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Science In Public

Science writers, communicators, media, training, and public relations

Kieren Topp

SA: Giant marsupials; plants in space; Nitro Nat; lab in a library; and a butterfly-ant relationship

Dozens of Science Week stories around South Australia

  • See the giant ancient kangaroos, marsupial lions and rock formations of Naracoorte Caves without leaving home
  • Dancing with diprotodons with the singing palaeontologist Professor Flint – Naracoorte
  • Plants in space – Adelaide
  •  3D Printing, VR, Robotics, Laser Cutting and more: City Library becomes an Innovation Lab
  • Meet the scientists who speak for the trees – Adelaide
  • Liquid nitrogen show with Nitro Nat – Blackwood
  • How to grow a Martian garden – Roseworthy
  • Treewilding – people’s relationships with forests – Tusmore
  • Why a caterpillar needs ants to become a butterfly – Victor Harbor
  • Can you see the stars? Dark skies versus light pollution

More on these highlights below.

National Science Week in South Australia is coordinated by Inspiring South Australia. Visit their website: inspiringsa.org.au.

[Read more…] about SA: Giant marsupials; plants in space; Nitro Nat; lab in a library; and a butterfly-ant relationship

NT: NASA’s space dunny; Deadly conservation; spotting shorebirds; and a 9-metre whale puppet

National Science Week starts today, with stories around Northern Territory

  • Art bringing Miocene megafauna back to life – Alice Springs
  • NASA’s $23m space dunny in virtual reality – Darwin
  • 9-metre whale puppet tells The Whale’s Tale – The Gardens
  • Help us find the birds at Red Lily Lagoon – Jilkminggan
  • Students make stars – multiple locations
  • First Nations science and culture for conservation – Mamadawerre, West Arnhem Land
  • Volunteer beach-side bird-spotters wanted! – Brinkin
  • Dark matter on the move – quantum science roadtrip comes to Alice Springs
  • Can you see the stars? Dark skies versus light pollution

More on these highlights below.

National Science Week in the Northern Territory is coordinated by Inspired NT. Visit their website: inspirednt.net.

[Read more…] about NT: NASA’s space dunny; Deadly conservation; spotting shorebirds; and a 9-metre whale puppet

Galactic green thumbs; paleo-art; 3D-printed meds; your brain on AI; First Nations-First Scientists; counting koalas

The national festival that reaches more than 2 million people through thousands of events is back from 10 to 18 August.

Entertainment, business, environment, food and wine, Indigenous media, the arts, health, technology, farming and agriculture, lifestyle, education, LGBTQI+, and disability media… National Science Week offers stories for every round.

Here are a few early picks:

[Read more…] about Galactic green thumbs; paleo-art; 3D-printed meds; your brain on AI; First Nations-First Scientists; counting koalas

National Highlights Roundup

Here’s our early picks of National Science Week highlights from around the country.

[Read more…] about National Highlights Roundup

Galaxies get more chaotic as they age

A comparison of a young (top) and old (bottom) galaxy observed as part of the SAMI Galaxy Survey. Subaru credit: Image from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program

An international team led by Australian research centre ASTRO 3D reports that age is the driving force in changing how stars move within galaxies.

Galaxies start life with their stars rotating in an orderly pattern but in some the motion of stars is more random. Until now, scientists have been uncertain about what causes this – possibly the surrounding environment or the mass of the galaxy itself.

A new study, published in a paper today in MNRAS (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), has found that the most important factor is neither of these things. It shows the tendency of the stars to have random motion is driven mostly by the age of the galaxy – things just get messy over time.

“When we did the analysis, we found that age, consistently, whichever way we slice or dice it, is always the most important parameter,” says first author Prof Scott Croom, an ASTRO 3D researcher at the University of Sydney.

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JWST reveals a massive and ancient galaxy that challenges our models of the young Universe

Galaxies and stars developed faster after the Big Bang than expected

Detailed pictures of one of the very first galaxies show growth was much faster than we thought

JWST shows details of massive galaxy merger 13 billion years ago (insert of another early galaxy shows how significant the new JWST images are)

An international research team have made unprecedentedly detailed observations of the earliest merger of galaxies ever witnessed. They suggest stars developed much faster and more efficiently than we thought.

They used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the massive object as it was 510 million years after the Big Bang – i.e. around 13 billion years ago.

[Read more…] about JWST reveals a massive and ancient galaxy that challenges our models of the young Universe

How does the atmosphere’s washing machine work?

A German aircraft flying out of Cairns is measuring the chemistry of the clouds above Australia and the Pacific.

FEBRUARY 23, 2024: This week, a German research aircraft is sampling air up to 15 km above Australia and the Pacific Ocean. The CAFE-Pacific Mission aims to better understand:

  • how the tropical atmosphere deals with air pollution;
  • how clouds form over oceans;
  • how to refine weather and climate models, leading to better forecasts and projections; and, fundamentally
  • to better understand the chemistry of climate.

Flying out of Cairns in the northeast of Australia, the Chemistry of the Atmosphere: Field Experiment (CAFE) team are tracking weather events and taking atmospheric measurements to better understand the atmospheric chemistry occurring above the clouds.

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We achieved gender parity in astronomy in just five years

… all while discovering how the Universe evolved, how galaxies form and where the elements come from.

The ASTRO 3D team at the 2022 annual retreat. Credit: Cristy Roberts.

Around the world, research agencies are struggling to achieve gender parity.

A paper published in Nature Astronomy today reports how a national Australian astronomy centre achieved equal numbers of women and men using science.

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Gas-rich baby galaxies set the early universe alight

Images of a distant extreme emission line galaxy. Seen by James Webb Space Telescope (left) and Hubble Space Telescope (right). This comparison highlights the clarity of JWST images.

New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have helped Australian astronomers unlock secrets of how infant galaxies started an explosion of star formation in the very early Universe.

Some early galaxies were abundant with a gas that glowed so bright it outshone emerging stars. In research published today, astronomers have now discovered just how prevalent these bright galaxies were some 12 billion years ago.

Images from the JWST have shown that almost 90% of the galaxies in the early universe had this glowing gas, producing so-called ‘extreme emission line features’.

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Can stem cells make drugs to stop osteoarthritis? (Sydney); Stomach stem cells behaving badly (Melbourne)

Tuesday 31 October 2023

Winners of the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia’s Metcalf Prizes announced today

Scientists available for interviews, see below for contact details

Researchers working with stem cells to find treatments for osteoarthritis and stomach cancer are the two winners of the 2023 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, awarded by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

[Read more…] about Can stem cells make drugs to stop osteoarthritis? (Sydney); Stomach stem cells behaving badly (Melbourne)