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Casting aspersions: Modern medical technology meets classical archaeology Some three decades ago, Australian archaeologist Dr Estelle Lazer gained international attention by taking a rigorous, scientific approach to the human remains at Pompeii. More than any other aspect of the site, the skeletons of victims of the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius have piqued our interest. ...

Do you remember that ad that Victorian Tourism used to run before every film at independent cinemas? “You’ll love every piece of Victoria” was a marketing campaign that spoke to something observable about Victoria. It is a relatively small state, with diverse landscapes packed in between relatively short driving distances, with excellent museums and galleries ...

Truly, you have to see modern China to believe it. The scale of the change across this large nation literally takes your breath away. A few years ago I caught the high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing. As I sat there in whisper quiet comfort, I mused on the never-ending debate on high speed rail in Australia and all the arguments about the economies of scale. As I thought, we passed the maintenance area for the high speed trains outside Shanghai. Now, you can expect a place to have one or two trains, or even a handful to handle the needs of timetabling, but in this yard there must have been fifty sleek, high-speed trains with all their carriages waiting for their orders. This wonderment at the scale of China is the same everywhere: everything you’ve ever imagined, but more. While still thinking about trains, you can catch a high speed train from Beijing to Urumqi in western Xinjiang province. It covers a distance of some 3,000 km and takes around 30 hours (you can book a ‘standing’ ticket should you wish!). This is impressive enough, but for most of this route the train is on an elevated viaduct supported by massive concrete pillars. It is awe-inspiring to see this structure snake its way across the lower Gobi Desert with modernity elevated above the denizens of the desert scratching out a living below. Whether it is wind farms that stretch for so long that you get bored looking at the turbines as you whizz past in a bus at 100 km/hr, or freeways that plunge into great tunnels in mountainsides, or bright, shiny new cities where before there was nothing; the immensity of China is staggering; particularly for we low-density Australians....

With the simultaneous opening of the exhibition Edward Burne-Jones. ...

In 2009 the El Prado museum in Madrid broke a 10-year record in attendance, ...