With a human death rate over 50 per cent and an ability to cross species, the Hendra virus that emerged in 1994 had frightening potential.
Continue reading First vaccine and treatment against Hendra virus
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How flies can help us predict the future
Our planet’s climate is changing. How will bees cope—will they still be able to pollinate our crops? Will dengue and malaria-carrying mosquitoes spread south?
Clean water with crystals
Cara Doherty has a vision for a new manufacturing industry for Australia. She works with crystals that are packed with nothing.
Jetlag skin patch may prevent brain damage in newborns
Melatonin patches could help improve the outcome for babies starved of oxygen at birth, says James Aridas from Monash University.
Continue reading Jetlag skin patch may prevent brain damage in newborns
Carbon fibre that copes with bingles
Giving carbon fibre extra chemical arms means it could have the gripping power it needs to stand up to minor traffic accidents.
Reprogrammed stem cells ‘remember’ past life
Stem cells generated from adult cells still retain a memory of their past despite being reprogrammed, Australian scientists have found. Now scientists think they can teach the cells to forget their past.
Continue reading Reprogrammed stem cells ‘remember’ past life
Shared data reveals radio bursts, and a lunch break
In May 2014, a team led by PhD candidate Emily Petroff from Swinburne University was the first to see ‘fast radio bursts’ (FRBs) live, using the Parkes radio telescope in central New South Wales. The search was triggered by signals found in recycled data. They also discovered that someone was opening the kitchen microwave.
Continue reading Shared data reveals radio bursts, and a lunch break
Where did the antimatter go?
Antimatter has been disappearing and Melbourne researcher Phillip Urquijo wants to know why.
He’s hoping that the Belle II experiment, commencing in Japan in 2017, will give him an answer—and if he’s lucky it will answer many other questions about the beginning of the Universe too.
“What I hope we’ll discover is clear evidence of new quarks, leptons or other force-carrying particles,” says Phillip. “And I’d be really excited if we found a new kind of Higgs particle using this indirect approach.”
Elephant seals discover bottom water
Japanese and Australian researchers deployed elephant seals to solve a Southern Ocean mystery in 2013.
The genetics of epilepsy: bringing hope to families
Sam Berkovic and Ingrid Scheffer have changed the way the world thinks about epilepsy, a debilitating condition that affects about 50 million people.
of many epilepsies. Credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear
Twenty years ago doctors tended to regard most forms of epilepsy as acquired rather than inherited. In other words, they believed epilepsy was mostly due to injury: the result of things like a crack on the head in a car accident, a bad fall in the playground, a tumour, or something having gone wrong in labour. Parents felt responsible and the resulting guilt was enormous.
The two clinician-researchers from The University of Melbourne have led the way in finding a genetic basis for many epilepsies, building on their discovery of the first ever link between a specific gene and a form of epilepsy. Finding that answer has been of profound importance for families.
Along the way, Sam and Ingrid discovered that a particularly severe form of epilepsy, thought to result from vaccination, was actually caused by a gene mutation. This finding dispelled significant concerns about immunisation.
Continue reading The genetics of epilepsy: bringing hope to families