M FIELD

Man finds long-lost brother by chance

David walks into a Noosa café and sits near a man who irritates him for hogging all the newspapers. Eventually the two begin talking and realise they are brothers. Both called David.

CASHLESSNESS

Government floats $100 note removal

Australia looks set to follow in the footsteps of Venezuela and India by abolishing the country’s highest-denomination banknote in a bid to crack down on the “black economy”.

Speaking to ABC radio on Wednesday, Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer flagged a review of the $100 note and cash payments over certain limits as the government looks to recoup billions in unpaid tax.

Monday’s midyear budget update will include the appointment of former KPMG global chairman Michael Andrew to oversee a black economy taskforce. The black economy accounts for 1.5 per cent of GDP, given many cash payments are untaxed.

COSMOLOGY

New model points to an oscillating universe

Before the Big Bang there was another universe and a new one will emerge after ours collapses

In a new model of cosmology, the universe we see is just one in a cycle of many universes. Each of these universes has its own phases of expansion, contraction and a Big Bang.
Researcher Mir Faizal said, "Our spacetime is only an approximation to some purely mathematical theory describing reality, and the geometry of spacetime emerges from this theory.
"The fact that the geometry of spacetime is bounded by a minimum length and a maximum energy can be used to study quantum gravitational effects on cosmology, and doing this we have been able to study the pre-Big Bang cosmology".
The team took two inputs – that spacetime breaks down at a minimum length and that it is not possible for any object in this spacetime to have an energy beyond a certain maximum energy – and applied it to the thermodynamical description of general theory of relativity. What they ended up with was four distinct phases of the universe, supporting the idea of a cyclical universe.

CASHLESSNESS

Cashless society will come at a devastating cost

Within a generation, notes and coins will almost certainly be redundant — not just in practice but made so by law.
Shops and other businesses will be banned from accepting them. Banks will no longer distribute them.
Physical currency will be consigned to history, gathering dust on the shelves of collectors’ shops and in the recesses of our couches.

And the consequences will at once be brilliant and grave.

CASHLESSNESS

SA town of Burra runs out of cash


Residents and visitors to a town in South Australia's mid north have been left without any access to cash over the weekend, which is starting to affect tourism and business, locals say.