Science and Technology

Although the World Wide Web was begun in 1990, it didn’t really get going in a big way until 1994, with the First International World Wide Web conference held at CERN in Switzerland. That was less than a decade ago. And that should give us pause. Think how important the Web has become in those few years. Consider, too, what sort of computer you were using in 1994 and compare it to what you deploy now (assuming you’re not a holdout). No pause there. It’s been an ongoing vertical projection that is no doubt just the beginning of an enormous change that will affect almost every aspect of our lives. Of course, we’ve heard this technological refrain over and over (with various apocalyptic shadings), and we probably believe it to be true. Still, we’re not likely to get excited about it. We’ll deal with it when it comes. In many instances, it’s already here, but we haven’t fully noticed. In part we’ve simply accustomed ourselves to some of the demands of a ubiquitous silicon-based technology, and in part we’ve remained unaware of what’s headed our way in the form of a techno-savvy younger generation. We seldom see into the future because we usually look in the wrong direction: the future’s not ahead, it’s behind us, and it’s coming up fast.

McKenzie Wark had the good fortune to ensconce himself in media studies just when those who once would have busied themselves with Stendhal or John Tranter began to envy his terrain. And his various journalistic gigs, notably his column for The Australian Higher Education Supplement, give him the advantage over other academics of being able to cobble together a book every year or two. Or, as he puts it, ‘Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace is a book that was written in its own peculiar way, as a series of experiments with fitting events and ideas together, conducted in public, through a wide variety of print and electronic media.’

The Monash University team at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne has achieved great success in its endeavours to relieve infertility by the production of ‘test-tube babies’. This collection explains what goes on, discusses moral and legal problems relating to the programme, and gives a preview of what might lie ahead. The contributors include members of the medical team, their clients, and moral philosophers and theologians.

Eucalypts for Wood Production is a highly professional reference work produced by a team of Australian forest scientists most of whom work in state, government forestry services, CSIRO or the Department of Forestry at ANU. It consists of a series of reviews of scientific literature bringing together all that is presently known of the growth habits of eucalypts from the point of view of their management as hardwood crop plants. The editors’ purpose is to draw attention to the potential of eucalypts and thereby to point the way to a national strategy for hardwood production. For those in the industry, its appearance is timely. Both softwood and woodchip production are under attack on several fronts, perhaps the most important of which concern the chemical and physical deterioration of soils associated with the harvesting of tree crops. Improvements in techniques for the profitable management of native hardwood forests may overcome some of these problems, and perhaps alleviate some of the pressure for increasing the acreage (hectareage?) of cleared land at the expense of our prime native forests.