Student Toolbox

Jacinda Ardern/Facebook Suze Wilson, Massey University Imagine, if you can, what it’s like to make decisions on which the lives of tens of thousands of other people depend. If you get things wrong, or delay deciding, they die. Your decisions affect the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of p...

Humans are innately social creatures. But as we stay home to limit the spread of COVID-19, video calls only go so far to satisfy our need for connection. The good news is the relationships we have with fictional characters from books, TV shows, movies, and video games – called parasocial relation...

Geetanjali Saluja, University of Technology Sydney Governments everywhere face the challenge of getting people to stay home so they can limit the spread of coronavirus. In order to make their messages more effective, governments must ensure these appeals resonate with the cultural values of their a...

Sanjaya Senanayake, Australian National University You’re probably inundated with news and messages about coronavirus at the moment. But how do you know if you’re consuming evidence-based information or just speculation and myth? There’s still a lot we don’t know but here’s what the evid...

Mohiuddin Ahmed, Edith Cowan University and Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University Social gatherings with friends and family are an essential part of being human. So it’s no surprise, with real-life gatherings limited to just two people, that people are flocking to apps that can keep us con...

Luke Zaphir, The University of Queensland With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a great deal of anxiety, we might come to think people are irrational, selfish or downright crazy. We see people showing up to public venues en masse or clearing supermarket shelves of toilet paper. Experts are often igno...

Louise Stone, Australian National University and Katrina McLean, Bond University One of our patients was recently talking about her anxiety around the coronavirus epidemic. This woman’s stress was understandable. She had survived a serious infection with swine flu, but only with a prolonged stay ...

Wikimedia/Pierart dou Tielt David Griffin, Monash University and Justin Denholm, Melbourne Health The course of human history has been shaped by infectious diseases, and the current crisis certainly won’t be the last time. However, we can capitalise on the knowledge gained from past experience...

Holly Kirk, RMIT University; Brendan Wintle, University of Melbourne; Casey Visintin, University of Melbourne; Freya Thomas, RMIT University; Georgia Garrard, RMIT University; Kirsten Parris, University of Melbourne; Kylie Soanes, University of Melbourne; Pia Lentini, University of Melbourne, and Sa...

Screenshot/peteevans.com Kelly Choong, University of the Sunshine Coast Pete Evans came under fire again last week for fobbing off a A$15,000 machine touted to treat multiple ailments, including coronavirus. The BioCharger NG, according to Evans’s website, is a “hybrid subtle energy revitalis...