Research using new antennas in the Australian hinterland has reduced background noise and brought us closer to finding a 13-billion-year-old signal

Videos and images: direct link

The early Universe was dark, filled with a hot soup of opaque particles. These condensed to form neutral hydrogen which coalesced to form the first stars in what astronomers call the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR).

“Finding the weak signal of this first light will help us understand how the early stars and galaxies formed,” says Dr Christene Lynch from ASTRO 3D, the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions.

Dr Lynch is first author on a paper published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. She and her colleagues from Curtin University and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research have reduced the background noise in their observations allowing them to home in on the elusive signal.

In a quest to learn more about our own galaxy, a Sydney astronomer has identified dozens of previously unknown galaxies in a distant cluster.

Using one of the world’s largest optical telescopes, Dr Amanda Bauer—an ARC Super Science Fellow at the Australian Astronomical Observatory—and her team around the world have been studying this cluster closely. They have found that the galaxies close together in the crowded centre of the cluster mature faster than those in isolation on the cluster’s outskirts.

“We are trying to find out why galaxies stop growing and mature, because this will tell us something about the ultimate fate of our own galaxy, the Milky Way,” Amanda says.

A galaxy grows when it is forming new stars. Amanda is trying to find out what stops galaxies from doing this, therefore reaching maturity. [continue reading…]

From Marc Duldig, President of the Australian Institute of Physics Welcome to my bulletin covering physics news and events for September 2012 and beyond. In a busy September we have gravitational waves in Adelaide, ultra-cold atom optics in Victoria, a…

Welcome to my bulletin covering physics news and events for May 2012 and beyond. It’s a bumper month for nuclear physics: in Sydney, ANSTO is opening its doors for a tour of its particle accelerators and a talk by Vincent Smith from CERN. There’s also a public lecture in Tasmania April 30 by ANU physicist […]

See a $1.2 million high-containment laboratory opening tomorrow at 11 am in Sydney before they lock it up forever and start work with live TB.

The lab will speed up efforts to understand and fight back against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterium that lives inside two billion people worldwide and kills three people every minute. More below.

Also this week

• more on TB in Australia, Vietnam and China;
• the head of the global campaign to vaccinate 250 million children and save 4 million deaths (from a virus first discovered in Melbourne);
• And what does Nature think of Australian science? Are we number one in the Asia Pacific – probably not, but find out on Thursday – more below.
• L’Oreal Laureate to receive prize in Paris next week.

[continue reading…]

Welcome back – this is my first 2012 bulletin for journalists interested in science.

• Australians are risking skin cancer to avoid nanoparticles
• No word on the $2 billion Square Kilometre Array yet
• Let us know if you’re heading to Vancouver for the AAAS conference
• Tasmanian-born nuclear physicist Allan Clark is home from the Large Hadron Collider
• TB – the threat to Australia and our region –  World TB Day on 24 March
• It’s not too late to register for the 2012 Australian Science Communicators National Conference in Sydney – 27-29 February
• Saving maths

[continue reading…]

Tamara Davis, 2009 L’Oréal Australia Fellow tells of how she felt when she heard her mentors had won the Nobel Prize. Tuesday morning found me dancing in excitement when I heard the news that Brian Schmidt, Saul Perlmutter, and Adam Riess had won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the acceleration of the expansion […]

In this bulletin: Finding life in extreme physical environments: expatriate Australian Professor Jillian Banfield among the five Laureates announced for 2011 L’Oréal Australian Fellows win 2010 Eureka Prizes Recent US survey shows that gender is still a major barrier for women in science Applying for Australian Fellowships for 2011 The signature of life…international Laureates announced […]

Australian professor Jillian Banfield honoured as the 2011 Laureate for North America

November 11, 2010: Professor Ahmed Zewail, President of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards Jury, today announced the five Laureates of the 2011 program.  Each year, five outstanding women scientists – one per region – are honoured for the contributions of their research, the strength of their commitments and their impact on society.  With the Marie Curie Nobel Centenary being celebrated in 2011, this year the For Women in Science program has a particularly strong resonance, placing women and chemistry at the heart of science today.

The awards ceremony will take place on March 3, 2011 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.  Each Laureate will receive US$100,000 in recognition of her contributions to science. [continue reading…]