Generation Next Blog

July 2012

Is The Science Of Brain Imaging Overrated?

By |2014-06-16T01:11:27+10:00July 22nd, 2012|Categories: Science & Research|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Hardly a week passes without some sensational news about brain scans unleashing yet another secret of our cognitive faculties. Very recently I stumbled upon the news that according to recent research neuroscientists can tell, depending on your brain responses, whether you and your significant one will still be together in a few years: “You might hide [...]

Controversial Science of Brain Imaging

By |2012-08-17T17:01:41+10:00July 19th, 2012|Categories: Science & Research|Tags: , , , , , , , |

It seems that neuroscience reductionism is now replacing its genetic counterpart to find an explanation for everything about ourselves using neuronal correlates instead of genes. While I understand and acknowledge the astonishing advancement of science and its benefits, I tend to think that this infinite spiral of reductionist path may not allow us to make [...]

Some advice on how to deal with billboards from BUGA-UP

By |2012-08-17T17:44:02+10:00July 19th, 2012|Categories: Society & Culture|Tags: , , , |

Billboard graffiti is so simple you can organise it around just about anything. Even if you paint only one billboard per week you’ll be costing the corporate pushers between $500 and $5000 per year, depending on your thoroughness. It’s a sad fact, but we’ve learnt through long experience that money is the only language billboard [...]

Is the Internet Making Us Crazy? What the New Research Says

By |2012-08-17T17:44:29+10:00July 19th, 2012|Categories: Cybersafety, Science & Research|Tags: , , |

Questions about the Internet’s deleterious effects on the mind are at least as old as hyperlinks. But even among Web skeptics, the idea that a new technology might influence how we think and feel—let alone contribute to a great American crack-up—was considered silly and naive, like waving a cane at electric light or blaming the [...]

Tips on how to protect young people from online grooming

By |2012-07-19T11:55:23+10:00July 19th, 2012|Categories: Cybersafety|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

The arrest and charging of a NSW teacher for engaging in sexually explicit conversations with a 14 year old girl in the USA has again brought to light the dangers of children ‘chatting’ to strangers online.  Online predators are experts at internet grooming and luring young people into compromising situations that they are not able [...]

An obituary worth reading

By |2012-08-17T17:44:46+10:00July 18th, 2012|Categories: Society & Culture|Tags: , , , , , , |

We grew up in the very best time to grow up in the history of America. The best music, muscle cars, cheap gas, fun kegs, buying a car for "a buck a year" - before Salt Lake got ruined by over population and Lake Powell was brand new. TV was boring back then, so we [...]

Beauty pageants making inroads in australia….again!

By |2012-08-17T17:45:12+10:00July 17th, 2012|Categories: Society & Culture|Tags: , , , , , |

Little girls preen, strut, pout, and beckon to the judges ‘come here baby’. They kiss their finger and press it to their backsides in a gesture indicating they are smoking hot. They are instructed to flirt and to hold their tummies in. A five-year-old begs not to have her eyebrows ripped out. Some girls are [...]

Lingerie football league’s first event … sport or buck’s night?

By |2012-08-17T17:45:50+10:00July 17th, 2012|Categories: Society & Culture|Tags: , , , , , , |

Lingerie Football League is hailed as the all-new Australian sport and we are supposed to celebrate? It wasn’t sport. It was a meat fest. It had the feel of a giant buck’s night. But it was on a sporting field so apparently that made it sport. I call on sporting bodies and our Government, to [...]

Alcohol reform is the key to addressing violence

By |2012-08-17T17:46:18+10:00July 17th, 2012|Categories: Drugs & Alcohol|Tags: , , , , |

 Australia's leading alcohol research and education body has repeated its calls for alcohol reform, on the eve of a community forum to discuss street violence in Sydney. The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) has warned that calls for improved public transport and greater CCTV surveillance fail to address the issue that alcohol, and [...]

7-11 positions porn magazines in reach of kids … time for 10 minutes of activism!

By |2012-08-17T17:46:56+10:00July 14th, 2012|Categories: Mental Health & Wellbeing|Tags: , , , |

Last week I walked into three separate 7Eleven stores and was surprised to see Penthouse and other adult magazines on the bottom rack of the magazine stand. I wrote the following letter to the chairman of 7Eleven Australia, Russell Withers.       Dear Mr Withers, A couple of weeks ago I wandered into one [...]

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