Each year the holidays bring with them an increase in both the consumption of alcohol and concern about drinking’s harmful effects.

Alcohol abuse is no laughing matter, but is it sinful to drink and make merry, moderately and responsibly, during a holy season or at any other time?

Blockchain is an emergent technology that may be as transformative as the internet, according to many predictions. But this innovative new technology has a surprising link to the days of medieval treasuries.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger that uses cryptography — mathematical code — to chain together records of transactions in a tamper-resistant and transparent manner. It is being used as an alternative or replacement for national currencies, contracts, internet device authentication and more.

Allegations about sexual harassment in Hollywood, British politics and various other sectors have exposed a reality already familiar to most women.

Harassment, interruption, and intrusion from men is commonly disregarded as an inevitable part of life, unpleasant but expected. It is rarely acknowledged for what it is: a key factor structuring women’s lives.

Thor: Ragnarok is the latest Marvel movie (out in Australia today) that sees Australian Chris Hemsworth back as Thor, but he’s not on friendly home turf.

Instead he finds himself imprisoned on the opposite side of the universe from his beloved Asgard, and out of his depth in a gladiatorial contest with the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

But Hulk isn’t his only problem. Ragnarok (the end of his homeland of Asgard) is looming and Thor has new villains to deal with, including the warlike Hela, played by Australian Cate Blanchett.

A pervasive myth in Australia is that hot weather is the greatest danger to our health. In reality, it’s more likely cold weather will kill you.

For all our concern about the dangers of heatwaves, simple analysis of mortality data suggests the cold months present a much greater health risk. Almost 7% of deaths in Australia from 1988 to 2009 were attributable to cold weather. Less than 1% of deaths were attributable to heat.

The heads of more than 100 of the world’s top artificial intelligence companies are very alarmed about the development of “killer robots”. In an open letter to the UN, these business leaders – including Tesla’s Elon Musk and the founders of Google’s DeepMind AI firm – warned that autonomous weapon technology could be misused by terrorists and despots or hacked to perform in undesirable ways.