An obese father increases the risk of his children and grandchildren becoming obese, even if they follow a healthy diet. That’s the implication of a series of mouse studies conducted at the University of Adelaide.
Photo: A mouse with diet induced obesity and its control counterpart. Credit: Robinson Research Institute
The researchers found that a father’s high-fat diet could change the molecular make-up of his sperm, leading to obesity and diabetes-like symptoms in two generations of offspring.
“With obese fathers, changes in the sperm’s microRNA molecules are linked with programming the embryo for obesity or metabolic disease later in life,” says Tod Fullston, the study’s lead author and an NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellow with the University of Adelaide’s Robinson Research Institute.
Large numbers of premature-born children may be slipping under the radar, say researchers who have found brain development problems in teenagers deemed clinically normal after a late preterm birth.
Children born even one to five weeks premature can show reduced skills later in life.
Julia Pitcher and Michael Ridding, of the Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide, found that children born even one to five weeks premature showed reduced ‘neuroplasticity’ as teenagers. Their study provides the first physiological evidence of the link between late preterm birth and reduced motor, learning and social skills in later life.
Fifty million children in the world’s poorest countries will be vaccinated against the deadly rotavirus by 2015, thanks to the breakthrough work of a quiet Melbourne researcher.
Ruth Bishop. Credit: Stepping Stone Pictures
Ruth Bishop’s rotavirus discovery led to the development of the vaccine currently being rolled out by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—and to her declaration as 2013 CSL Florey Medal winner.
Each year, around half a million children die from rotavirus infection and the acute gastroenteritis it causes.
Coastal land clearing has led to poor water quality in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon and threats to reef animals, according to the first data providing evidence of the damage.
Land clearing and acidification threaten the Great Barrier Reef.
The Water Quality and Ecosystem Health research team at the Australian Institute of Marine Science has collected 20 years of data, which shows the connection between high rates of land clearing and reduced reef water quality in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“Our analyses show that water quality in the lagoon dropped significantly during the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period that coincided with very high rates of vegetation clearing on land adjacent to rivers,” says research team leader, Britta Schaffelke.
Coral reef organisms that help build homes for thousands of other species face extinction by 2100, thanks to increased CO2 levels and ocean acidification.
Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science have discovered that ocean acidification around naturally occurring CO2 seeps in Papua New Guinea offer a glimpse of a future high-CO2 world and its impact on coral reef ecosystems, including the possible complete loss of creatures called Foraminifera, or forams.
Future global water shortages could be alleviated by huge freshwater reserves discovered beneath the ocean floor, according to a team of Australian and international scientists.
Vincent Post. Credit: National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training
The scientists from Adelaide, the Netherlands, USA and the UK have found half a million cubic kilometres of fresh water in undersea aquifers located off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.
These aquifers are similar to the groundwater used in much of Australia and the rest of the world for drinking water and irrigation, and so could come in handy as existing supplies dwindle.
Nanoscale spikes on dragonfly wings are inspiring materials that kill bacteria, including deadly antibiotic-resistant golden staph (Staphylococcus aureus).
Wandering percher dragonfly, Diplacodes bipunctata. Credit: Jean, via Encyclopedia of Life (CC BY-NC)
Elena Ivanova and her fellow researchers at Swinburne University of Technology were studying self-cleaning surfaces in nature when they discovered bacteria being killed on the wings of the clanger cicada, Psaltoda claripennis, a species mostly found in Queensland.
The secret seemed to lie in millions of tiny rounded spikes, or nanopillars, each a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Sea snails and sponges are shedding light on how to create electronic-free circuitry and environmentally friendly optical fibre, say Geelong scientists.
The structure of a sea snail’s mother-of-pearl layer suggests how to channel light.
Inspired by the materials these sea creatures make, an Australian-US team is trying to create 3D gold nanoparticle arrays that channel light.
“Effectively we are creating circuitry without electronics,” says Tiffany Walsh, Veski Innovation Fellow and one of the researchers from Deakin University.
An axolotl’s ability to regrow limbs and repair brain and heart tissue could shed light on how humans might one day do the same, after Melbourne scientists discovered the key role played by macrophages, immune system cells, in the animal’s regenerative process.
Axolotls are known for their ability to regrow limbs.
James Godwin and his colleagues at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) have identified the critical role of macrophages in axolotl tissue regeneration, raising the hope of future treatments for human spinal cord and brain injuries, as well as heart and liver disease.
Most people remember their first kiss but Victorian scientists have discovered that your first hug is much further back than you think.
The arm-like filopodia ‘hug’ the embryo’s cells, squeezing them into shape. Credit: EMBL Australia
Nicolas Plachta and his team at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute have discovered that embryos, when only eight cells in size, develop arm-like structures that ‘hug’ the cells into shape, helping to determine an embryo’s ultimate success.
The study, which was published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, used live imaging and fluorescent markers to capture the action in mouse embryos.
