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Science In Public

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Can mining walk and talk at the same time?

The future for our planet depends on it

Media welcome at 26th World Mining Congress in Brisbane starting Monday 26 June.

Humanity needs vast quantities of lithium, cobalt, copper, sand and many other minerals for a sustainable net-zero world.

Mining companies need to decarbonise their operations at the same time.

More intense climate events will disrupt mines and vital transport routes.

And civil society is cautious about the mining industry.

We’ll find out how mining is transforming to meet these challenges at the World Mining Congress starting on Monday in Brisbane, with over 3,000 of the world’s mining leaders, technologists, and researchers from 70 countries.

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Heat spots reveal growth rate of a galaxy 12 billion years ago

Precise mapping of temperature variation gives clue to its evolution

A team of astronomers led by ASTRO 3D has drawn a temperature map of the dust drifting within one of the oldest spiral galaxies of the Universe which provides new insights into how fast the galaxy is growing. Until now researchers have only been able to measure the temperature of  most distant galaxies in broad terms, without showing how temperatures vary in individual areas.

This research, described in a paper published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) shows unambiguous temperature variation within the distant galaxy indicating two distinct heat sources – a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy, and the heat generated by newly-formed stars in the surrounding rotating disk.

An optical image, left, of the galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope with overlaid temperature contours as detected by ALMA. The image on the right shows the dust temperature map detailed in the study.

Download figure of galaxy as pdf.

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Queensland host state partner of World Mining Congress 2023

OPINION by Minister for Resources, Scott Stewart

London, Madrid, Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro. They are not just Olympic cities.

They have also hosted one of the world’s biggest resource industry events and next week it will be Brisbane’s turn to host the World Mining Congress.

More than 3000 delegates from more than 50 countries will make Brisbane and Queensland their base for the World Mining Congress.

It’s the first time in its 65-year history the event is being held in Australia. And what better place to host the event than Brisbane. Where else but Queensland!

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A rare glimpse of our first ancestors in mainland Southeast Asia

  • Tam Pà Ling, a cave in northern Laos, reveals new secrets about our earliest human journeys from Africa through to Australia
  • Between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago, modern humans passed by a cave in mainland Southeast Asia on their way through Asia to become Australia’s First People
  • Evidence for a human presence in this region lasting at least 56,000 years was found in approximately seven metres of cave sediment
  • This evidence demonstrates our abilities to move through forested areas and along inland river systems, and could represent a previously used migration path among our ancestors

Photos, video and visualisations available in Dropbox at https://bit.ly/3oSUd4L.  

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How good or evil are you when gaming?

Researchers have built their own computer game to test the impact of meters that show players the morality of their decisions.

Two papers published by Macquarie University researchers reveal that most of us ignore the meter when a moral choice is clear, but we use it when the choice is more morally ambiguous. And some of us, about ten per cent, will do anything to win.

You are playing The Great Fire, a narrative computer game. It’s all about Frankie, an usher in a cinema in regional Australia in the 1940s, who is confronted by a murderous psychopath.

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Media stories from the World Mining Congress 2023

We are planning an active media program for the Congress. If you would like to receive our media releases and/or interview delegates, please contact Niall Byrne, World Mining Congress Media Manager on +61-417-131-977 or email media@wmc2023.org.

In your request please let us know who you’re reporting for, and your deadline.

Visit www.scienceinpublic.com.au/mining to see the latest media releases and other media information.

Accreditation

Media are also welcome to attend the Congress.

Attendance is complimentary to journalists from print, TV, radio and other organisations, who are attending the event as part of their professional duties.

We also offer complimentary registration to freelance journalists who can demonstrate that that they have been assigned by a media organisation to report on the Congress.

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The future for our planet

Resourcing Tomorrow – Creating Value for Society

Media welcome at 26th World Mining Congress

Where will we find the lithium, cobalt, copper, sand and other minerals needed for a sustainable net-zero world?

How can we create and operate zero-impact mines?

AI, EV and autonomous machines are already making mines cleaner and safer. What are the lessons across society?

How can we transform mining’s relationship with First Nations people around the world?

Can we/should we mine with plants? In space?

How can we build infrastructure sustainably in the Global South?

Find the answers to these any many other questions, with over 3,500 of the world’s mining leaders, technologists, and researchers from 70 countries who are meeting at the World Mining Congress in Brisbane from 26 to 29 June 2023.

Accredited media are invited to attend the Congress

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The world’s fastest industry standard optical fibre

Equal to more than 10 million home broadband connections

Invented in Japan with Macquarie University support

Images available for media use

An optical fibre about the thickness of a human hair can now carry the equivalent of more than 10 million fast home internet connections running at full capacity.

Visualisation of the 19-core fibre.

A team of Japanese, Australian, Dutch, and Italian researchers has set a new speed record for an industry standard optical fibre, achieving 1.7 Petabits over a 67km length of fibre. The fibre, which contains 19 cores that can each carry a signal, meets the global standards for fibre size, ensuring that it can be adopted without massive infrastructure change. And it uses less digital processing, greatly reducing the power required per bit transmitted.

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Support for National Science Week celebrations

Media release from The Hon Ed Husic MP, Minister for Industry and Science

24 May 2023

A Dark Matter Road trip, sharing First Nations science and drone coding are just some of the projects receiving a share of close to $500,000 in grants to support National Science Week.

With Australia’s national celebration of science and technology just around the corner, thirty-two grant recipients are gearing up to deliver a diverse range of events right across the country.

The National Science Week Grants provide funding of between $2,000 and $20,000 to support individuals and organisations to deliver community science events.

Many of the projects funded this year will support diversity and inclusion in science, with several grants supporting events featuring First Nations science and scientists, and a range of activities in remote and regional communities.

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How superbug A. baumannii survives metal stress and resists antibiotics

Work is underway into how science can stop the superbug A. baumanniii after research exposes a weak link in the deadly but poorly understood pathogen.

Images for download

Inside the Galleria Facility at Macquarie University’s Applied Biosciences Laboratories

The deadly hospital pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii can live for a year on a hospital wall without food and water. Then, when it infects a vulnerable patient, it resists antibiotics as well as the body’s built-in infection-fighting response. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises it as one of the three top pathogens in critical need of new antibiotic therapies.

Now, an international team, led by Macquarie University researchers Dr. Ram Maharjan and Associate Professor Amy Cain, have discovered how the superbug can survive harsh environments and then rebound, causing deadly infections. They have found a single protein that acts as a master regulator. When the protein is damaged, the bug loses its superpowers allowing it to be controlled, in a lab setting. The research is published in Nucleic Acids Research.

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