Welcome to my bulletin covering physics news and events for May 2012 and beyond. It’s a bumper month for nuclear physics: in Sydney, ANSTO is opening its doors for a tour of its particle accelerators and a talk by Vincent Smith from CERN. There’s also a public lecture in Tasmania April 30 by ANU physicist […]

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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From time to time I write to highlight Australian science stories with an international angle.
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Vaccines to change the world – Australia’s role in a critical global health mission – immunising against deadly diseases

This forum marks the launch of Australia’s Role in the World, a partnership initiative between The Australian Institute of International Affairs, The University of Melbourne and UN Youth Australia to engage young people, academia and the wider public in debate about major global issues.

6:30-8:00pm, Thursday 22 March 2012 in the Spot Basement Lecture Theatre, 198 Berkeley St.

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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.

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The cellular-wide impact of cancer; how pests interact with wheat plants; what characteristics of yeast give wine its taste.

These are the sorts of complicated questions scientists from around the world will come to Melbourne in 2014 to discuss at the 15th International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB 2014). Systems biology uses all the tools of the biological and computer science revolutions to look at whole plants and animals. Over the next decade it is set to transform biology.
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Australia-Japan collaborative agreement signed on Tuesday 13 March in Melbourne

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Melbourne inventors create a $10 solar light that generates carbon credits and transforms lives

A Melbourne invention is brightening the lives of hundreds of thousands of flood refugees in Pakistan by bringing them sustainable solar light.

The governments of Britain, the USA, Japan and the EU have all bought the new lights and supplied them to refugees via the International Organisation for Migration.

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Find below discoveries on IQ, epilepsy, energy drinks and more.
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