The release plan

Tough-on-crime advocates all rise

One morning in 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a merchant and amateur scientist in the Dutch city of Delft, set about the daily ritual of cleaning his teeth. Proud of his teeth, but perturbed by the solid white growth he could see between them, he scraped …

On a Friday afternoon in late spring last year, a young woman tumbled 15 metres off a cliff top at north Coogee, in Sydney. Within minutes a rescue helicopter had arrived and paramedics were running down the snaking path to the rocks below. Police cars …

Our continent has a wretched history of invasive species. Ecosystems have succumbed to exotic animals such as foxes, rabbits and carp, while at the same time being beset by strange, virile plants. "Whenever I travel, I'm always amazed by the hold that …

A hundred kilometres off the coast of Gladstone, on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, is a tiny island made from the bones of coral. The four-hectare white-limestone mound is the remains of thousands of generations of polyps, minuscule marine …

In March last year, days before Cyclone Larry tore through Far North Queensland levelling towns and banana crops, a Port Douglas man found a 2.5-metre saltwater crocodile in his garage. It took six rangers from the wildlife park to rope the disoriented …

On the front desk at the head office of Sydney IVF, in Kent Street, rests a marble statue of three fused figures. Two adults and a child form a clenched posy of hands, knees and feet, and the stone is so dark and smooth it's impossible to tell where one …