A recent Sydney study looking at the mating behaviour of the Australian plague locust has found that reproducing has a particularly high cost. The rate at which locusts are targeted by a predatory species—the black digger wasp—increases significantly during sex.
“The startling aspect of these data is that copulation magnified the risk of wasp-mediated death by up to 10 per cent and this happened at a time of maximum reproductive potential for the locusts.”
The digger wasp is a parasite that stings and paralyses its prey before dragging it off to a burrow to be buried and eaten alive. It excavates living larders for its larvae, stocking them with the bodies of paralysed insect prey.
Darrell Kemp, Macquarie University
http://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/control.php?page=story&item=4787&category=research
While contact with dolphins is often a unique and incredible experience for us, it is important to realise that ‘watching’ activity can have an adverse effect on the dolphins themselves.
Research shows that in cases where human–wildlife interactions turn into large-scale tourism industries, these activities can negatively impact wildlife – for example – by disrupting resting or feeding. Wildlife tourism therefore needs regulations aiming to ensure both a healthy wild population of animals and satisfactory wildlife encounters for humans.
Andre Steckenreuter, Graduate School of Environment, Macquarie University
Journal of Environmental Management;
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20120801-22978-2.html
Satellites showing that nature is responsible for 90 per cent of the Earth’s atmospheric acidity shocked researchers from the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, whose findings have just been published in the journal.
Stunned, the scientists approached an Australian team to confirm what satellite readings were telling them. By providing data from a ground-based solar Fourier transform spectrometer instrument at the University of Wollongong, the researchers used 15 years worth of information to verify the satellite’s story: all existing global models had substantially misjudged the main source of formic acid levels on earth – its forests.
Dr Clare Murphy, Centre of Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Wollongong
Nature Geoscience; http://media.uow.edu.au/news/UOW117161.html
Australia and New Zealand have the highest rates of cannabis and amphetamine use in the world, according to comprehensive research on illicit drug use. Up to 15 per cent of 15 to 64 year olds in the two countries use cannabis, while 2.8 per cent of the same age group use drugs such as speed and crystal meth. The latter figure does not include use of ecstasy. The data is included in a series of papers examining global drug use and law enforcement.
Prof Louisa Degenhardt, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre(NDARC), UNSW
The Lancet; http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/highest-rates-cannabis-use
Sydney researcher have developed the narrowest conducting wires in silicon ever made – just four atoms wide and one atom tall – and shown them to have the same electrical current carrying capability of copper. Despite their astonishingly tiny diameter – 10,000 times thinner than a human hair – these wires have exceptionally good electrical properties, raising hopes they will serve to connect atomic-scale components in the quantum computers of tomorrow.
The wires were made by precisely placing chains of phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal, according to the study, which includes researchers from the University of Melbourne and Purdue University in the US.
Bent Weber, Prof Michelle Simmons; ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, University of New South Wales.
Science; http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/wires-shrink-atomic-scale
A vaccine that slows the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia has been developed by Sydney researchers. The vaccine, which targets a protein known as tau, prevents the ongoing formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the brain of a mouse with Alzheimer’s disease.
This progressive neurodegenerative disease affects more than 35 million people worldwide. The tau protein is also involved in front temporal dementia, the second most common form of dementia in people younger than 65 years.
A/Prof Lars Ittner, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney
PLoS ONE
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=1&newsstoryid=8384
A huge, shrimp-like marine creature that pursued its prey through the warm waters of the Earth’s Cambrian Period 515 million years ago had more acute vision than most of its diminutive modern-day relatives. An international team of palaeontologists discovered its fossilised eyes while excavating in the Emu Bay Shale on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
“Anomalocaris is the stuff of nightmares and science fiction films. It is considered to have been at the top of the earliest food chains because of its metre-long body, the formidable grasping claws at the front of its head, and its circular mouth with teeth-like serrations. And this new discovery confirms that it had superb vision to support its predatory lifestyle.”
Dr John Paterson, University of New England
Nature
http://blog.une.edu.au/news/2011/12/08/fossil-find-shows-ancient-super-predator-had-high-powered-vision/
Interactions with bacteria during water treatment could transform traces of pharmaceutical compounds commonly present in wastewater from non-toxic to toxic forms, a new study suggests.
Some drugs can occur in two forms, known as enantiomers. UNSW researchers monitored three common pharmaceuticals during wastewater treatment. These included the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen, which is manufactured and dispensed as a single enantiomer, known as S-naproxen.
Its counterpart, R-naproxen, is known to be highly toxic to the liver and is not publicly available. Through the treatment process, researchers observed that some of the safe version of naproxen had been converted to the unsafe form, which could have negative environmental implications.
It is the first time that enantiomeric inversion during the wastewater treatment process has been reported.
Dr Stuart Khan, Water Research Centre, UNSW
Water Research
http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/bacteria-convert-wastewater-chemicals-toxic-form
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels plunged by 40 per cent before and during the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet 34 million years ago, according to a new study. The finding helps solve a long-standing scientific puzzle and confirms the power of C02 to dramatically alter global climate.
The study by an international team is the first multidisciplinary research of its kind to show that C02 was tracking global cooling at that time. It confirms that significant falls in the greenhouse gas result in global cooling, just as rises result in global warming.
Dr Willem Sijp, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW
Science
http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/plunge-co2-put-freeze-antarctica
A bacterium whose name was inspired by the Star Wars films has provided new clues into the evolution of our own cells and how they came to possess the vital energy-producing units called mitochondria. The Sydney research investigated the bacterium Midichloria mitochondrii – named after helpful Star Wars microbes, called Midi-chlorians, that live inside cells and grant the mystical power known as The Force.
It has revealed that mitochondria may have entered our cells though a parasitic bacterium that used a tail to swim and could survive with almost no oxygen. “Our results challenge the paradigm – shown in every biology textbook – that mitochondria were passive bacteria gobbled up by a primordial cell.”
Dr Nathan Lo, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney
Molecular Biology and Evolution
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html
Researchers in Sydney have eavesdropped on clutches of Australian freshwater turtle eggs to find that they ‘communicate’ with each other to synchronise their development. Under carefully controlled conditions in the lab, the team examined the development of clutches of Emydura macquarii (E. macquarii) – a native freshwater turtle found in the Murray River in South East Australia.
Dr Ricky Spencer, School of Natural Sciences, University of Western Sydney
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
http://pubapps.uws.edu.au/news/index.php?act=view&story_id=3109
An international team of scientists, including an Australian researcher, has been investigating remains that challenge long-held assumptions about the timing and route of early human expansion out of Africa. The “trail of stone breadcrumbs” was left by early humans in Oman migrating across the Red Sea on their journey out of Africa.
Prof Richard Roberts, Centre for Archaeological Science, University of Wollongong
PLoS ONE
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028239
Sydney researchers have discovered a new pool of stem cells in both developing and adult hearts that may lead to enhanced heart repair for people who have suffered heart attack or heart failure.
Researchers from many Australian universities and institutes
Cell Stem Cell
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1934590911004826
New Australian studies on how phantom limbs form show there is no default position that the phantom moves into after it forms. “Our research suggests that the state of nerves in the limb at the time the phantom is forming is very important in determining how the phantom develops,” say the researchers.
Because distortions of body image, such as phantom limbs, are difficult to treat, a better understanding of the mechanisms behind their formation will help developing more effective treatments.
Prof Simon Gandevia, Dr Lee Walsh, Neuroscience Research Australia, UNSW
The Journal of Physiology
http://www.neura.edu.au/news-events/news/new-research-reveals-how-phantom-limbs-form
Sydney researchers report that tool use among fish is more common than previously thought. Tool use is inherently difficult underwater especially for animals that lack hands but the researchers say that fish have found many ingenious solutions to allow them to overcome this. Many species of wrasse, for example, use anvils to smash open shell fish and other difficult to handle prey.
Dr Culum Brown, Macquarie University
Fish and Fisheries
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20113011-22901.html
Scientists have unexpectedly found traces of the supercontinent Gondwana in the Indian Ocean – in the process solving a mystery behind a large group of ocean ‘mountains’ known as seamounts, including Christmas Island.
The German-Australian team of marine geologists set out on the German research vessel Sonne to map and sample about 60 seamounts – ranging in height from one to three kilometres – in one the world’s largest volcanic seamount provinces off the north west Australian coast.
Prof Dietmar Müller, Ms Ana Gibbons, University of Sydney
Nature Geoscience
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=8311
