ABC Radio National

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  Why this student covered her graduation gown with a possum-skin cloak

  It took her four months of sewing until her fingers tingled, but Theresa Ardler's graduation cloak tells a story that dates back many generations.

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  As long as there's been vaccination, there's been resistance

  The anti-vaccination movement has been around since Edward Jenner scraped pus from the skin of sick cows. Here's what's driven the sentiment over the last two centuries.

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  Elton John biopic charts decades of drugs, inner demons, dysfunctional relationships

  Rocketman, already generating Oscar buzz, is admirably unafraid to engage with the star's homosexuality and grapple with the toughest chapters of his life.

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  The 'totally whacked out' theme park bankrolled by George RR Martin

  At the House of Eternal Return, secret passageways and hidden portals offer something its creators say fills a human need.

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  Mystery surrounding cliffside deaths 170 years ago still haunts small town

  A series of killings that happened 170 years ago have created deep rifts in South Australia’s Waterloo Bay — and a new cliffside monument is at the centre of the debate.

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  Mum had her voices. I had my tapes

  My mum had paranoid schizophrenia, but we never called it that. We didn't even call it mental illness — she was just 'sick'. I was an isolated kid with no way to cope — until my cassette player opened a magical window to a better place.

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  Why humanity is destined to be irrational

  If democracy in Australia, Europe and America seems a little unhinged at the moment, could it be because irrationality is coded into the DNA of Western civilisation? Quite possibly, according to one philosopher — and technology alone won't save us.

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