Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Saving the Franklin River

What does it take to win an environmental campaign? We look back at Australia’s biggest-ever environmental victory. As I travel on a boat towards the Franklin River, retracing a route thousands of ...
The Conversation

Sexism pushed Rosalind Franklin toward the scientific sidelines during her short life, but her work still shines on her 100th birthday

What do coal, viruses and DNA have in common? The structures of each – the predominant power source of the early 20th century, one of the most remarkable forms of life on Earth and the master molecule ...
The Conversation

Benjamin Franklin’s fight against a deadly virus: Colonial America was divided over smallpox inoculation, but he championed science to skeptics

Exactly 300 years ago, in 1721, Benjamin Franklin and his fellow American colonists faced a deadly smallpox outbreak. Their varying responses constitute an eerily prescient object lesson for today’s ...
Nature

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player. Lore has it that the ...
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Their fight made history, but Franklin blockade activists say their tactics wouldn't work today

Activists involved in the protest that saved the Franklin River say the environmental win would not have been possible under today's tightened protest laws. During the Franklin River blockade in 1982, ...