Science

miracle or myth?The Times

Christmas Christian Nativity Scene of baby Jesus in the manger with Mary and Joseph in silhouette surrounded by animals and the three wise men with the city of Bethlehem in the distance

Has a wise man at NASA solved the Star of Bethlehem mystery?

It seems miraculous that a comet would hover, stationary, over a small town. Not if you look at ancient Chinese astronomers’ records, says one scientist.

Rhys Blakely

ExclusiveMining & Energy

Ichthys Explorer - central processing facility

Inquiry into mercury exposure

The offshore energy regulator is investigating potential mercury exposure on a gas project after workers were exposed to ‘black soot’, with one reporting high blood mercury levels.

James Dowling

The Wall Street Journal

(FILES) This file satellite photo taken on September 29, 2005 and handout by NASA shows the minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice in 2005 that occurred on September 21, when the sea ice extent dropped to 2,05 million square miles (53 094 969 million square kilometers). There's good and bad news for people, and polar bears, threatened by the Arctic's vanishing sea ice, scientists said on March 6, 2017. First the good news: summer ice cover is

Climate change study predicting dire economic harm is retracted

Prestigious journal Nature claimed the world’s economic output would decline 62 per cent by 2100 – a more severe estimate than other forecasts – but that information now appears to be skewed

Aylin Woodward and Ed Ballard

TechnologyTechnology

(FILES) US President Donald Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping greet each other as they arrive for talks at the Gimhae Air Base, located next to the Gimhae International Airport in Busan on October 30, 2025. China and the United States have recently agreed to lower the temperature in their spiralling trade war, bringing a precarious end to months of back-and-forth measures between the economic and technological powerhouses. The detente -- reached at last week's meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea -- marks a new phase in a fierce standoff that has rumbled since 2018. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)

China leads tech race as Xi ‘strives for scientific dominance’

China has widened its lead over the US as the centre of global innovation, dominating 90 per cent of the critical technologies that will define the coming era.

Ben Packham

BlowoutNation

BOM ‘having a lend of taxpayers’

A former minister refuses to explain her role in a weather website scandal that cost taxpayers $96.5 million instead of the promised $4.1 million.

Elizabeth Pike and Thomas Henry

EXCLUSIVEScience

A mulgara is released by scientist Rebecca West in the Wild Deserts precinct of Sturt National Park NSW. Picture: Richard Freeman

Plucky natives are fighting back at last

More than 500 endangered marsupials have reclaimed their desert home, as a revolutionary conservation program teaches them to outsmart cats and foxes.

Jamie Walker

Top 250 researchersResearch

Professor Deanna D'Alessandro, University of Sydney Credit: Stefanie Zingsheim

Nobel prize winner inspired her career

Deanna D’Alessandro from the University of Sydney is Australia’s top researcher in inorganic chemistry.

Carmel Sparke

top 250 researchersResearch

Anthony Romilio, a researcher of dinosaur footprints at the University of Queensland Credit: Damian Kelly

He figures out dinosaur behaviour from their fossilised footprints

Anthony Romilio from the University of Queensland is Australia’s top researcher in palaeontology.

Carmel Sparke

Top 250 researchersResearch

Professor Jay Guo, UTS. Credit: Andy Roberts

His improved sensing devices will reduce the danger from flooding

Jay Guo from the University of Technology Sydney is Australia’s top researcher in electromagnetism

Carmel Sparke

Research 2026Research

This undated handout photo received from the University of Melbourne on October 8, 2025 shows UK-born chemist Richard Robson posing at the university in Melbourne. Japan's Susumu Kitagawa, UK-born Richard Robson and American-Jordanian Omar Yaghi on October 8 won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing metalâorganic frameworks (MOFs) that can be used to capture carbon dioxide and harvest water from desert air, among other things. (Photo by Handout / University of Melbourne / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT

Australia’s Nobel is a big deal

Australia’s first Nobel prize in 14 years was won by a chemist whose discovery, made over 30 years ago, has led to a multitude of new technologies,

Tim Dodd

NatureNation

A green turtle at Raine Island (Raine Island National Park) in 2021. Raine Island recovery project egg relocation. Picture: Queensland Government

Turtles having a gender crisis – try a cool island transition

When relocated green turtle eggs hatch in island sand off Cape York Peninsula, it’s hoped thousands of little males will turn the tide of sex demographics for the endangered species.

Mackenzie Scott

Lift offWorld

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Bezos launches huge rocket carrying twin NASA spacecraft to Mars

Blue Origin launched its massive orbital rocket, the first time the vehicle from the Jeff Bezos-owned company is carrying cargo for a customer and its second mission overall.

MARCIA DUNN

ancestry breakthroughThe Times

DNA analysis reveals Hitler’s hidden sexual disorder

Groundbreaking scientific analysis of a bloody cloth from the sofa where Hitler shot himself has unearthed the biological design of the tyrant.

Jack Blackburn

ExclusiveScience

EMBARGO 10PM, 3/11/2025: Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska has received the Prime Minister's Prize for Science in 2025. She is a world-renowned expert in the study of air quality and the impact on human health and the environment, at Queensland University of Technology. Photo supplied.

Top scientist warns of technological arms race

Quantum computers capable of breaking bank and hospital security in minutes are now accessible to criminals through cloud services, warns prize-winning Australian scientist.

Natasha Bita

ExclusiveAgribusiness

KEERA, AUSTRALIA - 30TH OCTOBER, 2025: Cattle farmer Adam Armstrong at his cattle property in Northern NSW on Adam is Russell Pastoral Operation Manage. Picture: Simon Scott / The Australian

Stop treating cows and cars the same: farmers revolt over climate blame

Eating a steak should not be equated to driving a petrol car in the climate debate, say cattle farmers. They’re pushing a plan to end their global warming ‘whipping boy’ status.

Matthew Denholm

Medical breakthroughHigher Education

A major international study has uncovered a new vulnerability in prostate cancer cells. Head of Prostate Cancer Research and Co-Director of Flinders Health Professor Luke Selth. Picture credit: Flinders Foundation

Australian research triggers hope for prostate cancer patients

A major discovery by Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute researchers has triggered hope for improved treatment of prostate cancer.

Joanna Panagopoulos

ExclusiveNation

Salmon advice ‘skating around truth’

The salmon wars look set to return, with the Albanese government accused of misleading UNESCO and Murray Watt facing another big decision on the endangered Maugean skate.

Matthew Denholm

Conservation scienceWorld

TOPSHOT - A handout image made available by the Ol Pejeta Conservancy on August 23, 2019, shows a northern white female rhinos called Najin, 30, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya on August 21, 2019. - Veterinarians have successfully harvested eggs from the last two surviving northern white rhinos, taking them one step closer to bringing the species back from the brink of extinction, scientists said in Kenya on August 23, 2019. Science is the only hope for the northern white rhino after the death last year of the last male, named Sudan, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya where the groundbreaking procedure was carried out August 22, 2019. (Photo by Ami Vitale / Ol Pejeta Conservancy / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT

Hunting trophies could rescue endangered rhino

Controversial ‘de-extinction’ scientists in Texas are using DNA from hunting trophies and gene-editing technology to resurrect northern white rhinos.

Rhys Blakely

exclusiveNation

Big Ben, Australia's highest Peak, on the Australian territory of Heard Island Picture: Supplied

After 20 years, OHS curbs expedition

What happens when OHS bureaucrats encounter a volcano? Not science, it seems, as vital days of an expedition to Heard Island are lost to alleged ‘bureaucratic overkill’.

Matthew Denholm

Nobel PrizeHigher Education

Professor Richard Robson poses for a portrait outside the Chemistry building at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, after being awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

Humble Nobel laureate celebrates with glass of wine

How does a scientist celebrate a Nobel Prize? Melbourne-based chemistry professor Richard Robson’s curiosity created a legacy that is helping researchers cure cancer and combat climate change.

Natasha Bita

chemistryNation

This undated image provided by the University of Melbourne, shows Richard Robson, who was one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Paul Burston, University of Melbourne via AP)

‘Humble’ Australian professor wins Nobel prize

Richard Robson has been honoured for a groundbreaking discovery that could help solve ‘some of humankind’s greatest challenges’.

Staff writers and AFP

quantum mechanicsThe Wall Street Journal

(L-R) Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, Hans Ellegren, Secretary General of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Goeran Johansson, Member of the Nobel Committe for Physics, address a press conference to announce the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 7, 2025. John Clarke (UK), Michel H. Devoret (France) and John M. Martinis (US) win the Nobel Prize in Physics 2025, 'for the discovery of macroscopic quatum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit', it was announced on October 7, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP)

Trio of US professors nab Nobel physics prize

The researchers won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on quantum mechanical tunnelling.

Aylin Woodward

‘Increasingly evident’World

Pope Leo XIV attends the International Conference âRaising Hope for Climate Justiceâ on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Encyclical Laudato Siâ at Mariapolis Center in Castel Gandolfo on October 01, 2025. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP)

Pope Leo turns up heat on climate sceptics

Pope Leo XIV has waded into the climate wars, blessing water melting from a block of ice and taking aim at sceptical political leaders such as Donald Trump.

Tess Livingstone

1934-2025The Wall Street Journal

FILE - Jane Goodall kisses Tess, a female chimpanzee, at the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary near Nanyuki, north of Nairobi, on Dec. 6, 1997. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju, File)

Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, travelled more than 300 days a year.

Robert Lee Hotz

ObituaryThe Times

MIT Professor Emeritus of Physics Rainer Weiss speaks with students before delivering a lecture on using gravitational waves to explore the universe at the University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, California October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Noah Berger - S1BEUEYTTMAA

Nobel laureate proved the genius of Einstein

Rainer Weiss, the Nobel prizewinning physicist whose measurements of gravitational waves validated Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Avian geneticsScience

A digitally modelled rendering of a dodo, based on the likely output of CRISPR genetic manipulation.

We may be saying ‘un-dead as a dodo’, as hope rises for extinction salvation

The first dodo in 350 years – or at least a convincing imitation – could be born in the early 2030s; its creators say their efforts will help prevent future extinctions.

James Dowling

Eradication failureNation

A feral cat on Christmas Island. Picture - W.A .Department of Environment and Conservation.

Christmas Island losing the battle with cats

Despite high expectations and strict laws, the pet cat population is booming while ferals also continue to thrive, threatening endemic species such as the giant gecko – a feline favourite.

Paige Taylor

Predictions challengedThe Times

The flooding in Lismore, northern NSW, peaked at 14.4m, 2m higher than flooding levels previously recorded. Picture Darren Leigh Roberts

Seas are rising, but not as fast as feared: study

New research confirms sea levels are rising but claims forecasts by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are too high.

Rhys Blakely

UniversitiesHigher Education

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Musical chairs as education deans swap

It’s musical chairs for education faculties at three universities as Trump’s ‘research refugees’ are lured to Australia and new data reveals a disturbing drop in high school physics studies.

Natasha Bita

Science

OzGrav Black Holes new research. Picture: Supplied

Cosmic clues to black hole behaviour

A decade’s worth of gravitational data has revealed some explosive insights, some that could only be theorised up to this point, about the universe’s mysterious black holes.

Ria Pandey

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science