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Media Bulletin - 22 August 2006
In this bulletin:
- “The Oscars of science” tonight: Twenty prizes, $200,000 for Australia’s top scientists, science leaders, educators and journalists. Announced tonight Tuesday evening, 22 August on a 9 pm embargo. Details are now available on embargo – see below.
- Aboriginal art to get laser cleaning: Australian treasures including Aboriginal paintings and funerary poles could soon be getting a state-of-the-art clean thanks to the latest laser technology developed by the 2006 Women in Physics lecturer
- Reducing the killing power of strokes
- Sound solution for soil pollution: The cleaning power of sound waves on the back of a truck
- Confirmation of Big Bang wins US$250,000: John Mather and the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) team jointly received the 2006 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their ground-breaking studies confirming that our universe was born in a hot Big Bang (not an Australian story, but one of ours. Here are the details:
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Behind the stem cell debate
Elizabeth Finkel is willing and able to guide your audience through the science behind the stem cell debat. Elizabeth’s book “Stem Cells - Controversy at the Frontiers of Science” was released by ABC Publishing last year. ________________________
“The Oscars of science” tonight
Twenty prizes, $200,000 for Australia’s top scientists, science leaders, educators and journalists
Embargo 9 pm, Tuesday 22 August
Over $200,000 will be presented to 29 winners at the 17th annual Australian Museum Eureka Prizes dinner at Sydney’s Royal Hall of Industries tonight. Highlights include:
- How dirty is the bottom of the Harbour? A Sydney CSIRO team has given us the tools to provide the answer for sediment everywhere.
- Aussie snakes fight back against invading toads. Rick Shine says that snakes are tougher and more caring than we think. And they are fighting back against the cane toad invasion.
- Could a crossword a day keep dementia at bay? Michael Valenzuela’s landmark research at the University of New South Wales suggests that mental exercises in the elderly might help prevent dementia.
- Oceans model proves the value of getting the drift. Matthew England and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales have created a computer model that can reliably predict ocean circulation. And it’s already highlighting the role of ships in spreading invasive ocean pests like jellyfish.
- Animals and humans breathing easier. How toxic is the air we breathe? Traditionally, this question is answered by having animals breathe contaminated air. Now, a team led by Amanda Hayes at the University of New South Wales has found a better, more humane and cheaper way to test for toxicity, by using human lung cells growing on a membrane.
- Spooky action guarantees unbreakable quantum code. Researchers at the University of Queensland and the Australian National University have created a new way of encrypting information using quantum physics.
- From astrophysics to successful drug company. In 1988 Graeme Blackman listed the Institute of Drug Technology (IDT) on the Australian Stock Exchange. Today, IDT Australia employs over 200 people and exports active pharmaceutical ingredients to some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.
- Harnessing bugs to clean up Australia. Mike Manefield is intent upon cleaning up Australia–with the help of hungry bacteria with an insatiable appetite for hydrocarbons. Our pollution problem is their breakfast.
- Scientist’s leadership drives Qld biotech revolution. In less than 20 years John Mattick has helped transform biotechnology in Queensland, leading to the creation of a series of institutes, while also pursuing his own investigations into the role of so-called junk DNA and non-coding RNA.
Full press releases are available online under embargo to 9pm on Tuesday August 22.
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Aboriginal art to get laser cleaning
Australian treasures including Aboriginal paintings and funerary poles could soon be getting a state-of-the-art clean thanks to the latest laser technology.
Deb Kane, professor in the physics department at Macquarie University in Sydney, will tell a Melbourne audience this week of her team’s plans to use short pulsed lasers to clean contaminants from the surface of some of Australia’s unique heritage.
She’s on a national tour promoting women in physics, at a time when physics is booming, and industry is desperate to attract more physicists.
This year’s Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) ‘Women in Physics’ lecturer, Professor Kane has for some time been using lasers to clean the surface of very small objects such as optical materials.
“At the sub-micron level particles can become strongly adhered to surfaces,” says Professor Kane. “Removing such contaminants, without damaging the properties of the underlying material, can be very tricky and raises fundamental questions about how materials work at small scales.”
Now Professor Kane has won seed funding which will enable her to use her understanding of materials to help conserve Australian artwork.
Professor Kane is the tenth annual AIP Women in Physics lecturer. She will be giving a public lecture on Wednesday 23 August at the University of Melbourne in the Elizabeth Murdoch Theatre A – 6pm for 6.30 pm.
Full story: www.scienceinpublic.com
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Reducing the killing power of strokes
A research team at the University of Adelaide has found a way to reduce brain swelling, the most common cause of death after stroke.
Studies by doctoral student Renée Turner in the Department of Pathology have shown that swelling in the brain seems to mimic a similar process in the skin, and may well be amenable to treatment with drugs, although these are yet to be developed.
“This potentially provides the first new clinical pathway to reducing brain swelling in 50 years,” Turner says. “It should improve the chances of survival after a stroke and reduce the risk of long-term disabilities.”
About 48,000 episodes of stroke occur in Australia each year, one every 11 minutes.
Full story: www.scienceinpublic.com/sciencenow/2006/renee.htm
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Sound solution for soil pollution: The cleaning power of sound waves on the back of a truck
A young researcher in Sydney is cleaning up contaminated soil by blasting it with ultrasound.
Andrea Sosa Pintos from CSIRO Industrial Physics has shown that toxic and carcinogenic pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), can be decomposed quickly, easily and cheaply using a portable treatment unit.
“Chemical analysis of the soil and water after we’ve treated it confirms that more than 90 per cent of pollutants have been destroyed,” she says.
Present soil remediation techniques such as landfill disposal, incineration and bioremediation, have many limitations. “None of these provides a complete or cost-effective solution. And some of them can be time-consuming.” says Sosa Pintos.
“Our process is very simple. We generate high-power ultrasound waves in a slurry of the contaminated soil in water,” Sosa Pintos explains.
Full story: www.scienceinpublic.com/sciencenow/2006/andrea.htm
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COBE team honoured John Mather and the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) team will jointly receive the 2006 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their ground-breaking studies confirming that our universe was born in a hot Big Bang. The gold medal and a $250,000 cash prize will be awarded at the opening ceremony of the International Astronomical Union’s General Assembly in Prague on Tuesday 15 August 2006. The instruments aboard NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer, launched in 1989, looked back over thirteen billion years to the early universe. COBE showed us that the young universe was hot, dense, and almost uniform; that it contained weak fluctuations or lumps that grew into the galaxies and stars we see today; that these fluctuations were the consequence of a hot Big Bang; and that the universe is filled with diffuse radiation from previously unknown galaxies. COBE was NASA’s first dedicated cosmology mission, and the culmination of a fifteen-year dream for John Mather, who initiated the project with a proposal to NASA in 1974. NASA formed the science team in 1976, including members of two competing proposal teams, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center built the COBE in Greenbelt, MD. As COBE’s scientific leader, Mather worked to keep a 1,500 strong project team focused on the science. There were many hurdles, including the Challenger Shuttle tragedy, which sent the team back to the drawing board, to redesign COBE for launch by a Delta rocket. Full story and background: www.scienceinpublic.com/gruber.htm For further information please visit: www.petergruberfoundation.org |
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