LATEST SCIENCE NEWS STORIES

QUEENSLAND SCIENTISTS DEVELOP "SUPER" FOOD

[Australian Associated Press, December 29, 2006] Queensland scientists have made a breakthrough they believe will help feed millions of starving people. A hybrid, using species of the common Australian wild pigeon pea and commercial cultivated plants or cultivars, has been developed by Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPIF) staff at Biloela in central Queensland. Pigeon pea is a major food source eaten as a porridge and as a green vegetable in south-east Asia, the Caribbean, Africa and India but most varieties of the crop are very susceptible to pests and diseases, state Primary Industries and Fisheries Minister Tim Mulherin said. “The hybrid varieties emerging from the research could hold the key to developing cultivars that are resistant to pests and diseases,” he said DPIF scientist Sally Dillon said the pigeon pea F1 hybrids held the key to developing better cultivars. “We have identified 13 native pigeon pea species endemic to Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia that thrive in the wild and are extremely tolerant in terms of limited soil moisture and soil nutrients,” she said. Dr Dillon said Australian species of the crop were drought tolerant, high yielding and palatable, as well as being disease and pest resistant. Pigeon pea also provides livestock fodder, is a source of fuel and its woody stems are used as a building material. Pigeon pea is a grain legume crop that contains amino acids and has an average 24 per cent protein content.

FACE OF TUTANKHAMUM, THE BOY KING, RECONSTRUCTED

[BBC, May 10, 2005] Scientists have carried out the first facial reconstructions of Egypt's most famous ancient king, Tutankhamun. Three teams of forensic artists -- French, Egyptian and American -- built separate but similar models of the king's face using scans of his skull. The French and Egyptians knew who they were recreating, but the Americans were not told where the skull came from. The models of the boy king, who died 3,300 years ago, reveal a young man with plump cheeks and a round chin. The models bear a striking resemblance to the mask which covered the mummified face of King Tutankhamun when his remains were found by archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 and other ancient portraits. "The shape of the face and skull are remarkably similar to a famous image of Tutankhamun as a child where he was shown as the sun god at dawn rising from a lotus blossom," said Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Whilst the US team were not told where the skull came from, using high-resolution photos of the CT scans, they correctly identified the skull as coming from a North African. A CT, or "Cat", scan involves the use X-rays to map the body. The Egyptian team was able to work directly from the scans, which could distinguish different densities of soft tissue and bone. "The results of the three teams were identical or very similar in the basic shape of the face, the size, shape and setting of the eyes, and the proportion of the skull," Mr Hawass said. "The primary differences were in the shape of the end of the nose and ears," he added. The French and American versions had similar noses and chins, but the Egyptian team gave their reconstruction a stronger nose, the council said. The CT scans -- the first ever done on an Egyptian mummy -- were carried out in January this year. The models bear a striking resemblance to ancient portraits They suggested that the king was a slightly built, but healthy man of 19 when he died, but that he most likely died of complications from a broken leg, rather than being murdered as long suspected. When the body was x-rayed in 1968, a shard of bone was found in his skull, prompting speculation that he was killed by a blow. Little is known about Tutankhamun's 10-year rule after he succeeded Akhenaten, who had abandoned Egypt's old gods in favour of monotheism. Some historians had argued he was killed for attempting to bring back polytheism. Others believed he was assassinated by Ay, his second in command and the man who succeeded him. But Mr Hawass said he was confident that Tutankhamun, who died in 1352 BC, was not murdered.

EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION

[AFP, April 15, 2004] A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will soon hit southern California. Russian-born University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) professor Vladimir Keilis-Borok says he can foresee major quakes by tracking minor tremors and historical patterns in seismic hotspots that could indicate more violent shaking is on the way. And he has made a chilling prediction that a quake measuring at least 6.4 magnitude on the Richter scale will hit a 31,200-square-kilometre area of southern California by September 5. The team at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics accurately predicted a 6.5-magnitude quake in central California last December as well as an 8.1-magnitude temblor that struck the Japanese island of Hokkaido in September. "Earthquake prediction is called the Holy Grail of earthquake science, and has been considered impossible by many scientists," said Keilis-Borok, 82. "It is not impossible. We have made a major breakthrough, discovering the possibility of making predictions months ahead of time, instead of years, as in previously known methods." If accurate, the prediction method would be critical in an area like California, which is cris-crossed by fault lines that have spawned devastating quakes over the years including ones which ravaged San Francisco in 1989 and Los Angeles in 1994. That has given credence to his research, which was endorsed by a state panel, the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, earlier this month. "Even two years back it was practically a dirty word to say earthquake prediction," said Nancy Sauer, an organiser of the annual conference of the Seismological Society of America which began yesterday in Palm Springs. The UCLA team - made up of US, Japanese, Canadian, European and Russian experts in pattern recognition, geodynamics, seismology, chaos theory, statistical physics and public safety - says it has developed algorithms to detect earthquake patterns. The experts predicted in June an earthquake measuring 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 496-kilometre region of central California, including San Simeon, where a 6.5-magnitude temblor struck December 22, killing two people. In July, they said they predicted a magnitude 7.0 or higher quake in a region that included Hokkaido by December 28. The September 25 quake fell within that period. Now they predict a major quake will hit an area that stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of Palm Springs, which lies near the notorious San Andreas fault. That is where experts began gathering for the Seismological Society of America conference that looks sure to be dominated by passionate discussion of Keilis-Borok's prediction method. "There is something going on," Sauer told the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs. "People are at least willing to entertain the idea. It is not seen so much as junk science now." Another seismic expert, University of Oregon professor Ray Weldon, was scheduled to present findings to the conference that appear to support Keilis-Borok's research by saying the San Andreas fault is about to enter a new and violent period of shaking. The data, according to the Desert Sun, was gathered over 18 years around the famed fault, showing it is under high levels of stress. "You could consider that support (for Keilis-Borok's research)," Weldon was quoted as saying. "But I don’t lend any insight or support to a window of time." But researchers still point to the fact that the science of earthquake prediction has been notoriously inaccurate and the geographic area targeted by the UCLA team for an imminent quake is very large. "It is not specific," said Susan Hough, a seismologist for the US Geological Survey based in Pasadena, near Los Angeles. "They've made three predictions and two of them have been borne out." Keilis-Borok himself acknowledged the caution expressed by some of his colleagues. "Application of non-linear dynamics and chaos theory is often counter-intuitive, so acceptance by some research teams will take time." But if his latest prediction that the earth will move in the area around Los Angeles within the next five months proves accurate, his research could end up saving lives and transforming seismology.

STEM CELLS TO REPLACE BONE GRAFTS

[news.com.au, April 6, 2006] DOCTORS have implanted adult stem cells into a patient's broken leg in an Australian world-first experimental procedure they hope will replace painful bone grafts. Jamie Stevens, 21, shattered his leg in a motorbike accident in June. After nine months of discomfort and inactivity, the break had not healed. Last Friday, Royal Melbourne Hospital orthopaedics director Richard de Steiger inserted about 30 million of Mr Stevens's stem cells into the cavity in his left thigh bone, coated on two pieces of "scaffolding" made of bone-like material. The stem cells were harvested from his bone marrow during a biopsy about seven weeks earlier and cultured into bone-producing cells. Doctors will have to wait six weeks before they know if the cells are likely to grow into new bone. Dr de Steiger said he hoped the cavity in Mr Stevens's bone would have completely filled after 16 weeks. "Like any medical research it's exciting, but it's tempered by the fact you have to wait and see," he said. Mr Stevens, of Ivanhoe, is the first of 10 patients who will undergo the procedure over the next 12 months at the hospital in a clinical trial. He will be discharged from Royal Melbourne Hospital today on crutches and with his leg still swollen. "It's still quite sore but it's better than it was," Mr Stevens said yesterday. "I'm pretty happy to be the first one in the world." Dr de Steiger said long bone fractures failed to heal in about 10 per cent of cases, which usually led to a bone graft. He said the treatment, developed by Australian firm Mesoblast Ltd, could reduce hospital stays and recovery time while reducing discomfort. Using patients' own stem cells eliminates the risk of rejection that can occur with cells from another donor.

TUTANKHAMUN TO BE TESTED FOR DNA

[Reuters, November 24, 2004] Egypt plans to run tests on the mummy of Tutankhamun to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teenager. The Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, agreed Tutankhamun's mummified body could be moved from its tomb to the Cairo Museum for the tests, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. The mummy was packed with treasures when it was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 and has been kept in the tomb in Luxor, southern Egypt, ever since. Most of Tutankhamun's treasures, including a gold mask that covered his head, are on display in the Cairo Museum. The examinations, which would include a scan and a DNA test, aimed to establish what killed Tutankhamun, MENA quoted Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass as saying. Tutankhamun's mummy comprised his skull, chest and two other bones, he said. Carter and his sponsor Lord Carnarvon were among the first to enter Tutankhamun's tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings. Lord Carnarvon died shortly afterwards from an infected mosquito bite. Newspapers at the time said a pharaonic curse had killed him and other people linked to the discovery. Scientists have in the past suggested that a disease lying dormant in the tomb may have killed the British aristocrat.

MICE GIVE CLUES TO SCHIZOPHRENIA

[Sydney Morning Herald, July 9] By creating a genetically modified mouse with schizophrenia, researchers led by the Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa have identified a gene in people linked to a high risk of developing the mental illness. Professor Tonegawa said the discovery was likely to lead to a much needed new class of drugs for the disease - the first drugs designed to target its underlying genetic causes. People could also be tested in future to see whether they were at increased risk of becoming ill before they developed symptoms. Professor Tonegawa, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an expert in the brain and memory. To study memory, he has developed a unique method for switching off a gene in just a tiny part of a mouse's brain. One mouse created this way was found to have a poor working memory - the kind of memory we need to find reading glasses we have put down, or our way back to a car in the carpark. People with schizophrenia usually have a poor working memory, which is also why their speech can be incoherent. "It's a very common impairment," Professor Tonegawa told the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne yesterday. His team realised the modified mice had other symptoms that were strikingly similar to the disease, such as social withdrawal. Mice like to cuddle up to each other when they sleep, "but the two mutants don't want to be together". The modified mice also reacted in the same way as sick people on a test used to diagnose schizophrenia, in which their reaction to loud noises was monitored. Drugs used to treat affected people resulted in improvements in the mice, too. And the mice messed up their cage, scattering their nesting material about. "This is the first knockout mouse to show such a comprehensive array of behavioural abnormalities that mirror the abnormal behaviour of human schizophrenia patients," Professor Tonegawa said. The mice had been genetically modified in part of their forebrain so they did not make the chemical calcineurin. When collaborators at Rockefeller University, New York, studied the DNA from families affected by schizophrenia they found those with the disease were more likely to have a defective version of a gene called PPP3CC that is associated with the production of calcineurin. Professor Tonegawa said schizophrenia was a complex disease, with perhaps 20 to 30 genes contributing to the risk. But he believed many of them could influence the calcineurin chemical pathway in the brain. >I>[The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Tonegawa was awarded his Nobel in 1987 for genetic discoveries about the immune system.]

REVOLUTIONARY CANCER TREATMENT DISCOVERY

[AAP, October 20, 2003] Under a world-first treatment developed in Melbourne cancer patients will be injected with their own blood cells. The treatment which aims to boost the body's disease-fighting white blood cells was discovered by researchers at the Peter McCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne. The procedure involves injecting genetically engineered white blood cells back into the body. It is hoped the treatment could destroy many common tumours, including breast, lung and pancreas cancers. Associate Professor of Immunology at the institute Joe Trapani said the therapy had already been successful in mice. "What we've shown so far is that you can take the cells from the immune system from the animal itself, treat them outside the body to be able to recognise cancer and then inject them back into the body," Prof Trapani said. "Then instead of having very few, perhaps one in a thousand cells that can recognise the tumour, now we have virtually 100 per cent of them that can, so the attack on the tumour is much, much greater." Prof Trapani said the therapy had been around for a while, but researchers at the institute led by Dr Michael Kershaw and Dr Phillip Darcy, had successfully modified it. Human trials are expected to begin within two years, subject to regulatory approval. The institute is yet to decide the number and type of patients for the first trial. Prof Trapani said in theory the treatment could be used for all cancers but researchers were concentrating on common tumours, such as those found in the lung and breast.

SCIENCE PROVES BIBLICAL EVENT

2 Chronicles 32:30 "Hezekiah . . . stopped the water outlet of Upper Gihon, and brought the water by tunnel to the west side of the City of David." The Bible is right, scientists have decided, at least when it describes the construction of an ancient tunnel under Jerusalem, known as the Siloam Tunnel. An international team has dated samples from the 500- metre-long watercourse and found it was built around 700BC, the time of King Hezekiah. This makes it the first biblical structure to be scientifically verified. The books of Kings and Chronicles outline the dilemma facing King Hezekiah 2700 years ago. A hostile Assyrian king, Sennacherib , was advancing on Jerusalem, but the inhabitants' only supply of water was at nearby Gihon Springs. 2 Chronicles 32: 2-4 "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs outside the city; and they helped him. "Thus many people gathered together and stopped all the springs and the brook that ran through the land, saying:``Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?" The spring water was diverted into a tunnel that was hewn through the rock by diggers starting from either end. It finished up in the Siloam pool within the original heart of the city. The research team, led by Amos Frumkin , of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, radio-carbon dated specimens such as wood and plants found in the ancient plaster in the tunnel's walls, ceiling and floor. Their results are published today [September 11] in the journal Nature. "We conclude that the Biblical text presents an accurate historic record of the Siloam Tunnel's construction." they said. Dr Frumkin said that determining the historic credibility of the Bible's descriptions of buildings was extremely difficult, because of their poor preservation, uncertainty about their identification, a lack of material that could be dated and restricted access to holy sites. "Because of these problems, no well-identified biblical structure has been radiometrically dated until now," he said. A Sydney field archaeologist, David Down, who takes tour groups through the Siloam Tunnel each year, said the pick marks of the digging teams were clearly visible on the walls. The water is about hip deep at the end of Gihon Springs. "Further along, the ceiling gets lower and you have to crouch over, and when you reach the pool the ceiling is about six metres in height," said Mr Down, publisher of Archaeological Diggings magazine.

NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH PREDICTED

According to an article in the NEW SCIENTIST, fast-falling birth rates and rising AIDS deaths are stifling the population explosion - and could lead to a decline in global population in the second half of the 21st century. In new forecasts released earlier this year, UN demographers cut 400 million from their best estimate of the world's population in 2050. Joseph Chamie, the head of the UN population division in New York, said he now expected 8.9 billion people on Earth in 2050, rather than the 9.3 billion that he forecast in 2002. The current figure is 6.3 billion. The 400-million reduction equates to the current populations of the US, Canada and Mexico combined. Chamie said half arose from birth rates falling faster than expected and the other half was due to rising forecasts of the death toll from AIDS. "HIV/AIDS is a disease of mass destruction," he said. The new population projections stretch to the year 2050, but not beyond. However, he warned that "fertility rates will be below replacement levels in three-quarters of the world by 2050". The great majority of women worldwide will be having fewer than two children. In fact, the new projections assume that most countries will eventually approach a fertility rate of 1.85 children per woman. This represents a clear break with past thinking - demographers had always assumed countries would settle down to replacement fertility levels. Chamie agrees that it has "momentous" implications for humanity. After a time-lag during which past "baby boom" generations pass through child-bearing age, it will cause most countries to go into a demographic decline. The detailed projections for individual countries show 33 countries with smaller populations in 2050 than today. Japan is expected to be 14 per cent smaller; Italy 22 per cent; and a slew of eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, will see their populations crash by between 30 and 50 per cent. The population of South Africa and three neighbours is also expected to reduce, but as a result of the AIDS. Chamie predicts the disease will have claimed 278 million lives by mid-century. The US is expected to be one of a handful of developed nations whose population will continue to grow strongly, largely through an inward migration of more than a million people a year. The US population is predicted to rise from 285 million now to 409 million in 2050. The UK is also expected to have more people then, rising from 59 million to 66 million. The next five decades are also set to see a massive ageing of the world population. The number of people over 80 will rise fivefold. The median citizen - the one with half the world older than him or her and half younger, will be aged 37 in 2050, compared to 26 today. [Fred Pearce, NEW SCIENTIST]

ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER SMALLEST EXTRASOLAR PLANET

[BBC, June 13, 2005] [Picture shows artist’s impression] Astronomers have detected the smallest extrasolar planet yet: a world about seven and a half times as massive as Earth, orbiting a star much like ours. All of the 150 or so exoplanets found orbiting normal stars are larger than Uranus, itself 15 times Earth's mass. The new find may be the first rocky world found around a star like our Sun. The newly discovered "super-Earth" orbits the star Gliese 876, located 15 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Aquarius. This star also has two larger, Jupiter-size planets orbiting it. The new planet whips around the star in a mere two days, and is so close to the star's surface that its temperature probably tops 200-400C 400-750F) -- oven-like temperatures, far too hot for life as we know it. The planet was discovered using the familiar "wobble technique": the planet's gravitational tug on its parent star produces changes in the star's velocity. This can be picked up in the light spectrum emitted by the star. The nature of that signal can reveal details such as the mass and orbital period of the planet. "We keep pushing the limits of what we can detect, and we're getting closer and closer to finding Earths," said team member Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The researchers have measured a minimum mass for the planet of 5.9 Earth masses. It orbits Gliese 876 with a period of 1.94 days at a distance of 0.021 astronomical units (AU), or 3.2 million km (2 million miles). Though the team has no direct proof the planet is rocky, its low mass precludes it from holding on to gas in the way that Jupiter does. Three other supposed rocky planets have been reported, but they orbit a pulsar, the corpse of an exploded star. "This planet answers an ancient question," said team leader Geoffrey Marcy, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. "More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus argued about whether there were other Earth-like planets. Now, for the first time, we have evidence for a rocky planet around a normal star." Professor Marcy, Dr Vogt, Dr Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and other team members carried out the study at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. They have submitted a scientific paper to the Astrophysical Journal.

LIGHT SLOWED TO ZERO

[IT News, Monday Dec 15, 2004] Two years ago, Harvard University researchers shone a pulse of laser light through a cloud of super-cold sodium ions and slowed the light to about 60km/h. This week another group of Harvard physicists have brought light from its normal speed of 300,000 kilometres per second to zero. Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, were able to bring a light pulse measuring approximately 0.8 kilometres long to a complete stop before allowing it to continue. Light entered a chamber a fraction of an inch wide, and was sufficiently slowed by metal atoms for the entire beam to enter the chamber before allowing it to exit. Observers said the feat could speed development of quantum computers. Researchers cooled the metal atoms to just above absolute zero. Then they shut off the coupling beam of a tuned coupling-beam laser when the entire light pulse entered the chamber, stopping the beam for as long as a millisecond before turning the coupling beam back on and allowing the light pulse to continue at its full speed. Using these techniques and others, quantum computer developers could perform calculations much faster using light Making such calculations would require that the information contained in a light pulse be stored, a major technical hurdle since light is intrinsically elusive

CLEVER AUSTRALIANS

AUSTRALIANS have been responsible for countless original inventions, now used world-wide, and innumerable technical and medical advances. I will list here a few of the better known ones. AIR NAVIGATIONAL RADIO BEACONS. The air navigational system pioneered in Australia consists of a network of automatic ground radio beacons sited at regular intervals along routes which aircraft fly. Each aircraft is fitted with a transmitter which sends out a constant stream of several pulses. The ground beacon will respond to only one of these pulses, and upon receiving the right one sends a reply signal which gives its precise distance from the aircraft. This work which began in 1944 developed into the first such system in the world. ASPRO and ASPIRIN. Aspirin was first produced and marketed by the German firm Bayer. When this firm's activities were disrupted by World War I, Melbourne-based pharmacist George Nicholas developed a purer form and took over the trade name "Aspirin" in 1915. The trade name "Aspro" was also registered, and the product went on sale in various countries around the world. BANKNOTES: Counterfeit-proof. Twenty years of research by the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) and the Note Printing branch of the Reserve Bank produced a plastic-laminated banknote which incorporates security devices against forgery and has a longer circulation life than conventional banknotes. BILLINGS METHOD of Fertility Control. This method of fertility control was developed in the late 1960s by Melbourne-based Dr Evelyn Billings and her husband Dr John Billings. It is regarded as the most reliable of the natural methods of family planning and is now used in more than 100 countries. BIONIC EAR. This implantable hearing device was developed over 10 years by a team at Melbourne University, led by Professor Graeme Clark. More than 4,000 people around the world are currently benefitting from such devices, which are manufactured in Australia. BLACK BOX. Flight Memory Recorder. The prototype of the black box flight recorder was developed in 1954 by Dr David Warren of Aeronautical Research Laboratories. The idea was rejected by the Australian Department of Civil Aviation and the RAAF, and it was left to British and American companies to commercialise the product. BLUE ROSE. The isolation of the blue pigment gene in petunias in 1991 by an Australian team has made possible the production of a horticultural novelty -- the blue rose. BOOMERANG, RETURNING: Invented by the Aboriginal people in the mists of antiquity, this device ... a curved piece of hardwood ... can be thrown to complete an arc of up to 100 metres, and return to the thrower. It is mainly used for recreational competitions and for developing throwing skills for the young. The Aborigines also used it to hunt birds, by putting it into the air to imitate the path of a circling hawk. The startled flock would then be attacked by a hunting party waiting with nets and sticks. The returning boomerang is unknown anywhere else in the world. BOOT POLISH: "Kiwi" polish, developed in 1904 by William Ramsay and Hamilton McKellan, is an improved boot cream which not only polishes and preserves leather, but also restores colour. BOX KITE: The box or cellular kite was developed by Lawrence Hargrave. In 1894, using four linked kites, Hargrave became the first Australian to become airborne in a eavier-than-air machine. Many early aeroplanes and all the early biplanes had wing forms based on the box kites developed by Hargrave. CAPACITANCE: Calculable Standard. Mel Thompson and Doug Lampard working at the CSIRO's National Standards Laboratory developed a simplified method of measuring electrical capacitance. From 1964 to 1974 the CSIRO supplied the world with the instrument which gave the most accurate value of the farad. The value of this instrument was confirmed by the USA in 1974. CLOUD SEEDING. Australia was the first country in the world to successfully seed clouds and make rain fall. The first man-made rainstorm occurred in 1974 near Bathurst, NSW, following the seeding of a cumulous cloud with dry ice. The rain lasted several hours and fell over an area of 80 square kilometres. Fifteen millimetres were recorded. FEATURE FILM. The world's first feature length film, "The Story of the Kelly Gang," was made in Australia and had its first screening in Melbourne in December, 1906. It was an hour in length, at a time when few films elsewhere in the world ran for more than ten minutes. By 1911, when feature length films began to be produced in other countries, some sixteen had already been produced in Australia [eat ya heart out, Hollywood !] IN-VITRO FERTILISATION. Researchers at Monash University have made several major breakthoughs in in-vitro fertilisation technology. In 1973 scientists at the university reported the world's first IVF pregnancy -- it ended with an early embryo death. Five years later the first IVF baby was born in England, using the Australian-developed techniques. The world's first frozen embryo baby was born in 1984, using techniques developed at Monash University. LITHIUM CARBONATE: For Treatment of Bipolar Disorder.The use of lithium salts as an effective means of controlling manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar) was first recognised in 1949 by John Cade of Melbourne's Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital. To this day it remains the standard treatment of this illness. MICROSURGERY: Procedures developed in Australia by Sydney surgeon Earl Owen, and Melbourne surgeon Bernard O'Brian, are now used around the world and can rejoin the finest capillaries in the body to repair amputated limbs, fingers and toes; to reverse vasectomies and tubal litigations, and to repair damaged sight and hearing. A range of special instruments required for this surgery performed under a powerful microscope, have been developed in Australia. PLASTIC LENSES: The first plastic spectacle lenses in the world were made in South Australia in 1960. The material used was CR39, a new plastic with similar refractive properties to glass, which had been developed in in the United States where it was being used for aircraft windshields. An Australian company SOLA (Scientific Optical Laboratories of Australia) was set up in 1960. It began overseas operations in 1971, and by the mid-1980s had become the world's largest lens maker. RADIO TELESCOPE: The 64 metre radio telescope at Parkes was used to relay to the world the video footage of the first manned landing on the moon. ROTARY CLOTHES HOIST. Invented by Adelaide motor mechanic Lance Hill in 1945, the "Hills Hoist" is a rotary clothes line fitted with a hoist operated by a crown and pinion winding system. It facilitates quicker drying, while taking up less space than the former clothes line and props. SHEEP SHEARS: Mechanised. These were invented by Robert Savage and emigrant Englishman Fredick Wolseley in 1877. In 1888 Dunlop Station, near Bourke, NSW, became the first property in the world to shear an entire wool crop with machines. SUGARCANE HARVESTER. Until the 1960s almost all of the Australian sugar crop was cut by hand. The chopper-harvester, developed by Ken Gaunt for Massey-Ferguson was able to eliminate this dirty and arduous job. THALIDOMIDE: This drug, a sedative, was used to treat nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy until it was discovered that it could affect the normal growth of the foetus. Sydney doctor William Griffith McBride confirmed the link between the use of the drug and limb deformities in newborn babies. These findings allowed the parents of affected children around the world to claim damages from the pharmaceutical manufactureres who produced thalidomide. TWO-STROKE ROTARY LAWNMOWER. Developed in the early 1950s by Mervyn Victor Richardson, the lightweight rotary mower is able to easily cut through tough grasses such as paspalum, and weeds such as Paddy's lucerne. It can also shave a lawn as closely as a cylinder type mower, and can cut right up to the edge of fences, trees and flower beds. Originally powered by a two-stroke engine, four-stroke varieties are now more popular. Victa is now the largest manufacturer of motor mowers in the world, and exports to many countries. ULTRASOUND: Diagnostic ultrasound techniques pioneered in Australia are used around the world for the examination of human organs and developing foetus. Ultrasound is also used to look at human veins, check for gall and kidney stones and to examine other areas, such as the cardiac valves, and to detect breast and ovarian cysts. VEGEMITE. Vegemite is made from brewers yeast which is processed, concentrated and refined. The resultant dark-coloured spread is an extremely rich source of vitamin B. It was developed in 1922 by food technologist Dr Cyril Callister for the Fred Walker Company. WIND-DRIVEN ELECTRICAL GENERATOR.A highly efficient wind-driven electrical generator was developed by the Adelaide-based Dunlite company. It offered many outback farms and stations an alternative to noisy internal combustion-driven machines for the generation of their electrical supplies. Many Dunlite units have been exported and are now found in a number of countries around the world.

GREAT BARRIER REEF CATCHMENTS to be LIVING LABORATORY

[CSIRO: May 31, 2004] Queensland's Great Barrier Reef catchments will serve as a living laboratory as Australia pioneers a radical new approach to improving the health of the world's coral reefs. CSIRO will partner the Queensland Government, Regional Natural Resource Management Bodies, shire, agricultural and marine industries, and other science providers to design and test new ways to manage the catchment for the benefit of the land, water and reef - and the industries that depend on them. The research will be carried out by the Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship, which was launched by the Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson in Canberra today. The Flagship aims to substantially increase the social, economic and environmental benefits Australia obtains from its water. "The challenge is how to wring out increased water benefits from Australia's limited water resources. Demands are increasing - industry, urban and irrigation - and at the same time we are all seeking healthy rivers, reefs and fisheries," says Flagship director Colin Creighton. "This is one of four huge experiments in sustainable management which we are running round Australia. Local communities, industries and Government will be active partners, working with scientists to develop and test systems that are practical, sustainable and profitable," he says. Great Barrier Reef program leader Sheriden Morris says the program's focus is on three areas - sustainable irrigation farming, repairing coastal floodplains, and productive and healthy inland grazing landscapes."We're exploring ways to boost the output of irrigation farms, while improving water quality, protecting wetlands and curbing salinity. We're taking a whole-of-floodplain approach and developing tools that will help scientists and the community explore scenarios for future water use, and manage the tradeoffs." Ms Morris says the research will involve close consultation with cane growers and other industries because without their support, proposed solutions will not work. "The answers have to work for everyone," she says. In coastal areas, research will focus on ways of protecting the reef, coastal wetland areas and fisheries resources by curbing nutrient runoff from farms and other sources and looking for outcomes that will boost farm incomes as well as water quality and fishery production . Researchers will team up with the local Governments and regional groups to demonstrate that changes to land management really can benefit water quality as well as farm returns and fisheries. In the grazing regions, the focus is on developing stocking and management systems that minimise the amount of soil and nutrients that flow downriver and which are finely tuned to climate variability. "We want to keep the nutrients and soil where they belong and help graziers to develop the land management approach that suits them best, balancing the needs to intensify production, to protect water quality and to improve profits." Besides the Great Barrier Reef research, the Flagship has projects in the Murray region, the Western Australian wheatbelt and Perth, and the metropolitan areas of Melbourne and Sydney. Water for a Healthy Country is one of six Flagships established by CSIRO to tackle major challenges faced by Australia. Flagships are a scientific and commercial partnership approach to science, assembling the best multidisciplinary teams to address national issues.

ANTARCTIC GLACIERS ARE RAPIDLY RETREATING

[BBC, April 21, 2005] The glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula are in rapid retreat A detailed study reported in Science magazine shows nearly 90% of the ice bodies streaming down from the mountains to the ocean are losing mass. But the authors -- a joint team from the British-Antarctic and US-Geological Surveys -- say the big melt could have a number of complex causes. Although higher air temperatures are a factor, they say, the full picture may go beyond just simple global warming. This study demonstrates the enormous importance of gathering long-term data. "The overall picture is of glaciers retreating in a pattern that suggests the most important factor is atmospheric warming; we can connect the retreat with the observed warming recorded at climate stations along the peninsula," explained Dr David Vaughan, from the British Antarctic Survey (Bas). "But it's not a perfect fit; there seem to be other factors involved as well - possibly to do with changing ocean currents and temperatures," he told BBC News. The study covers 244 marine glaciers found largely on the western side of the peninsula. They are all relatively small, independent streams of ice that fall from an altitude of about 2,000m down to sea level. Their fronts either ground and calve icebergs into the ocean, or push out into the water as a floating "tongue." The team used more than 2,000 aerial photographs dating from 1940, and over 100 satellite images from the 1960s onwards, to assess the change in position of glacier fronts over time. Bas scientist Alison Cook, who led the research, said: "This is the first comprehensive study of marine glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula. "We found that 87% of the 244 glaciers have shown retreat since the earliest records, which on average were 1953. This is a reverse of the pattern 50 years ago -- then most glaciers were actually growing. Now the majority are shrinking and rapidly." The melting trend began in the north of the peninsula and has steadily worked southwards. The last five years have seen the greatest losses in mass, with an average shrinkage of 50m per year. Some individual losses, however, have been very dramatic. Sjogren Glacier, at the northern end of the peninsula, has moved back 13km since 1993, more than any other glacier in the study. Sjogren Glacier had flowed into the Prince Gustav Ice Shelf and when the ice shelf broke up in 1993, the glacier retreated rapidly. Thirty-two glaciers buck the trend, but their advance -- an average of 300m per glacier over the study period -- is less than the shrinkage of the main group and their distribution fits no clear pattern. Their growth, the team believes, illustrates the point that glacier length is being influenced by a complex interplay of forces. The topography, underlying geology, wind and precipitation patterns, the amount of sea ice in front of the glaciers -- all could have a role, the researchers say, and at the moment there is little data on any of them. This information will be crucial to the improvement of computer models that are used to predict future climate change in the region, with all the implications that has for further ice melt and possible sea level rises. These systems have struggled to reproduce the conditions on the Antarctic Peninsula where average air temperatures have risen by around 2C in just 50 years -- one of the fastest warming rates on Earth. Dr Vaughan said: "Whether we can expect that warming trend to extend to the rest of the Antarctic is extremely uncertain. The Antarctic is really too small an area to be resolved in the models and that's the level we have to get down to if we want to predict what is going to happen in a particular place." Dr Andrew Sugden, the international managing editor of Science magazine, commented: "This study demonstrates the enormous importance of gathering long-term data. It is only in the accumulation of this data that we are going to be able to understand and predict what might happen to our planet in the future."

AMAZING FOSSIL FIND IN NULLARBOR PLAIN

[BBC, 25 January 2007] An astonishing collection of fossil animals from southern Australia is reported by scientists. The creatures were found in limestone caves under Nullarbor Plain and date from about 400,000-800,000 years ago. The palaeontological "treasure trove" includes 23 kangaroo species, eight of which are entirely new to science. Researchers tell Nature magazine that the caves also yielded a complete specimen of Thylacoleo carnifex, an extinct marsupial lion. It appears the unsuspecting creatures fell to their deaths through pipes in the dusty plain surface that periodically opened and closed over millennia. Most of the animals were killed instantly but others initially survived the 20m drop only to crawl off into rock piles to die from their injuries or from thirst and starvation. The preservation of many of the specimens was remarkable, said the Nature paper's lead author, Dr Gavin Prideaux. "To drop down into these caves and see the Thylacoleo lying there just as it had died really took my breath away," the Western Australian Museum researcher told the BBC's “Science In Action” Program. "Sitting in the darkness next to this skeleton, you really got the sense of the animal collapsing in a heap and taking its last breath. It was quite poignant. "Everywhere we looked around the boulder piles, we found more and more skeletons of a very wide array of creatures." In total, 69 vertebrate species have been identified in three chambers the scientists now call the Thylacoleo Caves. These include mammals, birds and reptiles. The kangaroos range from rat-sized animals to 3m (nearly 10ft) giants. The team even found an unusual wallaby with large brow ridges. "When we first glanced at the animal, we thought they were horns; but on closer inspection we realised they must have performed some sort of protective function," Dr Prideaux explained. "The beast must have been sticking its head into spiny bushes and browsing on leaves." The scientists' investigations indicate the ancient Nullarbor environment was very similar to that of today -- an arid landscape that received little more than 200mm of rainfall a year. What has changed significantly is the vegetation. Whereas the Thylacoleo Caves' animals would have seen trees on the plain, the modern landscape is covered in a fire-resistant chenopod shrub. This observation goes to the heart of a key debate in Australian palaeontology, the team believes. The caves and their contents were first discovered in 2002. The continent was once home to a remarkable and distinctive collection of giant beasts. These megafauna, as researchers like to call them, included an immense wombat-like animal (Diprotodon optatum) and a 400kg lizard (Megalania prisca). But all -- including the marsupial lion -- had disappeared by the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (11,500 years ago). Some scientists think the significant driver behind these extinctions was climate change -- large shifts in temperature and precipitation. But Dr Prideaux and colleagues argue the Thylacoleo Caves' animals give the lie to this explanation because they were already living in an extremely testing environment. "Because these animals were so well adapted to dry conditions, to say that climate knocked them out just isn't adequate. These animals survived the very worst nature could throw at them, and they came through it," co-author Professor Bert Roberts told BBC News. "If you look at the last four or five glacial cycles, where the ice ages come and go, the animals certainly suffered but they didn't go extinct - they suffered but survived," the University of Wollongong scientist said. This assessment would be consistent with the other favoured extinction theory - extermination by humans, either directly by hunting or indirectly by changing the landscape through burning.

AWARD FOR COMPUTER SIMULATIONS OF e.coli BACTERIUM

[BBC, November 3, 2006] A UK scientist has won one of the largest international prizes in science for his work on the bacterium E.coli. Dr Dennis Bray from the University of Cambridge was given the European Science Award for his innovative computer simulations of the bacterium. The 250,000 Euro (£170,000) award recognises research at the interface between computing and the sciences. Dr Bray's simulations shed light on the molecular systems that allow bacteria to respond to environmental changes. "The system we have been focusing on is the one that enables bacteria to smell and swim towards sources of food," Dr Bray told the BBC News website. This process, known as chemotaxis, also allows bacteria like E.coli to avoid poisons. A greater understanding of the system could help prevent the spread of disease. However, the European Science Award, presented jointly by the UK's Royal Society, the French Academie des Sciences and software giant Microsoft, recognises Dr Bray's efforts to bring the power of computing to bear on cell biology. "Today, computational sciences are of primary importance in all areas of science," said Professor Edouard Brezin, president of the Academie des Sciences. "Together with experiment, computer models are now able to provide information which would not be accessible otherwise." The field of computational biology has become increasingly important as the rapidly expanding number of projects that sequence the genes and proteins of organisms churn out more and more data. "It's got to the point where you can't progress without it," Dr Bray said. "We're just drowning in data." “The use of computers to model the biological systems allows scientists to understand their function much more quickly. Any little corner of a living cell is just full of complicated machinery and molecules," said Dr Bray. "There's just no way that one person thinking about it, can work it all out." Bacterial chemotaxis provides an ideal platform to test computer models because it is one of the few systems where all of the individual components that influence cell behaviour are known. Hence, discrepancies between what the scientists see in biological experiments and what they see in the simulations allows them to test the models. If there is a mismatch it suggests the model is incorrect and needs to be refined. These anomalies can also lead to discoveries about the biological system itself. "One thing we discovered in this way is that thousands of receptor molecules on the bacterial surface work together, making a highly sensitive 'nose' that can detect and analyse the smells from different food sources," said Dr Bray. When the computer simulations reach a point where they mimic an organism accurately, Dr Bray believes they could be used as experimental objects in their own right, rather than using a biological organism. Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society said that Dr Bray's work "demonstrates why computational biology will be essential for making progress in the field of biology more generally." Professor Rees will present the award to Dr Bray at a ceremony at the Royal Society on 30 November. Dr Bray said he would use the money to set up a new computational lab at the University of Cambridge.

SUPER FAST OPTIC FIBRE WILL REVOLUTIONISE

Ben Eggleton's latest invention - a photonic wire - is too small to see with the naked eye. In fact, it is 100 times smaller than an existing optical fibre, which is only as thick as a human hair. But it will revolutionise the communications network, helping link the globe through light, quickly and cheaply. The wire itself guides light in the same way a copper wire guides electricity, and is part of Professor Eggleton's wider research into light. His team at the University of Sydney is also working on new ways to slow down light and store it, and one of his pioneering experiments was to control the flow of one light beam with another. "[This] is an incredibly fast process that offers the potential to increase communication bandwidth by many orders of magnitude," he said. Professor Eggleton was named Physical Scientist of the Year [2004] at a ceremony in Parliament House in Canberra for his work in optical physics. He likened the present state of optical communication to the earliest days of computers in the 1940s, but believed the technology would yield great things. Just as it would have been difficult to imagine that computers the size of rooms would lead to the internet and laptops, it is hard to predict what will flow from the light-based systems that deliver massive amounts of information quickly. However, some of the benefits might include cheap and disposable superfast computers and high-definition movies via cable on demand. Professor Eggleton, 36, who was lured back to Australia from a senior position at Bell Laboratories in the US with a Federation Fellowship in 2003, said Australia was a leader in light communication. He also believed there was an information divide between rich and poor countries. The city of London, for example, had more internet ports than the whole continent of Africa. "I think our technology will help change that. And the view of the United Nations is that that would be good for peace." It is worth noting that during the six years the former Balgowlah Boys High student spent at Bell Laboratories the amount of data that can be trans-mitted using optical fibres increased a thousand-fold, thanks, in part, to his invention. Professor Eggleton attributed his success to having worked with outstanding scientists and meeting challenges head on. When big life decisions had to be made, he said, "I always tried to take the harder path, the one that was higher risk".

GLOBAL WARMING WILL MAKE POLAR BEARS EXTINCT

[BBC, January 30] Dangerous levels of climate change could be reached in just over 20 years if nothing is done to stop global warming, a WWF study has warned. [WWF = "World Wide Fund For Nature," formerly known as "World Wildlife Fund."] At current rates, the earth will be 2C above pre-industrial levels some time between 2026 and 2060, says the report by Dr Mark New of Oxford University. Temperatures in the Arctic could rise by three times this amount, it says. It would lead to a loss of summer sea ice and tundra vegetation, with polar bears and other animals dying out. It would also mean a fundamental change in the ways Inuit and other Arctic residents live. Dr New said: "A very robust result from global climate models is that warming due to greenhouse gases will reduce the amount of snow and ice cover in the Arctic, which will in turn produce an additional warming as more solar radiation is absorbed by the ground and the ocean." BR> Ice and snow reflect more solar radiation back to space than unfrozen surfaces. According to the WWF, the perennial ice, or summer sea ice, is currently melting at a rate of 9.6% per decade and will disappear completely by the end of the century if this continues. Birds affected: Boreal forests would spread north and overwhelm up to 60% of dwarf shrub tundra, a critical habitat and vital breeding ground for many birds. "If we don't act immediately the Arctic will soon become unrecognisable," said Dr Catarina Cardoso, head of climate change at WWF-UK. "Polar bears will be consigned to history, something that our grandchildren can only read about in books." Dr New's paper - Arctic Climate Change with a 2 degree C Global Warming is one of four papers contributing to report by WWF. They will be presented at the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change conference in Exeter between 1 and 3 February, which has been organised by the government.

BEST PRESERVED MUMMIES DISCOVERED

[AAP, March 2, 2005] Australian archaeologists have uncovered the world's best-preserved Egyptian mummies after finding three coffins believed to be some 2600 years old. The Australian team, headed by Macquarie University's Professor of Ancient History, Naguib Kanawati, was digging near the Saqqara pyramids, 25 kilometres south of Cairo, when they found three coffins dating from the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC) last week. The head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said: "In one of the (coffins) there is one of the best preserved mummies ever found dating from the 26th Dynasty." Prof Kanawati said all three bodies -- believed to be those of officials living in the "later Egyptian period" immediately before Persia occupied the area for about 80 years -- were extremely well preserved. He said two of the coffins contained male mummies and were crafted to represent bearded figures wearing elaborate collars with their arms crossed over their chests. The male mummies were wrapped in linen bandages and covered from head to knee by an intricate net of beads arranged to depict how they looked in life. The third coffin, which was in worse condition than the other two, contained a mummified woman who was covered by a net of mosaic beads also depicting how she looked in life. Prof Kanawati said the coffins, which were shaped to the human body, were crafted from cedar wood, probably obtained through trade with Lebanon at the time, and were elaborately decorated with paint. Wooden boxes containing vital organs were also found alongside the coffins, he said. "These were not particularly wealthy people," Prof Kanawati said. "They are not commoners but officials. They are middle class people but not royalty." Prof Kanawati said the site under excavation for the past 10 years by Australian archaeologists was a large cemetery initially used about 4340 years ago for royalty during King Teti's reign. But eventually the ground was neglected and covered by some 15 metres of sand until it was used again as a cemetery about 2600 years later. "By that time the art of mummification was perfected to the extreme," Prof Kanawati said. "In Teti's time (the 6th dynasty) mummification was very primitive and the human remains found from his reign were only skeletal." The archaeologists will start work on conducting tests on the mummies in order to try to unlock their secrets, Prof Kanawati said. The mummies will remain in Egypt where museums have already started to bid for the items. "We cannot and we don't want to unwrap them because that would start the deterioration," he said. "But we now have the means to study the mummies without unwrapping the mummies by using, x-rays and scans and so on." Prof Kanawati said the unobtrusive tests would help reveal the exact age of these ancient residents and give an insight into how they lived and died. "It will show us a great deal of information about their age, maybe the cause of death, any diseases that could be seen in scans," he said. "You can learn a lot about their medical condition." He said the mummies would not be handed over to the Egyptian authorities until Australian researchers could fully study the bodies. The researchers will document their findings in an international journal published by Macquarie University, he said.

SOLAR POWER WILL MAKE AUSTRALIA WEALTHY

[SMH, August 27, 2004 In the not too distant future silent cars will glide around our city streets, rooftop panels harnessing the sun's energy will generate enough power for the whole country, the pace of global warming will have slowed and power lines will be replaced by underground pipes. That at least is the vision of T. Nejat Veziroglu, director of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation. And it gets better. Australia will be one of the wealthiest countries in the world - the new OPEC - having beaten the rest of the world in harnessing the power of the sun to produce hydrogen from solar energy. "Hydrogen will make Australia rich and a paradise with a clean environment," Professor Veziroglu says. "Hydrogen will be the locomotive of the economy in this country." As petrol prices rise and natural resources run out, hydrogen is the white hot candidate to take over as the world's future energy source, cleaner and more efficient than any other. "Each building, each home, each apartment building can have its own fuel cell," says Professor Veziroglu, who is also president of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy. "There will be no power lines crossing the countryside. Hydrogen will do away with scenery pollution because energy will come by underground pipes. It will be used for heating, cooking and drying. As long as we have the sun we can make energy. So for about another 5 billion years or so you can be the richest country." Hydrogen is produced using solar energy to split water into its component elements - hydrogen and oxygen - in the presence of a catalyst. Until now the drawback has been that the catalyst has been methane, a greenhouse gas, which nullifies any environmental advantage. Research to be presented today to the International Conference on Materials for Hydrogen Energy at the University of NSW has discovered a new catalyst - titanium dioxide - which eliminates the production of greenhouse gas in the process. Professor Veziroglu will also tell the conference today that the annual cost of powering Earth with coal, natural gas and petroleum is $4.35 trillion. Based on present rates of energy consumption and taking into account the cost of declining air and water quality, the effect of global warming on insurance premiums and declining quality of life, Professor Veziroglu has estimated it costs $22.11 to create one gigajoule of energy from fossil fuels. For solar hydrogen the cost will be just $19.23 because it will mean significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, no ozone depletion, no acid rain, much lower pollution and a higher quality of life. "[The existing environmental cost] is not paid by companies, it's paid by people through higher insurance premiums and health costs," Professor Veziroglu says. "When you take out environmental damage by fossil fuels, this is the result. You save $5 trillion a year." But many things must happen before Australia can run on the power of the sun. "You can't put the sun in your car and run it," says Professor Veziroglu, who is based at the University of Miami's Clean Energy Research Institute. "You can't put wind in a plane and fly it. You need synthetic solar power." Professor Veziroglu envisages a pipeline starting in Queensland's north and running down through Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before crossing to Adelaide and Perth, with an extension running to Darwin linking photovoltaic solar cell farms and gas liquefying plants. "If you cover a small part of Australia [with solar cell farms] you can produce energy for everybody," he said. "Once you have solar energy you can do anything you want."

THE BIONIC MAN COMETH

The 1970s television shows The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman hold nearly equal positions in the pantheon of pop culture, but their premises have been little more than pipe dreams. That pipe is blowing more than smoke these days, as scientists across the country work on human augmentation robotics technology, also knows as biomechatronics—in other words, the merging of body and machine. Following in the footsteps of household robots like the iRobot Roomba and the Sony AIBO entertainment robots, as well as battlefield robots like the iRobot Packbot, robots are now starting to show up on the human body. At MIT's Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, assistant professor Hugh Herr and his biomechatronics team have spent the past five years developing the Active Ankle-Foot Orthosis (AAFO). Made of plastics, a motor, a microprocessor, and a power supply, this robot can reanimate a paralyzed ankle. Unlike a prosthesis, an orthosis doesn't replace missing limbs. Instead, it attaches to a paralyzed limb and may eventually enhance healthy ones. The 3-pound AAFO covers the leg from below the knee to the toes and restores natural motion. Across the country, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, Robotics and HumanEngineering Laboratory is working on the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX), which fits over the wearer's legs and assists in carrying heavy loads over long distances. It uses sensors, actuators, a network, and complex algorithms to compute the exoskeleton's motion. It's designed to imitate the torque, speed, and motion of a 165-pound person walking. Homayoon Kazerooni, a Berkeley professor who invented the concept in the early 1990s, says that the prototype can support about 80 pounds in a special backpack. "You simply walk, and it walks with you," he says. The device, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), has applications in defense, firefighting, and rescue and recovery operations. Both devices are several years away from commercial use, and the AAFO will be costly to deploy. But as MIT's Herr sees it, human performance augmentation is the shape of the future: "In the coming decade we will see body amplifiers that expand human endurance and strength. We will see novel transportation devices that do not rely on wheels, where our own limbs are augmented, where we can traverse very rough terrains with a very high metabolic economy or efficiency. I predict that people for certain situations will not want to use wheels anymore, because their legs, augmented by technology, far outperform wheeled vehicles." Maybe Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner were born just a little early.

CSIRO TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES WORLD'S LARGEST RADIO TELESCOPE

CSIRO-built equipment has been installed on the world's largest radio telescope to allow it to scan the sky seven times faster than it can now, and see further out into space. The $1.4 million instrument is essentially a camera that uses radio waves instead of light to make pictures of galaxies and gas clouds in space. Called ALFA (Arecibo L-band Feed Array), it is about the size of two washing machines stacked on top of each other, and weighs more than 600 kg. The instrument was flown from Sydney to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico then trucked 100 km to the Arecibo telescope, a 305-m diameter dish set into the ground. On Wednesday 21 April it was slowly winched from the centre of the dish to a platform suspended 150 m overhead and then connected to the telescope's fibre-optic signal cables. On hand to help install it were Mr Graeme Carrad, CSIRO's Project Manager for ALFA, and Mr Pat Sykes, who was responsible for the mechanical design and cryogenics. "Australian astronomy technology is world-class," says Professor Brian Boyle, Director of CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility, which built ALFA. "The world is beating a path to our door for it." "Traditionally, radio telescopes have been able to see only one spot on the sky - only one pixel - at a time," explains Dr Warwick Wilson, Head of Engineering at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility."To make a picture you had to image one spot after another. But ALFA lets the telescope see seven times more sky - seven pixels - at once. This slashes the time needed to make surveys of the whole sky," he says. Arecibo Observatory staff are building other equipment to complement the ALFA receiver, such as ultra-fast data processors. Dr Lister Staveley-Smith, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility, says that ALFA will be used mainly for doing deep and powerful searches for other galaxies beyond ours, hunting for the small spinning stars called pulsars, and mapping out the hydrogen gas - the raw material for forming stars - in our own Galaxy. "We're particularly interested in seeing the hydrogen gas in galaxies at an earlier period in the Universe's history," says Dr Staveley-Smith. "With ALFA we may be able to see up to a billion light-years into space [out to a redshift of 0.1]. At that distance we're seeing galaxies that are younger than the ones we see in our local neighbourhood today. We think that in earlier times there was much more hydrogen gas around. How quickly did it get turned into stars? Why are some galaxies more efficient than others at making stars? Those are the sort of questions we'd like to answer." Arecibo's large collecting area is particularly well-suited to pulsar studies. Steve Torchinsky, ALFA project manager at the Arecibo Observatory, says the new device will make it possible to find many new pulsars and will improve the chances of picking up systems that are very rare or not detected so far, such as a pulsar orbiting a black hole. Finding more pulsars will also help answer basic questions about how pulsars work - for instance, how long they keep giving off pulses. The Arecibo Observatory is managed by the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The NAIC commissioned CSIRO to build ALFA following the success of a similar ground-breaking instrument CSIRO had designed and built for "The Dish" - its own Parkes radio telescope. That instrument, called the Parkes multibeam receiver, increased the Parkes telescope's view 13-fold, making it practical for the first time to search the whole sky for faint and hidden galaxies It was also used for extremely productive searches for pulsars, finding them at the rate of one for every hour of observing. As a result, most of the 1400-plus pulsars we know of have been found with Parkes. Highlights of the Arecibo telescope's career include finding the first pulsar orbiting another neutron star, measuring the rotation rate of Mercury, and investigating reports of ice craters on the Moon. The telescope has also been used to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilisations, and has featured in the movies GOLDENEYE and CONTACT. Arecibo Observatory is a facility of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. For more information: Professor Brian Boyle, Director, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, 02-9372-4301 (office) 0418-882-166 (mob.) Dr Warwick Wilson, Head of Engineering, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, 02-9372-4324 (office) 0400-492-855 (mob.) Dr Lister Staveley-Smith, Head of Astrophysics, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility, 02-9372-4271 Dr Steve Torchinsky, Project Manager for ALFA, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, (Located at Arecibo Observatory, +1-787-878-2612, extension 305. Arecibo is 16 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard Time.) Mr Graeme Carrad, CSIRO Project Manager for ALFA. (Visiting Arecibo Observatory, +1-787-878-2612, extension 349. Arecibo is 16 hours behind Australian Eastern Standard Time. Media assistance: Helen Sim, Public Relations and Media Liaison, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility (email: Helen.Sim@csiro.au), 02-9372-4251 or 0419-635-905

ABORIGINAL ART FIND PREDATES STONEHENGE

It has been described as the most significant Aboriginal rock art find in 50 years but yesterday an exultant Bob Carr insisted that the stencils and drawings - some 4000 years old - were simply "the greatest advertisement for saving wild places in national parks." Hidden on the walls of a rock shelter deep inside a remote area of Wollemi National Park, the 203 drawings depict an extraordinary array of images and styles, from birds, lizards and wallabies to stencils of hands, boomerangs and axes, a naturalistic, soaring eagle and even a depiction of a wombat, rarely found in rock art. The works cover 11 layers, the most recent estimated to date back to the early 1800s, the oldest to an age when the Egyptian civilisation was well advanced, the city of Knossos was under construction and Stonehenge was a work in progress. Mr Carr told Parliament that the art was identified and documented by a team headed by Paul Tacon, principal research scientist in the Australian Museum's anthropology department, and the entire gallery of images is in near-perfect condition, thanks to its inaccessible location and natural protection from sun, wind and rain. "If someone in Italy said they had just found a new Etruscan tomb, that would date back to 700BC. This find is 2000BC. If someone excavating in Athens discovered the ancient foundations of a classical building, this is 1500 years before that," Mr Carr said. "It is eerie, exciting, this contact with a very old Australia, with the Aboriginal people who have been expressing their spiritual views in this remote rock shelter deep in the wilderness for so long." He said that when the national park was set aside in 1979 "there was no suggestion of the Wollemi pine, no suggestion of a rock art find such as this. . . When you save wild places you never know what you're going to find.This is a big, big advertisement for national parks." Dr Tacon said bushwalkers originally alerted the museum to the existence of the paintings in 1995. But it was not until May that an expedition was able to reach the site. Even then, the journey was "rugged and very difficult". The find was the most significant in the Sydney region in half a century, he said. Despite the abundance of Aboriginal art sites in the Blue Mountains - estimated at more than 5000 - this was one of the biggest. Photographs of the art will be posted on a museum website, but the rock shelf's exact location will be kept secret. AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM

AUSTRALIA to RESEARCH HYDROGEN ENERGY

In one of the largest research projects of its type leading Australian scientists will concentrate on the nation's future energy requirements which could lead to Australia developing one of the world's first hydrogen economies. Taking the first steps to the use of hydrogen as a clean, safe and efficient fuel is a goal of the new National Research Flagship Energy Transformed, launched in Newcastle on Friday by Bob Baldwin MP (Paterson), representing the Minister for Science, Peter McGauran. "Use of hydrogen will help us to eliminate greenhouse gases and air pollution, create greater efficiencies and build a new export industry in energy technology," the Director of the Flagship, Dr John Wright of CSIRO, says. The Energy Transformed research flagship aims to: * develop and implement technologies leading to near zero emissions power from fossil fuels and eventually, large-scale hydrogen generation * develop cost-effective electricity and hydrogen from renewable sources * increase the fuel and traffic management efficiency of urban transport leading to an eventual transition to hydrogen-powered vehicles * double the efficiency of fuel use (natural gas and eventually hydrogen) by the generation of power/heat/cooling at point-of-use, and * carry out energy scenario analyses to guide the research activities of the Flagship to achieve the goal of clean, cost-effective future energy for all Australians. The Flagship launch coincided with the opening of the $36M CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle by Mr Baldwin and NSW Premier, Mr Bob Carr. Mr Baldwin acknowledged the support of the NSW Government and the NSW Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) which have committed substantial funds to the project. The new CSIRO Energy Centre will provide an international focus for energy research that will put Australia on the map in this vital sector. The building showcases new and renewable energy technologies and represents the largest base of energy research and development in the Southern Hemisphere. "The new Centre is a distributed energy system in action," says Acting Chief of Energy Technology, Dr Jim Smitham. "Photovoltaic cells, gas microturbines and wind generators will initially provide most of our power, with any surplus being fed back into the main grid. Building and Energy Management Systems are also in place and we are monitoring the performance of the various technologies in relation to our needs. "Effective distributed energy systems make good use of waste heat. In our case, the waste heat from two 60 kW microturbines will provide space and water heating in winter and will be linked to novel turbo-chiller technology in the future for cooling in summer." CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Geoff Garrett says the decision to invest in the new Energy Centre is closely linked to CSIRO's research and development strategy and to the Federal Government's National Research Priorities. "Researchers in the energy sector world-wide are keenly aware of the importance of moving quickly towards cleaner energy generation, and ultimately a hydrogen economy," he says. "We believe that demonstrating new and emerging technologies in a working building is an excellent way to show our industry and government partners what can be achieved." Flagship Director Dr Wright says that distributed generation will become increasingly important as the demands on national centralised generation and transmission infrastructures increase. "Recent power blackouts in the United States, Italy and Denmark demonstrate that total reliance on central power generation is not a wise future option," says Dr Wright. "Unfortunately, we use so much power that distributed generation can be only part of the solution. We must strenuously research and promote cleaner options in large scale centralised generation systems. The National Research Flagships initiative is a partnership approach to tackling major challenges faced by Australia, and one of the largest scientific undertakings in the nation's history. The six Flagship programs are: Preventative Health; Light Metals; Healthy Country; Agrifood Top 5; Wealth from Oceans; and Energy Transformed. More information: Dr John Wright, CSIRO, 02 4960 6080 Dr Jim Smitham, Acting Chief, CSIRO Energy Technology, 02 4960 6077, Mobile: 0418 638 899 Mr Nick Goldie, CSIRO Media, 02 6276 6478, mobile: 0417 299 586 Website address: www.energytransformed.csiro.au

ORDER OUT OF CHAOS

Dr Georg Gottwald, of the University of Sydney, and his British colleague, Professor Ian Melbourne of the University of Surrey, have developed a simple computer test to identify whether a complex system, like a beating heart, is chaotic or not. Dr Gottwald won't be surprised if his talk on chaos at an international gathering of mathematicians in Sydney next month creates a chaotic atmosphere. Last time he explained his research at a scientific conference, the audience became very agitated. "People started interrupting after two minutes," he said. Known as the zero-one test, it could eventually help diagnose heart disease, forecast the weather and even predict stock market movements. The controversy has arisen because, while the test is easy to use, there is no easy way of explaining why it works, says Dr Gottwald. "It is not intuitive." The theory that proves it works involves intricate maths. Sceptical scientists in Dr Gottwald's audiences have been won over by practical demonstrations showing it gets the right results, he says. "We have had lots of positive feedback." Chaos theory became fashionable in the 1970s when the notion of the "butterfly effect" was popularised - that the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas. Many systems in nature, like the weather, are chaotic. They are extremely difficult to predict, because a very small change in initial conditions can cause large fluctuations that get bigger and bigger with time. However, for the heart, paradoxically, chaos is a healthy sign, says Dr Gottwald. It's when the electrical activity becomes non-chaotic that a patient is at risk of developing atrial fibrillation, or an abnormal heart beat that can lead to stroke or heart failure if not treated. Traditional methods of testing for chaos are time-consuming and require complex modelling of the system. Dr Gottwald and Professor Melbourne hit upon their test by accident when they were working on a different mathematical problem. It involves only three equations, and raw information - like the movement of planetary bodies - can be fed into a computer to come up with a yes or no answer on chaos. Dr Gottwald says he is not yet convinced that the stockmarket has non-chaotic periods when it should be possible to predict its ups and downs accurately. About 2000 experts will attend the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, which is held every four years. Starting on July 7 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour, it will have special open days for industry, maths teachers and the public.

LIST MADE OF ENDANGERED PLANTS IN EUROPE

[BBC, June 2, 2005] A list of the 800 most important sites for wild plants in central and Eastern Europe has been published by the charity, Plantlife International. Many of the sites contain endangered species and yet a fifth have no legal protection, the group warns. Agriculture, forestry and tourism are the main threats to "Europe's last areas of wilderness", its report says. “If they cannot be saved, we risk a spiritual impoverishment such as no generation has known before", it adds. Hundreds of specialists from academic institutions and non-governmental organisations identified the best sites for wild plants, fungi and their habitats in seven countries. They were Belarus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The report also looked at the threats to each internationally important site for wild plants (IPA). It found that: * Poor forestry practices threaten 44% of IPAs. * Tourism threatens 38%. * Agricultural intensification (grazing, hay-making, arable) threatens 29%. Other threats include development, urban and transport, and invasive plant species. Plantlife International wants all IPAs to be recognised as priority sites for conservation. "This is the first time that we've ever had this kind of comprehensive survey," Elizabeth Radford told the BBC News website. "We want people to visit these sites but it has got to be managed sensibly and carefully." Parallel projects in south-eastern Europe and in Russia are also under development. The list of IPAs in the UK will be published early next year.