Science, Technology and Society

New research shows that despite differences in their funding commitments, major political parties in Australia – the Coalition, Labor and the Greens – see science and technology as important aspects of our economy and future prosperity.

Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY

On 16 April 2019, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, the Hon Karen Andrews MP, announced $70 million in CRC Program funding for the Blue Economy CRC.

We all want to know who we are and where we come from. It’s a fundamental human desire.

The tomatoes we eat have been carefully bred over generations, but now we can tap into wild varieties.

Commercial DNA testing services and crowdsourced genetic databases are helping people find long-lost relatives.

But a recent American case shows how these platforms can be used in criminal investigations, sometimes without a warrant or prior consent.

DNA forensics was once reserved for official police labs, but thanks to the internet and a new wave of start-ups, those official barriers are wearing away. (By Caitlin Curtis)

All Australian schools should provide high-quality education to all Australian students, including Indigenous ones.

Could criminals edit their genomes using cheap online kits to avoid being matched to criminal forensic databases?

Our ability to reconstruct physical features from DNA is advancing, but can we ensure the privacy of "anonymised" genetic data if we can predict the face of its owner?