Operations

Fighting cancer by the numbers: 2013 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science

Terry Speed

Terry Speed doesn’t expect to see headlines reading “Statistician cures cancer” any time soon. But he knows that the right mathematics and statistics can help researchers understand the underlying causes of cancer and reduce the need for surgery.

A mathematician and statistician, he has written elegant theoretical papers that almost no-one reads. But he has also testified in court, helped farmers and diamond miners, and given biologists statistical tools to help them cope with the genetic revolution.

It’s not a jungle out there: rocking the ecological boat: 2013 Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year

Angela Moles

If you were a pharmaceutical company searching for a natural plant compound to use as the basis for a new line of drugs, where would you begin?

Until recently, this question was a no-brainer. Everyone knows that tropical forests contain the widest diversity of species, all fighting for survival and defending themselves physically and chemically against being invaded or eaten. So the tropics should naturally provide the greatest selection of biologically active compounds.

Quantum computing becomes more than just spin: 2013 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year

Andrea Morello

People have speculated about the potential of quantum computers for decades—how they would make child’s play of constructing and testing new drugs, searching through huge amounts of data and ensuring that information was fundamentally secure.

But it all seemed like science fiction. No-one really knew how to build one, despite lots of clever ideas for using exotic materials and light. But 15 years of work at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology and its predecessors have changed everything. The building blocks of a quantum computer have been created and tested in a high tech basement at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). And within a few years Andrea Morello and his colleagues expect to have a small working prototype.

Using a motor race to fuel interest in science: 2013 Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools

Sarah Chapman

Each year in early July, when its 700 students are on holiday, Townsville State High School becomes the headquarters for one of the races in Australia’s V8 Supercar series. But before and after the race the Year 11 science students are hard at work, slopping their way through the nearby mangroves, and wading into the estuary that borders the school.

They are taking measurements to assess the impact of the race on the surrounding environment. Afterwards, the students report their results and pass them on to the local council and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The data is also assisting a program in which the biology students are collaborating with James Cook University as part of the National Estuary Restorative Study.

A teacher’s laboratory becomes a primary source of inspiration: 2013 Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools

Richard Johnson

Model pterosaurs flying overhead, a new insect in the terrarium by the window, a cool video on non-Newtonian fluids on the SMART board down the front—every time the students of Rostrata Primary School in Perth’s southern suburbs enter Mr Johnson’s science lab, there’s something new. Nothing keeps them away from school on science days.

The laboratory is the realisation of something Ric Johnson recognised in more than 30 years as a primary school teacher—the power of science to engage children in the classroom. The problem, says Ric, is that primary teachers are typically not confident in their own knowledge and ability to teach science. Many simply avoid it.

Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science photos and videos for 2013

Photos and videos

Saving young lives by the million – Melbourne researcher wins $50,000 CSL Florey Medal

Saving young lives by the million

Professor Ruth Bishop, 2013 CSL Florey Medallist

By their third birthday, just about every child in the world has had a rotavirus infection. Every day about 1200 children die from it; half a million children every year. That’s changing. We’re fighting back thanks to a discovery made in 1973 by a quiet Melbourne researcher—this year’s winner of the 2013 CSL Florey Medal.

That was when Ruth Bishop, Brian Ruck, Geoffrey Davidson and Ian Holmes at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne’s microbiology department found a virus, now known as rotavirus. Until the middle of the last decade, it put about 10,000 Australian children in hospital each year with acute gastroenteritis. In the next decade, as a direct result of their research, millions of young lives will be saved.

Saving young lives by the million wins national honour for Ruth Bishop

Presentation 8.30pm, Wednesday 30 October, in the Mural Hall, Parliament House, Canberra

HD Australian and international vision available

Saving young lives by the million wins national honour for Ruth Bishop

Because of the rotavirus Ruth Bishop found in Melbourne babies in 1973:

10,000 Australian kids won’t go to hospital this year
half a million young lives could be saved every year as the Gates Foundation and GAVI roll out rotavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest 30 countries by 2015
a new Australian rotavirus vaccine is being trialled in New Zealand and Indonesia.

Coral chemicals protect against warming oceans

EMBARGO LIFTED: 4am AEDT, Thursday 24 October 2013

Nature paper reveals coral animals produce the ‘smell of the ocean’ – influencing cloud formation and protecting themselves against rising seawater temperatures.

Australian marine scientists have found the first evidence that coral itself may play an important role in regulating local climate.

They have discovered that the coral animal—not just its algal symbiont—makes an important sulphur-based molecule with properties to assist it in many ways, ranging from cellular protection in times of heat stress to local climate cooling by encouraging clouds to form.

These findings have been published in the prestigious weekly science journal Nature.

Celebrating Australia’s best at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science

Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science: Wednesday 30 October, Canberra

Later this month, the Prime Minister will announce the winners of the 2013 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science at a formal dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.

We’re helping again with the media program for the prizes, and we’ll have profiles, print-quality photos and broadcast-quality footage available for journalists.

If you need to know who’s winning this year drop me a line on niall@scienceinpublic.com.au. We welcome the opportunity to brief longer lead-time programs and publications.

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Operations

Sarah Chapman

Photos and videos

Saving young lives by the million

Professor Ruth Bishop, 2013 CSL Florey Medallist

Saving young lives by the million wins national honour for Ruth Bishop

EMBARGO LIFTED: 4am AEDT, Thursday 24 October 2013

Nature paper reveals coral animals produce the ‘smell of the ocean’ – influencing cloud formation and protecting themselves against rising seawater temperatures.

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