Tag Archives: science technology

The need for risk

May 20, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

In February 2015, at the Australian International Airshow in Avalon, Victoria, Professor Xinhua Wu unveiled the world’s first 3D-printed jet engine.

Wu is the head of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing (MCAM). The Centre, in collaboration with CSIRO, Deakin University and the University of Queensland, is leading initiatives to develop 3D printing and put Australia at the forefront of the global aerospace industry.

MCAM has partnered with French aerospace company Microturbo (Safran) whose work involves seeking out new manufacturing processes that make components lighter and cheaper than traditional ones, without reduction in performance. The two organisations pooled their expertise in additive manufacturing of metal to print two engines – one on display in Avalon and the other at Safran in Toulouse, France.

Bridging the gap between research and industry remains a goal for many nations, and the example of MCAM is a useful starting point for discussing the role universities could play in this.

Research and development is inherently risky, with high rates of failure. Companies are under pressure to deliver commercial returns to investors, yet the time frame for major innovations to be made often spans decades.

“Universities combine capability with tenacity – and odds are they’ll still be there in 25 years.”

Universities are in a position to assist industry innovation, however, because they have the capacity to apply resources to long-term projects and are willing to allow sufficient time for the process of discovery and application. They combine capability with tenacity. And while there are no guarantees, the odds are good that your university research partner will still be there in five, 10, or 25 years.

The world’s first 3D-printed jet engine is the result of intense collaboration across academia and industry, led by the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing.

For maximum benefit, commercially and otherwise, collaborations between industry and academia should focus on building enduring relationships that go beyond a single project or contact. Ideally, these partnerships should facilitate engagement at multiple levels.

Another way to offset the risks of R&D is for universities to address problems that entire industries need to solve, consulting multiple players in those industries to uncover what the major issues are. In the case of MCAM, the need for lighter, stronger parts is common across the aerospace industry, so its relationship with Safran has been a catalyst for relationships with Airbus, Boeing and defence contractor Raytheon.

These relationships are intensely collaborative, as university researchers work with their industry partners from the very early stages of each project.

This process is a far cry from the movie trope of the lone genius scientist who spends years in the laboratory, makes a miraculous discovery and only then emerges into the daylight. It’s about teams of experts investing the precious resources of time and trust for the long term – for it is from this investment that real gains will come.

Professor Margaret Gardner is an Australian academic, community leader and economist, and the current Vice-Chancellor of Monash University.

Features, Health, Technology

Medicine by design

May 20, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

IT’S 2040. Jane taps her foot nervously, waiting for her smart watch to link to her oncologist via video. Her cancer-screening blood test (routine at age 45) has found circulating tumour cells. Jane is about to find out what type of cancer she has and what her next steps will be.

Her watch beeps, but it’s not the oncologist. Her health app bursts onto the screen telling her she’s been sitting for too long. Time to get up and move for five minutes… Does she want to listen to dance music? Jane’s not in the mood, but she gets up and paces the room.

Miranda, the oncologist, has most of her patient consultations via online telehealth video conferencing. Her first step following Jane’s blood screen result was to download her patient’s genome. Then she ran a computer program to compare Jane’s genome with the set of blood test results that showed she has breast cancer; revealing its type and the cancer cells’ DNA sequence.

Using data from hundreds of thousands of breast cancer cases worldwide, the program helps Miranda devise an optimised treatment program for Jane. She presses the button to begin the consultation.

Miranda breaks the news gently. Cancer is a worry, of course, she says. But things are so much better than they were 25 years ago. She is confident the imaging will find a tiny primary tumour, which can be removed – in a surgical procedure known as a lumpectomy – and then Jane will have drug therapy for several years, with few side effects, to dramatically reduce the chance of the cancer spreading (metastasising).

Most people beat breast cancer nowadays and there is usually no need for chemotherapy, Miranda reassures her.

“One in two of us will get cancer and one in five of us will die from cancer. One of the challenges at the moment is what’s called ‘treating the undetectable’.”

Science fiction? Yes. But it certainly may become science fact, according to Dr Warwick Tong, CEO of the Cancer Therapeutics CRC (CTx), and Professor Bob Cowan, Chief Executive Officer of the HEARing CRC.

Mopping up cancer

In Tong’s view, blood tests – or ‘liquid biopsies’ – to screen for all types of cancers will become routine. The basic technology already exists, at least for colorectal cancer, he explains.

Tong is spearheading a new approach to cancer drug therapy. While most chemotherapy drugs shrink secondary tumours that result from metastasis, CTx is working on ‘mopping up’ cells that migrate from the original tumour at a very early stage.

“One in two of us will get cancer and one in five of us will die from cancer – and 90% of those deaths are caused by vast metastatic spread,” he says. “One of the challenges at the moment is
what’s called ‘treating the undetectable’. We treat primary cancer pretty well nowadays, but often the disease reoccurs years down the track.”

Drugs used in early stage cancer, alongside treatment of the primary tumour, are called ‘adjuvant’ therapies. But, Tong explains, few pharmaceutical companies are exploring adjuvants because the research is expensive and it’s difficult to prove they work. In fact, most of the few existing adjuvants – such as the drug tamoxifen, which is used for breast cancer – were developed for late cancer and have become adjuvants through chance rather than design.

“The focus of our drug discovery program is ‘adjuvant by design’”, says Tong. And it is work like this at the CTx that may lead to 2040 drugs, similar to those Jane will use.

Treating the individual

Jane’s individual treatment protocol will typify 2040 medicine, explains Cowan. “Up to now, evidence-based medicine has been founded on group analysis. But in 2040, instead of applying group statistics to an individual, we’ll be able to understand their particular risk and make treatments more personal.”

At the heart of this lies our ability to sequence a person’s DNA, which can now be done for just a few hundred dollars.

Cowan predicts that the accumulating digital information on individuals will create a “data storm” and, ironically, as individualised treatment becomes the norm, the data available for group analyses will also massively increase. “So there may be factors we have been unable to identify because of variation in the environment and gene expression, which will become clear when we start to get much larger samples,” he explains.

Drawing on his experience in hearing, Cowan foresees major advances in prosthetics. The hugely successful cochlear implant, developed in conjunction with HEARing CRC, is a prosthetic – the union of an artificial device with the human brain. “Australia leads the world in cochlear implants,” he says.

Sadly, one of the major drivers for prosthetics is war. The ravages of landmines and improvised explosive devices have brought increased funding for the development of better prosthetic limbs. The aim now is to marry the prosthetic more intimately with the individual’s own nervous system: something that requires new approaches for regenerating nerve connections.

Cowan’s vision for prosthetics is exciting: “You’ll simply think ‘pick up
the glass’ and your prosthetic arm will execute all the necessary movements as your own arm did in the past.”

Screening computational specialist Rebecca Moss at the Cancer Therapeutics CRC High Throughput Chemical Screening Lab.

Cost-effective medicine

Forecasts for 2040 predict that the
human population will include twice as many people aged 65 or over, which is concerning to Cowan because it means that a greater proportion of people will have problems with hearing and cognition.

“More and more we are going to see the need for reducing the strain
on the health system,” he says, adding that telehealth will be a very important aspect of this. “We need to deliver systems through our broadband network.” Treating more people at home, under medical supervision, rather than in hospital, is the way ahead, he says.

“We need to change the way that we do diagnosis, and involve the individual in managing their own health,” Cowan says, explaining that the technology is already here and it’s the healthcare delivery system that needs to change. “We have technology now that allows us to have a clinician based in Sydney programming a cochlear implant for a child in Samoa.”

The successful translation of Australian research into practice will be vital. “Australian basic medical research is excellent,” Cowan says. “We punch above our weight internationally. But, unless we take knowledge gained from research and translate it into a clinical application, it doesn’t make an economic return for Australia.

“To do that you need to involve clinicians from day one, which is exactly the approach of the medical CRCs.”

– Clare Pain

www.cancercrc.com

www.hearingcrc.org

Agriculture, Environment, Features

Growing the north

May 20, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

NEW OPPORTUNITIES abound for Australia’s farm industries to expand food exports into Asian markets following landmark free trade agreements with Japan and Korea in 2014.

The Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (JAEPA) came into force on 15 January 2015, allowing Australian exporters to benefit from two rounds of tariff cuts in the first half of this year. The Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement (KAFTA) took effect on 12 December 2014, and eliminates tariffs for 84% of Australia’s exports to Korea.

Minister for Industry and Science, Ian Macfarlane, welcomed the agreements as delivering long-term benefits to the national economy, particularly to research and agriculture.

“This is a huge opportunity as Japan is our second largest trading partner and Korea is our fourth, with combined two-way goods and services trade worth more than $100 billion,” he said.

Beef, dairy, honey, herbs, cordials, juices and soft drinks were just a few examples of homegrown food exports that will benefit from greater access to Asian markets, he said.

OVER 25 YEARS, the CRC Program has helped target and secure access to Asia for some of Australia’s biggest food export industries. Australian scientists working in areas such as plant and livestock genetics, food processing, soil nutrients, biosecurity, and improved supply chain management have been vital to establishing links with Asian universities and business leaders.

The Australian Seafood CRC developed new markets for dried, salted and brined products such as mussels, scallops and squid in Japan and Hong Kong. The former CRC for Beef Genetic Technologies used genomics to improve the quality of beef export products and secure new markets in Asia, and the Sheep CRC has made Australian lamb a premium product.

The Desert Knowledge CRC, which transitioned into the CRC for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) and its research consultancy Ninti One, also worked on developing primary industry opportunities for Northern Australia that could benefit Indigenous communities. These include precision pastoral management technologies, potential bush food industries and barramundi aquaculture.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that Asia will account for almost half of the world’s economic output by 2050, and there will be strong global competition for the region’s markets and investment. Australia currently accounts for only 5% of global food trade, although our food exports are worth more than $30 billion a year. At current production levels, we could supply around 2% of Asia’s food requirements. But could we increase that figure significantly if Northern Australia was developed to grow, and transport, more crops for Asian markets?

IN 2014, THE COALITION government commissioned a White Paper on Developing Northern Australia – an area north of the Tropic of Capricorn stretching around three million square kilometres across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

A decade ago, agricultural production in Northern Australia was worth around $4.4 billion a year, and was dominated by beef, sugar and bananas. By 2010, this grew to $5.2 billion – around 11% of Australia’s total agricultural production – and included crops such as guar beans, chia, chickpeas, soybeans and wild rice.

In a submission to the Federal Government’s National Food Plan Green Paper in 2012, Australian-owned company SunRice emphasised the critical role of water in food production.

“This is a huge opportunity… with combined two-way goods and services trade worth more than $100 billion.”

“Australia’s food security is directly related to water security,” the SunRice submission said. “At the peak of the recent drought when water allocations to rice farmers were reduced to almost zero, rice production in Australia fell from an annual average above one million tonnes to just 19,000 tonnes. This level of production was far short of meeting even our domestic needs, and is a prime example of the importance of water in growing food to feed our nation and others.”

Rice is being grown again in the Burdekin region in north Queensland, and there are suggestions that improved genetics and better understanding of the northern climate could secure Australia’s rice industry against future dramatic production losses due to prolonged drought.

AUSTRALIA IS A GLOBAL leader in sustainable rice production, with around 1500 farms in New South Wales and Victoria feeding up to 20 million people a day around the world.

Our rice farmers are the world’s most water efficient, using 50% less water than the global average to produce each kilogram of rice. They were also Australia’s first farm sector to develop a biodiversity strategy and a plan to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Australian-owned company SunRice submitted a statement to the Australian Federal Government emphasising that our future food security relies on the availability of water.

Rice was an early, and enduring, success story for the CRCs. The CRC for Sustainable Rice Production started in 1997 at the Yanco Agricultural Institute, near Leeton in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, and concluded on 30 June 2005. It is a classic example of how a CRC can fast-track research results by working with partners in academic research, industry, government and – in this case, specifically – rice research colleagues in China and Japan. In just over seven years, the CRC’s many achievements included better pest controls, improved plant breeding systems, better milling and drying techniques, sustainable irrigation levels, a groundwater management program that was adopted as a UNESCO benchmark, new rice-based food products, and an assessment of salt tolerant wild rice varieties that could be grown in Northern Australia.

In 2003, the CRC’s director Dr Laurie Lewin was awarded one of Australia’s most prestigious science awards, the Farrer Memorial Medal, for his work with the CRC in breeding new rice varieties that are better suited to Australian conditions. In his recipient’s oration, Lewin stressed the importance of genetics to future global food security.

“Recent improvements in plant breeding have been rapid and it is now an exciting time to be involved in this science,” he said. “The rice genome has been sequenced and breeders now have a range of exciting tools to meet the important challenges. It is only 50 years since the Watson and Crick model for DNA was published, but the new genetics has given access to new tools including genetic markers and genetic transformation techniques.”

THE CSIRO ESTIMATES that the area for potential irrigated agriculture, supported by groundwater, in Northern Australia is between 50,000–120,000 ha. But water is only part of the solution to developing northern agriculture and new markets in Asia.

In a Food and Fibre Supply Chain study with the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, the CSIRO identified three challenges to expanding agriculture in the north to supply Asian markets: sourcing capital investment, cost-efficient production and supply, and establishing new and viable export markets.

GrowNORTH is a research and development consortium that evolved from a Federal Government pledge to develop a northern agriculture CRC, prior to Macfarlane and Prime Minister Tony Abbott announcing plans to create five Industry Growth Centres under the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda.

“The north isn’t likely to become Asia’s food bowl, but it has the potential to become a reliable and important exporter of high quality food and seriously smart research skills.”

GrowNORTH CEO Mike Guerin says that harnessing the economic potential of the north proved to be “a wicked problem” – a social planning term that means there are complex and often conflicting interdependencies – in the past, chiefly because of “imposed ideas” that ignored geographic, social and climatic differences.

“Large-scale agriculture in the north is a high risk investment, and there have been failures in the past largely because of inadequate planning, financing and management. There’s also been a tendency to ignore, or attempt to work against, what makes the north a unique region,” he says.

“Sustainable development in the north is possible, but it must benefit all Australians. It can’t be viewed as a kind of frontier goldrush for lucrative Asian markets. The north isn’t likely to become Asia’s food bowl, but it has the potential to become a reliable and important exporter of high quality food and seriously smart research skills.

“If we get it right – and we accept that we will need to take the time, resources and patience to do that – Australia can gain a global reputation for using transformative research and economic modelling to create a world-class example of sustainable regional development.

“We will be a world leader in sustainable development, and researchers will come to the north to see how it’s done.”

GUERIN SAYS RESEARCH must look at “bigger picture” issues
in the north, rather than narrowly focusing on advancing single industries.

“We need to look at infrastructure, community support, building a skilled workforce that lives in the north, environmental outcomes, competing land uses and ways that agricultural diversity can benefit local economies,” he says.

“It’s a huge undertaking, and there will be valuable lessons along the way, but the benefits will be significant.”

Rod Reeve, managing director of the CRC-REP, says that building
robust local economies across remote areas in the north is vital to the region’s development. The CRC is working on plans to create more than 100 new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in the north over the next decade, as well as more than 1200 small-to-medium enterprises.

It also aims to increase the productivity of remote pastoral
industries by around $300 million, and has developed a technology that could revolutionise the way cattle are managed in rangelands across the world. Reeve explains this technology as a remote sensing system that allows pastoral station managers to track and weigh cattle at watering points across a huge area, and to manage nutritional feeding programs.

“It’s an innovative system that gathers data on things like the numbers and profiles of the herd, conditions for market, growth rates and whether cows are pregnant or dry,” he says.

“All this can be done remotely, and potentially could replace the expense of aerial mustering which stresses cattle and makes them lose condition.”

The technology was developed by Ninti One and is in the final stages of a pilot study prior to commercialisation and local manufacture.

“We’re hoping it can be manufactured in Alice Springs,” says Reeve. “All the technology has been tested and developed in remote areas in the north, so it would be great to see its commercialisation go on to benefit a local economy.

– Rosslyn Beeby

Careers, Highlight, Innovation

The next 25 years of Australian R&D

May 18, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

Federal cabinet ministers, CRC program leaders and policy experts will discuss the research challenges of the next 25 years in areas such as manufacturing, health, communications and the development of Australia’s north next week as part of the Australia 2040 forum.

The designs, products and services developed by CRCs are part of our everyday life; from soft contact lenses and tooth mousse that helps repair dental enamel to new materials for aircraft wing surfaces that reduce fuel use and cut global carbon emissions. In food alone, CRCs have transformed the quality of Australian lamb, assessed salt tolerance in rice, improved the health of commercial pig herds, and developed new strategy for fisheries in the face of rising ocean temperatures.

The CRCs were established in 1990 to bring scientists and industries together to work on some of the biggest challenges facing Australia. These have included better bushfire science, manufacturing, digital technology, biosecurity, sustainable farming, water management and mental health issues underpinning the unacceptably high suicide rate among young people.

“The CRCs are an Australian success story. They were designed to create research impact, and their 25 year record of achievement speaks for itself,” says CRC Association chief executive Dr Tony Peacock.

“It’s a unique program and it works equally well across economic, social and environmental research areas. The critical factor in their success is that each CRC has well-defined goals and their management, research and industry investors all agree on those goals and work toward them.”

Peacock says economic analysis has shown that while the CRCs represent less than 1.6% of Federal science funding, they drive a further $4 in investment for every dollar invested by the government.

“The CRCs have always aimed for what is now recognised as vitally important to Australia’s future – creating research impact,” he says.

The CRC’s annual conference will open on 25 May, with former CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark delivering the Ralph Slatyer address on science and society at the Australian War Memorial theatre.

On 26 May, there will be a one-day forum at Parliament House, where speakers will include Federal industry minister Ian Macfarlane, communication minister Malcolm Turnbull and CRC leaders Dr Jane Burns (Young & Well CRC), Professor Mike Aitken (Capital Markets CRC) and Professor Murray Scott (CRC for Advanced Composite Structures).

Details of the conference program can be found at http://australia2040.com.au/

Agriculture, News, Technology

Farmers wired up

May 11, 2015 Karen Taylor-Brown Leave a comment

Professor Ian Atkinson, the Director of JCU’s eResearch program, leads the Digital Homestead research project that set out in 2012 to evaluate how information and communications technology, particularly NBN and sensor technologies, could improve northern cattle grazing.

The program was started with $700,000 from the Queensland Smart State grant and brought together researchers from JCU, CSIRO, QUT and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The team fitted solar powered behaviour and tracking collars to cows and installed walk-over weigh stations to monitor their condition. They used satellite technology to keep an eye on pasture performance and grazing capacity and sensors to collect data on weather and water levels in dams.

They then tied all the inputs together into a ‘digital dashboard’ farmers could access from their PCs, providing real-time statistics on cattle and the property at a glance.

Atkinson said the parts of the system were relatively simple, but once they were integrated and connected they made a great difference. “Farmers don’t want shiny gadgets. It’s simple, on-farm analytics that can make a significant difference to profits,” he said.

“We’re currently focused on integration, and translation of research. There is some great stuff coming, and the industry needs to get ready to take best advantage of it,” he said. “Extras such as bore monitoring, farm security and even open gate alarms are, or soon will be available, and the priority now is to get the system into the hands of farmers and business as the true NBN roll-out reaches more rural areas within the next year.”

The research team carried out trials at CSIRO’s Landsdown Research Station near Townsville and in September last year began a commercial stage trial at the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s SpyGlass Research Station near Charters Towers.

The next stage will involve working with industry to develop strategies and process to translate the research outcomes into the hands of producers.

The Northern Australian beef industry returns about $5.7 billion a year to the Australian economy and accounts for about 5 per cent of all jobs in the north.

Agriculture, Environment, Technology

Eyes on the ground

May 4, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

Dog ‘Facebook’ to manage Aussie pest problem

Facial recognition technology is being used by the Invasive Animals CRC to identify, track and control wild dog populations, which cause significant damage to Australian farms.

It’s estimated that wild dogs cost Australian farmers more than $65 million each year – a small part of the estimated $1 billion annual price of animal pests to agriculture. Pest monitoring is an important part of ensuring control strategies are effective, and automated technologies that promise more efficient and detailed monitoring are under investigation.

Southern Downs Regional Council in Queensland is working with Australian agricultural tech company Ninox Robotics to spot wild dogs and other pests in their region. The project involves using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) equipped with thermal imaging cameras, which can map dozens of square kilometres of countryside in a few hours.

The Invasive Animals CRC (IA CRC), NSW Department of Primary Industries and CRC partners have developed camera trap technology with facial recognition software – similar to that used by Facebook to tag your friends – to identify individual dogs and help combat the wild dog problem. Initial tests in northern NSW were able to pinpoint individual dogs with 87% accuracy. The researchers are seeking further funding to turn the technology into user-friendly software for widespread use.

Future versions could monitor other pests including feral cats, and threatened species, says IA CRC researcher Paul Meek. “Technology is providing us with new opportunities to carry out research and management,” says Meek. “And it’s already changing the way we do things.”

Drones streamline cattle musters

Mustering cattle on large Australian stations is a time consuming, expensive and sometimes dangerous operation. Before mustering can begin, graziers need to locate livestock using helicopters, horses, quadbikes and motorbikes, sometimes setting up remote camps.

By mapping the cattle’s location, drone technology under development by the CSIRO could potentially halve mustering costs, says project leader and farming systems specialist Dr Dave Henry. Using an off-the-shelf drone and thermal camera, the researchers accurately located cattle on the Lansdown Research Station near Townsville in 2013, and they are seeking funding for large-scale trials – the next step towards a marketable product.

“Technology is providing us with new opportunities to carry out research and management.”

Using sensors, drones could also monitor feed in paddocks, optimising animal production and minimising environmental impact. “Ultimately, graziers and land managers could manage cattle and their environment, and their whole farm business, in a more precise, timely and informed manner,” says Henry.

Satellites drive precision tractors

Precision agriculture uses sensing technologies, from satellites to drones, to help automate tasks like sowing and harvesting. The benefits of satellite positioning in agriculture are substantial, with an analysis by Allen Consulting predicting it will pump up to $28 billion into the Australian economy by 2030.

Improved satellite positioning in agriculture will yield greater navigational accuracy for unmanned farming vehicles such as drones and automated tractors.

A collaboration including the CRC for Spatial Information (CRCSI) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has developed positioning technology for a driverless tractor using GPS and the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). In summer trials in the Riverina, NSW, the tractor navigated rows of crops to an accuracy of 5 cm.

Existing technologies rely on mobile phone coverage and a costly, dense network of ground-based antennas called reference stations. These improve the accuracy of the machinery’s satellite-derived position from several metres to a few centimetres.

But mobile coverage and expensive antennas “are barriers to adoption in remote Australia,” says Dr Phil Collier, CRCSI research director. The researchers’ alternative requires fewer reference stations, instead transmitting position corrections to the tractor via a satellite communication channel unique to QZSS. This approach promises multiple benefits for farmers in remote areas.
Traversing the same ground each time, the tractors use less fuel and reduce erosion. The day may even come where fleets of robotic tractors work overnight, says Collier.

Managing bushfire threat

Automation can also play a major role in predicting and managing the threat of bushfires. Typically, emergency services and researchers rely upon observations by satellites, from aircraft and on the ground.

Drones could provide valuable extra data, says Dr Thomas Duff, a Bushfire & Natural Hazards CRC researcher at the University of Melbourne who specialises in simulations that predict fire behaviour. In contrast to helicopters, unmanned vehicles eliminate risks to pilots, and are cheaper and more manoeuvrable, enabling more detailed observations.

With Country Fire Authority Victoria, researchers at the CSIRO
are using drones to make observations of controlled fires for use in bushfire simulations. The RISER (Resilient Information Systems for Emergency Response) collaboration based at the University of Melbourne is monitoring grasslands to better understand how they dry out each year. Duff says this research is critical to more accurate predictions of fire behaviour.

invasiveanimals.com

crcsi.com.au

bnhcrc.com.au

Health, Highlight, Innovation, News, Technology

3D body scanning helps build fighting force of the future

April 23, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

The $1 million project run the University’s School of Health Science uses ‘digital anthropometry’ to customise the internal specifications of Navy submarines and ships, and to improve the design of uniforms and specialist clothing.

The population is generally taller and wider than they were 30 years ago and lead researcher and senior lecturer Dr Grant Tomkinson says the data will inform decisions around working environments such as the height and width of doorways and the length and width of bunks in submarines.

“Submarines are built to last across many generations, 20 to 30 years or more,” Dr Tomkinson says.

“So while we have a piece of machinery that can last for many decades, the average sailor – just like the average person – is changing over time. People are now on average about an inch or so taller, and a bit wider, than they were 30 years ago.

“It is a way of surveying body size and shape for the Navy which will give them some good predictions on how they might change in the future, and then how their equipment and machines should look.”

Dr Tomkinson and colleague Dr Nathan Daniell are working with a team of postgraduate and undergraduate students to measure 1500 Navy personnel based in New South Wales and Western Australia.

“Our survey of body size and shape uses both traditional methods and a digital approach,” Dr Tomkinson says.

“We use a 3D whole-body scanner, which is like stepping into a large changing room and 15 seconds later we get a 3D image of your body that we can extract measurements from at a later stage.

“It captures about half a million data points on the surface of the body and then we can measure dimensions like waist circumference without needing the person again in the future.”

[Show slideshow]

Dr Tomkinson says the team is contracted to take about 90 measurements of the body, including standard measurements like circumferences, heights, lengths and breadths of the arms, legs and torso.

“We’re also doing some customised measurements such as eye spacing to help viewing through periscopes, head measurements for helmet fit, hand length to navigate controls, and the length from the knees to the buttocks to help with seating size,” Dr Tomkinson says.

“If you’re not fitting in your environment well, you’re not going to be as efficient and it will create more stress and strain. You’re more likely to have more niggles, and those niggles can lead to injuries. The main driver behind this research is ergonomics – to optimise the fit of the person to the environment, help them work better and ultimately build a stronger defence force.”

Captain (Dr) Simon Reay Atkinson said the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Defence Test & Evaluation Organisation (ADTEO) are collaborating with UniSA and DSTO in the research to solve real-world Defence problems.

“We live in a world in which we can no longer isolate the information from the technological from the human. In this world we need to better fit our people to the work spaces and organisations they occupy, such as operations rooms, so they can solve pressing problems, healthily and over prolonged periods away from Base Ports,” Captain Atkinson says.

This article was first published in The Lead South Australia on 16 April.

Innovation, Profiles, Society

Designing the future

April 20, 2015 Karen Taylor-Brown 1 Comment

^{Mr David Hobbs demonstrates the OrbIT Gaming System and Orby Controller to a young child. Photo courtesy of the South Australian Department of State Development.}

Laura Diment and David Hobbs are both former students and now staff at the new Flinders University campus at Tonsley, a world-class facility that brings multiple disciplines of STEM research together with industry. Diment and Hobbs began their Biomedical Engineering studies within the School of Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics (CSEM), and have each received international acclaim for developing assistive technologies that enable children with disabilities to make the most out of the creative potential of modern software.

Hobbs, currently completing a PhD in rehabilitative engineering, has received significant attention for his work creating an accessible computer gaming system that incorporates a unique orb-shaped controller nicknamed ‘Orby’. The novel trackball controller can be operated without the need for fine motor skills. This makes it accessible for children with cerebral palsy, who are often unable to use mainstream controllers.

The novel trackball controller nicknamed ‘Orby’.

The gaming system and 15 interactive games developed for Orby have been a huge success with the 18 families that trialled the technology, with most reporting increased social closeness for the period Orby was in their homes.

For Hobbs, whose main motivation for studying engineering is the potential to ‘give back’ to society, this is an ideal result. He is now in the processes of commercialising Orby and hopes it will eventually be available to families, though is quick to note the difficulties in finding a balance between the inevitable costs of research and development and creating an affordable end product.

It is clear, however, that Hobbs relishes the challenge; a past recipient of both Fulbright and Churchill scholarships, he is determined to keep building upon assistive capacity of the technology. Trials will soon begin investigating the potential of Orby to help in the recovery of stroke patients.

Making a splash

First-class Honours student, Laura Diment, is also keen to use her STEM skills to help people who need it most. Diment chose to spend her compulsory five-month industry placement during her third year of study at a leading rehabilitation centre in Toronto, Canada – following the footsteps of Hobbs, who mentored her exchange from back in Australia. Here, she began creating Splashboard, an art program that uses Microsoft Kinect’s infrared technology to enable children with cerebral palsy to create musical art on screen. The technology can track movement in three dimensions, allowing children to interact with buttons on screen that trigger colour tools and sound by waving their arms.

Diment, who has since won a number of awards nationally and internationally for her creation, acknowledges the benefits of the opportunity to build industry partnerships early on in her Biomedical Engineering degree. “The future really is about connecting the industry and research earlier on, because they know what’s going to be beneficial in the long run.”

From these solid foundations in research and industry, Diment looks to be building a formidable career. She starts her PhD in Oxford as a John Monash scholar later this year, where her research will focus on creating a future in which developing countries have access to the skills and expertise necessary to design their own assistive technologies, rather than having to rely on Western-developed finished products that are ‘posted across’.

Much the same as Hobbs, Diment is confident in the capacity of STEM careers to create a better world. “We are designing the future,” she says.

With such bold ambitions, it seems only fitting that these two are working in Flinders’ new campus in the Tonsley business hub. The centre is quite literally amplifying the work that STEM disciplines at Flinders are capable of; the Biomedical Engineering discipline now takes up more than double its original size in order to make the most of the opportunities in this new environment. “People can come to us or work alongside us; it’s much more flexible and approachable.” Hobbs is grateful to have had the opportunity to help shape the new campus; “It’s a once in a generational opportunity… now it’s really up to us to maximise what we’ve been given and to do the best job we can.”

– Breana Macpherson-Rice

Environment, Features, Technology

Cooking with gas

April 9, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

Wholesale natural gas prices – driven largely by demand in Asia – are more than double the prices modelled by many economists back in 2011. And while the Australian government has applauded the booming Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry in Queensland in its energy green paper for becoming the “first in the world to bring onshore coal seam gas [CSG] to export markets”, this development will see domestic gas prices increase significantly.

“There was this view that we would have a gas boom like the US did,” says Professor Chris Greig, Director of the University of Queensland’s Energy Initiative. “That’s not a reality… It’s too expensive in Australia and the value opportunities are too significant in Asia. The nature of most gas developments in Australia is going to be such that we’re never going to have an abundance of super cheap gas that can realistically compete with coal.”

Yet investment in the sector is booming. According to the energy green paper, almost $200 billion in capital investment has been committed for new LNG projects across Australia.

Petroleum engineer Brian Evans from Curtin University in Western Australia expects that CSG will be produced and used for electricity for the next 30–50 years – and possibly longer given the number of untested basins.

From an emission-reduction standpoint, shale gas is the preferred option. It’s much deeper underground than CSG, which means extraction is less likely to affect shallow groundwater tables. And the process by which shale is deposited doesn’t create carbon dioxide, meaning when the gas is burned, there is next to no CO₂ emitted. “The production of shale gas in the US has single-handedly reduced the country’s greenhouse gas outputs,” says Evans.

Australia boasts enough discovered shale gas reserves to easily power the country at its current population for the next 100 years – possibly up to 300 years as the potential to recover more gas improves. Evans expects it will be at least 10–15 years before shale gas is making any real impact to Australia’s electricity generating capacity because of the costs associated with extraction and set-up, as the gas is located in remote regions where there’s no infrastructure, such as pipelines and roadways. The mission of the Energy Pipelines CRC, set up in 2010 and with an additional five years of funding to date, is to facilitate such an expansion by supporting the energy pipelines industry within Australia.

In order to deploy any of these technologies, develop a new gas market, or assist the transition toward renewables, Greig says the government needs to incentivise the corporate sector to invest on projects with 40–50 year outlooks.

“What we’re seeing from government is very short-term decision making,” he says. “Somewhere in government, someone needs to develop a long-term vision for the energy sector, and the electricity sector, which has bi-partisan support. And only then can we build policies that enable us to move toward that long-term vision.”

Roll of the DICE

A report by the Climate Council, an organisation reconstructed through crowd funding from the abolished Climate Commission, suggests that by 2030 more than 65% of the country’s coal-fired power stations will be more than 40 years old. These will need to be either retired or replaced.

In an opinion piece for Business Spectator, Climate Council executives Tim Flannery and Andrew Stock suggested this is “the ideal time to begin phasing out inefficient power stations and fundamentally rethinking our energy system” by ramping up our renewable energy generation and storage capacity.

“A well-conceived energy policy for the electricity generation sector would see ageing, low-efficient plants replaced with high-efficiency ultra-supercritical [coal] plants,” says Professor Chris Greig, Director of the University of Queensland’s Energy Initiative.

These plants have lower emissions simply by virtue of their efficiency, and could achieve emissions reductions of 25% compared to existing plants, says Greig.

Another option in reducing emissions and continuing to rely on coal is to replace ageing power plants with smaller, modular facilities that use a technology called the Direct Injection Carbon Engine (DICE). First demonstrated by US engineers more than 20 years ago, the DICE is a modified diesel engine that can generate electricity by burning coal that has been finely ground-up and mixed with water.

With the DICE, air is compressed inside a cylinder by a rotating piston. As the air is being compressed, the slurry is directly injected into the chamber at a precise moment.

The heat of the pressurised air causes the slurry to combust and the intense heat and pressure inside the engine creates mechanical energy, which can drive a turbine and generate electricity.

This is similar to the way heavy fuel oils are injected into conventional diesel engines on transport trucks, and ensures good control over the heat release rate, as well as high-efficiency combustion of slurries made from varying qualities of coal. Carbon capture systems can also be integrated onto the engines to minimise emissions.

The CSIRO has developed methods to produce more cost-effective fuels that work inside much larger engines. Their work has sparked renewed interest in DICE systems for a range of electricity generation applications.

Louis Wibberley, the principal investigator, says DICE systems are more efficient than conventional coal-fired power stations and can achieve up to 40% emissions reductions with black coal, and up 50% reductions with brown coal.

– Myles Gough

Health, News, Technology

Uncovering healthcare cons

April 9, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

Supported by new funding available from 1 July 2014, the program will operate three streams to explore and compare huge datasets available in the healthcare sector. The goal is to make improvements to the detection and management of fraud, consumer choice and data management.

The CMCRC is adapting one of its existing analytical solutions, I+Plus, to analyse and cross-reference the many disparate sources of information available in healthcare. It’s hoped this tool could prove useful for healthcare providers to compare their performance with competitors by using industry benchmarks once they are developed.

The CMCRC hopes to have the first results of its new research initiative into healthcare by the end of this year, said Chief Operating and Commercial Officer, David Jonas.

Jonas, who is also CEO of the organisation’s health insurance spin-off company, CMC Insurance Solutions, said the new research program is a natural extension of the group’s work into health insurance.

“It’s broadened out in the past two years to the whole of health,” he explained.

Although it’s a foray out of capital markets for the CRC, success in identifying fraud in the health insurance market, along with a raft of other achievements, led the centre to investigate the detection of similar inefficiencies in the provision of health in general.

The CMCRC will receive $32 million in funding through round 16 of the Australian Government’s CRC Program. About 40% of that will be going into the new health market quality program.

Industry partners already signed up by the CRC include 29 private health insurers, the National Health Performance Authority, NSW Health, and the Victorian Government’s WorkSafe and TAC (Transport Accident Commission) compensation schemes.

“We don’t yet have a public health insurer as an industry partner, but we are gradually engaging with Medicare and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs,” Jonas said.

The new program’s first initiatives will identify the metrics required for assessing market integrity and efficiency. The research will then look at what data needs to be gathered to generate those metrics and how such benchmarks can be used to find solutions.

The centre is already engaging in a range of small start-up projects with all of its industry partners. Jonas pointed out that one of the main difficulties with the healthcare industry is the fragmentation of data, with diagnosis and treatment records for patients being distributed across multiple healthcare providers and funders.

But if healthcare is looked at as a market, rather than a system, it could be easier to identify inefficiencies and then achieve efficiencies.

“Part of our program is to assure market quality in healthcare for providers and users,” Jonas said.

– Penny Pryor

www.cmcrc.com

Health, Innovation, Society

Virtual dentistry for remote Australia

April 9, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

The trials, which explored the application of ‘teledentistry’, were developed by the Oral Health CRC, the University of Melbourne’s Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society and dental specialists at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital. They are supported by Google.

The project’s research leader, Associate Professor Rodrigo Marino, said the system could help improve dental health for Aboriginal children in remote communities. A pilot program is also exploring the use of teledentistry to provide dental services and oral healthcare treatment plans for elderly patients in nursing homes.

Pneumonia linked to oral infections is a major cause of hospitalisation among older people, and can be fatal. “Residents in nursing homes often don’t have access to dental services,” Marino said. “But with teledentistry, a consultation could be done by the nurses, with minimal disruption or discomfort for elderly patients.”

The CRC’s teledentistry trials involved consultations with 43 children in Geelong, Shepparton and Rosebud in Victoria. Three dentists in these regional towns were trained to use intraoral dental cameras to enable Royal Children’s Hospital orthodontists and palate specialists to conduct virtual examinations via real-time video.

No special software or equipment needed to be developed for the trials. CRC researchers used a computer equipped with sufficient memory to handle real-time video processing, a web camera for video conferencing and an intraoral camera about the size and shape of an electric toothbrush. They found that video streaming at a minimum of 3 Mb/s and internet bandwidth of 5 Mb/s provided good quality images for the dental specialists to analyse.

“We could see images in real time on the screen during the consultations, and the remote area dentists and the specialists in Melbourne could collaborate to work out a treatment plan for each patient,” said Marino.

Of the trial consultations, 57% resulted in treatment advice that meant patients could avoid a time-consuming trip to Melbourne. Marino said teledentistry will eliminate the time and expense incurred by rural patients, who often face a long, exhausting drive with no guarantee of an immediate and direct benefit.

He said the promising results show teledentistry could play a vital role in providing affordable and timely dental healthcare for urban Australia as well as rural and remote populations.

“It can increase access to specialist care and it can screen patients to make sure that only those who need to see a specialist will be put on waiting lists,” Marino explained. “So, it also has the potential to reduce the waiting time for treatment.”

– Rosslyn Beeby

www.oralhealthcrc.org.au

Health, Highlight, Innovation, News, Society

Alzheimer’s Disease drug discovery gives hope

April 8, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

Scientists from the University of South Australia, along with colleagues from Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China, have discovered the drug Edaravone can alleviate the progressive cognitive deficits of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Edaravone is used to aid neurological recovery following acute brain ischemia and subsequent cerebral infarction, but is currently available only in some Asian countries.

Lead researcher Professor Xin-Fu Zhou, who is Research Chair in Neurosciences at the University of South Australia, said Edaravone alleviated Alzheimer’s Disease pathologies at multiple levels and improved learning and memory functions in mice.

“Edaravone can bind the toxic amyloid peptide which is a major factor leading to degeneration of nerve cells,” Prof Zhou said.

Prof Zhou said lessons learned from failures of current clinical trials suggest that targeting multiple key pathways of the Alzheimer’s Disease pathogenesis is necessary to halt and delay the disease progression.

“Edaravone can suppress the toxic functions of amyloid beta to nerve cells – it is a free radical scavenger which suppresses oxidative stress that is a main cause of brain degeneration,” he said.

“The drug can suppress the production of amyloid beta by inhibiting the amyloid beta production enzyme. It also inhibits the Tau hyperphosphorylation which can generate tangles accumulated in the brain cells and disrupt brain functions.”

Prof Zhou said that although he didn’t believe Alzheimer’s Disease could ever be cured, the drug was the best hope of attacking the debilitating disease through multiple signal pathways.

The research is a collaboration between Prof Zhou’s lab within the University of South Australia’s Sansom Institute for Health Research and School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, and labs led by Prof Yanjiang Wang in Chongqing, China.

The next phase is to seek funding and investment to develop an oral formulae before undertaking clinical trials.

The discovery was published yesterday (7 April) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Innovation, News, Technology

First tech-commercialisation skills study funded

April 2, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

The year-long study will be run by Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia (KCA) – the peak body for Australian organisations and individuals in knowledge commercialisation and exchange between public sector research organisations, business and government – and gemaker – a company specialising in commercialising technology.

The key objective of this study is to provide a clear understanding of what it really takes to get new ideas generated by Australian publicly funded research organisations into society and the marketplace.

To kick start the project and help consolidate the study’s framework, a series of workshops will be hosted across five states between April and June. Technology transfer practitioners and industry stakeholders will be invited to participate in these workshops, offering both individuals and institutions an exclusive opportunity to help shape the future direction of professional development within the sector in this country, and provide foresight as to the true nature of the skill set required to effectively undertake this role going forwards.

“There is an increasing expectation from government entities within Australia for publicly funded research organisations to improve on the conversion of research into commercial outcomes. Much like the theme of our forthcoming conference – Raising the Bar – this study will enable us as a community of practitioners to look strategically at what it means to be a commercialisation professional at a research organisation in Australia, and how we might look to improve upon how we go about our practice. We are thrilled to be awarded the Professional Standards Research Grant,” KCA Executive Officer Melissa Geue said.

KCA applied for the research grant in partnership with technology commercialisation consultancy gemaker (associate member of KCA) in late November 2014. The project team is being led by gemaker’s Commercialisation Director Athena Prib, RTTP and will be comprised of gemaker’s team of specialists in capability development and workplace competencies, as well as KCA’s Executive Officer, Melissa Geue and Vice Chair and Professional Development Leader, Dr Alastair Hick (also Director of Commercialisation at Monash University).

“We are excited to be leading the first project of its kind that will open the door for the research and commercialisation sector to connect and self reflect, and we hope this study offers a baseline for our association, KCA, to build on for years to come,” said Natalie Chapman, gemaker’s Managing Director.

Overall the study will provide insight into the different technology transfer models used across Australia and the mechanism used to equip people with knowledge of skills required by industry and research. The primary goal is to look at the skills and competencies required on both the research and business side, to undertake a skills gap analysis, and to begin to assemble a framework for professional development across the Australian research commercialisation sector.

“Knowledge exchange and commercialisation is an important area of innovation for Australia and building standards and professionalisation options for the industry is an opportunity to cement Australia’s leadership,” said Dr Deen Sanders, PSC Chief Executive Officer.

“Our role is to encourage professional standards and consumer protection and so we are pleased to support the research and commercialisation sector in taking a serious and strategic approach to building a profession in this area.”

Innovation, News, Society, World

IP fund boosts commercialisation

March 31, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

The unique Intellectual Property Management Initiative offers grants to initiate patent protection of inventions stemming from biological research at South Australia’s three main universities – The University of Adelaide, Flinders University and University of South Australia.

Dr Stefan Enderling, the business development manager at Bio Innovation SA, said the initiative is funded by the Government of South Australia and managed by Bio Innovation SA to help pay for the first stages of the patenting process.

“This provides the institution with a dated ‘peg in the ground’ relating to their intellectual property, and gives them an asset with which to undertake economic development,” he said.

A patent is a right granted for a device, substance, method or process that is new, inventive and useful when compared with what is already known. It gives researchers an exclusive right to commercially exploit an invention.

In Australia, patents are administered through IP Australia and the first step in the process is applying for a Provisional Patent.

The 2011 commencement of the Intellectual Property Management Initiative is linked to a 90% increase in the filing of provisional patents from South Australia’s universities.

“It’s been a very successful program,” said Dr Enderling. “The filing of provisional patents increased from 57 during the 2008–2011 period, to 109 in the years 2012–2014.”

The rapid impact of the initiative illustrates the highly targeted nature of budgets within research environments.

Costs of provisional patents are usually in the range of AUD$4000 to $7000, but can be as high as AUD$10,000 for more complex technologies. Further patenting and searching across international databases attracts additional costs. Typically, institutions do not have funds set aside to cover these expenses.

“Universities have scarce resources that have to be diverted towards specific purposes,” said Dr Enderling. “In the past, this meant that patenting was often pushed to the side.”

Biological sciences patent attorney Mark O’Donnell said the Intellectual Property Management Initiative has nudged more South Australian researchers towards protecting their ideas.

“In the scheme of the cost of the research, four to seven thousand dollars doesn’t sound like that much,” he said. “But it’s a big expense for a university to take on, so having this fund is a fantastic thing for them.”

“Previously – because of the lack of funding – provisional patents just weren’t being filed, so research never had that chance of being commercialised.”

“I have not heard of any other comparable programs across Australia,” said O’Donnell, a partner at patent and trade mark attorney firm Madderns in Adelaide, South Australia.

The Intellectual Property Management Initiative has provided support for 78 projects since 2011 at the University of South Australia. The university’s technology commercialisation company ITEK Ventures Pty Ltd has filed 67 new patent applications in that period.

One of ITEK’s projects to benefit from the initiative is the Hand Held Cancer Probe, an ultrasensitive magnetic probe which detects small amounts of clinically introduced magnetic material in lymph nodes. The probe offers a non-radioactive approach for mapping the spread of cancers.

“The Intellectual Property Management Initiative covered the costs of filing the provisional patent, the International Type Search Report and the PCT application associated with this technology,” said Dr JC Tan, Commercial Manager at ITEK Ventures Pty Ltd.

The PCT application provides the university with patent protection in 148 countries, and expands the time frame for investigating market potential.

“Although the Hand Held Cancer Probe project has not yet been licensed, we are currently talking with Australian and international industry about this technology,” said Tan.

This story first appeared in The Lead, South Australia: bit.ly/1INzUFy

Innovation, News, Society

JCU develops new standard for life jackets

March 31, 2015 Heather Catchpole 1 Comment

Researchers led by Wade Sinclair from JCU’s department of Sport and Exercise Science were given a clear brief – the vests must return an unconscious swimmer to the surface and not inhibit lifesaver tasks such as diving and swimming.

The testing found that full-sized lifejackets compliant with Standards Australia’s rigorous Level 50 standard were unusable in heavy surf. Their buoyancy and impact levels from waves were too high, making their use by lifesavers exhausting.

The JCU team tested low buoyancy devices and found they could be used more comfortably in the surf, but still reliably return a swimmer to the surface.

With no Australian Standard in place for low buoyancy devices, the JCU team conducted research, trials and analysis around Australia and then wrote a report for the SLSA and Standards Australia.

The low-buoyancy, high performance vests are designated as Standards Australia Level 25 – suitable for users such as wakeboarders and surfers who need to remain agile but also face the risk of becoming disabled in the water.

Manufacturers have used the new standard to produce ten prototype life vests. JCU is now testing them in different conditions around the country.

Anthony Bradstreet from SLSA said the organisation’s board will receive the final report on the JCU trials in May. “We need to be sensible and take a risk-based approach,” he said. “I don’t think it is going to be necessary for competitors to wear these vests in flat conditions, but their potential use in rougher conditions will still be a fairly large cultural shift.”

Mr Bradstreet said SLSA wanted JCU to produce a specification, rather than choose a specific product, as that approach would ensure multiple suppliers and encourage ongoing innovation.

He said JCU won the contract to do the testing over bigger organisations for a number of reasons. “We were aware of Wade Sinclair’s work in surf sports and he had gathered a group of very keen and eager research assistants around him. There is a lot of respect for JCU’s Sport and Exercise Science department,” he said.

*SLSA has more than 160,000 members

*About 60,000 are ‘nippers’ – children aged 5 to 13-years-old.

*The vests are expected to cost between $150 – $200

Innovation, News, World

Science’s $145 billion value

March 25, 2015 Heather Catchpole Leave a comment

A report released today has found that advanced physical and mathematical sciences make a direct contribution to the Australian economy of around $145 billion a year, or about 11% of GDP.

When the flow-on impacts of these sciences are included, the economic benefit expands to about $292 billion a year, or 22% of the nation’s economic activity.

The report was commissioned by the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Australian Academy of Science and produced by the Centre for International Economics (CIE).

“For the first time we now have the numbers on the table showing the importance of these sciences to the Australian economy,” Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Chubb said.

“It is too easy to take the benefits of science and innovation for granted, and this report shows that the knowledge from these disciplines supports and enhances economic activity which benefits all Australians.”

Australian Academy of Science President Professor Andrew Holmes said the report was a significant step in improving public awareness of the economic contributions of Australian science.

“The detailed report carefully maps out the pathways by which advanced physical and mathematical sciences yield economic results,” Professor Holmes said.

The figures in the report are conservative and only include the economic benefits of discoveries and innovations implemented in the past 20 years in physics, chemistry, earth sciences and the mathematical sciences.

The report includes examples of how these sciences benefit the economy, such as advanced mathematics supporting the effectiveness of mobile phones and wireless internet, and sets out a selection of breakthroughs that have had an economic impact.

The report, titled The importance of advanced physical and mathematical sciences to the Australian economy, did not examine the economic benefits of biology and life sciences. The economic impact of these sciences could be assessed in further studies.

A copy of the report can be found at chiefscientist.gov.au and science.org.au/science‑impacts‑economy.

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Managing bushfire threat

Making a splash

Roll of the DICE

Connecting science with industry