From time to time I write to highlight Australian science stories with an international angle.
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NSW
Don’t recycle your specs – new is cheaper for Africa; NASA boss in Sydney; L’Oréal Fellowships expand to NZ
You might feel good sending about your old reading glasses to a developing country. But it would actually be more beneficial to give $10 towards providing new spectacles when you buy your new glasses, according to an international study led by Sydney scientists.
The study found that only 7% of a test sample of 275 recycled glasses were useable, and that this helped push the delivery cost to more than $US20. Ready-made glasses can be supplied for half that cost.
Don’t send your recycled glasses to developing countries, it costs twice as much as giving them ready-made glasses
You might feel good sending your old reading glasses to a developing country. But a recent international study, led by the International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE), a collaborating partner in the Vision CRC, in Sydney, suggests it is far better to give $10 for an eye examination and a new pair of glasses if you want to help someone in desperate need, and it is far better for building capacity in these communities.
Sydney doctor inaugurates $4-million Chair to explore a hidden organ
Revealing the cells that make and police our 80,000 km internal transport network.
Sydney doctor and philanthropist Tom Wenkart will donate $4 million on Monday 26 March, in the presence of the NSW Governor Dr Marie Bashir, to endow the University of Sydney Wenkart Chair in Endothelium Medicine at the Centenary Institute.
Young researcher taking fight against global killer to the next level in Vietnam
An Australian scientist will bring effective screening for tuberculosis (TB) a step closer with his latest study in Vietnam- where he now lives and works.
Million dollar lab will fast track new weapons in the war on TB
A $1.2 million high-containment laboratory opening today in Sydney will allow researchers to double their efforts to understand and fight back against TB, a bacterium that lives inside two billion people worldwide and kills three people every minute.
Images available here of the high-biosecurity lab before we lock up and start work with TB.
Million dollar lab to fight TB; Aussie role in global vaccines push; who’s top in science and more
See a $1.2 million high-containment laboratory opening tomorrow at 11 am in Sydney before they lock it up forever and start work with live TB.
The lab will speed up efforts to understand and fight back against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterium that lives inside two billion people worldwide and kills three people every minute. More below.
Also this week
- more on TB in Australia, Vietnam and China;
- the head of the global campaign to vaccinate 250 million children and save 4 million deaths (from a virus first discovered in Melbourne);
- And what does Nature think of Australian science? Are we number one in the Asia Pacific – probably not, but find out on Thursday – more below.
- L’Oreal Laureate to receive prize in Paris next week.
Searching rural China for clues to stop an ancient and still deadly disease
A Sydney researcher is seeking to improve treatment of TB by tracking resistance to it among thousands of rural Chinese people with the help of a $750,000 NHMRC grant
Why do some heavy drinkers get liver cirrhosis and some don’t?
The US government is investing $2.5 million in a Sydney-based study to determine the role of genetics in alcoholic liver disease.
The study, announced today, should lead to better diagnosis and treatment of the condition – a silent epidemic that costs $3.8 billion a year in Australia alone.
Science in Charlie Teo's Australia Day address
In his Australia Day address, noted brain surgeon Charlie Teo said he was ashamed to admit to an American friend, who had received a US$50 million grant in the US to study brain cancer, that he works with just AU$150,000 over three years from the Australian government.
Teo says we need another AIS – one for sport, one for science.
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