This white paper examines the current challenges for clean energy infrastructure and identifies solutions that industrial clusters, transport and logistics industries, and the wider clean energy value chain can jointly explore in order to accelerate its deployment. Thirteen new industrial clusters from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, …
Australian researchers reported in January that a gene for a vitamin D receptor was a possible culprit behind osteoporosis, a disease that causes the bones to become brittle. Now, a clinical study at a hospital in Bangor, Maine, has found a marker for another bone disorder, osteopaenia (bone thinning). The …
Codan, an Australian company, has developed a device that can revolutionise the quality of FAX communication even in remote areas and under extreme weather conditions. Unlike present FAX machines, which use telephone and satellite communications, Codon's 9001 HF fax and data interface makes use of high frequency radio technology. This …
Australia is in the grip of a severe drought. Recently, food production has decreased sharply, prices have soared and there has been water shortages and Flowering in concrete jungles bush fires in the eastern parts of the country. The state of agricultural production looks dim for the country. According to …
Every year, millions of tonnes of food are lost to the most voracious and abundant of animals -- the ubiquitous insects. Whether seeds be present on the plant or stored away carefully, insects worm their way into them, making them inedible. But humans have built up an impressive arsenal of …
Stomach ulcers have long been associated with excess gastric acid in the stomach. But researchers at Monash University at Melbourne have identified a bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, as the culprit, for which they have devised a week-long treatment (Australian Science and Technology Newsletter, August, 1994). The conventional treatment of stomach ulcers …
ALTHOUGH 75 per cent of Earth's surface is covered by water, a very small part of it is available for immediate use. Freshwater for human consumption is limited -- the total freshwater present in the rivers, lakes, glaciers and ice caps, and that present as groundwater in aquifers, is less …
Australia's new role as a protector of forests in the South Pacific is causing uneasiness in Malaysia. Trouble has been brewing since early August, when Australian prime minister Paul Keating accused Malaysian, South Korean and Indonesian logging companies of "ripping off" the island nations by paying too little for timber …
A new solar cell design could slash the cost of producing solar electricity by at least 80 per cent, claim researchers at the University of South Wales in Australia (Environmental Science & Technology, Vol 28, No 8). Conventional cells use expensive high quality silicon 400 microns thick but the metal …
australia's national symbol, the kangaroo, is threatening to overrun the country, which is why "kangaroo courts" made up largely of farmers are deciding their fate for the worse. With a kangaroo population of about 31 million, there as almost 2 kangaroos for every Australian. "Roo shooters" who are now bumping …
The Australian government might set a precedent by compensating people treated with hormones from human pituitary glands, which have been linked to deaths from the rare Creutzfeldt Jakob disease -- the human form of the mad cow disease. This follows the report of an independent inquiry, which found fault with …
RESEARCHERS at the University of Queensland in Australia have developed a chemical process to produce superconductors -- materials that offer no resistance to the flow of current -- in quantities large enough for industrial applications (New Scientist, Vol 142, No 1921). So far, superconductivity has been obtained only in some …
PEGGY Rismiller of the University of Adelaide has unveiled the sexual exploits of the elusive and solitary egg-laying Australian mammal, the spiny anteater or echidna, which might help to successfully breed them in captivity. Rismiller found that during the breeding season, which occurs in winter, 10 or more males form …
ENVIRONMENTALISTS in Bangkok, Thailand, who are seriously worried about the high level of hydrocarbons that Thais breathe, can now heave a sigh of relief. The ubiquitous tuk-tuks -- nifty little three-wheelers with two-stroke engines -- held primarily responsible for the air pollution, are now being given a facelift by the …
DO YOU prefer the natural light that floods the room, but abhor the heat that it invariably brings along, especially on hot summer afternoons? Now, a system devised by a Queensland University of Technology lecturer, will not only help you cut lighting costs, but obviate the need for expensive airconditioning …
IT'S no use trying to corner global warming on any day of the week but Wednesdays, says Adrian Gordon of the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences in Adelaide, Australia. His admonition came after he studied satellite readings of daily global temperatures for 726 weeks, from January 1979 to …
THE dismal state of aboriginal health has prompted both doctors and the government to make health care of the native Australians their top priority. Brendan Nelson, federal president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), has said aboriginal health is the "number one public health problem in Australia". According to AMA, …
THE ISLAND state of Tasmania, with its relative abundance of natural resources and wild countryside, is the home of the world's first Green party, the United Tasmania Group (UTG), which elbowed its way into Parliament with an 18 per cent vote in 1989. It was a victory that came after …
Although about 4.5 per cent of Australia's population is of Asian origin, local whites know little about Asia's economy or culture. But today, growing economic ties with southeast Asian countries have made it imperative for Australians to understand the East. Changing Times, a series of film clips, examines Australian assumptions …
A RECENTLY developed species of a native Australian tree -- the northern black wattle (Acacia auriculiformis) -- may save the precious tropical teak forests from being wiped out by offering high-quality furniture wood. Already well-established in China, India and south-east Asia, the black wattle is not a favourite for good-quality …
FOR THE inhabitants of New South Wales, Australia, the nightmare is finally over. "The bushfire, undoubtedly the fiercest one ever witnessed in the modern history of the continent, has been contained at last," declared an exhausted but visibly relieved Bush Fire Services Commissioner, Phil Koperburg, in Sydney in mid-January. His …
