UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH: What do we actually mean by research and how does it help inform our understanding of things? What if research throws up a result that calls for a new way of thinking? How do we…
- Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University
I often like to discuss science online and I’m also rather partial to topics that promote lively discussion, such as climate change, crime statistics and (perhaps surprisingly) the big bang. This inevitably…
Take a look at the moon and it isn’t hard to imagine it as a planet. A 3,476 kilometres-in-diameter ball of rock, with basalt plains and mountain ranges, whose gravitational pull produces tides here on…
Due to a rare alignment of events, many Australians will today experience a second eclipse this month. A partial solar eclipse will be visible from across Australia later this afternoon, following the…
We know we live in an expanding universe but it’s also changing colour and has been doing so for billions of years. Take a look at a Hubble image (above) of the distant universe and you will see hundreds…
If you’re willing to rise early tomorrow morning then there’s the chance to see a meteor shower, known as the Lyrids, which may been responsible for a bright light seen recently over Russia. A dashcam…
In a surprise discovery two rings have been found around the remote asteroid Chariklo, which lies more than a billion kilometres from Earth. This is the first time rings have been discovered around an…
If you live in the southern hemisphere, you now can safely view the aftermath of a nuclear explosion from the comfort of your own backyard. Just last week a new “star”, Nova Centauri 2013, was discovered…
The warm start to Australian spring has been accompanied by a deluge of pseudoscience. Anti-vaccination campaigners and aliens made appearances, but the deluge was primarily climate pseudoscience in the…
Space is Big. Really Big. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pretty much nailed space with those five words. And space is so really big that our earthly measures of distance struggle. The distance to…
Peer review is an essential part of science. Journal editors recruit scientists to provide expert opinion on manuscripts submitted by other scientists. Reviewers are expected to identify major errors and…
The Sandy Hook massacre and President Obama’s response to it has refocused attention on impact of regulation on American gun crime. Crime statistics before and after the implementation of gun laws provide…
Australia’s biggest astronomical observatory was burned in a bushfire near Coonabarabran in Western NSW overnight, threatening over $100 million worth of research infrastructure and the largest optical…
We are living in an era of science denial. An era when well-established facts are disputed, fake experts are interviewed by the media and blog posts trump science papers. It’s an era of vaccine denial…
Straw man: an argument, claim or opponent which is invented in order to defeat or create an argument. Climate change is controversial and much debated in the media. But did you know much of the debate…
DURBAN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: With the UN Climate Conference underway in Durban, climate “sceptics” have been particularly active in the media and blogs. Many climate “sceptics” claim that alternate…
A planet where the years flash by in under three days has been discovered circling the brightest star in the Kepler star field of the Milky Way. A team of 65 astronomers and mutiple telescopes led by Steve…
THE STATE OF SCIENCE: To produce good science, researchers have to be prepared to doubt themselves. Michael Brown investigates the importance of holding science up to scrutiny. Scientists and the public…
The Conversation wraps up Clearing up the Climate Debate with a statement from our authors: the debate is over. Let’s get on with it. Over the past two weeks The Conversation has highlighted the consensus…
CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Dr Michael Brown exposes the tactics used by purveyors of “non-science” to attack climate change research. It takes a lot to get scientists out of their offices and marching…
Four planets – Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus – will be aligned at dawn tomorrow. What does this mean? Should we be running for the hills? You’d be forgiven for thinking so. A search on Google or YouTube…
Where are we within our galaxy? How did our galaxy form? How did it evolve over the aeons? Astronomers have been asking these questions for the past century, and have recently begun discerning the answers…
Contact Michael for
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