the conversation
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The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Shows the Dangers of Fictionalising True Horrors With Very Real Victims
Netflix’s recent series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has stirred controversy over its apparent glamorisation of a serial killer and perceived insensitivity towards the families of Dahmer’s victims. In contrast to more journalistic true crime entertainment (which has its own issues), the dramatisation and fictionalisation of real-life crimes, such as Dahmer, has drawn a wave…
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Tesla’s Optimus Robot Is a Bit of a Flop, but That Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Important
In August 2021, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the electric car manufacturer was planning to get into the robot business. In a presentation accompanied by a human dressed as a robot, Musk said work was beginning on a “friendly” humanoid robot to “navigate through a world built for humans and eliminate dangerous, repetitive and boring…
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100% of Tress in Aussie Cities Are Now Threatened by Climate Change
To anyone who has stepped off a hot pavement into a shady park, it will come as little surprise that trees (and shrubs) have a big cooling effect on cities. Our study published today in Nature Climate Change found climate change will put 90-100% of the trees and shrubs planted in Australian capital cities at…
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Lizard in Your Luggage? Artificial Intelligence Is Now Being Used to Detect Wildlife Trafficking
Blue-tongue lizards and sulphur-crested cockatoos are among the native animals frequently smuggled overseas. While the number of live animals seized by the Australian Government has tripled since 2017, the full scale of the problem eludes us as authorities don’t often know where and how wildlife is trafficked. Now, we can add a new technology to…