amudu

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Pandas after the earthquake.

Pandas after the earthquake.

The earthquake was right in the area
Where giant pandas live.

Most pandas in this area were rescued.
Particular attention was given to the
Babies. All the pandas were scared.

The photos were taken right after
Earthquake and during rescue effort.

All the pandas were released back
Into the wild and it was noted that
all of the bears stayed together.

People rescuing pandas

Giving them milk-

After meal

Look at these babies!

Staying here maybe safer...

Here is safe!

I don't want a shot!

You scared me!

Sleep researcher wins prestigious international award

6 May 2011

This is a recognition of the collective leadership provided by Australia in sleep medicine and sleep research, says Professor Ron Grunstein.

Ron Grunstein, Professor of Sleep Medicine at the University of Sydney, has been recognised for his outstanding contribution to sleep research and sleep medicine with the announcement of theAmerican Academy of Sleep Medicine'sprestigious Nathaniel Kleitman Distinguished Service Award.

Professor Grunstein is the first recipient of the award from outside North America. The award recognises Professor Grunstein's significant contribution to professional development in the sleep medicine field, research translation in treatment of sleep disorders and research on links between obesity, metabolic dysfunction and sleep apnoea.

The award is named after one of the world's eminent sleep scientists, Nathaniel Kleitman, who provided the foundation of current sleep medicine by conducting groundbreaking research that included the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM sleep) and human circadian rhythms.

Professor Grunstein is currently President of the World Sleep Federation, the international body for the major sleep research societies. He was a founding member of the Australasian Sleep Association (ASA) in 1988, served as ASA president from 1994 to 1997, and was awarded the ASA Distinguished Service award in 2010.

He heads Centre for Integrated Research and Understanding of Sleep (CIRUS), the NHMRC Centre of Excellence in interdisciplinary clinical sleep research at the University of Sydney and the NHMRC supported Australasian Sleep Trials Network.

Dr Grunstein is also executive member of the Discipline of Sleep Medicine at the University of Sydney, and head of the Centre of Respiratory Failure and Sleep Disorders at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. He also leads the Sleep and Circadian Research Group at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research.

"To me this is not an individual award but a recognition by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine of the collective leadership provided by Australia in sleep medicine and sleep research," Professor Grunstein said.

"Importantly, much of this leadership comes from the University of Sydney which has one of the largest interdisciplinary sleep research networks globally across a range of faculties and institutes.

"For example, the Woolcock Institute houses world-class facilities for human sleep research that are being used across a number of research fields including neurobiology, complex system physics, endocrinology and the biology of obesity."

The award will be presented to Professor Grunstein at the annual meeting of the Association of Professional Sleep Societies to be held in Minneapolis, USA in June.

Capturing CO2

10 May 2011

The researchers are looking at ways to convert CO2 into useful substances.

A team of leading researchers from some of Australia's top universities and research institutes will join forces to develop new ways to capture and transform carbon dioxide, the notorious gas at the centre of the greenhouse discussion.

Recently awarded $6 million from the CSIRO's Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) the team will explore how smart materials, called metal-organic frameworks (or MOFs) can be used to capture and concentrate CO2 with minimum energy requirements.

The team leader, University of Sydney Professor of Chemistry, Cameron Kepertsaid: "These materials are capable of absorbing large amounts of CO2 into nanometre-sized holes within their structures, leading potentially to the efficient separation of this gas from power station flue gases.

"On an international scale, the project mounts one of the most comprehensive investigations into this promising new area by combining world-leading expertise in both chemistry and engineering."

The team will also look at how MOFs can be used to convert CO2 into useful substances, including feedstocks for agriculture, hydrocarbon fuels and precursors to complex metal oxides for use in solar cells.

According to study collaborator, Dr Matthew Hill from CSIRO, the team will incorporate the new materials into pilot-scale testing. "We will be working closely in collaboration with the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies and with Industry to both design and test our processes," says Dr Hill.

The 19 team members to address this challenge come from the CSIRO, the University of Sydney, Monash University, the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, the University of Adelaide, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the Australian government's CO2 Cooperative Research Centre.

Megan Clark, Trustee of the SIEF fund praised the project's novel approach and strong engagement with key end-user communities to ensure applicability of the Publish Postoutcomes to the cost effective capture and utilisation of carbon dioxide.

The SIEF fund, which has been quietly active since being founded in 1926, enjoyed a recent rejuvenation as a powerful endowment mechanism for science in Australia due to a gift from CSIRO made possible from licensing its wireless LAN intellectual property. The fund supports fundamental scientific research in the fields of natural or applied science that benefits Australian industry or addresses national challenges.

Managing our water demand in a fickle environment

Thursday, 12 May 2011

By Ross Young

In 2008/09, behind only mining, the urban water industry was the biggest investor in the Australian economy in capital works. This investment has been driven by our drying climate, climate change and our need to adapt very quickly so that our cities don't run out of water.

The steady rise in temperatures over the past century has accelerated the rate of evaporation. The raw material on which our product depends is surface run off, which has declined dramatically in the past decade.

The Australian map of mean decile temperature for 2009 showed that temperatures over most of the country were above average or the highest on average – another indicator that the country is getting warmer.

Rainfall is more erratic – and the quintessence of managing water resources in Australia is not that we are the driest inhabited continent but that we have the most variable rainfall of all the continents on Earth. That is why our managing our water resource in Australia is particularly intriguing.

The national rainfall map for 2009 shows how the lowest rainfall neatly correlates with where the majority of the Australian population lives – on our south east coast.

Australia has the most fickle and variable rainfall of all the continents. Average rainfall is a meaningless measure. How do you plan a water system when you have such variable inflows? Water inflows into our reservoirs are the X factor in planning for water – and the variability means you never know where you are going to end up.

Climate change has meant that our yields have collapsed, up to 70 per cent in some instances, and there's a marked reduction in runoff due to rainfall patterns changing. In Perth the rainfall has only declined about 20 per cent but inflows are down by between 70 and 80 per cent.

Population growth is going to continue across Australia and most of the growth will either be in the big large capital cities or the major regional centres. The urban water industry has to accept responsibility to assist stressed rivers.

Water restrictions are not the vision for the urban water industry. Water restrictions cost a lot, they are inconvenient, they are inefficient and – if you have them all the time – when you come across another very dry period you have no other lever to pull. The urban water industry sees water restrictions for emergency cases and not as an ongoing water conservation measure.

The great sustainability challenge is to manage the nexus between water and energy. You can't generate electricity without water and you can't pump and treat water without electricity.

Desalination has been a focus with six desalination plants across five states – completed or under construction – planned to have a total capacity of 525,000 megalitres (ML), with the ability to grow to 715,000 ML. Sydney’s Kurnell desalination plant will supply up to 15 per cent of Sydney’s water supply by 2015.

Sydney's annual consumption in 2009 was around 400 gigalitres, so the total planned desalination capacity for Australia is about a year and a quarter's water for Sydney – or about 1.9 years at 750 gigalitres. Desalination hasn't been the industry’s only response – a common misconception.

The volume of recycled water has shown steady growth over the last decade. One point to emphasise is that none of this water has been used for indirect potable reuse – it's all used for irrigation, commercial and industry use, third pipes and golf courses and the like.

Climate change impacts are often characterised just as a reduction in inflows, but every aspect of the urban water industry including its assets are impacted by climate change.

For example nobody ever envisaged, when we implemented the very successful demand management programs, what would happen to the waste water system and waste water flows – which have declined by 50 per cent in some areas because of people using lower volume shower roses and water efficient washing machines. People are diverting their grey water back onto the backyard. There is also less ground water infiltration into the sewers because the groundwater table has dropped, and also there is certainly less stormwater infiltration because it didn't rain.

This combination meant that some of our sewers in parts of Australia were struggling to act and operate properly because they rely on a certain amount of water going through them in order to take the waste away. And it's also meant that the concentration that arrives at the waste water treatment plant has increased dramatically because the loads are exactly the same but the volume of water has decreased.

Australia has the largest dam capacity per capita of population in the world. Per capita we store five to six times the water compared to the average European country. London stores only 5 months of water. If we had a five month buffer in Warragamba Dam, Australia’s largest, Sydney would experience regular water restrictions. Australia needs large dams so we can manage for the variability and fickleness of our rainfall.

There has been an amazing reduction in household consumption over the past decade – one of the great social revolutions in urban Australia. The public’s response to water conservation has been really quite amazing. I think this is why climate change has been more of a lightning rod issue in Australia than anywhere else. Too often overseas climate change is characterised in terms of ice melt and sea level rise that impact the future, whereas water restrictions were a tangible manifestation that the climate had changed – and why people had resonance with it.

Australia also leads the world in leakage management. Around the rest of the world the leakage rates can be 30, 40 or 50 per cent. In fact, in the UK they justify their leakage programs not to save water but to reduce their carbon footprint. By the time you pump the water out of the Thames, and put it through a treatment plant, and pump it into your distribution system, you are looking at a quite carbon rich product.

There has been a lot of public debate about population growth in Australia and whether water availability would be a fetter on growth. WSAA’s recent report, Implications of population growth on urban water resources, estimates (using ABS figures) that by 2056 we will probably need somewhere around 1300 or 1400 gigalitres of water, about three or four times what Sydney uses now. We think that that's quite an achievable figure over that period of time provided we start planning now and adopt new technology and we continue with water saving programs.

Water prices are in the process of doubling around Australia – some prices have already doubled – and some sections of the community are feeling angst. I think that most people are happy to pay a little bit more to have a security of supply of their water, and water still is one of the cheapest household outgoings.

The Murray Darling Basin is a key issue for Australia, but it’s important to remember that back in 2004 there was very strong support from the urban people, from agricultural people and environmentalists about the National Water Initiative, which envisaged two very important outcomes.

One would be that, rather than licences, farmers would be given secure property rights that would enable them to trade with other irrigators and also allow them to trade with the cities – a one off significant transfer of wealth from the public to the private which would set up a market where water could move to a higher value use.

The second, which seems to be forgotten, was the recognition that something needed to be done about the over allocation of rivers and reducing rainfall.

ABS figures show the gross value of irrigated agriculture in the Basin in 2001, a relatively good year, was $5.1 billion. Yet during the really bad drought year of 2005/06 it actually increased to 5.5 billion and was 5.1 billion again in 2008. This demonstrates the value of water trading and that those who received water to use in low-value production saw a way out of their financial trouble by selling their water to others who were producing a more value added product.

ABARES modelling showed that a 3,000-gigalitre cut to water allocations would result in about an $800 million a year reduction in agriculture, assuming farmers took no offsetting measures, and ABARE estimates net job losses at between 800 to 1200. Nobody wants to lose a job but, compared to the job cuts in other sectors of the economy, these are relatively small numbers.

Water use is the key issue. In both in New South Wales and, in particular, Victoria, flood irrigating pasture is still the largest use of water. There are few other uses of water that are less productive in terms of economic output per megalitre of water. Too often in the cities you hear rice and cotton maligned for the water they use but both of these crops produce many dollars per megalitre consumed.

The irrigation entities don't fully recover all their costs of supplying the water to the irrigators, which means that taxpayers have to front up every decade with dollars to actually reinvest to support irrigation.

If we were able to push a lot of this low-value production onto high-value production, I don't think we would be having too much of a debate about whether the water was being used properly or not.

Ross Young is Executive Director of the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), the peak body for the urban water industry, whose members provide water services to 16 million Australians. Mr Young Ross has extensive experience in urban water management at a senior level and represents the Australian urban water industry on water policy at the national level. He is Chair of the Global Water Research Coalition Board and a Board Member of WaterAid Australia. He has a Diploma of Horticultural Science, a Bachelor of Applied Science, an MBA and a Graduate Diploma in Natural Resources Law from the University of Melbourne.

Finding the human ‘spring’

Thursday, 03 March 2011

The University of Sydney

An international team of scientists from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Europe, led by the University of Sydney, has solved the structural puzzle of the main component of elastin. This protein gives our vital organs the ability to expand and contract.

The discovery could lead to significant advances in treatment for burn victims and patients needing to replace damaged blood vessels.

The findings, published in this month's edition of the highly acclaimed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS), describe the spring-like structure of elastin's essential element, tropoelastin.

Initiator and research project leader, Professor Tony Weiss from the School of Molecular Bioscience, said: "Tropoelastin is a tiny protein 'nano spring' in the human body. Our bodies assemble these nano springs to put elasticity into tissues such as skin, blood vessels and lungs."

"Our finding results from more than a decade of international collaboration. Our scientific teamwork spans Australia, the UK, USA and Europe. We discovered that tropoelastin is a curved, spiral-shaped molecule with an attached 'foot' that helps it attach to human cells.

"We also found that tropoelastin has the extraordinary capacity to extend to eight times its initial length and then return to its original shape with no energy loss, so it behaves like a perfect spring. Nature is showing us how to make an ideal nano spring."

Professor Weiss said the discovery has significant implications for future treatment of skin repair such as in burns victims, and patients who need to replace damaged elastic blood vessels.

"The elastin around our lungs, for example, expands with each intake of breath and contracts with each exhalation. Other vital organs such as our skin and arteries absolutely depend on it."

Professor Weiss's co-author and international collaborator, Dr Clair Baldock from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, University of Manchester, said: "Understanding how the structure of tropoelastin creates its exceptional elastic properties will hopefully enable the development of synthetic elastin-like polymers with potentially wide-ranging benefits."

The discovery could lead to major advances in treatment for burns victims and for patients who need to replace damaged blood vessels.

The findings, published in this month's edition of the highly acclaimed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS), describe the spring-like structure of elastin's essential element, tropoelastin.

Initiator and research project leader, Professor Tony Weiss from the School of Molecular Bioscience, said: "Tropoelastin is a tiny protein 'nanospring' in the human body. Our bodies assemble these nanosprings to put elasticity into tissues such as skin, blood vessels and lungs."

"Our finding is the result of more than a decade of international collaboration. Our scientific teamwork spans Australia, the UK, USA and Europe. We discovered that tropoelastin is a curved, spiral-shaped molecule with an attached 'foot' that helps it attach to human cells.

"We also found that tropoelastin has the extraordinary capacity to extend to eight times its initial length and then return to its original shape, with no loss of energy, so it behaves like a perfect spring. Nature is showing us how to make an ideal nanospring."

Professor Weiss said the discovery has significant implications for future treatment of skin repair such as in burns victims, and patients who need to replace damaged elastic blood vessels.

"The elastin around our lungs, for example, expands with each intake of breath and contracts with each exhalation. Other vital organs such as our skin and arteries absolutely depend on it."

Professor Weiss's co-author and international collaborator, Dr Clair Baldock from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, University of Manchester, said: "Understanding how the structure of tropoelastin creates its exceptional elastic properties will hopefully enable the development of synthetic elastin-like polymers with potentially wide-ranging benefits."