Science In Public
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It’s the world’s biggest experiment—a multi-billion machine, with first results in 2025.
Speakers from around the world, including senior advisor to the ITER project Professor Jean Jacquinot, will speak at the Physics Congress in Brisbane about the global race to master the process that powers our sun. Researchers from ANU will speak about Australia’s involvement. [Read more…] about Australia helping to crack fusion power, bringing the energy of the sun down to earth for a zero carbon future
Tuesday 6 December 2016
The perils of lithium-ion batteries are well known to owners of the Galaxy Note 7, but battery fires have also plagued power plants and even passenger jets in-flight. The Queensland Government is getting behind an Australia-China collaboration to build supercapacitors: purely electric storage devices using graphene, which promise many advantages over their chemical-based cousins.
QUT’s Professor Nunzio Motta is leading the Australian end of the research. The major challenge is developing scalable ways of growing graphene sheets. At the Congress, he’ll present his work on growing graphene for other kinds of electronic components but he’s happy to talk about both areas and the potential of graphene. He imagines, for example, a car or train in which the body panels act as energy stores extending the battery range, and storing energy from braking. [Read more…] about Arc welders in the operating room; the physics of kangaroo’s knees; no more exploding smartphones; women in leadership; and more
Scientists available for interview from the Physics Congress in Brisbane
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Australian physicists are using all the skills of experienced hunters in their quest for dark matter, the 85 per cent of matter in the Universe we have not been able to detect. And they are getting closer to their quarry.
Members of three separate groups from across the continent will give the latest updates from the hunt at the APPC-AIP Physics Congress in Brisbane.
Dark matter is so called because it does not interact with light or any other electromagnetic radiation. So the physicist hunters need to use all their ingenuity to track it down. [Read more…] about Australian scientists stalking, sensing and trapping elusive dark matter
Monday 5 December 2016
A new constellation of Australian satellites – packed up and ready for launch in 2017 (Canberra)
Australia is heading into space: Professor Christine Charles (ANU) was part of the Australian team of Universities that are launching Australian research satellites into space for the first time in over a decade.
Three Australian designed and built cubesats – satellites the size of a loaf of bread – are soon to be launched into space as part of the EU QB 50 Program.
Charles’ plasma thruster system for spacecraft is just one of the Aussie ideas which is being studied to extend the capabilities of nano-satellites. Christine Charles will explain the possibilities for this renaissance of Australian space science.
Rediscovering the physicist born a century ago in Far North Queensland who went on to win a Nobel Prize for his role in the invention of the laser.
When he died in 2002, Prokhorov was a nation
Australian physicists are now working to change that.
The Australian Optical Society (AOS) sessions at the Congress on Monday morning will be held in honour of Prokhorov— AOS President, Professor Stephen Collins can speak to the topic.
The centenary of Prokhorov’s birth was also celebrated in a series of spectacular laser-shows in Far North Queensland as part of National Science Week.
Sunday 4 December 2016
Our neutrino world – explained by 2015 Nobel Prize winner Professor Takaaki Kajita
We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos—mostly created by the Sun—are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them. So how did we discover they have mass, and why does that challenge our standard model of the Universe?
Professor Kajita will give a public lecture, telling the story of shape-shifting particles and underground super-labs on Monday night hosted by Australian physicist Hans Bachor (ANU), with early career astrophysicist Tamara Davis (UQ) and neutrino physicist Yvonne Wong (UNSW). [Read more…] about Shape shifting particles; underground labs; QLD’s forgotten Nobel Prize winner; and more
More on these and other stories from this week’s Physics Congress below. [Read more…] about A week of physics stories – starting Monday: our neutrino world; hunting dark matter; Australia’s role in big international science; and more
The biggest discovery of 2016 – gravitational waves. Hear from one of the leaders on what’s next.
Einstein said we’d never find them. But we did. Have more been found? What’s Australia’s role, and why should we care? Researchers from Canberra, Melbourne, and Perth will talk about their work on gravitational waves.
Our neutrino world – explained by 2015 Nobel Prize winner Takaaki Kajita
We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos—mostly created by the Sun—are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them. So how did we discover they have mass, and why does that challenge our standard model of the Universe? Kajita will also be meeting with school students.
$20 billion, with a result is expected in 2035. The world’s largest science experiment hopes to crack fusion power.
Speakers from around the world, including senior advisor to the ITER project Jean Jacquinot, will speak about the global race to harness the process that powers our Sun. Researchers from ANU will be available to speak about Australia’s involvement. [Read more…] about A week of physics stories – starting Monday
Register for the event here: www.trybooking.com/OBQF
We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos—mostly created by the Sun—are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them; and they are very hard for scientists to measure.
Then, when scientists were finally able to catch them, there were fewer than they expected. But why? Was our Sun losing its power?
Join us on Monday 5 December for a free public lecture by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2015, Professor Takaaki Kajita: the man credited with the discovery of neutrino oscillations, and the solution to this riddle. [Read more…] about Shape-shifting particles and underground super labs: 2015 Nobel Prize winner tells his story
We’re assisting with media for the Australia-Indonesia Science Symposium, held in Canberra from Monday 28 November – Thursday 1 December.
Monday 28 November at the Shine Dome, Canberra
Opening ceremony 8.30 am, press call with Ministers 9:20 am with
Indonesia is on track to become the fourth largest economy in the world by 2050. It’s undergoing massive economic and social change. Poverty is falling, health is improving, the nation is urbanising. The nation is hungry for energy, health, water and food security. Its people are early adopters of new technologies from social media to big data.
[Read more…] about Transforming Indonesia and Australia with science and innovation