SciNews

Science communication in desert Australia

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:14:52 +1100

We are inviting you to complete this survey about science communication activities in desert regions of Australia. This survey will contribute to the findings of the Expert Working Group for Desert regions for the Inspiring Australia: A national strategy for engagement with the sciences. Information about the strategy can be found at : http://www.innovation.gov.au/Science/InspiringAustralia/Pages/default.aspx

Please see link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VGVRVXZ

The survey should only take about 5 minutes of your time. Thank you for your participation.

We apologise for any cross postings.

Thanks

Linda Cooper
Communications Manager

Ninti One Limited: Information-Innovation-Ideas for remote Australia Managing the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP)

Climate risk of toxic shock

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:19:16 +1100

February 2, 2012 – for immediate release:

The effects of climate change could expose Australians to greater risks from toxic contamination, a leading scientist has warned.

Increased flooding could release contaminants previously regarded as secure into groundwater, rivers, oceans, the food supply and atmosphere, the director of the CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, Professor Ravi Naidu said today.

“Most of our urban landfills contain highly toxic substances from past decades – and were designed for the climatic conditions at the time. These have now changed, with the risk of bigger and more frequent floods, droughts, heat and acidity releasing substances we thought were gone for good,” he says.

Professor Naidu is inviting Federal and State governments and Environment Protection Agencies to rethink nationwide contamination and cleanup policy in the light of the risk that yesterday’s poisons could be remobilised into our environment.

“The floods in Queensland and northern NSW illustrate how things are changing – and how we can no longer count on toxic disposal systems designed half a century or more ago to work as well in future under changed climate conditions,” he says.

“From now on all landfills and contaminated sites will need better flood protection upstream and high-tech contamination barriers downstream to filter the groundwater that leaches out of them, and remove the heavy metals, pesticides, hydrocarbons and organic toxins it contains.” Other contaminated land containment systems such as cover systems, stabilisation, etc could also be adversely impacted by climate change via factors such as wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles.

Professor Naidu says that climate change also brings increased urgency to the task of rehabilitating contaminated lands.

“Where you have a large area of contaminated land it is often very hard for plants or soil microbes to regrow, leading to reduced carbon sequestration which adds to climate change. Researchers are currently working on specially-adapted trees, grasses and soil microbes which can be used to recover these sites, devastated by historic industrial and mining activities – but there is a need to speed up national efforts to adopt such solutions, he adds.

Another form of contamination likely to accelerate under climate change is acidification.

“Acid rain produced by the industrial release of sulphur dioxide from coal fired power stations into the atmosphere is poisoning lakes, forests and soils in the northern hemisphere. When soils become more acidic they can release toxic heavy metals as well as carbon.

“At the same time the carbon dioxide we release when we use vehicles or fossil-fuelled electricity is increasing acidity in the world’s oceans and endangering their food chains,” Prof. Naidu explains.

“There are engineering solutions to these problems, which involve trapping the gases before they enter the atmosphere and disposing of them safely – but they are costly and will need to be adopted universally.”

These issues illustrate how climate change can affect the total toxic load delivered to society in its food, water and environment, and the importance of acting in a timely fashion to prevent this happening.

“People often regard contamination as a local issue, and contaminants as things which tend to stay in one place or where they are put.

“This is no longer the case. Man-made contamination by toxic organic chemicals and metals is already swirling around the planet in air, water and wildlife – and there is a risk that the changes unleashed by climate change will mobilise even more,” Prof. Naidu warns.

“Containment of contaminants is critical in the sustainable management of legacy contaminants. It is not yet time to be alarmed – but we should be concerned. And we should certainly begin to think about the solutions.”

Australian industries, including the mining , energy and agriculture sectors, are world leaders in developing and implementing environmentally-friendly and cost-effective solutions to contamination issues, he says.

“If Australia makes an early start in overcoming these unforseen impacts of climate change it will also position us as a world leader and exporter of clean, green solutions for a changing world. It will not only be healthy – it will also be profitable and create jobs.”

More information:
Prof. Ravi Naidu, Managing Director, CRC CARE, 08 8302 5041 or 0407 720 257
Professor Nanthi Bolan, UniSA, 08 8302 6218 or 0447 182320
Julian Cribb, CRC CARE media, 0418 639 245

How children are shaping society's future

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:20:58 +1100

January 24, 2012 – for immediate release

As they play with their digital devices and online games, children may unknowingly be making up the kind of democracy we will have tomorrow.

That’s one of the challenging perspectives on how the digital age is changing society put forward by John Hartley, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at the Queensland University of technology (QUT) in his new book “Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies”.

While most Australians would assume that adult citizens who vote and pay taxes do most of the shaping of a modern democracy, Prof. Hartley contends that children, as they engage with one another and the wider society online, are exerting a largely unseen, but growing influence.

“In today’s society, children are, by definition, not citizens ... and yet they must become citizens if the reproduction of the system is to continue,” he says. “Thus, the actual process of citizenship-formation is ‘carried’ by children who – individually, collectively and differentially – produce citizenship in their actions, forms of association, and thence identities.

“So children are, at one and the same time, the least important component of institutionalised citizenship – since they remain non-citizens – and its most important subjects, since they necessarily and continuously constitute the practice of citizenship formation.”

With the growth in digital media and communication, children are in fact becoming prime agents of change for citizenship, in that their unconsidered actions, preferences and unselfconscious associations may create the models for new modes of do-it-yourself (DIY) citizenship, Prof. Hartley explains.

“This DIY-citizenship is arguably more democratic – because it is more participatory – than the old versions, and will become even more so as traditional media become less popular.”

The extension into the space and time of childhood of ‘new media,’ including computer-based social networks, mobile devices and globally-dispersed entertainment formats, has given children’s actions and choices far more significance and influence than in previous eras, he says.

“For example, children’s online actions are already being closely tracked by business to determine their preferences in order to satisfy their demands for various products – and thus influence the course of industry. But these preferences extend more widely than commerce, to the kind of society and associations children prefer, which governments and others are starting to pick up on.

In the light of this Prof Hartley says it is of some concern that some ‘latter-day child savers’ were trying to restrict and exclude children’s access to and participation in the online world.

“The future is the invention of those who are going to live in it,” he says. “There’s nothing new about this. For instance, the Australian accent – and with it Australian identity – must have been invented by children playing and talking together, while their parents retained their English, Irish and Cockney accents and habits. What’s new is that so much of this informal social learning from peers is now conducted online, and is therefore open to investigation.”

Prof. Hartley’s book “Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies” explores a wide range of issues associated with the growth and pervasiveness of digital media, such as:
• The challenge of digital media and social networks to established disciplinary knowledge.
• How online journalism is reverting to an older model of multiple voices in dialogue, after a century or more of one-way, ‘mass’ communication, controlled by media corporations with monopolistic tendencies.
• How the public sphere has evolved in the global digital era, and where we can now look for the most competitive contributions to ‘public thought’.
• What happens when TV opens out, from ‘representative’ broadcasting to ‘productive’ digital affordances and ordinary people’s choices.
• How ‘the agents formerly known as the audience’ (especially those not counted as citizens, i.e. children) may be making up new forms of civic engagement even as they play with the digital media.
• How digital media – specifically YouTube – are changing the very nature of archiving.
• Chapter 8 argues Homo sapiens should be reclassified as H. sapiens nuntius: ‘the messaging human’: we are constituted in the activity of messaging, and reason (‘sapiens’) emerges from that interactive process.

The book is published January 2012 by Wiley-Blackwell (USA and UK), available from Wiley Australia at AUD $49.95.
See: http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470671017.html

The ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) is helping to build a creative Australia through cutting edge research spanning the creative industries, media and communications, arts, cultural studies, law, information technology, education and business. It is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC).

More information:
Distinguished Professor John Hartley, CCI and QUT, ph 0410 589 451
j.hartley@qut.edu.au
Todd Bennet, Manager CCI, ph +61 7 3138 3889
Stephanie Harington, QUT media, 07 3138 1150
Julian Cribb, CII media, 0418 639 245
http://www.cci.edu.au

Lessons in survival from deep time

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:17:45 +1100

January 23, 2012 – for immediate release

Lessons from tens of millions of years ago are pointing to new ways to save and protect today’s coral reefs and their myriad of beautiful and many-hued fishes at a time of huge change in the Earth’s systems.

The complex relationship we see today between fishes and corals developed relatively recently in geological terms – and is a major factor in shielding reef species from extinction, says Professor David Bellwood of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

“Our latest research provides strong evidence for a view that today’s coral hotspots are both a refuge for old species and a cradle for new ones,” said Peter Cowman, lead author of a recent report. “This is the first real inkling we’ve had that just protecting a large area of reef may not be enough – you have to protect the right sorts of reef.”

Early coral reefs, 300-400 million years ago were much simpler affairs than today’s colourful and complex systems, Prof. Bellwood says. The fish were not specialised to live on or among corals – either lacking jaws altogether, or else feeding on detritus on the seabed or preying on one another.

“By 200 million years ago we are starting to see fish with jaws capable of feeding on corals, but the real explosion in reef diversity doesn’t occur till about 50 million years ago when we see fishes very like today’s specialist coral feeders emerging.”

It is the ever-increasing complexity of this relationship between corals and fishes over the last 20 or 30 million years that produces the wondrous diversity of today’s reefs, he says. Each has become more critical to the survival of the other as their lives have become more interwoven.

“When people think of coral reefs, they usually think of the beautiful branching corals like staghorn (Acropora) – well the evidence is now fairly clear that Acropora needs certain fish for it to flourish. But, it now appears that this may be a reciprocal relationship with Acropora being important for the evolution and survival of fishes on coral reefs. ”

Unfortunately Acropora corals are highly vulnerable to external impacts like Crown-of-Thorns starfish, coral bleaching, climate change and ocean acidification. Their demise will have far reaching effects on the fishes which interact with them, such as damsels, butterfly fish, cardinals and wrasses.

“The study of the past tells us that reefs are all about relationships and, like a family, for them to survive those relationships need to remain strong,” Peter Cowman said.

“In coming years it is probable reefs will be subject to relentless presses that may cause them to change fundamentally. Those with the best long-term prospects of survival will be the ones where the relationships between fish and corals are healthiest.

Both fish and corals managed somehow to survive the five great mass extinction events of the past, though they sustained massive loss of species. Over time these have left us with a world focus of reef biodiversity centered on the Coral Triangle region to Australia’s north, which in turn helps recharge Australian coral reefs, especially in the west.

“The Coral Triangle is currently subject to intensifying human and ecosystem pressure. The latest work by Peter Cowman and Prof Bellwood suggests it is both a cradle for new species and a refuge in troubled times – so it is vital that it remain intact.

“This isn’t about saving individual species or particular reefs, it’s about maintaining the basic relationships which ensure the survival of the whole,” says Prof Bellwood.

“We’ve had a ‘heads up’ from the past that is giving us fresh insights into what is most important on reefs and why we must protect our precious reefs and fishes into the future.”

Their paper “Coral reefs as drivers of cladogenesis: expanding coral reefs, cryptic extinction events, and the development of biodiversity hotspots” by Peter F. Cowman and David R. Bellwood was published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology 24: 2543-2562. DOI 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02391.x

More information:
Professor David Bellwood, CoECRS and JCU, +61 (0)7 4781 4447
Peter Cowman, CoECRS, ph +61 (0)437 820 206
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, 07 4781 4222 OR
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

World water experts meet in Sydney

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:04:12 +1100

January 19, 2012

Four of the world’s leading authorities on global and regional water issues will gather in Sydney next week (Jan 23-27) to advise on Australia’s groundwater research and training needs.

The four experts are members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of Australia’s National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NGCRT).

“This is a critical time for groundwater,” says Centre Director Professor Craig Simmons. “Aquifers are being depleted or polluted all around the world. In Australia it is one of our most precious and neglected resources, and will affect the future of many of our cities, industries, agriculture, mining and communities. Groundwater must be front and centre in our water debates in this nation.”

“Our expert advisory group consists of scientists with a deeper understanding of the water issue and its challenges than almost anyone – we’re very lucky to have such highly knowledgeable people helping the Centre and Australia. It will help put us at the world cutting edge in the Century of water scarcity. These experts are truly among the top scholars in water research, science and policy internationally .”

The four experts are:

Professor Ghislain de Marsily, a world-renowned hydrogeologist who holds the position of Emeritus Professor at Pierre & Marie Curie University (UPMC) in Paris, France. He is known as one of the world’s experts on surface and underground water, and is the originator of the idea of ‘hydrogeological national parks’ to help protect the world’s dwindling supplies of groundwater.

Professor Edward Sudicky, Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and an expert on quantitative hydrogeology, the modelling of surface and groundwater systems and the transport of contaminants in water. His scientific papers are cited in the world’s top 0.5% per cent.

Dr Leonard F. Konikow, who has worked as a research hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey since 1972. Dr Konikow’s research interests include the development and application of solute transport models for the study of groundwater contamination problems. Dr Konikow is recognised as a world leader in groundwater hydrology and in groundwater modelling.

Professor Robert F.Glennon is the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. He is the author of the highly-acclaimed Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters (Island Press, 2002). His latest book, Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It, was published in April 2009. He is this year’s NCGRT Distinguished Guest Lecturer.

MEDIA ARE WELCOME TO INTERVIEW ANY OF THESE EXPERTS BETWEEN JANUARY 23-27, 2012:

To arrange an interview please contact Emily Heylen, NCGRT media, ph +61 (0)8 8201 5343 or +61 (0) 408 445 063

Web: http://www.groundwater.com.au/index.php

The National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training is an Australian Government initiative, supported by the Australian Research Council and the National Water Commission

Australia's 'buried treasure' needs greater care

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:13:17 +1100

January 16, 2012 – for immediate release

Groundwater will be a major determinant of Australia’s future as the climate warms and our population swells, a leading water scientist cautioned today.

“Groundwater makes up 97% of the fresh water on the planet. It currently supplies around 20% of humanity’s drinking water and 30% of our total water use,” says Professor Craig Simmons, Director of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT).

“However it will be far more important in future, as surface supplies become ever more stressed due to competing pressures from evaporation, population growth, and the demands of industry, agriculture and the native landscape.

“That’s why it is vital that Australians better understand and manage our groundwater resources today.”

In a future where rainfall cannot be relied on, groundwater represents Australia’s national water security for the future, Prof Simmons states. “Where our national security is concerned, we should spare no effort to assure it.”

Australia is a dry continent without glaciers, permanent snowfields or large and abundant permanent lakes, where evaporation generally exceeds rainfall across much of our arid and semi-arid continent. Groundwater is a critical resource for large parts of this country, he says.

“But because it is underground, we pay it insufficient attention – often treating it as a free resource, to be tapped at will. If that continues, we risk another tragedy of the commons. Such attitudes must change if we are to have sufficient water for the 31-42 million Australians which current estimates suggest could inhabit this continent in 50 years’ time. Groundwater needs to feature much more prominently in our national and local water debates, planning and reform. The critical nexus between water, population, climate and energy must be a major driver for national water reform as we move into the 21st Century, he says.

“Groundwater is, literally, buried treasure, and it is time Australians saw it that way. It is far and away our biggest water reserve. Over the long term it is potentially more valuable even than gold, oil, wheat or coal. And mining and agriculture rely heavily on it. Yet it receives a mere fraction of the attention devoted to these resources.”

Prof. Simmons says groundwater is:
• Vital for many urban and rural users across Australia
• Widely misunderstood – as, for example, when surface and groundwater is ‘double counted’ leading to overestimation of the water resource
• Versatile – meaning it can be recharged, stored and desalinated for public consumption
• Critical - in that it sustains most of Australia’s native landscapes, agriculture and other large industries as well as cities like Perth and Newcastle. It is an essential part of any strategy for ‘water proofing’ the country.
• Vulnerable - to salinity, industrial pollution, over-extraction, nutrients, pesticides, potential impacts of mining and coal seam gas, climate change, and ignorance of its extent, recharge rates and age.

Groundwater issues lie at the heart of the current national debates over the Murray-Darling Basin and coal seam gas, Prof. Simmons says. “Neither of these major issues can be satisfactorily resolved without a full understanding of groundwater and its impact on other resources, communities and industries,” he adds.

Despite this, he says, groundwater remains the ‘poor cousin’ in the national water debate – often overlooked, insufficiently measured and monitored, frequently misunderstood or taken for granted, and increasingly over-exploited.

“It faces intensifying pressures – from population growth (especially along the coast), from climate change, from mining and coal seam gas production, from agriculture and from the need to restore and safeguard the Australian landscape, our rivers, lakes and wetlands, which all depend on groundwater.”

A recent CSIRO study indicated that groundwater was heavily over-allocated in seven of the Murray-Darling Basin’s 20 irrigation areas. Across Australia generally, groundwater supplies are in fair to good condition.

“But all groundwater resources are threatened by droughts and climate change, which can dramatically reduce the rate at which our aquifers recharge. When rainfall declines, most of the available moisture is taken by evaporation and surface vegetation and has little chance to get into groundwater. Thus, a small decline in rainfall can lead to a very large reduction in aquifer recharge.

“Yet the first thing people do when a drought comes, is start extracting more groundwater.”

Like the continent itself, Australian groundwater is often very old – some of it recharged ages ago in ancient wetter climates. “We have to husband these resources with great care so they are available if and when we really need them – not extract them as if there was no tomorrow,” Prof. Simmons says.

“Also, with the breaking of the 10-year drought, apathy towards water has again set in, in some quarters. We have seen many droughts in this country throughout recorded history. We are a land of drought and flooding rains. We must accept that droughts will be a part of our future. At the same time, we have an increasing population as well as growing demands on water from agriculture, industry and mining. We need to start thinking now about how we will meet Australia’s water requirements in future droughts – and with, potentially, double our present population.”

“The key to effective groundwater management is knowledge: knowing with precision how large is the resource, how long it takes to recharge, how it connects to surface waters, and how quickly it is being depleted by competing social, economic and environmental demands on it. This is at the heart of effective policy.”

More information:
Professor Craig Simmons, Director NCGRT, ph 0405 184 645
Laki Kondylas, NCGRT, ph 0414 190 011
Emily Heylen, NCGRT media, ph +61 (0)8 8201 5343 or +61 (0) 408 445 063

Web: http://www.groundwater.com.au/index.php

Carbon dioxide 'is driving fish crazy'

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:18:55 +1100

January 16, 2012 – for immediate release

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found.

Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes’ ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, says Professor Phillip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

“For several years our team have been testing the performance of baby coral fishes in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 – and it is now pretty clear that they sustain significant disruption to their central nervous system, which is likely to impair their chances of survival,” Prof. Munday says.

In their latest paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Munday and colleagues report world-first evidence that high CO2 levels in sea water disrupts a key brain receptor in fish, causing marked changes in their behaviour and sensory ability.

“We’ve found that elevated CO2 in the oceans can directly interfere with fish neurotransmitter functions, which poses a direct and previously unknown threat to sea life,” Prof. Munday says.

Prof. Munday and his colleagues began by studying how baby clown and damsel fishes performed alongside their predators in CO2-enriched water. They found that, while the predators were somewhat affected, the baby fish suffered much higher rates of attrition.

“Our early work showed that the sense of smell of baby fish was harmed by higher CO2 in the water – meaning they found it harder to locate a reef to settle on or detect the warning smell of a predator fish. But we suspected there was much more to it than the loss of ability to smell.”

The team then examined whether fishes’ sense of hearing – used to locate and home in on reefs at night, and avoid them during the day – was affected. “The answer is, yes it was. They were confused and no longer avoided reef sounds during the day. Being attracted to reefs during daylight would make them easy meat for predators.”

Other work showed the fish also tended to lose their natural instinct to turn left or right – an important factor in schooling behaviour which also makes them more vulnerable, as lone fish are easily eaten by predators.

“All this led us to suspect it wasn’t simply damage to their individual senses that was going on – but rather, that higher levels of carbon dioxide were affecting their whole central nervous system.”

The team’s latest research shows that high CO2 directly stimulates a receptor in the fish brain called GABA-A, leading to a reversal in its normal function and over-excitement of certain nerve signals.

While most animals with brains have GABA-A receptors, the team considers the effects of elevated CO2 are likely to be most felt by those living in water, as they have lower blood CO2 levels normally. The main impact is likely to be felt by some crustaceans and by most fishes, especially those which use a lot of oxygen.

Prof. Munday said that around 2.3 billion tonnes of human CO2 emissions dissolve into the world’s oceans every year, causing changes in the chemical environment of the water in which fish and other species live.

“We’ve now established it isn’t simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption – as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons – but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes’ nervous systems.”

The work shows that fish with high oxygen consumption are likely to be most affected, suggesting the effects of high CO2 may impair some species worse than others – possibly including important species targeted by the world’s fishing industries.

The team’s latest paper “Near-future CO2 levels alter fish behaviour by interfering with neurotransmitter function” by Göran E. Nilsson, Danielle L. Dixson, Paolo Domenici, Mark I. McCormick, Christina Sørensen, Sue-Ann Watson, and Philip L. Munday appears in the journal Nature Climate Change.

More information:
Prof. Phillip Munday, CoECRS and JCU, ph +61 (0)7 47815341 or 0408 714 794
Dr Sue-Ann Watson, CoECRS, ph +61 (0)419 422 815
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, ph +61 (0)7 4781 4222
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

Drought! Finding an Alarm Signal in Plant Cells

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:06:53 +1100

For immediate release 12/1/12

Scientists have found a molecular signal in plants which may act as a drought alarm, allowing them to adapt to drought conditions.

The signal was discovered while trying to understand how different parts of the cell "talk" to each other under drought conditions.

This research was led by Dr Gonzalo Estavillo and Professor Barry Pogson at the Australian National University node of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (Estavillo et al. (2011) The Plant Cell).

The researchers studied a relative of canola called Arabidopsis thaliana which was lacking a protein called SAL1. SAL1 usually breaks down a small molecule called "PAP" in the cell.
As the protein was absent, "PAP" molecules began to build up. Surprisingly, this became a kind of drought alarm, triggering adaptations in the plant to save water. Consequently these plants survived 50% longer in drought conditions.

Having discovered the signal, researchers then found that normal plants also accumulated PAP during drought conditions. The PAP molecule was able to move from the chloroplast to the nucleus, where drought-adaptation responses were triggered.

"We intend to fully investigate the potential of this remarkable PAP signal," says Dr Estavillo.
"This is a great time to be a plant scientist," he said. "We have the technology to decipher tiny and crucial molecular pathways in cells and use this knowledge to improve plant breeding and genetics. After all, plants are our food and fuel future."

Image available on request: Dry, cracked earth.

For more information, visit: http://www.plantenergy.uwa.edu.au/news/news_centre.html#drought

MEDIA REFERENCE:
Dr Gonzalo Estavillo (Research Scientist) gonzalo.estavillo@anu.edu.au (+61 2) 6125 5896 (+61 2) 6197 0122
Alice Trend (Science Communications Officer) alice.trend@uwa.edu.au (+61 8) 6488 4481

How social media fought the floods

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:16:57 +1100

January 11, 2012 - for immediate release

Social media sites Twitter and Facebook played a key role in disseminating information during the 2011 Queensland floods.

This is the finding of a new report released today by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), and available from http://cci.edu.au/

CCI researchers Assoc. Professor Axel Bruns and Dr Jean Burgess from Queensland University of Technology and Assoc. Prof. Kate Crawford and Frances Shaw from the University of New South Wales focussed especially on the role of Twitter, which was prominently used by the Queensland Police Service during the crisis.

“Through their @QPSMedia Twitter account, Police staff provided timely updates directly from the Premier’s situation meetings”, said Prof. Bruns. “Many mainstream media picked up on these updates and included them in their own news tickers.”

But social media didn’t just improve communication between police and media organisations. During the week of 10 January 2011, some 15,000 users – from official accounts to locals affected by the floods – participated in the #qldfloods hashtag on Twitter, sharing news, advice, photos and videos of the inundation.

“Social media were important in enabling local communities to stay informed, share their own knowledge and experiences, and to coordinate flood protection and cleanup activities”, said Dr. Burgess. “People on Twitter were working together to respond to the crisis, showing a strong spirit of cooperation.”

The @QPSMedia account became a leading participant, sharing important information which was widely passed along by other users in the network, and responding quickly to the local Twitter community.

“@QPSMedia’s updates achieved great visibility online especially because Queensland and Australian Twitter users were passing them along through retweeting”, said Ms. Shaw. “It is only by collaborating with the overall userbase that official accounts manage to cut through, and the Queensland Police Media Unit understood this well. They also received great encouragement and applause for their work from the wider Twitter community.”

A particularly successful intervention by @QPSMedia was its series of ‘#Mythbuster’ tweets, which corrected rumours and misinformation circulating through social media (and some mainstream media). These tweets were retweeted widely by other users.

“During times of crisis, many arguments and disagreements are suspended, and we see users come together to ensure that important information gets through to as many people as possible”, said Prof. Crawford. “Social media users understand that their networks have become important additional channels for crisis communication.”

The CCI Report is an outcome of the multi-year Media Ecologies and Methodological Innovation project, which examines the place of social media within the overall mediasphere, with a particular focus on acute events such as natural disasters.

Working with the Queensland Department of Community Safety and the Brisbane-based think-tank Eidos Institute, the researchers will now embark on a three-year ARC Linkage research project which seeks to further investigate the use of social media during natural disasters in Queensland and elsewhere. The project will also develop improved strategies for the effective use of social media by emergency organisations.

More information:
Professor Axel Bruns, CCI at QUT, ph 07 3138 5548 or 0421 581 568
Professor Jean Burgess, CCI at QUT, 07 3138 8253
Todd Bennet, Manager CCI, ph +61 7 3138 3889
Julian Cribb, CCI media, 0418 639 245

More information about the research conducted by the QUT team can be found at their project website http://mappingonlinepublics.net/. More information about CCI is available at http://cci.edu.au/.

Call for action on global groundwater crisis

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:22:12 +1100

January 9, 2012 – for immediate release

International water scientists today issued a call for action over the growing threat to the world’s groundwater supplies from over-extraction and pollution.

Water supplies will begin running out in critical regions where they support cities, industries and food production by 2030 unless urgent steps are taken to better manage the resource, they cautioned.

“The world has experienced a boom in groundwater use, more than doubling the rate of extraction between 1960 and 2000 – with usage continuing to soar up to the present,” says Professor Craig Simmons, Director of Australia’s National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) and member of the UNESCO’s global groundwater governance program.

A recent satellite study has revealed falling groundwater tables in the United States, North Africa, India, the Middle East and China, where expanding agriculture and cities have increased water demand.

“Groundwater currently makes up about 97 per cent of all the available fresh water on the planet and presently accounts for about 40 per cent of our total water supply. It provides drinking water to cities, is needed to grow much of our food and sustains many industries – yet almost everywhere, there is clear evidence that water tables are falling,” Professor Simmons says. “This means humanity is extracting groundwater much faster than it is naturally replaced.”

“Not many people think of groundwater as a key driver of the global economy – yet it is. If it becomes depleted, entire industries may be forced to shut down or move. Whole regions could face acute water scarcity.”

The groundwater crisis is driven by a competition for increasingly scarce water supplies between the megacities, the energy sector, manufacturing and farming. It has been hastened by an era of cheap pumps and relatively cheap energy, making it easy to extract.

“Over-extraction also has serious implications for the environment, especially when the climate is warming – as falling water tables can lead to emptying lakes and rivers and dying landscapes as the water they depended on is withdrawn,” Professor Simmons says.

“The blunt fact is that most countries and local regions did not know the size of their water resources when then began extracting them, nor how long it took to recharge. In some cases this can take centuries or even millennia. As a result they are now extracting their water unsustainably.”

Water is emerging as potentially one of the main limits to Chinese economic growth: groundwater supplies 40% of China’s food and 70% of its drinking water – yet water levels in aquifers in some regions are sinking by a metre or more a year. 660 Chinese cities have polluted supplies or are water insecure.

In the Middle East, depleted aquifers have been a major driver of the relocation of agriculture to Africa and the so-called ‘land-grab’ by wealthy countries. In India the number of wells grew from less than one million in 1960 to 19 million by 2000. Water tables in the key foodbowl are sinking beyond the reach of many farmers’ pumps.

“The crisis in global groundwater is chiefly one of poor governance, exacerbated by a lack of knowledge of the size and condition of the resource, rates of recharge, lack of transparent policy, lack of ownership, lack of price signals to users and a lack of political will to do anything,” says Professor Simmons. “It’s fixable – but it will take a lot of hard work and good science to do so.”

“Until recently this problem was on the world’s back-burner – but it is rapidly moving to the forefront. Groundwater science has improved dramatically in the last decade, giving us the ability to measure and manage the resource – but governance has yet to catch up. Unless it does, we can expect serious problems in the future.”

Even advanced nations such as the United States face a crisis in their use of groundwater, says Law Professor Robert Glennon of the University of Arizona.

“Groundwater now comprises one-quarter of the US supply and more than half of all Americans rely on groundwater for drinking. Unconstrained drilling of new wells, as many as 800,000 per year, has put incredible strain on aquifers around the US,” he says.

“Plummeting groundwater tables have caused earth subsidence, fissures, and saltwater intrusion. It took millennia for this water to accumulate in aquifers, but humans are pumping it out in mere decades.”

The environmental costs of unsustainable groundwater pumping are staggering, says Glennon. Rivers and springs have dried up or been reduced to a trickle. In Arizona, pumping turned a healthy river, the Santa Cruz, into a desiccated sandbox. Even in humid regions, water bodies have suffered. In the Midwest, wells dug to produce spring water for the bottled water industry have compromised blue-ribbon trout streams. And in Florida, scores of lakes have dried up from intense well-field pumping.

The lack of sensible regulation has created incentives for unlimited access to a finite resource, according to Glennon. “An aquifer is like a milkshake glass and each well is the equivalent of a straw in the glass. What most countries permit is a limitless number of straws in the glass. This is a recipe for disaster,” he says.

MEDIA NOTE: Leading international groundwater experts will gather in Sydney later this month (Jan 23-27) to review Australian research in the field. Media are welcome to interview them.

More information:
Professor Craig Simmons, Director NCGRT, ph +61 (0)405 184 645
Laki Kondylas, NCGRT, ph +61 (0)414 190 011
Emily Heylen, NCGRT media contact, +61 (0)8 8201 2193; emily.heylen@gmail.com

Web: http://www.groundwater.com.au/index.php

CRC for Mental Health appoints Ashley Bush as Chief Scientific Officer

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:28:42 +1100

The CRC for Mental Health is very pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Ashley Bush as its Chief Scientific Officer.

Professor Bush is a psychiatrist and translational neuroscientist. He currently heads the Oxidation Biology Laboratory at the Mental Health Research Institute (MHRI) at the University of Melbourne. He is also the co-director of Biomarker Discovery within the Australian Imaging Biomarker Lifestyle Flagship Study of Ageing (AIBL), a CSIRO initiative. In addition, he was one of the founders of Prana Biotechnology Ltd (a public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange). He was a contracted scientific advisory consultant at Prana for many years, until he resigned from that position in October 2011.

As Chief Scientific Officer to CRC for Mental Health Limited (a not for profit public company), Professor Bush will provide scientific oversight and advice to the organisation on its research into mental health diseases, psychoses and mood disorders. The CRC’s research focuses particularly on “biomarkers”, representing a change in research direction to the field in which Professor Bush previously worked at Prana, but being an area in which he has worked at MHRI and at AIBL.

“Biomarkers could be an enormous aid in the early detection and clinical trial monitoring of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease or schizophrenia,” said Professor Bush, speaking on his appointment.

“CRC for Mental Health researchers will be looking for specific cells, small molecules or subtle brain image changes which could be the first signs of disease. Any of these biomarkers might allow us to diagnose mental health issues before the onset of mental decline.”

The CRC for Mental Health was established under the Cooperative Research Centres program, an Australian Government Initiative. The CRC program supports end-user driven research collaborations to address major challenges facing Australia.

------ENDS --------

A high quality .jpg image of Professor Bush is available upon request.

More information
Melanie Carew, Communication and Education Manager
CRC for Mental Health
Ph: 0411 286 081
melanie@mentalhealthcrc.com
www.mentalhealthcrc.com

Australians urged to support world’s largest marine park

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 10:16:09 +1100

December 26, 2011 – for immediate release

Two eminent tropical marine scientists today urged Australians to get behind a plan by the Federal Government to transform nearly a million square kilometers of the Coral Sea into the world’s largest marine park.

“The Coral Sea is one of a handful of places in the world where a very large oceanic no-take park can be created and monitored in a single national jurisdiction,” say Professors Terry Hughes and Bob Pressey of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University. “Public comment on the proposal is now open – and it is time for all Australians to have their say.”

“It is vital that we protect the Coral Sea’s immense environmental and heritage values from the escalating threats of overfishing and climate change while there is still time to do so,” Prof. Hughes explains.

“We consider that more of the Park should be closed to fishing, to set a new international standard in marine care.”

Scientific evidence is amassing that global marine ecosystems have been extensively degraded by overfishing, pollution and man-made global warming. The Coral Sea is one of the few regions where these impacts have been relatively small.

Eleven percent of the Earth’s land habitats are now set aside as national parks to conserve their biodiversity and ecosystem services; in contrast, less than 0.1% of the world’s oceans are fully protected, the researchers point out.

“The decision to create the world’s largest protected ocean ecosystem will enhance Australia’s reputation as a world leader in the stewardship of marine biodiversity and will set a new global benchmark for large-scale protection” says Professor Bob Pressey, who specializes in conservation planning and the design of marine parks.

The Coral Sea provides critical habitats for many species, including critically endangered Hawksbill and endangered Green turtles, 25 species of whales and dolphins and 27 species of seabird. At least 13 species of seabird breed on Coral Sea islands, including regionally important populations of the red-footed Booby, least frigate bird and greater frigate bird. It is one of the few places on Earth where large pelagic fishes (tuna, billfish and sharks) have not yet been severely depleted.

“The unsustainable bycatch of turtles, sharks and birds in ocean fisheries, and the rapid decline of large sharks from illegal finning are major concerns worldwide. They warrant immediate intervention to prevent serious long-term damage,” says Prof. Hughes.

“The Government’s proposal to ban pelagic longlines - kilometer long fishing lines with hundreds of hooks – across two thirds of the Coral Sea Park is an important step forward. However, we believe the Government should consider going further, and exclude longlines altogether. It can compensate the very small number of commercial operators who are fishing the area today,” he says.

“It will be far cheaper to manage the Coral Sea as a single, large no-take area rather than the proposed combination of four separate zones, which include no-take and recreation-only fishing areas,” says Prof. Pressey, who has published a detailed economic analysis of the options.

“The present plan can be improved by offering more protection to oceanic coral reefs that are close to the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The Coral Sea acts as a vital reservoir for reef biodiversity during rapid changes in climate and sea level. It is relatively free from the land-based pollution that affects inshore and mid-shelf coral reefs in the GBR. And it has much lower levels of fishing.”

Professor Hughes says the present plan’s provision of a zone for unrestricted catch-and-release recreational fishing is unwise, because the released fish will have an unacceptably low chance of survival.

“The area still has healthy shark populations, and released reef or pelagic fish will simply be fast food for sharks,” he cautions. “It will be simpler, cheaper and more effective from a conservation viewpoint to protect the whole Coral Sea area as one no-take zone”.

“We know from our other research that no-take areas within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park export larvae to surrounding fished areas, and help to maintain fish stocks and fisheries. Preserving more of the Coral Sea along the outer edge of the GBR will also benefit fishers, both commercial and recreational, by replenishing fish stocks that are harvested closer to the mainland coast.”

Details of the Commonwealth’s Coral Sea Marine Park proposal are available at http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mbp/coralsea/ Public comment closes on February 24, 2012.

More information:
Professor Terry Hughes, Director CoECRS and JCU, 0400 720 164
Professor Bob Pressey, CoECRS and JCU, 07 4781 6194 or 0418 387 681
Professor David Yellowlees, CoECRS and JCU, ph 07 4781 4343 or 0438164824
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

Boost for Australian content and innovation

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:59:23 +1100

Media Release
December 15, 2011 – for immediate release

Australian content should receive a boost in an increasingly convergent media world, if the findings of the Federal Government’s interim report – released today – are carried into policy.

Dr Ben Goldsmith of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at Swinburne University says that the findings of the Convergence Review Committee are a useful step towards consistent treatment of all forms of media in Australia.

“There are a number of important questions still unanswered and many details still to be clarified, but broadly, we welcome these findings to date. It is pleasing to see that some of the ideas we supported have been taken up in the Interim report, specifically the Public Interest Test, the Innovation Fund, and the extension of support for new forms of Australian content including games and apps,” he says.

Dr Goldsmith said that why the committee wanted a new independent regulator for content and communications was not fully explained in the interim report, as the existing one was only six years old and had extensive powers. This would doubtless be clarified.

“The committee seems to be pushing hard for consistency of regulation across all media platforms.

“If their recommendations are adopted Australian content quotas could be extended in the short term to ABC and SBS. It also appears that current Australian content quotas could expand in the short-term, but then be dismantled and replaced by a new system based on what they term ‘content service enterprises’.

“At this stage it isn’t completely clear what a content service enterprise is, or exactly who qualifies as one. Hopefully this will emerge in the final report in March.”

The interim report calls for the establishment of an Australian Content Fund, to which broadcasters will contribute if they are not producers of Australian content. These funds would then be used to support the creation of Australian content - and thus come from the private sector rather than the taxpayer.

“Broadly we welcome this proposal - but there are several questions and anomalies that need to be sorted out,” Dr Goldsmith says.

In other important moves the committee had supported the introduction of a public interest test for media mergers and takeovers.

It had also reinforced the role of public broadcasters like the ABC and SBS to continue their full range of existing services, including online.

“Overall, the Interim Report is light on detail, and raises many questions about the substance of some of the recommended changes. However we welcome the report and broadly support its direction. We look forward to engaging further with the Review Committee and developing further research into some of the issues and questions raised here.”

In its submissions to the review, CCI argued there should be greater support for innovation in content creation and distribution. “We proposed the creation of an Australian Content Innovation Fund for distribution. Under this content aggregators and distributors could apply for funds to assist in licensing, profiling, curating and promoting new forms of Australian content,” Dr Goldsmith says.

“We also argued there should be additional funds for public service media and community broadcasting to support innovative Australian content production and use; that Australian content should be available on new platforms and services, with a diversity of participants in its production.

CCI also called for regulation to ensure that local news and information content on broadcast media remain important and necessary, especially in regional, rural and remote Australia.

“While the Internet has increased information plurality and provided new ways to access news and information including via blogs, social media services, specialist and niche online publications, major and usually traditional media outlets still dominate news production and circulation,” Dr Goldsmith noted.

Thirdly CCI argued for a media-specific public interest test to apply to media mergers and takeovers. It said the public interest in maintaining diversity of media services and content would be best served by removing cross-media rules and introducing a public interest test that would not be confined to television, radio and print, but would be applied to mergers or takeovers in any media sector. It should take account of the full range of a company's media holdings

More information:
Dr Ben Goldsmith, CCI and Swinburne University, ph 0434 556 107
Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director CCI, ph 0407 195 304, s.cunningham@qut.edu.au
Todd Bennet, Manager CCI, ph +61 7 3138 3889
Crystal Ladiges, Swinburne University, ph (03) 9214 5064 or 0416 174 880
Julian Cribb, CCi media, 0418 639 245

http://www.cci.edu.au

Arts, humanities 'are trending'

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:13:07 +1100

December 14, 2011 – for immediate release

The arts and humanities are staging a renaissance in university student preferences, with fresh evidence that their graduates are highly employable in jobs that match their undergraduate skills.

A new survey by Professor Stuart Cunningham and Dr Ruth Bridgstock of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) and Queensland University of Technology found that 80 per cent of respondents were employed full-time, 70 per cent were employed in a job requiring a degree and 60 per cent were employed in a field directly related to their undergraduate degree.

“Previous studies, carried out soon after graduation, suggested that arts graduates were not finding jobs as readily as those from more vocational courses like law, engineering or medicine,” Professor Cunningham says.

“This study looked further out – and it found humanities students are just as successful at finding jobs and careers, although usually in less structured industries and professions.”

The findings are likely to lend encouragement to growing enrolments in arts and humanities courses, which are returning to strong popularity ‘after a bit of a dip’, Prof. Cunningham says.

A major aim of the research was to investigate career paths into the creative economy, a sector of the Australian economy now estimated to be worth around $32 billion a year, embracing 155,000 enterprises and employing close to half a million Australians.

“The fact is we know almost nothing systematic about the career paths of humanities graduates into this vital and dynamic sector. The default tool, the Graduate Destination Survey, is conducted far too soon after graduation and has reiterated the fact that graduates from the humanities take longer to find their feet than those whose degrees are aligned to the established salaried professions,” Dr Bridgstock explains.

The research involved a survey of graduates from media, cultural and communication studies courses from 2001 to the present. “We wanted to know about career outcomes, course relevance, under and unemployment, further education and training, and if they perceived any distinctive qualities graduates in these fields bring to the workforce,”she says.

About one quarter of the cohort had undertaken further study, the largest category within the discipline cluster, which indicates strong satisfaction with, and commitment to, the career trajectory opened by their initial qualification, the researchers say.

Nearly a third were employed in the public sector. Although 24 per cent had been unemployed at some point since graduation, the average length of time unemployed was only two months. Only 4 per cent of the cohort had been unemployed more than once since graduation.

While many humanities graduates were employed in journalism, marketing, public relations, the survey revealed a total of 110 different job titles among the 400 responding graduates.

“This suggests that careers for arts and humanities graduates are much more diverse and interesting than many might suppose,” Prof. Cunningham adds.

“The first year out is a turbulent time involving multiple job-holding, higher levels of casual work, voluntary work, work not related to the qualification, and non-degree-level work. However we found this turbulence resolves itself from year two onwards, as graduates settle into rewarding occupations.”

Most of the graduates from media, cultural and communications courses felt they had acquired special skills that added value to the workplace. These included written communication, practical application of theoretical knowledge, critical and analytical thinking, media-related disciplinary skills and verbal communication skills – all of which are increasingly in demand throughout industry and government.

“There is also the start of a story here about private and public good,” Prof Cunningham adds. “A significant proportion of the cohort is in public sector employment, where pay rates are lower – but public good outcomes are, in principle, higher.

“In the private sector, many of the graduates are in the business of public sphere communication, itself also, in principle, an activity with public good characteristics. There is something distinctive about how these graduates are contributing to the public good.”

More information:
Dr Ruth Bridgstock, CCI and QUT, ph +61(0)7 3138 8587, mob 0402 477 583
Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director CCI, ph 0407 195 304,
s.cunningham@qut.edu.au
Todd Bennet, CCI, ph +61 7 3138 3889
Julian Cribb, CCI media, 0418 639 245
Stephanie Harrington, QUT media, ph +61 7 3138 1841
http://www.cci.edu.au

Three quarters of a million science fans can’t be wrong...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:22:10 +1100

Canberra, December 13, 2011: Science from Australia and New Zealand has attracted 750,000 followers on global internet phenomenon Facebook.

Leading Australasian science news site ScienceAlert is now the number one provider of science news on Facebook, managing director Chris Cassella said today.

“Remarkably, ScienceAlert also ranks #12 among worldwide general news services, in the company of greats like the BBC, The Economist, Al Jazeera, the New York Times and CNN,” he added. See: http://www.famecount.com/facebook-rank/Worldwide/News

“It is also an increasingly popular Australian brand on Facebook – having recently overtaken popular TV shows Master Chef and Home and Away, as well as actor Hugh Jackman and soccer star Harry Kewell.” http://www.famecount.com/facebook-rank/australasia?page=1

Mr Cassella says there is clear evidence that Facebook is no fad but is increasingly the way that young people around the world communicate with one another and share information – including science.

“If Facebook was a country it would be the third largest on Earth, after India and China, in terms of its population. It’s a part of daily life for a growing number of people in all age-groups.

“As these figures indicate, it is also the coming way to communicate science. ScienceAlert is embracing the Facebook trend to try to reach out to a new generation of science and technology enthusiasts.”

Mr Cassella said part of the secret of ScienceAlert’s success on Facebook was the quality of its information, which is provided by Australian and New Zealand research establishments and is based on peer-reviewed science. “In a world where a lot of information on the net and in the media is not trustworthy, people are favouring services they know they can rely on and sharing them with one another. That’s an important trend.”

It also takes science far wider, with ScienceAlert’s 750,000 Facebook followers having between them nearly 100 million friends and contacts. “This means that our science stories are now reaching places and people they could not possibly reach via conventional media,” he says.

“ScienceAlert has created a community on Facebook that is accessing an entirely new, massive audience of people under 30 interested in science – and you simply can’t do that in newspapers, magazines, on TV, or even on conventional websites.

“Growth has been steady over six months and we expect it to continue as people from emerging countries join Facebook. We are already seeing strong growth in followers from Latin America and Africa, as well as from Australia, Britain, North America, India and SE Asia.

ScienceAlert founder Julian Cribb said “It’s exciting to think that ScienceAlert may be inspiring and motivating the scientists of tomorrow all around the world, to help us deal with the serious challenges that face coming generations, such as climate change, food security, pandemic disease, resource scarcity, cities, transport and energy issues.

“ScienceAlert was founded with the aim of taking excellent science from Australian and New Zealand to a larger, more global audience. Thanks to Facebook this is happening.”

More information:
Chris Cassella, Managing Director, ScienceAlert, 0405 846 671
chris.cassella@sciencealert.com.au
Julian Cribb, founder, ScienceAlert, 0418 639 254.
Web: www.sciencealert.com.au
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/sciencealert

News and opinions: editor@sciencealert.com.au
Advertising inquiries: adsales@sciencealert.com.au

Robot aircraft teach themselves which way is up

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:15:41 +1100

December 9, 2011 – for immediate release

Australian vision scientists today unveiled a novel way to help pilotless aircraft accurately determine their heading and orientation to the ground - by imitating how insects do it.

The technology can improve the navigation, flight characteristics and safety for civil and military aircraft, as well as pilotless drones says Mr Richard Moore, a researcher at The Vision Centre and The Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland.

“UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles or pilotless aircraft) are used in crop dusting, bushfire monitoring, tracking algal blooms or crop growth and infrastructure inspection as well as defence roles,” he says. “Some of these tasks require the aircraft to fly close to the ground and amongst obstacles, so it is crucial that the aircraft knows its heading direction and roll and pitch angles accurately.”

While there are other sensors such as magnetometers, gyroscopes, and accelerometers that can help the aircraft determine its heading and orientation, they suffer from problems such as noise-induced drift, and can be adversely affected by the motions of the aircraft or materials in the environment surrounding the sensors, Mr Moore explains.

“This means that UAVs can’t perform significant manoeuvres without losing their sense of direction for a while.”

To provide real-time guidance for UAVs, the researchers have designed a vision based system that provides aircraft with the same advantage that insects have – a fixed image of the sky and the horizon.

“If you watch a flying insect, you will see that their heads are upright when they turn their bodies,” Mr Moore says. “Keeping their heads still allows them to have a stabilised image of the horizon and the sky, which is crucial in determining their heading.”

In the new system, the aircraft uses two back-to-back fisheye lenses to capture a wide-angle view of the environment. It then divides the image into the sky and ground regions using information such as the brightness or colour combinations. The orientation of the sky and ground regions allows the aircraft to determine its roll and pitch angles with respect to the horizon.

“Using its estimated orientation, the aircraft can then generate a panoramic image of the horizon, and use it as a reference,” Mr Moore explains. “The aircraft can then determine its heading direction continuously throughout the flight by producing an instantaneous horizon panorama and comparing it with the reference image.”

Although a similar vision-based approach has been proposed previously, this new system improves visual performance by enabling the aircraft to learn directions by itself.

“This system doesn’t need any programming before take-off, unlike earlier ones that required lots of offline training: researchers had to manually compute the differences between the sky and the ground, then feed it into the system.

“With the new system, we only have to tell the aircraft that it’s in the upright position when it starts flying. It will then use that as a starting point to work out which is sky and which is ground, and train itself to recognise the differences.

“This is important because if the aircraft relies solely on the prior training, it will be in trouble once it’s in an unfamiliar environment. The self-learning ability allows the system to keep a record of what it ‘sees’, update its reference base continuously and be adaptive.”

The group performed a closed-loop flight test with the new system where the aircraft was commanded to perform a series of 90 degree turns for four minutes.

“The tests indicate that the aircraft can estimate its heading much more accurately with a visual compass, compared to other navigation systems like magnetic compasses and gyroscopes,” says Mr Moore.

“The ability to estimate the precise roll and pitch angles and the heading direction instantaneously is crucial for UAVs, as small errors can lead to misalignments and crashes.”

Mr Moore will be presenting the paper “A method for the visual estimation and control of 3-DOF Attitude for UAVs” at 11am today at the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation 2011.

Videos showing test flights of the pilotless aircraft are available at http://youtu.be/yGhDWrRr6QY and http://youtu.be/zKHh1kndWs4.

The Vision Centre is funded by the Australian Research Council as the ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science.

More information:
Mr Richard Moore, The Vision Centre and UQ, ph +614 133 777 51
Professor Ted Maddess, The Vision Centre, ph +61 (0)2 6125 4099 or 04 1144 3415
Denise Cullen, Queensland Brain Institute, ph +61 7 3346 6434
Mandy Thoo, The Vision Centre media contact, 0402 544 391

www.vision.edu.au

The 'constant gardeners' of the world's reefs

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:18:18 +1100

December 8, 2011 – for immediate release

Australian scientists have urged greater consideration for the brilliantly-hued parrot fishes that tend and renew the world’s imperilled coral reefs.

“Parrotfishes are the constant gardeners of the reef. They play a crucial role in keeping it healthy, suppressing weed, removing sediment and helping the corals to regrow after a setback,” explains Professor David Bellwood of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

In a major new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Prof. Bellwood, Dr Andrew Hoey and Prof. Terry Hughes have investigated parrot fish populations on 18 coral island reefs extending from Mauritius in the west Indian Ocean to Tahiti in the central Pacific.

“Parrot fish fulfil a number of key roles on the reef. They remove sick and dead corals and clean areas for new corals to settle, they remove weedy growth, and they cart away literally tonnes of sand and sediment that would otherwise smother the corals,” Prof Bellwood explains.

“But there are two sorts of parrot fish - the large ones which perform the main garbage removal task for the reef, and the much smaller once which scrape away at the reef and keep it clean, healthy and free of weed. Both are being targeted by fishers, but the smaller parrotfish appear better able to withstand the pressure.”

Prof. Bellwood says the activity of these small parrotfishes (and other reef cleaners) are the possibly the main explanation why many coral reefs around the world subject to heavy human pressures have not yet collapsed.

“These smaller fish are incredibly tough and this is good news, because it means they are in a sense buying us time to get the management of coral reefs right, as the world sorts out how it is going to cut its carbon emissions and reduce other pressures on reefs.”

While the smaller parrotfish are indeed resilient, it is nevertheless vital not to overfish them because of the role they perform in helping reefs regenerate, he cautions. Larger parrotfish have already suffered extensively from heavy targetting by spear fishers

“Our analyses found that the most heavily-fished reefs have lost virtually all of their large parrotfishes, with individuals larger than 25 cm accounting for just 3–6% of the remaining stocks on the five most heavily fished reefs,” the team say in their report.

In marked contrast reefs which were protected, as in Australia, had healthy population of large and small parrotfish, which in turn kept the corals in peak condition.

The team found a strong connection between human population densities, exposure to fishing and the depletion of parrotfishes. In many areas of the world important groups of fishes were effectively missing. It was particularly striking how few people it required to fundamentally change the ecology of a coral reef.

Their survey included Mauritius and Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean, Cocos-Keeling and Rowley Shoals off Western Australia, the Togean Islands off Sulawesi, five reefs on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Binnegem and Kavieng in Papua New Guinea, Pohnpei and Kosrae in Micronesia, Apia and Nu’utele in Western Samoa, and Tahiti and Moorea in French Polynesia.

Interviews with old fishers dated the decline of parrotfish in many cases to the 1960s and 70s, as more desirable table fish became scarce and new technologies such as SCUBA and the speargun accelerated the trend.

In many areas studied large parrot fish had been virtually eliminated, and with the loss of the fishes their ecological roles are no longer delivered, only the smaller species remained to keep the reef healthy. “However on Hilder and Carter Reefs in the GBR - which are fully protected - parrot fish populations are completely intact and performing their essential roles in looking after the reef,” Prof. Bellwood says.

The team adds “The most positive aspect of our findings is that even in the face of moderately high human population densities and intensive fishing, the Indo- Pacific reefs we examined still retain enough grazing activity to prevent the phase shifts to macroalgae (seaweed) that are occurring elsewhere, particularly in the Caribbean.”

The researchers say that parrot fish are just one group of fishes that perform services essential to keep coral reefs in good condition and help ensure their rapid recovery from storms, coral bleaching or more direct human impacts..

“The significance of this work lies in the greater understanding it gives us about how coral reefs work as a system,” says Prof. Bellwood. “The tough little parrotfishes are keeping the system running – but we cannot be complacent. We have yet to see the consequences of killing their vulnerable larger relatives.”

Their paper “Human activity selectively impacts the ecosystem roles of parrotfishes on coral reefs” by David R. Bellwood, Andrew S. Hoey and Terence P. Hughes, appears in the proceedings of the Royal Society (Biological Sciences) 10.1098/rspb.2011.1906.

Excellent pictures for download at: http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/parrotfish/imagegallery.html

More information:
Professor David Bellwood, CoECRS and JCU, ph +61 (0)7 4781 4447 or 0419 422 815
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 (0)7 4781 4222
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
For pictures of parrotfishes, go to http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

Winners of The Australian Innovation Challenge Announced

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:42:05 +1100

In-depth interviews with the winners can be found in The Weekend Australian – on sale December 10

The Australian, in association with Shell and with the support of the Federal Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research tonight announced the winners of the inaugural $70,000 The Australian Innovation Challenge at a gala awards night at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane.

Attended by leaders in academe, government, industry and the science agencies, special guests included Federal Minister for Innovation Senator Kim Carr, Editor-in-Chief of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, and Country Chair of Shell Australia, Ann Pickard.

The Australian Innovation Challenge unearthed some of the nation’s best ideas – breakthroughs purely for the public good as well as innovations with commercial potential.

Chris Mitchell, Editor-in-Chief of The Australian said: “We at The Australian newspaper have been interested in innovation since our paper first launched on July 15, 1964. In fact, our very first edition of the paper included a page of computing news, something unheard of in Australian newspapers at that time, nearly 50 yrs ago.

“The Australian is a proud partner of the Innovation Challenge. We support any initiative that puts the spotlight onto the inspired and inspiring innovators who work for the greater good of others, often for little reward or recognition. We want to help ensure these ideas aren’t left on a shelf but are given the support they need to become a commercial reality.”

“There are terrific entries in all the categories, with real commercial possibilities for many of the innovations produced by the challenge this year. I look forward to our continuing involvement in the challenge next year.”
Senator Carr said: “Firms that innovate are twice as likely to boost their productivity and 2.5 times more likely to increase their contribution to their community.

“The Australian Innovation Challenge showcased the kind of creative enterprise that is critical to our future as a dynamic, prosperous and outward looking nation.”

Country Chair of Shell Australia, Ann Pickard, said: “Shell is proud to have supported The Australian Innovation Challenge in its first year, and I congratulate all the winners on their outstanding innovations. Shell continually looks for new and innovative ways to meet the energy challenge. We are delighted that our support of the Innovation Challenge will enable Australia’s innovators to develop and commercialise new ways to meet the challenges that face us as a nation.”

Details of the winners below:

WINNER: Jeremy Woodhill (ACT)
General Public Category: Backyard Innovation
Invention: Smart GPO
Smart GPOs (general power outlets, or powerpoints) are remote controlled switches imbedded into general power outlets. These smart switches enable the efficient switching on and off of GPOs in the home, office or factory to enable superior power savings on exit or close of the building, without turning off essential power supplies. Woodhill estimates a small house with smart GPOs would save around $5 a week in power on average, and says the potential savings for office buildings, schools and universities would be huge.

OVERALL PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY WINNER: Mark Kendall (QLD)
Category: Manufacturing and High-tech Design
Invention: Nanopatches for Improved Vaccines
Shocking statistics on deaths from preventable, infectious diseases, such as influenza, in developing countries put biomedical engineer Mark Kendall on the path to the invention of a patch to replace needles and syringes in vaccination. The device could revolutionise immunisation globally but its greatest impact is expected to be in poor countries.

WINNER: Marcela Bilek (NSW)
Professional Category: Health
Invention: Biological Cloaking
Marcela Bilek and colleagues at the University of Sydney have found a new way to coat the surfaces of biomedical implants such as hip and knee prostheses and cardiovascular stents with biologically active molecules to shield them from the body’s immune system. The technology promises to lessen the problem of the body’s rejection of biomedical implants.

WINNER: Gary Kong (QLD)
Professional Category: Agriculture and Food
Invention: Digital Diagnostics – The Remote Microscope Network
With the ever present threat of exotic pests and diseases looming over Australian agriculture, scientists at the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity and colleagues developed a system to rapidly detect them. In what is believed to be a world first, the “remote microscope network” allows users to upload images of diseased plants or suspected exotic pests for rapid identification via the internet by taxonomists around the world. Previously, samples had to be shipped to taxonomists, a process that delayed the emergency response for days or weeks.

WINNER: David Miljak (NSW)
Professional Category: Minerals and Energy
Invention: Advanced sensor system for large scale-ore sorting
A mineral sensor invented by CSIRO physicist David Miljak and colleagues could boost copper production efficiency by more than 20 per cent. The sensor can distinguish high grade from low grade ore quickly as tonnes of rock containing the copper mineral chalcopyrite pass along a conveyor belt from the mine.
It promises to cut processing costs greatly by enabling the rejection of batches of ore low in the mineral.

WINNER: Andrew Verden (NSW)
Professional Category: ICT
Invention: NICTA’s Indigo Solver
For Andrew Verden and Philip Kilby, of National ICT Australia, winning the Innovation Challenge ICT category means offering Australian industry a competitive edge when managing the transportation of goods. Their Intelligent Fleet Logistics Indigo Solver is software that finds the most efficient routing and scheduling for companies with hundreds of variables to consider when delivering goods by road daily around Australia. The system considers truck sizes and capacity, load and unload times, optional cross-docking, vehicle reuse, allowed driving hours and fatigue management, time windows and dozens of other considerations when deciding the timing and routes of delivery.

WINNER: Joe Wolfe (NSW)
Professional Category: Education
Invention: The Physclips Platform: A new way to learn Physics
University of NSW physicist Joe Wolfe was issued with a challenge. It was the International Year of Physics as well as the centenary of Einstein’s special theory of relativity and Wolfe was asked to explain the theory in 15 minutes or less. Wolfe’s EinsteinLight web-based tutorial was born. It became the precursor to Physclips. Physclips is a freely available new media technology platform for learning physics, or for teaching it, at the senior high school or introductory university level. Currently, it comprises completed volumes on mechanics, special relativity, sound and waves, and has various collections of resources for electricity, magnetism and thermal physics. He says the platform and its interactivity provide a learning experience that goes beyond chalk and talk.

WINNER: Rick Shine (NSW)
Professional Category: Environment
Invention: Toad vs Toad
University of Sydney biologist Rick Shine and colleagues are exploiting the cane toad’s arsenal of chemical weapons in a bid to develop biological control agents against the pest which is wreaking havoc on wildlife. One strategy is based on toxic chemicals unleashed by cane toad tadpoles on eggs of their own kind. Shine’s group is also investigating the toad tadpoles’ attractant pheromone, which could be used to lure them into traps. Still another target is the tadpole’s own alarm pheromone. The work comes as the cane toad’s spread across the continent accelerates. Shine says they are causing populations of apex predators, such as snakes, crocodiles, lizards and quolls, to crash by more than 80 per cent.

For further information and interviews please contact:
Lis Clough, PR Manager – The Australian
T: (02) 9288 2381 M: 0413 388 046
E: cloughl@theaustralian.com.au

When the heat's on, fish can cope

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:18:13 +1100

December 5, 2011 – for immediate release

Australian scientists have discovered that some tropical fish have a greater capacity to cope with rising sea temperatures than previously thought – by adjusting over several generations.

The discovery, by researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University and CSIRO sheds a ray of hope amid the rising concern over the future of coral reefs and their fish under the levels of global warming expected to occur by the end of the 21st century.

Understanding the ability of species to acclimatise to rising temperatures over longer time periods is critical for predicting the biological consequences of global warming - yet it remains one of the least understood aspects of climate science. The scientists were seeking to discover how fish would cope with the elevated sea temperatures expected by 2050 and 2100.

“When we exposed damsel fish to water temperatures 1.5 degrees and 3 degrees above today’s, there was a marked decline in their aerobic capacity as we’d expected,” explains lead researcher Jennifer Donelson. “This affects their ability to swim fast and avoid predators.”

“However when we bred the fish for several generations at higher temperatures, we found that the second generation offspring had almost completely adjusted to the higher temperatures. We were amazed… stunned, even,” she says. “It shows that some species can adjust faster than the rate of climate change.”

“When one generation of damselfish experiences high temperatures their whole life, the next generation is better able to cope with warmer water. We don’t yet fully understand the mechanisms involved, but it doesn’t seem to be simple Darwinian selection over a couple of generations,” explains team leader Professor Philip Munday.

“Instead, there has been a transmission of information between the generations that enables damselfish to adjust to higher water temperatures.”

The two temperatures used in the trial represent likely tropical ocean temperatures at the mid-century and by 2100, based on current trends in carbon dioxide emissions by humanity. A 3 degree increase in tropical ocean temperatures, is the temperature predicted to occur if humanity’s carbon dioxide emission continue on their current trajectory.

The unusual finding suggests that some fish may have an innate ability to cope with increased sea temperatures greater than previously thought, the researchers say.

However they caution it applies so far only to a single coral reef fish species, and does not address the more complex issue of the survival of the coral habitat itself, and the effects of warming on plankton in the food chains on which fish depend.

Also, there are likely to be penalties for fish that successfully adapt to higher temperatures, Jennifer Donelson says. Initial observations suggest that the acclimatized offspring are on average smaller than their parents, and we still do not know if they are able to reproduce at the same rate as their predecessors.

Although the experiment has yet to run its full course, the researchers also say they do not expect the fishes’ ability to adjust to higher temperatures to continue past 3 degrees.

“At such a level of planetary warming there will be profound changes in Earth’s ecosystems, affecting all forms of life, including humans,” says Prof. Munday.

However, assuming humans manage to gradually bring global warming under control, it is important to understand how well animals and plants can cope with higher temperatures, in order to manage ecosystems for optimum survival of their species and the services they provide. This research provides an early insight into the adaptive capacity of fish, the team says.

This study reveals that transgenerational acclimation is a potentially important mechanism for coping with rapid climate change. Such acclimation could reduce the impact of warming temperatures and allow some fish populations to persist across their current range, instead of having to move away in search of cooler waters.

Their paper “Rapid transgenerational acclimation of a tropical reef fish to climate change” by J. M. Donelson, P. L. Munday, M. I. McCormick and C. R. Pitcher, appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.

More information:
Jennifer Donelson, CoECRS and JCU, +61 (0)419 422 815
Prof. Philip Munday, CoECRS and JCU, ph +61 (0)7 47815341 or +61 (0)408 714 794
Jenny Lappin, CoECRS, +61 (0)7 4781 4222
Jim O’Brien, James Cook University Media Office, +61 (0)7 4781 4822 or 0418 892449
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/

CoECRS are proud sponsors of the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium, Cairns: 9-13 July 2012.

WAR ON RUST: BID TO SAVE AUSTRALIA’S EUCALYPTS

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:04:05 +1100

Australian scientists have declared open war on a fungal disease that is rapidly infecting the nation’s iconic myrtaceous trees and shrubs.

Eucalyptus or myrtle rust is a recent invader of the Australian continent with potential to cause havoc in native forests and woodlands, and among industries that depend on native trees and shrubs.

A team of researchers in the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCNPB) is currently working overtime to understand the disease, how it spreads and which species are most at risk of attack – as a basis for developing a national strategy for managing it.

Eucalyptus or myrtle rust is caused by the fungus Puccinia psidii and appears to have originated from South America. The disease affects plants in the Myrtaceae family. Biosecurity experts consider it poses a serious threat to the Australian native environment and to industries that utilise myrtaceous trees and shrubs.

The disease was first detected on the central coast of New South Wales in April 2010. By December it had spread to Queensland, and now spans a 2000 km corridor along the east coast of Australia. In December last year the Myrtle Rust National Management Group agreed it was no longer technically feasible to eradicate it.

Mike Ashton, Director of Biosecurity Queensland’s Myrtle Rust Program, which is leading the CRCNPB’s myrtle rust project, says myrtle rust has the potential to affect many plant species that are integral to Australia’s fragile ecosystems – like eucalypts and Melaleuca.

“The disease has already been detected in several national parks and World Heritage Areas, highlighting the threat to our environment. So far more than 100 species in the Myrtaceae family have been found to be susceptible to the disease,” Mr Ashton says.

Industries already impacted by myrtle rust, or likely to be, include the nursery and garden, forestry, bee, zoo, native fruit, cut flower and plant oil industries.

“There may also be a significant social impact as the disease spreads further in public parks and people’s backyard gardens. There is bound to be strong community concern over the damage to a number of iconic Australian species,” he says.

“Myrtle rust infects young leaves and stems on susceptible plants, and may infect floral buds and fruit. The disease kills off new shoots, stems and young leaves leading to defoliation, poor growth rates, reduced flower and seed production and ruining the appearance of native trees.

“By affecting native trees, it could also harm native animals, birds and insects that depend upon them.

“A major concern is the regeneration and even survival of particular species of native Myrtaceae. For example, the disease affects many species of Melaleuca or paperbarks which are ecologically significant in wetlands, swamps, coastal woodlands and forests. Melaleuca quinquenervia or broad-leaved paperbark, which is an important and widespread coastal species, is severely affected by this disease,” he says.

CRCNPB CEO, Dr Simon McKirdy, says research into the fungus is a top priority for the Centre.

“Australia now experiences, on average, around 30 new invasions by species damaging plants and crops every year. Eucalyptus or myrtle rust is one of the worst we have ever seen, because of the wide range of native species it can attack. This is as close to a national plant health emergency as it gets” he says.

“Basically, because this disease is new to Australia, we need to determine its potential host and geographic range, and study its epidemiology and impacts in the Australian environment.

“The main focus of the CRCNBP research is to gather information on which plants are susceptible to the fungus, its natural range in Australia, and the behaviour of the disease in the Australian environment so we can better predict what the likely impacts will be,” he says.

“Australian plant industries and the environment are particularly at risk from Puccinia psidii because of the large number of myrtaceous plants which are native to Australia.

“Most of these are considered ‘naïve’ hosts, meaning they have never before encountered this particular disease, and may be all the more vulnerable. Over time, it is entirely possible some Australian native plants will be driven into extinction because of it."

“We simply don’t yet understand the long term ecological impacts of this disease – and an important part of our research is to try to find out, so we can develop the right countermeasures and management strategies.”

More information:
Mike Ashton, Biosecurity Queensland, 07 3117 8532 or 0438 781 824
Dr Simon McKirdy, CEO, CRCNPB, 02 6201 2412
Max Knobel, Communications Manager, CRCNPB, ph 0402 327 087