the conversation
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The First Photograph of the Entire Globe: 50 Years On, Blue Marble Still Inspires
December 7 marks the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualised our planet forever. Taken with a Hasselblad film camera, it was the first photograph taken of the…
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Elon Musk’s ‘Hardcore’ Management Style: A Case Study in What Not To Do
As a case study in how to implement organisational change, Elon Musk’s actions at Twitter will go down as the gold standard in what not to do. Among other things, the evidence shows successful organisational change requires: a clear, compelling vision that is communicated effectively; employee participation; and fairness in the way change is implemented.…
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How Many Galaxies Are There in the Universe?
A galaxy is a massive collection of gas, dust and billions of stars all bound together by the force of gravity. Galaxies are also huge, measuring billions of billions of kilometres across. To properly understand what a galaxy is, we should start by looking at our own Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun is just one…
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If K’Gari Did Help Protect the Great Barrier Reef From Sand, the Entire Formation of the East Coast of Australia Is Linked to a Singular Story
Scientists had always been puzzled why the Great Barrier Reef formed long after Australia had conditions suitable for reef growth. It turns out the answer might be K’gari (Fraser Island). K’gari, the world’s largest sand island and a UNESCO World Heritage Area, juts out from the Australian coastline where the continent extends furthest east. It…