Australian astronomers have been awarded time on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT).
It will enable them to lead international teams of astronomers to perform deep observations of the Milky Way’s galactic cousins and reveal the physics of star formation and galaxy evolution in some of the most massive structures in the Universe.
The projects are led by Jesse van de Sande from the University of Sydney, and by Barbara Catinella and Luca Cortese from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at the University of Western Australia. The VLT is in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, one of the driest places in the world.
Image credit: John Colosimo (colosimophotography.com)/ESO
The latest result from a global trial designed for pandemics
REMAP-CAP, a long-term study established by Monash University researchers and backed by the European Union, is continuously updating the best set of treatments for COVID patients in intensive care.
The trial’s research into blood-thinning drugs, such as aspirin, found that they were not of much value as an acute treatment but, promisingly, COVID-19 patients given them were more likely to survive in the following three months.
People lived in Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought
“It was a great surprise to the team when a modern child’s tooth and stone tools, which in no way were associated with Neanderthals, were discovered in a soil layer dating back 54,000 years ago,” co-author of a recent study, Dr Martina Demuro from the University of Adelaide, said.
Previously it was believed the Neanderthals had the continent to themselves until 45,000-43,000 years ago.
Scientists in Australia and Scotland have discovered a new way to use lasers for measurements, which brings a level of quantum precision never before available.
The improved sensitivity will enable the next generation of sensors with a wide variety of optical and quantum technologies.
“We have used the wave properties of light to create grainy patterns due to interference, termed ‘speckle’, which offers a sensitive probe of both the light and the environment,” says Professor Kishan Dholakia, who is jointly at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, and the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews.
Prehistoric animals should have survived for 4,000 more years
“Humans were a crucial and chronic driver of population declines of woolly mammoths,” says Damien Fordham from the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute.
His research, as a member of an international team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Adelaide and University of Copenhagen, debunks the popular theory that a warming climate critically reduced mammoth populations, leaving so few that humans merely picked off the last survivors at the end.
The Dustbusters are a group of astronomers from around the world who are using the latest high-resolution telescopes and instruments to study ‘baby’ planets shortly after they have formed.
Very few of these new planets have been seen, but the Dustbusters’ work is pointing astronomers to where they should be looking.
Identification of women at high risk of breast cancer could boost survival rates and even avoid the development of the cancer all together.
In a large global project, scientists bridged the gap between geneticists and epidemiologists and between Australia and Europe in a collaborative project to improve breast cancer risk prediction.
Can we measure the physical forces at play as cancer cells move around the body? And can we influence those forces to create new treatment options?
An international team has developed a non-invasive way to measure the physical forces at play as cancer cells move within tissues. Their work has led to clinical trials to determine if these measurements can be used to guide treatment.
The ‘FORCE, Imaging the Force of Cancer project was a Horizon 2020 project led by King’s College London, with academic and business partners from across Europe and the USA, plus the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Neuroscience Australia.
Artificial intelligence could be used to create personal treatment plans for many of the billion people suffering with sleep apnoea.
“An increase in the number of patients will pose challenges to health care and its resources,” Professor Juha Töyräs, Head of Biomedical Engineering at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at University of Queensland. and Professor of Medical Physics and Engineering at University of Eastern Finland.
A new instrument will give Earthbound astronomers a clear view to rival space telescopes
An ambitious collaboration led by Australian, French, and Italian scientists, together with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) located in Chile, is aimed at fixing the distortion of images from Earth-based telescopes caused by the Earth’s atmosphere, by designing a giant pair of “glasses” to correct the vision of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the ESO.
A new instrument, dubbed “MAVIS” (MCAO Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph), will correct for these distortions in real time, delivering crystal clear images and “3D” data portraits of objects millions of light years away.
