A novel citizen science project in New Caledonia finds an ‘astonishing’ number of venomous reptiles in a popular swimming spot. A group of snorkelling grandmothers is helping scientists better understand marine ecology by photographing venomous sea snakes in waters off the city of Noumea, New Caledonia. Two years ago the seven women, all in their…
Apex marine predators choose who they hang with, researchers reveal. White sharks form communities, researchers have revealed. Although normally solitary predators, white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) gather in large numbers at certain times of year in order to feast on baby seals. These groupings, scientists had assumed, were essentially random – the result of individual sharks…
Analysis of reef damage in the Indo-Pacific during the 2016 El Nino reveals that several different stressors influence bleaching. Scientists in the Indian and Pacific Oceans used the El Nino of 2016 – the warmest year on record – to evaluate the role of excess heat as the leading driver of coral bleaching and discovered…
Macquarie astronomers find a well of serenity in deep space. A massive galaxy four billion light-years from Earth is surrounded by a halo of tranquil gas. The finding, which reveals a galactic halo much less dense and less magnetised than expected, was made by a team of astronomers that included two researchers from Macquarie University.
The shape of immune cells plays key role in recognising invaders. The way immune cells pick friends from foes can be described by a classic maths puzzle known as the “narrow escape problem”. That’s a key finding arising from an international collaboration between biologists, immunologists and mathematicians, published in the journal Proceedings of the National…
Members of at least one species choose mates and egg sites based on where they were born, research reveals Birthplace exerts a lifelong influence on butterflies as well as humans, new research reveals. In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Macquarie University ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor…
Collaboration investigates the link between changing sea levels, global warming and the health of marine wetlands. Carbon dioxide capture by coastal ecosystems operates in direct relation to the speed of sea level rise. That was the conclusion of extensive research conducted by a team of scientists from Macquarie University, University of Wollongong and ANSTO –…
The NISEP program has helped almost 1000 Indigenous school children enter leadership roles. The National Indigenous Science Education Program (NISEP), based at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Sydney’s Macquarie University, won the inaugural the Eureka Prize for STEM Inclusion at the 2019 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes. The awards were held in Sydney on…
Scientists urge priority action on hundreds of surviving reefs. The majority of 2500 reefs surveyed in a major international exercise retain the coral species that give them their distinctive structure. More than 80 marine scientists, including several from Australia, contributed to the study, which is published in the journal, Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Australia-UK researchers identify ancient protein pumps that make bacteria tough to treat – but could be key to new green polymers The molecular machinery used by bacteria to resist chemicals designed to kill them could also help produce precursors for a new generation of nylon and other polymers, according to new research by scientists from…