Bookmarks (504)

Analysis spanning the last 22,000 years shows that extreme changes in India’s summer monsoon due to climate change could see dramatic declines in Bay of Bengal marine life – a crucial regional food source. The Bay of Bengal covers less than 1% of the global ocean but supplies nearly 8% of fishery production. Monsoons are […]

The billions of doses of antibiotics administered to farm animals are accelerating the rise of drug-resistant superbugs and undermining our most vital medicines. International researchers warn that, without significant changes, global antibiotic use in livestock could surge by 29.5% over the next 15 years, driven by growing demand for animal products and an expanding human […]

New geological evidence from Scotland rewrites history books and suggests that meteorite impacts could have helped some ancient life to colonise land. A massive meteorite hit what is today northwestern Scotland 990 million years ago (mya) – about 200 million years later than previously thought – according to research published in the journal Geology. The […]

Tim Friede has a superpower – he is immune to snake bite.  A self-taught herpetologist (reptile nerd) and venomous snake collector, he began injecting himself with diluted venom from his collection in case he ever got bitten accidentally. Over the last twenty years he has taken on more than 700 doses of snake venom, each […]

A team of archaeologists, biologists, chemists and historians has put to rest the suggestion that a tomb found in 1977 belonged to Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. The Great Tumulus of Vergina – a cluster of tombs, some dating to more than 3,000 years ago – are about 300km northwest of […]

Researchers from the Republic of Korea have identified genes that make herding dogs sensitive, smart and focussed.  Herding dogs are not fluffballs.  The predation drive inherited from their wolf ancestors may have been put on a leash since humans started breeding dogs about 2,000 years ago, but stalking, strategic chasing and focus are still very […]

Where do gold and other rare, precious elements come from? Astrophysics research suggests a new source of gold, platinum and other heavy elements – the flares unleashed by highly magnetised stars called magnetars. Light elements are those that have a smaller number of protons in the atomic nucleus. The lightest of these – hydrogen, helium, […]

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve active flight, soaring through the skies until their untimely demise 66 million years ago. But new analysis of fossilised footprints shows that some of these winged reptiles were just as comfortable legging it on the ground. Palaeobiologists analysed pterosaur tracks using 3-dimensional modelling, and compared their characteristics – […]

Climate change could contribute to an increase in deaths from antibiotic-resistant bacteria by 2050, according to a new study in Nature Medicine. Led by researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and Peking University in China, the study shows that rising temperatures, air pollution and extreme weather are likely to make the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) […]

Shark’s are being unfairly maligned, which has resulted in the generally wrong view that they are apex predators always ready to take a bite out of humans, say researchers in French Polynesia. Blanket classification of shark bites as ‘attacks’ is misleading and sensationalist, says a team from French Polynesia’s Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire […]

NASA’s Juno mission has peered below the surface to help scientists better understand Jupiter’s storms and its moon Io’s subsurface temperature. Juno was launched in 2011 and has been in orbit around Jupiter since 2016. Its mission has been extended a beyond its original 5 years. It is now due to finish in September this […]

A small bone found 30 years ago has been reanalysed revealing perhaps the stem ancestor of platypus and echidnas went through an “extremely rare” evolutionary change. Platypus and echidnas are the only surviving members of the monotreme family. This includes the only mammals to lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. For this […]

Measles may become endemic again in the US within 20 years if vaccination rates don’t improve, according to new modelling. Only 2 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine are required to achieve 99% effectiveness to prevent infection from the virus for life. These are usually both administered to children by the age […]

Choosing to receive a vaccine’s first dose and booster in the same arm, rather than in separate ones, generates more effective immune response more quickly, Australian scientists have found. Experiments in mice revealed the key to this lies in the lymph node closest to the vaccination site, where the vaccine response is generated. A clinical […]

Scientists are coming closer to understanding the impact of the two periods known as “Snowball Earth,” on the evolution of life, and in particular, complex life. Earth was covered in ice twice during a period called the Cryogenian, 720 to 635 million years ago (mya). The first, called the Sturtian glaciation, lasted 56 million years. […]

Many teachers and parents know neuroscience, the study of how the brain functions and develops, is important for children’s education. Brain development is recommended as part of teacher education in universities. Neuroscience is even mentioned in Australia’s “early years framework”, which guides early childhood programs. Previous research has shown there are misunderstandings about how neuroscience […]

Event industry numbers are huge: according to the Australian Business Events Association 43.7m people attended an event in 2019 in an industry which is estimated to be worth $36bn a year and employs an estimated 229,000 people. It comprises tens of thousands of businesses ranging from multinationals to sole traders; it is far more than […]

A leading platypus research group is calling for a new way to train wildlife researchers to work on animal anaesthesia, without having undertaken a full veterinary degree. Dr Gilad Bino from the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, and the Platypus Conservation Initiative at the University of New South Wales says the new approach […]

The NASA team behind the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – due to launch in 2027 – have shared the designs for the mission’s 3 core surveys. Roman will deepen understanding into the mysteries of astrophysics and the universe. “Roman’s setting out to do wide, deep surveys of the universe in a way that will […]

Astrophysicists have just discovered a vast molecular cloud right under our noses. Only 300 light-years away, this crescent-shaped cloud of gas and dust is invisible to the naked eye but is enormous – if we could see it in the night sky, it would take up the space of 40 Moons. It’s one of the […]

Ants crawl and tunnel their way through almost every landmass on Earth today – except Antarctica and some remote or inhospitable islands. This wasn’t always the case, but new research suggests that ants had made their way into global ecosystems earlier than previously thought. “Our team has discovered a new fossil ant species representing the […]

Australia just sweltered through one of its hottest summers on record, and heat has pushed well into autumn. Once-in-a-generation floods are now striking with alarming regularity. As disasters escalate, insurers are warning some properties may soon be uninsurable. Yet, despite these escalating disasters — and a federal election looming — conversation around climate change remains […]

Professor Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician internationally renowned for her research into all aspects of HIV disease – specifically in strategies to achieve an HIV cure. She is the recipient of the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Awards – Clinical Medicine and Science (Leadership). Research Excellence Awards are awarded annually to the top-ranked researchers […]

Foods high in saturated fat and refined sugar reduce the human brain’s capacity to store memories, say Australian researchers. It’s established that too much saturated fat and refined sugar causes obesity, heart disease and some cancers, but thinking ability also declines and brain disorders increase in people on high fat-high sugar diets, says Dr Dominic […]

New research suggests that prescribed burns in South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges might be threatening the survival of local reptile species with potential cascading effects for the wider ecosystem. Such health risks for local wildlife in the region and beyond are likely to become more pronounced as climate change worsens, the authors warn. The study, […]

Earlier this year farmers in western Victoria vowed to lock their gates to stop a major energy link to New South Wales even as the developers said they didn’t need permission to access the land and in Wollongong, 1,000 people gathered to protest against renewables – a proposed offshore wind farm. It’s become a familiar scene in regional areas […]

The Pacific is one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions, facing intensifying cyclones, droughts, and rising tides — and now, a growing threat to its freshwater supplies. Hydrology experts at Flinders University are calling for an urgent investigation into how bore fields extract fresh groundwater in the region. The new study, published in the Journal […]

One day soon, we may have permanent human dwellings on the Moon. These structures will need to withstand extreme conditions to protect the vulnerable astronauts and essential equipment inside. And, when things inevitably do go wrong, there won’t be lunar tradies around to repair them. “One of the things we’ve got very used to here […]

When precious relics are unearthed by archaeologists, it’s the job of conservators to ensure they’re passed on to future generations by protecting them from further degradation. But a new study has cast into doubt a common technique used in the conservation of ancient metal artefacts. The “significant and alarming” findings indicate that some clear resin […]

The world’s biggest solar telescope has delivered its first images with a new instrument, showing the Sun’s explosive surface in exceptional detail. The Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii – with a primary mirror diameter of 4m – took the images with its Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF) spectro-polarimeter. The telescope has been taking scientific […]

When we think about intelligent animals, farm species aren’t usually the first to spring to mind. We may picture tool-using primates or puzzle-solving crows. But my recent research suggests that sheep, goats and alpacas – staples of the barnyard – deserve more credit. In two separate studies, I tested how these animals learn, remember and […]

Small, hungry crabs may be unsung heroes in the fight to save the Great Barrier Reef, playing a critical role in controlling populations of the destructive crown-of-thorns starfish. New research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America reveals compelling evidence of crab predation on juvenile crown-of-thorns, offering […]

Knowing how much methane is leaking into the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources like oil, gas, coal and cows is critical as humans heat up the planet. Now UNSW researchers are trialling  a new plane-mounted hyperspectral camera to make detection of local sources easier.  “Methane is a stronger blanketing effect than CO2, but doesn’t last as […]

Cultured or lab-grown meats have been touted as next great alternative to animal products since the first artificial burger patty was grown in 2013. Though lab-grown meat products have been commercially available in some countries since 2020, they remain expensive, novelty foods with many challenges to address to become widely available. One major obstacle is […]

Deep in the tree hollows, logs, and rock cavities on a mountain on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu, there dwells a macabre caterpillar – with a penchant for body parts. This rare carnivorous caterpillar skulks about on cobwebs and feasts upon any weakened or recently deceased insects trapped there. It employs a morbid kind of […]

By Richard Musgrove An invasion by ugly but tasty sea creatures might save Tasmania’s kelp forests. But first there has to be some over-fishing. Tasting salty and fishy, and looking like orange-yellow mandarin slices, sea urchin roe is a delicacy, driving a billion dollar global market, with 80% consumed in Japan. Rising sea temperatures are […]

Ocean eddies fed by deepwater upwellings contain essential fats and oils for marine food webs, say German researchers Eddies form in the ocean, when nutrient-rich water welling up from the depths, collides with coastlines — similar to those roiling, swirling currents of water seen in rivers, downstream of rocks. Same idea, bigger scale. Typically, 10-100 […]

Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet 140 light-years from Earth which is disintegrating, leaving a 9-million-km-long comet-like tail. For now, the disintegrating world is about the same size as Mercury. It orbits its host star every 30.5 hours at about 3 million km – about 20 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun. The planet’s […]

The universe has been growing since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. But cosmologists can’t agree on how fast it is expanding. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests a radical new idea that might resolve this astronomical problem – perhaps the universe is spinning very slowly. For […]

An 1800-year old human skeleton unearthed from a Roman cemetery has revealed bite marks consistent with a large cat, like a lion, and is being called the first hard evidence of human-animal combat in England during the Roman Empire. Archaeologists say the man may have died as part of a gladiator show or execution, and […]

Water is critical to life on our planet, but the conventional theory of how it ended up being so abundant on Earth might be completely wrong. The most popular theory is that water made its way to Earth from asteroids bombarding the surface of our planet for about 100 million years when it was very […]

Giant kangaroos should have giant home ranges, but researchers were shocked to find that the largest of them all, Protemnodon, was a real homebody. Habitat, not body size was the key says lead researcher, Dr Chris Laurikainen Gaete, from the University of Wollongong. Protemnodon was a genus of the giant forest kangaroos that lived until […]

The fascinating behaviour of origami has inspired engineers to design a structure that twists when compressed and shrinks when twisted. The structure is a “metamaterial”; a class of engineered materials that exhibit behaviour not seen in nature and whose properties depend on their structure rather than chemical composition. These materials can have applications ranging from […]

In the 11th century in Cairo, the foundations for modern science were laid through the detention of an innocent man. The mathematician Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham had been tasked with regulating the flow of the Nile, but when he saw the river that had shaped 4,000 years of human civilization, the hubris of the […]

A new study of Australian birds examines how for some species their personality shines through in the songs. The research, published in Royal Society Open Science, is based on observations of wild superb-fairy wrens (Malurus cyaneus), a common, small bird in southeastern Australia. Very few previous studies have sought to understand the relationship between the […]

A new nickel-based super-metal alloy that maintains strength and flexibility over an 800oC temperature range has been developed in Korea. A team at researchers at the Republic of Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) called its high entropy allow (HEA) the first of the ‘hyperadaptors’. “Our HEA breaks through the limitations of existing […]

El Niño, a climate troublemaker, has long been one of the largest drivers of variability in the global climate. Every few years, the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean seesaws between warm (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) phases. This reshuffles rainfall patterns, unleashing floods, droughts and storms thousands of miles from the Pacific origin. The 1997-98 […]

Scientists from 19 nations, including Australia and New Zealand, have been selected to compete for the annual Frontiers Planet Prize, the world’s largest science prize.  Each “National Champion” has been chosen for their scalable solutions to help keep humanity safely within planetary sustainability boundaries. In June the Swiss based science philanthropic organisation will whittle down […]

Wild fig trees may provide a biomonitoring tool for illegal gold mining in the Amazon. Gold, sought after and fought over for millennia, is found in the Amazon rainforest although artisanal and small-scale gold mines are often illegal. Mercury, (Hg) used for separating gold, is a major health and environmental problem. Mercury is added to […]

Storing compressed air in old oil wells and releasing it later to drive energy turbines looks promising as a more sustainable energy source according to the latest models from the USA. The process is known as Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES). Pennsylvania State university researchers have turbocharged the performance of CAES, a struggling renewable energy […]