What comes next? | Tony Song | The dark forest of cryptocurrency

The dark forest of cryptocurrency is certainly mysterious, and the appeal is undeniable. The internet is bursting with success stories of those who became overnight millionaires, so it makes sense that investors are willing to gamble on it… a lot. But it’s not all tech bros and Doge coins – cryptoc…

What comes next? | Sasha Vassar | Why hybrid learning isn’t the answer

In theory, synchronous hybrid learning is a fantastic idea: students and teachers have increased flexibility, and universities can benefit from increased enrolments. But in reality, hybrid learning is not everything it is cracked up to be. Over the past two years of the pandemic, a mixed learning a…

What comes next? | Ivan Perez Wurfl | Unleashing the power of solar energy

In Australia, solar power has become cheaper and more reliable than ever. The solar industry has expanded so rapidly that these days it’s not uncommon to see every house on a street clad with rooftop solar panels. Today, there is no cheaper method to produce energy than that offered by solar panels…

What comes next? | Nathan J Jackson | The future of social gaming

In the first few months of 2022, Twitch viewers watched a total of 6.13 billion hours of livestreamed content and fans are showing no sign of slowing down. Over the last decade, video game streaming has become big business. This success is due in part to the fact that streaming sites have become ab…

What comes next? | Adam Bayes | Could ‘magic’ mushrooms become medical mushrooms?

More than 264 million people worldwide have depression. But for many people struggling with severe or treatment-resistant depression, standard therapies may not work. So what if there are new treatments that could be effective? Recently there has been a renaissance of interest in psychedelics as po…

What comes next? | Claire Daniel | Are computer-generated cities the future?

The population of our capital cities is going to increase rapidly over the next decades. But right now, our cities are bloated, congested, and many urban design choices are no longer fit for purpose. Enter algorithms: those codes that know what we like to eat, how we like to spend our time, and wha…

What comes next? | Jennifer Cohen | Unlocking the future of supportive care

For a lot of us, the pandemic years were characterised with the rise of working from home. We’ve become all too familiar with Zoom fatigue… one of the many new words we have added to our vocabulary over the past two years of the pandemic along with social distancing, doom scrolling and hybrid worki…

What comes next? | Bianca Briscas | The secret to fighting fungal infection

Nearly 400 years ago, scientists made the groundbreaking discovery that fungi were all around us, on us, and inside us too. The development of germ theory – the understanding that microbes like bacteria, viruses, and fungi are responsible for infectious diseases – has since revolutionised almost ev…

What comes next? | John Carr | Making living cities

Throughout Australia, people want our cities to be more affordable, to have more vibrant social and green spaces, and to be better environmentally suited. And yet our sprawling cities typically fail to meet these goals – often because they have been designed for the convenience of real estate devel…

What comes next? | Patrick Tung | X-ray vision: revealing secrets to resurrect batteries

Australia is rapidly shifting towards a renewables fuelled economy, and huge technological leaps in batteries are often cited as heroes of sustainability. But the knowledge acquired through high-powered X-ray tomography – a technology similar to CAT scans in hospitals – is also a key factor in crea…