Research conducted by former Fresh Science participant Dale Robinson has been covered in the 2020-2021 edition of Defence Science and Technology’s Outlook magazine.
Dr Robinson is a biomedical engineer at the University of Melbourne.
Minimising severe injury from blast events on military vehicles
Blast events inflicted on military vehicles are a consistent threat in contemporary conflicts. Developing equipment that better protects soldiers from this threat has become the focus of significant military research. It is critical to understand how severe injuries are inflicted and how forces from blast events are transmitted to the human body in order to strengthen blast protection for soldiers.
Research finds rehab-only treatment yields better long-term results
Knee reconstructions may lead to more problems later in life than non-surgical rehabilitation, researchers have found.
A team led by Dr Adam Culvenor from La Trobe University looked at health outcomes for athletes with damaged anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) – a devastating injury, particularly common among footballers.
Using a face mask, Adelaide researchers have a new way to detect a major hidden equine health issue.
Up to 80 percent of horses – including racehorses and showjumpers – suffer from a form of asthma that affects their performance and wellbeing.
Researchers led by veterinarian Surita Du Preez from the University of Adelaide are designing a way to detect the condition – which often produces no obvious symptoms – without adding further stress to the affected animals.
“Currently the methods that are available to diagnose the mild to moderate form of horse asthma are invasive,” says Surita.
A new type of concrete that is
made out of waste materials and can bend under load has been developed by
researchers from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.
This material, which
incorporates industrial waste products such as fly ash produced by coal-fired
power stations, is especially suited for construction in earthquake zones – in
which the brittle nature of conventional concrete often leads to disastrous
Nanotech technique could revolutionise neurological treatments.
Light could replace invasive techniques to measure brain temperature– eliminating the need to place a thermometer in the brain when treating a range of neurological disorders.
Researchers from Victoria’ Swinburne University have teamed up with Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain and Stanford University in the US to develop a technique for measuring sub-degree brain temperature changes using near-infrared light.
The iconic Australian tea tree (Melaleuca decora) is more vulnerable than native eucalypt species to extreme temperature and moisture stress, Western Sydney University researcher Anne Griebel has discovered.
To make the finding, Anne and colleagues fitted instruments that measure the exchange of carbon, water and heat at 10 times a second to an extendable mast on a trailer deployed in a critically endangered woodland in Western Sydney.
A research team at UWA is investigating the complex
interactions of breast milk with allergens and baby’s gut immune system.
They’ve found that food-derived but also airborne allergens are present in breast milk. Some do give protection and reduce allergies later in life.
Their preclinical data and human birth cohorts analysis strongly suggest that egg-derived allergen protect against egg allergy. But they’ve also found that other allergens in breast milk such as house dust mite derived allergens may interfere with protection from allergies.
Animals play critical roles in ecosystems, but they are broadly overlooked in assessments of mine site restoration success says Sophie Cross, an ecologist at Curtin University.
She tracked Australia’s largest lizard species, the perentie, using VHF radio and GPS tracking, and walked hundreds of kilometres through unmined and restoration bushland on a mine site in the mid-west region of Western Australia for her study published in the Australian Journal of Zoology.