Bianca Nogrady

So stoked for @frogsandstars.bsky.social who just won the Long Covid Awareness media award at the Emerge Australia Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She has been doing such incredible, sustained reporting on Long Covid, and this is well-deserved recogntion. emerge.org.au/the-emerge-a...

NEW: I got my hands on a Palantir-Department of Defence contract that outlines how the Trump-aligned tech company has embedded staff in Defence, leaves a carve-out for training on Australian data, and has a number of quite generous contract conditions.

www.crikey.com.au/20...

The LNP’s phrase-banning law is wide open to constitutional attack. Is it a victory for the people, or a smart political play? | Anne Twomey By banning two political slogans outright, the government has exposed the law to a greater risk of being struck down as invalid

University of Sydney professor emerita in constitutional law, Anne Twomey, after passage of the Qld govt's pro-Palestine slogan ban, says govt has "cast off the constitutional armour that its bill had carefully constructed, & left its law wide open to attack" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism | Rutger Bregman As a historian, I’ve studied the major consumer boycotts of history. We can take down ChatGPT and send a powerful signal to Silicon Valley, says author and historian Rutger Bregman

'OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on track to lose $14bn this year. Its market share is collapsing, and its own CEO, Sam Altman, has admitted it “screwed up” an element of the product. All it takes to accelerate that decline is 10 seconds of your time.'

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

‘Good riddance to that rubbish’: Labor abandons friendless FOI changes The controversial bill was promptly shelved on Thursday morning, after months of backlash from opposition, media and experts.

MEAA welcomes the withdrawal of the FOI Bill reforms - the proposed changes included increased costs for freedom of information requests, the banning of anonymous submissions and a limiting of access to information in the public interest.
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

"If the data centre lobby wants to present itself as an engine of the energy transition, it should be forced to build at least twice the volume of clean energy required to power its projects. But they cannot bring themselves to commit to even covering their own needs." #auspol

This #Women'sHistoryMonth, we're reflecting on the immense courage required to be women journalists. Despite repeated attacks & attempts to silence our voices, we continue to stand up and do our jobs. We thank all women journalists for the work you do every day to defend our rights to a free press.

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!

‘No one quite like her’: meet the female colleagues who inspire these award-winning women in science To mark International Women’s Day, Nature asked winners of its awards programmes to nominate a colleague who brings out the best in them.

For International Women's Day on 8 March this weekend, @nature.com's Careers team presents award-winning women scientists and the women who inspired them. If you need some feel-good news these days or pro tips for mentoring in your own science career, dive in!

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I hope this lands in Australia ASAP.

Textes from Sisyphus:

UGH You are not goinge to BELIEVE what just happenid AGAYNE

Louise Adler sets the record straight on Adelaide Writers' Week The Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) debacle might have served as a “life lesson” to politicians and lobbyists about the risks involved in interfering with the independence of arts organisations. But as w...

More food for thought from Louise Adler about the idea of 'balance' in the curation of writers' festivals, and the selective hyperventilating about the inclusion of one Palestinian writer: johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03...

Is it game over for the influential Freeplay festival? After two decades of raging against the machine, Freeplay – once the flagship for indie Australian games – has announced that this year will probably be its last.

I spoke to more than a dozen people for this short piece on Freeplay in the Saturday Paper. It's a little retrospective/reflective and tries to distil a whole range of emotions and opinions that came through in those discussions.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/game...

She writes: "The authors, their books and their ideas are paramount. The festival does not succeed because it offers limitless free speech; it succeeds because its founders and an enormous team of moderators, volunteers and cultural practitioners practice intelligent, compelling, cogent curation."

What should a writers’ festival be? There are cultural events that entertain, and there are rare ones that reorganise how a society encounters ideas. The Jaipur Literature Festival is the latter. Founded in 2006 by Namita Gokhale, Willi...

Great and timely piece in @thesaturdaypaper.com.au by Marcia Langton about what writers' festivals are and should be, using the Jaipur Festival as an example.
She writes that the grace of festivals is not in softness, but in their confidence in the public's capacity for complexity.

Watching Grey's Anatomy for the first time, and the number of unintended pregnancies among the doctors makes me seriously question the quality of their fictional medical education.

Just finished Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah's new book Discipline. It is a profound, raw and confronting study of the compounding traumas that continue to be inflicted upon Palestinian people both in Gaza and Australia.
It is absolutely a book for this moment in history.

Fake conferences and journals aren't new - but using real researchers' names without consent? That's next level unethical. I feel awful for the PhD students who trusted them for a first paper. Must be soul crushing. Great investigation by @jacksonwryan.com.
#ResearchSky #AcademicSky

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

Sub-Editor, Digital Publishing Job in Canberra ACT - SEEK Seeking a skilled sub-editor to join The Point — our digital platform for analysis, commentary and insights on politics, economics and public policy.

🚨🚨🚨Job going at The Australia Institute 🚨🚨🚨

Sub-Editor, Digital Publishing
"A detail-focused sub-editor to help produce The Point, an Australia Institute initiative, publishing research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts in their field."
www.seek.com.au/job/90319309...

Calling all Australian science writers!
Entries are still open for The Best Australian Science Writing 2026 and the UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing 2026.
I’m delighted to be editing this year’s anthology!

What can I do if my idea has been plagiarized? An early-career scientist’s idea, shared at a poster session, has been published by someone else. What happens now?

The response to this article in Nature suggests that many early-career researchers have experienced ideas plagiarism. But proving that someone has plagiarised your research idea is difficult.
Experts say the best cure is prevention: publish early, establish a public pedigree for your ideas and work

Meanjin returns home Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will become the new custodian of Meanjin, Australia's most eminent literary journal, bringing the publication back to Brisbane 80 years after it relocated to Melbourne. QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil said: “QUT is delighted to bring Meanjin home to Meanjin / Magandjin – the lands of the Turrbal and Yugara peoples – where the journal was founded and where our Gardens Point campus now stands. “Since its foundation by Clem Christesen in Brisbane in 1940, Meanjin has been instrumental in shaping Australian literary and intellectual culture,” she said. “It has provided a vital platform for critical discussion, a showcase of emerging writers and a valuable training ground for leading Australian publishers and editors. We are honoured to be entrusted with the legacy of this cultural icon.”

Under the terms of the transfer, QUT will appoint an editorial board to ensure Meanjin’s independence, values and standards are maintained and recruit an editor through a national competitive search. Professor Warren Bebbington, the Chair of Melbourne University Publishing (MUP), said MUP had received approaches to acquire Meanjin from a variety of organisations in recent months, but QUT’s understanding of the journal’s legacy surpassed those of the other expressions of interest received. “The Board is delighted Meanjin will continue, and in the hands of a university so clearly alert to the nature of the custodianship MUP had fulfilled for it for so long.” QUT will take time to thoughtfully re-establish the journal in Queensland and consider how to most effectively reinvigorate Meanjin, respecting the journal's founding vision and literary legacy while enhancing its relevance and rebuilding of readership to ensure a viable future.

THIS NEWS WILL PLEASE A FEW PEOPLE:

“QUT will become the new custodian of Meanjin, Australia's most eminent literary journal, bringing the publication back to Brisbane 80 years after it relocated to Melbourne.” www.qut.edu.au/meanjin

Celebrating International Day of Women & Girls in Science by sharing this NSW State Library collection of interviews with some incredible Australian women in science, incl Nalini Joshi, Belinda Medlyn, the late Emma Johnston, Veena Sahajwalla & Lesley Hughes.
collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/search?subje...

Echoes of the same confusion during the March for Gaza across the Harbour Bridge, when NSW Police unexpectedly tried to turn 300,000 people around mid-march, when the Bridge was packed. Confusing and conflicting messages were given to protestors. It felt like police were making it up on the go.

"People who wanted to act in a violent and offensive manner"

The Stronger Sex: Starre Vartan in-conversation with Bianca Nogrady | Better Read Events Join us with Starre Vartan to celebrate the release of The Stronger Sex! Starre will be in conversation with Bianca Nogrady.

Sydney folks: I'm launching @starrevartan.bsky.social's fantastic book 'The Stronger Sex' this Friday 13th, 6.30pm at Better Read Than Dead in Newtown.
Come along and hear why women are in fact the stronger sex, and what science tells us about the power of the female body!

Here in Australia, much has already been said about the recent wave of "hate speech" and anti-protest laws. Speaking as someone who studies political communication and misinformation, I want to add my deep concern: how these rushed responses may backfire institutionally and politically. #auspol

Grateful for the chance to attend the memorial for Professor Emma Johnston today, and hear so many emotional tributes to a truly extraordinary person.
Seems fitting that the one mobile phone interruption had a ring tone of the song Yellow Submarine.