The Neolithic Revolution introduced a whole range of new foods and proteins into the human digestive tract. But this phenomenal change created the perfect conditions for the rise of coeliac disease.
While…
New guidelines based on best practice for treating sepsis are now available for nurses.
University of Salford
Sepsis is extremely common and accounts for as many deaths as heart attack each year. Recently published guidelines summarise the most up-to-date method of caring for these patients, giving hope for improved…
Systematic reviews help consumers, practitioners and policy makers identify what works.
Kenny Holston 21/Flickr
We work at the Australasian Cochrane Centre and we dread being asked what we do for a living. This isn’t because we don’t like what we do, in fact we love it. It’s because when we explain that our job…
Muhammed Ali, Michael J Fox, former pope John Paul II and Yasser Arafat all suffered from Parkinson's disease.
Ali by Ludie Cochrane/Flickr; all others AAP.
Parkinson’s disease was not always known by this name. Almost 200 years ago in 1817, when English doctor James Parkinson first described the disease, he called it Shaking Palsy. But Parkinson’s disease…
There's more to gravity than apples falling from trees.
Cea
I have spent almost 40 years trying to detect gravity waves.
When I started there were just a few of us working away in university labs. Today 1,000 physicists working with billion-dollar observatories…
Tony Abbott says the end is near for the government, but can he bring it down?
AAP/Alan Porritt
After declaring the Gillard government was entering its “endgame”, opposition leader Tony Abbott is believed to be preparing to table a motion of no confidence.
Since Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie…
When it comes to being "fortunate", context is king.
kaibara87
Some people seem born lucky. Everything they touch turns to gold. Others are dogged by misfortune.
It’s not just people who might be lucky or unlucky – it can be single acts. When the ball hits a post…
It depends on the drug, how it's been stored and whether the pack has been opened.
saveas new
It’s late in the night. And after a long day at work, you have a splitting headache. You rattle around in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity to find a packet of paracetamol tablets you know are hiding…
In 2009, more than 190 whales and dolphins stranded themselves on King Island.
AAP
Whales are a highly specialised group of mammals which left their terrestrial ancestors for the ocean about 50 million years ago. They have become so well adapted to the marine environment that they can…
High pollen counts, warm weather and storms are the perfect conditions for thunderstorm asthma.
Brandon LLW
If you suffer from itchy eyes, a runny nose, headaches and excessive sneezing this time of year, you’re certainly not alone. Hay fever or allergic rhinitis is an allergic reaction to pollen and affects…
If you want to optimise scramjets you're going to need the rule of the jungle.
EPA/NSAS
My intention with this article is to give an intuitive and non-technical introduction to the field of evolutionary algorithms, particularly with regards to optimisation.
If I get you interested, I think…
Oil gets into the ocean in all sorts of ways, but oil spills are the most visible.
AAP
Responding to oil spills, like that in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, is a very complex, high pressure situation. Decisions must be made based on whatever data are available at the time.
One of the difficulties…
The GPS on your phone couldn’t work without General Relativity.
Jym Dyer
It’s the year 2100. You wake up alone in a small, windowless room. The only other thing in the room is a small ball. Maybe the room is located in your city, but maybe it’s inside that new spaceship everyone…
Climate models allow us to look at the planet's future climate.
Truthout.org
We know the climate is changing because that’s what climate models tell us. But what exactly is a climate model, and are they cutting-edge science or modelling madness?
What is a climate model?
Climate…
Bird flu transmission to humans is rare and hasn't occurred with this new strain.
AAP
The circulation of a new strain of the H5N1 avian flu virus from China and Vietnam has prompted calls from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN for health authorities to be ready for a possible…
How long's a piece of string? You may want to sit down for a minute.
Gnu2000
String theory entered the public arena in 1988 when a BBC radio series Desperately Seeking Superstrings was broadcast.
Thanks to good marketing and its inherently curious name and features, it’s now part…
Theoretical physics strives towards a (beautiful) description of everything.
Jinx!
The “traditional” beauty of theoretical physics is its equations. If we want to describe something, or the way something behaves, we can write down a relation between some properties we think that thing…
Trans fats are more harmful to your health than regular fats and should be avoided.
Flickr/Half alive
By Peter Clifton, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute
Trans fats – they’re in our chips, bakery goods, popcorn and cakes. We know we should avoid them, but what exactly are they, and why are they so bad for us?
First, let’s take a step back and look at how…
Standard & Poor's could still downgrade the US credit rating, despite the debt ceiling deal.
AAP
By Kevin Davis, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Washington lawmakers in the US House of Representatives have passed an agreement hammered out between Republican and Democrat leaders designed to avert a US debt default.
The move is a further step towards…
Alan Turing, through pure mathematics, laid the foundations for the modern computer.
Leo Reynolds
What is pure mathematics? What do pure mathematicians do? Why is pure mathematics important?
These are questions I’m often confronted with when people discover I do pure mathematics.
I always manage…
Ocean acidification is most acute in the polar regions.
Enzofloyd/flickr
Ocean acidification is often referred to as the “evil twin” of climate change.
Greenhouse gasses are doing more than just warming the globe. Increasing C0₂ levels are also changing the chemical make-up…
A growing number of academic institutions are building free online databases of their scholarly output. But publication in a big name academic journal still holds cachet for most academics.
Flickr/mandiberg
As the cost of accessing academic journal articles increases, a growing number of academic institutions are building publicly accessible databases of scholarly work.
But how much of a threat to the traditional…
Uncertainty about the US economy is driving investors back to the safe-haven metal.
AAP
The price of gold reached a record high of $US1607.01 an ounce on Tuesday as investors turn to the precious metal amid uncertain global economic conditions.
University of Western Australian Professor…
The Antarctic Treaty protects the continent from competing interests.
AAP
This year marks the 50th year of the Antarctic Treaty, a visionary document that for the first time set out a vision for an entire continent based on peace, science and co-operation.
So how does it hold…
In the frame: David Jones has fallen victim of slumping consumer confidence - but is it warranted?
Consumer confidence has fallen by 8.3% to its lowest level in two years, according to the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index.
The drop has been connected to speculation about the impact…
US Senator Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head but is said to be recovering well.
AAP
The human brain is often referred to as the most complex organ on the planet. It is responsible for an incalculable number of tasks, thoughts and functions every second of everyday of our lives.
The brain…
Sadly, survival of the fittest does not mean anyone will survive.
Kaptain Kobold
The theory of evolution encompasses the well established scientific view that organic life on our planet has changed over long periods of time and continues to change by a process known as natural selection…
Psammomys obesus or the Israeli sand rat provides an insight into how the thrifty gene hypothesis may work.
Tino Strauss
By Paul Zimmet, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute
In the last few decades, the number of people with diabetes has more than doubled globally, making the combination of type 2 diabetes and obesity (known as diabesity) the largest epidemic the world has…
Workers will see a percentage increase in their pay packet from today.
AAP/Greg Wood
Fair Work Australia’s annual wage determination takes effect today. Importantly, we’re set to see award wages rise not by a single dollar sum, as in the past, but by 3.4%.
This goes someway to addressing…
An emissions trading scheme and a carbon tax are not the same thing.
AAP
The proposed carbon pricing policy in Australia is now routinely referred to as a “carbon tax” by both government and opposition.
This is odd, because the proposed scheme is not actually a tax.
How does…
Synthetic cannabis, known commercially as Kronic, K2, Kaos or Spice, was designed to circumvent drug laws and give users a “legal high”. But Western Australia banned the product earlier this month and…
A QANTAS A380 Airbus, one of the last international flights to depart Sydney International Airport shortly before a 3pm suspension of flights in Sydney on Tuesday.
AAP
A volcanic ash cloud produced by Chile’s Puyehue volcanic eruption has circumnavigated the globe and floated over Australia twice, disrupting flights and leaving over 120,000 passengers stranded.
The…
Malaysian refugee activist Irene Fernandez protests outside the Australian embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
AAP
The Gillard government’s proposed “Malaysian solution” for dealing with asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat has come under considerable scrutiny.
Under the agreement Australia will send 800…
Without quantum mechanics, we would not have the transistor.
IvyMike/Flickr
This might surprise you, but there may be literally thousands, or even tens of thousands, of devices and components surrounding you right now that work because of our understanding of quantum physics…
We've got the time, if you've got the theory.
h.koppdelaney/Flickr
By now we’re used to the idea that the world has four dimensions: three spatial and one temporal. But what if there were a fifth dimension – what would that dimension look like, and how would it relate…
As yet we can only guess what the Higgs boson might look like.
DESY Zeuthen
Theoretical physics is full of mysteries and unknowns. In the case of some particles, we can predict their existence even if we can’t find them.
Such is the status of the Higgs boson. And yet detecting…
Manufacturers may be forced to accept profit margins will continue to narrow.
The Australian dollar has been striking new post-float highs against the US dollar in recent weeks, and according to a number of prominent market economists could reach US$1.10 before the end of this year…
Nanoparticles, as used in sunscreen, are readily absorbed by the body
Tony Bartlett/AAP
For the public, the jury is still out on nanotechnology – the media simultaneously extols its promise and warns of the potential calamity facing humanity.
But what is it? How does it work? Is it dangerous…
Viewed from afar, the Milky Way might appear similar to the galaxy known as NGC 7331.
R. Jay GaBany/NASA
Where are we within our galaxy? How did our galaxy form? How did it evolve over the aeons?
Astronomers have been asking these questions for the past century, and have recently begun discerning the answers…
Is the "Z-prime" lurking within a "jungle" of particles at the LHC?
Argonne National Laboratory
There’s nothing like an unexpected result to get physicists excited.
So in 2008, when some strange behaviour was detected from a rarely-produced particle known as the “top quark”, there was much interest…
Julia Gillard, with Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans, announcing the GST review in Perth on Wednesday.
AAP
Why has the Federal Government launched a review into the distribution of GST revenue among the states?
There are two reasons. One, there is a need for genuine reform in that the effective amount of GST…
Could neutrinos be responsible for the shape of the universe?
The Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Detector, Japan
Of all the known particles in our universe, neutrinos are perhaps the most elusive; their origins are mysterious, their purpose unknown and they are notoriously difficult to detect.
You’ll already know…
The NBN could give all Australians access to online services
iStockphoto
The big picture
Australia’s plan for a National Broadband Network (NBN) represents one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world at present.
The estimated $43 billion price tag has stirred…
