Eye infections due to contact lenses are in part genetically determined, research reveals.
The discovery explains why some contact lens wearers do everything wrong and never have a problem, while other more careful people end up in hospital with an eye infection.
Continue reading Genes make some people more susceptible to eye infectionsHigh res photos available below.
Video of Dhara and the bending robot available here.
Some slipped disc injuries might be caused by movements other than the commonly blamed bending and twisting, according to new research by South Australian engineers.
It’s a finding that will lead to a better understanding of the motions that put people at greatest risk of a slipped disc and help develop more robust guidelines for safe lifting.
Continue reading Slipped discs: robot shows it’s not all bending and twisting
Researchers from The University of Western Australia have developed a winning medicine formula that makes bad-tasting medicine taste nice, making it easier to treat sick children.
The UWA study published by the journal Anaesthesia tested 150 children and found that the majority of children who were given the new chocolate-tasting medicine would take it again, unlike the standard treatment, while they still experienced the same beneficial effects.
UWA Clinical Senior Lecturer Dr Sam Salman said the poor taste of many medicines, such as Midazolam, a sedative used prior to surgery, presented a real difficulty in effectively treating children.
Continue reading Kid-friendly chocolate formula helps the medicine go down
A Macquarie PhD student believes he’s come up with a way to turn coffee waste into biodegradable plastic coffee cups.
He’s developed a method to turn coffee grounds into lactic acid, which can then be used to produce biodegradable plastics, and is now refining the process as he finishes his PhD. Continue reading Turning coffee waste into coffee cups
We can’t cram any more processing power into silicon-based computer chips.
But a paper published in Nature overnight reveals how we can make electronic devices 10 times smaller, and use molecules to build electronic circuits instead.
We’re reaching the limits of what we can do with conventional silicon semiconductors. In order for electronic components to continue getting smaller we need a new approach.
Molecular electronics, which aims to use molecules to build electronic devices, could be the answer. Continue reading The future of electronics is chemical
By Macquarie University
Rising ocean temperatures due to climate change will not only be felt by smaller organisms like coral, but will also impact apex predators, according to new research.
The study from the Macquarie University Fish Lab found that increasing water temperature by just 3ºC altered the behaviour of hatchling sharks.
Baby sharks incubated at temperatures predicted by the end of the century had very different turn preferences compared to sharks reared in present day water temperatures.
By Macquarie University
A new study by researchers at Macquarie University has shed light on why blue tongue lizards have such an outrageously coloured tongue, given that the vast majority of lizards have a regular pink tongue.
The study, just published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, found that the colour is not accidental, and likely evolved as a protection against predators. Continue reading Why so blue? New research sheds light on why our iconic blue-tongue lizards have such colourful tongues
Widespread adoption of electric cars in New South Wales would increase demand on the power grid by an average of eight per cent, according to new research from the School of Engineering.
Sohaib Rafique and Professor Graham Town used data from the New South Wales Household Travel Survey to determine the demand that electric cars would place on the grid if they were used in 82 per cent of weekday and 81 per cent of weekend commutes, with trips less than 35km in length. Continue reading Would electric cars crash the grid?
A Macquarie University start-up that created a new way to develop drugs faster and more cheaply than current methods, has won a CSIRO innovation award.
Currently it takes over a decade and $2 billion to develop a new drug. Of these, four out of five will never be launched.
If we want everyone in need to have access to affordable and effective medications, we must reduce the time and cost associated with drug development, argues Molecular Sciences’ Professor Peter Karuso.
And that’s what the start-up he founded—Hyperdrive Science—is attempting to do. Continue reading Making drug discovery faster, cheaper and safer
By Macquarie University
While for many people sharks bring to mind the Jaws theme music, it seems sharks themselves prefer jazz.
Far from mindless eating machines, new research from the Macquarie University Fish Lab has shown sharks are much more sophisticated than most people imagine. Continue reading Sharks can acquire a taste for jazz music
