the wake of all the institutional forelock-tugging over the 2007 budget, a cooler appraisal would be that it didn't do much for science.

If New Zealand is to achieve the Government’s stated aim of becoming a carbon neutral economy, it will need many more scientists.

Teachers hold the key to solving the current crisis in science education, argues Professor Russell Tytler, Deakin University’s Chair of Science Education, in a special report on Australian science education.

Considering that science and technology underpin half, or more than half, of Australia’s national economic growth, it is always a little surprising and unsettling to find they receive such marginal treatment in the Federal Budget.

God bless Dr Arthur Farnworth. If it wasn’t for the good doctor many a bloke would be a rumpled mess, particularly after a long flight or a round of tedious meetings. In 1957 Dr Farnworth of the CSIRO developed the process of producing permanent creases in fabric by adding a special resin to wool fibres to change their chemical structure.

ANU experts take the politics out of water with the release today of an analysis of the Federal Government’s $10 billion national water security plan, warning of the risk of wasting public money and potential social justice consequences if careful economic and social policy analysis and planning isn’t undertaken before the money is spent.

Sir Nicholas Stern has told us that Australia needs to set a target of at least a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2050. That target has to apply to the transport sector where, according to the Allen report a few years ago, Australia was on track towards a 67 per cent increase in emissions by 2050.

Advances in information and telecommunications technology present opportunities and risks for research and research data.  These advances are propelling us into a new age of research. The question is “Is this a golden age or a dark age for research information?”

Apart from drought, weeds are the major threat to agriculture and the environment in Australia. But with research support being withdrawn next year, Rachel McFadyen argues for “public good” funding to be revived.

The primary aim of any emissions trading system adopted by Australia should be to encourage investment in new technology, according to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Australian cities can be “terraformed” so that they become part of a climate-change response, rather then being a cause of it.

Modelling by the UK’s Hadley Climate Research Centre suggests that by the second part of this century half the Earth’s land surface could be in regular drought, while 30 per cent will face extreme drought by 2100.

A Deakin University researcher has called for the creation of an energy credits trading scheme to operate alongside carbon trading credits trading.