Archives

2016

A path to large-scale manufacturing

The development of a two-quantum bit (qubit) logic gate in silicon heralds the possibility of moving quantum computers from experimental lab to large-scale manufacture much faster than other global research efforts.

Andrew (right) and his colleague Dr Menno Veldhorst in the UNSW laboratory. Credit: Paul Henderson-Kelly/University of New South Wales
Andrew (right) and his colleague Dr Menno Veldhorst in the UNSW laboratory.
Credit: Paul Henderson-Kelly/University of New South Wales

Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak and his team have created a two-qubit gate – a critical component, which allows qubits to talk to each other and will form the basis for a quantum computer chip.

It’s an advance that the UK’s premier physics magazine, Physics World, declared one of the top 10 breakthroughs of 2015.

Continue reading A path to large-scale manufacturing →

2016

Microplastic is unfantastic

Miniscule plastic particles with the potential to cause havoc in our waterways and oceans have been found in the stomachs of over a quarter of fish sampled in Sydney Harbour.

Named microplastics, the tiny plastic fragments, beads and fibres are sometimes made directly as beads, and sometimes created by the break-down of plastics used in clothing, packaging, fishing gear, nappies and wipes.

Continue reading Microplastic is unfantastic →

2016

Towards the first quantum computer – in silicon

Across the world, the race is on to develop the first quantum computer and an Australia research centre is at the front of the pack.

The Australian Government, Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia have recently recognised the pole position of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) by investing $46 million towards a targeted goal of realising a 10-qubit quantum integrated circuit in silicon within the next five years.

In this feature we explore some of the Centre’s advances in quantum information research.

For more information:
Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology
Tony Raeside
tony.raeside@unsw.edu.au

2016

Maths to answer big questions (it’s not always 42)

Many of today’s big questions can only be answered with new mathematical and statistical tools.

That’s what the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers are working on, and they’re finding real-world applications in areas as diverse as:

Continue reading Maths to answer big questions (it’s not always 42) →

Fresh Science

Filtering the blood to keep cancer in check

A new diagnostic system used to detect cancer cells in small blood samples could next be turned towards filtering a patient’s entire system to remove those dangerous cells – like a dialysis machine for cancer – says an Australian researcher who helped develop the system.

The technique was developed for cancer diagnosis, and is capable of detecting (and removing) a tiny handful of cancer-spreading cells from amongst the billions of healthy cells in a small blood sample.

The revolutionary system, which works to diagnose cancer at a tenth of the cost of competing technologies, is now in clinical trials in the US, UK, Singapore and Australia, and is in the process of being commercialised by Clearbridge BioMedics PteLtd in Singapore.

Continue reading Filtering the blood to keep cancer in check →

2015, L’Oréal For Women in Science

How we imagine the future

Dr Muireann Irish, cognitive neuroscientist, Neuroscience Research Australia/UNSW, Sydney

2015 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellow Muireann Irish (Credit: L'Oréal Australia) Dr Muireann Irish has discovered which parts of our brain are essential to imagine the future, ranging from simple things like “I must remember my keys and my wallet when I go out,” to imagining complex events such as “my next holiday”. And she has shown that people with dementia don’t just lose the ability to remember the past, they also lose the ability to envisage the future.

She will use her L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship to better understand how dementia affects this cognitive function. She expects her work will inform the development of activities for patients that will improve their quality of life and reduce the burden faced by caregivers.

Cognitive decline in the form of dementia will be one of the greatest challenges for our health system in the next fifty years and Muireann is leading the search for solutions.

Continue reading How we imagine the future →

2015, Australia-Japan Collaboration

Reducing the impact of earthquakes

Working together, researchers in Japan and Australia are getting better at predicting the areas most at risk from earthquakes.

They are also working together on ways to determine, within seconds of a warning, the scale and likely impact of an earthquake.
Rapid detection and warning systems combined with smart engineering saved many lives in the Great Japanese Earthquake of 2011. But the earthquake and the resulting tsunami were much bigger than geological modelling suggested. The reasons for that might be found in deep history.

Mapping the hazard

Big earthquakes may be separated by centuries or millennia. But earthquake hazard maps are based on information gathered since 1900 when modern seismographs came into use. It’s difficult to model events happening over millennia when you have not got deep historical information. Continue reading Reducing the impact of earthquakes →

2015

Australian Academy of Science Early-career Awards

Julie Arblaster’s climate research is helping to explain the climate of the Australian region, particularly the ozone hole, El Niño, the monsoon, and Australian rainfall variability.

David Warton is driving data analysis in ecology, making it a more predictive science. His tools are influencing statistics across science and industry.

Christian Turney has pioneered new ways of combining climate models with records of past climate change spanning from hundreds to thousands of years.

Maria Seton has redefined the way we reconstruct the movement of continental plates and contributed to studies on the effect ocean basin changes have had on global long-term sea level and ocean chemistry. Continue reading Australian Academy of Science Early-career Awards →

2015

From little things, big things grow

Michelle Simmons’ work building silicon atomic-scale devices is paving the way towards a quantum computer with the capacity to process information exponentially faster than current computers.

She is also Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, acknowledged to be a world-leader in the field of quantum computing—which uses the spin, or magnetic orientation, of individual electrons or atomic nuclei to represent data.

Michelle Simmons is one of only 11 Australians elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Credit: UNSW
Michelle Simmons is one of only 11 Australians elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Credit: UNSW

In the past five years, Michelle’s research group and collaborators have made a number of notable advances. They have fabricated the world’s first single-atom transistor in single-crystal silicon, and the world’s narrowest conducting wires, also in silicon, just four atoms wide and one atom tall with the current-carrying capacity of copper.

Continue reading From little things, big things grow →