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Media Bulletin - 9 August 2006 Today and this week: - Fight the moth: Indian and Australian scientists are uniting to fight back against the world's worst agricultural pest-the cotton bollworm-which costs $5 billion a year worldwide.
- Fighting septic shock. A potential new treatment for septic shock which affects 18 million cases each year, causing 500,000 deaths, has been discovered by Monash Institute researchers.
- More to droplets than meets the eye: Salads, shampoos and mining to benefit from theoretical research into droplets
- The life and death of diamonds: could Australia rise to the top of the diamond pipe again?
- Fuel-efficient cows: $1 million trans-Tasman investment in research for more milk and less methane
- Bones from wool; plastics from willow; fuel-efficient cows and more: the future of biotechnology in agriculture – New Zealand biotechnologists will be present en-masse at the ABIC conference in Melbourne this week.
- People’s Choice scientist – States compete. Will the crocodile man win? - A chance to make a rational decision on stem cells – opinion piece by Elizabeth Finkel and Leslie Cannold Coming out on Thursday: - promiscuous possums, feeding patterson’s curse to salmon to increase omega-3 and using brainwaves to reveal disease and colour blindness
And in September: The World Congress on child and adolescent mental health is on in Melbourne at the Convention Centre from 10 to 14 September 2006
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Time for some intelligence in the war on the cotton bollworm
Indian and Australian scientists unite for the fight
With Australian help, Indian farmers are fighting back against the world's worst agricultural pest-the cotton bollworm-which costs $5 billion a year worldwide.
The farmers are reducing the use of insecticides by about a half, while increasing crop yields by 11 per cent and profitability by 75 per cent.
But the bollworm is rapidly evolving resistance to the insecticides. New weapons are needed and researchers say it's time to design these weapons using the best intelligence available-the genome.
For an investment of only $10 million, agricultural biotechnologists can help farmers turn the tide in the war against this expensive pest.
'That's all it would take, says A/Prof Phil Batterham of Melbourne's Bio21 Institute, to unravel the complete genome sequence of the bollworm moth, which infests more than 100 species of agricultural and horticultural crop plants all over the world.
The genome could then be screened to determine what genes make the bollworm resistant to pesticides, and where the pest is most vulnerable to attack. The genetic data could also be used to understand the population structure and track the movements of the bollworm, essential information for planning an effective attack on the insect.
For the full release, go to: www.scienceinpublic.com
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Fighting septic shock
A potential new treatment for septic shock and other inflammatory diseases has been discovered by Monash Institute researchers.
There are 18 million cases of septic shock each year, causing 500,000 deaths. But there is no effective treatment to this overloading of the body’s immune response.
“Our treatment in mice demonstrated a beneficial effect and has been patented. Now we need a commercial partner to further develop the concept,” says Kristian Jones, a post-doctoral fellow at the Monash Institute of Medical Research.
“Interestingly, Monash researchers including David de Kretser AC (now Governor of Victoria), discovered follistatin in 1990. But it was thought that it was just a reproductive protein.”
“We’ve now discovered that follistatin also plays an important role in controlling inflammation,” says Kristian. Septic shock is caused by the spread of an infection to the whole body forcing the body’s normal inflammatory response to go into overdrive.
For the full release go to www.freshscience.org
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The life and death of diamonds
Could Australia rise to the top of the diamond pipe again? Macquarie University researcher Craig O’Neill believes his research could open new diamond fields across Australia.
It turns out that diamonds are not forever after all. And that may be a good thing for Australia’s $100-million a year diamond industry. By determining how and where diamonds form, disappear, and re-form, geoscientists from Sydney’s Macquarie University can now indicate the best places to look for them. And in Australia that means a broad arc of country stretching from the Kimberleys to southwest Queensland.
“Australia is facing a diamond drought,” says research team leader Dr. Craig O‘Neill, from the National Key Centre for Geochemistry and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC).
For the full release go to www.freshscience.org
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More to droplets than meets the eye: Salads, shampoos and mining to benefit from theoretical research into droplets
How much effort does it take to understand the behaviour of oil droplets? A multi-disciplinary team of six researchers from the University of Melbourne has spent the best part of two years, and used $300,000 of equipment to crack the problem.
They have developed a technique to measure the tiny forces between droplets in liquids. But the result could be the improvement of the design and production of everyday products worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
For the first time, the researchers can measure the attraction between oil droplets in water—and this has application for products ranging from milk and ice-cream to shampoos, drugs, and even mineral processing.
All these instances involve emulsions, the dispersion of droplets of oil through water.
For the full release go to www.freshscience.org
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Fuel-efficient cows
$1 million trans-Tasman investment in research for more milk and less methane
The key to staying ahead of global dairy farming competitors lies in breeding better, more efficient dairy cows.
The Australia-New Zealand Biotechnology Partnership Fund is investing $1 million to ensure that New Zealand and Australian farmers can choose the most efficient cows for their breeding programs.
"We're looking at 'feed conversion efficiency'," says Dieter Adam, the Group General Manager of Innovation at New Zealand's Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), which is collaborating with Australia's Cooperative Research Centre for Innovative Dairy Products on the project. He will be presenting their ideas at ABIC - the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference in Melbourne from 6 to 9 August.
It's a simple concept. Essentially the researchers want to ensure that what goes in - the grass, the grain - comes out again as milk solids, the proteins and fat that makes up the solid component of the milk.
For more information on New Zealand, please visit www.newzealand.com
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Australia and New Zealand are at the crest of a wave – turning our agricultural successes into biotechnology dollars, according to Andrew Kelly, a venture capitalist, and participant in a large New Zealand delegation attending the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC) in Melbourne from 6 to 9 August.
“There are a phenomenal range of young companies developing new foods and medicines, and improving farming,” says Kelly who manages BioPacific Ventures, a $100 million venture capital fund specialising in agricultural biotechnology.
The New Zealanders will be talking about a host of applications. Highlights include:
- From cricket bats to biofuels and plastics – BioJoule is developing willow trees as a source of ethanol and feedstuffs for manufacturing. They say the fast-growing trees can be grown on marginal land.
- Cellsense - a unique milk quality monitor developed by Sensortec Ltd, that checks each cow’s milk while it’s being milked.
- Wool proteins to repair bones: Wellington-based Keratec is working with an Australian company, Australian Biotechnologies, to commercialise its patented bone graft technology using Functionalised Keratin, a structural protein extracted from wool. Among the applications for the technology are bone graft and fixation devices, wound dressings, adhesives, bioplastics and fibres.
- Grasses ain’t grasses – New Zealanders know how to grow grass. Now they and their Australian colleagues are growing a wide range of custom grasses – some are easier to digest and result in less farts (and therefore less methane) from sheep and cattle; some are engineered to reduce allergies, some taste so bad that they could scare birds away from airports.
- Fuel-efficient cows: a $1 million trans-Tasman investment in research for more milk and less methane is helping the Livestock Improvement Corporation create genetic tests to identify cows able to produce more milk with less (grass) fuel.
Further information call me or visit www.scienceinpublic.com
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Eureka People’s Choice kicks off national vote for a science star
More than 100 finalists will compete for 20 Eureka prizes worth more than $200,000 in total, with winners to be named on 22 August.
Of the finalists, five scientists will compete for the 2006 Eureka People’s Choice Award – to be decided by Australians voting in an online poll.
“We invite all Australians to get behind our great minds by voting for their favourite scientist – and in the process have the chance to win significant prizes.” said Australian Museum Director, Frank Howarth.
Voting opens online on Friday 28 July at www.amonline.net.au/eureka and runs till midnight on 20 August.
The major prize for People’s Choice voters is the chance to have part of their DNA sequenced by scientists at the Australian Museum. Other prizes include book vouchers, software and magazine subscriptions.
The 2006 People’s Choice finalists are:
- Brisbane parasitologist Alex Loukas who, in discovering how human hookworms digest blood, has uncovered an Achilles heel that could be used to create a vaccine against the worms. Hookworms affect a billion people in the world’s poorest countries.
- Sydney chemists Martina Stenzel and Christopher Barner-Kowollik who have developed a “Fedex” for drugs – small carrier molecules that will deliver drugs to the site of infection rather than just allowing the drug to spread randomly throughout the body.
- Greg Keighery, Stuart Halse and Norm McKenzie from Perth, who have catalogued a unique species hotspot in Western Australia’s wheatbelt. They found 750 new spider species and six new plants in an area that has more plant species than the whole of the United Kingdom.
- Grahame Webb from Darwin, who has changed our attitude to the saltwater crocodile. In the 1970s, the croc was endangered. Grahame campaigned for a new approach to conservation, showing that sustainable harvesting could be good for crocodiles and for the Northern Territory.
- Mark Shackleton and Francois Vaillant from Melbourne, who have discovered the stem cells that are the basis of breasts. Their work opens the way for new drugs and treatments for breast cancer, as well as the possibility of growing complex organs from stem cells.
The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes reward outstanding achievements in Australian science. The prizes are awarded in four categories: Research, Leadership and Innovation, Education and Science Communication. The prizes (except the People‘s Choice Award) are judged by scientific experts and most carry a cash reward of $10,000.
Begun in 1990, the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes have become Australia’s premier science awards and the country’s largest single national award scheme for research into critical environmental and sustainability issues facing Australia.
Details about all the finalists are available online at www.amonline.net.au/eureka
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A chance to make a rational decision on stem cells: opinion piece by Dr Elizabeth Finkel and Leslie Cannold The goal of therapeutic cloning is to provide patients with matched embryonic stem cells. To some it is morally wrong to allow it (because the technique involves transiently creating an embryo from a skin cell and then destroying that embryo). To others it is morally wrong to ban it (because the research could provide new treatments). What then is the proper role of government? According to former federal court justice John Lockhart, the government should neither erect a brick wall nor give it the green light. Instead it should erect hurdles. Today Howard's party is discussing whether to pay any heed to Lockhart's just and reasonable advice. An opinion piece by Melbourne University ethicist Leslie Cannold and former biochemist and author Elizabeth Finkel is available. ________________________
WORLD CONGRESS ON CHILD AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH Melbourne Convention Centre, 10-14 September 2006
17th World Congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions Congress Theme: “Child and Adolescent Mental Health: Nurturing Diversity”
About the Congress:
- Peak international meeting for the entire field of child, adolescent and family mental health - Attending will be all professions involved– psychologists, social workers, nurses, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and psychiatrists – together with young people and families who use their services - Mission of IACAPAP is to promote infant, child, adolescent and family mental health and well being around the world - The Congress will address the challenges to healthy development and human rights - through the consequences of natural and man-made difficulties, disasters, including abuse and violence of all kinds, everyday problems of family and cultural life, human rights are challenged everywhere, not least among our own indigenous children and teenagers - the Congress will share of new knowledge, reflect upon experiences in all dimensions of the work, and discuss solutions being tried in different countries and cultures
More information: www.iacapap2006.com |
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