Australian Rivers Institute’s Assoc. Prof. Peter Pollard has researched rainforest lakes and rivers to test a provocative theory. The respiration of bacteria living and ‘breathing’ in these freshwater ecosystems is a major pathway for the return of rainforest carbon back to the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Continue reading Are forests really the carbon sink we need?
People who live outside Australia often regard kangaroos as strange, specialised, relic animals. Not so, says palaeontologist Dr Ben Kear at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
Blood tests using nanoparticles carrying molecules which can detect breast cancer biomarkers could save millions of lives and open the way to mass screening for many cancers.
Prof. Matt Trau, of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland, and his team are using a combination of nanotechnology and molecular biology in the project, funded by a five-year $5 million grant from the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Continue reading Tiny particles could assist in breast cancer screening
Victorian scientists have discovered a milk protein with the potential to treat metabolic syndrome and chronic muscular and bone diseases.
The protein, when given daily to mice, caused them not only to build more muscle but also to want to exercise. The findings also showed an increase in muscle in mice not given exercise.
Microscopic magnets ferrying drugs through the bloodstream directly to diseased tissue are a new ‘green chemistry’ product which will improve health and the environment.
A team led by Prof. Colin Raston, of the University of Western Australia fabricated the nano ‘bullets’ which can be directed by an external magnetic field to specific parts of the body. The new technology will enable doctors to send the drugs directly to the disease site, leaving healthy tissue intact and minimising toxic side-effects.
Continue reading Nano-magnets to guide drugs to their target
A new $1.5 million super resolution microscope is producing spectacular images of bacteria and parasites, and making Australia a world leader in microscopy.
The DeltaVision OMX 3D-Sim Super-Resolution Microscope, recently acquired by the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), is one of only two in the world.
Continue reading Seeing things that no one ever knew were there!
“Nanotechnology is not an industry—it is an enabling technology,” says Clive Davenport, leader of CSIRO’s Future Manufacturing Flagship.
Continue reading Australia’s place in the nanotechnology race