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Australia’s largest commercially designed and built satellite, Optimus, was lost somewhere in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) following a successful launch in March. After several weeks of attempts to establish communications with the satellite, Space Machines Company announced in May that it had lost contact. Co-founder and CEO Dr Rajat Kulshrestha told Cosmos that the Australian […]

The significance of ancient human fossils found in Africa is undeniable. But new research questions whether African fossil sites tell the whole story. A brief history of uncovering human history Scientists first found and identified ancient human fossils in the mid-19th century. Neanderthal and ancient Homo sapiens remains were found in Europe. Homo erectus was […]

A hydrogel has learned to play the 1970s video game “Pong” and improved its ability to hit the ball by 10% with some practice. Dr Hayashi, a biomedical engineer at the University of Reading in the UK, says: “Our research shows that even very simple materials can exhibit complex, adaptive behaviours typically associated with living […]

A new study has determined that the death of massive, spinning stars could send gravitational waves through the universe which can be detected on Earth. The violent deaths of rapidly rotating stars 15–20 times the mass of the Sun is an event called a collapsar. When the star has used up all the fuel in […]

Why mimic skin? According to Professor Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer at Stanford University, USA, it’s a smart way to make electronics compatible with humans. For now, it’s providing useful health monitors. But the end result could be invisible, autonomous devices that sit comfortably in human bodies. Bao gave a keynote speech on her team’s […]

Researchers have mapped out how life on Earth evolved over a billion years by studying ecosystems of fossil microbes. Microbial eukaryotes called testate amoebae are poorly understood fossils from a time before complex multicellular life first evolved on our planet. Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus. This group includes all animals and […]

Researchers have discovered that a protein produced by a parasitic gut worm speeds up wound closure, improves skin regeneration and stops scar tissue formation in mice. “In this study, we have developed a novel therapy for the treatment of skin wounds that favours regenerative wound healing over tissue fibrosis and scarring,” says team leader William […]

For the first time, scientists have imaged the distribution of the electrons in the outermost shell, known as valence electrons, of atoms in an organic molecule. The experimental breakthrough sheds light on the fundamental nature of chemical bonds. It could have implications for pharmaceuticals and chemical engineering. Behaviour of electrons in atoms depends on the […]

Gone Feral is a special project created by senior students from the Australian Centre for Advanced Journalism. This article about brumbies is written by Harshita Roy. As arguments continue about ways to measure the number of brumbies in the Kosciusko National Park, there’s been a call for scientists on both sides of the debate to […]

NASA is about to launch a helium balloon carrying a telescope, to test its ability to see exoplanet atmospheres. The Exoplanet Climate Infrared Telescope (EXCITE) is eventually destined to fly around the poles, collecting data above much of the Earth’s atmosphere, but its first test flight is due to happen from the USA in the […]

An Argentinian study has found that men infected with high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) had higher percentages of dead sperm in their semen. This was accompanied by a lower count of white blood cells and higher level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which cause oxidative stress to sperm. The findings suggests that high-risk HPV positive mencould […]

Analysis of 1,500 global climate policies has revealed new insights into the policy combinations that are effective in reducing emissions. The new research finds only 63 policy interventions successfully reduced total emissions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion tons of CO2. Effective national climate policies are crucial to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit […]

New evidence suggests an orb-weaving spider, Araneus ventricosus, somehow manipulates male fireflies in its web to mimic the flashing signals used by females to attract mates. Unsuspecting males pursuing the supposedly free females are then ensnared in the web, luring more males to their deaths in turn. How the spider is doing it isn’t yet […]

The famously difficult-to-read Finnegans Wake is a mathematical outlier, according to a new study. The Polish team of researchers found that James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness writing breaks punctuation rules that are generally rigid in European-language literature. But they also found that Finnegans Wake has a punctuation pattern all of its own. The study is published in […]

Scientists have mapped the path of an ancient underwater avalanche which travelled 2,000km across the seafloor off the northwest coast of Africa. The event started as a small seafloor landslide about 1.5 km3 in volume in one of the largest submarine canyons in the world, the Agadir Canyon, about 60,000 years ago. It quickly grew more than […]

Ancient tree resin artefacts discovered on an Indonesian island might hold the key to understanding when humans first spread through the Pacific, including to Australia. The timeline of human arrival on the Australian continent has been hotly debated. Research published in 2017 suggested that the Madjedbebe rock shelter in the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land is […]

Data from India’s Pragyan lunar rover points to the existence of an ancient ocean of magma on our Moon. Pragyan emerged from the Vikram lander which touched down in August last year near the Moon’s south pole as part of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-3 mission. It gives lunar researchers a new perspective as […]

Synthetic polymers – from plastics to Teflon – are crucial materials for modern life. But they’re also notoriously wasteful, and difficult to recycle. According to Dr Athina Anastasaki, an assistant professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, one of the solutions might be looking at the way we make them – and doing it backwards. Anastasaki […]

The first comprehensive review of tooth ablation in Taiwan from the Neolithic to the modern era has been conducted. The research, published in the Archaeological Research in Asia journal, aims to fill gaps in our knowledge of the origins and development of the practice in Taiwan. “Before the modern concepts of beautification, early populations altered […]

Astrophysicists at Melbourne’s Monash University have generated the first simulation which accurately depicts what happens when a star ventures too close to a supermassive black hole. The research, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, is a technical milestone in our attempts to understand these mysterious cosmic giants. First author Daniel Price, a professor at Monash, tells […]

A new study has discovered why a key immune organ, the thymus, declines with age. The findings could help scientists boost ageing or depleted immune systems one day. Located behind the sternum, the thymus is the only organ in the body capable of developing T cells. These are a type of immune cell that plays […]

The toxic venom of a marine snail could be the basis of new treatments for hormone disorders and diabetes. A study has found the geography cone (Conus geographus), native to the Indo-Pacific region, has a substance that can regulate blood sugar and hormone levels. The venom is also deadly, so it can’t be rushed straight […]

Professor Jeffrey Walker's research aims to address a gap in natural disaster surveillance by progressing the basis for near-space monitoring.

More than 120 years after the first Antarctic research base was established on Antarctica, scientists have identified 30 areas critical for conserving biodiversity in the Southern Ocean surrounding the frozen continent. In the research, published in the journal Conservation Biology, the authors warn that greater limitations on human activity in the area are needed to […]