Wearable technology on the runway; knitting neurons; and can science save humanity?
National Science Week is quickly approaching, with less than one month before it all kicks off.
Find out what’s happening in your state by coming along to one of our briefing events in the coming weeks in:
- NSW on Tuesday 21 July at Business Events Sydney
- ACT on Friday 24 July Canberra Innovation Network
- VIC on Thursday 30 July at the Royal Society of Victoria
We’d like to share information on the wide range of activities and promotions you can tap into for the Week, and hear about your organisation’s plans.
National Science Week: you in?
Celebrate all things science and technological during National Science Week from 15-23 August.
Now is the time to take your science out into the community.
We’ve just been appointed as the national media and communication agency for the next four years. So, over the coming weeks we’ll tell you more about how you can use Science Week.
This year’s Science Week is shaping up to be out of this world, with
- astrophysicist, author and presenter of Cosmos Neil deGrasse Tyson
- astronaut Chris Hadfield
- over a thousand science events
- ‘Galaxy Explorer’ – the national experiment, inviting ordinary Australians to do real science – classifying galaxies to understand how they grow and evolve.
The secret of Science Week is strength in numbers: local events and stories together build the buzz that becomes a national shout.
Now is the time to register any events you’re planning, whether it be a simple science-themed ‘Brain Break’ morning tea in your workplace or a mega-celebrity science public event. Registering is important – both for building the buzz and getting bums on seats!
Register any events you’re holding on the National Science Week website.
We will be providing communication support for event organisers and briefing media outlets with tasty story leads. If you have an event or topic you think might have strong media potential, let us know and we’ll consider including it in media releases and briefings. Email us at scienceweek@scienceinpublic.com.au.
Our Science Week team is being led by Tanya Ha, the award-winning environmental writer and former Catalyst reporter.
Carnivorous mushrooms reveal human immune trick
How we punch our way into cancer cells
Full media release, media contacts, photos, videos and background information below.
Edible oyster mushrooms have an intriguing secret: they eat spiders and roundworms. And they do so using proteins which can punch their way into cells, leaving tidy but deadly holes. It’s a trick that our immune cells also use to protect us; destroying infected cells, cancerous cells, and bacteria.
Research published today in PLOS Biology by an international team, led by the ARC Imaging Centre at Monash University and Birkbeck College, in London, reveals the molecular process behind the punch. [Read more…] about Carnivorous mushrooms reveal human immune trick
Could our brain instruct our bodies to burn more fat?
Monash researchers discover how two hormones work together on the brain to stimulate the burning of body fat
By shedding light on the action of two naturally-occurring hormones, Monash University scientists and their collaborators may have discovered a way to assist in the shedding of excess fat.
The researchers have unravelled a molecular mechanism that depends on the combined action of two hormones—leptin, an appetite suppressant generated in fat cells, and insulin, produced in the pancreas in response to rising levels of glucose in the blood. Their paper, published in the journal Cell today, shows that the two hormones act in concert on a group of neurons in the brain to stimulate the burning of body fat via the nervous system.
Their findings may lead to more effective ways of losing weight and preventing obesity by promoting the conversion of white fat to brown fat.
[Read more…] about Could our brain instruct our bodies to burn more fat?
If cells can’t move…cancer can’t grow
By blocking a widespread enzyme, Centenary researchers have shown they can slow down the movement of cells and potentially stop tumours from spreading and growing.
Using a new super-resolution microscope they’ve been able to see single molecules of the enzyme at work in a liver cancer cell line. Then they’ve used confocal microscopes to see how disrupting the enzyme slows the cells down in living cancer cells.
The enzyme is DPP9 (dipeptidyl peptidase 9) which the researchers at the Centenary Institute and the Sydney Medical School were first to discover and clone, in 1999. Ever since they’ve been studying what it does, with a view to its possible use as a cancer drug target.
“It was exciting to be able to watch the enzyme at work and then block DPP9, and see the cells slow down,” says A/Prof Mark Gorrell from Centenary’s Molecular Hepatology unit. “This gives us our clearest evidence yet that this enzyme will be a good cancer drug target.”
Quantum cats, could science have shortened WW1, and Lawrence Krauss
- Picking endangered parrots out from the dawn chorus
- Could maths and science have shortened WW1?
- Lawrence Krauss
- Nobel-winning photon-juggler replaces Schrödinger’s cat
These topics and more on the final day of the national physics conference, Thursday 11 December [Read more…] about Quantum cats, could science have shortened WW1, and Lawrence Krauss
How a piece of mobile DNA could change your mind
$25,000 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize goes to young Brisbane researcher
Today one of Australia’s most creative young medical researchers has won a $25,000 prize to help him develop his research into how a common, short piece of DNA affects the operation of the brain.
A/Prof Geoff Faulkner of the Mater Research Institute in Brisbane thinks the differences in the way each human brain functions could be determined by a segment of mobile DNA, known as L1, which has the capacity to insert itself into the genome of individual brain cells. His work may have consequences for how memories form, for brain disorders such as schizophrenia, and even spills over into diseases such as haemophilia, muscular dystrophy and some forms of cancer.
[Read more…] about How a piece of mobile DNA could change your mind
2014 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize
The winner of the $25,000 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize will be announced on Tuesday 11 November during a lunchtime reception at UBS in Sydney.
“It’s a small step towards recognising that the most creative medical research is usually done by researchers early in their career—at a time when it’s hardest for them to secure funding,” says Centenary Executive Director, Professor Mathew Vadas AO.
The three finalists (in alphabetical order) are:
How a piece of mobile DNA could change your mind
A/Prof Geoff Faulkner of the Mater Research Institute in Brisbane thinks the differences in the way each human brain functions could be determined by a segment of mobile DNA known as L1.
L1 has the capacity to insert itself into the genome of individual brain cells. Just how many L1 sequences are inserted and where they occur is unique to each brain cell and may determine how it operates. Showing the impact of this is the subject of Geoff’s Lawrence Creative Prize proposal. If he’s right, it could have significant consequences for our understanding of memory and of brain disorders such as schizophrenia.
Cellular decisions that affect behaviour
Dr Lucy Palmer from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne wants to know how brain cells in mammals process and integrate the information they receive from the sensory environment and how this information impacts on animal behaviour.
She has been working on the neurons in the rodent brain which receive sensory information from their hind limbs, and has shown that a lot of processing occurs in the dendrites, the long filaments of the cells where information is received. Now she wants to determine how the decisions a cell makes—to pass on information or not—affects what an animal does.
Sorting out healthy embryos
Dr Nicolas Plachta from the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute and EMBL Australia at Monash University is working on developing better and simpler ways of determining the health of the embryos to be implanted in IVF. And he does so by learning more about the very early stages of embryonic life.
Nico has already developed special microscope technology which allows him to study in single living embryonic cells the movement of individual molecules. This has enabled him to determine how the cells making up the embryo differ from those which form the placenta. And he has also documented shape changes in cells which signal the health of early embryos. He now wants to continue that work looking for other molecular and cellular signs of embryo health, and studying the possibilities for medical intervention.
More on each of the finalists below. [Read more…] about 2014 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize
Buddhist singing bowls inspire new tandem solar cell design
The shape of a centuries-old Buddhist singing bowl has inspired a Canberra scientist to re-think the way that solar cells are designed to maximize their efficiency.
Dr Niraj Lal, of the Australian National University, found during his PhD at the University of Cambridge, that small nano-sized versions of Buddhist singing bowls resonate with light in the same way as they do with sound, and he’s applied this shape to solar cells to increase their ability to capture more light and convert it into electricity.
“Current standard solar panels lose a large amount of light-energy as it hits the surface, making the panels’ generation of electricity inefficient,” says Niraj. “But if the cells are singing bowl-shaped, then the light bounces around inside the cell for longer”. [Read more…] about Buddhist singing bowls inspire new tandem solar cell design