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The past seven years, from 2015 to 2021, have been the seven warmest years on record. Last year in 2021, the global annual mean temperature was around 1.11°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has released the latest State of the Global Climate report revealing that four key climate change indicators […]

Physicists estimate that the Big Bang was around 13.8 billion years ago. Not long after the Big Bang, massive clouds of mostly hydrogen gas known as Damped Lyman-α systems (DLAs) slowly began condensing into the first stars. Large enough groups of stars and other matter would coalesce to form galaxies. DLAs act as galactic nurseries […]

Dogs are known for being one of the most morphologically diverse species on the planet – that is, they come in a big range of shapes, sizes and appearances. From the diminutive Chihuahua and Chinese crested dog to the mighty Great Dane, it can sometimes be hard to believe that all these animals are the […]

First, a little bit of background. University funding is a complex system, although currently it’s largely funded through government grants for research and teaching, as well as through student fees supported in part by a government-backed loan scheme. Commonwealth Supported Places Teaching grants are allocated to universities through the Commonwealth Grant Scheme, that allocates funds […]

A contact lens that can measure intraocular pressure and deliver a glaucoma treatment when needed has been reported in the journal Nature Communications. Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases which can lead to irreversible vision loss. According to Glaucoma Australia, two in 100 Australians will develop glaucoma in their lifetime, and there is no […]

Denisovans, the mysterious archaic humans first identified in a cave in Siberia, also lived down under. We know that because indigenous Papuans and Australians carry their DNA – around 4% was bequeathed by a Denisovan ancestor. Since that discovery in 2010, the race has been on to find the actual remains of a Denisovan in […]

A “selfie stick” for a satellite? It sounds strange. And simple. But it’s one of those typically tricky – and necessary – challenges facing Australia’s emerging space industry. The University of South Australia was one of three universities and 23 businesses of the iLAUNCH hub to share $180 million in funding this week to secure […]

New research coming out of the University of Cambridge, UK, suggests that complex ecosystems emerged earlier than we thought, in a period of Earth’s history called the Ediacaran. The Ediacaran period began 635 million years ago and marked the development of the first complex, multicellular organisms branching out into the first animal species around 580 […]

In Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland, two people are making their vision for the future a reality on 3.5 hectares. They have started small, with the creation of a not-for-profit organisation called Eco Villages Australia that uses a collectively stewarded land ownership model to ensure no individuals own the land. Eco Villages Australia was founded by […]

On Thursday last week, NASA’s Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the first ever image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The imaging of the supermassive black hole, named Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), provides strong evidence to support the 60-year-old theory that a supermassive black hole lurks at the centre of […]

Increased societal inequality and other negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic could continue well into the future unless there is enhanced global cooperation, a new report from the International Science Council (ISC) has warned. “We must not take a narrow view of the pandemic or minimise its impacts beyond public health,” says Peter Gluckman, president […]

A new study has highlighted the global importance of biological soil crusts – or “biocrusts” for short. Comprising a community of microbes, lichens and non-vascular plants, biocrusts act as the “skin” of drylands, stabilising the soil and reducing erosion. Now, a study published in Nature Geoscience has combined experimental data and modelling to estimate the […]

Researchers have found a simpler way to genetically modify cockroaches with CRISPR-Cas9, considerably reducing the time needed to conduct insect research. CRISPR-Cas9 is a molecule first discovered in bacteria, which has made genetic modification a much faster and more efficient process. The new technique, called direct parental CRISPR, or DIPA-CRISPR, allows researchers to avoid having […]

Chemists are constantly hunting for ways to make carbon dioxide (CO2) into more useful, carbon-containing substances. But one of the central problems with carbon dioxide is that it’s such a stable molecule: it’s hard to get it to react with anything. A team of Japanese chemists has found a way to turn CO2 into formic […]

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on 15 January 2022, it devastated the Kingdom of Tonga and sent literal and metaphorical shockwaves around the world. It had been nearly 140 years since an eruption of this size shook the Earth, but scientists are only now beginning to document just how big it really was. […]

Water supply is a growing global issue, especially with climate change bringing on more droughts. Seawater desalination is used worldwide to filter up to 97.4 million cubic metres per day. Two methods – thermal and reverse osmosis – predominate; both have huge energy costs. In a pioneering study published in Science, researchers have used a […]

Australia’s satellite construction, launch and traffic control industries have been given a significant boost towards building a sovereign space capability. Gilmour Space this week won a $15 million contract to build a prototype surveillance satellite for the Department of Defence. A consortium of rocket builders and launchers, including Southern Launch, has secured a $5 million […]

Tropical spider can hide underwater for 30 minutes Jaws might have popularised the phrase “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”, but in even more bad news for swimmers a new study has found a large tropical spider that can hide underwater for as long as 30 minutes to […]

Want to become a better tennis player? If you repeatedly practise serving to the same spot, you’ll master serving to that exact location, if conditions remain similar. Practising your serve to a variety of locations will take much longer to master, but in the end you’ll be a better tennis player, and much more capable […]

Before cells divide by undergoing mitosis, they do a little bit of a clean-up and toss out molecules they no longer need, according to a new study. Scientists have used a new method that measures the dry mass of cells – the weight of its contents not including water – to find that cells lose […]

If you’re like me and struggle to keep an indoor plant alive, the thought of growing plants in moon soil seems out of this world. A team of scientists from the University of Florida have shown it can be done, by successfully growing the plant Arabidopsis thaliana in soil samples collected during the Apollo 11, […]

Widespread coral bleaching has now occurred on the Great Barrier Reef for the fourth time in seven years. As the world has heated up more and more, there’s less and less chance for corals to recover. This year, the Morrison government announced a A$1 billion plan to help the reef. This plan tackles some of […]

Extreme storms can cause extensive damage to property, beaches, dunes and the surrounding infrastructure, but a new study led by Australian researchers has shown that they could also help protect beaches from the impact of sea-level rise. For the first time, scientists have looked not just above the water – where the impacts of extreme […]

The 1918-19 influenza pandemic killed between 17 million and 100 million people worldwide. But, while some virus genomes have been sequenced and it’s now known to be an H1N1 influenza, there is still a lot of mystery around it. Viral and genetic material typically survives very poorly, leaving many unknowns. Now, an analysis of newly […]

Not only are rodents one the most diverse animal groups alive today, but they have huge value in medical research, continuously improving our lives. “It’s very interesting that there seems to be in push in some countries to phase out animal experimentation. I don’t think it’s likely to happen and would be very bad if […]

In 2019, the world was stunned by the first-ever image of a black hole, a monster with a mass of 6.5 billion suns at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87. The image was made possible thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope – a global network of synchronised radio dishes which act as one giant […]

Researchers have developed a coating for paper that makes it behave like plastic – but still break down. The coating is a cheap and safe mixture of chemicals, which combine to make the paper rigid, waterproof and bacteria-repelling. While they’re initially planning to see how the coating works in food packaging, the researchers think their […]

Dragonflies are one of the most ancient groups of insects, originating some 325 million years ago, and are known to be highly skilled flyers. Not only are they long-distance champions, but they perform a repertoire of complex flight manoeuvres. Like cats always landing on their feet, dragonflies have a way of righting themselves when falling […]

Multani Kamini Vidrawan Ra (Kamini for short), is an opioid substance derived from the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. While kamini is classified as an illegal import by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia, it can still be purchased under the counter from some grocery stores – for as much as $180 per bottle, or […]

Our civilisation is built of steel. It’s in your car, microwave, house, and cutlery drawer. But it’s also now a threat – accounting for some 8% of total global CO2 emissions. Now the New South Wales’ Port Kembla Steelworks is attempting to square the circle. It’s a massive undertaking, and one with immense implications for […]

Australian cities are not designed to make their residents healthy – and nor do they have adequate policies in place to improve the health of their residents. Despite being frequently touted as “liveable”, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney’s low density and walkability mean they fail to meet health and sustainability thresholds – according to The Lancet […]

A new type of nontoxic wood glue made entirely from biological materials has been created by a team of international researchers. The new adhesive is described in a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Plywood is a handy building material used to make furniture and floors, among other […]

Octopuses are known for their uncanny intelligence, but the bizarre behaviour of some female octopuses seems a contradiction: after a female octopus lays a clutch of eggs, she stops eating and wastes away. By the time her babies hatch she’s already dead. Some female octopuses in captivity even seem to speed up this process intentionally […]

Today is International Plant Health Day – a perfect opportunity to talk about how society shuns blemished bananas. As it turns out, it’s not how you look on the outside, but how you peel. Over 900 million tonnes (17%) of edible food is wasted globally per year – and this is the stuff that actually […]

Scientists have identified genetic variants linked to a higher protein content in wheat, paving the way to more nutritious food. Lead author of the new study, Scott Bowden of the University of Adelaide, says it’s the culmination of approximately 10 years of work. A library of wheat Wheat is the world’s most widely produced cereal […]

It’s a story that has all the makings of a good science-fiction thriller – intrigue, an explosive romantic breakdown and frozen-body snatching – only, it’s true. This week, a bitter corporate dispute between a former wife and husband in Moscow, Russia, descended into the absurd when the aggrieved former wife seized the frozen bodies and […]

If you follow the science news, you’ll probably see research about PFAS – where they’re found, where they come from, and their impacts on health and the environment – coming out every week. But what actually are these chemicals, and why is there so much interest in them? What are PFAS? PFAS stands for “per- […]

In a series of discoveries that could transform brain and vision research, scientists have revived the light-sensing neurons in eyes collected from post-mortem organ donors and restored their ability to communicate. Many human organs can be transplanted from deceased donors, but tissues from the central nervous system rapidly lose their viability after circulation stops and […]

In 1972, a pet shop owner on the island of Oahu, in Hawaii, ordered a few dozen Jackson’s chameleons from Kenya to sell. When the lizards arrived, rattled by their long journey, the shop owner left them in his backyard to recover – allowing them to escape, and thus inadvertently causing the colonisation of Oahu […]

An exoplanet is a planet outside of our Solar System. While the first possible exoplanet observation was recorded in 1917, the existence of exoplanets was not confirmed until 1992. Using decades of data from two telescopes, the Hubble and the Spitzer, an international team of astronomers have begun to catalogue different types of exoplanets, identifying […]

KCLOC is a 3D animated short film that explores peoples’ perception of time. One question posited by the film is: why does time speed up when you’re having the time of your life, but slow down when you’re hating it? Well, according to research published in 2020, time really does fly when we’re having fun […]

We’ve all experienced the stunning sight of a flock of birds soaring overhead, engaged in a magical, synchronous dance. How birds regulate their speed – keeping the flock from splitting – has eluded scientists. Even less well understood is how an individual bird’s change of speed affects others in the flock, even over large distances, […]

We spend a lot of time marvelling at animals like pigeons and sharks, which can navigate with pinpoint accuracy, particularly through the sea. But new research is showing that the talent is far from universal: hawksbill turtles, for instance, use much more winding paths to get from their nesting grounds to their food. In fact, […]

Six times since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released major assessment reports on the climate. The most recent was last year. The results show, unequivocally, that human influence is leading to global warming and climate change, and it may soon be unstoppable. But have we been looking at the wrong data? […]

To improve the process for establishing clinical practice guidelines, a group of international researchers has developed a new approach that takes inspiration from the open-access encyclopedia Wikipedia – whereby online collaborators contribute to the creation of reference material. This new “WikiGuideline” approach establishes clinical practice guidelines only when high-quality, hypothesis-confirming evidence is available, and doesn’t […]

Late last month, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope completed its seventh and final alignment phase. Now, all four of its instruments are in full focus and engineers have begun compiling test images. A test image showing the observatory’s full field of view is now being more closely examined and it reveals the power of the […]

Fossil fuels – natural gas in particular – are enriched in helium. So, it would make sense that as more fossil fuels are burned, the amount of helium in the atmosphere would increase. But so far, there’s been debate among researchers about whether this is actually happening. As a nonreactive, non-greenhouse noble gas, helium hasn’t […]

The world has a 50% chance before 2026 of experiencing at least a year of global average temperatures 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This would be a temporary increase: a warm year over the next five. “A single year of exceedance above 1.5°C does not mean we have breached […]

Plants from the Pandanus genus grow in the tropics all over the world, where hundreds of different species are present. In Australia, there are 15 different Pandanus species, including the screw palm (which, of course, is not a palm). But the plants’ history isn’t very clear – it’s not even obvious which continent Pandanus evolved […]