Science In Public
Science writers, communicators, media, training, and public relations
The 15th World Congress on Public Health is coming to Melbourne in April 2017.
Stay tuned to hear about the exciting stories coming out of the Congress.
For more information on the Congress, visit the website: www.wcph2017.com/index.php.
We’ll be tweeting from the official account @wcph2017.
Women in Indonesia were 21 times more likely to die from childbirth than women in Australia in 2015. Many pregnant women in Indonesia, particularly in remote areas, do not regularly visit health clinics and so complications are not detected and dealt with early enough.
[Read more…] about Detecting high risk pregnancies in Indonesia
Half of Australia’s science university students are women. Why are only 21 per cent of the professors teaching them women?
40 Australian universities and other research organisations are signed up and working towards a bronze award level of recognition for supporting women in science. What can they learn from the UK’s ten-year experience?
UK chemist Professor Tom Welton is in Australia to share how his team at the Imperial College London Chemistry Department achieved a gold Athena Swan Award for promoting gender equality.
“Australia and the UK both suffer from a ‘leaky pipeline’, with a disproportionate number of women leaving academia at all career stages. This loss of female talent is a loss for science and broader society,” says Professor Welton. [Read more…] about Expert advice: fix the ‘leaky pipeline’ for women in science
Thursday 8 December 2016
Professor Alain Aspect firmly believes we’ve entered the second quantum revolution—an age which will see radical technological developments across industries, from manufacturing and measurement, to energy generation and computing.
During the first quantum revolution, we discovered the rules that govern the quantum realm, and how they differ from classical physics. Those discoveries, from 1950 onward, led to the invention of lasers, transistors and optical fibres.
Now in the second revolution we’re taking these rules and using them to develop new technologies in communications, measurement, and computing. Today at the Physics Congress, Alain Aspect from Institut d’Optique Graduate School will review how we got to where we are today, and share his hopes for what’s next. [Read more…] about The quantum manifesto: why quantum is worth one billion Euro to Europe; and is being funded by the US big tech companies
On the final day of the Physics Congress in Brisbane we’re hearing about inventions that could change the way we generate and store power.
Researchers available for interview, contact Toni Stevens on 0401 763 130 or toni@scienceinpublic.com.au
The compound eyes of flies have inspired QUT researchers hunting for the perfect solar cell.
Fly eyes have evolved over millions of years to make the most of the tiny amount of visible light that hits them in a brilliant example of natural nanotechnology. The team’s zinc-oxide replicas pull off the same tricks, using a three-zone structure copied straight from a real-life fly. The bio-inspired nanomaterial captures energy across a wide solar spectrum using only one material, something that conventional solar panels struggle to achieve with a plethora of metals. The fly-eye solution comes “very close to perfection,” says Dr Ziqi Sun, and could readily be incorporated into modern solar cells for an impressive boost in energy harvesting.
At the conference Ziqi will talk about the underlying technology that he and his colleagues have developed to make nano-structures using sheets of metal oxides. The new solar cell design will be published in Materials Today Chemistry. [Read more…] about Looking into fly eyes for the perfect solar cell; embracing chaos to improve solar power; and printing high-temperature superconductors
Wednesday 7 December 2016
Back in February 2016 it was Professor David Reitze who announced to the world that gravitational waves had been discovered at LIGO, 100 years after Einstein predicted them.
And now they want to find more. Last Thursday LIGO resumed the search for gravitational waves and the world is eagerly awaiting the results.
Today in Brisbane David Reitze will give a first-hand account of what it is like to make a potentially Nobel-prize winning discovery, which is being hailed as the beginning of a new era in astronomy.
[Read more…] about The biggest discovery of 2016 was gravitational waves, but what’s next?
Wednesday 7 December 2016
Near-infrared fluorescent nanomaterials could help surgeons better identify tumour tissue to remove, and healthy tissue to leave, according to researchers at RMIT. Dr Philipp Reineck and his team tested seven classes of red and near-infrared fluorescent materials in spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy experiments for the first time. They found that nanomaterials such as nanodiamonds and nanorubies are vastly more stable than the organic dyes currently in use—glowing brighter for longer. [Read more…] about Nanodiamonds to highlight cancer; plasma in the workplace; super-light night-vision glasses; science-art created by Synchrotron light; and more
Tuesday 6 December 2016
Scientists available for interview from the Physics Congress in Brisbane
We have the technology! The first simple quantum computers are being built all over the world as decades of research and development culminate in technology that accurately builds structures atom by atom.
Researchers already have practical plans for building usable quantum computers based on silicon, the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology Professor Michelle Simmons, at the University of New South Wales, will tell the Australian Physics Congress in Brisbane on Wednesday. [Read more…] about Australia set to ride the quantum computing wave
It’s the world’s biggest experiment—a multi-billion machine, with first results in 2025.
Speakers from around the world, including senior advisor to the ITER project Professor Jean Jacquinot, will speak at the Physics Congress in Brisbane about the global race to master the process that powers our sun. Researchers from ANU will speak about Australia’s involvement. [Read more…] about Australia helping to crack fusion power, bringing the energy of the sun down to earth for a zero carbon future
Tuesday 6 December 2016
The perils of lithium-ion batteries are well known to owners of the Galaxy Note 7, but battery fires have also plagued power plants and even passenger jets in-flight. The Queensland Government is getting behind an Australia-China collaboration to build supercapacitors: purely electric storage devices using graphene, which promise many advantages over their chemical-based cousins.
QUT’s Professor Nunzio Motta is leading the Australian end of the research. The major challenge is developing scalable ways of growing graphene sheets. At the Congress, he’ll present his work on growing graphene for other kinds of electronic components but he’s happy to talk about both areas and the potential of graphene. He imagines, for example, a car or train in which the body panels act as energy stores extending the battery range, and storing energy from braking. [Read more…] about Arc welders in the operating room; the physics of kangaroo’s knees; no more exploding smartphones; women in leadership; and more