Highlights from day four of National Science Week

348 events and exhibitions, 15 online activities, and dozens of great stories and talent.

National and international talent, researchers, experts, and other interesting people available for interview around the country. Plenty of photo opportunities.

Canberra

▪ Meet the medical inventor behind the cochlear ear and a nutrition scientist using one.

▪ Sense and sensibility: how pseudoscience helps market wellness woo to women.

Sydney

▪ What is life? Ask theoretical physicist and best-selling author Paul Davies.

▪ The state of the oceans.

▪ Our warped Milky Way, better meds for brains, and trees cooling cities.

Arnhem Land

▪ Beer goggles and fitness tests with a health clinic on wheels.

Queensland

▪ Are Pokémon biologically possible? Events in Bundaberg and Rockhampton.

▪ In Brisbane, ask a microbiologist.

Adelaide

▪ Tigers, house cats and zoos.

▪ Staying healthy while working shifts.

Hobart

▪ Chemistry in dance: three elements, three choreographers, three composers and 18 performers.

Melbourne

▪ What is the future of plastic?

Western Australia

▪ Perth: Who will win the Premier’s science awards?

▪ Pinjarra: How to survive the end of the Universe – and the next 50 years.

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

National Science Week 2019 will run from 10 to 18 August. Media kit at www.scienceinpublic.com.au. Or visit the National Science Week website for the details of events in your area: www.scienceweek.net.au.

Great energy and environmental stories up for grabs now around Australia.

From artworks to school strikes, how is climate change activism evolving? What is the future for the world’s oceans? Rethinking our waste: is ‘disposable’ a dirty word?

These are just a few of the exciting, and occasionally stomach-churning, questions tackled at exhibitions, shows and talks across Australia during National Science Week (August 10 to 18).

If you’re after more great ideas for highly visual stories, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at www.scienceinpublic.com.au/science-week, and on Twitter at @SciWKMedia.

Scientists, artists, performers and event organisers are available for interview throughout National Science Week.

Chinese-Australian research finds climate change good news, and solves an evolutionary mystery

Baby turtles influence their gender by moving around inside their eggs, research has revealed.

The idea that an embryo reptile can act in a way that affects its chances of developing as male or female has long been thought impossible, but findings by scientists from China and Australia have now provided clear proof of the process.

The research, published in the journal Current Biology, solves a long-standing evolutionary mystery – and offers hope that at least some species thought especially vulnerable to effects of climate change will prove more robust than thought.

Australian-led astronomers find the most iron-poor star in the Galaxy, hinting at the nature of the first stars in the Universe.

A newly discovered ancient star containing a record-low amount of iron carries evidence of a class of even older stars, long hypothesised but assumed to have vanished.

In a paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, researchers led by Dr Thomas Nordlander of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) confirm the existence of an ultra-metal-poor red giant star, located in the halo of the Milky Way, on the other side of the Galaxy about 35,000 light-years from Earth.

As partners in the $245 million SmartSat CRC announced in Adelaide this morning.

Eighty-four research and industry partners are contributing $190 million investment in cash and in kind to the new Cooperative Research Centre for Smart Satellite Technologies and Analytics, and the Australian government is contributing a further $55 million. The CRC is led by the University of South Australia. 

“A new generation of low-cost smart satellite technology has the potential to enhance agriculture, mining, communication and national security,” says Associate Professor Sam Reisenfeld, who leads Macquarie University’s contribution to the CRC.

Images, video overlay, two case studies (rotavirus vaccine and TB in adolescents) and backgrounder available.

Melbourne Children’s Global Health initiative to take action for the:

• Two million children dying annually from pneumonia and diarrhoea
• 8 million new child and youth cases of TB each year
• Mental health and wellbeing of youth caught up in global unemployment, civic unrest, conflict, urbanisation and migration
• Hospitals and health workers who want training and education to help them save their young patients.

Three of Australia’s child health leaders are joining forces to tackle global child health. Melbourne Children’s Global Health will build on the achievements of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) and the University of Melbourne. [continue reading…]