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Fiddler crabs offer safe sex for favours
Wednesday 4 November 2009. ANU Media Release
Male Fiddler Crabs will quite happily protect a female neighbour,
but do so partly in exchange for sex, according to a new study. |
Related publications:
ABC Science Female crabs 'exchange sex for protection'
ABC News in Science Love thy neighbour even if he's crabby |
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Drought
tolerant plant gene discovered
Monday 2 November 2009. ANU Media Release
An international group of plant scientists, led by Dr Gonzalo Estavillo
and Professor Barry Pogson at The Australian National University have discovered
a subtle mutation in Arabidopsis, a small, rapid growing plant, which may have
important and far reaching implications for establishing drought resistance
throughout the plant kingdom. |
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Australasian Science Prize
Thursday 29 September 2009. ANU Media
Dr Michael Roderick from the ANU Research School of Biology
and the Research School of Earth Sciences, was awarded the 2009 Australasian
Science Prize for climate change research into water evaporation rates
in Australia and around the world.
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Related publications:
ANU Media Future
rainfall atlas created |
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Australian Learning and
Teaching Council Award
Thursday 29 September 2009. CEDAM ALTC.
Dr Gwen Allison (and colleagues from the ANU Medical School) have won an ALTC award for “Programs
that Enhance Learning” for
the Medical School Research Projects Initiative. |
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Discovery to help stem malaria's drug defiance Friday 25 September 2009. ANU Media Release.
The discovery of exactly how the malaria parasite resists the effects
of the drug chloroquine could lead to a resurgence in the use of this
one-time 'wonder drug' to combat the global malaria problem. |
Journal article:
Science 25 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5948, pp. 1680 - 1682
Chloroquine Transport via the Malaria Parasite's Chloroquine Resistance
Transporter
Related publications:
ABC Science
Malaria drugs may get new lease of life |
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Echidnas had recent amphibious ancestor
Tuesday 22 September 2009. ANU Media Release.
Only 30 million years ago Australian and New Guinean echidnas had
an amphibious, platypus-like ancestor, according to a new study. The
results of the study are published in this week's Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.
|
Journal article:
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci USA.
Molecules, morphology and ecology indicate
a recent, amphibious origin for echidnas.
Related publications:
ABC Science Echidna
ancestors swam with platypuses |
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Female fish agree bigger is better; human research may be next
Thursday, 17 September. 2009. Source: smh.com.au,
Richard Marcey.
SIZE may matter, Australian scientists have found. In possibly
the first study of its kind, Australian National University biologists
found that female mosquito fish prefer males with large genitals. |
Journal article:
Biology Letters. Females prefer to associate with males with longer intromittent organs in mosquitofish |
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Pigeon
Wings Sound the Alarm
Wednesday, 2 September. 2009. Science
NOW Daily News, Michael Torrice.
When birds make noise, it's not always with their throats. In hummingbirds
and manikins, for example, special feathers flutter and vibrate to produce
tones and whistles, which impress potential mates and scare off competitors.
Now researchers have found that pigeons use wing noise to warn the flock
about approaching enemies--the first example of a nonvocalized alarm call
in birds. |
Journal article:
Proc. R. Soc. B Flights
of fear: a mechanical wing whistle sounds
the alarm in a flocking bird
Related publications:
BBC News Pigeons' wings sound the alarm
Audio file:
A pigeon’s normal,
leisurely takeoff, and the alarm whistle,
louder and faster. (Hear both, in order, here.) |
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ARC Future Fellowship Success
Monday, 31 August, 2009. Source: RSB Newsletter.
The Research School of Biology has enjoyed spectacular success in the
inaugural ARC Future Fellowship round. Five of the twenty-one Fellowships
awarded to ANU were from the Research School of Biological Sciences:
Owen Atkin, Lindell Bromham, Warwick Hillier, John Rathjen, and Spencer
Whitney. |
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Move over mum - reptile nest
sharing common
Monday, 31 August, 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
Reptiles are not known to be the most social of creatures. But when it comes
to laying eggs, female reptiles can be remarkably communal, often laying
their eggs in the nests of other females. A new study from The Australian
National University suggests that this out-of-character behaviour is more
common in reptiles than was previously thought. |
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Nanotubes help to solve desalination problem
Monday, 24 August, 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
A team of researchers from The Australian National University have discovered
a way to remove salt from seawater using nanotubes made from boron and nitrogen
atoms that will make the process up to five times faster. |
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Frog and reptile finder wins top accolade
Wednesday,19 August, 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
An ANU researcher whose discovery of an unknown tree frog species shed new light
on the relationship between hybridization and the evolution of new species won
a Eureka Prize. |
Related publications:
Australian Governement
[2009
ABRS Eureka Prize for Early Career Species Discovery]
Dr. Conrad Hoskin's profile |
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Coral genome
to be sequenced
Wednesday 12 August 2009 . Source: coralcoe.com.au
David Miller of James Cook University and Eldon Ball of ANU, the Research
School of Biiology, are leading a project to sequence a coral genome using
Illumina high throughput sequencing technology. Other members and former
members of the School involved in the project include David Hayward, Sylvain
Foret and Rob Saint (RSB). [...] |
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New H1N1 funding for ANU researchers
Thursday 9 July 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
ANU scholars have received more than $710,000 for H1N1 influenza research
in new funding from the Federal Government. The money from the National Health
and Medical Research Council will support projects including potential rapid
alert systems, tracking disease spread and limiting the diffusion of influenza.
Among the recipients is Dr Lisa Marie Alleva of the Research School of Biology.
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New leadership and professorial
appointments at ANU
Thursday, 7 May, 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
Professor Andrew Cockburn has been appointed Director of the recently-formed
ANU College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and Professor Kiaran
Kirk has been appointed Director of the ANU School of Biology. |
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ANU RSB women scientists
up with the best
Wednesday, 6 May, 2009. Source: ANU Media Release
ANU (specifically, RSB) has more women Fellows in the Australian Academy
of Science (AAS) than any other institution after an eco-physiologist
was elected to the ranks of the nation's top scientists. |
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‘Homebody' plants most common
in south: Scientists
Monday, 16 February, 2009. Source: ANU Media
Release
Southern plants rarely adapt to live in new habitats despite millions
of years of evolutionary diversification, according to an international
research team.
Scientists from Australia, New Zealand, South America, the USA and Switzerland
have studied the ancestry of 11,000 plant species from the Southern Hemisphere
in the most detailed analysis of flora evolution conducted in the [...]. |
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