In his Australia Day address, noted brain surgeon Charlie Teo said he was ashamed to admit to an American friend, who had received a US$50 million grant in the US to study brain cancer, that he works with just AU$150,000 over three years from the Australian government.
Teo says we need another AIS – one for sport, one for science.
Sydney researchers have investigated the rules underlying how big groups of animals move in a coordinated fashion. They found that each fish in a shoal uses very simple rules to respond to its neighbours.
Mr James Herbert-Read, Dr Tim Schaerf and A/Prof Ashley Ward, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=8145
In the largest study of its kind an international group of scientists, including Australians, have unravelled the factors that caused the extinction of iconic Ice Age mammals such as the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth.
The study shows that both climate change and humans were responsible for the mass extinctions of the megafauna 50,000 years ago.
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=8109
Dr Simon Ho, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney
Nature
One of the laws of nature may vary across the Universe. The study found that one of the four known fundamental forces, electromagnetism – measured by the so-called fine-structure constant and denoted by the symbol ‘alpha’ – seems to vary across the Universe.
Prof John Webb, Prof Victor Flambaum, Swinburne University of Technology and colleagues at UNSW, University of Cambridge
Physical Review Letters
Research scientists at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens have been able to show there’s hope for the survival of rare plants despite climate change.
A year-long study of a rare plant in the Northern Territory, a new species of Erythroxylum, has shown plants can adapt and survive despite having been restricted to very small populations by long-term climatic change.
By extracting DNA from plants cells, they can test the health and viability of the population.
Dr Maurizio Rossetto, Botanic Gardens Trust
Scientists have found new clues in the search for a vaccine against glandular fever.
For the unfortunate few born with the rare immunodeficiency known as X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP), infection with the saliva-borne Epstein Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, can be fatal.
Australian immunologists have now discovered why, and while their finding does not point to an immediate cure for XLP, it does give insight to enhance normal immunity to EBV in the future – with vaccines or prophylactic medicines.
Dr Umaimainthan Palendira and A/Prof Stuart Tangye, Garvan Institute of Medical Research
The popular notion of how muscles function has been turned on its head with the publication of new and revealing ultrasound images. Scientists long believed that muscle fibres lie in straight lines. These new images, however, reveal that muscle fibres in fact buckle when they are shortened and at rest.
http://www.neura.edu.au/news-events/news/researchers-gain-new-insight-how-muscles-work
Prof Simon Gandevia, Neuroscience Research Australia
A international team of biologists including an Australian has reorganised the molluscs by showing that monoplacophorans—shelled limpet-like creatures in very deep water known as living fossils—are closely related to octopus.
Dr Nerida Wilson, Australian Museum.
Nature
Australian scientists have played a key role in the identification of a new biochemical mechanism that allows brain tumours to survive and grow, offering hope of new drug treatments for some of the most aggressive tumours.
A/Prof Gilles Guillemin, UNSW
Nature, http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2011/oct/Brain.html
One of Sydney’s major urban waterways – the Cooks River – is at times an “open sewer” carrying effluent containing pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, researchers have found, sparking calls for urgent action to clean it up.
Dr Stuart Khan, Water Research Centre (WRC), UNSW
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2011/oct/Cooks.html
Groups of male dolphins who put aside their sexual competitiveness and form alliances with each other to seek out and reproduce with females have better reproductive success than males who go it alone.
Jo Wiszniewski, Macquarie University
Journal of Animal Ecology, http://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/control.php?page=story&item=4718&category=science+%26amp%3B+nature
The crown of the famous 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx fossil as the first bird has been restored by a new evolutionary tree. Australian researchers say the feathered fossil is indeed of the first known bird, despite another study earlier this year suggesting otherwise.
Dr Michael Lee, South Australian Museum and Dr Trevor Worthy, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW
Biology Letters, http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/archaeopteryx-was-first-bird-after-all/
Users of heroin and other addictive opioids may be spared from distressing withdrawal symptoms in the future. In an article just published in Nature Neuroscience the researchers describe for the first time a protein in nerve cells that drives the withdrawal response.
Prof MacDonald Christie, Pharmacology, University of Sydney, and Brain and Mind Research Institute
Nature Neuroscience, http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20113110-22781.html
Komodo Dragon’s not so fierce bite Australian and international researchers report on how the Komodo Dragon is able to kill its prey when its bite is weaker than that of a house cat.
Stephen Wroe, UNSW; Colin McHenry, Monash
PLoS One, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0026226
The first close-up images of a young forming planet may shed light on the ways in which planets and solar systems begin.
Dr. Michael Ireland, Macquarie University
Astrophysical Journal, http://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/control.php?page=story&item=4712&category=other
The first thoroughgoing conservation study of the charismatic red panda in Bhutan indicates that the conservation of this threatened mammal and the well-being of the Himalayan Kingdom’s human population are inter-dependent.
Sangay Dorji, University of New England
PLoS ONE, http://blog.une.edu.au/news/2011/10/21/study-highlights-red-pandas-role-in-gross-national-happiness
The widely held belief today’s cycads are ‘dinosaur plants’ and were around during dinosaur times has been categorically debunked in a breakthrough study of international significance.
Dr Nathalie Nagalingum, Research Scientist at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden
Science, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/10/21/3344101.htm
Including enough protein in our diets, rather than simply cutting calories, is the key to curbing appetites and preventing excessive consumption of fats and carbohydrates, a new study from the University of Sydney has found.
Dr Alison Gosby, Professor Steve Simpson, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney
PLoS ONE, http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=7975
An innovation that increases the accuracy of satellite navigation, including in global positioning system devices and smartphones, has delivered a major international award to a University of New South Wales researcher.
Dr Nagaraj Shivaramaiah, Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research and UNSW
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2011/oct/GPS.html
