Posts tagged as:

chemistry

Fire, carbon capture and the NT

20 June 2011

Soil has the answer to burning climate questions Decreasing the frequency of wild fires in northern Australia would lead to an increase in the amount of carbon stored in the soil, significantly lowering greenhouse gas emissions, according to CSIRO ecologist, Dr Anna Richards.

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Ultrasound puts water back in the Murray Darling…

12 July 2010

You may not be able to squeeze blood out of a stone but—by applying the right amount of ultrasound during processing—Jianhua (Jason) Du and colleagues from the University of South Australia have been able to squeeze a considerable amount of fresh water from mining waste.

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Nano-sand to improve lotions and cosmetics

5 July 2010

Longer shelf lives for creams and lotions, and better control over how and where the active ingredients they contain are released. Those are the potential benefits of using specially engineered nanoparticles—so small that about a thousand of them could fit across a human hair—to create the emulsions on which such cosmetic and therapeutic products are based, says Nasrin Eskander from the University of South Australia’s Ian Wark Research Institute.

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Insulin that doesn’t need a fridge or a needle?

12 June 2010

A young Monash University chemist and her colleagues have successfully strengthened insulin’s chemical structure without affecting its activity. Their new insulin won’t require refrigeration.

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Fool’s gold reveals the ancient evolution of life on earth

11 August 2009

‘Fool’s gold’ has tricked many amateur gold miners, but Queensland researchers have discovered it can reveal much about the early evolution of life on Earth. Three billion years ago the Earth couldn’t support life as we know it – the atmosphere was deadly to oxygen-breathing plants and animals. But two and half billion years ago [...]

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Not enough carbon to light the early Universe

21 June 2009

An international team of astronomers has discovered the oldest and most distant carbon in the Universe, but there’s not enough of it to support standard theories of how the Universe lit up, a member from Swinburne University of Technology has calculated. In the early Universe a dark pervasive fog of neutral hydrogen gas lurked everywhere. [...]

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The Scent of worms: first steps to a machine to smell parasites in sheep poo

27 August 2007

Doctoral student Jacqueline Burgess from La Trobe University has identified odour molecules associated with the small brown stomach worm.

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Australian orchids’ sneaky sex tricks: floral arms race seduces insects

20 August 2007

Australian orchids are engaged in an arms race, using sensory overload to seduce male insects.

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Re-inventing nature for cheaper solar power

29 August 2006

A research team in Sydney has created molecules that mimic those in plants which harvest light and power life on Earth.  

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Sound solution for soil pollution

21 August 2006

The cleaning power of sound waves on the back of a truck A young researcher in Sydney is cleaning up contaminated soil by blasting it with ultrasound. Andrea Sosa Pintos from CSIRO Industrial Physics has shown that toxic and carcinogenic pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), can be decomposed quickly, [...]

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Taking the Bull Out of the China Shop

14 August 2006

Research by a Perth forensic scientist is helping to stem the flood of forgeries entering the international antiques market. A Perth forensic scientist is employing lasers to help trace pottery back to the kiln site of its production, thus exposing ceramic forgeries, a multi-million dollar criminal business. Emma Bartle from the Centre for Forensic Science [...]

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More to droplets than meets the eye

8 August 2006

Salads, shampoos and mining to benefit from theoretical research into droplets How much effort does it take to understand the behaviour of oil droplets? A multi-disciplinary team of six researchers from the University of Melbourne has spent the best part of two years, and used $300,000 of equipment to crack the problem.

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Smart bomb for cancer therapy

31 August 2005

A new system for directing radiation to target cells has been developed in Melbourne. The new targeting system has the potential to specifically destroy cancer cells with minimal damage to healthy tissues. The new targeting concept, for which an international patent is pending, uses a special class of radioactive atoms for which the radiation damage [...]

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It’s life, but not as we know it

22 August 2005

Billion year old bacteria in NT rocks and bugs from outer space Researchers from the CSIRO, Sydney University and Colorado State University have developed a means of detecting signs of ancient microbes which may have lived on Earth or come from outer space. The group already has picked up signs of bacteria more than a [...]

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The fine art of stripping

22 August 2004

Careful chemistry has peeled back two layers of house paint to unveil a rich world of Victorian murals at Mandeville Hall-Loreto Girls School in Toorak. Called the Indian Room, the walls were decorated in the 1870s with paintings of lush green foliage and vegetation, bordered with red draperies and golden architectural detail. But for the [...]

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Cutting tools that last and last forever!

19 August 2003

Drills, knives and blades that can last 100 times longer than conventional steel could save manufacturing industries and companies millions of dollars lost each year from broken or blunt tools.

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