Tell us your stories of research collaboration with EU countries.

Have you had successful collaborations between Aussies and EU? We’re writing stories for the EU Delegation and the French Embassy in Canberra, so tell us about your success.

Put your rising stars in front of the people who create factual content for billions of viewers around the world. They’re looking for new faces and new ideas and they’ll be in Brisbane in November. More below.

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Today

Australians drink six billion cups of coffee each year but have you ever thought about what happens to the coffee grounds used to make these coffees—which are used only once and then discarded?

A Macquarie University PhD student believes he’s come up with a way to turn this coffee waste into biodegradable plastics.

“You could use such plastics to make anything from plastic coffee cups to yoghurt containers to compost bags to sutures in medicine,” says researcher Dominik Kopp.

Contact Suzannah Lyons on suzannah@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0409 689 543 for more.

Full media release below.

Also:

Citizen scientists from around Australia are helping scientists and reef managers get a much better picture of the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

So far, they have looked at over 2.7 million points on more than 180,000 underwater images of the Reef and told us whether they can see coral, algae or sand.

They’re all taking part in Virtual Reef Diver—the ABC’s online citizen science project for National Science Week.

“The response we’ve had from citizen scientists has been amazing,” says spatial scientist and project leader Dr Erin Peterson from Queensland University of Technology. “We couldn’t collect this volume of data without their help.”

Nine scientists, divers and science communicators are available for interviews. Contact Suzannah Lyons on suzannah@scienceinpublic.com.au or 0409 689 543.

Full media release below.

And: thank you!

National Science Week wrapped up on Sunday, finishing a fortnight in which we learnt that:

• the Andromeda Galaxy is rushing towards us at 400,000 kilometres an hour
• pond scum (algae) could provide future foods, fuels and medicines
• artificial intelligence is expected to equal human intelligence by 2062
• most of the world’s vitamin D supplements are made from the greasy wool of Aussie sheep
• ‘carcinology’ has nothing to do with cancer—it’s the study of crustaceans, who have complicated sex lives
• NASA’s Kepler mission planet hunters have discovered 3,774 exoplanets, and their new TESS spacecraft is set to find thousands more
• 100 years ago, CSL facilities in Melbourne made three million doses of vaccine to help combat the Spanish flu
• Australia has a rich history of using wine as medicine
• music is powerful for maintaining the memories of people with dementia.

These are just some of the stories told in Science Week events, posts and media coverage. There’s more stories and scientists among our highlights for media.

Thank you once again for your support of Science Week. National Science Week 2019 will run from 10 to 18 August.

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Today: Highlights from day four of National Science Week

347 events and exhibitions, 20 online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

Adelaide

• How do microbes turn grape juice into wine?
• The secrets of the success of giant cuttlefish in the waters near Whyalla

Canberra

• How are mobile devices and apps affecting our mental health and how can they be used as a force for good?
• How will climate change affect whisky?

Albany

• Fifty shades of cray: what does a male fiddler crab do with his enlarged claw?

Sydney

• Quantum computing making problem-solving take minutes instead of years—Michelle Simmons
• Stargazing over wine with Fred Watson

Melbourne

• Hangry? How hunger affects your behaviour
• How will apps, mobiles and sensors change healthcare? Harvard professor in Melbourne

Darwin

• Pulse check for politicians at Parliament House

Read on for more on these, including event contact details.

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Explore the future of scholarly monographs with Springer Nature’s Chief Book Strategist at a forum hosted by ANU this Tuesday 31 July. More on that below.

Make sure your National Science Week events are registered so we can promote them. It kicks off 11 August. Read on for some of the highlights amongst the 2000+ events.

How can researchers and policy makers work better together – we want your views for an ANU research project.

Meet the people who put science in front of billions of people, this November in Brisbane.

Vitamania – health revolution of expensive pee – on SBS and around the country.

Pitch and communication training courses in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

And

• Are you, or do you know someone in stem cell research? If so, nominate them today for a Metcalf Prize worth $50,000.
• CSL Centenary Fellowships are also open, worth $1.25m for two early to mid-career Australian biomedical researchers.

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Could your research stories engage billions of viewers through science and factual TV?

The people who create, fund and broadcast science TV will be meeting in Brisbane in November at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.

They deliver big audiences. Discovery Channel alone has over 440 million viewers. Animal Planet has over 350 million. China Central Television has 50 channels and a billion viewers.

We helped bring Congress to Melbourne in 2009. After nearly 10 years it’s back, this time in Brisbane thanks to the support of the Queensland Government, the ABC and SBS.

Last year’s Congress included commissioners and producers from the BBC, Netflix, NHK, PBS, Discovery, Canada’s CBC and dozens of other networks from national broadcasters to cult YouTube channels.

How can you reach this community? The options include:

• presenting your researchers via exhibition booths
• holding your own presentations or group meetings at breakfast and lunch events
• hosting post-Congress tours
• supporting Australian researchers who are potential TV stars of the future
  supporting producers from emerging countries
• and the usual range of sponsorships.

Read more about the Congress at: https://www.wcsfp.com/

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Today

It’s Day 3 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Lab-grown mini-brains make new connections
Fred ‘Rusty’ Gage (USA) is making mini-brains from human stem cells in the lab. But in order for these new tissues to function, they need to become well-connected.

Fred is pioneering research to explore how transplanted human neural organoids (mini-organs) can mature into tissues with blood vessel and nerve connections. This work could lead to methods of replacing brain tissue lost to stroke or disease, and repairing spinal cords damaged by trauma.

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Today

It’s Day 2 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Treating type 1 diabetes with stem cells
A Harvard team has shown they can control glucose levels in mice using a transplant of insulin-producing cells made from human stem cells. Doug Melton presents his research today.

His effort to fight diabetes involves a 30-person lab at Harvard and a start-up company, Semma Therapeutics, which he named after his children. His son Sam and daughter Emma both have type 1 diabetes.
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Today:

• Could you regrow an arm or a leg? Salamanders can.
• Should you be allowed to try unapproved treatments—without the FDA tick—when you’re terminally ill? President Trump says yes.

It’s Day 1 of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) 2018 Annual Meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre: more than 2,500 stem cell scientists from 50 countries will hear from 150+ speakers, including:

Taking stem cell science from the lab to the clinic, and what’s wrong with the US ‘right to try’ legislation—Roger Barker, UK

ISSCR is concerned about ‘right to try’ legislation just signed into law in the US, which allows terminally ill patients to try risky, unproven treatments without regulation or oversight. Doctors and scientists are alarmed. They say current compassionate use provisions allow access.

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