Australian scientists at Queensland University of Technology have developed a material that can be turned from solid to liquid using just light and darkness, in a world-first breakthrough. 

The type of material, which is solid when green light is shone on it but slowly becomes liquid when left in darkness, has been categorised by researchers as Light-Stabilised Dynamic Material, or LSDM. 

The NRL has appointed Belinda Sharpe as the first woman to referee a top-grade men’s rugby league match in Thursday’s fixture between the Broncos and the Bulldogs at Lang Park. 

Sharpe, who has been an NRL touch judge since 2014, said she hoped her appointment would pave the way for more women to take up refereeing

NRL Head of Football Graham Annesley has praised the increasing profile of women’s rugby league in Australia, including the launch of the NRLW and the women’s State of Origin.

A list of South Australian buildings which may contain highly-flammable cladding will remain secret after the State Government refused a Freedom of Information request from the ABC.

The Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure has refused to provide the list of buildings identified through a statewide audit, citing among its concerns the impact on the department's "business affairs".

Influenza has claimed four more lives in the past week in Western Australia with the state’s influenza related deaths increasing 940% to 52 lives.

While it is shaping up to be WA’s most deadly flu season in a decade, the Health Department warns against comparing cases from year to year with this year’s season starting two months earlier, making the comparison of severity difficult. 

A young woman in El Salvador who gave birth to a baby in a toilet is facing a second trial for murder after the country’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial. .

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez says she didn’t know she was pregnant, as a result of rape, however prosecutors accused her of murder after forensic investigators were unable to determine the cause of the baby’s death.

Australia could soon have a new country as a neighbour when Papua New Guinea’s autonomous region of Bougainville votes in an independence referendum in October.

The referendum comes nearly thirty years after the beginning of a civil war on the island, which claimed thousands of lives and forced many to flee overseas. 

Voters in the referendum will be asked if they want greater autonomy from PNG, or full independence for the region of just over 300 thousand people.

Youth justice advocates have claimed children are being kept in ‘glass cages’ and only allowed 15 minutes of exercise a day in Queensland watchouses. 

In response to allegations of mistreatment of youth offenders, the Palaszczuk government has created a standalone Department of Youth Justice, which vows a new 32-bed youth detention centre.

Queensland’s Public Guardian Natalie Siegel-Brown and the Australian Lawyers Alliance have also argued the minimum age of detention be raised from 10 to 14.

Drivers of electric cars in Queensland will pay 45 cents per kilowatt hour to charge their vehicles starting this month, about half the cost of fuelling up with petrol.

Until now, the state government’s network of 31 electric car charging stations, located along the coast between Cairns and Coolangatta and inland to Toowoomba, has been free.