Australia’s first national research and translation strategy for a mental health disorder

Online launch 10:15 am AEST, Tuesday 21 September 2021: media welcome, https://www.streamgate.co/insideout-institute/

At least a million Australians affected by eating disorders, but only about 200,000 receive evidence-based treatment

• Leading psychiatric cause of death
• Anorexia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Bulimia Nervosa and other eating disorders are having a profound impact on individuals, families and communities
• National research strategy launched today says we can improve early identification and treatments and even prevent eating disorders
• The strategy outlines the ten questions that need answers for us to improve the quality of life for all affected Australians and their families.

Speaking at the launch: Jana Pittman, Sarah Maguire, Minister for Mental Health David Coleman, and people who have experienced eating disorders

• Contact details
• Images
• Resources for the media
• Safe reporting guidelines and further support
• Media release below
• Minister’s media release (pdf)

At least a million Australians right now are living with an eating disorder. But there may be many more, because the early signs often aren’t recognised, there is significant stigma and stereotyping associated with eating disorders, and there is insufficient research into the best ways to prevent, detect and treat these disabling and sometimes deadly mental health disorders.

That’s why patient advocates, people with eating disorders, clinicians and researchers came together to develop the National Eating Disorder Research Strategy. “We worked with over 480 people around Australia to develop the strategy and to define the Top 10 most urgent research priorities, that can make a real difference over the next decade,” says Dr Sarah Maguire, Director of the InsideOut Institute at the University of Sydney.

ARTG listing for revolutionary lightweight x-ray machine

• Globally unique new x-ray technology invented and made in Adelaide
• Rover is a mobile digital x-ray imaging unit that’s lighter, cheaper, more robust, and more reliable than the competition
• Micro-X has miniaturized X-ray tubes using carbon nanotube emitter technology that are one tenth of the weight of conventional glass tubes
• Over 250 units operating in 30 countries around the world, first batch of Rover orders for Australia to be shipped.

• Contact details
• Images
• Supporting information
• Media release below

An ultra-lightweight, highly mobile medical imaging device, the Micro-X Rover, that delivers easier and simpler x-ray imaging for patients and faster workflow for radiographers, has been given the green light by health authorities for sale in Australia.

The inclusion of Rover on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) means better imaging solutions for Australians and opens a path to new manufacturing jobs in Adelaide.

“It’s fantastic now that we can really attack our own domestic market here in Australia with our own, highly price competitive, Australian made, proprietary product,” said Peter Rowland, managing director of Adelaide-based firm Micro-X, which invented the technology and developed this game-changing product.

Offering the potential to:

• Drive an electric vehicle from Melbourne to Sydney on a single charge
• Create lightweight batteries for drones and submarines
• Unlock new avenues in aviation and maritime industries
• Produce batteries in Australia with Australian lithium, without using cobalt and rare earth minerals.

• Contact details
• Images
• Supporting information
• Media release below

Simply by adding sugar, researchers from the Monash Energy Institute have created a longer-lasting, lighter, more sustainable rival to the lithium-ion batteries that are essential for aviation, electric vehicles and submarines.

The Monash team, assisted by CSIRO, report in today’s edition of Nature Communications that using a glucose-based additive on the positive electrode they have managed to stabilise lithium-sulfur battery technology, long touted as the basis for the next generation of batteries.

“In less than a decade, this technology could lead to vehicles including electric buses and trucks that can travel from Melbourne to Sydney without recharging. It could also enable innovation in delivery and agricultural drones where light weight is paramount,” says lead author Professor Mainak Majumder, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Associate Director of the Monash Energy Institute.

In theory, lithium-sulfur batteries could store two to five times more energy than lithium-ion batteries of the same weight. The problem has been that, in use the electrodes deteriorated rapidly, and the batteries broke down. There were two reasons for this – the positive sulfur electrode suffered from substantial expansion and contraction weakening it and making it inaccessible to lithium, and the negative lithium electrode became contaminated by sulfur compounds.

Corrected 31 August: ‘500 light years’ updated to ‘500 million light years’

Research reveals how star-making pollutes the cosmos

Animation available, astronomers available in Australia and UK for interview

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• Video
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• Paper details, authors and affiliations
• Media release below

Galaxies pollute the environment they exist in, researchers have found.

A team of astronomers led by Alex Cameron and Deanne Fisher from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) used a new imaging system on at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm that what flows into a galaxy is a lot cleaner than what flows out.

The research is published today in The Astrophysical Journal.

Seeing sound

The beauty of salt

Explosive patterns from linseed oil and ink

Electricity moving slowly through wood

Extreme cinematography captures everyday phenomena

• About the films
• About the director Josef Gatti
• More information
• Media release below

Photos and stunning video clips for print and online features for Science Week

Each reveal the fundamentals of science: energy, waves, light, and the beauty in the natural world in Josef Gatti’s photographs and short films.  Please watch these two short clips and consider how you could use them in an online feature: https://bit.ly/2VTGGet; https://bit.ly/37OiiO1

Plankton? Pollen? Sound?	Cells or sound?	Ancient tiles? Bouncing salt?	An alien planet? Or a bubble

The clips and stills are from Phenomena, an ABC series of nine award winning episodes made by Josef Gatti and published through the ABC’s YouTube channel and Facebook and as a half-hour short film on ABC iView. Each film focuses on a force of nature.  

This year’s festival runs 14 to 22 August, with thousands of events around Australia.

National Science Week 2021 runs from 14 to 24 August. Explore the big topics, brilliant minds, and unexpected ideas from the world of science.

The struggle for women physicists takes many forms, but certain elements are universal, as these examples from Pakistan, India and South Africa show.

Dr Anisa Qamar: “I was the only woman in the physics faculty.”

Professor Mmantsae Moche Diale: “In big conferences, there are very few black women.”

Professor Prajval Shastri: “Such bad mentoring has no consequences.”

Astronomical Society of Australia honours stargazers at annual conference

Six Australian astronomers will be recognised by the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), the country’s professional body for the field.

‘Magneto-rotational hypernova’ soon after the Big Bang fuelled high levels of uranium, zinc in ancient stellar oddity

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• Paper details, authors and affiliations
• Media release below

A massive explosion from a previously unknown source – 10 times more energetic than a supernova – could be the answer to a 13-billion-year-old Milky Way mystery.