Category: News

Welcome at the end of one more exciting and this time, we could say, historically amazing week. Namely, these days we are witnessing a highly interesting ESA’s mission called Rosetta. For such a reason, this week’s review will be dedicated to that mission and some space science and industry stories. So, let’s go through the…

New research has found Mountain Ash forests provide more value to the community and the global climate when protected and not logged. Research scientists at the ANU, in partnership with information and communication technologists at Fujitsu Laboratories in Japan, have used long-term field data from the Central Highlands in Victoria to calculate the social, economic…

Most people know that Mark Twain wrote about Jim and Huckleberry Finn navigating down the Mississippi. Less well known is that he occasionally dabbled in the burgeoning genre of science fiction. His 1898 short story “The Great Dark” is about a ship that sails across a drop of water on a microscope slide. His novel…

A new agreement between the ANU and the National University of Malaysia (UKM) will deepen links between Australia and Malaysia, and boost the studies of Malaysia in both Australia and around the globe. Witnessed by Malaysia Deputy Prime Minister YAB Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Muhyiddin Bin Haji Mohd Yassin, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed…

Using genetic analysis, scientists have for the first time been able to conclusively establish that insects originated approximately 480 million years ago, and that they developed the ability to fly approximately 80 million years later. Published last week in Science, the study, which involved more than 100 researchers from 16 countries including five from Australia’s…

A major new Series on health and ageing, published in “The Lancet”, warns that unless health systems find effective strategies to address the problems faced by an ageing world population, the growing burden of chronic disease will greatly affect the quality of life of older people. As people across the world live longer, soaring levels…

It’s Sunday! Maybe some of you are not that happy for that, because it’s the end of the weekend, but for us it’s our time to provide you with a new editor’s selection for this week. The task was very interesting and exciting. We got an opportunity to present at once amazing stories from biology,…

Farmers who use plant varieties that become invasive weeds should pay a levy to cover any environmental management costs under a plan put forward by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU). The levy is one recommendation in a new paper which aims to combat the global problem of invasive plants caused by agribusiness. “It’s…

We’ve seen how modern dance can explain key concepts in statistics (e.g. correlation and sampling error). So why couldn’t dance also illustrate the conclusions of a plant biology doctoral dissertation? Uma Nagendra, a graduate student at the University of Georgia, has just won the 2014 edition of the “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest. Sponsored by Science…

The ANU has won more than $35 million in prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) grants for 90 projects, enabling world-class research across the university. “These grants allow the ANU to build on its strengths and further enhance the University’s reputation as a world-leader in research,” ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Margaret Harding said. “The ARC Discovery…

The incidence of bowel cancer is dramatically lower after screening, a new report has found. Research involving 200,000 people found that people who had had bowel cancer screening had a 44 per cent lower risk of developing the disease in the four years following screening. “This is great news for the community – those who…

As part of WHO’s commitment to safety and protection of healthcare workers and patients from transmission of Ebola virus disease, WHO has conducted a formal review of personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines for healthcare workers and is updating its guidelines in context of the current outbreak. About the PPE guidelines These updated guidelines aim to…

If we’ve featured Jazz for Cows on Open Culture, then why not Classical Music for Elephants? Actually, they’re not just any elephants featured above. They’re old, injured, handicapped, sometimes blind elephants who live in the mountains of Thailand. And the gentleman playing a slow movement from Beethoven’s “Pathétique Sonata” is Paul Barton. On his Youtube…

One more exciting week is finishing and here what we have to present you this Sunday. We had amazingly interesting 7 days with lot of new discoveries, findings and research. This time we can proudly say we got extraordinary stories from the world of quantum physics, geology, biology and even some nice pieces of scientific…