The December 2025 issue of the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW was published online on 19 December 2025 and is packed with interesting reading for the holiday season.

Many people are unaware that the ubiquitous Wi-Fi we all use to connect phones and computers was invented in Sydney by a group of CSIRO scientists.  The December issue of the Journal contains an article describing its invention 30 years ago and the subsequent battles to obtain acknowledgement and royalties from the US computer companies. Wi-Fi eventually earned us $500 million.

The issue also has:

• a paper on the mistakes the Federal government made in obtaining COVID vaccines during the pandemic;
• a paper by the past president on her field, biotechnology; a paper on the laws governing Antarctica;
• a piece on Mozart’s second piano sonata;
• a description of a 2019 science tour to Europe; an article on society and information; and
• 13 abstracts from outstanding PhD theses.

The Journal is now online, the complete version of which is downloadable from this link, and the print version will be mailed out soon.

Robert Marks
Editor, Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW

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