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University of Southern Queensland

The University of Southern Queensland is dedicated to providing quality programs and degrees in a flexible and supportive environment. In just over 50 years, it has become a prominent teaching and research institution providing education worldwide from three regional locations – Toowoomba, Springfield and Ipswich.

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A group of excited observers during a peak of the Geminids meteor shower. Flickr/Tasayu Tasnaphun

Nature’s fireworks: the best meteor showers coming in 2015

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Donna Burton, University of Southern Queensland, and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute

Watching meteors in the night sky can be fun, although typically you only see a few flashes an hour. But there are certain times of the year when you can see many more – events known as meteor showers…
Get your telescopes ready for a rare close encounter with an asteroid this Australia Day. Flickr/Ryan Wick

Giant asteroid makes its closest pass of Earth on Australia Day

Bryonie Scott, The Conversation

Clear skies this Australia Day could give observers a rare look at a giant asteroid flying past Earth at 56,000kmh. The asteroid, known as 2004 BL86, will not return to Earth for around another 200 years…
What happens when a Surrealist parlour game turns into a writing exercise that’s pubilshed? Can we truly call it a collaborative process? Wikimedia Commons

Exquisite Cadaver: useful writing experiment or just a good game?

Pema Düddul, Southern Cross University; Jen Webb, University of Canberra, and Nike Sulway, University of Southern Queensland

Recently, The Conversation published what was described as “an experiment in collaborative writing” (featuring, among others, Dallas J Baker and Nike Sulway of this present article). The question behind…
While many use YouTube solely to watch videos of cats, increasing numbers use it for education and training. Phil

YouTube a valuable educational tool, not just cat videos

Amy Antonio, University of Southern Queensland and David Tuffley, Griffith University

For many, YouTube is little more than a deluge of low-quality videos depicting the latest internet craze or conspiracy theory, perhaps some painful-looking accident, music videos and video-bloggers of…
The Western Treatment Plant in Werribee, Victoria, largely powers itself using biogas – a by-product of sewage treatment. Jason Patrick Ross/Shutterstock

Biogas: smells like a solution to our energy and waste problems

Bernadette McCabe, University of Southern Queensland

Could what we flush down the toilet be used to power our homes? Thanks to biogas technology, Australia’s relationship with organic waste – human and animal excreta, plant scraps and food-processing waste…
Artist’s impression of the planet Kepler 62-f which could lie in the habitable zone of its host star 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech

The tools needed to seek out new worlds out there in space

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland, and Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland

More than 1,000 exoplanets have now been discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, announced NASA this month, and the figure continues to climb. Three of the newly confirmed Kepler planets are thought…
Teachers don’t have to have perfect spelling to teach kids how to spell. Shutterstock

A teacher’s spelling doesn’t necessarily affect their teaching

Stewart Riddle, University of Southern Queensland

According to recent media reports, a new study shows an alarming number of aspiring teachers have lower literacy levels than the school students they will be teaching. This coincides with a series of articles…
Many hands have helped author The Conversation’s first collaborative writing experiment.

An experiment in collaborative writing: day ten

Marguerite Johnson, University of Newcastle; Camilla Nelson, University of Notre Dame Australia; Chris Rodley, University of Sydney; Claire Corbett, Western Sydney University; Donna Hancox, Queensland University of Technology; Jane Messer, Macquarie University; Julian Meyrick, Flinders University; Michelle Smith, Deakin University; Nike Sulway, University of Southern Queensland, and Pema Düddul, Southern Cross University

We’re starting 2015 with an experiment in collaborative creative writing. What happens when you ask ten academics to write a story together? Taking our cue from the Exquisite Cadaver game played by Surrealist…
Artist’s impression of an Earth-sized planet in the Kepler 186 system. But what makes one planet more habitable than another? NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech

What makes one Earth-like planet more habitable than another?

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland, and Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland

When it comes to finding the right kind of planet to target in the search for life elsewhere in the universe, the size of the planet matters. All planets are believed to form by a process of competitive…
Artist’s impression of New Horizons as it swings past the dwarf planet Pluto, in July 2015. NASA

Rise and shine! New Horizons awakes ahead of a date with Pluto

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

While the Mars Rovers and the Rosetta spacecraft will continue to make headlines in 2015, the stage is set for the solar system’s next great mission – the Pluto-bound New Horizons. Discovered in 1930…
A reconstruction of the path and damage caused by the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 15, 2013. Flickr/Sandia Labs

Impacts, extinctions and climate in the search for life elsewhere

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland, and Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland

Every so often our Earth encounters a large chunk of space debris which reminds us that our solar system still contains plenty of debris that could potentially have an impact on life on Earth. While the…
Image captured December 2013 of several Geminids meteors seen from the Observatorio del Teide (IAC) in Tenerife. Flickr/StarryEarth

The Geminids meteor shower should be one of the best this year

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Donna Burton, University of Southern Queensland, and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute

The best meteor shower of the year should put on an impressive display this weekend – weather permitting – with the annual Geminids poised to light up the sky with bright, long meteors visible as frequently…
In the coming years, many planets that could host life will be discovered. But which will we target in the search for life elsewhere? IAU/L Calçada

Giant impacts, planet formation and the search for life elsewhere

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland, and Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland

In the search for life beyond our solar system, we need to consider the system in which a planet moves, including the other planets and assorted debris that accompany it on its journey through the cosmos…
Artists conception of the a star with two Saturn-mass planets discovered by the Kepler satellite. NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

For life to form on a planet it needs to orbit the right kind of star

Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland; Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland, and Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

In the search for life-sustaining planets we must first choose the right host star. There are many factors that would make a star system too hostile for life to even get started, let alone survive for…
Artist’s impression of a sunset on the planet Gliese 667Cc. While that planet is likely not an ideal target, we will discover planets far more like our own. ESO/L. Calçada

Exo-Earths and the search for life elsewhere: a brief history

Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland; Belinda Nicholson, University of Southern Queensland, and Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

The criteria for life on other planets is the focus of the 4th Australian Exoplanet Workshop, hosted by the University of Southern Queensland this week. The first in this series on exoplanets looks at…
Rosetta deploys the Philae lander to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. ESA/ATG medialab; Comet image: ESA/Rosetta/Navcam

The Rosetta lander detects organic matter: the seeds of life?

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

Scientists working with data sent back by the now-slumbering Philae lander have announced the discovery of organic molecules on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Finding organic compounds on 67P’s surface…
Artist’s impression of exocomets around Beta Pictoris. ESO/L. Calçada

Comet families similar to our own are found around another star

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute

A detailed study of comets orbiting the young nearby star Beta Pictoris is published today in the journal Nature, and it reveals striking similarities to the comets found in our solar system. Over the…
Responsible reading involves the simultaneous interaction with the text and with so-called real life. AAP Image/Daniel Munoz

The Man Booker and Nobel judges are right: novels can do us good

Jessica Gildersleeve, University of Southern Queensland

October is the biggest month of the year for those in the literary world. This year, the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Patrick Modiano and the Man Booker Prize, to Richard Flanagan for The Narrow…
Meteors streak outwards from the top of Orion’s head as seen in 2012 from central Victoria. Phil Hart

See one of the year’s best meteor showers, thanks to Halley’s comet

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute

As Earth orbits the sun, it continually ploughs through dust and debris left behind by passing comets and asteroids. On any night of the year, a keen-eyed observer might see five, or even ten, meteors…
The last time the Wallabies played the Argentina Pumas they lost – was an incomprehensible national anthem part of the problem? AAP Image/ Dave Hunt

Want to win? Let music give you the edge

Peter Terry, University of Southern Queensland

Let’s hope the Wallabies are inspired by a rousing rendition of the national anthem as they prepare to face their old enemy the All Black’s at tomorrow’s Bledisloe Cup match. The Kiwis invariably come…

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