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Stawell to join the search for the missing 85 per cent of our galaxy

Victorian government supports plans to build a dark matter laboratory deep in Stawell Gold Mine.

The Victorian government has committed $1.75 million to help Australian scientists hunt for dark matter a kilometre underground in the Stawell gold mine in regional Victoria. The project will commence once the Federal government provides matching support from their regional development program.

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Quantum lasers and better ways to engage students win gold medals for physicists

Physicists recognised this week at the national physics congress in Canberra have won recognition for:

  • Using lasers to safeguard future communications
  • Replacing Schrödinger’s famous ‘cat in a box’ with photons and mirrors
  • Engaging students by changing the way we usually teach science
  • Bending light for nanoscale photonics and light-driven computing

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Four degree rise, shrinking X-ray microscopes and spider web fibre optics

  • The catastrophe of 4 degree rise – warning for Lima talks
  • Lab junk into LabPunk
  • Strobe light flashes to capture a speeding electron
  • Using spider-web fibre optics for the world wide web
  • Shrinking X-ray microscopes for a closer look at the cellular world

These topics and more on day two of the national physics conference – Tuesday 9 December

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Women in physics still going backwards

Australia’s physicists will hear today that they’re still losing the fight for gender equity in the physical sciences.

International and national speakers at the national physics congress in Canberra today will reveal:

  • Australian schoolgirls still prefer life sciences to physical sciences (chemistry, physics etc) – with a 2:1 ratio

  • At university that worsens to 4:1 locking out women from many career options

  • The proportion of women in senior science positions is improving at just 1 per cent per annum, and going backwards in lower levels.

  • UK physicists are fixing the problem with Project Juno. Could Australia follow them?

There are also some remarkable role models of women in physics speaking at the conference including: string theory guru Lisa Randall, SKA astronomer Lisa Harvey-Smith, Bronwyn Dolman studying weather and footballers’ hamstrings; Elisabetta Barberio looking for dark energy in a gold mine; quantum computing guru Michelle Simmons and many others. [Read more…] about Women in physics still going backwards

How a piece of mobile DNA could change your mind

Centenary Logo

$25,000 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize goes to young Brisbane researcher

Today one of Australia’s most creative young medical researchers has won a $25,000 prize to help him develop his research into how a common, short piece of DNA affects the operation of the brain.

A/Prof Geoff Faulkner of the Mater Research Institute in Brisbane thinks the differences in the way each human brain functions could be determined by a segment of mobile DNA, known as L1, which has the capacity to insert itself into the genome of individual brain cells. His work may have consequences for how memories form, for brain disorders such as schizophrenia, and even spills over into diseases such as haemophilia, muscular dystrophy and some forms of cancer.

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