Australian researchers have developed and tested the world’s first quantum battery.
Their prototype is far from anything that will be a perspective power source in an EV or storage facility, but the experiment revealed some important directions for future research.
A theoretical concept since 2013, the prototype was charged wirelessly with a laser, one of the special properties that quantum mechanics in battery technology promises if it can be properly understood and harnessed.
Lead researcher Dr. James Quach of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency which led the study on the device, said it’s the first quantum battery ever made that performs a full charge-discharge cycle.
Dr. Quach explained that in society today, the larger the battery, the longer the charge time.
“That’s why your mobile phone takes about 30 minutes to charge and your electric car takes overnight to charge,” he said, adding that in contrast, “quantum batteries have this really peculiar property where the larger they are, the less time they take to charge.”
Less time really is an almost worthless descriptor in this case, because the prototype created by CSIRO was fully charged within a few quadrillionths of a second.
The problem is that the discharge rate was a few nanoseconds, which despite being 6 orders of magnitude longer, could be of no use to anyone now. Quach provided some interesting relative comparisons to help mere mortals conceptualize why this could be a world-changing innovation if improved.
If it takes 30 minutes to fully charge a mobile phone, and it too had a discharge rate equal to 6 orders of magnitude, that means it wouldn’t need to be recharged even after a decade of use.
“What we need to do next is… to increase the storage time,” Quach said, touching on this point. “You want your battery to hold charge longer than a few nanoseconds if you want to be able to talk to someone on a mobile phone.”
Additionally, the prototype doesn’t hold enough voltage to power anything substantial.
While this might all sound rather pointless, another, non-involved expert in the development of quantum batteries, University of Queensland Professor Andrew White, told the Guardian that the experiment was a huge success in getting the technology off the drawing board and into the real world for the first time.People would be far more likely to adopt EVs if they could be fully-charged in few seconds, even if their range was severely reduced. First Quantum Battery Prototype Marks Big Step for Technology Expected to Change the World
Sydney, (IANS) A diet high in salt may accelerate memory decline in men, Australian research reveals, highlighting the importance of dietary choices in supporting brain health.
The study found that higher sodium intake may impair episodic memory, which enables people to recall personal experiences and past events, such as where you parked your car or your first day of school, said a statement from Australia's Edith Cowan University (ECU) released Wednesday.
Measuring baseline sodium intake and cognitive decline of 1,208 participants over 72 months, researchers found that men with higher sodium intake experienced faster episodic memory decline, while no link was seen in women.
While sodium serves several physiological functions and is inextricably linked to the maintenance of the body, high sodium consumption has consistently been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and high blood pressure, according to the study published in Neurobiology of Ageing.
Lead researcher Samantha Gardener from ECU said that while the molecular mechanisms behind the process were not yet understood, it was thought that high sodium intake could contribute to inflammation in the brain, damage to blood vessels, and reduced blood flow to the brain.
Meanwhile, a recent Israeli study suggested that while memories themselves may fade, the explanations people give for why they remember events remain detailed and stable over time.
Researchers analysed the self-reported explanations of 421 participants using linguistic tools to track changes in content and detail. They found that while the ability to recall specific events declined over time, the depth and content of participants' justifications remained steady.
The frequency of these explanations and the types of words used were consistent, indicating they may serve as reliable markers of memory accuracy.
Subtle shifts in wording over time, however, suggest that a person's confidence in their memory may decrease as the event recedes into the past.The study, published in Communications Psychology, indicates that even when memories feel "fuzzy," the reasons people give for recalling them remain a relatively dependable way to assess their truthfulness. Still, legal and clinical professionals should note that confidence may waver, even if the justification itself remains strong. High-salt diet linked to faster memory decline in men: Study | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
On paper, Australia is a conservation success story.
Over the past 15 years, we’ve dedicated vast areas of land to conservation. Our primary goal has been to protect our unique plants, animals, and ecosystems. As a result, Australia now has one of the largest protected area estates in the world, covering roughly 22% of the country.
That’s an impressive achievement, and a significant step towards our goal of protecting 30% of Australia’s land by 2030.
But there’s a problem. Our new analysis shows we’re not protecting the places that matter most for Australia’s diverse wildlife and environments.
So what are we actually conserving? And what should change?
More land but no more protection
Our recent analysis of Australia’s network of protected areas shows, between 2010 and 2022, we’ve nearly doubled the amount of land under protection. Protected land refers to areas which are specifically set aside to conserve nature. However, this expansion has done little to help our most at-risk animals, plants, and ecosystems.
Our national list of threatened species, which identifies the plants and animals most at risk of extinction, illustrates this. Since 2010, we’ve only slightly increased the amount of protected land that’s home to threatened species. Based on our data, in that time this figure rose by an average of just 3%.
Worse still, 160 species have virtually no protection. That’s roughly 10% of our endangered species list. Many others species only have a very small amount of their habitat inside the fences of protected areas.
One example is the Margaret River burrowing crayfish, a critically endangered crayfish from Western Australia. Currently none of its two remaining habitats are protected.
And the Grey Range thick-billed grasswren, a bird endemic to New South Wales, is now critically endangered because of habitat loss and agriculture. However none of its habitat, found just north of Broken Hill, is formally protected.
Tragically, these are not exceptional cases. And they are exactly the plants and animals that protected areas are designed to protect.
The same is true for Australia’s ecosystems, which are geographic areas where plants and animals interact with their natural environment. Nationally, we have nearly 100 ecological communities which are listed as threatened. But in the last decade, we’ve only improved protection for a handful of these.
And some still have no protection. The critically endangered weeping myall woodlands in the Hunter Valley, Sydney’s blue gum high forest and the iron-grass natural temperate grassland of South Australia are just three examples.
So what’s gone wrong?
For decades, we’ve tended to protect land that is more remote and less productive. Our findings suggest this pattern is continuing today.
However, many of Australia’s at-risk plants, animals, and ecosystems are found in heavily modified landscapes. These include areas which have been cleared for agriculture or are close to towns and cities. But under current conservation models, we’re much less likely to protect these kinds of land.
As a result, we are expanding protected areas but not necessarily where they matter most.
Protected areas, such as Kakadu National Park, help safeguard endangered species. Liana Joseph/Author provided, CC BY-ND
To be clear, protecting some of these landscapes is incredibly valuable. This is especially true given the current and future impacts of climate change. And in Australia, we’ve done well to protect nearly half of intact ecosystems by including them in nature reserves.
But protecting intact ecosystems is just one piece of the conservation puzzle.
Getting our priorities right
Australia has committed to protect 30% of our lands and waters by 2030. This is known as the “30 by 30” target. We are also a leader in the so-called high ambition coalition of 124 countries which have pledged to meet this same target.
But to protect our biodiversity we need to focus on which land is protected, not just how much. A hectare in the wrong place will have little effect, while a hectare in the right place can be the bridge between survival and extinction.
So as Australia moves towards the “30 by 30” target, the key challenge will be ensuring we protect land strategically, not opportunistically.
The good news is, we now have the tools to do so. Australia has some of the best biodiversity data in the world. This is because the Australian government has invested in ecologists from around the country, allowing them to closely study endangered species.
However, what we’re missing is a commitment to use this information. So far, we’ve largely measured progress using one blunt metric: total area protected. This metric is easy to communicate but is dangerously misleading. It tells us very little about whether protected areas are in the right location or are being managed well.
If we’re serious about halting species extinctions within the next five years, we need to change course now. Here are three ways to do that.
urgently protect areas of highest biodiversity value, especially the habitats of species on the brink of extinction
Without this shift, we risk meeting our “30 by 30” target while failing to save our most threatened species and ecosystems. That would be a hollow victory.
Of the women found to have cancer, about 25% are diagnosed between the biennial screens. These “interval cancers” are often aggressive and, unfortunately, more likely to be fatal.
In some cases, a more sensitive screening test may have detected them earlier.
The role of AI
Australia’s BreastScreen program was established in response to several major clinical trials conducted between the 1960s and 1980s. The screening technology used by the program has not substantially changed since then.
Researchers are now exploring risk-adjusted screening, which tailors screening to women based on their risk, as a way to detect more cancers earlier. This may include programs offering different technologies for women at higher risk of developing breast cancer.
Currently, we generally assess cancer risk via questionnaires that help identify if a woman has any risk factors associated with breast cancer.
One risk factor is breast density which refers to how much glandular tissue is in the breast. As well as being a risk factor for breast cancer, the higher a woman’s breast density, the harder it is to detect cancer on a mammogram.
We can also use one-off genetic testing to identify women with a higher lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. This involves looking for high-risk gene mutations such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are associated with increased breast and ovarian cancer risk. Genetic testing can also help us estimate a person’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.
More recently, researchers have been investigating artificial intelligence (AI) as a new approach to assess breast cancer risk. A new Australian study, published in The Lancet Digital Health today, focused on a specific AI tool known as BRAIx.
What did the study involve? And what did it find?
This study used an AI tool, known as BRAIx, trained using BreastScreen Australia data to help radiologists assess mammograms.
The study assessed how well BRAIx predicted women’s risk of developing breast cancer in the next four years, among women who had a clear mammogram.
Of the 95,823 Australian women assessed, 1.1% (1,098) had developed breast cancer in the four years after they received a clear mammogram. Of the 4,430 Swedish women assessed, 6.9% had developed breast cancer within two years of a clear screen.
The study findings show that BRAIx scores were very useful for identifying women who were more likely to develop cancer one to two years after having a clear screen. Findings from the Australian dataset suggest BRAIx scores identified cancers found three to four years later, but with less accuracy.
These findings suggest BRAIx could help identify women who might benefit from additional tests. This may include an MRI (which uses a magnetic field to produce images of organs and tissue) or contrast-enhanced mammography (which uses an iodine dye to improve the visibility of a regular mammogram).
These findings reinforce a 2024 Swedish study that used an AI-based risk assessment to select women for additional testing. The researchers referred 7% of women to have a follow-up MRI, and 6.5% of were found to have cancers missed by mammograms.
Does the study have any limitations?
As with most studies, yes. Here are two.
it’s difficult to compare BRAIx to genetic testing. This is because BRAIx is trained to find missed or emerging cancers over a four year period. In contrast, genetic testing identifies a person’s risk of developing cancer over their lifetime
it might not use the best breast density data. This study found BRAIx more accurately predicts breast cancer risk compared to assessments based on breast density. But this breast density data was collected using a different tool to those used by the Breastscreen program. So this finding should be interpreted carefully.
So, where to from here?
The study adds to a growing body of evidence that AI risk assessment could help breast screening programs find cancers earlier.
BRAIx is now being trialled as part of the BreastScreen Victoria program, to help read mammograms. And other states are already using and evaluating different AI tools for reading mammograms.
So it may be time for Australia to conduct a national, independent review of these new tools. As part of a more risk-adjusted approach to breast screening, they could save lives.
Whether it’s enjoying a podcast, listening to music or chatting on the phone, many of us spend hours a day using our headphones. One 2017 study of 4,185 Australians showed they used headphones on average 47–88 hours a month.
Health advice about headphones tends to focus on how loud sounds might affect our hearing. For example, to avoid hearing loss, the World Health Organization advises people to keep the volume at below 60% their device’s maximum and to use devices that monitor sound exposure and limit volume.
But apart from sound, what else is going in our ears? Using headphones – particularly in-ear versions such as earbuds – blocks the ear canal and puts the skin in contact with any dirt or bacteria they may be carrying.
Here’s what you need to know about keeping your ears clean and safe.
First, let’s take a look at your ear
Over-ear headphones cover the entire external ear – the elastic cartilage covered by skin that’s shaped to trap soundwaves. In-ear headphones (as well as hearing aids) are shaped to fit and cover the entrance to the external ear canal, which is called the concha.
Sound vibrations travel through the ear canal – which is S-shaped and a few centimetres long – to reach your ear drum.
Deeper parts of the ear canal produce earwax and oils. These help keep your skin healthy, hydrated and less vulnerable to infection.
Tiny hairs in the ear canal also help regulate temperature and keep foreign debris out. These hairs and earwax help trap and move small particles, shed skin and bacteria out of the ear canal.
Earwax is the ear’s self-cleaning method and we only tend to notice it when there’s too much.
Excessive buildup can block your hearing or even clog the mesh of your earpods. But don’t try to dig earwax out of your ears yourself. If you’re concerned, speak to a pharmacist or GP for advice.
How headphones can affect the ear’s bacteria
Healthy ear canals host a range of non-harmful microbes – mainly bacteria, but fungi and viruses too. They compete for space and nutrients, and this diversity makes it trickier for any potential pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms) to take hold.
But wearing headphones (and other in-ear devices such as hearing aids or ear plugs) may upset the balance between “good” and “bad” bacteria.
One 2024 study compared bacteria in the external ear canals of 50 people who used hearing aids and 80 who didn’t. The researchers found hearing-aid users – whose external ear canals are blocked for extended periods – had fewer types of bacteria than those who didn’t.
Another 2025 study looked at how using headphones (including over-ear, in-ear and on-ear) affected fungi and bacteria in the ear canal. It found using headphones was linked to a greater risk of ear infections, especially if people shared them.
This may because wearing headphones – especially in-ear devices – makes the external ear canal hotter and more humid. Trapped moisture is especially likely if you exercise and sweat while wearing headphones.
Higher humidity increases your risk of ear infection and discharge, including pus.
Wearing in-ear devices such as hearing aids or headphones for extended periods can also interfere with the ear’s natural “self-cleaning” function, aided by earwax.
So, what should I do?
Most of us need – or like – to wear headphones in our day-to-day routines. But for good ear health, it’s important to give your ears a break.
Allow your ear canals to “breathe” at different points throughout the day so they’re not constantly blocked and growing humid and hot.
You could also try bone conduction headphones. These don’t block the ear canal, because they transmit sound through your skull directly into the inner ear, without needing to block the ear canal. These can be expensive though. And while they allow our ears to breathe, high-intensity vibrations (high volume) can still damage hearing, so as with all headphones caution is required.
Other tips
Clean your devices regularly
Recommendations range from once a week to daily to after a physical workout.
For example, you can wipe them with a cloth or use a soft-bristled children’s toothbrush dampened with mildly soapy water. Blot dry with a paper towel and allow a few hours of drying before recharging or reuse.
But it’s best to follow your manufacturer’s guidelines. And don’t forget to clean the case and the body of your earbuds too.
Don’t use headphones when sick
If you have an ear infection, avoid using earphones as they may increase the temperature and humidity in your ear and slow recovery.
Watch for symptoms
If your ears become itchy, red or have discharge, stop using in-ear devices and seek medical advice.
For decades, southern right whales have been celebrated as one of conservation’s success stories.
Once driven to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling, southern right whales slowly returned to Australian coastlines through the late 20th century. Their recovery reflected the power of international protection, marine sanctuaries and long-term science working together.
But our new research shows this success story is changing. We drew on more than 30 years of continuous shore-based monitoring of southern right whales in the Great Australian Bight, from within the Yalata Indigenous Protected Area in South Australia. We found clear evidence whales are having calves less often, with the average calving interval increasing for 3 to 4 years. This means the number of calves being born has slowed over the past decade.
This decline appears closely linked to climate-driven changes in the Southern Ocean — similar patterns are now being observed across the southern hemisphere.
More than 3 decades of photos
Our study analysed photo-identification data collected by researchers between 1991 and 2024 from a major calving area in the Great Australian Bight. Each whale is identified using its unique pattern of callosities — the hard patches of skin on its head that remain throughout its life.
This allows individual whales to be tracked across decades, providing rare insight into long-term population dynamics and how these change over time. Photo-identification is a globally accepted method used for whale population assessments. By tracking known individuals over time, researchers can directly measure their reproductive histories.
Long-term datasets like this are rare — and that is precisely what makes them so powerful. The Australian Right Whale Research Program at Flinders University is one of the longest continuous photo-identification studies of any whale species in the world. It has used the same methods over decades. In the context of climate change, where impacts often emerge slowly and unevenly, this long-term evidence is essential.
What we found
Since around 2015, female southern right whales have not given birth as often. These extended calving intervals mean fewer calves are being born overall, and this reduces population growth over time.
For a long-lived species that reproduces slowly, this matters. Small changes in reproductive rates impacts population growth. The slowdown in reproduction signals a shift away from the recovery seen in previous decades.
A signal from the south
The cause of this change is not immediately visible from Australia’s coastline. Southern right whales spend much of their lives feeding thousands of kilometres away in the Southern Ocean, where they rely on the cold, nutrient-rich waters created by Antarctic sea ice. These waters support krill and prey that are crucial for whales to build up the energy reserves they need for pregnancy and lactation.
Over the past decade, the ocean has warmed, the ice is melting and there have been dramatic shifts in food availability weather patterns. Our analysis shows longer calving intervals coincide with these environmental changes, suggesting the impacts of climate change on conditions in the Southern Ocean are linked to whales having fewer calves.
A global pattern emerges
Importantly, this is not just an Australian story.
Similar trends are being reported in southern right whale populations off South America and South Africa, where researchers have documented reduced calving rates, whales in poor condition and environmental changes.
Southern right whales are a sentinel species: animals whose health reflects broader changes in their environment. Our findings signal deeper disruption in ocean systems that also support fisheries, affect how the climate is regulated and influence marine plants, animals and other species.
Southern right whales are long-lived, reproduce slowly, and rely on energy-rich feeding grounds. This makes them particularly vulnerable to climate-driven changes in prey.
What needs to change?
Protecting the Southern Ocean and its increasingly vulnerable natural ecosystems demands urgent collective climate action. This must bridge disciplines, industries, governments and interconnected regions.
This action should include the expansion of sanctuaries across the migratory ranges of threatened species. It should also limit threats, such as whales being struck by ships, getting entangled in ropes and being exposed to noise pollution.
The future of southern right whales is likely to be closely tied to the management of krill harvesting and addressing climate change.
We need to listen — and act — while there is still time.
The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of research collaborators and all of the people involved in the long-term research program that make this work possible.
The deep sea is cold, dark and under immense pressure. Yet life has found a way to prevail there, in the form of some of Earth’s strangest creatures.
Since deep-sea critters have adapted to near darkness, their eyes are particularly unique – pitch-black and fearsome in dragonfish, enormous in giant squid, barrel-shaped in telescope fish. This helps them catch the remaining rays of sunlight penetrating to depth and see the faint glow of bioluminescence.
Deep-sea fishes, however, typically start life in shallower waters in the twilight zone of the ocean (roughly 50–200 metres deep). This is a safe refuge to feed on plankton and grow while avoiding becoming a snack for larger predators.
Our new study, published in Science Advances, shows deep-sea fish larvae have evolved a unique way to maximise their vision in this dusky environment – a finding that challenges scientific understanding of vertebrate vision.
The nightmare of seeing in the twilight zone
The vertebrate retina, located at the back of the eye, has two main types of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells: rod-shaped for dim light and cone-shaped for bright light.
The rods and cones slowly change position inside the retina when moving between dim and bright conditions, which is why you temporarily go blind when you flick on the light switch on your way to the bathroom at night.
While vertebrates that are active during the daytime and predominantly inhabit bright light environments favour cone-dominated vision, animals that live in dim conditions, such as the deep sea or caves, have lost or reduced their cone cells in favour of more rods.
However, vision in twilight is a bit of a nightmare – neither rods nor cones are working at their best. This raises the question of how some animals, such as larval deep-sea fishes, can overcome the limitations of the cone-and-rod retina not only to survive but even to thrive in twilight conditions.
Starting where the fish start
To understand how newly born deep-sea fishes see, we had to start where they do: in the twilight zone of the ocean.
We caught larval fish from the Red Sea using fine-meshed nets towed from near the surface to a depth of around 200m. This way we got hold of three different species – the lightfish (Vinciguerria mabahiss) and the hatchetfish (Maurolicus mucronatus), both members of the dragonfishes, and a member of the lanternfishes, the skinnycheek lanternfish (Benthosema pterotum). Next, we studied what their photoreceptor cells looked like on the outside and how they were wired on the inside.
First, we used high-resolution microscopy to examine the cells’ shape in great detail. Then we investigated retinal gene expression to identify which vision genes were activated as the fish grew. Finally, we got some experts in computational modelling of visual proteins on board to simulate which wavelengths of light these tiny fishes may perceive.
By combining all the approaches, we were able to piece together a picture of how these animals see their world. This sounds relatively simple, but working with deep-sea fishes is anything but easy.
While these animals are generally thought of as monsters of the deep, in reality, most reach only about the size of a thumb – even when fully grown. They are also very fragile and difficult to get.
Working with larval specimens that are only a few millimetres long is even more difficult. However, by leveraging support from the deep-sea research community, we were fortunate enough to combine specimens from multiple research expeditions to piece together an unusually complete picture of visual development in these elusive animals.
So, what did we discover?
For decades, scientists have thought that, as vertebrates grow, the development of their retina follows a predictable pattern: cones form first, then rods. But the deep-sea fish we studied do not follow this rule.
We found that, as larvae, they mostly use a mix-and-match type of hybrid photoreceptor. The cells they are using early on look like rods but use the molecular machinery of cones, making them rod-like cones.
In some of the species we studied, these hybrid cells were a temporary solution, replaced by “normal” rods as the fish grew and migrated into deeper, darker waters.
However, in the hatchetfish, which spends its whole life in twilight, the adults keep their rod-like cone cells throughout life, essentially building their entire visual system around this extra type of cell.
Our research shows this is not a minor tweak to the system. Instead, it represents a fundamentally different developmental pathway for vertebrate vision.
Biology doesn’t fit into neat boxes
So why bother with these hybrid cells?
It seems that to overcome the visual limitations of the twilight zone, rod-like cones offer the best of both worlds: the light-capturing ability of rods combined with the faster, less bright-light sensitive properties of cones. For a tiny fish trying to survive in the murky midwater, this could mean the difference between spotting dinner or becoming it.
For more than a century, biology textbooks have taught that vertebrate vision is built from two clearly defined cell types. Our findings show these tidy categories are much more blurred.
Deep-sea fish larvae combine features of both rods and cones into a single, highly specialised cell optimised for life in between light and darkness. In the murky depths of the ocean, deep-sea fish larvae have quietly rewritten the rules of how eyes can be built, and in doing so, remind us that biology rarely fits into neat boxes.
For flowering plants, reproduction is a question of the birds and the bees. Attracting the right pollinator can be a matter of survival – and new research shows how flowers do it is more intriguing than anyone realised, and might even involve a little bit of magic.
In our new paper, published in Current Biology, we discuss how a single “magic” trait of some flowering plants simultaneously camouflages them from bees and makes them stand out brightly to birds.
How animals see
We humans typically have three types of light receptors in our eyes, which enable our rich sense of colours.
These are cells sensitive to blue, green or red light. From the input from these cells, the brain generates many colours including yellow via what is called colour opponent processing.
The way colour opponent processing works is that different sensed colours are processed by the brain in opposition. For example, we see some signals as red and some as green – but never a colour in between.
Bees see their world using cells that sense ultraviolet, blue and green light, while birds have a fourth type sensitive to red light as well.
Our colour perception illustrated with the spectral bar is different to bees that are sensitive to UV, blue and green, or birds with four colour photoreceptors including red sensitivity. Adrian Dyer & Klaus Lunau, CC BY
The problem flowering plants face
So what do these differences in colour vision have to do with plants, genetics and magic?
Flowers need to attract pollinators of the right size, so their pollen ends up on the correct part of an animal’s body so it’s efficiently flown to another flower to enable pollination.
Accordingly, birds tend to visit larger flowers. These flowers in turn need to provide large volumes of nectar for the hungry foragers.
But when large amounts of sweet-tasting nectar are on offer, there’s a risk bees will come along to feast on it – and in the process, collect valuable pollen. And this is a problem because bees are not the right size to efficiently transfer pollen between larger flowers.
Flowers “signal” to pollinators with bright colours and patterns – but these plants need a signal that will attract birds without drawing the attention of bees.
A walk through nature lets us see with our own eyes that most red flowers are visited by birds, rather than bees. So bird-pollinated flowers have successfully made the transition. Two different theories have been developed that may explain what we observe.
One theory is the bee avoidance hypotheses where bird pollinated flowers just use a colour that is hard for bees to see.
In evolutionary science, the term magic trait refers to an evolved solution where one genetic modification may yield fitness benefits in multiple ways.
Earlier this month, a team working on how this might apply to flowering plants showed that a gene that modulates UV-absorbing pigments in flower petals can indeed have multiple benefits. This is because of how bees and birds view colour signals differently.
Bee-pollinated flowers come in a diverse range of colours. Bees even pollinate some plants with red flowers. But these flowers tend to also reflect a lot of UV, which helps bees find them.
The magic gene has the effect of reducing the amount of UV light reflected from the petal, making flowers harder for bees to see. But (and this is where the magic comes in) reducing UV reflection from a petal of a red flower simultaneously makes it look redder for animals – such as birds – which are believed to have a colour opponent system.
Red flowers look similar for humans, but as flowers evolved for bird vision a genetic change down-regulates UV reflection, making flowers more colourful for birds and less visible to bees. Adrian Dyer & Klaus Lunau, CC BY
Birds that visit these bright red flowers gain rewards – and with experience, they learn to go repeatedly to the red flowers.
One small gene change for colour signalling in the UV yields multiple beneficial outcomes by avoiding bees and displaying enhanced colours to entice multiple visits from birds.
We lucky humans are fortunate that our red perception can also see the result of this clever little trick of nature to produce beautiful red flower colours. So on your next walk on a nice day, take a minute to view one of nature’s great experiments on finding a clever solution to a complex problem.
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo joey – SWNS / Chester Zoo
Amazing “pouch cam” images provide a rare glimpse into the hidden world of an endangered baby kangaroo after he was born the size of a jellybean at a UK zoo.
Experts say the special arrival marks a major conservation milestone for one of the world’s most threatened marsupials—the endangered Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo.
Keepers at the Chester Zoo monitored the pouch-cam between October and December watching the joey’s development inside the kangaroo’s pouch, allowing them to identify it as a healthy male.
The joey arrived to its parents Kitawa and Kayjo, thanks to an international conservation breeding program aimed at ensuring the future survival of the species.
The zoo says the pouch footage (which may be too graphic for some) and the team’s findings are expected to provide valuable insight for similar initiatives worldwide.
“When people think of kangaroos, they rarely imagine small, fluffy animals living high in the treetops,” said Matthew Lloyd, the tree kangaroo expert at the zoo.
“With so little known about tree kangaroos, Kitawa’s joey is a particularly special arrival, and represents a major step forward in understanding and protecting this remarkable species.”
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo with baby joey – SWNS / Chester Zoo
“Being able to carefully track this joey’s development inside the pouch using tiny cameras wasn’t possible only a few years ago, and it’s already helped us learn more crucial information about the early stages of life inside the pouch—knowledge that can now support, and hopefully speed up, our conservation breeding efforts globally.”
Baby Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo via pouch cam – SWNS / Chester Zoo
The zoo further captured the first few months of the joey, which now weighs 4 pounds (1.85kg), using tiny endoscopic cameras, offering a rare and fascinating insight into the species.
It’s just the second time experts have bred the species at the Chester Zoo, with only two zoos in the UK currently caring for the rare animals.
Scientists helped pinpoint the best time for the two kangaroos to be paired by using hormone monitoring, carried out in the zoo’s on-site science laboratory,
the only facility of its kind at a zoo in Europe.
“Every birth like this is incredibly important,” said David White, team manager at Chester Zoo. “It’s been a real team effort. Everything we’ve learned so far will help conservationists around the world.”
What Makes Tree Kangaroos Special
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi) is native to the forests of Papua New Guinea, an island nation north of Australia
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo – SWNS / Chester Zoo
Unlike many other kangaroo species, they are mostly solitary animals, spending much of their time resting or sleeping in trees for up to 16 hours a day—but they often sleep head-down, a position that helps rain run off their fur.
Their joeys weigh just 2–3 grams at birth (about the size of a jellybean). The
newborns make a remarkable climb from the mother’s belly into the pouch shortly after birth—and remain there, suckling and developing, for around seven months before venturing out.
Forest loss and degradation caused by human activity, and a slow reproduction rate, makes populations particularly vulnerable to decline.
Only around 20-25 zoos are caring for or breeding Goodfellow’s tree kangaroos worldwide, usually a single pair, to maintain genetic diversity in a global effort to help the adorable species endure.“We don’t have a name for the little one just yet, but our choice will be influenced by communities in Papua New Guinea who live alongside tree kangaroos and are now part of efforts to protect their forest homes.” Tiny ‘Pouch-Cam’ Provides Rare Glimpse of Endangered Tree Kangaroo Developing Inside its Mother (LOOK)
Sydney, (IANS): Researchers in Australia are developing next-generation nanoparticles to supercharge current treatments for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) -- one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of the disease.
The researchers are designing innovative iron-based nanoparticles, or "nano-adjuvants," small enough to fit thousands on a single strand of hair, to strengthen the body's immune response against TNBC, according to the University of Queensland's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Unlike other breast cancers, TNBC lacks the proteins targeted by some of the conventional treatments used against other cancers, making effective therapy a significant challenge, according to Prof. Yu Chengzhong from the AIBN.
"Despite the promise of immunotherapy, its effectiveness against triple-negative breast cancer is extremely limited, which is leaving too many women without options -- and that's what our research is trying to change," Yu said.
The nanoparticles are designed to enhance the activity of T-cells, the white blood cells used by the immune system to fight disease, within the tumour microenvironment, improving the immune system's ability to recognise and attack cancer cells, according to Yu.
Supported by a 3 million Australian dollar ($1.89 million) National Health and Medical Research Council grant, the five-year research project aims to bridge a critical treatment gap, and could pave the way for clinical applications, not only for TNBC but also for other hard-to-treat cancers like ovarian cancer.
With over two decades of experience in nanotechnology and nanomedicine, Yu hopes this breakthrough will transform cancer treatment by making immunotherapy more effective for patients with aggressive solid tumours."This research will push the boundaries of science to find innovative treatments that change the way we fight this cancer, offering hope for women facing devastating outcomes," said AIBN Director Alan Rowan. Nanotechnology breakthrough may boost treatment for aggressive breast cancer: Study | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
As Earth continues to warm, Australia faces some important decisions.
For example, where should we place solar and wind energy infrastructure to reliably supply Australians with electricity? How can we secure our food production and freshwater supply? Should we invest in bigger dams to increase our resilience to drought, or better flood mitigation to manage more intense rainfall?
Deciding on the best path forward depends on having reliable and detailed information about about how wind, water and sunlight will behave in our future. This information is provided by climate models, large computer simulations of Earth that are based on the fundamental laws of physics and contain everything from the Sun’s radiation, the carbon cycle and clouds to the ocean circulation in mathematical equations.
Running these models requires the most powerful computers available – also known as supercomputers – as well as large amounts of space to store the model results for use by governments, businesses and scientists alike.
But right now, Australia’s supercomputers are falling behind the rest of the world – and this constitutes a serious risk to our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
What is a supercomputer?
What makes a computer a supercomputer is its computing size and as a result, its ability to perform a huge number of calculations in a very short time.
Australia has two main national supercomputers for research: Gadi and Setonix.
Gadi, located at the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University in Canberra, is the main machine used in climate computing in Australia. It contains a vast number of computer chips known as central processing units (CPUs) and graphical processing units (GPUs). It has more than 250,000 CPUs and 640 GPUs. It is the CPUs that have made Gadi the Australian climate computer of choice.
Compare this with my humble Macbook Pro M3, which effectively sports 11 CPUs and 12 GPUs, and you understand why Gadi is called a supercomputer.
There has always been a strong connection between supercomputing and climate modelling, with climate models steadily improving as scientists access bigger and better supercomputers.
The secret lies in being able to divide Earth into finer and finer pieces and adding more of the important processes that affect our weather and climate. Both enhance the reliability of the model results.
While most climate models divide Earth into a grid of squares roughly 100km in size, the most advanced global climate models today simulate the behaviour of Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land and ice using a grid of only a few kilometres. It’s like going from a grainy black and white television to an ultra high-definition one.
Doing so requires the most advanced supercomputers. These include LUMI in Europe and the Frontier machine in the United States.
These big machines aren’t just tools for climate scientists. They also underpin the operational delivery of climate information to all sectors of society safeguarding property and lives in the process.
A kilometre-scale climate modelling system for societal applications has just been developed in the European Union. Known as the “Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin”, it represents a major leap forward in our understanding of how climate change will impact Earth – and our ability to respond to it.
How does Australia stack up globally?
So how does Australia stack up in the quest to have a supercomputer that can produce the best climate information possible to future-proof our nation?
The Gadi supercomputer is currently ranked 179th in the world. It was in 24th position in 2020, when it was introduced.
For comparison, the Frontier supercomputer is ranked 2nd. The LUMI supercomputer is ranked 9th. Topping the list is El Capitan supercomputer in the US.
This is roughly two-thirds of the funding it received for its previous upgrade in 2019, and will only lead to a moderate increase in our climate computing abilities – well behind the rest of the world.
A major disadvantage
This puts Australia at a major disadvantage when it comes to planning for the future.
But why can’t we just use the more advanced models and supercomputers developed elsewhere?
First, apart from our own ACCESS global model, all climate models are built in the Northern Hemisphere. This means they are calibrated to do well there, with limited attention paid to our region.
Second, making good decisions about Australia’s future requires us to be self-sufficient when it comes to simulating the climate system using scenarios defined by us and relevant to our region.
In short, good decisions on our future require self-sufficiency in climate modelling. We actually have the software (the ACCESS model itself) to this, but the current and planned supercomputing and data infrastructure to run it on is simply outdated.
An ambitious solution
Learning lessons from the international community, it is time to think big and integrate the power of existing climate modelling with the emerging abilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to build a “digital twin” of Australia.
With weather and climate at its heart, the digital twin can enable directly integrated new major features of Australia such as its ecosystems, cities and energy and transport systems.
The cost of such a facility and the research and operational need to enable it is large. But the cost of poor decisions based on outdated information could be even higher.
Melbourne, November 10 (IANS): Researchers in Australia have led a first-in-human trial for a breakthrough gene-editing therapy that halves bad cholesterol and triglycerides in people with difficult-to-treat lipid disorders.
The trial tested CTX310, a one-time CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing therapy that uses fat-based particles to carry CRISPR editing tools into the liver, switching off the ANGPTL3 gene. Turning off this gene lowers LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides, two blood fats linked to heart disease, according to a statement released Monday by Australia's Monash University.
The Victorian Heart Hospital, operated by Monash Health in partnership with Monash University, treated three of 15 patients aged 18-75 years with difficult-to-treat lipid disorders in phase 1 of the global trial conducted across Australia, New Zealand, and Britain, the statement said, Xinhua news agency reported.
At the highest dose, a single-course treatment with CTX310 resulted in a mean reduction of LDL cholesterol by 50 per cent and triglycerides by 55 per cent, remaining low for at least 60 days after two weeks of treatment, it said, adding LDL cholesterol and triglycerides were reduced by nearly 60 per cent among all participants with various doses, with only mild, short-term side effects reported.
Importantly, CTX310 is the first therapy to achieve large reductions in both LDL cholesterol and triglycerides at the same time, marking a potential breakthrough for people with mixed lipid disorders who have elevations in both, according to the trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"The possibility of a single-course treatment with lasting effects could be a major step in how we prevent heart disease," said Stephen Nicholls, Director of the Victorian Heart Hospital, and study lead investigator."It makes treatment easier, reduces ongoing costs, relieves pressure on the health system, all while improving a person's quality of life," Nicholls said, emphasising plans to focus on larger and more diverse patient populations in future trials of CTX310. Australia leads first human trial of one-time gene editing therapy to halve bad cholesterol | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
New Delhi, (IANS): Researchers in Australia have found that Parkinson's disease causes significant and progressive changes in the brain's blood vessels, changing the understanding of the disease.
While Parkinson's disease is characterised by alpha-synuclein protein deposits, the research demonstrated that region-specific changes to blood vessels in the brain underlie disease progression, Xinhua news agency reported.
"Traditionally, Parkinson's researchers have focused on protein accumulation and neuronal loss, but we have shown the impacts on our cerebrovasculature -- the blood vessels in our brain," said Derya Dik, postdoctoral student at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA).
"Our research identified region-specific changes in the brain's blood vessels, including an increased presence of string vessels, which are non-functional remnants of capillaries," Dik added.
NeuRA researchers, in collaboration with the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney, also observed changes relating to how blood flows in the brain and how the blood-brain barrier operates.
The findings, published in the journal Brain, may also help open up new treatment avenues.
Researchers believe that targeting these progressive, region-specific changes may be able to slow disease progression and improve outcomes for patients suffering from Parkinson's disease.
In addition to exploring what these findings mean for people with Parkinson's disease, the researchers are considering impacts for other neurodegenerative disorders.
"We are now investigating whether similar cerebrovascular changes are present in post-mortem brain tissue from individuals with Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies tissue," Dik said."This study may lead to new treatment options for people with Parkinson's disease, but we also want to better understand the contribution of vascular pathology in these other neurodegenerative disorders and explore whether this can reveal new targets for therapies and treatments for people with those conditions also," the researcher said. Parkinson's disease causes progressive changes in brain's blood vessels: Study | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
Climate change is the biggest issue of our time. 2024 marked both the hottest year on record and the highest levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the past two million years.
Global warming increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, bushfires, floods and droughts. These are already affecting young people, who will experience the challenges for more of their lives than older people.
It will also adversely affect those not yet born, creating a crisis of intergenerational justice.
Caught in the changing climate
In 2025, children and young people comprise a third of Australia’s population.
Given their early stage of physiological and cognitive development, children are more vulnerable to climate disasters such as crop failures, river floods and drought.
They are also less able to protect themselves from the associated trauma than most older people.
Under current emissions trajectories, United Nations research warns every child in Australia could be subject to more than four heatwaves a year. It’s estimated more than two million Australian children could be living in areas where heatwaves will last longer than four days.
A recent report found more than one million children and young people in Australia experience a climate disaster or extreme weather event in an “average year”.
Those in remote areas, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous children are more likely to be negatively effected. That’s equivalent to one in six children, and numbers are rising.
Anxiety, frustration and fear
The impact of climate change on young people’s health and wellbeing is also significant. Globally, young people bear the greatest psychological burden associated with the impacts of climate change.
Feelings such as frustration, fear and anxiety related to climate change are compounded by the experience of extreme weather events and associated health impacts.
Intergenerational inequality is the term on the lips of policymakers in Canberra and beyond. In this four-part series, we’ve asked leading experts what’s making younger generations worse off and how policy could help fix it.
For young people who live through climate-related disasters, they may experience challenges with education, displacement, housing insecurity and financial difficulties.
All these come on top of other issues. These include increased socioeconomic inequality, rising child poverty, mounting education debt, precarious employment, and lack of access to affordable housing.
Some key policy figures understand how climate change is turbo-charging intergenerational unfairness.
Former treasury secretary Ken Henry described the situation as an “intergenerational tragedy”, referring to the ways Australian policymakers are failing to address the changing climate, among other crucial issues.
Even Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged “intergenerational fairness is one of the defining principles of our country”.
Climate change was barely mentioned in the May 2025 federal election. The major parties largely avoided the subject.
It was also concerning that the first major decision of the newly reelected Albanese government was approving an extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project off Western Australia until 2070.
This leaves a legacy to young people of an additional 87 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year for many years to come.
Raising young voices
Australia’s children and young people are not stupid. Many worked out early that they could not trust governments.
Since 2018, young people have mobilised hundreds of thousands of other children in protests calling for climate action.
Domestically, many young people have turned to strategic climate litigation and collaboration with members of parliament on legislative change. They argue governments have a legal duty of care to prevent the harms of climate change.
Thwarted attempts
Beyond accelerating implementation of the National Adaptation Plan, other legislative innovations will help.
In 2023, young people worked with independent Senator David Pocock to draft legislation addressing these concerns.
This bill required governments to consider the health and wellbeing of children and future generations when deciding on projects that could exacerbate climate change.
It was sent to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. While all but one of 403 public submissions to the committee supported the bill, in June 2024 the Labor and Coalition members agreed to reject it. They argued it was difficult to quantify notions such as “wellbeing” or “material risk”.
Adding insult to injury, both major parties claimed Australia already had more than adequate environmental laws in place to protect children.
Turning around the Titanic
The Australian parliament may have another opportunity to embed a legislative duty to protect children and secure intergenerational justice. Independent MP Sophie Scamps introduced the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill in February 2025. As legislation brought before the parliament lapses once an election is called, Scamps is planning to reintroduce the bill in this sitting term.
The bill would introduce a legislative framework to embed the wellbeing of future generations into decision making processes. It would also establish a positive duty and create an independent commissioner for future generations to advocate for Australia’s long-term interests and sustainable practice.
While this bill does not include penalties for breaches of the duty, if passed, it would force the government of the day to consider the rights and interests of current and future generations.
If nothing else, the Welsh experiment suggests we can take entirely practical steps to promote intergenerational justice, reduce the negative impacts of climate change on young people right now and avert a climate catastrophe threatening our children who are yet to be born.
It may feel like turning around the Titanic, but it must be done.
Protected areas, such as Kakadu National Park, help safeguard endangered species. Liana Joseph/Author provided, 
Most red flowers are visited by birds, rather than bees. 
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo joey – SWNS / Chester Zoo
Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo with baby joey – SWNS / Chester Zoo
