Science

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, an irregular regular column on calumny and codswallop. This week we’re looking at why so many Australians are choosing the risk of melanoma over the risk of… something ill defined.

According to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education there’s a proportion of people who – because they’ve heard about concerns over the use of nanoparticles in sunscreen – think it’s safer not to use it at all.

To stop people getting the 80s ‘zinc’ look, some sunscreen manufacturers break the zinc particles down into nanoparticles, or teeny tiny bits. See here for a much more erudite explanation.

Continue reading "ICB:  If I could offer you only one tip for the future…" »

Recently, Jason Tin wrote a rather satisfying article about the imminent death of the internet due to it collapsing under the weight of its own vapid incivility. He’s right. And you’ve seen it, of course.

An online comment section can turn a group of people who pay their mortgages and love their kittens into petty, hateful stupid people braying non-sequiturs at each other like Tourettes’ donkeys. But, why?

Good question. Science, having nothing better to do, has come up with some rather intriguing answers. So if the internet is dead, then consider me the pathologist – the science wonk who goes picking around in its chest cavity with tweezers trying to determine what killed it.

Continue reading "The science of Punching on" »

A few days ago, a group called the Friends of Science in Medicine wrote to the Vice Chancellors of Australian universities, speaking out against the teaching of complementary and alternative medicine in the curriculum. This group consists of more than 400 Australian professors, academics, researchers and scientists who work in biomedicine. I’m one of them – a very junior one.

The strength of the reactions has been fascinating. In the last 48 hours alone, I’ve been a fascist, an elitist, arrogant, narrow-minded, a shill for sociopathic corporate interests, viciously protective of my orthodoxy and a generally morally reprehensible crusader for the intellectual interests of old, white men.

I wonder how I have the time, to be honest. However, in the middle of all the noise and mutual disdain between both sides of the alternative medicine divide, what I think is the central point is being lost. And that central point is this: Magic is an insufficient basis for university teaching.

Continue reading "Why do our universities teach shonky “magic”?" »

Three years ago this week, Australia was burning. On 7 February 2009 — now known as Black Saturday — a massive firestorm consumed more than 400,000 hectares in southern Australia. At least 173 people died trying to outrun the fires, defend their homes or seek shelter.

That blaze was unusually fierce, but fires are a constant source of anxiety for Australia. The continent is extremely fire-prone, with a distinctive signature of oscillating fire activity that begins in the north during the winter, then moves south during the summer. Lately, the fires have been more intense and widespread, perhaps as a result of climate change — last year, around 5 per cent of the continent was burnt.

If only fires were Australia’s sole environmental concern. The continent is also overrun by invasive species. They fill holes created by a mass extinction event that occurred around 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene, when the arrival of the first Australians coincided with a collapse in the continent’s megafauna, namely giant marsupials (some as large as hippopotamuses), reptiles and birds.

Continue reading "Could elephants save the Australian environment?" »

So a crack commando unit of researchers from the University of Western Australia has found that people who place Australian flags on their cars are more likely to express racist attitudes than people who don’t.

The team of researchers discovered this through a comprehensive census of a vast crowd of 102 car-flag-bearing Austrayans havin’ a rip-roarin’ Oz Day barbie in Perth last year. It’s an incredibly groundbreaking and revealing set of data.

Except for the fact it’s a load of codswallop. And we’ve beaten them to the punch, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Continue reading "Flying the flag for lazy gotcha polling" »

Who on earth wants to yell at their television?

Voice activated smart TVs have been a staple of the emerging technologies I’ve seen at CES in Las Vegas this year and I must say – I just don’t get it.

So far I haven’t seen a voice activated smart TV that works as well as it’s supposed to, but even if I had - if I never have to talk to my television, I’ll be better for it.

Continue reading "One remote to rule them all" »

The God Particle is so 2011. This year’s sexy science story is a hole in time. Yes, it’s a sci-fi nerdtopia complete with the opportunity to use the compound adjective “space-time” in ordinary conversation.

According to science journal Nature, scientists have managed to create a ‘time cloak’. Using a time-lens that breaks light up they can make an event temporarily undetectable.

Sure, it’s only on the picosecond scale, but still: Phwoar!

Continue reading "If only you could bend space-time to hide your shame…" »

Could this be the year we finally get a dream-recording device?

There are many inventions I’m hanging out for this year – from automatic cheese graters, to a device that allows Kyle Sandilands to break free from his rage-limiting mortal form and roam the skies as a scowling dragon, hurling damsels with ‘90s haircuts into volcanoes.

But a gizmo that could record and playback dreams would be at the top of my list.

Continue reading "I dream of telling everyone about your kooky dreams" »

It’s the stuff of an edge-of-your-seat thriller: Scientists develop a fatal flu virus, one that could decimate humanity. What happens next?

Well, the fatal virus, a mutated strain of bird flu that can pass between other animals, is here. Scientists have created it in a lab - and it’s not clear what will happen next. Some scientists want to stop all the details of the research from being published for fear of bioterrorism, while others say ‘censorship’ will obstruct the search for a vaccine.

The very existence of the fatal virus, though, is a dramatic development. It echoes the plot of myriad horror flicks where the heroes battle an invisible villain amid gruesome illness and an increasing body count.

Continue reading "Creating death in a test tube" »

This week, scientists announced that hey, you betcha, they’re darn nearly almost kinda totally sure that they’ve confirmed the existence of a thing no average person can see or hear or feel.

And the world said, okey dokey, we pretty much believe you. Not exactly sure what all this means or how it affects us, but hey, we’ll buy it. You’re the guys in the lab coats, after all, and we’re the ones stupid enough to wear cargo pants. Therefore, or “ergo” as you guys would put it, you must be right. Right?

Hands up who’s guessed where this thing’s heading…

Continue reading "We must be mugs for accepting the hoax boson" »

It’s the silly season; there is no doubt about it. But last night I went to an office party with a difference.

In the middle of the night, armed with diet cola and chocolate biscuits, I caught the lift to the seventh floor of the Physics building at the University of Melbourne, and suddenly found myself surrounded by physicists drinking beer and talking animatedly. Yes, there was a definite buzz about the room, and it was not from the beer.

When the clock struck midnight there was a hush as the data projector fired up and we all began to watch a live webcast from CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research, based on the France–Switzerland border near Geneva). Why?

Continue reading "We’re THIS close to finding the elusive “God particle”" »

It’s time to get over the hovercar. It’s not happening. You’re not getting one.

And for that matter, you’re not going to be flying to Mars or the moon or through the rings of Saturn in a spaceship. Not in your lifetime.

The biggest let-down of the 21st century is that humanity has proved pretty poor at inventing the flying technologies that we imagined would be jetting us to Mars or well, Coles, by now. But it’s time we got over that. Because our levitating-vehicle-filled imaginations of the future are holding us back from embracing the future that is already here. And it’s a future that’s far more remarkable than you would think. For instance: say hello to the Matrix.

Continue reading "Our hi-tech future is here! And it’s remarkably ordinary" »

From August till the end of the year is the season for science awards. Eureka Prizes, Prime Minister’s Prizes, State Awards for Science Excellence, The Unsung Hero of Science Award, The State Scientists of the Year, Nobel Prizes … on it goes; the glittering array of rewards for those who have truly advanced knowledge and improved the lot of mankind.

Predictably, most of the speeches that laud the winners will mention something like the growing number of Australia’s Nobel laureates in science, how this is a time when science is paramount, how our lives are dependent on science and technology and how virtually every benefit we now enjoy - from better health and longer lives to the internet and safer cars - is the product of scientific processes, improved technology and their application.

Why, then, is this era in which we live apparently the most superstitious and anti-science period since the Middle Ages? Pseudoscience and non-science not only abound, they are actively embraced by thousands who subject themselves and (worse) their children to a variety of nonsensical alternative “treatments” that at their best cause no harm, but at their worst cause serious disease, disability or even death.

Continue reading "This is the dawning of the new Age of Superstition" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column on spin, pseudoscience and shenanigans. It’s a hairy one this week – does Yeti exist?

On a research trip to a remote Russian mountain this week, scientists found some hair and a footprint – and a ‘presumed bed’ - and declared they were now 95 per cent sure the mythical Yeti lives.

The Yeti legend is of a big, ape-like creature roaming the Siberian tundra, with wild fur but a hairless face. Reports of sightings crop up with Roswellian frequency – and coincidentally there have been several reports of alien bodies and UFO crash sites in the ‘hood as well.

Continue reading "ICB: An abominable snowjob… and Yeti may exist" »

By studying exploding stars, an Australian astrophysicist and his colleagues worked out that the Universe is not just expanding, but expanding faster and faster, thanks to dark energy. They pretty much single-handedly made us realise that instead of a Big Crunch, the Universe is just going to… gradually dissipate. Woah. We asked science writer Niall Byrne to talk us through the mind boggliness of it all.

Yesterday morning the Nobel Prize for Physics committee sat down in Stockholm to consider the 2011 prize. By noon they had decided to give the prizes to the leaders of two teams of reseachers who together had come up with a crazy result that broke our understanding of the nature of the Cosmos – that our Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

An accelerating universe was a crazy result that was hard to accept. Yet, two teams, racing neck and neck, simultaneously came to the same conclusion. Their discovery led to the idea of an expansion force, dubbed dark energy. And it suggests that the fate of the universe is to just keep expanding, faster and faster.

Continue reading "A Nobel subject: Life, the Universe and Everything" »

Right now, millions of monkeys are tapping away at typewriters in cyberspace in an effort to prove that an infinite number of monkeys hitting random keys for an infinite amount of time will inevitably reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.

By contrast, five or six chimps, three hours and a bottle of mandarin-flavoured vodka will get you the entire works of Stephanie Meyer.

To put the Shakespeare theorem to the test, US programmer Jesse Anderson replicated the experiment with a computer program and says his virtual apes have so far stumbled their way through more than 99 per cent of the Bard’s works.

Continue reading "The serious art of monkey business" »

It has been dubbed the ‘God Particle’ by some and nonexistent by others. There are literally thousands of scientists from across the globe all working towards the same goal: finding the Higgs Boson particle. Scientists from the Australian Research Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP) are getting excited because they feel we are closer than ever to its discovery.

Supposing we find the Higgs? The particle’s discovery will answer a lot of questions and bring us another step closer to a grand unified theory, or, a ‘theory of everything’. But in particular it will explain how the fundamental building blocks of nature acquire mass.

Einstein explained how mass and energy were interchangeable though his famous equation E=mc2 (the basis of which was thrown into doubt last week) and we have since found out that there are fundamental particles making up our universe, and the explanation for how this all works is called the Standard Model. But there is something missing. Mass.

Continue reading "Believing in the God particle" »

Mothers and girlfriends worldwide have long yelled at errant sons and partners for being overly fixated on a video game. 

This week, however, a group of gamers and scientists demonstrated that proficiency in World of Warcraft may be worth more than the geek cred it achieves.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology has published an advance online copy of a paper that explains how enjoyment of and technical skills in playing video games can be harnessed to achieve remarkable outcomes in scientific research.

Continue reading "How World of Warcraft could save your life" »

Right now, somewhere in the world, some clever person is furiously scribbling away. Their eyes are probably darting around for thieving glances as they hurriedly sketch a crude blueprint of the invention that will grant them an early retirement. They’re a visionary, an intellectual titan - a solver of citrus-related problems.

To that person, I say simply: Stop it, you monster. Seriously, friend, just put the biro down and stop ruining things for the rest of us. Every time some show-off designs an easy-wind chapstick or a plastic thing that shapes pancakes into Paul Giamatti characters, they make it harder for the rest of us to effortlessly strike it rich.

There are precious few things left to invent and whenever one of you yahoos decides to cross one off the list, my friends and I have less chance of being able to rent out entire hotels and run enormous waterslides down all 35 flights of stairs.

Continue reading "The night I got drunk and tried to invent something" »

“Why don’t scientists and people who contribute something to the community get the same amount of admiration as sportspeople?”

Mia Freedman asked herself that question last week as she tried to understand the hatred unleashed upon her when she suggested others might be as worthy of the term “hero” as Tour de France winner Cadel Evans.

The answer is strange - it’s precisely because they are heroes, that they aren’t hailed as heroes.

Continue reading "You can’t barrack for scientists" »

Over the last few weeks a disturbing trend has come to pass. Those sitting on both the left and right sides of political debates have sought to express their views by attacking and undermining the work of scientists.

On the right, Christopher Monckton continues to misquote, misrepresent and misuse science in his anti climate science parade across Australia. And climate scientists have had to endure death threats for getting on with the job and furnishing the public with much needed information.

On the left, Greenpeace thought it appropriate to destroy a crop of genetically modified wheat which dared be part of a scientific trial being conducted by the CSIRO, Australia’s premier research organisation.

Continue reading "Won’t someone, please, think of the scientists?" »

Modern-day defenders of orthodox Christianity – of any religion with a supernatural element – face a host of challenges. Chief among them is the widespread assumption that science and religion are hopelessly incompatible.

In his best-selling book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins asserts that “religion is now completely superseded by science”. It’s a familiar line.  Religion, we’re told, is shadowy and value-laden – an exercise in “blind faith”.

And the Bible says that the Earth was made 6,000 years ago in the course of seven days. Anyone who believes that is crazy! These notions are deeply ingrained, but they are fallacious. And they distort the true beliefs of most Christians in Australia.

Continue reading "The best arguments for God are purely scientific" »

If your doctor sent you off to try reiki, coffee enemas, or (my personal favourite) vaginal blowing, you should go straight to the registration board.

But what if they’re recommending St John’s Wort, or acupuncture? Where does medicine end and dodgy science begin?

The latest Medical Journal of Australia delves into these quackery-tainted waters with two pieces on whether doctors should be prescribing complementary and alternative ‘medicines’ (CAM).

Continue reading "Coffee enemas are not your friend" »

It should come as no great surprise that the Federal Government’s Climate Commission has produced a new report with dire warnings backing Labor and the Greens’ case for a carbon tax.

The report would really have created headlines if it said climate change was not real or that a carbon tax was not a necessary part of measures to prevent it, along with carbon sequestration.

There was nothing much new, apart from a claim that sea levels could now rise up to one metre by the turn of the century, which is higher than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s top range forecast of 0.18m to 0.76m.

Continue reading "The Climate Commission report is full of it" »

Many of Australia’s brightest researchers and innovators will gather in Brisbane this week for the annual conference of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Association.

Conspicuously absent will be Science and Industry Minister Kim Carr.  The fact he has apparently withdrawn from attending the conference in the wake of last week’s Federal Budget speaks volumes about Labor’s latest debacle. 

Like many of their wacky and ill-conceived programs – the devil is in the detail (or the detail omitted) with this latest Budget.

Continue reading "Now let’s talk about what wasn’t in the budget" »

I noticed something very strange the other day.

Waiting for a bus in the city, I suddenly realised I was surrounded by old people. Dozens of them, in fact – all smiling, chatting and reading papers.

As any normal person would, I freaked out, punched a random person in the face and helped a bunch of people in cargo pants flip a car.

Continue reading "Tragically, death remains the nation’s number one killer" »

Are you reading this piece using wi-fi? You wouldn’t be if Australian scientists had not invented technology that wirelessly connects computers, TV sets and phones across the planet.

Australian science has led to the development of Relenza – the first drug successful in treating the flu -  meaning that fewer Australians suffer or die from it every year. In a typical Australian winter, around 1,500 deaths are attributed to the influenza virus.

Australian science has given us climate-ready crops. Crops that will make sure families can continue to place basic food items on the table despite changing weather patterns. Crops that give us wheat to export when other nations fall short, and that keep our balance-of-trade figures looking vaguely respectable.

Continue reading "Science; it’s not just lab coats and specimen jars" »

Have a guess how many of Australia’s top 50 companies have at their very heart a good idea.

Not mineral resources, selling other people’s goods or repackaging money in increasingly intricate ways, but an actual good idea which spawned the genesis of a new business.

It’s a pretty easy answer - none.

Continue reading "Australia: The not-so-clever country" »

As an avid consumer of news, I’m considering adopting a few new hobbies over the next few months.

They include: Developing a crystal meth addiction, having 12 sugars in my morning coffee, throwing cinder blocks through shopfronts, having unprotected sex with at least four people a day, permanently wearing one of those beer helmets and making a giant inflatable ark-type thing out of all those condoms I won’t be using. 

In case you’ve been living under a rock in a Cold War-style nuclear bunker, the end of the world has been slated for 2012… or 2036… or something.

Continue reading "It’s the end of the world as we know it - and so what?" »

Dylan Malloch laments that understanding climate change is difficult, with the forecasts sometimes appearing to be contradictory or having a bit both ways, and therefore seeming all rather confusing! It’s easy to sympathise with him. Unfortunately, this is the nature of science.

Let’s consider another example. Newton’s laws of physics work just fine for the everyday world, but if we tried to use them in the timing system of our global positioning satellites, the resulting drift error would be about 10 kilometres every day.

So, the engineers at GPS mission control need to use Einstein’s relativistic theories to make sure your iPhone tells you precisely where you are, whenever you want to know. Similarly, neither Newton’s or Einstein’s equations allow scientists to properly predict the subatomic interactions within the electronics of satellites or iPhones. For that, you need to reference the weird world of quantum mechanics.

Continue reading "COUNTERPUNCH: It’s complicated, but it’s real" »

Andrew McLeod, addressing the United Nations last week, argued that the AFL must address racism in football, citing their laws that prevent insults and threats on the basis of a person’s race.

His address, on Australia Day, coincided with hundreds of speeches around the country assuring those taking up Australian citizenship that the nation’s racial vilification laws prevented discrimination against them on the basis of their race.

Race is also emerging as a hot topic in the controversy about a referendum on indigenous recognition in the constitution. Options for change are already citing “people of any race,” “racial groups” and “all racial backgrounds” and the race power contained in section 51 (xxvi) (1).

Continue reading "Science shows we should get rid of ‘race’" »

The final in a three-part series exposing the fraudulent link between autism and vaccination is out today.

Read about the first part here, and the second part here.

The three authors of a British Medical Journal editorial accompanying the final part argue that science is “our best way of knowing”, despite the numerous people and systems at fault for perpetuating the myth that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination is linked to autism in children.

Continue reading "Series final: Autism and vaccinations" »

As human lives and communities are destroyed by floods in Australia, and we recall the devastation of the Haiti quake one year on, it’s appropriate to reflect on the continuing challenge humanity faces to work out how best to master nature.

As much as we can be in awe of the beauty of nature, we should resist the naive nature worship that ignores just how arbitrary and destructive it can be.

While we are in fact part of nature, we are that part of nature that is aware of itself. We are able to imagine and construct ways of shaping and managing nature to neutralise its (and our) dark side.

Continue reading "Worshipping nature doesn’t help humanity" »

The world’s top space agency had a recent, desperate attempt to tap into popular culture - by having a crack at bad Hollywood science.

You really can’t fault NASA for trying. Last year it was told it must drop its dreams of replacing its dead Shuttle fleet and give up on its attempt to recapture the post Cold War frenzy of the world’s first Moon landing.

After all, this is the agency that brought the world its first reusable space craft and created the world’s second “permanent” space orbiter, SkyLab - a feat which continued to bring joy to earth-bound enthusiasts as its fiery debris rained down across our land and oceans.

Continue reading "NASA makes a failed landing on junk science" »

It’s long been accepted wisdom that many people get their political views from their parents and their peers.

In my unscientific experience (conducting more vox pops than I care to remember) young voters who admitted to me they planned to vote Liberal in an election very often gave the justification “because that’s what my mum and dad are doing.” First time voters with a strong Greens or Labor bent were more likely to offer up their friends or the media they consumed as influencing their views.

But a British study out today suggests political views might be more nature over nurture.

Continue reading "Are conservatives really just lacking courage?" »

Pythagoras and his theorem, which has withstood the test of time and is readily remembered as “The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides” (a² + b²= c²).

Scientific method has historically required a theory to be put forward and tested essentially by trying to knock it down.

Even evolutionary theory is still called just that – The Theory of Evolution. How then did we arrive at what is now popularly referred to as “The Science” and as a corollary “The Science of Global Warming”.

Continue reading "Whatever happened to theories and theorems?" »

Australia could lose its bid to host the World Cup of science, accused of being “cheap” and “arrogant”.

Although it’s slipped under the radar, Australia is one of two countries short-listed as sites for the world’s biggest radio telescope.

The Square Kilometre Array is one of the “most important international scientific projects of the 21st century”, according to Brian Boyle, the SKA director at the CSIRO.

Continue reading "Throwing away the chance to be the centre of the universe" »

It is encouraging to see that a spirit of bipartisanship is being brought to the issue of patenting human genes.

However, it will take more than a recent House of Representatives motion calling for an end to the patenting of isolated human DNA to achieve change.

Despite the US Federal Court finding patents for the BRCA1 and 2 genes invalid, the weight of precedent is against the finding being upheld.

Continue reading "Reserving the right to protect our genetic code" »

Growing up we used to call it the “Cadbury” – just one glass and a half of an alcoholic beverage and you’d be gone, but now science has an explanation for why some people get drunk faster than others.

And just like good looks, great hair and natural sporting ability, it seems being good at drinking is something you’re born with.

Continue reading "Hiccup … have you got the tipsy gene?" »

Watching the way every bloke and his dog is weighing into the climate change debate these days has got me wondering: are we now living in a world where expert knowledge is meaningless?

I recently changed my by-line on this publication after prodding from some colleagues. I was previously called an ‘arts, popular culture and ethics writer’ - now I’m an ‘arts writer and social commentator’.

What a joke. ‘Social commentator’ is a meaningless job description for which there are no obvious qualifications – certainly I don’t remember sitting the exams.

Continue reading "Welcome to the Culture Wars, science" »

Call me a bit of an idealistic Charlotte from Sex & The City, but if I have experienced something amazing, I want the world to experience it too.

So now I am a mum, I’d love the whole world to experience the joy of motherhood, particularly the women who are having difficulty falling pregnant. That’s why I am so supportive of IVF. Strangers (even friends who have dared not ask for fear it’s too private) assume I had my twins via IVF. I did not. And I would be willing to shout it from the rooftops if I had.

I have seen people close to me finally get their wish to be a parent thanks to this miraculous medical procedure. A few of the beautiful mums in my twin prenatal class had their multiples thanks to IVF and I know just how eternally grateful they are that the procedure exists.

Continue reading "Choosing a baby’s sex: the next great leap for parents" »

I recently learned a few things about the desert. You think you know about its vastness, but it is another thing to actually see it. When the sun goes down it’s bloody cold. And on a cloudless night the sky is simply breathtaking.

Last month I had the privilege of witnessing the re-entry of the Hayabusa spacecraft into the Earth’s atmosphere. Standing on the side of the Stuart Highway about 170 km north of Woomera, I was with a couple of dozen others – government representatives, media and hard-core stargazers – who had made the pilgrimage to witness the finish of the longest return space journey ever.

At precisely 11.23 pm a star appeared, grew brighter, developed a trail and then spectacularly exploded across the sky, lighting up the ground around us. Reminiscent of the final moments in Return of the Jedi, it is a scene I will never forget.

Continue reading "Why a vote for Labor is a vote for science" »

If you haven’t heard about the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) it’s time to tune in. Along with its cousins the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and the US Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), the GMT will be a telescope of an entirely different magnitude to any that has ever existed.

The Australian connection to the GMT is being forged in northern NSW through one of the grand elders of optical astronomy.

The recently reincarnated AAO – the Australian Astronomical Observatory at Coonabarabran – was the most advanced telescope in the world when it was opened in 1974. At 4 metres it was one of the largest telescopes of its day and the first to be computer operated.

Continue reading "Australia’s starring role in the next great eye on the sky" »

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have emerged from the six-month “climategate” inquiry with their reputations for honesty intact. However, many in the public remain skeptical, so the challenge for scientists across the world now is to communicate clearly the realities of climate change to a public that simply wants straight answers.

The Independent Climate Change Email Review in the United Kingdom, led by Sir Muir Russell, a former top civil servant, concluded that “the rigour and honesty” of the UEA scientists “was not in doubt” and that there was no evidence “that might undermine the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments”.

The challenge of clearly and openly communicating climate change to a public understandably alarmed about the associated changes to our world is as real in Australia as it is for people in other countries. Sir Muir has put the challenge for scientists into plain English: “They should learn to communicate their work in ways that the public can access and understand.” 

Continue reading "After climategate, the science still has the same message" »

Last Friday I did the unthinkable – I switched off my mobile phone.

At first there was the separation anxiety, not unlike the cravings one feels when on a diet, that insatiable yearning for something you know you can’t have. Then there was the involuntary impulse to reach into my pocket to check the phone for a text message, email or a missed call. Every look at the blank screen was disappointing.

As lunchtime approached, I’d become suitably acclimatised to this change to my daily routine. I read the newspaper uninterrupted over a strong Irish tea. It makes you realise how much the mobile impacts on everyday life. I use it far too much. If you ask me, enough is enough.

Continue reading "Phones-off Fridays" »

Rather than evolving something that would be really useful like an extra 3D lens in the eye or fingers that are better suited to typing on a QWERTY keyboard, we’re going to start living in trees and evolve a hook thumb that lets us grab branches.

This isn’t to detract from the extraordinary imagination displayed by Ryan Hopwood in his vision of humans in a future Earth with less gravity and a different atmosphere. It’s impressive, thought-provoking work that throws a light on some of the challenges humanity faces adapting to whatever changes may lie ahead in the environment.

But after millions of years of evolving in one direction - smarter - even if Earth’s gravity does reduce and the climate heats up, are we really going to say, “Screw it, let’s go live in the trees”?

Continue reading "Future man: Ugly, lives in trees, cannot use an iPad" »

Here’s a fact you might hear repeated quite a bit over the coming months. The past 12 months were the hottest ever.

Data from NASA reportedly confirms the period from May 2009 to April 2010 was the hottest 12-month period in its records. This does rather challenge the view, which has been increasingly fashionable, that climate change is questionable or might not be happening at all.

The embarrassment of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia and evidence of dodgy studies being cited by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were hugely damaging to the standing of the scientific arguments that the world is heating up. But the scientists are back in the saddle, publishing a stream of evidence that climate change is still doing quantifiable damage to the planet. This week there have been some doozies.

Continue reading "The global warming debate heats up again" »

I’ve got two words for those working themselves into supernovas of incandescent cyber rage over Conroy’s internet filtering scheme: The Matrix.

Or how about: The Terminator. Or, to be more scientifically respectable: the Singularity. Let’s all unhook ourselves from our computers, iPhones and PlayStations for a few moments and consider the possibility that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is not a reactionary Papist set on turning this free-speech-loving nation into – take your pick from the blogosphere pundits – Torquemada’s Spain, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia or Hu Jintao’s China.

Is it possible that in the not too distant future, the man voted 2009’s Internet Villain of the Year will come to be venerated as a John Connor-esque hero, a 21st century neo-Luddite resistance fighter, a man who tugged on the handbrake a little while the rest of humanity was intent on driving itself off a cliff?

Continue reading "Conroy’s filter has nothing on the next technology scare" »

Just beyond the south western extremities of urban Canberra is the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex at Tidbinbilla. Surrounded by hills – part of the scientific attraction of the relatively radio quiet site –is the most startling technology tucked away in a typical rural Australian setting. Kangaroos, sheep and cattle share the land with high powered radio telescopes and gum trees.

As you approach Tidbinbilla and the giant dishes first appear around a corner the contrast of modern technology upon a backdrop of countryside provides a moment that takes your breath away.

On 26 February this year Australia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of its relationship with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA. Back on 26 February 1960 Prime Minister Menzies and US Ambassador Sebald signed the Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the USA relating to Space Vehicle Tracking and Communications.

Continue reading "Our link to the far reaches of human achievement" »

One year ago this weekend, the World Health Organisation issued its first Disease Outbreak Notice on swine flu, confirming the infection of a number of people in Mexico and the US. A few weeks later the previously unknown virus had Australia holding its breath when the first cases hit our shores.

The World Health Organisation went on to declare their first pandemic in more than 40 years and the media went into overdrive. A year on you could argue the hype was all a bit excessive and that experts keen to get their names up in lights were crying wolf and playing into the hands of news editors who think the biggest numbers make the best headlines.

But ultimately if a new virus was to emerge again this flu season, should we react differently? Probably not. The reality is most viruses don’t mutate into deadly killers; but it has happened before and it will happen again.

Continue reading "Swine flu’s birthday: Should we have reacted differently?" »

I love it when Richard Dawkins comes to town. It’s like Christmas for people who don’t believe in Christmas.

Even though he’s since departed our fair shores, Dawkins’ wake of influence still ripples like the aftermath of an intellectual tsunami, and if anything you have to give him credit for almost single-handedly putting religious debate back on the map.

The debate that follows Dawkins across the globe is largely confined to the mission of getting rid of this pesky notion of a creator once and for all, by using the atheist mantra “celebrate reason” to expose all who entertain the divine as delusional, idiotic disciples of fairies or flying spaghetti monsters or whatever convenient and patronising analogy fits best. Needless to say, there’s a lot of love in the room.

Continue reading "“Probably” isn’t enough in the argument against God" »

More extremely hot days fewer cold ones; wetter in the north and drier in the south of the country; sea levels higher around the country: this is not a forecast for Australia’s climate but a snapshot of the changes to our climate now.

The thousands of scientists working for both the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have been studying and observing the many changes underway to our climate and, as a result, our weather for a number of years now.

Who hasn’t wondered recently what is going on with the weather?

Continue reading "Nation’s top scientists agree: the climate is changing now" »

In what was an unprecedented move, Australia’s two leading climate science agencies, the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, combined this week to release a statement of confidence in Australian climate change science. No doubt this “climate snapshot” will have the blogosphere buzzing and the skeptics up in arms but I for one am glad to see these institutions taking a stand.

Only a few days ago around 200 scientists from all over the country descended on parliament house for face-to-face meetings and forums with politicians in Canberra. Everything from new research on facial tumours in the Tasmanian Devil to concerns over biodiversity loss were brought to the attention of the folks on the hill. Not surprisingly, climate change figured prominently and especially the need for politicians and the public to focus on the evidence based science.

Interesting then, that on the very same day, the Chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman, would publicly criticise journalists over their lack of critical coverage of climate science. On the need for critical coverage of all topics we wholeheartedly agree. The media should provide balance. But this should not be balance for balance’s sake.

Continue reading "Balance in climate coverage nothing without quality" »

The biggest thing in science right now is smaller than you can imagine. Nanotechnology is a brave new world containing the likes of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs which promises an array of technological advances every bit the equal of the information revolution: better medical treatments; lighter, more efficient building materials; tougher sporting equipment.

An example of nanotechnology is the production of antimicrobial bandages which are covered in nanoparticles of silver ions that at the nanoscale are anti-microbial by attaching to microbes and preventing their cellular respiration, thus destroying them.

The result is a bandage which doubles as a medicine when used to dress a wound.

Continue reading "Nanotechnology: The biggest little thing going" »

The scene is a Thursday evening in a suburban Australian home in 2018. Dad is on the biodegradable couch watching some vintage Mad Men, remastered in interactive 3D, on a fifth-generation iPad. His 10-year-old daughter throws a digital notebook in his lap. “Daddy, can you help?” she says. “I’ve done the statistical tables but I’m not sure how to justify the relationship between the variables.”

Forget emperor Nasi Goreng building the Great Wall to keep the rabbits out. The draft national curriculum released yesterday will test future parents almost as much as it does kids. Much of its maths and science content is currently the preserve of think-tanks and universities, stuff wholly alien to modern parents and even recent graduates of Australian schools.

For all the arguing about how the curriculum handles history this is primarily a document about the future. Is about building new skills Australia will need in its workforce over coming generations.

Continue reading "An insight to a future of nerdy number-crunchers" »

I hope we win the World Cup bid but I really want us to win the bid to host the SKA. If you haven’t heard of the SKA project then it is time to tune in.

On a similar scale to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope (SKA) is an international mega-science project of mind-boggling dimensions. It will be fifty times more powerful than the most powerful radio telescope array currently in existence.

The data recorded by Australia’s SKA pilot project – the Australian SKA Pathfinder – will in one week exceed all the information that is currently on the World Wide Web.

Continue reading "Is there anybody out there? Let’s find out" »

There was an amazing full moon the other night. It hovered near the horizon, enormous and shrouded with dark wisps of cloud. It was hard to miss, partly because of its size, but mostly because people talked about it all day.

Me: “Yawn, didn’t sleep well last night.” Others: “Full moon.” Me: “Why is everyone so frickin’ grumpy today?” Others: “Full moon.” Me: “I thought this was the cheap day for petrol…” Others: “Full moon.”

It’s disconcerting having these vaguely pagan excuses gravitating around everything, just because the moon is in a particular alignment with the Earth. And I have to confess to a wave of supercilious contempt each time it happened.

Continue reading "Ah oooooooo! The power of a full moon" »

I never thought I would be writing about pandas. But this weekend - following millions of dollars and high-level diplomacy – a Chinese couple from Szechuan Province will settle into their new air-conditioned home in sunny Adelaide.

They are arriving by plane, not by boat. There will be no problems at either customs, or passport control.

After a year where there’s been a few tensions between two old friends, the Adelaide connection will help build a new bridge between China and Australia.

Continue reading "The bear facts on pandas" »

I had a humbling experience the other day. Sitting in a room of 300 scientists, I found myself captivated by the sheer brilliance and daring of a lifetime spent in quiet and determined research.

Scientific endeavour can achieve so much - most of us barely realise - but we all become the beneficiaries.

At CSIRO’s annual medal presentation awards, we heard of new polymer technologies that can be implanted into a human eye to improve vision, a bio-economic model that has the potential to revolutionise the way we manage prawn fisheries and we celebrated a career spent positioning Australia at the forefront of radio astronomy.

Continue reading "From little ideas big advances grow" »

My previous Punch piece talked about the new Royal Institution of Australia, which was formally opened by the Duke of Kent last Thursday.

The RiAus is housed in our new Science Exchange, along with the Australian Science Media Centre.

This national initiative is about encouraging a greater understanding of the importance of science to our nation’s future.

Continue reading "Thinkers are doing more than navel gazing" »

Great news today with Australian born molecular biologist Professor Elizabeth Blackburn being awarded the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine.

Professor Blackburn becomes the first ever Australian woman to be awarded the prize in any category and the 36th woman ever out of 789 individuals to win the award.

Like most Australians I had never heard of Blackburn or her amazing research before today, but it now appears we are in clambering with America to claim her as one of our own.

Continue reading "A Nobel win for Blackburn and the US universities" »

Australia has a desperate shortage of young people enrolling in science and maths at our schools and universities.

Encouraging kids to embrace careers in science will be critical to Australia’s economic and social development.

Improving the scientific literacy of Australians – as well as the science savvy of business and political leaders - will also be crucial if our nation is to compete and prosper.

Continue reading "Science is too important to leave in the lab" »

Unloved? Backed up? Toey as a Roman sandal? Find yourself staring wistfully at the lady in the Brand Power commercial?

Believe it or not, it could be because of climate change. And not just because you will never pick up while driving a Prius - and even if you did, it’s the only car on the market which you can’t hear yourself having sex in.

Beyond the question of cars there’s an emerging, inconvenient truth that the subliminated angst we’re all feeling about the warming of the planet is undermining our preparedness to commit, or even engage with the opposite sex.

Continue reading "Is climate change ruining our sex lives?" »

The moon landing captured the world’s collective imagination in a way that has been unparalleled either before or since.

This is part of the the newly digitally-enhanced NASA footage of the landing:

Humanity’s will to discover has been the engine room of progress and Neil Armstrong’s steps on the moon are perhaps humanity’s greatest achievement of discovery and a most magnificent triumph of the will.

It was an achievement born of one President’s declaration combined with seven years of political will to realise it. 

Continue reading "Why there could’ve been an Aussie flag on the moon" »

For those like me who’ve wondered (worried) about how many innocent brain cells they’ve wiped out at the pub over the years, the most exciting news in ages is that, just maybe, our brains are smarter than we are.

How so? The evidence is growing that the brain isn’t a fixed collection of a few billion neurones, but a living laboratory that can make its own new cells. And while that is not an excuse to wipe them out with that fourth martini, it does open up a whole new way of understanding the human mind.

It’s all part of an evolving area of science which views our brains as plastic. And no, we’re not talking that hard coloured stuff they make Lego out of. The idea is that your brain is changeable. And one way to encourage it to do make the right changes is– and here we get radical – thinking in the right way.

Continue reading "The modest drinkers’ guide to growing back brain cells" »

I’ve long suspected what the secret to happiness is, and now I’ve got proof. It comes courtesy of the Nerve Gut Research Laboratory at the University of Adelaide.

It’s not love or money or success.

It’s definitely not in a self-help book.

It’s a good sleep and a good poo. It’s that easy.

Continue reading "Science proves morning ablution the only solution" »

Katie Lee was pleased to see my interest in the subject but a little wary.

I had encountered Katie on a tour of the National Measurement Institute’s laboratories in Sydney in my new role as a Parliamentary Secretary.

Keen to see Australia’s original kilogram, the most its keeper, Katie, would allow was to lead me to a window where I could see a safe in the next room.

Protectively she placed herself in front of the door to that room with all the devotion of a member of President Obama’s security detail.

“It shouldn’t be disturbed”, Katie explained.

Australia’s kilogram is a precise copy of the original kilogram in Paris which defines mass in this world. And as it turns out, over the decades, the original kilogram has been putting on weight.

No one is exactly sure why but the phenomenon is a cause of great concern.

Continue reading "Meet the member for space and time" »

You have to hand it to the Pope. He’s got ticker. This week he asserted science had provided proof of a key plank of the story of the Catholic Church - a test on bones from a Roman tomb “seems to confirm” they belonged to St Paul the Apostle.

Calling on scientific evidence to prove Church teaching is grounded in historical fact is a staggeringly high-stakes game for the Pope to play. As technology advances, archaeologists will only build an ever-clearer picture of the past. As in the case of St Paul - who along with St Peter was instrumental in founding the modern Church - there may be evidence along the way that suggests certain people lived and died precisely as the Church says.

But what happens when the science calls it into question? What happens if scientists produce convincing evidence that certain things didn’t happen, or someone didn’t exist?

What if that someone was, say, Jesus?

Continue reading "Poker-faced Pope plays high stakes against science" »

What makes a person a role model? Generally – and unfortunately – in this country it’s nothing more than the widely-held belief that they are one.

It’s got nothing to do with their tangible contribution to society and the greater good, rather the emergence of an unusual consensus that they hold a position of leadership purely because they’re in the public eye.

In the past 36 hours Australia has seen the departure of two public figures – one of whom destroyed his career through his own farcical irresponsibility, the other of whom lost his life to tragic illness.

Continue reading "Scientists make better role models than sportsmen" »