SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
To understand the fundamental nature of our universe, scientists would like to build particle colliders that accelerate electrons and their antimatter counterparts (positrons) to extreme energies (up to tera electron volts, or TeV). With conventional technology, however, this requires a machine that is enormously big and expensive (think 20 miles long). To shrink the size … Read more
On a typical day at the world’s biggest laser, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, you can find scientists casually making star-like conditions using 192 high-powered lasers. Stars in the universe are formed through a process called nucleosynthesis, which fuses lighter atoms to create new heavier atomic nuclei. Natural elements found here on … Read more
Magnetic reconnection, a process in which magnetic field lines tear and come back together, releasing large amounts of kinetic energy, occurs throughout the universe. The process gives rise to auroras, solar flares and geomagnetic storms that can disrupt cell phone service and electric grids on Earth. A major challenge in the study of magnetic reconnection, … Read more
First the sea stars wasted to nothing. Then the purple urchins took over, eating and eating until the bull kelp forests were gone. The red abalone starved. Their fishery closed. Red sea urchins starved. Their fishery collapsed. And the ocean kept warming. It sounds like an ecological horror movie, but this scenario actually happened between … Read more
Lab-grown or cultured meat could revolutionize food production, providing a greener, more sustainable, more ethical alternative to large-scale meat production. But getting lab-grown meat from the petri dish to the dinner plate requires solving several major problems, including how to make large amounts of it and how to make it feel and taste more like … Read more
Developing honeybee-friendly bio-insecticides from spider venom, responding to climate change using methane-utilising microorganisms, and measuring how animals with colour vision systems more complex than humans perceive colour are some of the projects that have netted more than $6.59 million in federal government funding. Eight University of Queensland researchers have been awarded Australian Research Council (ARC) … Read more
Half of the drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during glacial periods is the result of Antarctic sea ice modifying ocean circulation and acting as a ‘lid’, trapping carbon stored in the ocean beneath. This is according to the new research by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the University of Chicago, published … Read more
Australian research could help breeders develop more drought-resilient crops that can produce more food and more profit with less water. Drought tolerance is critically important in the face of climate change, population growth and land-use pressures. Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, and CSIRO Agriculture and … Read more
Text analytics software developed by The University of Queensland will be available as a ‘Software as a Service’ product to individual subscribers for the first time. TopicGuide is Leximancer’s new automated approach to text analytics that uses an algorithm developed by former UQ Health and Behavioural Sciences researcher and the company’s chief scientist Dr Andrew … Read more
In the materials engineering labs at UBC, surrounded by Bunsen burners, microscopes and spinning machines, professor Frank Ko and research scientist Addie Bahi have developed a simple process for converting waste cotton into much higher-value nanofibres. These fibres are the building blocks of advanced products like surgical implants, antibacterial wound dressings and fuel cell batteries. … Read more