SA Premier Jay Weatherill announces Dr Alan Finkel as new patron of the Australian Science Media Centre
The Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) is an independent, not-for-profit service for the news media, giving journalists direct access to evidence-based science and expertise.
We aim to better inform public debate on the major issues of the day by improving links between the media and the scientific community.
A group of international scientists, including Australians, have for the first time reconstructed temperatures for seven continental-scale regions for the past 2,000 years. The detailed global climate record reveals that the period from the 1970s until 2000 was the warmest in 1,400 years. Below Australian experts comment. read more
An explosion at a fertiliser plant in the US is reported to have injured more than 160 people and killed at least 15 in the town of West in Texas. Below Australian experts respond. read more
The Federal Government has today released a discussion paper which sets out proposals to introduce new coal seam gas-specific methods for measuring and reporting the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from coal seam gas (CSG) exploration and production. The discussion paper is “in response to industry, expert and community feedback on methods for calculating the amount of ‘fugitive’ emissions of methane released during CSG extraction and production”.
The discussion paper can be found here: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/submissions/coal-seam-gas-discussion-paper.aspx. Below an Australian expert responds to this development. read more
Flu vaccines for children should be more thoroughly tested before they are rolled-out for general use, warn Australian experts, citing the withdrawal of flu vaccinations in 2010 after problems with the vaccine CSL Fluvax ®. read more
ONLINE BRIEFING – Tuesday April 9 at 11am AEST
A briefing with Senior Australian of the Year Professor Ian Maddocks and others to explore the issue of Advance Care Directives
“Advance Care Directives” (ACD) that give people greater say over how they spend their final days, are being debated in the Legislative Council in South Australia this week. Other states are closely following progress in SA and several are in the process of reviewing their laws against a nationally agreed framework.
For anyone who has had to look after a dying family member or friend, the issue of life quality towards the end is very close to home. As medical technology improves and we increase our capacity to keep people alive for longer, the question of how much medical intervention we want towards the end of our lives becomes more important. For most of us, we only think about this when we see a loved one die in a painful or prolonged way and are left with a strong sense of what we don’t want for ourselves when we are in this situation. This is where Advance Care Directives come in.
Sometimes wrongly confused with euthanasia, ACDs are legal documents that spell out what quality of life you are prepared to accept when you are in a coma or have a terminal illness and are no longer able to speak for yourself. ACDs have been around for decades in Australia but are currently messy, bureaucratic and hotly debated. Different states have different rules and complex legal and medical jargon make them difficult to fill out. read more
The nutrient L-carnitine, found in red meat and used as a dietary supplement, is associated with cardiovascular disease in people and causes vascular disease in mice, reports a new study by US researchers. The results point to L-carnitine, rather than saturated fat and cholesterol, as explaining the link between red meat consumption and cardiovascular disease. Also, the findings have relevance to the widespread use of L-carnitine as a dietary supplement, and the authors suggest that the safety of this practice should be further investigated. read more
The World Health Organisation has reported 21 people in China have contracted Influenza A H7N9, including six deaths (as of Monday 8/04). Currently the source of the outbreak is unknown and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. This type of influenza is part of a group that is known to circulate among birds but no human cases of H7N9 had been reported until now. A WHO resource on H7N9 can be found here. Below, Australian experts comment on the current situation. read more
ONLINE BRIEFING – Tue April 2 at 11:00 AEDT
A large-scale Australian study conducted by researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne has found that kids who go through puberty early have poorer emotional and social adjustment from early childhood through to adolescence, and boys who start puberty before the age of nine also suffer from behavioural difficulties.
Across the world, the age at which children undergo puberty has dropped alarmingly since reliable records began. Last year, a large US study showed that the average age of puberty was 10 in Caucasian and Hispanic boys, while African-American boys were hitting puberty aged just nine. Nearly one in 10 Caucasian boys and one in five African-American boys showed some signs of puberty at the age of six. Meanwhile, a study from 2010 suggested that the average age of breast-budding among Caucasian girls is 9.9 years while for African-American girls it is 8.8. In 1860, the average age for Caucasian girls was 16.6 years. read more
Papers involved: Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, American Journal of Human Genetics, PLOS Genetics, and Human Molecular Genetics
A series of 12 research papers, collectively identifying 74 new areas of the genome that can increase a person’s risk of breast, prostate and ovarian cancer, is being published simultaneously in Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, American Journal of Human Genetics, PLOS Genetics, and Human Molecular Genetics. The research, with many Australian contributors, nearly doubles the number of regions of the DNA that we know are associated with these hormone related–cancers. As part of the huge international Collaborative Oncological Gene-environment Study (COGS), this study represents a milestone in our understanding of the genetic basis of these three cancers.
Australians have contributed around 10,000 samples to this research which has also included experts from the University of Melbourne, The Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Westmead Millennium Institute, The Cancer Council Victoria and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. read more
