Now you can map a mine, cave, building or forest just by walking through it with Zebedee in your hand.
A 3D laser scan by Zebedee of the wreck of the HMQS Gayundah, at Redcliffe, Queensland. Credit: CSIRO
CSIRO scientist Elliot Duff and his colleagues developed a spring-mounted hand-held laser scanner that can make 3D images of spaces previously impossible to map.
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.
From keeping Australian troops safe from explosions, to ensuring military vehicles can maintain flexibility on damaged roads, the Armour Applications Program of the Defence Materials Technology Centre has pioneered high-performance materials.
Bushmaster army vehicles are keeping Australian troops safe. Credit: Australian Defence Department
A University of Melbourne team has developed a device that uses nanoscale diamonds to measure the magnetic fields from a living cell’s atoms and molecules, with resolution a million times greater than current magnetic resonance imaging.
Photo: Alan Cowman’s research may lead to a vaccine against the malaria parasite, which is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Dept Health and Human Services
A vaccine is the holy grail of malaria control. Alan Cowman, of Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, has discovered proteins that are key to the malaria parasite’s virulence, and therefore a potential vaccine target. He’s been able to weaken live parasites by manipulating their genes. It’s the culmination of over 20 years’ research into malaria and won Alan a $50,000 Victoria Prize.
Photo: Alan Cowman’s research may lead to a vaccine against the malaria parasite, which is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito.
The 2013 ATSE Clunies Ross Award Winners follow in the footsteps of past winners such as Ian Frazer, inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine; Nobel laureate Barry Marshall, who discovered the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers; Fiona Wood, inventor of spray-on skin; and Martin Green and Stuart Wenham, international leaders in silicon cell technology.
Australia’s Anzac frigates are being upgraded with Ian Croser’s radar technology to defend themselves against missiles. Credit: Australian Defence Department
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
Dr Misty Jenkins, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne
Dr Misty Jenkins spends a lot of her time watching killers at work: the white blood cells of the body that eliminate infected and cancerous cells. She can already tell you a great deal about how they develop into assassins and arm themselves. Now with the support of her L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellowship Misty is exploring how they become efficient serial killers—killing one cancer cell in minutes and moving on to hunt down others. Her work will give us a greater understanding of our immune system and open the way to better manage T cells to defeat disease.
Misty’s career so far has been quite a journey for a girl from Ballarat. Along the way she been mentored by Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Prof Peter Doherty and become the first Indigenous Australian to attend either Oxford or Cambridge. Now working with Prof Joe Trapani as a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Cell Death laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Misty has been awarded a $25,000 L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand For Women in Science Fellowship. She will use the money to further her study of what triggers T cells to detach themselves from their targets and seek additional prey. Continue reading When killing saves lives: our immune system at work→
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→
Hundreds of Aussie science achievements that you can share in speeches, posts and publications
