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| Gift of the gab helps plants beat drought | Jan 12, 2012 | |
 Researchers from The Australian National University have discovered a new cellular communication process used by plants to respond to drought. |
The team, led by Dr Gonzalo Estavillo and Professor Barry Pogson in the ANU Research School of Biology, examined a small, rapid-growing plant called Arabidopsis, a relative of canola. |
Contact James Giggacher (phone 02 6125 7988 or 0416 249 241) Find out more... |
| Picky females prefer well-fed males | Jan 11, 2012 | |
 A good upbringing can make you more attractive to females – if you are a mosquitofish, that is.Researchers from The Australian National University have shown that female mosquitofish prefer males who had a solid nutritional upbringing, even if the males are superficially identical to their poorly-fed brothers. Their findings are published online today in Biology Letters. |
“Males similar in body size, but differing in developmental history, are not equally attractive to females,” said Andrew Kahn, the study’s lead author and a PhD candidate in the ANU Research School of Biology...[read more] |
Contact James Giggacher (phone 02 6125 7988) Find out more... |
| Fortunately for men, size doesn’t matter (much) | Jan 10, 2012 | |
 Researchers from The Australian National University have discovered that the male-specific Y-chromosome is shrinking – and it’s happening at different rates across species. |
The research team discovered that a marsupial’s Y-chromosome is genetically denser than the human Y-chromosome, meaning that animals like the tammar wallaby are bounds ahead on the ‘manliness’ scale. However, even though the Y-chromosome is shrinking, in this case size doesn’t matter. The international study, led by Dr Paul Waters from the ANU Research School of Biology...[read more] |
Contact James Giggacher, ANU Media (phone 02 6125 7988) Find out more... |
| Young minds experiment with a future career in science | Jan 05, 2012 | |
 Australia’s brightest young scientific minds have lit the Bunsen burner and flamed their passion for science at the 2012 National Youth Science Forum (NYSF), which kicked off at ANU this week. |
During the month of January more than 300 Year 11 students from around Australia are participating in a series of twelve-day workshops which give them hands-on experience of a career in science. Students from Germany, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand are also attending the forum. |
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| Hearing theory music to MP3 generation ears | Dec 01, 2011 | |
 The revival of a 150-year-old theory on how the human ear protects itself from damage caused by loud sounds could lead to better noise protection says a researcher from the Research School of Biology. |
Contact Dr Andrew Bell (phone 02 6125 5145) Find out more... | |
| Sex explains why the fit don't always survive | Nov 22, 2011 | |
 New research from The Australian National University has shown how genetic variation persists through generations, rather than being bred out in an evolution towards a ‘perfect type’. In an international collaboration, researchers from the Research School of Biology at ANU and colleagues from Finland and France carried out a combined field and theoretical study on the breeding behaviour of European bank voles - a small mouse-sized rodent common in Europe and Great Britain... |
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| 2011 Future fellowship success | Nov 15, 2011 | |
 In the recently-announced ARC Future Fellowship and DECRA (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award) Fellowship round The Research School of Biology has been awarded six Future Fellowships (from seven applications – an 86% success rate) and five DECRA Fellowships (from eleven applications – a 45% success rate). |
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| ARC Grant success | Nov 03, 2011 | |
 The Research School of Biology achieved a 52% success rate in the recently-announced ARC Discovery Grant round, as well as significant success in the ARC Linkage and LIEF Grant schemes. View the link for details of grant recipeints. |
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| NHMRC Grant success | Nov 03, 2011 | |
 NHMRC Grant successTwo members of the Research School of Biology's Division of Biomedical Science and Biochemistry have been awarded NHMRC Project grants to commence in 2012. |
Prof Ted Maddess: "Novel functional testing for early diabetic retinopathy" Dr David Tscharke: "Quantification of antigen presentation to CD8 T cells during virus infection" |
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| Researchers reveal baby-killer birds | Oct 24, 2011 | |
 The mysterious behaviour of female Eclectus parrots killing their sons immediately after they hatch has been unravelled by a team of researchers from the Australian National University. |
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| Microdots spot on for wasp study | Oct 13, 2011 | |
 New research by scientists at The Australian National University will see wasps being tracked in the same way as stolen cars – using specialist microdot technology. |
Contact Michael Whitehead (phone (02) 6125 4172 ) Find out more... | |
| New boulder frog discovered | Oct 07, 2011 | |
 Scientists have discovered two new species of boulder-dwelling frogs, hidden in remote areas of rainforest in north-east Queensland. |
Dr Conrad Hoskin, who did most of his research at The Australian National University, and Kieran Aland from the Queensland Museum, described the Kutini Boulder-frog (Cophixalus kulakula) and the Golden-capped Boulder-frog (Cophixalus pakayakulangun) in a recently published paper. |
Contact Dr Conrad Hoskin (phone (07) 4781 6048 or 0435 026 840) Find out more... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/two-new-species-of-frog-discovered/story-fn3dxity-1226160515069 http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1594489/New-frog-species-discovered |
| New appointments to RSB | Aug 23, 2011 | |
| RSB will soon have eight new groups. All six candidates recently offered continuing positions in RSB have either formally accepted the offer, or stated their intention to do so and will join us at the end of the year. Two more groups will be established early next year. |
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| Wrens eavesdrop on the neighbours | Aug 17, 2011 | |
 Superb fairy-wrens eavesdrop, learn to understand and react to the danger calls of other bird species that live nearby, according to new research published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. |
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| Laureate Fellowship to RSB | Aug 11, 2011 | |
 Professor Craig Moritz, currently Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded a Laureate Fellowship through the Research School of Biology. Craig will be based in the School’s Division of Evolution, Ecology and Genetics and he is to hold a joint appointment with CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences. He will take up the position in 2012. |
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| Scientists find new Australian frog | Jul 27, 2011 | |
 A new miniature frog species or ‘toadlet’ has been discovered in the resource-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia, an area previously thought to support very few of the amphibians. |
Contact Renee Catullo (phone 0406 620 261) Find out more... | |
| Monogamous queens help bees cooperate | Jul 21, 2011 | |
 New research published in Nature Communications online journal suggests that monogamy and close genetic relationships work together to enhance the cooperative social structure of insects such as bees, wasps and ants. |
Contact Hanna Kokko (phone 6125 4171 ) Find out more... | |
| Gonzalo Estavillo is to be awarded the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS) Teaching Award for 2011 | Jul 14, 2011 | |
 This annual award recognises excellence, innovation and contributions to teaching plant science at an undergraduate level, at an Australian intuition. |
The award will be presented at Combio2011 in Cairns later this year. |
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| Scientific sleuths solve puzzle of the seeds | Jul 06, 2011 | |
 A second-year biology course is getting students to swap the microscope for the magnifying glass to crack the case of mysterious mutant plants. |
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| Innovative teaching recognised | Jul 01, 2011 | |
 Two ANU staff and one teaching team from the College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment have been recognised in the 2011 Australian Teaching and Learning Council (ALTC) Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. |
ANU winners include Dr Christopher Fulton, for teaching in marine biology, Associate Professor Janette Lindsay, for teaching in climate change science and policy and the ‘plant detectives’ team in the Research School of Biology won an award for the innovative use of investigative science in an undergraduate course. |
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| Do steaks make you big? | Jun 16, 2011 | |
 Adjusting the intake of high protein foods like meat, eggs and milk products could determine whether you become a rugby player or marathon runner and may help you lose weight, according to new research published this month in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. |
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| Bees 'read sky' to find home | May 19, 2011 | |
 Bees remember landmarks and read information from the sky to find their way home from an amazing 11 kilometres away and over several days’ travel, a new study from The Australian National University shows. |
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| Swift unveiling of the secret lives of parrots | May 16, 2011 | |
 The secret lives of endangered swift parrots will be revealed in a new study using miniature GPS tracking devices.(Image credit: Geoffery Dabb) |
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| Babysitting birds gain from growing pains | May 02, 2011 | |
 The baffling question of why some animals help raise offspring which aren’t their own is closer to being answered, thanks to new research from The Australian National University. |
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| Blindness recovery in sight | Apr 27, 2011 | |
 Prospects for recovery of lost vision have brightened with the release of new scientific findings showing that the use of gentle near infra-red light can reverse damage caused by exposure to bright light, up to a month after treatment. |
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| Blurry-eyed beachcombers beat birds | Apr 15, 2011 | |
 A study from The Australian National University has revealed for the first time how an animal sees and responds to predatory attacks in its natural environment. |
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| TIPS paper in the Media | Mar 28, 2011 | |
 A paper on the phenotypic plasticity of plants, with authors from multiple groups in two of the Divisions in RSB together with their collaborators (Nicotra, AB, OK Atkin, SP Bonser, AM Davidson, EJ Finnegan, U Mathesius, P Poot, MD Purugganan, CL Richards, F Valladares & M van Kleunen (2010). “Plant phenotypic plasticity in a changing climate.” Trends in Plant Science 15(12): 684-92.) has been featured on a wide range of international media websites Science Daily, Alpha Galileo, e! Science News, Physorg, R&D magazine, Prometheus Wiki, and the Spanish Agency for Science and Innovation. |
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