#The Conversation

What is the value of a wave? How changes to our coastline could wipe out surfing’s benefits

Surfing’s benefits to well-being aren’t often studied in economics terms. This is a major gap in our knowledge we’re now trying to fill.

Pink jumper being held to reveal a hole.

Moths eating your clothes? It’s actually their hungry little caterpillars – here’s how to get rid of them

Once the larvae turn into adult moths, they never eat again.

Flower on stalk with six pointed petals.

Orchid hunting has come a long way. In 5 steps you can join a national research effort

Contributions from citizen scientists who look for orchids are incredibly valuable in orchid research because they cover much more ground than a handful of experts.

A person wearing a snorkel swims underwater behind a big and colourful coral.

Even if we halt global warming, local climates will change – and we need new experiments to understand how

We need new experiments to model Earth’s climate if global warming is stabilised at 1.5℃. A new paper explains why.

Black and white chess pieces on a chess board.

What’s the secret to making sure AI doesn’t steal your job? Work with it, not against it

The best AI chess computer outperforms the best human chess players. Yet the most supreme chess play on Earth comes from a human, helped by AI.

Australia’s Black Summer of fire was not normal – and we can prove it

Forest fires in Australia are burning more land across more of the year than ever before, as climate-linked fire weather worsens.

A man riding his bike through a city street during wet weather

Climate change is likely driving a drier southern Australia – so why are we having such a wet year?

The southern parts of Australia are expected to become increasingly dry due to climate change. Yet, we now find ourselves subject to another La Niña event. What’s going on?

Every dollar invested in research and development creates $3.50 in benefits for Australia, says new CSIRO analysis

An analysis by CSIRO’s strategic and economic advisory arm suggests spending on research and development can earn annual yields of 10%, even if there are delays or cost overruns.

Global emissions almost back to pre-pandemic levels after unprecedented drop in 2020, new analysis shows

Most concerning is the long-term upward trends of CO₂ emissions form burning fossil fuels, which are far from trending towards net-zero by 2050.

Old, goopy museum specimens can tell fascinating stories of wildlife history. Finally, we can read them

Recovering important historical genetic data has been severely impeded by the methods used to preserve specimens.

We analysed data from 29,798 clean-ups around the world to uncover some of the worst litter hotspots

Litter hotspots were associated with socioeconomic factors such as a concentration of built infrastructure, less national wealth and the level of lighting at night.

Plastic in the ocean kills more threatened albatrosses than we thought

We examined the causes of death of 107 albatrosses and found ocean plastic is an underestimated threat.

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