Author: Editorial Board

More than 800 000 people die by suicide every year – around one person every 40 seconds, according to WHO’s first global report on suicide prevention, published today. Some 75% of suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Pesticide poisoning, hanging and firearms are among the most common methods of suicide globally. Evidence from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and a number of European countries reveals that limiting access to these means can help prevent people dying by suicide. Another key to reducing deaths by suicide is a commitment by national governments to the establishment and implementation of a coordinated plan of action. Currently, only 28 countries are known to have national suicide prevention strategies.

Suicide is a global phenomenon

Suicide occurs all over the world and can take place at almost any age. Globally, suicide rates are highest in people aged 70 years and over. In some countries, however, the highest rates are found among the young. Notably, suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29 year-olds globally.

“This report is a call for action to address a large public health problem which has been shrouded in taboo for far too long

Having owned an iPhone for all of one month, I’m still a bit leery of all it can purportedly do for me. Convenience is great, but I’m not sure I’m ready to cede control of all the little tasks, challenges, and puzzles my own imperfect brain has been handling more or less well for nearly half a century.

I don’t hate blundering. And I really like interacting with librarians, local residents, and strangers who might be willing to use my camera to take a group photo in a restaurant or scenic location.

Filmmaker Miranda July’s just released Somebody is, I suspect, something of a niche app.

If you cringe at the idea of flash mobs, Improv Everywhere, and audience interactive theater, it is most definitely not for you.

It’s absolutely perfect for me (or will be once I get up to speed on my touchscreen.)

Basically, you take a selfie, create a profile, and wait for a stranger to select you to deliver a live message as his or her proxy. In addition to trawling the area for the designated recipient, you may be called upon to weep, hug, or get on your knees to get that message across.

Will you make a new friend? Probably not, but you will definitely share a moment.

And because no good deed goes unrewarded, your performance will be open to the vagaries of customer review, a humiliation July does not shy from in the promotional video above.

Is this app for real?

Yes, especially if you live in LA, New York, or another culturally rich Somebody hotspot.

If you don’t—or if receiving a message delivered, in all likelihood, by a tech savvy hipster, makes your flesh crawl—you can still enjoy the film as a comment on our digital existence, as well as a reflection of July’s ongoing desire to connect.

Source and image.

The ANU will enhance its position as a leader in clean energy research after receiving $9 million in new funding for five major research and development projects.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced details of the research funding, designed to help make renewable energy more affordable and to boost the amount of clean energy produced in Australia.

“This funding announcement by ARENA will enhance the research capability of the ANU solar research programs, and will also substantially improve opportunities for training of PhD students and early career researchers,

Previously unrecognized health benefits could be realized from fast action to reduce climate change and its consequences. For example, changes in energy and transport policies could save millions of lives annually from diseases caused by high levels of air pollution. The right energy and transport policies could also reduce the burden of disease associated with physical inactivity and traffic injury.

Measures to adapt to climate change could also save lives around the world by ensuring that communities are better prepared to deal with the impact of heat, extreme weather, infectious disease and food insecurity.

First ever global conference

These are two key messages being discussed at the first-ever global conference on health and climate, which opens today at WHO headquarters in Geneva. The conference brings together over 300 participants, including government ministers, heads of UN agencies, urban leaders, civil society and leading health, climate and sustainable-development experts.

The health sector needs to act quickly and assertively to promote climate-smart strategies, climate and health experts warn.

“The evidence is overwhelming: climate change endangers human health,

Vice.com’s food channel, Munchies, spent time with Naomichi Yasuda and learned the dos and don’ts of eating sushi. And they kindly summarized some practices that are permitted and verboten.

(1) It’s okay to use your fingers to eat cut sushi rolls.
(2) Don’t combine ginger and sushi, or ginger and soy sauce. Ginger is a palate cleanser in between bites.
(3) When dipping sushi into soy sauce, dip fish-side down.
(4) Never shake soy sauce off of sushi. That’s like shaking your wanker in public.

The video above just begins to scratch the surface. If you head over to TheSushiFAQ, you can find a long list of rules and suggestions that will round out your sushi-eating etiquette. Here are some additional tips to keep in mind: Never put wasabi directly in the shoyu dish. And know that Sashimi is only to be eaten with your chopsticks, not with your hands.

Source and image.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield has inspected projects to clean up space junk, and space engineering projects, at the University’s advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre at Mount Stromlo.

Commander Hadfield shot to fame when a film clip of him singing David Bowie’s Space Oddity from the International Space Station went viral.

Mount Stromlo is home to a project to track and clean up hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris floating in orbit, which pose significant dangers to space exploration and satellites.

“One of the risks of living on a spaceship is impact with debris. Mitigation is the key,

Two Project ResQu helicopters developed by CSIRO completed trial flights near Cairns, locating weeds like the dreaded ‘purple plague’, or Miconia calvescens, faster and more reliably than ever.

Developed by robotics researchers at CSIRO, in partnership with Biosecurity Queensland, the unmanned helicopters found weeds using sophisticated imaging technology. The helicopters are safer and a more convenient way of mapping weeds in remote and difficult terrain.

CSIRO Biosecurity Flagship Science Director, Dr Gary Fitt, said access to dense rainforests was difficult for people but all-too-easy for weeds which get carried in by animals or blown in from gardens or farms.

“Miconia is among the worst of a number of weeds that pose a significant threat to Australia’s precious rainforest remnants,

In 2012, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, two econ professors at George Mason University, launched Marginal Revolution University (otherwise known as MRUniversity) which delivers free, interactive courses in the economics space.

During its early days, MRUniversity created courses on The Great Economists, Development Economics, International Trade, and The Economic History of the Soviet Union. And now it’s creating a somewhat unconventional new course called Everyday Economics. The course tries to show how economics impacts people’s day-to-day lives. And, rather suitably, MRUniversity is inviting its students — everyday people around the globe — to vote for topics the course should cover. It’s what’s called a “student-driven

An ANU team has successfully replicated one of the crucial steps in photosynthesis, opening the way for biological systems powered by sunlight which could manufacture hydrogen as a fuel.

“Water is abundant and so is sunlight. It is an exciting prospect to use them to create hydrogen, and do it cheaply and safely,

The chemistry of ridable explosions.

In recounting the riveting experience of what it’s like to launch on a Space Shuttle, pioneering astronaut Sally Ride vividly recalled how “the shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.