Category: News

Acclaimed dairy expert and champion of leadership opportunities for women, Dr Anne Astin, has been officially announced as President of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST).

Inducted last night for a two-year term at the 46th AIFST Convention in Brisbane, Dr Astin’s appointment follows two years as AIFST President Elect. Dr Astin is the former CEO of Dairy Food Safety Victoria, a leading government dairy authority, and has more than 20 years experience at a senior executive and board level. Outgoing President Jo Davey said that Dr Astin is passionate about food safety and maintaining Australia’s enviable food industry reputation. “She has been widely praised for her commitment to empowering people to reach their full potential – a dedication that aligns perfectly with AIFST’s most important role of supporting the professional development of its members,

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope has detected brief flashes of radio emission from the distant Universe. Their origin is unknown.

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia has detected mysterious ‘flashes’ of radio energy from the distant Universe that may open up a whole new area of astrophysics. The surprising finding, made by a team of scientists from ten institutions in Australia, the USA, UK, Germany and Italy, is published in today’s issue of the journal Science.

“Staggeringly, we estimate there could be one of these flashes going off every ten seconds somewhere in the sky,” said research team member Dr Simon Johnston, Head of Astrophysics at CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science.

Four flashes were detected, each from a different direction and each lasting for only a millisecond (a thousandth of a second).

The characteristics of the radio signal — how it is ‘smeared out’ in frequency from travelling through space — indicate that the flashes came from up to 11 billion light-years away.

No gamma rays or X-rays were detected in association with the flashes, and the astronomers have ruled out the flashes being from phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts, the merger of two neutron stars, merging black holes, or evaporating black holes.

Dan Thornton, a PhD student with the University of Manchester and CSIRO, is the lead author on the Science paper. “A single burst of radio emission of unknown origin was detected outside our galaxy about six years ago but no one was certain what it was or even if it was real,” he said. “So we have spent the last four years searching for more of these explosive, short-duration radio bursts.”

That original radio flash, known as the ‘Lorimer burst’ after its discoverer, was also found with CSIRO’s Parkes telescope.

“Finding these things requires both a sensitive telescope and spending enough time looking, and that’s what we’ve done with Parkes,” said Dr Johnston.

CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope, now under construction in Western Australia, will be running a major survey for transient radio sources like the ones just found with Parkes.

“With the ability to detect these very fast sources we are opening up a whole new area of astrophysics,” said Dr Johnston.

Image: CSIRO’s 64-m Parkes radio telescope. Credit: John Sarkissian, CSIRO.

Source.

Happy Sunday, Happy Science. Without further ado, here’s the list…

We start with one of our own. Pluto, the dwarf planet that has probably gone through more drama than any other palnetary body in our solar system is back in the news as well. What do Spock and Pluto have in common?

Pluto’s new moons named: Spock still homeless

“The dwarf planet, Pluto, can still generate plenty of public interest – if the naming of its two recently discovered moons is anything to go by. After their discovery, the leader of the research team, Mark Showalter, called for a public vote to suggest names for the two objects. The on-line contest, aptly named ‘Pluto Rocks!‘, concluded with Vulcan as the outright favorite, after a William Shatner led push by Star Trek fans. The names Cerberus and Styx ranking second and third respectively.  The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has announced that the names Kerberos and Styx have officially been recognised for these fourth and fifth moons of Pluto. A decision that is probably correct, even if it proves not to be the most popular.”

Science has promised us many things in its long history. Jetpacks and the promise of immortality to name just two. News this week tells us that at least science has not completely forgotten about promises made (hint: its not jetpacks). The possibility of building components of ourselves in a laboratory that will allow us to eventually live forever.

Building a Liver From Stem Cells

“Reporting in the journal Nature, researchers say they have created a functional liver using induced pluripotent stem cells. The team of scientists first created “liver buds” and transplanted those into mice, where the buds grew into tissue resembling the adult liver. Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who was not affiliated with the work, describes what was done and whether whole, functioning, transplantable organs might be created in this way.”

Why is the ultimate question. Search no further for a simpler answer to the universe than Ethan Siegel’s explainer on Scienceblogs.

Why did the Universe start off with Hydrogen, Helium, and not much else?

“This primordial, unprocessed material has actually been detected observationally, and is one of the three cornerstones of the Big Bang, along with Hubble expansion and the cosmic microwave background. And that’s where all the elements in the Universe started from! Everything you are, everything you know, and every material object you’ve ever interacted with came from this primordial sea of protons and neutrons, and was once a mere collections of hydrogen and helium atoms. And then the Universe happened…”

And finally, over at PLoS Blogs we have an indepth look at the HPV vaccine. Something Michael Douglas should be reading.

HPV goes up, HPV goes down, and America struggles with the vaccine’s image problem

“It’s the “your teenage girl will have sex

Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.

In findings based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the Australian National University (ANU), found that this CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa, according to CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue.

“In Australia, our native vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it consequently uses water very efficiently,” Dr Donohue said. “Australian vegetation seems quite sensitive to CO2 fertilisation.

This, along with the vast extents of arid landscapes, means Australia featured prominently in our results.”

“While a CO2 effect on foliage response has long been speculated, until now it has been difficult to demonstrate,” according to Dr Donohue.

“Our work was able to tease-out the CO2 fertilisation effect by using mathematical modelling together with satellite data adjusted to take out the observed effects of other influences such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light, and land-use changes.”

The fertilisation effect occurs where elevated CO2 enables a leaf during photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar, to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air, or both.

If elevated CO2 causes the water use of individual leaves to drop, plants in arid environments will respond by increasing their total numbers of leaves. These changes in leaf cover can be detected by satellite, particularly in deserts and savannas where the cover is less complete than in wet locations, according to Dr Donohue.

“On the face of it, elevated CO2 boosting the foliage in dry country is good news and could assist forestry and agriculture in such areas; however there will be secondary effects that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes and biodiversity, for example,” Dr Donohue said.

“Ongoing research is required if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary effects.”

This study was published in the US Geophysical Research Letters journal and was funded by CSIRO’s Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, the Australian Research Council and Land & Water Australia.

Source.

In Saturn’s Rings is a non-profit giant-screen space art film that takes audiences on a journey of the mind, heart and spirit from the big bang to the near future via the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn.

Composed entirely of still photographs using innovative visual techniques developed by the filmmaker, In Saturn’s Rings stretches the boundaries of the motion picture form. The film will feature powerful music by Ferry Corsten, William Orbit, Samuel Barber and melds non-narrative visual poetry & science documentary into a rich experience for audiences.

In Saturn’s Rings is a film that’s both personal and universal, experimental and sincere, science and spirit , narrative and documentary. The goal is to use large screen imagery, synchronized to powerful but moving music, to create an experience for those who see it, hear it and feel it.

Using hundreds of thousands of still images manipulated to create full motion, using “2.75D” photographic fly-through technology. The film will be presented in beyond Hollywood quality 5.6K resolution on massive screens and concert-level surround systems to audiences in giant screen institutions, IMAX™ theaters, planetariums, museums and select 4k digital cinemas.

“‘In Saturn’s Rings’ is a film that’s both personal and universal, experimental and sincere, science and spirit , non-narrative and documentary. The goal is to use large screen imagery, synchronized to powerful but moving music, to create an experience for those who see it, hear it and feel it.