The CRC Programme has contributed funding towards the most comprehensive pilot project in the world to commercially test the storage and monitoring of concentrated carbon dioxide deep underground in geological formations, undertaken by the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies.
Continue reading The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Programme
An Australian researcher is working on environmentally friendly insect control methods based on spider venom compounds.
Professor Glenn King recently joined The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, where he will further develop his pioneering approach to insecticide discovery.
Continue reading Researcher to fight insects with spider venom
Why can children learn any language – is it nature or nurture? Using the world’s first magnetoencephalography (MEG) system designed to study cognitive processing in children, Macquarie University Federation Fellow Professor Stephen Crain will investigate whether or not children have innate language ability.
Most mothers are aware that breast milk helps boost their baby’s immune levels, but up to now it has been thought that it is mainly because of the mother’s antibodies found in human milk.
Nanotechnology is the revolution that promises wrinkle-resistant clothing, invisible sunscreens and drug delivery direct to the cellular level.
Materials behave differently at the nano-level. They may have physical and chemical properties that can render them beneficial or harmful.
Thermometer-based climate records started in 1850, so scientists have gone “back to nature” for sources of long-term climatic information to help them better understand climate change and rising sea levels.
Continue reading Coral records thousands of years of climate change
Smoke-belching coal-fired power stations and factories and fossil fuel-guzzling motor vehicles may be seen as the big villains of the global climate change debate, but they aren’t the only ones contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Australia’s hundreds of millions of cattle, sheep, pigs and other agricultural animals – not to mention our native fauna – also release significant amounts of methane and other gases into the atmosphere.
VESKI’s main initiative – to return successful Australian expatriates with outstanding skills in science, technology and design – is paying off with some inspiring work.
In 2004, VESKI’s – Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge and Innovation – inaugural Fellow Professor Andrew Holmes returned from Cambridge University to work in a new $100 million Bio21 Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Institute. One of the most important research areas to emerge since has been the development of cheap plastic solar cells.
Continue reading VESKI’s innovative fellowships deliver results
Industry has increased its efficiency from what it was in the past, to the point where its current ecological footprint is a fraction of what it used to be.
Now imagine an industry sector that produces zero waste, is carbon neutral and husbands the earth’s resource endowment for future generations.
Sugarcane is one of nature’s most efficient natural converters of sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into fuel or biomass – and as such, it is perhaps the world’s fastest growing and largest biomass agricultural crop.
Continue reading Turning sugarcane into a clean green energy source