Australian Science

Category: News

  • The Devil’s Technology

    The Devil’s Technology

    Biotechnology is rarely considered to be good for the environment. In fact, environmental campaigners frequently claim that genetically modified organisms represent a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystems. However, the study of the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour disease (DFTD) using genetic technologies is an example where biotechnology has been used to create a definite environmental benefit.

    The Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilius harrisi) is Australia’s largest surviving carnivore and endemic to the island of Tasmania. DFTD induces cancerous tumours on the face and inside the mouth of affected animals which die within months. The condition was first observed in north-eastern Tasmania in 1996. DFTD, like other cancers, is caused when mutations within a cell prompt it to switch from normal function into tumorous growth. Cancers are considered non-contagious as the tumour is contained within the body and is unable to spread to alternative hosts. Furthermore, the immune system of any alternative host would normally recognise any foreign tumour cells that managed to invade the body, and quickly kill them before the disease becomes established. However, the DFTD is exceptional in that it is readily transmitted between individuals of the same species, and this has resulted in the disease rapidly sweeping across the island and threatening the entire species with extinction.

    In order to better understand the DFTD, an international team of scientists has sequenced the entire genome of the Tasmanian Devil and identified mutations underlying DFTD. The results were recently published in the scientific journal Cell. This biotechnological research surprisingly identified that none of the tumours originated in any of the hosts examined. Instead, they were able to trace them all back to one cancerous cell from within a female devil, possibly in the early 1990s. This radical and unusual tumour had developed the ability to jump from individual to individual in a uniquely contagious manner, so spreading the disease across the species.

    The Tasmanina devil facial tumour.

    Using the genetic sequence information, the researchers were able to discount the involvement of a virus in the transmission of DFTD. Instead they were able to identify a new and radical form of transmission. Devils often bite each other in the face during eating and feeding behaviours. During biting, fragments of tumour from an affected individual become implanted in an almost vampiric manner in a new and healthy individual.

    The scientists also discovered that the DFTD tumour carries a mutation in a gene that plays a critical role in regulating the host’s immune reaction. From this, they concluded that the tumour cells are able to interfere with the host’s immune system immediately after implantation, The disrupted immune system is unable to kill the tumour, thereby ensuring the survival of the disease in the new individual.

    The results of this study have provided valuable insight into the management of the DFTD and the conservation of the Tasmanian Devil. Because the condition is only transmitted through the bite from a diseased individual, the disease can be effectively controlled by quarantining healthy populations from diseased. The condition will then be naturally eliminated as diseased individuals die off from within the affected population. Such a policy has already been implemented with the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment who have been identifying and quarantining disease free populations within the island. Individuals from the protected population may then be re-introduced into the Tasmanian Devil’s former habitat once the disease threat has passed.

    Despite the frequently cited threats that biotechnology poses to the environment, the application of gene sequencing technologies to the DFTD is an example of how biotechnology might be adopted to solve major environmental problems. In fact, the outcome of this gene sequencing project has contributed to a management plan that might yet save the Tasmanian Devil from extinction and conserve an important component of Australia’s unique biodiversity.

    Image source

  • Sonification of the Higgs Boson – the Sound of Particle

    Sonification of the Higgs Boson – the Sound of Particle

    The July 4 achievement and the discovery of Higgs Boson particle, created new possiblities for the researchers who have “sonified” the data from the Atlas experiment, by turning these scientific findings into music using data sonification. Working from results supplied by the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), researchers have created melodies that make the results easier to understand.

    Sonification requires enormous amounts of networking and processing power to produce results, as the pan-European GÉANT network reports, it is the project coordinated by Domenico Vicinanza of DANTE (the UK-based organisation that operates the GÉANT network on behalf of European national research and education networks (NRENs)), in collaboration with Mariapaola Sorrentino of ASTRA Project, Cambridge, who contributed to the sonification process and Giuseppe La Rocca from INFN Catania, responsible for the computing framework.

    “In the music the peak of high notes in the second bar is the appearance of the Higgs-like particle (about 3.5 seconds into the recording). The researchers created two versions, one as a piano solo, and the second with added bass, percussion, marimba and xylophone.”

    Take a listen on a SoundCloud:

    “The discovery of the Higgs-like particle is a major step forward in our knowledge of the world around us,

  • America in the time of AIDS

    America in the time of AIDS

    This week the world descends on Washington DC, to discuss, evaluate, and get the state of the art of what is probably the disease of our times: HIV/AIDS; as the city prepares to host the International AIDS Conference (AIDS2012). It marks the first time in 20 years the conference has been held in the US — coming as the US lifts the ban on people entering the country with an HIV positive status.

    It is the cliché to think that sub-Saharan Africa, particularly southern Africa, typifies and exemplifies the problem we have and our struggle with HIV/AIDS. America hides an ugly truth about a disease that last year celebrated its 30th birthday (anniversary of the first case reports in the United States). Washington DC has an HIV infection rate of 3.2%. If it were a country it would rank 23rd out of 54 in percentage of people with HIV — placing it above the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and 30 other African countries, and just behind Nigeria.

    In 1995, the number of new cases in black Americans overtook the number of new cases in white Americans and other ethnicities — and it’s been that way ever since. The District of Columbia, with a population of 600,000 odd inhabitants, has a rate of prevalence of HIV/AIDS among black males that far outweighs other ethnic groups, and even the total prevalence in other American cities.

    With the number of cases around the world dropping, in general, in the US it has remained the same. If the problem in southern Africa is one of denialism… America’s problem is one of inequality. From the statistics you would be forgiven to think that poverty equals AIDS. Poverty does not equal AIDS. Inequality equals AIDS.

    The problem seems systemic, being placed squarely on the shoulders of a city that has failed its population. The Globalpost writes “for years, the District had failed to do in-depth surveillance of the AIDS epidemic and had perceived it to a problem largely limited to the gay community and injectable drug users

  • The extinction that is yet to come

    The extinction that is yet to come

    By 2050 they will all be gone. The worst is yet to come.

    The Amazon rainforest contains a wider variety of plant and animal life than any other biome in the world. The region in its entirety is home to roughly 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2000 birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 2000 fishes, 1000 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified. The Brazilian Amazon harbors roughly 40% of the world’s tropical forest and a significant proportion of global biodiversity.

    The numbers speak for themselves. However, over the past few years what we’re seeing is a biodiversity crisis in slow-motion. Those numbers are at risk. The largest drivers of which being climate change and habitat loss by deforestation.

    Habitat loss results in species extinction, but not immediately. When habitats shrink it may take several generations after an initial impact before the last individual of a species is gone. Extinction against the clock and in slow motion.

    Visualising how this occurs and estimating the impact has always been a problem for researchers. The question now is — how many species are headed for extinction as a result of past and future deforestation?

    New research published today in Science describes cutting-edge statistical tools used to devise a novel strategy to estimate the expected number of local species extinctions as a function of the extent of habitat loss.

    Researchers made predictions on the extent of the extinction damage based on four possible scenarios — two in which all parties comply and respect current environmental law and protected area networks; and two which rely on strong reductions and eliminations in current deforestation rates. A reflection of recent pledges by the Brazilian government and potential reductions in deforestation proposed in 2009. What researchers describe is an estimation of something much more serious than previous estimates.

    Spatial patterns in bird species and extinction debt in the Brazilian Amazon

    Deforestation over the last three decades in some localities of the Amazon has already committed up to 8 species of amphibians, 10 species of mammals, and 20 species of birds to future extinction. Local regions will lose an average of nine vertebrate species and have a further 16 committed to extinction by 2050. The worst is yet to come it seems. More than 80% of local extinctions expected from historical deforestation have not yet happened.

    An “extinction debt

  • Plastics Make it… Problematic

    Plastics Make it… Problematic

    The American Chemistry Council sponsors an initiative “Plastics Make it Possible.

  • BioGrid Australia links data to show bowel cancer screening is making impact on patient survival rate

    BioGrid Australia links data to show bowel cancer screening is making impact on patient survival rate

    BioGrid Australia links data to show bowel cancer screening is making impact on patient survival rate.

    Victorian researchers have been able to confirm that the national bowel cancer screening program is making a major impact on patient survival.

    Using data made available through BioGrid Australia, the researchers have shown that patients diagnosed as a result of a positive screening test have a much higher survival rate than patients presenting with symptoms.

    Maureen Turner, CEO of BioGrid Australia, said today that recent analysis from six Victorian hospitals has shown an increased number of early stage cancers diagnosed via the bowel screening programs (43% versus 19%) and a reduced number of patients with advanced cancer (4% versus 18%),² she said.

    This research is further confirmation of the value of the national bowel cancer screening program and the valuable contribution that BioGrid Australia, an innovative medical research platform, is making to furthering our understanding of cancers and other diseases,² she said.

    Dr Peter Gibbs and colleagues analysed diagnosis and survival information for 103 patients (all of whom had no symptoms of cancer) diagnosed as the result of a positive stool screening test on the national program.

    The patients attended six hospitals in Melbourne: Royal Melbourne, Royal Melbourne Private, Western Hospital, Western Private, Box Hill and Epworth Eastern. These patients were diagnosed between May 2006 and 2012 and their results were compared to 793 patients of the same age presenting with symptoms over the same timeframe.

    ³This analysis confirms that patients with a bowel cancer detected by a screening test, long before any symptoms have appeared, have a much improved outcome, with a projected five year survival of 95% compared to 73% for patients of the same age who were diagnosed with symptoms² said Dr Gibbs.

    ³This research yet again emphasises the ongoing need for and value of Australia¹s national bowel screening program which is leading to better survival rates as a direct result of earlier diagnosis.² Data available through BioGrid Australia was previously used in a campaign to extend the Australian National Bowel Cancer Screening Program to 60 and 70 year olds, by demonstrating the potential savings of early bowel cancer diagnosis.

    The research released in 2010 showed that annual bowel cancer treatment costs was likely to increase four-fold to $1 billion over 10 years by 2011, strengthening the economic case for expanding the Government¹s National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. The study by Victorian researchers supported by BioGrid Australia combined Australian screening data with treatment costs and survival rates, providing new evidence of the program¹s economic and social benefits. The researchers determined the cost of treating any one patient with bowel cancer at about $55,000 a patient.

    Due to the cost of expensive new therapies treating stage 3 (more advanced) cancers tripled from $25,000 in 1999 to $75,000 and for stage 4 (most advanced), the cost has significantly escalated 10 fold from $6,000 to $61,000. By screening leading to the detection of early stage cancers which can be dealt with by surgery alone, the substantial cost of treating later stage cancers, including the use of expensive chemotherapy drugs, are avoided. The data available through BioGrid was able to show the cost effectiveness of screening.

    The free National Bowel Cancer Screening Program was introduced in 2006. In the 2012 ­ 2013 Federal Budget, the program was expanded to include Australians turning 60 years of age from 2013 and those turning 70 years of age from 2015.

    The expansion of the screening program means that an estimated 1,000 early cancers will be detected each year and between 300 and 500 lives saved annually. This will significantly reduce the burden of bowel cancer on Australians and their families. Bowel cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, with annually more than 13,000 cases and 4,100 deaths from this disease.

    BioGrid Australia

    BioGrid Australia (www.biogrid.org.au) is an innovative medical research platform that facilitates privacy-protected research across many hospitals and medical research institutes. BioGrid provides an online Access Request System by which researchers can apply for access to specific databases.  Through this system, the data custodians approve access to their data and a Scientific Expert Review Committee assesses the proposed investigation providing formal ethics approval. Once authorised, researchers can access de-identified data for specified research.

    Issued on behalf of BioGrid Australia.

    Image source.

  • The smoking guns of dying stars

    The smoking guns of dying stars

    VY Canis Majoris, the largest known star in our galaxy, with it's huge smoky clouds of gas and dust being lost into interstellar space. Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Humphreys (University of Minnesota)

    The ancient Greeks once believed that the heavens were immutable. A vast starry vista, eternally unchanging above our heads. But we now know this to be untrue in the slightest. A lot has changed since then, however, and over the past few hundred years, astronomers have unfurled ever increasing knowledge of the lives of stars. Look out across a starry night sky and you can see stars in all stages of their lives, from brightly burning newborn stars, to ageing giants in their final gasping breaths. As stars near the ends of their lives, they begin to shine a rich red colour as they expand and dramatically increase in size.

    As red giants, these stars are burning the last of their fuel, and as they do so they begin to sputter and gasp. Just as a candle flame does when it starts to burn out, red giant stars flicker – though for these, the largest stars in the universe, those flickers can take thousands of years each. These final bursts of energy are known as thermal pulses, and they mark the star’s final days. During the last couple of million years of its life, a red giant star will lose incredble amounts of material to interstellar space. Even when not caught mid-pulse, these stars lose several times the mass of our planet every year. And the puzzle of exactly how they do so has been recently been unravelled by a team of astronomers led by researchers at the University of Sydney.

    All stars emit a stellar wind – a steady stream of particles being constantly accelerated outwards by the star. Even the Sun emits its own solar wind (with a speed measured at 535 kilometres per second as I write this). The wind from red giant stars is slightly different. As the star loses more mass, stellar material cools and condenses into dust. This dust then catches starlight which is so intense near to the star that it actually pushes that dust outwards. This effect, known as radiation pressure, causes the tiny reflective dust grains to act like minute sails and accelerates them away. Each dust grain is tiny compared to the kind of dust we find on our bookshelves, much more like fine smoke than any dust we’d recognise. Instead of being called stardust, it could easily be called starsmoke!

    “The winds that stream from the upper atmosphere of the red giant stars are responsible for removing massive amounts of matter. The grains that we have discovered here will come as a real shock to the accepted wisdom in the field. They are both much larger and much closer to the stellar surface than anyone expected.” said Barnaby Norris, a PhD student at the University of Sydney, and lead author on the research published earlier this year in Nature.

    This stardust emitted by these smoky smouldering old stars is transparent, not unlike finely powdered glass. The implications of this stardust being detected to close to an ageing star could help us to better understand the processes that occur in stars as they die, and how they manage to lose such prodigous amounts of mass so rapidly. As Norris said, “Hopefully our findings will help to illuminate a key step in the grand cycle as matter is expelled from stars into the galaxy only to seed new generations of stellar and planetary birth.”

    On a final poetic note, all of the chemical elements essential to life are created within stars, before being seeded back into the cosmos when stars die. This means that this condensing stardust contains the fundamental raw materials needed for life to eventually form. As Carl Sagan so often used to muse, we are literally made of stardust.

    The Cat's Eye nebula, a star which has now ended its life and is casting its outer layers into the cosmos. The concentric rings show material lost as stellar wind during the star's final thermal pulses.. Credit: ESA, NASA, HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
  • A brand new boson?

    A brand new boson?

    It’s official. As was the subject of a press conference here in Europe this morning, the LHC has discovered a new particle. Is it the much talked about Higgs boson? Evidently it’s far too early to say with certainty. But whatever it is, it’s a brand new subatomic particle, it’s consistent with a Higgs boson signature, and it’s enough to make CERN physicists quite excited.Whatever it may turn out to be, it’s brand new and never seen before.

    This is physics at its most fundamental. The standard model of particle physics is probably our best depiction of how the universe operates at subatomic scales, but our picture is incomplete. A jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces which must still be searched for. One of those pieces is a piece so basic that for a long time it was simply overlooked. Why do objects have mass at all? The existence of the Higgs boson in the Standard Model seeks to address that question. It posits that all the universe is filled with a so-called Higgs Field. Any particles, protons or neutrons for instance, passing through that field will interract with it, and it will interract via Higgs bosons. Any particle which exists in this field will effectively be surrounded by a cluster of these Higgs bosons. The more bosons, the stronger the interraction, and the more massive that particle will be.

    Simulation of Higgs Boson decay.

    But exactly what it is that’s been discovered is still being analysed. Amid a press conference full of journalists asking pointed questions about “the Higgs boson”, scientists were noticeably hesitant to outright say that this is what they’ve discovered. And for good reason too, because science doesn’t work like that, no matter how many people might want to run through the streets naked shouting ‘Eureka’. In all of this, only one thing is certain – a new particle has been discovered with a mass of approximately 126 giga electron volts (126 GeV), with a statistical significance of 4.9 standard deviations (4.9 σ).

    Peter Higgs himself, declined to make any comment twice during the conference, simply stating that it would not be appropriate to answer detailed questions at this stage. The other members of the panel too, agree that it’s very difficult to say anything definitively right now and that “Higgs-like” would be a better description of what they’ve found. It’s compatible with a Higgs boson detection, but the “uncertainties are still large”. While definitely being “consistent with a Higgs boson”, interestingly it’s noted that they cannot say if this is the Higgs boson (i.e. the one required by the Standard Model), rather at this stage it may be a Higgs boson. Scientifically speaking, it’s far better to only make statements on what’s known to be true, rather than to make brash announcements which may prove to be incorrect a few months later.

    Whatever happens after the months of data analysis which are due to follow is that we’re set to unravel a lot more about the fundamentals of the universe. This discovery is on the very edge of human understanding. It may help to refine our knowledge of the Standard Model of particle physics, or it may hint that this particular Higgs boson is not a part of the standard model – a prospect which ATLAS experiment director Fabiola Gianotti seemed visibly quite excited by.

    The ATLAS instrument, a detector in the LHC.

    Rolf Heuer stressed the fact that the most exciting thing here is the fact that they have a discovery of something brand new, perhaps suggesting that we shouldn’t get too caught up in our expectations and simply enjoy the excitement of there being something never before seen in physics in the process of being analysed. Moreover, this could be the very first fundamental scalar particle, and the first gauge boson which actually has any mass. If it does turn out to be a Higgs boson, then this holds the additional thrill that this particle has a relationship to the state of the universe itself, embodying the substance to all other particles which exist.

    In the meantime, as the LHC prepares to power down for a couple of years of maintenance, this discovery will certainly stoke the fires of curiosity in thousands of scientists worldwide. The data are still being picked apart too, for things which are completely unknown. Perhaps even more brand new physics is still waiting to be found. It’s an exciting time in physics right now!

  • Who Doesn’t Love a (Penguin) Parade?

    Who Doesn’t Love a (Penguin) Parade?

    Penguins marching home from a long day at sea.

    It’s not just 5-year old children who get excited by the sight of penguins; on no, penguins have been “all the rage

  • Mr Boson, I presume…?

    Mr Boson, I presume…?

    ATLAS proton-proton event containing four muons

    When Peter Higgs steps out onto the tarmac at an airport near the franco-swiss border, it will probably be with equal parts trepidation and elation.

    CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics, is to hold a scientific seminar on July 4th, with Peter Higgs in attendance, to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson — the famed “God Particle

  • The clues to human uniqueness

    The clues to human uniqueness

    Over 2 million years ago, before the emergence of the genus Homo, within the rift valleys and savannah grasslands of Africa during the Pliocene period, a unique event took place. One that, with some hyperbole, admittedly, shaped the course of human evolution. The event was on a molecular scale but had its bearings on what we now call and search for as the “human condition

  • Steven Burrill: A Leading Force in the Advancement of Science and Technology

    Steven BurrillSteven Burrill is a well recognized name in the field of science and technology, and has been actively involved in various aspects of these fields. As a founder and CEO of Burrill & Company, his influence and contributions to science and technology has been far reaching, and is responsible for great strides made in various aspects of this field.

    The Burrill & Company group includes Burrill Merchant Banking, Burrill Institutional Equities, Burrill Venture Capital and Burrill International all of which have been instrumental in finance, research and exposure aspects of science and technology. These institutions have been responsible in advancing science, and making technology more accessible to people.

    One of the moves that Steven Burrill has made to make technology and information more accessible to the masses is through The Journal of Life Sciences. The journal is in partnership with the California Health care Institute, and focuses on reporting on life sciences and the developments in this sector.

    TJOLS has been instrumental in getting more people to take interest in science and technology, and reporting in a way that is easy to understand. Although the journal primarily appeals to biotechnology executives and healthcare professionals, more and more people are taking an interest in the journal.

    Steven Burrill’s contributions to science and technology go far beyond TJOLS. He has played many roles in the field including in the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation (NSTMF) where he serves as the Chairman of the board. He also serves in numerous other boards in the science and technology industry.

    It is hard to imagine an area of science and technology where Steven Burrill and The Burrill & Company group are not involved. Whether it is in funding, research or non-profit efforts for the advancement of science, you can be sure to find the name Steven Burrill. His efforts have not gone unrecognized as he has received numerous accolades and awards for his contributions to science and technology.

    Starting a Biotech Company by Steven Burrill

    Burrill talks about how starting a biotech company is different from starting any other company in the world.

    Audio Podcast:An Entrepreneurial Perspective on the Life Sciences Industry

    Steve Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Co., provides an overview of the life sciences industry, reflecting on insights he has gained throughout his career.

    Useful links:

     

  • The EMBO Meeting 2012 – Call for Participation

    The EMBO Meeting 2012 – Call for Participation

    EARLY REGISTRATION & ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: 12 JUNE 2012
    ON-LINE REGISTRATION: 4 SEPTEMBER 2012

    UPDATE: Late abstract deadline 12 August 14:00 CEST (Berlin)

    SUBMIT ABSTRACT | REGISTER

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    http://www.the-embo-meeting.org/

    This annual conference attracts 1,500 scientists working in the life sciences. Featuring an impressive line-up of more than 120 world-class scientific speakers, including: Paul Nurse, Linda Partridge, Kari Alitalo, Steven Henikoff and Rob Singer. The programme includes three plenary lecture sessions devoted to genomics, RNA and oxygen sensing, vasculogenesis and disease. 20 concurrent sessions juxtapose classical fields of research with those exploring new frontiers in molecular biology. Daily meet the speaker lunches, giving access to leading researchers, and poster sessions extend the scientific programme.

    Latest News:

    Brisbane Times:

    Scientists closer to elixir of youth

    A FUTURE where Australians can pop a pill and significantly delay the effects of ageing – from hair loss to the onset of dementia – may be only about a decade away, one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists predicts.

    Professor Dame Linda Partridge, who heads research teams at University College London and is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, has been selected to give the prestigious Graeme Clark Oration in Melbourne next month.

    She predicts that at some point in the next 10 years drugs will be available that could keep us healthy in body and mind long into old age.

    More: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/act-news/scientists-closer-to-elixir-of-youth-20120616-20h6o.html

    Latest Videos:

     

  • EduWiki 2012: Wikipedia as an educational resource, now and in the future

    EduWiki 2012: Wikipedia as an educational resource, now and in the future

    What do Dictator novel, Implicit self-esteem and Nuclear energy policy in the United States have in common? Each of these Wikipedia articles has been improved by university students in exchange for course credit.

    Wikipedia educational assignments – where improving the free online encyclopaedia is integral to the course – already happen in many universities in the USA, Canada and other countries. In the UK, lecturers in the universities of Hull, Southampton, Portsmouth and Imperial College, London have been experimenting with Wikipedia assignments.

    It seems that everybody gains from this sort of assignment. The students get a real experience of publication, and are motivated to find reliable sources, write neutrally, avoid plagiarism and seek feedback from Wikipedia’s internal review processes. Wikipedia, and its enormous global audience, get improved articles in academic subjects. The lecturers get help in creating a distinctive and demanding educational experience.

    To avoid the potential pitfalls, these courses need planning and coordination beforehand between the lecturers and the Wikipedia contributors. Ambassadors – experienced Wikipedians – assist the courses online or in person. The Wikimedia education portal has tips, case studies and supporting materials.

    These projects treat Wikipedia as a set of educational processes, not as a static, fixed resource.

    The saying about sausages and legislation is that people who enjoy them shouldn’t watch them being made. With anything that claims to be knowledge, the opposite is true. Learners need to see the process behind it: whether the idea just popped into someone’s head, or survived rigourous testing against alternative explanations; whether it was published directly or went through some sort of review. On Wikipedia, the writing, editing and review processes are all open and on public view. By exploring and taking part in these processes, learners have a chance to develop high-level skills of research and collaboration.

    At school level, there are opportunities not only to teach many subjects using Wikipedia’s freely reusable text, images and other media but also to teach a critical understanding of Wikipedia itself. Those of us who write Wikipedia don’t want readers to treat the site as a final authority: we want them to view it critically, as a medium with weaknesses and strengths, just as newspapers, books or television should be read critically.

    What would be ideal now is if educators and other staff from universities and schools could get together in a room with Wikimedia contributors, discussing the educational projects we’re each working on and the opportunities for the future. That’s exactly why Wikimedia UK and the University of Leicester are hosting a one-and-a-half-day EduWiki conference on the 5th and 6th of September.

    There will be speakers from the USA, Canada and Germany as well as the UK, talking about educational activities that use Wikipedia or other wiki projects.

    The EduWiki conference takes place on 5 and 6 September at the University of Leicester. More about this – on the Source page.