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A new study led by The Australian National University (ANU) could lead to cheaper and more efficient solar technology. Study co-author Dr Heping Shen from the ANU School of Engineering says the current solar cell market is dominated by silicon-based technology, which is nearing its efficiency limit.

A research team led by The Australian National University (ANU) has invented a device that could be developed into ultra-sensitive cameras for security screening which would not require people to queue at airports. Other applications could include smaller and safer sensors for driverless vehicles. Lead researcher Dr Mingkai Liu said the research had already led to a proof-of-concept prototype device and provisional patent.

A new blood test is being developed at The Australian National University (ANU) that can detect patients at risk of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and potentially save millions of people from going blind. Dry AMD is a common eye disorder that is caused by damage to the macular - the part of the eye that is responsible for our sharpest vision.

Australian scientists will lead the design phase of a multimillion-dollar project for a new system on one of the world's most powerful ground-based optical telescopes that will produce images up to three times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Two partners in the Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) consortium - The Australian National University (ANU, AAO-Stromlo) and Macquarie University (AAO-MQ) - will design the new $AU32-million adaptive-optics system, called MAVIS, for one of the 8-metre Unit Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Scientists at ANU have found a chronic shortage of females in a critically endangered parrot species has led to love triangles, sneaky sex on the side, increased fighting between males and fewer babies. The ratio of males to females among swift parrots was once roughly equal but it has increased over time to almost three to one, since the introduction of a tiny predator to Tasmania in the 1800s - the sugar glider.

An international team of scientists have detected ripples in space and time, known as gravitational waves, from the biggest known black-hole collision that formed a new black hole about 80 times larger than the Sun - and from another three black-hole mergers. ANU is playing a lead role in Australia's involvement with the gravitational wave discovery through a partnership in the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), which is based in the United States.

An international research team including The Australian National University (ANU) has used the Kepler space telescope in coordination with ground-based telescopes to witness the first moments of a star dying in unprecedented detail. The astronomers witnessed the star dying a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, as part of a project that aims to solve the mystery of how stars explode.

A new study led by ANU has discovered a promising way to significantly lower doses of X-rays that has the potential to revolutionise 3D medical imaging and make screening for early signs of disease much cheaper and safer. The research team, which involved the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and Monash University, built upon an unconventional imaging approach known as "ghost imaging" to take 3D X-ray images of an object's interior that is opaque to visible light.

People are more likely to believe a true or false claim if it is paired with a photograph, a researcher from The Australian National University (ANU) has found. Dr Eryn Newman, from the ANU Research School of Psychology, has been finding out how people find truth in a fake-news era. In her research, Dr Newman has found that people make the decision to trust information if it has pictures to illustrate the ideas.

A new study led by ANU has investigated the nature of a cosmic phenomenon that slows down star formation, which helps to ensure the Universe is a place where life can emerge. Lead researcher Dr Roland Crocker from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics said the research team studied a particular way stars provide a counter-pressure to gravity that slows down the star-formation process.

A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has revealed new insights into ancient fishing throughout history, including what type of fish people were regularly eating as part of their diet. The study looked at fish bones unearthed in an archaeological dig on the Indonesian island of Alor - home to the world's oldest fish-hooks ever found in a human burial site, dating back to about 12,000 years.

Astronomers have witnessed, in the finest detail yet, a brutal David-vs-Goliath fight between two nearby galaxies that are tearing chunks from each other and flinging them into the gaseous Magellanic Stream, a cosmic river of blood encircling our Milky Way. The new study led by ANU investigated the violent stoush between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds - dwarf galaxies on the Milky Way's periphery that are visible at night with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere.

On the eve of the Melbourne Cup, new research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found more Australians are experiencing gambling harm and suffering life and health hardships for much longer than previously known. In providing one of the first national snapshots of gambling harm in Australia, the Centre for Gambling Research (CGR) has identified more than 1.4 million Australians experiencing gambling harm - six times more than the generally accepted figure of around 200,000 people.

Australia is known for its weird and wonderful wildlife, from frill-neck lizards to sugar gliders and kangaroos. Now, researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered these very different animals have something in common when it comes to their evolution. It turns out the amazing diversity we see now in each of these Australian vertebrate groups developed early, and has slowed considerably over the last 10 million years.

A study led by ANU and James Cook University has found that robust reef-building corals are the only known animals to make an amino acid that could make them less susceptible than other corals to bleaching and climate change. Amino acids, the building blocks of life, are crucial for repairing tissue or growing new tissue.

An international research team including ANU has found a potential new avenue to one day stop potentially harmful bacterial infections by switching off the bacteria's ability to replicate itself. In this new study, led by Stockholm University in Sweden, the researchers discovered a new type of enzyme that is found in certain types of bacteria responsible for urinary tract infections and bacterial pneumonia.

Researchers from Griffith University and ANU have used the teeth of Neanderthal children from 250,000 years ago to reconstruct the ancient climate of southeast France, where the teeth were found. The discovery - which involved an international team of biological anthropologists, archaeologists, earth scientists and public health specialists from Australia, North America and Europe - promises to open up a new field in the archaeological study of hominins.

A new study from ANU indicates the most likely route the ancestors of Aboriginal people took to enter Australia for the first time tens of thousands of years ago. Co-lead researcher Shimona Kealy said these people probably travelled through Indonesia's northern islands, into New Guinea and then Australia, which were part of a single continent between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, when sea levels were 25-50 metres below the current level.

Astronomers from ANU and CSIRO have witnessed, in the finest detail ever, the slow death of a neighbouring dwarf galaxy, which is gradually losing its power to form stars. The new peer-reviewed study of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), which is a tiny fraction of the size and mass of the Milky Way galaxy, uses images taken with CSIRO's powerful Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope.

There's plenty of speculation about what artificial intelligence, or AI, will look like in the future, but researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) are already harnessing its power. The group from the ANU Department of Quantum Science has been experimenting with trapping atoms at very cold temperatures, in their efforts to build a quantum communication network.