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.
Feeding livestock on native plants is the key to sustainable profits for Australian farmers, researchers have found.
Photo: Native bushes such as saltbush provide much better food for grazing sheep than previously thought. Credit: Melburnian, Wikimedia, GNU Free Documentation Licence
Dingoes play a vital role in reducing damage caused by kangaroos, foxes and feral cats, according to University of Tasmania’s Chris Johnson and his colleagues.
A stunning shot of a male weedy sea dragon incubating eggs has earned amateur photographer Richard Wylie, from Safety Beach in Victoria, the 2013 Australian Museum New Scientist Eureka Prize for Science Photography.
Photo: Wouter Schellart’s geodynamics research into the activity of the Earth’s mantle, including the Mt Etna volcano, earned him the AAS Anton Hales medal for Earth Sciences. Credit: NASA
The Australian Academy of Science recognised five individuals for their career achievements in 2013.
The search for dark matter was kicked off by Ken Freeman’s discovery that there wasn’t enough matter to hold spiral galaxies like ours together. Continue reading Academy recognition→
Each year we identify early-career scientists with a discovery and bring them to Melbourne for a communication boot camp. Here are some of their stories. For more information go to freshscience.org.au
Detection of dangerous water-borne pathogens will soon be much easier, thanks to advances using microfluidic systems developed at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN), the Victorian node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF).
A microfluidic wafer. Credit: MCN
Microfluidics deals with the control and manipulation of fluids in tiny, constrained volumes, in order to perform scientific tasks. The advantages in such systems centre around the cost and effort savings associated with miniaturisation and automation. Continue reading Small devices to fight a big disease→
New Australian technology will enable real-time monitoring of wine throughout its fermentation and maturation process, reducing spoilage and improving quality.
Smart Bungs use sensors based on optical fibres to continuously monitor the health of wine during the fermentation and maturation process. Credit: IPAS/Jennie Groom Photography
The “Smart Bung” technology has been pioneered at the University of Adelaide by the Institute for Photonics & Advanced Sensing (IPAS) and the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine (SAFW). The work is led by Prof Tanya Monro, Director of IPAS.
An optical fibre sensor incorporated into the bung of a wine cask can detect substances that might cause the wine to spoil. The optical fibres have tiny holes that take up minute samples of the wine. The sensor shines light through the fibres to determine the concentration of certain important chemicals, such as hydrogen peroxide and sulphur dioxide—all without having to open the cask. The system will enable continuous, real-time cask-by-cask monitoring and an immediate response if problems are detected.
A breakthrough in the electroactive polymers used to make electrically controlled micro “artificial muscles” could be important for future drug delivery in the body, as well as a having a host of other applications.
A tiny micro ‘muscle’ made of electroactive polymer layers will bend when an electrical potential difference is applied. Credit: G. Alici et al.
The new research, conducted at the Australian National Fabrication Facility’s (ANFF) materials node at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in NSW has produced materials which, unlike earlier versions, do not need to be immersed in an electrolyte solution. They are self-sufficient and can even work in air. Continue reading Micro muscles bend to the task→
More than 50 different environmental measures routinely collected by Australia’s national ocean research vessels—including sea surface temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, and salinity—can now be accessed online almost as they are recorded.
The data is incorporated, often automatically, into predictive meteorological and ocean models, improving their accuracy. “So we end up with an improved representation not only of the weather but of processes like large scale ocean circulation or the state of the seas during tropical cyclones,” says Dr Roger Proctor, director of the e-Marine Information Infrastructure Facility of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System.
