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We surveyed plant life around the globe for their high-temperature tolerance and we showed that the potential for damage is most severe for hot, inland, mid-latitude regions. An international study led by ANU has found the hottest temperatures on record this year are bad news for Australia's plants.

One of the biggest challenges in using enzymes in medicine, industry and environmental clean-up is engineering them to do what we want them to do, rather than what they've naturally evolved to do. An international study led by The Australian National University (ANU) will help underpin the development of next-generation medical treatments and industrial applications such as removing pesticides from waterways.

Over time that the conversational nature of symbolic play proved to be predictive of more advanced language growth. A new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that symbolic play in toddlers, which involves use of the imagination, is more beneficial to language development than functional play like puzzles, blocks or drawing.

Australian researchers have found the world's oldest fossils, revealing that diverse life forms thrived on Earth 3.7 billion years ago. Co-lead investigator Associate Professor Vickie Bennett from The Australian National University (ANU) said the research on stromatolite fossils found in Greenland provided a greater understanding of early habitats of life on Earth and could have implications for searching for life on Mars.

This behaviour of visiting and supposedly rejecting successive males has always been taken as a defining feature of female choosiness, but this study shows that things are not always what they seem. New research has resolved a mystery over why female fiddler crabs visit and leave many males during mating season, and found the females aren't just being picky.

It was one of those moments where science really surprised us. But the results were clear. The climate warming we are witnessing today started about 180 years ago. An international research project has found human activity has been causing global warming for almost two centuries, proving human-induced climate change is not just a 20 th century phenomenon.

It shows that the first modern people of South East Asia were just as culturally complex as those in Europe and Africa and that it was not the cultural backwater as it was once thought to be. Archaeologists at The Australian National University (ANU) have unearthed a 37,000-year-old decorative shell bead on the eastern tip of East Timor, providing further evidence that the first modern people of South East Asian were more culturally advanced than previously thought.

The increased risk of mental illness for people who are unemployed is due to more than just financial hardship, a new study from The Australian National University (ANU) has found. The study, conducted by Dr Laura Crowe as part of her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, found the lack of social support and low sense of control over life contributes just as much as the financial factors to an increased risk of mental illness for the unemployed.

Anabolic steroids and other banned drugs in sport may potentially improve an athlete's performance, but they can also be very dangerous and, in some cases, lethal. Research led by The Australian National University (ANU) could lead to new ways to detect performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympics and other major sport events.

Canberrans are being invited to take part in a new study to find out whether the adult pneumococcal vaccine can help reduce heart attack and stroke. The Australian National University (ANU) Medical School at The Canberra Hospital is taking part in the study, along with five other sites across the nation.

ANU will run a three-year project to work with Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory to address problem gambling. The $1.3 million pilot project, led by the ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), is funded by the NT government and will be the largest single investment to addressing gambling in Indigenous communities in Australia.

In studying how RNA-protein interactions govern genome function in the heart, we saw potential for both the generation of knowledge and ultimately the development of new therapy. Research led by The Australian National University (ANU) has uncovered new insights into how the human genome gets through the daily grind with the help of RNA-binding proteins, in a discovery which could ultimately lead to a cure for heart disease.

International research led by The Australian National University (ANU) has found how plants, such as rice and wheat, sense and respond to extreme drought stress, in a breakthrough that could lead to the development of next-generation drought-proof crops. Lead researcher Dr Kai Xun Chan from the ANU Research School of Biology said the team discovered an enzyme that senses adverse drought and sunlight conditions, and how it works from atomic to overall plant levels.

A research project led by The Australian National University (ANU) has closed an important gap in the understanding of a fundamental process of life - the creation of proteins based on recipes called RNA. RNAs are short-lived copies of genetic information stored in DNA. They are read by cellular ribosomes, which translate the recipes into proteins to become the main building blocks of life.

This study provides evidence that interdisciplinary research has lower funding success rates, and this pattern holds across different research fields and across institutions. Bringing together researchers from a range of fields can help solve complex problems, but research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found interdisciplinary research is consistently short changed.

Scientists have detected gravitational waves for a second time, caused by the collision of two black holes 14 and eight times the size of the sun. The team, including scientists from ANU, glimpsed the black holes orbiting each other 27 times in their last second before coalescing. The signal was 10 times longer than that of the first gravitational wave, which was announced in February this year.

A new study into pythons and boas has for the first time found the two groups of snakes evolved independently to share similar traits, shedding new light on how the reptiles evolved. Pythons and boas are two families that include the largest snakes in the world, like the reticulated python and the anaconda boa, which have been known to grow close to eight meters in length.

Overall we found that self-exclusion was a positive and empowering process that is under-utilised in its potential to assist people experiencing harm from gambling. A study into a process used for minimising harm for problem gamblers has found little information in the community about self-exclusion or how people can access it.

The Universe is expanding faster than expected, a study involving ANU has found. Lead Australian researcher and ANU astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said the precision study of star movements found the Universe is currently expanding between five per cent and nine per cent faster than early in its life.

Scientists studying the genes that enable tropical butterflies to mimic each other's colourful warning markings have been surprised to find an egg-production gene, cortex, also controls wing colouring. Research team member Dr Megan Supple from  ANU Research School of Biology said the new finding would help scientists better understand the intricacies of evolution.