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Quantum composer, fusion energy, navigation without GPS, war disrupts physics, nuclear jobs

Listen to ‘Alice’s caffeine rush’ composed by quantum computer, Quanthoven

Find out what it means for quantum AI and understanding consciousness with Bob Coecke, Chief Scientist at Quantinuum, making quantum software and hardware, and Emeritus Professor at Wolfson College, Oxford.

Stories from the physics national congress in Adelaide.

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The messy death of a star

  • Reconstructed by a global forensic team of astronomers
  • Using stunning James Webb Space Telescope images
  • Reported in Nature Astronomy today

All images and detailed analysis available from the Space Telescope Science Institute at webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-059.

Around 2500 years ago, a star ejected most of its gas, forming the beautiful Southern Ring Nebula, NGC 3132, chosen as one of the first five image packages from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Two views of the gas in the Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Images). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam
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A lifetime investigating malaria leads to drugs that push back on resistance… And a CSL Florey Medal

Alan Cowman wins $50,000 CSL Florey Medal for Lifetime Achievement for revealing how malaria parasites infect humans, paving the way for new drugs and vaccines for a disease that infects more than 240 million people a year, and keeps communities in poverty.

Past CSL Florey Medallists include Graeme Clark, Ian Frazer, Ruth Bishop, and Nobel Laureates Barry Marshall and Robin Warren.

Professor Alan Cowman. Image credit: WEHI

Melbourne scientist Professor Alan Cowman AC has worked to understand how the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum causes disease in humans and how it evolves to outwit antimalarial drugs. He has also created genetic tools to modify the parasite, which have been used by malaria researchers worldwide.

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Using stem cells to give sight and controlling rogue blood stem cells

Winners of the 2022 National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia’s Metcalf Prizes announced

SCIENTISTS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS:

Researchers working with stem cells to restore sight and fight blood cancers are the two winners of the 2022 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, awarded by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

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Using stem cells to give sight – Anai Gonzalez-Cordero

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero. Credit: Children’s Medical Research Institute

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero research aims to restore sight in people with inherited retinal diseases, by repairing or replacing damaged photoreceptor (light-sensing) cells in the eye.  

She has already shown that she can grow cultures of healthy photoreceptor cells in a dish in the lab and then use the cells replace the defective cells and restore sight in laboratory models of hereditary blindness. And she has shown that gene therapy can repair diseased human retinal cells grown in the lab as ‘mini-organs’ (or ‘organoids’), providing them with normal light-sensing ability. 

Her $55,000 Metcalf Prize will contribute to developing systems to progress both concepts towards clinical trials. She is based at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Western Sydney.  

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Controlling rogue blood stem cells – Ashley Ng

Dr Ashley Ng seeing a patient. Credit: WEHI.

Dr Ashley Ng is revealing how blood stem cells are controlled, and how they sometime go rogue, leading to blood cancers. He has discovered how a protein known as ‘ERG’ underpins healthy development of blood cells, and how it also plays a role in Down syndrome-associated leukaemia and a range of other blood cancers.

As a researcher at WEHI and a clinician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter Mac, Ashley will use his $55,000 Metcalf Prize to advance his ideas from the laboratory into treatments for blood and blood cancer diseases.

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National action needed to fast-track life-saving discoveries and to ensure that all healthcare is evidence based

  • Cancer survival rates, COVID response and rapid vaccine development show how research can rapidly transform healthcare outcomes
  • But Australia is not currently translating the findings of research efficiently into benefits for patients because of fragmentation within the health system and between health, academia and industry.
  • Report reveals how integrating routine clinical care with generation of evidence represents our best pathway to deliver better patient experiences, improve patient outcomes, and increase staff satisfaction.
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Spin flips show how galaxies grow from the cosmic web

The alignment between galaxy spins and the large-scale structure of the universe reveals the processes by which different components of galaxies form.

Like our own Milky Way, most galaxies have two components: an extended disk in which new stars form from gas and a central bulge of mostly older stars that grows over time.

An observational study recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society found that the size of the galaxies’ bulge changes how their spins align with the surrounding structure.

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