La Trobe University

Preparing for the worst

Fire fighters should identify what are potentially the worst-case events and prepare for them, even if they are extremely unlikely to occur, says Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre psychology researcher Claire Johnson.

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Diamonds for extreme electronics

Keeping electronics cool in high power applications such as telecommunications and building electronics on the nanoscale are two areas where there is an alternative to traditional silicon—electronics using diamond.

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Stopping parasite means more, safer meat

The world’s meat production could be lifted by 10 to 15 per cent if a vaccine can be found to combat the liver fluke.

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Body’s power plants offer clues to Parkinson’s disease

How do the power plants of the cell—the mitochondria—use their defence mechanisms to fight diseases such as Parkinson’s disease? This debilitating disorder is caused by an accumulation of proteins that have folded incorrectly.

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Mites hitch lift in birds’ beaks

Nectar-eating Australian birds make clever choices about which flowers to raid. And so do the flower mites which hitch a ride in their nasal passages, according to zoologists Jolene Scoble and Assoc. Prof. Michael Clarke at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

During winter, eastern spinebills are particularly dependent on nectar from the mountain correa, a shrub which flowers over several months. During this time, a single bush may display hundreds of flowers at different stages of development.

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Lake Mungo reveals ancient human adaptation to climate change

Aboriginal Elders from the Traditional Tribal Groups in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area are collaborating with researchers to produce the first integrated account of the history of human settlement, landscape evolution and past environmental change for Australia’s foremost ‘Ice Age’ archive.

Lake Mungo is renowned as the site of the world’s oldest known cremation and ritual ochre burial, as well as the longest trail of ancient human footprints. But until now little was known about the lives of the people who settled in this area more than 45,000 years ago

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Kangaroos a high point in evolution

People who live outside Australia often regard kangaroos as strange, specialised, relic animals. Not so, says palaeontologist Dr Ben Kear at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

They represent a high point in mammal evolution, he says, a generalised body plan that has adapted to a wide variety of environments, from rainforest to deserts, from rocks to trees. ”Some may even have been carnivores.”

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Thirty new languages discovered in China

Thirty new languages in China have recently been described by Assoc. Prof. David Bradley and Dr Jamin Pelkey of La Trobe University and reported by the journal Science.

Jamin described 18 new Phula languages based on work carried out from 2005 to 2006 in 41 mountain villages in Yunnan Province, Southwest China for his PhD. They are now recognised by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

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Imaginary friends, real benefits

Children with imaginary friends are better at learning to communicate than those who do not have one, according to psychologist Dr Evan Kidd at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

In a study of 44 children, Evan and his colleague Anna Roby showed that the 22 children who had imaginary friends were able to get their points across more effectively when talking.

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