One of Australia’s leading science academies is calling for an overhaul of the Murray Darling Basin’s governance system as part of a 50-year vision for Australia’s largest water region. The basin, which extends over a million square kilometres and crosses five sub-national borders, is governed by a series of water laws and 11 government bodies. Insert here the management context The current Australian government recently introduced amendments to how the system is managed and in February undertook the first buybacks of water entitlements at an estimated cost of $205m. The recent changes were m ..read more

New statistical analysis in the journal Geophysical Research Letters predicts the combined influences of rising global temperatures and El Niño could lead to extreme humid heat stress throughout tropical latitudes this summer.  The researchers concluded that the “strong‐to‐very‐strong El Niño” at the end of 2023 suggests an annual average maximum wet bulb temperature of 26.2°C, and a 68% chance of breaking existing records, in the tropics in 2024.  Their prediction is pitched at people living in the tropics, including the Pacific, Asia and Australia, as an “advanced warning.”   ..read more

“I nearly fell out of my chair,” says Danish archaeologist Freerk Oldenburger referring to the moment he realised he was looking at a small bronze portrait of Alexander the Great found in Denmark. Oldenburger added in his comments to Live Science that the piece “has the typical attributes of Alexander the Great, such as his distinct wavy hair and ram horns.” It was unearthed by metal detectors Finn Ibsen and Lars Danielsen who were conducting survey work in a field outside Ringsted, a city on the island of Zealand, 50km southwest of Denmark’s capital Copenhagen. The bronze fitting, known as a ..read more

A leading Australian oceanographer says Australia’s coastal cities, including Sydney, are “not viable” under high-end projections of future sea level rise from global warming. Professor Matthew England from the Centre for Marine Science & Innovation at the University of NSW, (UNSW) and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, says nobody “built up a city around the world’s coastlines expecting it to be gone in a couple of hundred years.” England says sea level rise could breach through five meters in a “couple of hundred years.” “That’s at the high end of th ..read more

An attempt to optimise optical fibre capabilities has led a team including a Silicon Valley start-up and scientists from Adelaide University to undertake some space manufacturing – with immediate success. Fibre optic communication converts an electrical signal into a pulse of light sent through a cable – usually a thin silica or glass tube.  Converting the pulse back to an electrical signal provides usable data. This optical cable reflects the light within the cable, maximising the signal transferred over long distances compared to copper wires. It is the backbone of global internet, tel ..read more

3D printed prototype “finger” with rigid bones and flexible flesh Engineers designing soft robotics or wearable devices often turn to elastomers – synthetic polymers that can be manufactured with a range of mechanical properties. But making elastomers that can be shaped into complex 3D structures that go from rigid to rubbery has been unfeasible until now. “Elastomers are usually cast so that their composition cannot be changed in all 3 dimensions over short length scales,” says Esther Amstad, head of the Soft Materials Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausann ..read more

They’re not just tall woody things, say plant scientists, who want the planet’s trees to be recast as far more expansive and complex organisms, amid the challenges of climate change. Environmental scientists have long forecast that living organisms will be tested by global warming and the ecological shifts that result from it, and trees are especially threatened. They are long-lived and, unlike animals, which can relocate to new territory, are fixed in position, so adaptation to changing climate largely needs to take place where they are. Yet a paper published by New Zealand, Australian and A ..read more

By Rudra Prasad Pradhan and Kalyani Yeola India’s Kerala state is famous for its languid beauty, laidback lifestyle and stunning beaches. But it’s what lies beneath that has the country’s nuclear industry excited. Kerala — ‘God’s Own Country’ — is also home to a massive amount of thorium. Indeed, India has the largest thorium deposits in the world, with the golden beaches of Odisha in eastern India also home to the prized mineral. Together, Kerala and Odisha account for over 70 percent of India’s thorium. India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DoAE) scientists consider thorium as a “practically ..read more

Farmers have been urged to get involved in discussions about their industry to “safeguard their futures.” The CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, has published the Ag2050 Scenarios Report, to try to identify what Australian farming will look like in 2050, with perhaps the most interesting development being the consolidation of what it describes as “…regional agricultural capitals.” Dr Katherine Wynn, CSIRO Futures’ Agriculture and Food Lead, says the report “should serve as a call to action for the agricultural sector.” “The decline in farm profitability over the last two decades is a ..read more

The 2023 film The Creator uses old footage of robots from the 1950s, and viewers probably don’t even notice. The film is directed by Gareth Edwards, the creator of Monsters, who claims his influences for film-making are George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino. The Creator is a film about “humanity v AI.” It includes a newsreel depicting an alternate development path for robots due to the earlier creation of AI. It uses a mixture of visual effect robots and footage of early attempts at robotics dating back to the 1950s. Here are a few of the incredible historic ..read more