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Astronomy

Space storms, Aussies at the LHC, home computers find pulsars and more…

7 December 2010

Here’s today’s stories from the physics congress in Melbourne.
Space storms threat to power and phones
Are solar flares damaging our ozone layer?
The future of nuclear science
Superconductors reveal their secrets
Dark matter: detecting the invisible
Pulsar found with 250,000 home computers
Lies, damn lies and climate change sceptics: what has really caused recent global warming?
Australians to play with the Large Hadron Collider

[Read more…] about Space storms, Aussies at the LHC, home computers find pulsars and more…

Director General CERN announces $25M Australian centre on origins of universe

Media Release

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Isssued by the University of Melbourne

The Director General of CERN, Switzerland, Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, has announced a new $25m Australian Research Council Centre to explore the origins of the universe after the big bang at the Australian Institute of Physics Congress today.

Led by the University of Melbourne, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Experimental Particle Physics at the Terascale will explore particle physics at terascale energies (a million million electron volts) through the ATLAS experiment, which is a giant particle detector attached to Large Hadron Collider at CERN. [Read more…] about Director General CERN announces $25M Australian centre on origins of universe

A cubic kilometre ice telescope, silk for blood tests, stirring coffee and rocks…

Stories today at the physics congress in Melbourne

A cubic kilometre of South Pole ice looking for dark matter
From the chaos of stirring coffee to stirring rocks and cleaning up polluted ground water
Silk microchips for instant blood tests
Diamond’s light touch
Enlightenment on a chip
A single electron reader for silicon quantum computing
[Read more…] about A cubic kilometre ice telescope, silk for blood tests, stirring coffee and rocks…

Ancient zombie ants, liquefying your body, recovering meteorites and more. What Tim's talking about on radio this week.

This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about tracking and recovering meteorites; liquefying your body; chlorophyll that works with low energy light; ancient zombie ants; and more…

1. Desert fireballs—An intelligent camera system has been set up to track and recover meteorites in the Nullarbor. It is expected to detect about three or four of them a year. Many of these will be recovered. As debris left over from when planets were constructed, they carry a unique record of the birth of the Solar System.—Australasian Science.

This story can be found in the latest issue of Australasian Science. [Read more…] about Ancient zombie ants, liquefying your body, recovering meteorites and more. What Tim's talking about on radio this week.

Ancient zombie ants, liquefying your body, recovering meteorites and more. What Tim’s talking about on radio this week.

This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about tracking and recovering meteorites; liquefying your body; chlorophyll that works with low energy light; ancient zombie ants; and more…

1. Desert fireballs—An intelligent camera system has been set up to track and recover meteorites in the Nullarbor. It is expected to detect about three or four of them a year. Many of these will be recovered. As debris left over from when planets were constructed, they carry a unique record of the birth of the Solar System.—Australasian Science.

This story can be found in the latest issue of Australasian Science. [Read more…] about Ancient zombie ants, liquefying your body, recovering meteorites and more. What Tim’s talking about on radio this week.

Astronomy in November 2009

Welcome to my November bulletin for the International Year of Astronomy in Australia. This month sees a particularly interesting mix of events, from a “Dance Your PhD” workshop (to be videoed for the web), to a symposium on Indigenous Astronomy and a talk on the Antikythera mechanism, the most sophisticated instrument we know of from the ancient world.

[Read more…] about Astronomy in November 2009

2009 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science

2009 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science winners:

John O’Sullivan: How astronomy freed the computer from its chains

Nearly a billion people use John O’Sullivan’s invention every day. When you use a WiFi network—at home, in the office or at the airport—you are using patented technology born of the work of John and his CSIRO colleagues.

They created a technology that made the wireless LAN fast and robust. And their solution came from John’s efforts to hear the faint radio whispers of exploding black holes. [Read more…] about 2009 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science