How many times have you been looking for information online, only to find yourself going round and round in circles? Or you’ve spent too long poking around a website trying to find what you need, only…
CSIRO’s solar-concentrating mirrors can be used for several purposes, including creating high-energy ‘SolarGas’.
CSIRO
As climate negotiators meet at the United Nations’ Lima summit, which comes hot on the heels of the landmark US-China climate deal, there is a renewed focus on how the world can move to a lower-emissions…
They’re waterproof and tough – not to mention colourful – but plastic notes were developed for their unforgeability.
Lis Ferla/Flickr
Welcome to CSIRO Inventions, a series looking at the discoveries and innovations borne from Australia’s national science agency. In this first instalment, we outline the story behind the plastic money…
When a material is mostly nothing, you can do interesting things with it.
WildBear
The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science – awarded at Parliament House in Canberra tonight – recognise excellence in science and science teaching. This year, we asked four prizewinners to reflect on their…
Electricity from wood? We have the power.
Pixelbliss/Shutterstock
When we think of renewable energy, it’s easy to picture spinning wind turbines or rooftop solar panels. But what about bioenergy? While wind and solar are now well established – in South Australia wind…
The Queensland town of Chinchilla is now home to a coal seam gas processing plant.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Residents in Queensland’s Western Downs region have mixed feelings towards coal seam gas (CSG) development taking place in their midst, according to our CSIRO survey. More than two-thirds of locals described…
A male Onthophagus vacca, the species of dung beetle being released this week in Western Australia.
CSIRO
The average cow drops between 10 and 12 dung pads (also known as “pats”) every day and just one of those cow pads can produce up to 3,000 flies in a fortnight. With more than 28 million cattle in Australia…
The Rufous Scrub-bird: will it have to move to Tasmania to survive?
Allan Richardson
Rufous Scrub-birds have been calling loudly from the mountains of eastern Australia ever since Australia parted from Gondwana 65 million years ago. They are still there today – as noisy as ever, though…
The Coalition government seems to take a very keen interest in medical science, but what about the other fields?
AAP/Dan Peled
As a relatively small and young country, by population if not by landmass, Australia has played a noticeable role on the world stage when it comes to science. Contributions to new technologies, from Wi-Fi…
As part of the planned restructure, some CSIRO staff are being relocated to the Black Mountain Laboratories in Canberra.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Taxi drivers often ask me what I do for a living, and when I say I work for CSIRO, they get animated and show they know and love us: “Yes, you did Wi-Fi and the plastic money.” It’s only part of the story…
CSIRO is contending with a A$111 million hit to its budget over four years.
Bidgee/Wikimedia Commons
What happens to CSIRO when the federal government decides to strip away A$111 million over four years from its A$733 million annual contribution to the organisation’s budget? We are beginning to find out…
Good news, entomologists! Tiny insects, such as this Australian weevil, can be scanned and viewed in full colour and 3D from anywhere in the world.
John Tann/Flickr
Observation is a cornerstone of science – we learn much about the universe and how it works just by looking at it. But observation can be a huge challenge. It’s easy to forget that human eyes allow us…
CSIRO research is crucial amid a business culture that is reluctant to embrace research, its chairman says.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The federal government’s cuts to CSIRO will make it more difficult for the organisation to fill the research and development gap left by Australian businesses, according to CSIRO chairman Simon McKeon…
Tasmania’s alkaloid poppy industry was an Australian innovation success story - until it moved overseas.
Glenn Schultes/Flickr
Australian innovation has stagnated in the past 50 years, and could be reinvigorated by focusing on key areas, according to Donald Hector, President of the Royal Society of New South Wales in an interview…
Peter Doherty: Thinking in terms of Australia’s future, how important is it for us to expand activity in the innovation/high technology sector? Donald Hector: It’s critically important. If you look at…
Carp have spread throughout Australia’s waterways - but CSIRO is hoping to bring a new genetic weapon to bear on them.
Kletr/Sutterstcok.com
A genetic modification that creates male-only populations could give us a new weapon against invasive fish such as carp that plague our waterways. “Daughterless technology”, which works by removing females…
Look into the future … what do you see for CSIRO, should its funding be reduced?
griraffes/Flickr
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, is said to be preparing for cuts of up to 20% of government funding – that’s around A$150…
Sorry mate, but unless the wireless spectrum has room for it, internet on your iPhone’s going to be pretty slow.
aye_shamus/Flickr
While discussions around closing oil refineries in Australia bring talk of future economic security, our economic future also depends on a less visible, but finite resource. We can now foreshadow a time…
Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex has played a major role in exploring space.
CSIRO/NASA
Who can forget the hit movie The Dish and Australia’s role in beaming the first live television pictures of man’s first landing on the moon? Well, the filmmakers did play with the truth a bit but it did…
Melbourne beachgoers battle January’s heatwave. They may need to get used to it.
AAP Image/David Crosling
The State of the Climate 2014 report, released today by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, confirms that Australia is heating up. It has warmed by 0.9C since 1910, with more in store thanks to the…