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Australian researchers have discovered that giving infants antibiotics in the first few weeks of life weakens their immune response to vaccines, possibly because of changes to certain bacteria in the gut microbiome. Experiments in mice also revealed it was possible to restore vaccine immune response by administering Bifidobacterium species or Infloran, a probiotic already proven […]

A new study suggests that Earth’s first crust formed continents and plate tectonics earlier than previously thought, with potential ramifications for theories about when life on the blue planet first evolved. The research is published in Nature. “This discovery has major implications for how we think about Earth’s earliest history,” says study lead Simon Turner, […]

In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness and social isolation as a pressing health threat. This crisis is driving millions to seek companionship from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. Companies have seized this highly profitable market, designing AI companions to simulate empathy and human connection. Emerging research shows this technology can help combat loneliness. But […]

Rechargeable batteries are an essential part of modern life and play a major role in decarbonisation. Now, 2 studies provide important new insights in the search for ways improve them. In one study in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, chemical engineers in Korea explain a previously overlooked mechanism through which lithium-ion batteries degrade. They say […]

CERN has responded in new reports to suggestions that its proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) is not technologically feasible, suggesting that the project’s aims to delve further into the mysteries of the universe are attainable. CERN operates the largest machine on Earth – the 27-kilometre, ring-shaped Large Hadron Collider (LHC),  the particle accelerator used to […]

The discovery of a stone tool production technique never before seen in East Asia has revealed that ancient people in the region experienced more cultural change than previously believed. Middle Palaeolithic finds in other parts of the world point to key developments in ancient human technology and behaviour. The Middle Palaeolithic is the second subdivision […]

On Thursday 27 March, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent its last messages to the Gaia Spacecraft. They told Gaia to shut down its communication systems and central computer and said goodbye to this amazing space telescope. Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What […]

Neuroscientists in the US have created a device capable of decoding brain activity and translating it into speech so quickly, it almost enables a person who cannot speak to hold conversations. They’ve tested the device in clinical trial of a 47-year-old woman with quadriplegia who lost the ability to speak after a stroke almost two […]

A review of research into the fossil fuel industry has led an interdisciplinary group of scientists to warn that the environment, future liveability and people’s health are at risk if urgent action is not taken to stop carbon emissions. The US-focused review has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal Oxford Open Climate Change. The […]

Shark loss can have major effects on their ecosystems say researchers studying great white sharks in  South Africa and reefs in northern Australia. “The removal of a top predator leads to cascading effects on the marine food web” says Dr Neil Hammerschlag of the Shark Research foundation. Hammerchlag, then at the University of Miami, Florida, […]

On March 26 NSW Health issued an alert advising people to be vigilant for signs of measles after an infectious person visited Sydney Airport and two locations in western New South Wales. The person recently returned from Southeast Asia where there are active measles outbreaks in several countries including Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. The NSW […]

Concussion during childhood – even mild trauma – can jeopardise future educational success, according to a study conducted at Tampere University in Finland. “A mild, single concussion is often considered a relatively harmless event, but our research suggests that it can have long-term effects on learning and cognitive abilities,” says Julius Möttönen, Doctoral researcher and neurology […]

Seabed mining companies want to harvest polymetallic nodules from the deep ocean floor to access critical metals like copper, cobalt and nickel for the green revolution. But how will mined sites recover? Researchers lead by the U.K.’s National Oceanography Centre, have re-explored a 5000m deep test-mine from 1979 to shed light on this question.  The […]

A new copper-tantalum-lithium alloy has been shown to remain incredibly strong even at high temperatures, making it one of the most resilient copper-based materials ever created. The material’s “exceptional thermal stability and high-temperature mechanical properties” will have applications for aerospace, defence and industrial applications. It is described in a paper in the journal Science. Martin Harmer, […]

The use of information technology (IT) has significant environmental and social impacts, including human mortality from climate change. One striking example is the carbon emissions and impacts associated with digital communication. To quantify the human cost of carbon-emitting technology, researchers use the 1,000-ton rule that estimates that for every 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide released […]

Australians were outraged this month when an Instagram “influencer” named Sam Jones picked up a wild wombat joey and separated it from its mother. A video of the action went viral. Jones left the country, leaving behind comments from many people who felt her behaviour was unacceptable. She later explained her actions, and apologised. Associate […]

Sue is an inside-out, legless, headless wonder. Apologies to any people named Sue. The ‘Sue’ is the fossil of a creature which lived 440 million years ago. The fossil’s discovery is announced in a new paper published in the journal Palaeontology which identifies it as belonging to a new species, Keurbos susanae. The organism is […]

In a surprising finding researchers say energy from waste (EfW) facilities in some parts of the world may emit more carbon per unit of electricity output than coal-fired power plants. The researchers from China and Australia, led by PhD student Ben Liu, analysed 20 years of data on waste used, energy produced and carbon emitted […]

Plant diseases are a major threat to global food security, causing about 20-30% losses in crop production each year. Climate change is worsening the problem, allowing certain pathogens to persist in new places and evolve faster to overcome plant resistance. One fungal pathogen has caused epidemics of stem rust disease in wheat across the world. […]

You might know South Australia’s iconic Coorong from the famous Australian children’s book, Storm Boy, set around this coastal lagoon. This internationally important wetland is sacred to the Ngarrindjeri people and a haven for migratory birds. The lagoon is the final stop for the Murray River’s waters before they reach the sea. Tens of thousands […]

In an event mirroring Hollywood, palaeontologists have uncovered a kind of parasitic wasp preserved in amber which lived almost 100 million years ago. Its unique parasitic behaviour is more similar to a plant than an insect. Viewers of Steven Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park (1993) may recall the opening scene where miners uncover a mosquito trapped […]

Physicists have produced a superconductor which could help achieve room-temperature operations which would be useful in applications like medicine, transportation and lossless power transmission. The new California Institute of Technology superconductor has stronger superconductivity in some areas and weaker in others. Superconductivity is a quantum state where metals can conduct electricity with no resistance. It […]

Lepidopterist Michael Braby is sitting in his lab, peering at a photo of a butterfly specimen on his computer screen – just as he’s done countless times before. He has no inkling that he’s about to discover Australia’s greatest taxonomic fraud. But he has noticed something odd about this particular butterfly, a Flame Hairstreak (Pseudalmenus […]

Most brain surgery requires doctors to remove part of the skull to access hard-to-reach areas or tumours. It’s invasive, risky, and it takes a long time for the patient to recover. We have developed new, tiny robotic surgical tools that may let surgeons perform “keyhole surgery” on the brain. Despite their small size, our tools […]

A US advocacy group has called into question the ethics of an Australian study which assessed the impact of combined mild traumatic brain injury and non-fatal strangulation in rats, saying there was “no clinical or scientific need” for the experiments.

Archaeologists have used new techniques to study the ancient equivalents of modern kitchen tools used by Native Americans thousands of years ago. Today, we have the mortar, pestle and cutting board. Ancient peoples around the world used to use manos and metates. A metate is a large, flat stone or depression ground into a rocky […]

As the US and other major donors slash HIV funding, experts say decades of progress hang in the balance, and there is risk of a global resurgence of the AIDS crisis. New modelling from the Burnet Institute In Melbourne in Australia predicts international funding cuts for HIV assistance could result in 10.75 million new HIV […]

A breakthrough imaging technique is transforming the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy by enabling doctors to pinpoint elusive brain lesions. At Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in the UK, ultra-powerful MRI scanners are now identifying subtle differences in brain tissue that were previously undetectable, prompting a reassessment of treatment plans for 58% of patients in a recent […]

Australia’s coal industry is again facing questions about methane output, this time after the UN’s environment agency showed emissions at a Queensland mine may be 3 to 8 times higher than reported. The mine under question, Hail Creek in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, is owned by Glencore Mining, which hotly disputes the findings. Fugitive […]

Researchers in China say they performed the first transplant of a genetically modified pig liver into a brain-dead human recipient, publishing their results in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature. A liver transplant is the only cure for end-stage liver disease, which is responsible for an estimated 2 million deaths per year worldwide. But thousands of patients […]

Physicists at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia have found a way to use muonic atoms to better understand the magnetic structure of the nucleus. Science has known about atoms for about 200 years when English chemist John Daltan developed the modern theory of atoms. In fact, the concept of atoms is much older […]

An immersive Antarctic experience with Scenic Eclipse By Ian Connellan There are a few birdlife guarantees in life. Seagulls at Bondi Beach. Pigeons in New York (or London, or Melbourne, or Venice). Blue-footed boobies in the Galápagos Islands. And, should you happen to visit Antarctica, penguins. It’s a little hard to imagine until you experience […]

More than 1,000 species of bony fishes make sounds to communicate with each other, but scientists thought sharks were the strong, silent type. Now, that reputation has been blown straight out of the water, with the first ever documented case of a shark deliberately producing sound. The New Zealand rigs (Mustelus lenticulatus) made clicking sounds […]

Regent honeyeaters, endemic to southeastern Australia, are keeping their genetic diversity despite population collapse over the past century, according to new research. The study is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Regent honeyeaters (Anthochaera Phrygia) are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. “The species […]

People who live in coastal cities all across the world might not always be aware of the extent of scientific research going on around – and under – them, to preserve waterways for humans and animals alike. For example, it’s been a big week for South Australian oceans – from the installation of high-tech buoys, […]

Astronomers have found radio signals from hot gas surrounding a supermassive black hole. The discovery could help reveal hidden black holes across the universe. The black hole in question is 12.9 billion light-years away. Its light has reached Earth from a time when the universe was just 800 million years old. The new research, published […]

As countries around the globe work towards transitioning all facets of their economies to net zero emissions, engineers from the University of Southern California in the US have devised a new method to take carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and convert it into durable and fire-resistant building materials.  The manufacturing of building materials and […]

A baby hummingbird that looks like a dangerous caterpillar has been found in the rainforests of Panama. The newly hatched bird had long, fluffy feathers all down its back – which had never been seen before on baby hummingbirds. These feathers visually mimic the hairs of some caterpillar species, which can cause painful skin reactions, […]

New research has shown how carbon-neutral aviation fuel can be made more efficiently. The development has been welcomed as attempts are being made to reduce the carbon emissions of the aviation sector. But experts say it could be a while before these “eco-fuels” or “e-fuels” – synthetic aviation fuels produced from fossil-free electricity and recycled […]

The beaches of Aotearoa New Zealand were once jam-packed with southern elephant seals, according to new research that reveals how the species has moved over thousands of years. “At the time of human arrival in New Zealand, you would be hard-pressed to find room on the beaches, with fur seals on the rocky headlands, prehistoric sealions […]

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used because they are efficient and long lasting. But they can be disastrous when something goes wrong, and the battery catches fire or explodes. A new sensor that could solve the problem of overheating lithium-ion batteries is described in a paper published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Damaged […]

The oceans, the nearest things to perpetual motion, are being increasingly explored for energy potential as we shed fossil fuel dependency. Now a team in Florida has released a comprehensive global map of potential ocean energy locations around the world and show how ocean current turbines could tap that power. Out in the Bass Strait […]

Globally, a climate or extreme weather-related disaster has been recorded every day for the past 50 years, resulting in an average of 115 deaths and US$202 million in losses. Aside from increasing concerns about how to pay for recovery, there are also issues about rebuilding to avoid future losses. In advanced economies there is an assumption that insurance […]

JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found. New observations from 2 different teams of astronomers shows that the galaxy has oxygen, making scientists rethink (again!) how galaxies formed in the early universe. The ancient galaxy was first discovered last year by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Its light took more than 13.4 billion […]

If quantum computers are to fulfill the promise of solving problems faster or which are too complex for classical supercomputers, then quantum information needs to be communicated between multiple processors. Modern computers have different interconnected components such as a memory chip, a Central Processing Unit and a General Processing Unit. These need to communicate for […]

A new study from Arizona State University in the US has uncovered another hidden health hazard in illicit cannabis.   When investigating cannabis seized in Arizona and California the researchers found that 16% of cannabis samples were contaminated with the soil fungi Fusarium — fungal toxins that exceed safety limits for agricultural products. After further […]

Research has found that many terrorism groups with differing ideological motivations share common ground in targeting LGBTQ+ communities. A study led by extremism expert Dr Jared Dmello, from the University of Adelaide’s School of Social Sciences, found that groups with contrasting ideologies — from Islamic extremist organisations to far-right terrorist groups — overlap in their […]

If scientists could create a sustained nuclear fusion reaction it would revolutionise the way we produce energy – day or night, rain or shine, sans carbon emissions. Among the myriad challenges facing physicists trying to make it a reality is the process of isolating lithium-6, an isotope essential to producing the fuel which is used […]

Scientists in Saudi Arabia have developed a new coating for streetlights which they believe will reduce energy lost as heat, making the lamps more efficient. The research is published in the Springer journal Light: Science & Applications. Streetlights are a particularly big burden on the city councils and municipalities. Streetlighting accounts for about 1–3% of […]

New analysis linking dinosaurs and Sonic the Hedgehog might explain how “proto-feathers” became the complex appendages, bird feathers. It’s widely accepted that birds are dinosaurs. Modern feathered friends are the evolutionary descendants of the family of dinosaurs known as theropods – bipedal dinosaurs which includes Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus rex. But when, how and why feathers […]