For the first time in Australia, archaeobotany has been used by researchers from UWA to examine charcoal from ancient campfires in the Western Desert. They found wattle and other Acacias which proves it was (and still is) used by Indigenous people for tools, food and medicine. The iconic wattle isn’t just about sports uniforms and…
Research using new antennas in the Australian hinterland has reduced background noise and brought us closer to finding a 13-billion-year-old signal Videos and images: direct link The early Universe was dark, filled with a hot soup of opaque particles. These condensed to form neutral hydrogen which coalesced to form the first stars in what astronomers…
Termites and ants are stockpiling gold in their mounds, new CSIRO research has found. Australia’s smallest and most numerous mining prospectors can show us where new gold deposits are. Insects can carry gold from underground up into their mounds. Dr Aaron Stewart and his CSIRO colleagues have shown that they also accumulate metals in their […]
A new land management tool using Aboriginal knowledge Ngan’gi speakers know it’s time to look for freshwater crocodile eggs when the red kapok trees near the Northern Territory’s Daly River burst into flower. This can occur at a different time each year, but the environmental link is solid. A Darwin-based scientist has converted this link […]
Australian physicists welcome $2 billion win for science Southern Africa, Australia and NZ are to share the Square Kilometre Array – a giant radio telescope that will consist of thousands of separate radio dishes and other antennae spread across an area the size of a continent. Australian Institute of Physics President, Dr Marc Duldig, today…
Brooke Topelberg In 2003, Mrs Brooke Topelberg—only three years out from an education degree and just back from two years’ teaching in inner London—was appointed science coordinator of Westminster Primary School. The school is set in a high immigrant, low socio-economic suburban area in northern Perth. Science was a low priority at the school.
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 fema…
In flour it reduces heart disease risk say Melbourne and WA researchers
You can lower your risk of heart disease significantly, just by using flour containing 40 per cent lupin beans in the place of conventional wholemeal flour, according to research by Victoria University dietitian Dr Regina Belski and colleagues from the University of Western Australia.
Over […]
Previously unknown species of naturally-occurring bacteria have the potential to save the alumina and aluminium industries millions of dollars while helping to reduce their impact on the environment, microbiologist Naomi McSweeney has found in a collaborative project between Alcoa, CSIRO and the University of Western Australia.