Zoe collecting samples for further molecular analysis. Photo WA Museum

While coral reefs around the world are feeling the heat, little-known reefs in Australia’s Kimberley region are prospering, despite living in some of the toughest conditions—and scientists aren’t yet sure why.

The discovery has particular significance this summer with fears of a severe coral bleaching event to hit our northern waters—the result of steadily rising sea temperatures and a strong seasonal El Niño.

WA researchers have found that while coral reefs all around the world are feeling the heat of rising temperatures, some inshore reefs in the Kimberley region’s Bonaparte Archipelago are prospering, despite living in some of the toughest conditions. [continue reading…]

Nominations for Fresh Science 2015 have now closed and judging has begun.

Thanks to all 170+ nominees who took the time to tell us about themselves and their science.

We are reading all the nominations right now, and we’ll get back to you all as soon as as soon as we can.

We have quite a few to get through, so we’ll prioritise them by date: Victoria first, then Townsville, etc. We’ll make sure we give you all at least three weeks’ notice of the event in your state.

Fresh Science 2015

We’re looking for the best and brightest early-career researchers who have made a peer-reviewed discovery and received little or no media attention.

Fresh Science is a national competition that selects researchers with research results, an invention, or a discovery, trains them in how to tell their story, and helps them share their findings with the media and the public.

We’re looking for:

• early-career researchers (from honours students to no more than five years post-PhD)
• a peer-reviewed discovery that has had little or no media coverage
• some ability to present your ideas in everyday English (something we can build on).

Successful applicants will participate in Fresh Science 2015. First, a day of media and communication training, learning how to find the key, compelling story in their research, and how to tell that story. Then, in the following pub night, they’ll face the challenge of explaining their research. We’ll also publish short profiles on each Freshie, and we’ll pitch the best story in each state to the media.

Nominations are now open and close 1 July. [continue reading…]

• Today: a singing prayer bowl has inspired an ANU scientist to re-think the way that solar cells are designed.
• Today to Wednesday evening: Eureka Prize finalists available for interview.
• Wednesday night: the 2014 Eureka Prize winners are announced at a grand dinner at Sydney Town Hall.
• Also revealed on Wednesday: the top science photograph for 2014, available for publication along with all the highly commended photos, including this one: The face of a Moth, by Ralph Grimm.

And finally, a quick thank you to everyone at Radio Australia for your interest in our stories over the years. We were shocked by the scale of the cuts and wish everyone leaving the best. Our friends in CSIRO have also taken big cuts including some 40 communication jobs.  [continue reading…]

The shape of a centuries-old Buddhist singing bowl has inspired a Canberra scientist to re-think the way that solar cells are designed to maximize their efficiency.

Dr Niraj Lal, of the Australian National University,  found during his PhD at the University of Cambridge, that small nano-sized versions of Buddhist singing bowls resonate with light in the same way as they do with sound, and he’s applied this shape to solar cells to increase their ability to capture more light and convert it into electricity.

“Current standard solar panels lose a large amount of light-energy as it hits the surface, making the panels’ generation of electricity inefficient,” says Niraj. “But if the cells are singing bowl-shaped, then the light bounces around inside the cell for longer”. [continue reading…]

Media call: 11am, 17 August 2014 with researchers and dogs at The University of Sydney Veterinary Teaching Hospital, NSW 

Pet abuse and domestic violence are closely linked. Animals can’t talk but University of Sydney vet Dr Lydia Tong has shown vets how to tell the difference between bone fractures caused by accidents and those caused by abuse. Her fracture identification methods are giving vets the added confidence to identify cases of violence against pets and could serve as a warning of domestic violence.

Now, in a new study with Domestic Violence NSW, Lydia is looking deeper into the connections between animal abuse and domestic violence to assess the need for better services to protect both human and animal victims.

“Around 70% of women escaping violent homes also report pet abuse,” says Lydia. “So vets are often the first to see evidence of abuse in a family, when they treat injured pets.”

“Different forces on bones can tell a story—the skeleton of an animal keeps a distinct record that indicates the force applied to bones from past injuries, breaks or fractures. But it can often be difficult for vets to say with confidence whether a fracture has resulted from abuse or accident.”

To give vets this confidence, in a 2014 study, Lydia collected cases of abused dogs who were punched, hit with a blunt weapon or kicked, and examined the fractures from these injuries. She then compared these fractures to those caused by genuine accidents. Her results, published in The Veterinary Journal, identified five key features of fractures that vets could look for to distinguish accidents from abuse.

Now, having given vets this reference to diagnose abuse, Lydia and her colleagues at The University of Sydney are gathering more information on the connections between domestic violence and animal abuse. [continue reading…]

Wednesday 9 July 2014

Video and photos of bees available
Scientist available for interview

Dr James Makinson evicts bees from their homes for a good reason—to figure out how they collectively decide on the next place to live. His research on bee communication and consensus-building has been published in this month’s issue of Animal Behaviour.

James and his colleagues at the University of Sydney in partnership with two universities in Thailand have found that not all honeybee species think like the common Western hive bee when it comes to deciding on a place to nest.

Two little-known species—the giant Asian honeybee and the tiny red dwarf honeybee—use a more  rapid collective decision-making process that enables them to choose a new home quickly. But they aren’t as fussy when it comes to the quality of their new home.

It’s work that could help with understanding and managing honeybees for pollination services, ecological health, and pest control. [continue reading…]

But SAHMRI researchers are making it starve by eating itself to death

Scientist available for interview, Tuesday 1 July 2014

Stubborn cancer cells play a cunning trick when faced with treatments designed to kill them — they eat themselves to survive. But SAHMRI researchers have found a way to starve the cancer cells, making them more susceptible to cancer therapy.

As researchers develop more personalised cancer therapies that target cancer cells, they are also seeing an increase in resistance to treatment, where patients relapse or no longer respond to treatment.

One way that cancer resists treatment is by undergoing a process where the cancer cells eat themselves to maintain energy levels during times of stress — a process that helps them survive cancer treatments that would otherwise starve them.

Lisa Schafranek, a University of Adelaide PhD student working a SAHMRI, and her colleagues have used a clinically available drug to stop leukaemia cells from eating themselves to survive cancer therapy. [continue reading…]

And researchers need Perth men for a study to find out why

Monday 23 June 2014

Media call 9-10am AWST at Edith Cowan University Mount Lawley Campus with researchers and patients.

Perth researchers have shown that twice-weekly exercise can improve sexual function in prostate cancer patients by 50 per cent.

Now, they’re calling on Perth men to participate in a new study to find out why exercise works, and how effective it can be on a broader range of patients.

One in six Australian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 90 per cent of them will report some form of sexual dysfunction during or after their treatment.

“Men think about sex a lot – on average, every 45 minutes which is more often than they think about food or sleep,” says Dr Prue Cormie, a senior research fellow at Edith Cowan University. “So it’s not surprising that sexual dysfunction is the most frequently identified issue of importance among prostate cancer survivors.”

Last year, Prue and her colleagues at the Edith Cowan University Health and Wellness Institute put a group of men with prostate cancer through a supervised exercise program involving twice-weekly group-based sessions of resistance exercise such as weight lifting, and aerobic exercises including walking and cycling.

[continue reading…]