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Category: Science communication
Averting disaster with UNHaRMED software
It’s an unsettling prognosis. Driven by climate change, population growth and economic development, natural hazards —such as the recent bushfires in Australia and the US, heatwaves in Europe, and floods in Japan—will in coming years become an even bigger threat. They will occur more frequently and with greater intensity. One will ‘cascade’ into another more […]
The race to stop illegal trading of Australian lizards
Australian reptiles face serious conservation threats from illegal poaching fueled by international demand and the exotic pet trade. In a new study in Animal Conservation, researchers from the University of Adelaide and the Monitor Conservation Research Society (Monitor) investigated the extent of illegal trade in a well-known Australian lizard: the shingleback, also known as the bobtail or […]
Our experts refute River Murray estuary claims
A team of scientists, led by the University of Adelaide’s Associate Professor John Tibby, has confirmed that the lower River Murray was not an estuary in the mid-Holocene period (more than 7000 years ago) – reinforcing scientific evidence likely to influence important river management policy decisions. Their new paper, published in the Nature journal Scientific […]
A new DNA database will keep log on timber origins
Environment Institute member Professor Andy Lowe partners with Western Australian-based company Interpredata to build a DNA database for timber and help prevent illegal logging. The partnership has recently been awarded a $60,000 Australian Government traceability grant to build the database. Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management David Littleproud and Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries […]
Optimising the flow
With climate change threatening to double the number of people experiencing water stress globally by 20501, competition for water allocations will become extreme. To maintain equity—and the social and economic stability that comes with it— best practice water markets will be critical; and University of Adelaide research is contributing significantly to improving their governance. The […]
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Blue is the new green
In the search for potential natural allies to help combat climate change, marine coastal vegetation sits near the top of the list. Known as ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems, mangroves and seagrass meadows are carbon-storage machines, absorbing CO2 up to 40 times faster than terrestrial forests and trapping carbon in the soil for millennia. They are also […]
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In pursuit of net zero
Like the rest of the world, Australia has committed to decarbonising. And beyond the nation’s official Paris Agreement obligations, there’s widespread community agitation to reduce CO2 emissions to net zero by 2050. But achieving this in a country predicting 40 per cent population growth over that period, and renowned as one of the world’s worst […]
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Finding fertile ground in space
In-space manufacturing’s potential has the whole world talking. With the University of Adelaide’s assistance, optical fibre production has already taken the first step, and in coming years numerous other industries are expected to enter orbit. Among these is agricultural fertiliser; here again, Adelaide-led research is paving the way. A team from the University is using […]
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PODCAST SERIES: The Discovery Pod with Professor Andy Lowe
The Discovery Pod talks to experts from the University of Adelaide, about solutions to society’s most pressing challenges. Professor Andy Lowe, Environment Institute member and Director of Food Innovation hosts a new, weekly show which aims to learn more from our researchers on topics such as COVID-19, renewable energies, cyber security, nutrition and much more. […]
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International joint research reveals how fish adapt to ocean acidification by modifying gene expression
Human-driven global change is challenging the scientific community to understand how marine species might adapt to predicted environmental conditions in the near-future. The effects of the uptake of anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 by oceans affects propagate across the biological hierarchy, from changes in the building blocks of life at nano-scales to organism, physiology and behaviour through ecosystem […]
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