Rhiannon Stevens

Dec 30, 2024 | abc.net.au | Rhiannon Stevens

Nothing is more enjoyable, Dr David Moon says, than being swept up in the theatrics of a professional wrestling match. But in the interest of self-preservation, Moon shed his teenage love of professional wrestling when he went to study politics. "There are very few things in life which people look upon as worse than being an admitted fan of professional wrestling," the associate professor of politics at UK's Bath University says.

Dec 25, 2024 | abc.net.au | Rhiannon Stevens

When Russia's invasion of Ukraine stymied his travel plans, Belgian photographer Carl De Keyzer decided to take a virtual trip to Russia instead. From his home, the lauded documentary photographer began to work on a collection of images about Russia with the help of generative artificial intelligence (AI). He was unprepared for the consequences. In the late 1980s, De Keyzer travelled to Russia 12 times in the space of a year.

Nov 29, 2024 | abc.net.au | Rhiannon Stevens

Ian Braybrook was eight years old and bedridden when he heard his father dying in the next room. Sick with rheumatic fever, Ian and his brother were under doctor's orders to stay in bed. It was the mid-1940s, and the family was living in poverty on the edge of a damp forest in central Victoria. The day his dad's weak heart stopped working has distilled into a single image in Ian's memory: a doctor, with tears in her eyes, pronouncing his father dead.

Nov 1, 2024 | abc.net.au | Rhiannon Stevens

Some of Victoria's most spectacular grasslands exist on nondescript roadsides in the heart of the state's western sheep country. Known as the Volcanic Plains grasslands, this endangered ecosystem once stretched from Melbourne to South Australia. Senior biodiversity officer at the Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority (CMA), Ben Zeeman, says less than one per cent of these native grasslands remain today, clinging to the country roadsides and small patches of private farmland.

Oct 14, 2024 | abc.net.au | Rhiannon Stevens

Conservationists are celebrating the appearance of a critically endangered plant that has emerged from the ashes of recent bushfires in Victoria's west. However, they say a national park, which the government promised to create three years ago, is needed to protect the plant and other endangered species.