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Rising sea levels and more frequent flooding events may drive coastal nesting birds around the world to extinction, a team of international researchers say following their 20-year study of Eurasian oystercatchers. Lead researcher Dr Liam Bailey from The Australian National University (ANU) said one of the main reasons for the strong decline in birds that used coastal habitats was because they had shown no response to tidal floods, which are predicted to become more frequent and severe due to climate change.

The supernova is about 970 million light years away, meaning that it exploded before the dinosaurs were even on the Earth. Online volunteers have helped ANU astronomers find a star that exploded 970 million years ago, predating the dinosaurs' time on Earth. ANU has invited everyone with an interest in astronomy to join the University's search for exploding stars called supernovae, which scientists can use to measure the Universe and acceleration of its growth.

Our research provides new insight into a part of the Milky Way where we find some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. A team of international astrophysicists led by ANU has shown how most of the antimatter in the Milky Way forms. Antimatter is material composed of the antiparticle partners of ordinary matter - when antimatter meets with matter, they quickly annihilate each other to form a burst of energy in the form of gamma-rays.

A third of Australian children aged 11-13 years say their fathers work too much, a new study led by ANU has found. The study, which observed around 3,000 fathers and their children as part of the 'Growing Up in Australia' study, also found that one third of children did not always enjoy time with their dads.

Using exploding stars as markers all across the Universe, we can measure how the Universe is growing and what it's doing. ANU is inviting everyone with an interest in astronomy to join a search that the University is leading for exploding stars called supernovae. Astrophysicists use supernovae, which are explosions as bright as 100 million billion billion billion lightning bolts, as light sources to measure the Universe and acceleration of its growth.

The project will provide new insights into the development of neuro-prosthetics which can help the brain recover after damage due to an accident, stroke or degenerative neurological diseases. ANU researchers have developed a suitable material to allow brain cells to grow and form predictable circuits, which could lead to the development of prosthetics for the brain.

It's crazy - sand is one of the most common building materials in the world and drugs are often packed in the forms of pills, but we really don't understand how assembly of grains or pills behave. Scientists have discovered a way to solve a problem that has baffled humans for so long it is mentioned in the Bible: achieving the most efficient packing of objects such as grains and pharmaceutical drugs.

The discovery helps to better reconstruct Earth's history and understand part of the world that has captivated people's imagination. A study led by ANU has solved the 168-year-old mystery of how the world's biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii. The study found that the volcanoes formed along twin tracks due to a shift in the Pacific plate's direction three million years ago.

This would be a first, because otherwise the human fossil record provides precious little about how our extinct relatives chose their mates. A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) of the bony head-crests of male gorillas could provide some of the first clues about the social structures of our extinct human relatives, including how they chose their sexual partners.

A lot of the older studies only looked at females, but there's men with these scars, so there has to be something else going on. Research from The Australian National University (ANU) has cast doubt on a method used in forensic science to determine whether skeletal remains are of a person who has given birth.

We can be 99 per cent sure it's not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100 per cent chance it isn't a malformed Homo sapiens. The most comprehensive study on the bones of Homo floresiensis , a species of tiny human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, has found that they most likely evolved from an ancestor in Africa and not from Homo erectus as has been widely believed.

Parkinson's, dementia and type 2 diabetes are big problems for the ageing population in Australia and many other countries around the world. A new study on UHT milk is helping scientists to better understand Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and type 2 diabetes, opening the door to improved treatments for these age-related diseases.

A major study into the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children has found programs and policies to promote healthy weight should target children as young as three. Lead researcher Katie Thurber from The Australian National University (ANU) said the majority of Indigenous children in the national study had a health body Mass Index (BMI), but around 40 per cent were classified as overweight or obese by the time they reached nine years of age.

The dramatic shift to colder and drier climates likely resulted in rapidly changing Australian habitats, which hugely impacted the animals that inhabited them. ANU biologists have found the first evidence of mass extinction of Australian animals caused by a dramatic drop in global temperatures 35 million years ago.

In a discovery that could aid malaria vaccine research, scientists led by The Australian National University (ANU) have tracked immune cells and discovered a key molecule that helps them to find and kill microbes that infect the liver such as malaria. Malaria is a disease spread by mosquitoes that kills around 500,000 people every year, mainly in tropical countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the South Pacific.

Laboratories and hospitals will have the power to do full chemical analyses to solve complex problems with our device that they can afford and move around easily. Physicists have designed a handheld device inspired by the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who and the tricorder in Star Trek that will use the power of MRI and mass spectrometry to perform a chemical analysis of objects.

New research from ANU has found no meaningful results from more than $5 billion spent on water reform in the Murray Darling Basin since 2001. The research focuses on water use since the Murray Darling Basin Plan came into effect in 2012, tracking the key indicators of how much water is diverted from the basin for agriculture, and the efficiency of how well that water is used.

Our findings make alternative theories for the origin of the atmosphere and oceans equally plausible, such as icy comets or meteorites bringing water to the Earth. A new study led by The Australian National University (ANU) has found seawater cycles throughout the Earth's interior down to 2,900km, much deeper than previously thought, reopening questions about how the atmosphere and oceans formed.

Some people who responded to the survey have experienced high levels of psychological distress and health concerns. The ANU has released the third report of its ACT Asbestos Health Study which examined the health concerns of people who have lived in a house with loose-fill asbestos insulation. The report found one in three people had seen a health professional to manage their mental or physical health specifically related to living in a house with loose-fill asbestos.

The ANU, the ACT Minister for Health and the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) have launched a new robotic system to fast-track the development of new drugs to fight cancer and other diseases. The High Throughput Robotic Target and Drug Discovery Screening Platform, in the ACRF Department of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics at The John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU, is the first technology of its kind in the ACT.