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2012

Higgs boson: the Australian connection

In 2012, scientists celebrated at the announcement of the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle, a subatomic particle that completes our model of how the Universe works.

Director of the High Energy Physics Conference, Geoff Taylor (right) celebrates the Higgs-like particle announcement at the Melbourne Convention Centre. Credit: Laura Vanags/ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale
Director of the High Energy Physics Conference, Geoff Taylor (right) celebrates the Higgs-like particle announcement at the Melbourne Convention Centre with Pauline Gagnon of CERN. Credit: Laura Vanags/ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale

The announcement was made simultaneously at CERN in Geneva, and to hundreds of physicists gathered in Melbourne for the International Conference on High Energy Physics.

“As scientific discoveries go, this is up there with finding a way to split the atom,” says Prof Geoff Taylor, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP).

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2012

Harnessing waste energy to power factories

Manufacturers are looking for ways to make their factories more sustainable, but before whacking a solar panel on the roof, they’ve got to plan carefully.

Sami Kara is developing a tool to help industry become more sustainable. Credit: ISTOCKPHOTO

University of New South Wales researcher Assoc Prof Sami Kara says production lines need a steady supply of electricity, and if the sun goes behind a cloud, businesses get hit with penalty rates for suddenly drawing more energy from the grid.

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2012

New light on storing energy

Solving the problem of how to store energy is essential for a future run on renewables.

That’s why promising materials for hydrogen fuel cells and high capacity, long-lived batteries are being explored at the atomic level by the Australian Synchrotron.

QUINFEN GU IS INVESTIGATING A NEW CLASS OF HYDROGEN STORAGE MATERIALS. CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO

Australian Synchrotron scientist Dr Qinfen Gu is investigating a new class of hydrogen storage materials being developed by scientists at the University of Wollongong and their international collaborators.Qinfen is using the powerful X-rays of the synchrotron to observe and analyse the structure of these materials. Continue reading New light on storing energy →

2012

On-demand epilepsy drug

A new brain implant could deliver anti-epilepsy drugs straight to where they’re needed and, in future, on demand. This will be particularly helpful for the 30 per cent of epilepsy patients who suffer severe side-effects, such as nausea, rashes, weight change and dizziness, from their medication, leaving them unable to be treated.

Simon Moulton is developing a brain implant to deliver epilepsy drugs when and where they are needed
Simon Moulton is developing a brain implant to deliver epilepsy drugs when and where they are needed. Credit: ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science

The implant is a biodegradable polymer that ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science associate Bionics program leader A/Prof Simon Moulton compares to the types of polymers used in dissolvable stitches.
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2012

Wide open skies for Australian astronomy

CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope is already booked out for much of its first five years of data gathering, even before it formally begins early operations in 2013.

One of CSIRO’s ASKAP antennas at the MRO. Credit: Barry Turner, CSIRO

More than 400 astronomers from over a dozen nations have already signed up to look for pulsars, measure cosmic magnetic fields, and study millions of galaxies.

ASKAP was built at the specifically radio-quiet Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia as a technology demonstrator for the $2 billion Square Kilometre Array radio telescope.
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2012

Fibre optics: from cables to colon health

A new fibre optic medical tool is revolutionising our understanding of serious but socially embarrassing digestive illnesses, such as constipation, diarrhoea and irritable bowel syndrome. Thanks to this device, medical scientists can see for the first time the coordinated, fine and complex muscular activity of the human digestive system in action.

FIBRE OPTIC TECHNNOLOGY IS HELPING JOHN ARKWRIGHT UNDERSTAND OUR DIGESTIVE FUNCTION. CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO

CSIRO optical physicist Dr John Arkwright, together with Dr Philip Dinning, of Flinders University, collected a 2011 Eureka Prize for their creation of the fibre optic catheter, which gleans information about digestive function by measuring pressure.
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2012

Frog peptides versus superbugs

Neutrons and native frogs are an unlikely but dynamic duo in the battle against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, commonly known as superbugs, recent research has shown.

The growling grass frog’s skin secretions include disease fighting peptides. Credit: Craig Cleeland

The skin secretions of the Australian green-eyed and growling grass frogs contain peptides (small proteins) that help frogs fight infection. Researchers hope these peptides will offer a new line of defence against a range of human bacterial pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
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2012

Donating used eyeglasses is a poor use of resources

It’s much better to give new glasses than recycled glasses if you want to help one of the 640 million people who are vision-impaired or blind simply for the lack of an eye examination and appropriate glasses.

Thembani waits for an eye examination at the Umlazi community hall near Durban, South Africa Credit: Dean Saffron/ICEE
Thembani waits for an eye examination at the Umlazi community hall near Durban, South Africa. Credit: Dean Saffron/ICEE

This is according to a new international study led by Australian researchers.

Dr David Wilson, research manager in the Asia-Pacific for International Centre for Eyecare Education and head author of a major paper on the topic, says although you might feel good sending your old reading glasses to a developing country, it is far better to give $10 for an eye examination and a new pair of glasses—and that’s more likely to strengthen the ability of these communities to help themselves.
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2012

Could a neutron beam help stop train derailments?

Scientists are using neutron radiation to look inside solid steel and analyse the stresses within rail tracks. This research will ultimately improve the safety and operational and repair efficiency of heavy-haul railways.

The wheels of heavily laden trains place considerable rolling-contact loading on rail tracks. The heavy loads can change the material properties near the running surface and within the railhead—causing “fatigue”. A number of serious incidents, including derailments, have been attributed to rail failures resulting from rolling-contact fatigue and accumulated residual stress.

Bragg Institute instrument scientist Dr Vladimir Luzin is looking at fatigue in insulated rail joints (IRJs) within a research project initiated by the Cooperative Research Centre for Rail Innovation. IRJs are an integral part of rail track systems, but they are also weak points, and their replacement is the single largest track maintenance cost in New South Wales, apart from ballast work.

“When a rail comes out of a factory it has already some residual stress,” explains Vladimir. “Now we are looking at the atomic level to see how these stresses develop through the life of the rail joints.”

Vladimir uses neutron diffraction to see how residual stresses evolve through different production steps and during service. The beauty of neutrons is that they can penetrate steel—unlike X-rays—and they can be used to map the stresses inside the rail components non-destructively.

Manufacturers and operators want to control and minimise these stresses. This research, backed by modellers and metallurgists, will help industry partners cut costs, modify production methods and develop rails of a quality and strength that can handle increasing loads.

Bragg Institute, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Vladimir Luzin, Tel: +61 2 9717 7262, vladimir.luzin@ansto.gov.au,  www.ansto.gov.au

2012

Galactic shutterbug

A new instrument at the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) can sample the light coming from hundreds of galaxies per night—which can tell us new things about the universe.

Astronomer Sam Richards sitting in the prime focus cage at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, where the SAMI instrument usually sits. Credit: Jon Lawrence
Astronomer Sam Richards sitting in the prime focus cage at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, where the SAMI instrument usually sits. Credit: Jon Lawrence

Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI) can look at up to 100 galaxies in a night, because it can look at 60 different regions in each of 13 different galaxies, all at once.

But most observatories around the world can only do one galaxy at a time.
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