Australasian Science Magazine Issue November 2010
The Risky Business of Being Male
Male and female babies may need to be treated differently in the neonatal intensive care unit.
By Vicki Clifton
Female babies are more likely to survive a stressful pregnancy.
A/Prof Vicki Clifton is NHMRC Research Fellow at the Robinson Institute, University of Adelaide.
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Big Floods = Big Barras
Study co-author Ian Halliday catches a barramundi, a popular species for anglers in rivers such as the Daly River in the Northern Territory.
By Tim Jardine, Brad Pusey and Ian Halliday
More barramundi survive to adulthood during big flood years due to increased feeding opportunities.
Tim Jardine and Brad Pusey are Research Fellows at the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University. Ian Halliday is a biologist with the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation.
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Sleight of Memory
iStockphoto
By John Bradshaw
Our memories can easily deceive us, for good or for ill.
John Bradshaw is Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at Monash University. This is an edited version of a script broadcast on Ockham’s Razor.
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The Straw Men of Climatology
The contrarian critique of climatology in the media, popular books and blogs is based on a “straw man” version of science. Image: iStockphoto
By James Risbey
The straw man arguments of climate contrarians portray a brittle image of climatology that ignores how science produces robust knowledge by embracing and correcting errors.
James Risbey is a senior research scientist in the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.
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Lizards Give Birth To Cancer Clues
The same protein found in pre-cancerous skin cells helps blood vessels to grow in the placenta of the three-toed skink (Saiphos equalis). Photo: Nadav Pezaro
By Bridget Murphy
A gene found in a pregnant lizard may provide important information about the origins and treatment of cancer in humans.
Bridget Murphy is completing a PhD in biology at the University of Sydney.
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Double Jeopardy for Corals
During the bleaching event there was a sharp contrast between corals that had C2 algae (left) and type D algae (right)
By Alison Jones
Not only are corals jeopardised by warmer waters but their growth is constrained as they change from heat-sensitive to heat-tolerant symbiotic algae in order to survive.
Dr Alison Jones is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Environmental Management at Central Queensland University in Rockhampton, and has been studying the impacts of climate change on local coral communities in the southern Great Barrier Reef Keppel area since 2004.
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Sinking Aristotle’s Sailing Octopus
A female argonaut (Argonauta argo) swimming close to the sea surface in the Sea of Japan. Photo: Julian Finn, Museum Victoria
By Julian Finn
By expertly manipulating air gathered from the sea surface, argonauts are able to control their buoyancy and traverse the world’s oceans at depth.
Dr Julian Finn is a Curator of Marine Invertebrates at Museum Victoria. This study has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B: Biological Sciences.
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Head Modification Explains the Origin of the First Australians
The Nacurie 1 cranium provides evidence that mothers intentionally modified the shape of their infants’ heads in the Murray River region of south-eastern Australia during the terminal Pleistocene. Photo: Peter Brown
By Peter Brown
Evidence of head shape modification among Pleistocene Australians helps refute claims of an evolutionary connection with Indonesian Homo erectus.
Peter Brown holds the Chair of Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW.
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Capturing Carbon with Membranes
By 2030, 80% of world energy will still be supplied by fossil fuels because the global energy demand during this period is expected to grow by 45%.
By Colin Scholes
Membrane technologies being developed in Australia hope to cut the cost of capturing industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.
Colin Scholes is a Research Fellow at the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC), the University of Melbourne.
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Good Science Done Properly
Professor Penny Sackett is Chief Scientist for Australia.
By Penny Sackett
Scientists have a social responsibility to maintain high ethical standards in their work.
Professor Penny Sackett is Chief Scientist for Australia.
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By Stephen Luntz
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Tanning Risk Starts Young
Sunbeds caused about three-quarters of melanomas in sunbed users under the age of 30.
By Stephen Luntz
The suspected risk of early melanoma posed by sunbeds has been confirmed.
A study has found that sunbed usage raises the risk of melanoma among 18–39-year-olds by 41%, and doubles the risk for those who start before they are 20.
“Research into the effects of sunbeds was considered sufficient last year for the International Agency for Research on Cancer to conclude that the risk of developing melanoma was increased by sunbed use,” says University of Sydney epidemiologist Prof Bruce Armstrong. Logically it might be expected that early use would create an increased risk, but this is the first time a study has confirmed this.
Parasitic Wasp to NZ’s Rescue
The gum leaf skeletoniser larvae leave just the skeleton of eucalyptus leaves.
By Stephen Luntz
A Tasmanian parasitic wasp (Cotesia urabae) has been approved as a biological control for a less appreciated import to New Zealand: the gum-leaf skeletoniser (Uraba lugens).
As the name suggests, the skeletoniser, a sort of hairy caterpillar, strips gum leaves to their veins and oil glands. Once older, it eats the entire leaf. Although there have been occasional large outbreaks of the skeletoniser in Australia, it is generally kept under control by various parasitic wasps, predatory insects and spiders.
Christchurch’s Unknown Fault
By Stephen Luntz
The earthquake that caused billions of dollars of damage to Christchurch, including to the University of Canterbury, occurred on a previously unknown fault line.
If that is not enough to cause alarm to those who thought their houses were safe, the head of the University’s Geology Department, A/Prof Tim Davies, says that most earthquakes occur on fault lines that were unknown previously.
“New Zealand is on an interplate margin,” Davies says. “Any active plate boundary will have very high stresses, with motion taking place along the cracks.
Anti-freeze Venom
By Stephen Luntz
Most venoms don’t work at very cold temperatures, which makes the poison produced by the Antarctic octopus particularly interesting.
The idea of putting animal venoms to use in the production of drugs, particularly painkillers, is not new (AS, Jan/Feb 2010, p.39). However, most venoms don’t work at very cold temperatures, which makes the poison produced by the Antarctic octopus particularly interesting.
Australia’s Scientific Illiteracy
By Stephen Luntz
A study of the public’s understanding of science has revealed how little many Australians know about the basics.
The most positive spin that the authors could put on their findings was that we were doing better than Americans.
The Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies and the Australian Academy of Science polled 1515 people in July. Among their findings were:
• almost one-third believed that humans and dinosaurs coexisted;
• one-quarter did not think that humans were influencing the evolution of other species; and
• 39% did not know that it takes a year for the Earth to orbit the Sun.
The Truffle Hunter
Club-like roots indicate mycorrhizal infection.
By Stephen Luntz
Colin Carter is putting the production of French black truffles onto a scientific footing.
French black truffles are one of the most expensive legal items on the planet, selling for upwards of $1800 per kilogram at the farm gate. The fungi are so fragrant that small quantities can give flavour to an entire meal, but the original supply of the truffles has collapsed. Australians are racing to fill the gap, and science is proving essential.
The News Is Not Good
By David Salt
This year’s global update on the state of biodiversity tells us that the world has failed to meet all of the international targets set in 2002. But is news bad enough for any country to do anything about it?
“The news is not good,” says the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity in a press release announcing the findings of the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3).
“We continue to lose biodiversity at a rate never before seen in history – extinction rates may be up to 1,000 times higher than the historical background rate.
A Win for Science?
By Ian Lowe
The minority government may do more for science than either of the major parties would have done with a secure majority.
The Australian science community felt marginalised in the recent election. Not only were the science policies of the major parties distinctly underwhelming, but there was also very little said in the campaign about science. I did detect a sense of relief that Senator Kim Carr remains the Science Minister. As one climate scientist said to me, the political cowardice of the ALP on climate change is a more tractable problem than the Coalition’s denial of the science. And the rural independents have track records of support for action on climate change.
Who Has the Backbone to Stop This?
By Peter Bowditch
Chiropractors should not promote their services as an alternative to vaccination or treat children for conditions like autism and asthma.
Australia has an excellent health system. Many improvements could be made, but generally the mixture of public and private provision of health delivery and insurance, together with regulatory oversight, provides one of the best, if not the best, health care systems in the world.
Cosmic Cannibalism
BP Piscium may provide clues about the formation of exoplanets.
By David Reneke
Dave Reneke brings news from the space and astronomy communities around the world.
Cosmic Cannibalism
Nasa's Chandra X-ray observatory has found a star that might have gobbled up its neighbour – another star or a giant planet – shedding new light on the interaction between planets and stars.
The star, BP Piscium, is a more evolved version of our Sun, and is located about 1000 light years away in the constellation of Pisces. It appears to be a young star but in fact it may be a 1-billion-year-old red giant that “ate” its young companion, leaving remnants that are still visible today.
The Science of Morality
By Michael Cook
A leading researcher into the biological basis of morality has been found guility of academic misconduct.
Morality is a tricky business. If you are an expert, people tend to hold you to a higher standard of probity. That’s why sex abuse scandals and the double lives of some televangelists have done such damage to the cause of religious morality. Perhaps, too, this is why academic misconduct by one of the leading exponents of the “new science of morality” has rattled scientists and bioethicists.
Clever Country Confusion
By Simon Grose
Julia Gillard’s new ministry is not a coherent platform for science-based policy.
Responsibility for policy and funding across the science and technology sector has always been a tug-of-war, mainly between industry ministers and education ministers. Julia Gillard could have handled this tension creatively or constructively with her ministerial arrangements, but instead she has created a schemozzle.
