Genetics | The Monthly

March 2013

Genes, technology and the evolution of culture. Matt Ridley

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Award-winning zoologist, science writer and author Dr Matt Ridley (UK) delivers the keynote address at the University of Melbourne's Festival of Ideas 2011. In it he explains...

Norfolk Island’s chickens

The Baskerville Case

By Ashley Hay

There are several things an astute observer will notice on arriving to Norfolk Island. First, the island’s eponymous pine trees, which rise up like oversized pins marking important spots on a map. Second, a world-heritage listed collection of Georgian buildings, some of Australia’s oldest and best preserved, which stand as testament to the first and second British settlements established

Richard Dawkins' 'The Greatest Show on Earth'

Unbelievers

By Ian Lowe

You wouldn’t believe me if I claimed that almost half the people in a rich, modern country still thought the earth was flat, or that the Roman Empire never existed. It would be a ridiculous assertion. Yet almost half of all adults in the United States believe that human beings did not evolve from other species, but were created by a divine being less than 10,000 years ago. A similar statistic is true for Turkey, now being considered f

Trekking in the Simpson

A New Desert

By Robyn Davidson

For Indigenous people, who knew it as well as their own bodies (in a sense, their country was both body and mind), it was a large garden that sustained them for thousands of generations. Withholding sometimes, when the dry went on longer than usual, but generally so bountiful that they could gather enough food in a couple of hours to grow fat. When Europeans

Hair Care

By Robert Forster

At 17 I could have become a hairdresser.In Brisbane in the early to mid '70s, the only places offering any kind of interesting shopping experience were in the inner-city arcades. Elizabeth Arcade, in particular, had a string of shops that not only offered good

Mane Attraction

By Ashley Hay

Under the spreading shade of a gum tree at the Mogo Zoo, just down from Batemans Bay, a furry cluster of lion cubs is at play: batting at a red ball hanging from the tree, swiping at each other's tails, worrying at their father's mane. They have handsome noses

Dobbing on Dr Raad

"Oh My God. He's Done it Again"

By Nicholas Shakespeare

It was a late April morning in 2001 and my wife had taken our seven-month-old son to the Swansea surgery for a routine jab – the final set of shots for whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. This was the first week of the new doctor and she was curious to see what he