The Conversation

Ever wonder how much it costs to develop a new drug? The independent, non-profit research group, The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, estimates US$2.6 billion, almost double the centre’s previous estimate a decade ago. But how accurate is this figure?

This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones, Season 5, Episode 9, The Dance of Dragons.Royal families in myths and legends are infamous for intrigue, murder and mayhem. These very deeds are part of what make the stories epic and immortal. Indeed, the moral complexities inherent in the outrageous acts perpetrated by the characters of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey or Aeschylus’ Agamemnon have engaged audiences for thousands of years, inspiring commentaries, debates, philosophical musings and reinterpretations.

I’m a philosopher, working in logic and related issues. This means that I spend a lot of my time working with words and arguments. And sometimes, when I’m not feeling so good about things, it can seem like it doesn’t matter, that it’s all just words. Arguments about ethics, about issues in metaphysics or epistemology—on a bad day, at least—can seem to be nothing more than pointless hot air. Here’s an illustration of the point, due to the American Pragmatist philosopher William James.Here’s the scene—a man walks rapidly around a tree, while a squirrel moves on the tree trunk. Both the man and the squirrel face the tree at all times, but the tree trunk stays between them.

At the Brisbane Writers’ Festival some years ago, novelist Peter Carey responded to relentless historical questioning about his True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) by sinking in his chair and saying “I made it up”.But the thing is, he didn’t.As his title declares, Carey was playing a game with “truth”. He had long been fascinated by Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter and his book was both a reworking of a real historical person and a conscious extrapolation of a real historical document. The stakes were high.

The return of diphtheria in Spain after nearly three decades highlights the challenges posed by infectious diseases that had been mostly eliminated from Europe.Falling vaccination rates, complex population movements, and the disappearance of international health practices perceived as redundant, all contribute to the emergence and spread of infectious diseases that were thought forgotten. At the same time, such public health crises throw light on the delicate relationship between state and citizens, and competing concepts of responsibility for health.

The park is almost open. Two decades on and Jurassic Park has morphed into Jurassic World, the one and only dinosaur theme park. Science has apparently evolved too: the genetically-engineered dinosaurs are to take a secondary role to a new star of the show, a genetically-engineered hybrid, worryingly named Indominus Rex. Undoubtedly, chaos will ensue.

Dengue is a virus spread via the Aedes aegypti mosquito that infects as many as 100 million people annually in more than 100 tropical countries worldwide. It causes fevers, extreme headaches, and muscle and joint pains. In a few extreme cases, leakage of blood plasma through the walls of small blood vessels into the body cavity occurs, resulting in bleeding. This is known as dengue hemorrhagic fever.

How children think about their own ability can affect their progress and achievement at school, according to a number of education scholars. The work of Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck and her concept of “mindset” has been particularly influential in the way teachers are trying to change their pupils' views of their own intelligence.

Everyone, it seems, has been talking about “dad bod” – what defines it, who possesses it and whether or not women actually love it.It all began with an innocuous article on a college news website, penned by a Clemson University student named Mackenzie Pearson.“The dad bod is a nice balance between a beer gut and working out,” she wrote. “While we all love a sculpted guy, there is just something about the dad bod that makes boys seem more human, natural, and attractive.”Pearson’s post first made the rounds on social media, before receiving mainstream media attention.

Northern Ireland recently changed the law to criminalize the act of paying for sex. This follows a trend set in Sweden, where selling sex is legal but buying it is criminalized.

Jurassic World brings to life the fantasy of an amusement park where genetically engineered dinosaurs are the main attraction, as first imagined in the original book, then movie Jurassic Park back in 1993. This fourth movie in the franchise, in cinemas from today, is certainly action-packed, although there are a number of opportunities missed when it comes to how these beasts are represented.

Life is chemistry. You, me and every living thing – we’re all just spectacularly complex chemistry sets. Inside you, every second of the day, thousands of tiny chemical reactions are taking place.Chemical reactions powered your transformation from a single cell into a colony of trillions of cells, and they allow you to harvest energy from the environment and transform it into yet more cells. They maintain the delicate balance in which all the components of your body function. In fact, they are that balance. They even drive your thoughts and emotions.