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.
Leading the charge in translating basic materials research into real-world products, Professor Ajayan Vinu has been awarded the highly coveted C.N. Rao Distinguished Lecture on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT) Bombay – the highest ranked university in India. In his lecture, Advanced Nano-materials for clean energy, environment, and health, … Read more
UQ researchers have discovered a potential drug target for Alzheimer’s disease — an enzyme which has effects on both the immune and nervous systems. Dr Ramón Martínez-Mármol and Professor Frédéric A. Meunier from the Queensland Brain Institute Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research found that targeting one enzyme could combat the disease on two … Read more
Victoria’s conservation reserves are failing to protect threatened species such as the Leadbeater’s possum and the Greater Glider with the best areas for survival instead allocated to logging, new research from The Australian National University (ANU) warns. The study, published in Austral Ecology, found Victoria’s current reserve system is inadequate for the protection of threatened … Read more
The ability to determine what’s real and what’s fake online could soon become a little easier thanks to artificial intelligence systems and research developed at The University of Queensland. Data scientist Associate Professor Dr Gianluca Demartini said the aim of the project was to establish an online safety benchmark for the identification of fake news. … Read more
World leaders need to urgently accelerate efforts to prevent “profound, if not catastrophic” climate change in future, a distinguished group of scientists has warned. According to their new study published in Science today, acting to reduce climate change would cost much less than repairing the damage it would inflict in coming decades on people, infrastructure and ecosystems. … Read more
To understand how individual molecules play their roles in biological processes inside the cells they are synthesized in, researchers have developed super-resolution microscopy methods to visualize them at the single-molecule level. However, to investigate their functions, ultimately, they would also like to be able to modify them individually at this high resolution. While the visualization … Read more
Reducing fossil fuel emissions steadily over coming years will prevent millions of premature deaths and help avoid the worst of climate change without causing the large spike in short-term warming that some studies have predicted, new analysis by researchers at Duke University and the University of Leeds finds. “We analyzed 42 scenarios presenting different timescales … Read more
A first-of-its kind atlas depicting the lives and culture of Australia’s First Peoples has been updated for future generations. The Australian National University (ANU) led the project to produce the second edition of the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia. The atlas is a “story in maps”, depicting all aspects of Indigenous culture, from 60,000 years … Read more
What is the chemical composition of the Earth’s interior? Because it is impossible to drill more than about ten kilometres deep into the Earth, volcanic rocks formed by melting Earth’s deep interior often provide such information. Geochemists at the Universities of Münster (Germany) and Amsterdam (Netherlands) have investigated the volcanic rocks that build up the … Read more
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have shown how Australian wheat crops would cope if a destructive disease that’s yet to hit our shores ever made it into the country. Wheat blast poses a major threat to global wheat production. Professor Peter Solomon from the ANU Research School of Biology tested 20 Australian wheat … Read more