science Archives

News

Unlocked: the genome of the mysterious marsupial mole

In a world-first, scientists have unearthed the genetic secrets of Australia’s elusive southern marsupial mole.

Moonstruck: how lunar light influences animal behaviour

Lunar animal research is receiving the technological and methodological breakthroughs necessary for the next wave of intriguing findings.

Space

A ringed planet Earth?

Ask almost anyone which planet has rings around it, and you’ll get the answer “Saturn”, especially if they’ve ever viewed it through a telescope. But not many people know that the other gas giants in our Solar System – Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune – also have rings, although they’re much fainter than those of Saturn.

News

Troubled waters: Australia’s freshwater fish are facing extinction

How can we stop Australia’s freshwater fish species from going extinct?

Science & Environment

Outback lady lizards have given up on sex in favour of cloning themselves

Hiding beneath scrap metal and abandoned cars in the Australian desert, you can find an ordinary-looking species of gecko that has an extraordinary biological trait: they don’t have sex.

Science & Environment

The surprising reason flowers wilt

Wilting flowers might not signal poor flower or plant health, but rather the effects of a sophisticated resource management strategy in plants, millions of years in the making.

News

How darkling beetles rose to ‘global ecological dominance’

Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and CSIRO have used genomic analysis to reconstruct the evolutionary tree of more than 300 darkling beetle species.

News

Engineering bioplastics for the future

CSIRO has partnered with Murdoch University to launch the Bioplastics Innovation Hub (BIH), to help fast-track the development of biologically derived, compostable plastics.