Welcome to The Conversation’s off-topic space. We’ve set this up as the place where you can discuss anything that isn’t related to a specific article. Please feel free to use this space to get to know each other and talk about news elsewhere and whatever else strikes your fancy.

This is also an opportunity to discuss broader...

Science is in Canberra this week, and yet we have no minister for science.

No science minister, on a background of Australia’s complex recent history of affiliating the science portfolio with a range of other ministries.

One interpretation is that successive federal governments struggle to see where science fits in our nations’s...

As Cape Town counts down to “day zero” and the prospect of its taps being turned off, there have inevitably been questions about whether the same fate might befall a major Australian city. The most striking parallels have been drawn with Perth &ndas...