Kicking off in Sydney this Thursday 16 August, it’s 11 days of serious science fun, with 50 events running day and night around the Powerhouse Museum, the ABC Ultimo Centre, Ultimo TAFE and the University of Technology, Sydney.

So far, we’ve blogged about:

• Chemistry and creativity in the kitchen: Making tiny edible spheres of flavour is just one of the secrets of molecular gastronomy that food scientist and award-winning pastry chef Galit Segev will share at the Ultimo Science Festival.
• Animating mating krill: from Antarctic ocean floor to online music video – A video of tiny crustaceans mating was taken at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Antarctica. Now it’s been transformed into an animation and remixed online into a music video.
• Iron-ageing: trace elements and their role in Parkinson’s disease: If all the iron in the human brain was put into one lump, it would amount to about the size of a grain of rice. But the metal plays a vital role in brain cells and their function.
• The life and inventions of Alan Turing: Turing expert Professor Jack Copeland and;
• ABC RN Forum – The Beast Within: dissecting the ethics of animal experimentation. [continue reading…]

The three L’Oréal Fellows for 2011 have been busy since they were announced on 23 August 2011.

Eve McDonald-Madden is in France, working with researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Research to develop new strategies for the management of the impacts of climate change.

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Tools once used just to diagnose human diseases are being used to save coral reefs; depression patients will be able to monitor their mental health using a computer and a bodybuilder’s health supplement could be the key to treating a life-threatening muscular dystrophy affecting hundreds of Australian children.

These are just some of the interesting stories that emerged from Australian research published in the last week.  Find over a dozen other stories below.

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The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were presented by the Prime Minister and the Innovation Minister at the Prize Dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday 12 October. [continue reading…]

Ezio Rizzardo and David Solomon

In the coming years when you buy a tyre, lubricant, adhesive, paint, computer or any one of hundreds of other products, there’s a good chance that some of its component materials will have been produced using revolutionary chemical theories and processes invented in Australia by research teams led by Professors Ezio Rizzardo and David Solomon.

Their techniques are employed in almost every university chemistry department, and the laboratories and factories of DuPont, L’Oréal, IBM, 3M, Dulux and more than 60 other companies.

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2011 marks the fifth year that L’Oréal Australia will award its For Women in Science Fellowships to Australian early-career female scientists.

Since its inception in 2007, the Fellowships, worth $20,000 each, have been awarded to 14 outstanding female scientists who have used the award to increase their impact in their chosen field of science, provide support to managing both families and lab work, and jumpstart their independent careers in science.
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This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about mobile drug labs; the corpse flower; Easter Island; dolphin gangs; and more [continue reading…]

This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about ozone-hole recovery; the brightness of wealth; seal whiskers; the smell of death; and more [continue reading…]

This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about dinosaurs of the dark; Arctic erosion; drugs in space; toads with clean minds; and more [continue reading…]