Media are welcome. 
For more information and accreditation contact:
Niall Byrne niall@scienceinpublic.com.au +61-417-131-977

Twenty years ago, Australia hosted the International Congress of Genetics. It marked the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Double Helix, explored the impact of the recently completed human genome project, and discussed how the genetics revolution would transform health, agriculture, food, sport, even the law.

Today, we’re seeing the genetics revolution in action:

• mRNA is transforming vaccine and drug development,
• mysterious genetic disorders are being unravelled and even cured,
• plant and animal breeding is being transformed by CRISPR and other technologies,
• pests, diseases and biodiversity are being monitored by eDNA,
• synthetic biology is offering ways of turning agricultural waste into biofuels.

The Congress will be back in Australia, in Melbourne, from 16-21 July 2023.

A path to cognition

Five major changes in the computational capacity of brains have led to the world of intelligent life around us.

That’s the conclusion of Professor Andrew Barron from Macquarie University with Dr Marta Halina from the University of Cambridge and Professor Colin Klein from the Australian National University (ANU), in a paper published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They say that one billion years of evolution has led to five fundamentally different types of brains, each suited to its purpose.

Global knowledge inequality threatens ecosystems across the Global South

Images available

Abstract and authors

An international research team has revealed a knowledge gap that threatens our capacity to understand and protect tropical forests and other ecosystems from climate change.

In a paper published in the journal New Phytologist, researchers from the University of Buffalo, Western Sydney University (WSU), Aarhus University and UNSW show a lack of measurement of plant traits across the Global South and call for action to integrate regional and global data to fill the gap.

In the paper, they demonstrate how they more than doubled the information available globally about Australian plants by integrating the AusTraits database, an initiative supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), with the global TRY database.

Research reveals how we could design robots to think like bees

Bees available to film at Macquarie and Sheffield, video overlay and graphics available.

Honey bees have to balance effort, risk and reward, making rapid and accurate assessments of which flowers are mostly likely to offer food for their hive. Research published in the journal eLife today reveals how millions of years of evolution has engineered honey bees to make fast decisions and reduce risk.

The study enhances our understanding of insect brains, how our own brains evolved, and how to design better robots.

The paper presents a model of decision-making in bees and outlines the paths in their brains that enable fast decision-making. The study was led by Professor Andrew Barron from Macquarie University in Sydney, and Dr HaDi MaBouDi, Neville Dearden and Professor James Marshall from the University of Sheffield.

National recognition for astronomers from Perth, Canberra, and Melbourne

• How dark matter behaves in colliding galaxy clusters, explained by UWA/ICRAR student William McDonald
• Why the Universe’s earliest stars are so elusive, by Dr Piyush Sharda of ANU (now working at Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands)
• A sharper focus on when the Universe lit up, by Dr Nichole Barry of Curtin University/ICRAR
• The chemistry of starlight helps explain our galaxy’s evolution, says Dr Sven Buder of ANU
• A mission to study 6 million galaxies in 5 years, by A/Prof. Michelle Cluver of Swinburne University of Technology
• Software that enables ‘impossible’ research, by Dr Manodeep Sinha of Swinburne University of Technology.

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) will honour the 6 at its Annual Scientific Meeting at the Macquarie University Wallumattagal Campus in Sydney 3-7 July 2023.

Mines turning into physics labs, parks, pumped hydro…

Monday 26 June 2023

Many major mines around the world will close and thousands of new mines will open over the coming decades as the industry transforms.

So, what can you do with holes in the ground and heaps of tailings? A surprising amount, according to Professor Tom Measham, research director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME).

Australian examples of the art of mine closure include transitions to a recreational public park, an underground physics research laboratory and a pumped hydro facility.

Media release from the Cooperative Research Centre for Transitions in Mining Economies (CRC TiME)

The Cooperative Research Centre for Transitions in Mining Economies (CRC TiME) will be sharing its latest mine transition findings at the World Mining Congress in Brisbane on 26-29 June, 2023.

What happens after mining ends – economically, socially, environmentally and culturally – is one of the most significant issues facing communities, regions, governments and industry globally.

It’s a challenge that is only growing: some mines that began during the last boom are now approaching end of life. This is occurring at the same time as decarbonisation is driving unprecedented minerals demand and a slow transition away from coal-powered energy generation.

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.

Download figure of galaxy as pdf.

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!