Author: Editorial Board
-
Putting a value on environmental change
The value of the global environment to human well-being, health and livelihoods fell by around US$20 trillion (A$21.5 trillion) a year between 1997 and 2011 due to loss of wetlands, coral reefs and tropical forests, a new study from a team of international researchers has found. The study, published in Global Environmental Change, found the total…
-
Investment in midwifery can save millions of lives of women and newborns
A report released today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund together with the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), WHO and partners reveals that major deficits in the midwifery workforce occur in 73 countries where these services are most desperately needed. The report recommends new strategies to address these deficits and save millions of lives…
-
What’s in the sheep genome? Wool see
After eight years of work, researchers have completed the first sequencing of the entire sheep genome. Scientists from CSIRO led an international research team to complete the sequencing, which could lead to more effective breeding strategies and new approaches to the management of sheep in Australia and around the world. With about 70m head of…
-
Stephen Hawking Reveals the Conditions That Could Lead to England’s Victory at The World Cup
Speaking at the Savoy Hotel in London, physicist Stephen Hawking told a crowd: “Ever since the dawn of civilisation, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable.” “They have craved understanding of the underlying order in the world. The World Cup is no different.” Using what he calls “General Logistic Regression…
-
Supercritical solar – new frontier for power generation
CSIRO has used solar energy to generate hot and pressurised ‘supercritical’ steam, at the highest temperatures ever achieved in the world outside of fossil fuel sources. Supercritical steam is a breakthrough for solar energy and means that one day the sun could be used to drive the most advanced power stations in the world, currently…
-
Media Education Futures: Coding skills not enough in an information society
The need to learn coding as one of the civic skills needed in the 21st century has been particularly emphasised in the Western world. Whether coding skills should be included in the new national core curriculum is debated in Finland where IT companies have even organised coding clubs for children. However, the conclusion of the…
-
Technology deal secures commercial RAFT agent supply
The global polymer industry will soon have access to commercial quantities of RAFT agents, thanks to a new licensing arrangement between Boron Molecular and CSIRO. Under the terms of the agreement announced today, Boron Molecular will have the right to mass-manufacture and sell RAFT chain transfer agents globally for both R&D and commercial purposes. CSIRO’s…
-
Australians respect science but don’t know the details
A new report has found Australians have extremely positive attitudes about science and technology, although they’re not always clear about the details. The report, entitled How do Australians engage with science? presents preliminary findings from a national survey, designed by Dr Suzette Searle from the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. The…
-
The Science of Dreams and Why We Have Nightmares
The psychology of our built-in nocturnal therapy. “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind,” Freud argued in his influential treatise The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. “The earth is heavy and opaque without dreams,” Anaïs Nin wrote in her diary in 1940. “In the…
-
Internet Research: Skills Your Students Should Have
Internet research is the practice of using Internet information, especially free information on the World Wide Web, in research. Internet research has had a profound impact on the way ideas are formed and knowledge is created. Common applications of Internet research include personal research on a particular subject, students doing research for academic projects and…
-
The Animals of Chernobyl
In 1986, the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up in what is now Ukraine. The site spewed a cloud of radioactive material that spread over much of Europe. The area immediately around Chernobyl received more than 400 times the radiation as Hiroshima and won’t be safely inhabitable for about 20,000…
-
Cycling’s Tour de Campus
ANU will celebrate the use of pedal power to fund world-class cancer research on Tuesday with a special cycling Tour de Campus. The event will welcome cyclist Chris Gruar to the University as he completes one of the final legs of a 45,000km charity bike ride from England to Sydney. Chris, 28, left England in…
-
Plan to print 3D kidney tissue using Queensland expertise
Minister for Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts The Honourable Ian Walker announced the plan to print 3D kidney tissue using Queensland expertise. It sounds like something out of science fiction but a US company is planning to produce kidney tissues using a 3D printer. And there’s a Queensland connection. Minister for Science and Innovation Ian…
-
Soil contamination detector launched in the US
A handheld detector that reduces both the cost and time taken to remediate sites contaminated by petroleum products has been launched to market in the United States. The device, RemScan, developed by CSIRO and industry partner Ziltek, uses an infrared signal to directly measure petroleum hydrocarbons in the soil, giving a result in around 20…