science wire

ANU Honours student Clare McFadden said that being able to identify the sex of human skeletal remains is crucial to avoid creating a distorted version of history: Image: Michael Coglhan, Flickr. If your sex identification method is flawed it would mean that you're not accurately representing the history of either the individual or the population.

In the absence of clear legal authority, Australian military involvement in Syria raises issues in terms of precedent for military operations in other parts of the world.

A leading psychologist at The Australian National University (ANU) has called on Australian politicians to make sensible funding and policy decisions about suicide prevention.

Scientists studying funnel-web spiders at Booderee National Park near Jervis Bay on the New South Wales south coast have found a large example of an unexpected funnel-web species. The scientists believe the 50-millimetre spider is a species of the tree-dwelling genus Hadronyche, not the ground-dwelling genus Atrax, which includes the Sydney funnel-web, the only species reported in the Park's records.

Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known pottery from Papua New Guinea in a surprisingly remote location in the rugged highlands. The piece of red glossy pottery with designs cut into it is 3,000 years old, several hundred years older than the previous oldest known pottery in New Guinea. It was found in the highlands region, well away from the coast where there was regular with other seafaring pottery making cultures such as the Lapita people.

Leading public health experts have urged politicians to support marriage equality and said marriage discrimination contributed to higher rates of poor mental health amongst the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) community.

A new exhibition at ANU gives fresh insight into the history and heritage values of the Indigenous heritage trail which runs from the Snowy Mountains to Australia's east coast.

Students from The Australian National University (ANU) have taken to the School of the Air to help promote science to primary school students in remote and isolated areas.

An archaeologist has 3D-printed a replica of an iron-age artefact to revive a rich musical culture in ancient Ireland.

The deteriorating outlook for the Chinese economy poses the biggest immediate threat to Australia's export markets and thus to Australia's GDP.

Ever since the beginning of quantum mechanics people have been trying to explain the stability of atoms, why orbiting electrons don't radiate Physicists have found a radical new way to confine electromagnetic energy without it leaking away, akin to throwing a pebble into a pond with no splash. The theory could have broad ranging applications from explaining dark matter to combating energy losses in future technologies.

Researchers have unraveled the mystery cause of the emerging wheat disease White Grain Disorder. Scientists at the Wheat Biosecurity Laboratory at The Australian National University (ANU) identified the cause of the disease when they isolated three previously undiscovered fungi from infected wheat samples and sequenced their genomes.

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) and The University of Sydney have developed a world-first radio-tracking drone to locate radio-tagged wildlife. Lead researcher Dr Debbie Saunders from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society said the drones have successfully detected tiny radio transmitters weighing as little as one gram.

Professor Hirst "We see Sudanese kids that have been involved in armed conflict who are suddenly told what's important is to do well in a maths test. It's a world away." Image: Tax Credits, Flickr. If refugees and migrants become connected with the population it has a big economic boost. If that doesn't happen it can become a massive drain of social resources.

An ANU Summer Scholarship program offers students the chance to assist with dictionaries for a number of Aboriginal languages.

Australia's post-2020 target needs to be a meaningful contribution to the global effort, underpinned by a credible blueprint for how to achieve emissions reductions.

An academic from The Australian National University (ANU) has taken his inspiring science shows to 41,000 children in Africa as part of an 11-week tour through five countries.

The uncertainties surrounding the Chinese economy pose the biggest immediate threat to Australia's export markets and thus to Australia's GDP.

More than 80 prominent constitutional and human rights law academics have written to the Australian and New Zealand governments to express concerns over the breakdown of constitutional law and human rights in Nauru.

ANU is set to play a significant role in guiding the future of the Web after being chosen as the new host of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Australia Office.

Physicists have found an explanation for rogue waves in the ocean and hope their theory will lead to devices to warn ships and save lives. "A device on the mast of a ship analysing the surface of the sea could perhaps give a minute's warning that a rogue wave is developing," said Professor Nail Akhmediev, leader of the research at the Research School of Physics and Engineering.

Hydrogen peroxide - commonly used as hair bleach - may have provided the energy source for the development of life on Earth, two applied mathematicians have found.

Scientists studying thin layers of phosphorus have found surprising properties that could open the door to ultrathin and ultralight solar cells and LEDs. The team used sticky tape to create single-atom thick layers, termed phosphorene, in the same simple way as the Nobel-prize winning discovery of graphene.

Biologists have succeeded in teaching wild birds to understand a new language. After only two days of training, fairy wrens learnt to flee when they heard an alarm call that was foreign to them, showing that birds can learn to eavesdrop on the calls of other species. The research, led by biologists at The Australian National University (ANU), could be used to help train captive animals to recognise signals of danger before they are released in to the wild.

An international study has found Australia's performance has slipped backwards in terms of how well migrants integrate in their new countries.

As the NASA New Horizons probe reaches Pluto after its nine-year journey, scientists from the ANU Planetary Institute discuss why Pluto is still important, even if it has been 'demoted' to dwarf planet.

Australia's new ocean-going research vessel Investigator has discovered extinct volcanoes about 250 kilometres off the coast of Sydney in 4,900 metres of water.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) should hold interest rates steady at 2.0 per cent in July despite concerns for Australia from the Greek debt crisis and a faltering Chinese economy, The Australian National University (ANU) RBA Shadow Board has found.

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) are looking for older people with chronic mental illness, and family or friends who support them, to take part in a study to work out if more support services are needed in the Canberra region.

The first major joint study of the economic relationship between Australia and China has been launched in Beijing. The joint study will be led by Professor Peter Drysdale from ANU College of Asia and the Pacific and Mr Zhang Xiaoqiang, Executive Director of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) and former Vice Minister of China's National Development Reform Commission.

Professor Jim Williams (L), Professor Andrei Rode and Associate Professor Jodie Bradby with the electron diffraction pattern of one of their new silicon phases. Image: Stuart Hay, ANU Scientists have made exotic new materials by creating laser-induced micro-explosions in silicon, the common computer chip material.

The world's leading medical journal The Lancet has released a special report on climate change and its impact on human health, describing global warming as a health emergency.

Antarctica has a wealth of plants and wildlife, with myriad species waiting to be discovered, a new assessment published in Nature this week has found. Genetic studies have revealed that the species - many of them tiny - are as diverse as warmer ecosystems, and many of them are found only in specific regions of the continent.

A study of childcare across societies has found a range of factors influence women's decisions to engage in childcare activities in industrialised societies, but in small-scale societies, their decisions hinge on feeding their children. The international study, led by anthropologist Dr Geoff Kushnick from The Australian National University (ANU), found women made different decisions when their society had industrialised and had more safety nets.

Astronomers have solved a mystery over small, unusually hot blue stars, 10 times hotter than our Sun, that are found in the middle of dense star clusters. The international team found the so-called blue hook stars throw off their cool outer layers late in life because they are rotating so rapidly, making them more luminous than usual.

An international team of scientists has found a dramatic ice sheet collapse at the end of the ice age before last caused widespread climate changes and led to a peak in the sea level well above its present height. The team found the events 135,000 years ago caused the planet to warm in a different way to the end of the most recent ice age about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Cuckoo finches in Africa have adopted a unique disguise to help them lay their eggs in other birds' nests, biologists have found. "The cuckoo finch in Zambia has evolved to be almost indistinguishable from common and harmless female weaver birds, such as the southern red bishop", said Dr William Feeney, who conducted the study during his PhD at ANU Research School of Biology.

As a community, we overwhelmingly felt that crimes such as traffic offences, public order offences, justice procedure offenders and drug offences, could be considered as amenable to a Justice Reinvestment approach.

Is knowledge power or is ignorance bliss? A new free online course at The Australian National University (ANU) will explore the topic of ignorance and explain why there are some things in life people are better off not knowing.

The Giant Magellan Telescope will help astronomers unlock secrets of the Universe and will herald a new era of discoveries.