Uncategorized Archives - Page 3 of 29

How mo can you grow?

By Carrie Bengston For us, Movember isn’t just about blokes growing facial hair and raising funds for men’s health – it’s a chance to collect data and muck around with technology. Computer fluid dynamicist Fletcher Woolard is more used to animating geophysical flows like tsunamis and landslides. But this month, he thought he’d try something...

Self-driving cars and autonomous robots: where to now?

By Michael Brünig, Deputy Chief, Computational Informatics There isn’t a radio-control handset in sight as a nimble robot briskly weaves itself in and out of the confined tunnels of an underground mine. Powered by ultra-intelligent sensors, the robot intuitively moves and reacts to the changing conditions of the terrain, entering areas unfit for human testing....

Explainer: why Australia needs biosecurity

By Gary Fitt, Director, Biosecurity Flagship When the Department of Agriculture called a halt to imports of pop star Katy Perry’s latest album this month, they weren’t making a musical judgement. They were protecting Australia’s biosecurity. Biosecurity is also a process – a set of linked science based protocols and procedures aimed at stopping unwanted...

RMIT students take on the Titanium Challenge

It’s been a big year for RMIT students, winning two of the three prizes on offer at CSIRO’s annual Titanium Challenge. Since 2011, the Titanium Challenge has called on university students to learn about the incredible properties of titanium and come up with innovative ideas to demonstrate the material’s potential. Titanium is both lightweight and...

Explainer: how does the electricity grid work?

By Glenn Platt, Theme Leader, Local Energy Systems Where would we be without electricity? Assuming that you own a fridge, there won’t be many points in your life when you aren’t making use of it. But what do we mean when we talk about the electricity grid? The grid itself is less of a physical...

Put your hands together for a presidential applause

The Australian Academy of Science has announced their new President, and hooray, he’s one of our own! Professor Andrew Holmes can now add a new presidential feather to his highly decorated cap. Already a CSIRO Fellow, Laureate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute and Distinguished Research Fellow in the Department of...

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Meet Peter, from Tornado Alley to the villages of Vietnam

Meet Peter Hoffmann, a young climate scientist from Germany who has recently joined our Climate Adaptation Flagship in Melbourne. Peter is using his analytical skills to tackle the global issue of climate change. It’s his job to run and analyse results from advanced climate models, which reproduce features of current and past climate changes. This...

Dreamers and doers cross digital divide

By Ian Opperman, Director, Digital Productivity and Services National Research Flagship Australia has low unemployment, a high standard of living, fabulous beaches and great weather. We don’t have tight, large scale coupling between our creative types and our industry types. At least not in the ICT sector. Many multinationals have their own creative centres, their...

Robot rings in Phar Lap trifecta

We all know the Melbourne Cup as the race that stops the nation; bringing together punters, public holiday enthusiasts and those of us who like to don a fancy hat. One day shy of the race, we’re bringing together an iconic Thoroughbred. For many years Phar Lap, Australia’s most famous horse, has been in pieces....

Inside the scream machine

By Angela Beggs Step inside an anechoic chamber and close the door. It’s an eerie sensation, floor to wall, it’s covered in foam and once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. What’s even creepier is that no one in the outside world could hear even the most blood curdling of screams from anyone stuck...

Fuel cells are just our cup of tea

For many of us the word ‘ceramics’ conjures up images of quaint tea sets and fancy vases. But when it comes to this material, at CSIRO we’re doing much more than pouring cups of Earl Grey and snacking on scones. Ceramics are also used in fuel cells to generate electricity. In fact, ceramic fuel cells produce...

Five ways the next generation of robots will change your life

By Dan Chamberlain When it comes to the wonderful and whacky world of robotics, there are few events which bring in as many brilliant, bold and beautiful bots as the annual Robobusiness Conference. With recent predictions that the ‘smart machine era’ including the mass production of contextually aware, intelligent personal assistants, smart advisors, and autonomous...

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