Uncategorized Archives - Page 2 of 29

Gamifying education to boost science skills

Education has come a long way since the ‘chalk and talk’ classes of the 90s. Back then the most exciting pieces of technology in our school classroom were an overhead projector, the videos we watched on a chunky TV that moved on wheels and the single Apple Mac computer we used for word processing. Today’s...

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How coal seam gas is changing the face of rural Queensland

By Tom Measham, Senior Research Scientist and David Fleming, Research Economist Why would young Australians buck international trends and move to the country? According to our research, a growing youth population has been observed in coal seam gas (CSG) development areas within the Surat and Bowen Basin regions of Queensland in recent years. In contrast...

Found: world’s most mysterious bird, but why all the secrecy?

By Leo Joseph, Research Director and Curator, Australian National Wildlife Collection The Night Parrot has been called the “world’s most mysterious bird”. First discovered in 1845, it was rarely seen alive for most of the next hundred and seventy years, but it has been rediscovered in 2013 by Queensland naturalist John Young. The rediscovery has...

Could Australia ever have its own Silicon Valley?

By David Ireland, General Manager: International, Precincts, Innovation Systems and Louise Osborne, Analyst: R&D Partnerships Silicon Valley is a bit like the ancient city of Babylon. A confluence of the right geography, right timing, and the right mix in the melting pot allowed them both to thrive. Even the mythological status is fitting. After all,...

SolarGas is ‘Delhi-cious’

by Meg Rive What do you get when you mix solar energy and natural gas? High-efficiency electricity, improved energy and food security, new jobs, cleaner transport fuels and some good Aussie-Indian collaboration. There is no single solution to the world’s energy challenge and sometimes it takes creative thinking to get the best out of our...

Paper money, it’s just not cricket

We Aussies have had cause to feel a little bit smug when speaking to our English counterparts this week (there was that whole Ashes thing, but we won’t go there). But now we’ve got another reason to feel patriotically proud as punch. Yesterday, the Bank of England announced it will issue polymer (or plastic) banknotes...

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What does the city of the future look like?

The sun provides a huge amount of energy for us. In fact more energy hits the surface of the Earth in one hour than we consume in a whole year. While this source of energy has incredible potential to power our future cities, at the moment the vast majority of it goes uncaptured. Imagine a...

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Bridging the broadband gap

It’s amazing to think that in a country where almost half of adult Australians own a smart device, there are some people who simply don’t use the internet at all. Despite living in a country which is often known for early adoption of technology, there are still a staggering four million or one in five...

Avian influenza – why it’s not going away

By Frank Wong, Agent Characterisation Team Leader and Peter Daniels, Australian Animal Health Laboratory Assistant Director While Hong Kong has just reported its first case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu indicating that the virus may be spreading across China, Australia is reporting an egg shortage over Christmas as a result of the recent H7N2...

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Masking and unmasking of global warming by aerosols

By Leon Rotstayn, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Marine and Atmospheric Research Climate scientists have established a convincing case for the link between increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and observed warming of the Earth since the 19th century. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated, “Human influence on the climate...

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What is this? A centre for ants?

What do ants, Darwin and Texas have in common? Why, it’s Fullbright Scholar Israel Del Toro. Israel has spent the past year with our Ecosystem Sciences team observing how the little critters in northern Australia are responding to global climate change. Born and raised in Texas and currently studying at the University of Massachusetts, Israel was...

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