May 15, 1936. Born in Staten Island, New York. Coming from a broken home, Zindel never knew his father very well. "Mother was a girl in her twenties when my father left. She used to have to fight to get the allowance from him and tried to keep us togethe...

Considered a groundbreaking author of young adult literature as well as one of its most controversial contributors, Paul Zindel is well known as the creator of realistic novels that depict the teenage milieu with authenticity, humor, and panache. In addi...

Critics of adolescent literature generally cite four novels of the late 1960s as helping this subgenre break its ties with its past formulaic romanticism and move dramatically into a much more realistic mode: The Outsiders (1967) by S. E. Hinton, The Con...

Western Australia's unique Ningaloo Reef is to become the focus of a $12 million collaboration between marine experts from eight Australian research organisations. Led by Dr Neil Loneragan from Murdoch University, the four-year research collaboration will focus on the reef's biodiversity, habitats,...

The robot swims along the sandy ocean bottom, with a dozen mismatched eyes of cameras, lasers and lights searching for the fish and coral that have been disappearing from this remote spot off the Florida coast. Some days the robot finds mounds of...