YOU’VE probably seen some of the headline findings of the 2021 census over the last couple of weeks: we’re an increasingly multicultural society, we’re decidedly irreligious, and the millennial generation is overtaking the baby boomers as the dominant age group. The usefulness of the census is…

THOSE do-good wowsers will stop at nothing in their never-ending quest to control our lives. They’ve made us wear seatbelts and bike helmets, taken all the fun out of a good old bake in the sun and now they want to stop fast-food institutions from advertising to little children. Fortunately, somebody…

It’s been a privilege to write for Insight+ these past 12 years, exploring that rich vein. To all who have read and engaged with what I’ve written, thank you. WHAT do Gwyneth Paltrow’s jade vaginal eggs, the wisdom of Socrates, and the multiple foreskins of Jesus have in common? They’ve all…

Medicare: You have been in close contact with someone who has Omicron. Please follow the link below to order your PCR kit… WHEN I received this text last week, there was a microsecond of anxiety. “Oh no, here we go again” was my first thought, swiftly followed by the realisation that Medicare…

A DECADE ago, a new genre of speculative fiction began to be featured at writers’ festivals: “cli-fi”, dystopic stories set against a backdrop of catastrophic climate change. More recently, a novelist told me the term was no longer useful: “All fiction is climate fiction now,” they said. The…

MUCH has been written about the potential long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including potential cardiovascular risks, the impact on mental health and of course long COVID. But an increase in facial dysmorphia, along with the resulting demand for cosmetic procedures, might not be the first…

HISTORIANS of the future may find Australia’s 2022 election campaign somewhat puzzling. They’ll see lots of talk about the cost of living – and fair enough – as well as plenty of chest thumping about national security. Climate change is there too, although I’d be prepared to bet our future…

WHEN functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology was developed in the early 1990s, hopes were high: the ability to look inside our working brains, to see how they fired in response to stimuli or when undertaking cognitive tasks would surely be a powerful clinical tool. Potential benefits…

DEPENDING on where you live in Australia, you may have been feeling a bit jittery and uncertain in recent weeks. No, I’m not talking about the upcoming federal election, but the end of daylight saving in those states that observe the practice. That bi-annual shift in our clocks has always been controversial,…

TENSIONS between government and the research community are hardly new. Researchers will always want more money. Governments will always want to hand out the cash for electorate-pleasing roads and sport facilities. The first-century Roman poet Juvenal knew what he was talking about when he wrote of political…

EVERYBODY loves a hero, whether it’s Cathy Freeman winning the 400 metres at the 2000 Olympics or the people rescuing flood victims from Lismore rooftops in their tinnies. Perhaps the archetypal image of the modern hero is that of the firefighters rushing into the World Trade Center towers immediately…

BACK in 2008, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett wrote a much-cited article criticising American psychology research for focusing almost entirely on just 5% of the human population (Americans) while claiming to reveal generalised truths about the whole of humanity. His examination of research published in…

LOOK through book best-seller lists, and you’ll see one genre that towers over all the others. No, it’s not romance or crime fiction, but what might loosely be called self-improvement, an unruly grab-bag of works purporting to hold the secret to getting rich, thin, decluttered and, above all, happy.…

MOST of us probably assume we can trust the research we read in peer-reviewed journals, assuming it has been honestly reported, or at least that the study has actually been conducted. But are we wrong? Former BMJ editor Dr Richard Smith suggested in a 2021 blog post research fraud was now so widespread…

THE English word chaos derives from the ancient Greek “khaos”, meaning a vast chasm or void, at times designating the emptiness of the universe before creation, at others the abyss of the underworld. It was the Roman poet Ovid who brought the term closer to its contemporary meaning, seeing chaos…

IT always feels like a relief moving towards the end of the year, doesn’t it? Like somehow viruses and other global players will take a break just because the calendar is counting down. But if 2021 has taught us anything, it’s that pandemics don’t have much respect for summer holidays. This is…

IT’S often said that, when you compare somebody with an opposing point of view to the Nazis, you’ve lost the argument. If that’s true, a letter I received last week didn’t take long to self-combust. “The mainstream medical media in Australia are no better than the Nazi Party propaganda machine…

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’” –…

NOT that long ago, Tasmania’s opium poppy industry was widely lauded for the economic boost it offered the island state. The poppies not only offered farmers a far more lucrative crop than potatoes, they were also being used in the production of medicines that could provide much needed relief to suffering…

A COURT transcript appearing to show an Australian vaccine expert admitting COVID-19 vaccines don’t work has gone viral on social media in recent weeks. Sensational stuff, or at least it would be if it had actually happened. Conspiracy theorists come in many shapes and sizes, but if there’s one…

AT a New York Italian restaurant last month, three men allegedly assaulted a member of staff because she asked to see proof of COVID-19 vaccination before seating them indoors. The woman was repeatedly punched and had her necklace broken, according to news reports. Carmine’s restaurant said in a statement…

IN a search for distraction from record-breaking lockdowns, thuggish “freedom” protesters, and – can this really be happening – earthquakes, I found myself thinking last week about anatomical naming. As you do. Our glorious human bodies have so many moving parts it takes a dictionary to list…

IF you’ve ever looked into the history of vaccination, you’ve likely heard that this vital preventive health measure was discovered, or invented, by English country doctor Edward Jenner at the end of the 18th century. The World Health Organisation is just one of many organisations to say so. Jenner…

– We’ve been in that cave forever – Three days is not forever – It is with this family The Croods, DreamWorks animated feature, 2013 UNLIKE the bumbling Stone Age family of The Croods, most of us have spent a lot more than three days in our caves over the past 18 months. The roller-coaster of…

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” THIS quote was attributed to Jonathan Swift in an article in Scientific American back in 1851, and I’ve often quoted it to justify my withdrawal from discussion with social media acquaintances posting reams of…

IN the early 1990s, US psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Shay began using the term “moral injury” to describe a particular kind of trauma he observed in the Vietnam veterans he was treating. Moral injury occurred, he believed, when there was a betrayal of “what’s right” by either those in authority…

AT the end of 2020, I quoted from Daniel Defoe’s A journal of the plague year in one of my columns for InSight+. That book is probably the most striking literary text produced by Europe’s repeated outbreaks of bubonic plague, albeit written well after the events it describes. I have spoken to many…

IT IS now apparently compulsory to insert the word “bungled” before any mention of Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. I’ve done it myself, but last week, with renewed outbreaks of disease around the country, I began to wonder if the word was adequate. The origins of the word “bungle”…

RACIST histories have long bedevilled health systems around the world, creating understandable distrust of medicine in some people from minority groups. I’ve written before about exploitative, in some cases abusive, past research conducted on Indigenous people in Australia. In the US, the roll-call…

IF Australians were becoming complacent about the risks of COVID-19, recent events in Victoria should have made us think again. With the state now in its second week of lockdown, the consequences of an inadequate quarantine system and bungled vaccine roll-out have become clearer than ever. The latest…

A FEW years ago, researching a book about the science of sex and gender, I went down the rabbit hole of reading popular psychology books on the subject. Friends had to suffer regular outraged text messages as I struggled through a morass of unscientific claims of the “why men can’t find things in…

IN December 2020, US family doctor Steven LaTulippe had his licence to practise medicine suspended over his opposition to mask wearing and other preventive measures against COVID-19. According to the Oregon Medical Board, LaTulippe regularly advised patients it was “very dangerous” to wear a mask,…

IN 1943, during the darkest days of World War II, senior army doctor Bill Keogh lobbied Australia’s war cabinet to establish domestic manufacture of a promising new drug, penicillin. Military field trials of the new antibiotic, developed in Oxford by Australian pharmacologist Howard Florey and colleagues,…

THIS past year of isolation and disruption has warped the passage of time for many of us. I’ve described 2020 to friends as both the fastest and slowest year of my life. Certainly, the days when people could travel the world at will, could plan without fear of an unexpected lockdown, seem immeasurably…

AUSTRALIA echoed last week with calls for an end to violence against women and dismantling of the power structures that enable it. The stories coming out of Canberra in recent weeks have revealed a toxic culture, where bullying is rife and young women are seen as disposable commodities, quickly discarded…

ADVERTISING targeted at women has long been accused of fuelling unhealthy anxieties about body image, with airbrushed, and sometimes outright anorexic, models creating a beauty standard that bears little relation to reality. Whether it’s body size or ageing, the message in the ads relies on shame…

WE need to talk about social media. Good things have come from platforms like Twitter and Facebook: the ability to share and access important content widely and swiftly, a more powerful voice for people who might be denied access to traditional media, unparalleled global connection. But, boy, is there…

TASMANIAN police issued two large fines to interstate travellers who refused to wear masks at Hobart Airport last week, defying COVID-19 regulations. My first reaction when I read the ABC report was the two men got what they deserved. And they probably did. In separate incidents, they had been asked…

YOU’VE probably heard some of the wackier assertions about the various COVID-19 vaccines currently being rolled out around the world, from the claim they include aborted human fetuses to the one that says they will change your DNA. The competition is stiff, but my favourite remains the persistent…

“THE face of London was now indeed strangely altered,” wrote Daniel Defoe in A journal of the plague year, his famous chronicle of that city’s bubonic plague outbreak of 1665–1666. Although the book purports to be an eyewitness account, Defoe was actually only 5 years old when the plague occurred.…

REMEMBER 2016? That was the year the world lost some greats – George Michael, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Leonard Cohen, Mrs Brady, R2D2, Gene Wilder, Elie Wiesel, Muhammad Ali, Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Jon English – it was teen hero carnage. We couldn’t wait to see the calendar…

IN the wake of World War II, nations came together as never before to try to prevent future catastrophes on that scale. The United Nations (UN) was established, along with its array of international agencies, while the European Union helped bring unprecedented peace to that troubled continent. This…

THE founder of modern triage systems is often said to be Dominique Jean Larrey, a surgeon in Napoleon’s army also credited with the introduction of ambulances to the battlefields of the late 18th century. A swashbuckling figure and master of emergency amputation, Larrey established a categorical rule…