Coal remains an important energy resource for Australia providing around 75% of our electricity and some 20% of export income. However it is also responsible for approximately 40% of greenhouse gas emissions…
Satellite and in situ observations show sea level is continuing to rise. In the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, earth system model projections indicated global sea-level rise by…
AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY – A series examining Australia’s role in the rapidly transforming Asian region. Delivered in partnership with the Australian government. Here, Professor Martyn Jeggo looks…
As we are only too aware, manufacturing in Australia is currently under a great deal of pressure, operating in a relatively high cost environment, facing significant international competition and taking…
The ability to see through walls and other objects Superman-style is surely high on the wish-list for many children. Sadly, with the purchase of a child’s first pair of novelty X-ray glasses, such dreams…
The misconception of Australian agriculture being inefficient and unsustainable is deeply concerning for me. Images of dusty ploughed fields and dying sheep and trees are misleading. On the contrary, if…
One of the big challenges around the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s Proposed Basin Plan is to work out just how much the basin’s environment would benefit from the plan. When the Guide to the proposed…
Australia’s agriculture and forestry - land-based abatement - can make a valuable contribution to lowering Australia’s greenhouse emissions. The scale of contribution has been widely discussed. But the…
Australia’s land and oceans have continued to warm in response to rising CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. This is the headline finding in the State of the Climate 2012, an updated summary…
In many countries there has been concern about a decline in honeybees. You may have even heard that honeybees face dangers so dire that their imminent decline threatens world food production, with potential…
Wine grapes in Australia’s south are ripening on average 20 days earlier than they did in 1985, according to a study that attributes the trend to climate change, smaller harvests and improved technology…
Recent wet weather and flooding across eastern Australia has caused many to ask, wasn’t climate change supposed to cause more droughts, not floods? Critics of climate change science have suggested that…
Last year will go on record as one of significant natural disasters both in Australia and overseas. Indeed, the flooding of the Brisbane River in January is still making news as the Queensland floods inquiry…
Australia and New Zealand could be on the brink of a major scientific coup. In roughly a month’s time, the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will be announced. Australia and New…
As you stand around the BBQ this Australia Day, savouring that quintessential aroma of grilling lamb, spare a thought for the selfless service of our unsung national heroes – our estimated 140 million…
Late last week CSIRO announced that a new species of horse fly had been named after pop diva Beyoncé’s bottom. The story generated a real buzz across traditional and social media both in Australia and…
A popular misconception in the public mind is that science “proves” things by turning them from ideas and theories into absolute “facts”. This more or less confuses science with mathematics. Mathematical…
As the climate gets warmer, growing conditions and ripening times of crops will be affected. This raises all kinds of challenges for food security, but as we hit the festive season you may also be wondering…
In the Chinese zodiac, 2011 is the year of the rabbit but for those of us working on viruses from wildlife animals, it was much more like the year of the bat. In February, the deadly Nipah virus re-emerged…
2011 saw a couple of unusual outbreaks of food-borne disease, one from a previously unknown pathogen and the other from a well-known one in a food not usually associated with such outbreaks. The outbreaks…