Top picks from the explainer desk

As you read this, a tiny node inside your heart is telling it to beat. It fires off the impulse 100 times a minute, 100,000 times a day. Each time, your brain pulses ever so slightly in sync.

It’s not something we think about much, our heart, until things go wrong. But how this muscle works, and why it sometimes doesn’t, is one of the topics we’ve tackled recently on the explainer desk, in What’s a heart attack? And how can you tell if you’re on the edge of one?

The piece was popular with our readers, including those close to the subject. “Very good article,” commented one reader. “I’m 66 had a heart attack four months ago ...” Said another: “As a cardiologist, I’ll be telling all my patients to read it!”

The purpose of explainers is to give you context and background to make sense of the news – it can be hard to keep up with developments as they happen. We also take a broad view of what matters. In everyday life, there are questions that worm their way into the backs of our minds, sometimes about subjects that don’t get talked about much. We like to dig them out and offer you the most comprehensive, nuanced explanations of them that we can.

Here are a few of our favourite explainers so far.

Where does the Australian accent come from?

For starters, it’s more complicated than “just a version of Cockney”. Culture writer Karl Quinn takes us on a journey to show how we came to sound distinctly Australian – and how there is no one “we” but many different Australian sounds. He also looks at how we modify our accent to suit our company. Speaking of which, the piece includes audio of Kath and Kim (remember Prue and Trude?) as well as a cricket commentator in Don Bradman’s day when RP (received pronunciation, from the BBC) was all the rage in “Orstrellyu”.

We’ve also explained: Where did “mate” come from?, The origins of budgie smugglers and how the Esky became a cultural icon.

What is Putin’s endgame in Ukraine?

Explainer reporter Sherryn Groch has put many aspects of Russia under the microscope, from poisonings to oligarchs’ dachas. The invasion of Ukraine, she explains, happened slowly, slowly then suddenly, surprising even many in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. In What is Putin’s endgame in Ukraine? Groch talks with top analysts about the Russian leader’s motives and goals. One of them has met Putin – “he’d crack a joke, then he’d be angry, then conciliatory, then firm, then soft” – and says the war in Ukraine reflects the Russian leader’s hubris. “This is a man feeling supremely good about his chances.”

We’ve also explained: Why do Russians keep being poisoned? Why can’t the US fix its gun crisis?and Who runs China?

How are doctors unravelling the mysteries of long COVID?

Two-and-half years into the pandemic, scientists are piecing together an understanding of long COVID – no easy task given brain fog is just one of 200 symptoms linked to the condition. The world is now populated with people known as “long-haulers” who have an “exertion threshold” beyond which they’re engulfed by utter fatigue. What’s the outlook for them? And how might research into long COVID change our understanding of immunity?

We’ve also explained: How can we stop the next pandemic? and How does Australia’s COVID response stack up globally?

What is the point of table manners?

Whether you regard table manners as bourgeois nonsense or a critical life skill, you might get a laugh – and pause for thought – out of this explainer. Where do all the arcane rules come from? Who said it was bad manners to wipe your greasy hands on your beard? Experts point out that wherever you find humans eating together, you’ll find “manners”. (Cannibals have especially sophisticated rules.) While etiquette has evolved over many, many centuries, it turns out there are still good reasons to tuck in your elbows and not talk with your mouth full – just don’t inflict etiquette pedantry on fellow diners. Bon appetit!

We’ve also explained: What do wine-tasting notes actually mean?, How does Netflix know what we want to watch? and How do you put a price on art?

How do you cure a hangover?

It’s a big question, still. Health reporter Melissa Cunningham dives in to break down what causes both hangovers and their evil twin, hangxiety, defined as the despair and self-loathing that can arise after a night on the turps. She also reviews the possible “cures”, from multivitamin tablets (not much help) to fried canaries (no help at all).

We’ve also explained: What’s the prostate and why is it prone to problems? What’s OCD, really? and What’s a panic attack?

What happens as we die?

This is one of our most popular explainers of all time. Far from a depressing catalogue of woe, it describes a natural process and gives advice for those who might be with someone dying. Hearing, for example, is often the last sense to subside, so what you say in the presence of a dying person can provide great comfort. Our readers seemed to take comfort from this explainer, too. “Thank you,” said one reader. “It really is time we shared and understood this experience.”

We’ve also explained: How do we age? What is it like to live with dementia? and What happens to a woman’s body as she gives birth?

Can we de-extinct animals? Would we want to?

Australia is home to an enormous number of creatures that have evolved nowhere else on Earth. You’ll never stumble on a platypus (or anything even a bit like it) in a stream in Europe, for example. It’s particularly unfortunate, then, that we are a world leader in rates of extinction. Climate correspondent Mike Foley has explained why; and how our wildlife came to be so unique. And explainer reporter Sherryn Groch has looked at the sad tale of the last Tasmanian tiger, called Benjamin, as well as woolly mammoths and dinosaurs in her explainer on a potential solution for extinctions. Or is it?

We’ve also explained: What are cats and dogs thinking? , Why did Australia’s wildlife astonish even Charles Darwin? and What can we do to reduce roadkill?

Is time travel possible?

Marty McFly went Back to the Future but what do scientists think about time travel in the real world? What are the twisty rules of space and time? And could we ever visit the past? These are the questions Sherryn Groch puts to the experts. They include a US physicist whose father’s death when he was a boy inspired him to dedicate his life to understanding time travel. “I wanted to see my dad again.”

We’ve also explained: Will robots rule the world?,Will we ever find aliens?and How will gene editing change us?

How does Scott Pendlebury stop time?

Yes, another explainer about time, only from a very different perspective. This is one for sport fans of any stripe, not just AFL: what is the phenomenon by which time seems to stand still for some players on a field? Having observed some athletes outfox their opponents (a bit like a scene in The Matrix), football writer Jake Niall wades into this odd time-warp effect. It turns out it’s a mystery to Pendlebury himself. “I don’t feel like I ever have to rush,” he says. “But I put that down to doing a lot of work at training.” Others do have an inkling.

We’ve also explained: Why footy coaches can have a love-hate relationship with their job and What’s behind the new F1 changes in 2022?

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