Now is the time to register your National Science Week events to be a part of this nationwide festival, coming up in August.

There are many big names involved, including Sylvia Earle, Paul Davies, three Aussie Nobel Laureates, and bunch of NASA scientists. The earlier you register your event, the better your chance of reaching a broader audience. More below.

Nominate your top researchers and rising stars for the science prizes that are now open, including:

• the $50K CSL Florey Medal for medical research
• two $50K Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research—for mid-career researchers
• the $60K NSW Premier’s Prize for Scientist of the Year, plus nine $5,000 prizes for NSW-based scientists in various categories
• two $50K Victoria Prizes for Science and Innovation (VIC only)
• £3000 John Maddox Prize for standing up for science in the face of hostility
• the Australian of the Year Awards
• and our own Fresh Science program will open in the next couple of weeks.

Key dates, links and information are detailed below.

Media release from the Sydney Science Festival

Leading scientists, conservationists and comedians join Eddie Woo for the 2019 program including Dr Sylvia Earle, Michael Aw, Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Paul Davies, Adam Spencer, Andrea Boyd, Claire L Evans and Dr Alice Motion.

Sydney Science Festival is back for a fifth year with events across the city from 6 –18 August 2019. Coinciding with National Science Week, the 13-day program investigates how science informs and intersects with the contemporary issues we face every day. From climate change and oceanic pollution, how to halt aging to the future of space travel, the Festival asks, “how is science influencing the future?”

Today: it’s not just fish, plastic pollution harms the bacteria that help us breathe—scientist available for interview

Ten per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes from just one kind of bacteria in the ocean. Macquarie University scientists have shown that these bacteria are susceptible to plastic pollution.

Study published in Communications Biology overnight; scientist available for interview and images available. Details below.

Today: Australia’s silicon quantum computer will add up accurately!

Yesterday Nature published the latest paper from this UNSW team. It’s their third in three months and reinforces that Australia is leading the race to invent a silicon-based quantum computer. This paper demonstrates that if we invent a silicon computer it will be able to do its sums accurately, which apparently wasn’t a foregone conclusion. UNSW media have all the details. More below.

Mars, wildlife, curious climate and trash talk: a first taste of National Science Week—coming up in August

Mimicking Mars missions on Earth, plastic-eating bacteria, Star Wars science, and hunting wildlife with an app (in a non-lethal way)—just some of the activities planned for National Science Week. Now’s the time to start planning your coverage of Australia’s biggest festival with an anticipated 2000+ events and activities. More below.

Kind regards,
Niall

CORRECTION: In our science news bulletin sent out on 3 April 2019 we stated that ARC, CSIRO, and NCRIS received funding cuts in the 2019 Federal Budget. This is incorrect and neither CSIRO, nor the ARC received funding cuts. We based our statement on an analysis by the Australian Academy of Science. This has since been clarified. Here is the updated media release and here is a statement about the CSIRO funding.

Over $350,000 in science prizes are open for nomination right now including 18 Eureka Prizes, WA and SA scientists of the year, and the APEC Science Prize. The ABC is inviting 10 postdocs to media bootcamps. The Science Academy’s awards are open, as are the Tall Poppies for early career researchers. Details on these, and more below. If you need help with your awards strategy, and with finessing nominations, give us a call. 

Are you using National Science Week? Last year, 1.2 million Australians got involved in more than 2,100 events. Now is the time to register your event, apply for state funding and be part of the action. More below. We’ll be providing national publicity support so, if you’ve got anything special planned, let us know.

My colleague Tanya Ha has prepared a summary of the science world’s response to the budget and the coming election. In one line: there’s nothing much to see yet.

Send your journos and science communication geeks to Switzerland in July for the World Conference of Science Journalists, which we hosted in Melbourne in 2007. Join us for a briefing at the Swiss Consulate in Sydney on Wednesday 17 April. Register on Eventbrite.

We’ve got communication training courses coming up in Melbourne (9 April and 29 May), Perth (early May), Sydney (21 May), Adelaide (4 June), Canberra (6 June) and Darwin (early August). And we have cost-effective 90-minute courses for ECR training.

• Make Your Pitch forum: learn what makes a good pitch, write one, present and get feedback. Suitable for 10 to 200 participants and runs for 90 minutes. $2,000
• Meet the Media: panel discussion with TV, radio and print journalists. Suitable for 10 to 100 participants and runs for 90 minutes. $2,000
• Meet Business and Government: panel discussion with business and government advisors. Suitable for 10 to 100 participants and runs for 90 minutes. $2,000

More below and if you want to find out more call me on 0417 131 977.

In this bulletin:

• Budget and election news
• Space colonisation with a NASA astrobiologist, an Indigenous hackathon, science meets sewer soap: get set for National Science Week 2019
• Science journalists will gather in Lausanne in July
• Prizes and awards
• Opportunities for rising science stars and women in science
• The science of sustainable energy at the Shine Dome
• Can media help you boost your research impact? Find your story and your audience
• Need help planning, mentoring, communicating? We can help.

[continue reading…]

Lisa Harvey-Smith has issued a call to action for International Women’s Day for a last minute push for nominations for the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science. Entries close on Tuesday and the initial entry process has been simplified. Lisa is an astrophysicist and Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador. More on this, the Eurekas, France and EU grants below.

Primatologist Dr Jane Goodall is coming to Australia in May. See her around the country, and support her tour.

Our own team (pictured) is packed with talented female scientists-turned-communicators. Meet them at our media training courses around the country.

Our Director of Engagement Tanya Ha has shared her insights from media training scientists on LinkedIn. Read on for more information about our courses and upcoming workshop dates. We also offer cost effective training packages for larger HDR groups.

In this bulletin:

• The Best Australian Science Writing 2019: call for submissions
• Science prizes and opportunities: The Eurekas, Prime Minister’s Prizes, France and Europe Early and Mid-Career Researcher Mobility Grants and others
• Rewind the future: Dr Jane Goodall tour this May
• Media training coming up in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra or design your own course.

[continue reading…]

Many researchers continue to struggle to get their research heard and to have impact.

But the pressure is on: government and funders are pushing, and there are warnings that the public is disengaging.

We can you help you and your organisation reach the right audience: with specialist support for your in-house communication team, and training for everyone from HDRs to senior researchers.

Every few weeks I’ll write to you with a heads-up on opportunities to promote your research: through our services, and other projects that we think are making a difference.

In this bulletin:

• Celebrating French-Australian innovation: The French Ambassador launches our latest story collection this Thursday evening in Canberra; please join us if you’re in town.
• Science prizes: The Eurekas, Prime Minister’s Prizes, L’Oréal and others open nominations; plus 60 Superstars announced.
• Media training coming up in Cairns, Townsville, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, or design your own course.
• Have you seen a sawfish, our warped Milky Way, and other stories: take a look at our work.

[continue reading…]

Today: How female promiscuity changes male behaviour

Scientists genetically manipulated female fruit flies to make them more promiscuous, and then observed what impact this had on the male fruit flies’ sexual behaviour.

• Saturday 19 January: watch out for a story about some shady behaviour from cane toads. It’s being published in Scientific Reports and is under embargo until 9pm ADST tonight. Contact us if you’d like an embargoed copy of this release.
• We’ve found a lot of sawfish: Last week we asked for public help to track sawfish—amazing but endangered fish that can grow to eight metres and use their saw to detect the electrical impulses of their prey, then slice and dice them. The response has been amazing with 200 reports already.

You can read more about the fruit flies story below, including contact details of the scientist to interview.

Kind regards,

Niall

Promiscuous females and their role in evolution

[continue reading…]

We’re back this week with three stories:

• Predicting whether a firestorm will occur—researchers have created a model now being trialled by the NSW Rural Fire Service. Story plus an amazing photo.
• Half the world’s population relies on rice, but there’s a lot we don’t know about it—Macquarie Uni scientists working with researchers in Iran and Japan are calling for a global effort to find the thousands of ‘missing’ proteins.
• Have you seen a sawfish—alive, or on the wall of a pub? Your information can help these scientists help the sawfish. And we have HD footage of a sawfish sensing the electrical fields generated by a fish, then slicing and dicing it.

You can read more about each of these stories below, including details of scientists to interview.

Kind regards,

Niall

The shape of a perfect storm: saving lives by predicting firestorms

Scientists available for interview – details and photos below.

Correction: an earlier version stated the tool is being formally trialed by the NSW Rural Fire SERVICE. It is currently in use, but formal trials ended in 2016.

A fully developed pyrocumulus cloud, formed from the smoke plume of the Grampians fire in February 2013. Credit: Randall Bacon

Firestorms are a nightmare for emergency services and anyone in their path. They occur when a bushfire meets a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental conditions and creates a thunderstorm.

Dr Rachel Badlan and Associate Professor Jason Sharples are part of a team of experts from UNSW Canberra and ACT Emergency Services that has found the shape of a fire is an important factor in whether it will turn into a firestorm.

Fires that form expansive areas of active flame, rather than spreading as a relatively thin fire-front, are more likely to produce higher smoke plumes and turn into firestorms, the researchers found.

This finding is being used to underpin further development of a predictive model for firestorms. The model was trialed in the 2015 and 2016 fire seasons by the ACT Emergency Services Agency and the NSW Rural Fire Service, and now forms part of the national dialogue around extreme bushfire development.  

[continue reading…]